Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chapter 31: Dragon Success

One would have thought that since Vlad had been planning this move for literally decades, he would have come up with better arguments for their council meeting. But, no. He was so confident in the widespread human hatred that he barely presented an argument at all. His argument can be summed up in one sentence: Humans are so terrible they should cease to exist. Unfortunately for him, humans aren’t actually that terrible to dragons. They mostly coexist in peaceful ignorance of one another. Few dragons venture down from their caves far enough to visit human settlements and few humans even know dragons exist. 

Vlad did reveal one interesting tidbit in his ranting and raving for the dragon council. His main example of why humans are terrible was actually a tragic story from his own past. His father had been in human form when another human accidentally killed him. His father had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and humans are more fragile than dragons. Vlad was young when it happened and in his memory he has overestimated the malicious intent on the part of the human. Hence, his undying hatred for the puny humans and all things associated with them. 

His story did inspire some empathy, it is unusual for a dragon to lose their father so young seeing as they have such a long lifespan, he was ultimately dismissed as just a young dragon that had too much time to ruminate over his negative experience. 

Vlad’s presentation was so drastically different from the well thought out and logical arguments of Gregory that the council actually went so far as to swing the other direction in their human relations. They tasted Mirabel’s myriad of munchies and wanted to create a lasting partnership with Mirabel, or other humans, to supply themselves with regular non-mutton treats! Mirabel was ecstatic and was already making plans for how to set up her business. She was also going to create a sister bakery with Fiora, in the neighboring village. Another result of the council meeting was vast interest in the process Svend used to create a new dragon, and a new color to boot. 

The council highly disapproved of Svend’s sneaky experimentation that found a loophole in his blood oath but they were so excited about the results, they were willing to overlook it. They were already vying for prominent positions in the new “Human Relations” department of the dragon council that would overlook the process of trying to replicate Mirabel’s transformation. Svend was pretty tight lipped about the whole thing because he didn’t want to spark too much enthusiasm if it turned out to be a one time trick for some reason, but he was cautiously optimistic that he could repeat it. 

Vlad did not take defeat well. Everything he believed and obsessed over for the past 5 decades was just thrown out the window. His peers on the council were, apparently, willing to completely throw out everything that he told them and jump into the deep end with humans. He was appalled. And he knew exactly who to blame. This was all Svend’s fault. And the abomination that was Mirabel needed to be eliminated. Vlad didn’t care if no one else saw the truth. He would take care of matters all on his own. Mirabel and Svend would pay for their blasphemous ideas and actions. And soon. Not even the cookies Mirabel brought to the trial could tempt him to turn away from this path of destruction. Which was honestly pretty surprising because they were very peaceful cookies. These are the cookies she made.