Apple-Stuffed Challah

Chapter 6: Dragon Council

As promised, Svend made his way to the dragon council before the next moon. Svend had no hesitation swearing to secrecy in every imaginable way. He had zero intentions of ever telling a human he was a dragon. Period. The dragon council was made up of various royal dragons who took turns spending a few hundred years serving on the council. They were usually very pro-dragon because there were so few dragons, they never used death as a punishment. The worst case scenario he was looking at was banishment, which was manageable. All in all, Svend was not worried.

Svend should have been worried. Later that month, it happened that the blacksmith’s wife, Fiora, had a cousin come to town to visit. Her name was Mirabel, which was fitting as she was, in fact, wonderful. Fiora was going through a challenging time and if anyone could brighten her day, it was Mirabel. So Mirabel had come to visit for two weeks and the time had flown by. The two cousins could be found day in and day out laughing and talking, all signs of distress had vanished from Fiora’s young face. Fiora was disheartened that they had not been able to have a child, despite being married for five years. Mirabel took it upon herself to remind Fiora of how wonderful and full their life was, despite their lack of children. She had a wonderful husband, a warm home, and lovely friends in the village.

Now Svend, being the upstanding dragon that he was, avoided her thoroughly for her entire two week visit. Svend had never realized that humans could bring more to his life than delicious food. He saw, in Mirabel, a world of newly forbidden possibilities. Of course, the council would be absolutely appalled if he began any sort of romantic relationship with a human. How could he have a relationship without endangering the secret of his species? With this fear, he stayed well away. Mirabel was intrigued by this handsome new face that so frequently hid when she came around the blacksmith’s shop with Fiora. She asked Fiora a few days before she departed where the new help had come from, to which Fiora replied, “Oh, Svend? He just dropped in our laps right when we needed him.”

Of course, this brought Mirabel back to the purpose of her visit and she gushed with Fiora over how fortuitous this “Svend’s” arrival was and that was the end of her inquiry into the matter. Mirabel enjoyed the rest of her visit with her lovely cousin and traveled back to her village a few hours away. Svend breathed a deep sigh of relief and went to his monthly check-in with Gregory.

As this was a small mountain village, every visitor was always known around town and Gregory had not missed the fact that Svend had met a new lady recently. Gregory decided to include this little tidbit in his line of questioning, sure that it would bring at least some variation to Svend’s report. Gregory was not expecting, however, the telling blush that rose up Svend’s cheeks when the name Mirabel was mentioned! He immediately doubled down on that line of questioning.

“What is this blush about Svend? Do you have feelings for the human maiden Mirabel?” Gregory demanded.

“Of course not!” Svend defended himself a little too adamantly to be convincing.

“What have you been up to these past two weeks,eh? Forgetting your promises already? Jumping into dangerous territory are we? You would never be able to keep your secret from your human love so, therefore, you must never love a human.” Gregory thought this was pretty obvious, but there were a lot of things young dragons did that he felt should not need to be explained.

“I have not fallen in love with any human, Mirabel or anyone else. I was merely caught off guard that you would even notice her presence or deem to ask about such an insignificant maiden. She means nothing to me!I swear it….. But, out of curiosity… would it be so very terrible if I did develop feelings for a human? Has a young maiden never caught your eye in all these years?” Svend knew he was in dangerous territory but really, who else was he supposed to ask? The blacksmith? I think not.

Gregory was surprisingly silent. When at last he finally replied, it lacked his usual scorn and contempt. He seemed thoughtful, sad even. “The council frowns upon such associations.” He finally whispered. “Dragons, after all, love deeply and to build a love based on lies is not love at all.”

Svend knew there was a whole book of history behind that reply but Gregory was already walking away, done with the conversation. He slowly walked toward the blacksmith’s home, pondering this unexpected response. Perhaps Gregory had the right of it, perhaps it was better to keep his emotions locked away rather than risk the heartache and lies that would have to come with courting a human. Dragons lived much longer than humans and any relationship would be but a tiny blip in a dragon’s long life.

Luckily, Mirabel, and all she represented, was long gone by now. Svend could focus on important things again, like food! Unluckily, Mirabel was not so easily forgotten as she had left an Apple-Stuffed Challah Star at the blacksmith’s home for all of them to enjoy. How he could forget a maiden that could create this masterpiece of deliciousness, he knew not. Here is the challah that she made.