The date was... many years ago. King Arthur was no longer on the throne, but Twitter hadn't been invented yet, so it was somewhere inbetween. Now, dragons aren't exactly sociable creatures. We don't live in large family groups, because putting so many of us together is spelling spontaneous combustions with a capital spon. But there are still some traditions that we uphold. The birth of a baby dragon, for instance, was always marked with a goat, and a dragon's coming of age ceremony was something quite spectacular. It involved virgin princesses, but who can find those in this day and age? I did think of starting an online import/export company, but the outset cost of tiaras was ridiculous. But I digress.
We celebrated Christmas in a rather different way, as dragons. For many, it is the birth of the Messiah. For us, it is a mooing, bleating, lowing feast served in the rustic way (i.e., a stable). We'd probably pause before we ate the baby Jesus, since we've learned our lesson as a species after the St. George incident, but every winter we commemorated the deliciousness of all the beasts and celebrated another year we hadn't been stabbed by overeager heroes.
This particular December, the family had flown in, the cattle were panicking, and the local villagers had retreated to their cellars as we caroused. Nothing carouses quite like us. My Aunt Adelinde limboing is a sight to bring a tear to the eye, and the bile to the throat. Bends in ways I can't stomach remembering. Anyway, as a young dragon, I was expected to keep quiet and sit in the corner playing with the discarded hooves from dinner, until everyone had roared themselves hoarse and fallen asleep on the treasure hoard.
But this year, my Uncle Knucker had been invited. He wasn't like the rest of the family. Most of the conversation then was about slaying and eating and possibly, if there was time, more slaying. Uncle Knucker was what my father called, with a sneer, modern. This meant he didn't eat more livestock than he had to, he read improving books, and he kept the leylandii trees between his and the neighbouring gardens nicely pruned. Nowadays, with our numbers declining, the idea of trying to blend in is sensible. Back then, it was insane.
Living so closely with people had given Uncle Knucker strange ideas about our winter festivals. That year, he suggested that we might adopt a human pastime and play something called charades.
Anyone who has ever played a family trivia game can guess how well this went. I shan't paint the full gory picture, because there isn't enough red crayon in the world to accurately depict how bloodthirsty a game can get when both teams have short tempers and firepower. We were scraping scales from the walls well into the new year.
Every time I see the box for Trivial Pursuit, I get cold shivers.
