Cranberry Chocolate Oat Bars

Chapter 7: Dragon History

A few hundred years before Svend enters our story, Gregory was a young, up and coming, royal dragon. He had grown up watching humans and had developed a soft spot for the soft creatures. He decided that his life’s goal was to get on the dragon council as soon as he was old enough and help the older dragons see just how beneficial it would be to increase interactions with the humans.

Now, historically, the dragon council is always pro-dragon. It will do anything it can to stay the execution of one of their own. Interestingly enough, this does not make them anti-human. They have wisely noticed that the fewer negative human interactions they have, the fewer mobs with pitchforks come chasing after them, which is a thoroughly obnoxious occurrence as you can imagine. With this in mind, the dragon council always steers its people (dragons) to the run and hide mentality, instead of the stand and fight. They prefer no interaction in order to eliminate negative interactions. If you see a human, hide. That’s their unofficial motto. This means that they do not condone the killing of humans willy nilly and actually do what they can to preserve the lesser race.

Gregory grew up smelling all the delicious odors that humans can make with their small, able hands. (Dragons really need to up their food game, it is becoming a predictable weakness for them.) He knew that dragons were the superior race and therefore had much to offer the little humans. Therefore, they would both benefit greatly if they opened up trade between the two races. This was his grand idea and he was prepared to make it happen.

At the tender age of 300, he was the youngest royal dragon elected to the dragon council, perhaps only because there were no other dragons vying for the position but Gregory did not dwell on that. He immediately began his human trade campaigning on the dragon council. The older dragons had seen young liberal dragons come in before, full of energy and enthusiasm for whatever shiny idea has caught their eye. They patiently listened to Gregory and nodded politely and went on voting for the run and hide philosophy.

One day, after years of failing to influence the older royals on the council, Gregory happened upon a human very near the council’s caves. He knew he should run and hide but this was the perfect opportunity to show the council just how beneficial humans could be! He slowly approached the human. It just so happens that this human, Richard, was out looking for dragons with a proposition that lined up perfectly with Gregory’s ideas! Richard spotted Gregory and slowly approached him with his hands raised in the universal “I mean you no harm please don’t eat/shoot me” pose.

Gregory was at a severe disadvantage in this encounter as he could not communicate with Richard as a dragon and he could not switch to his human form without exposing that ability to this stranger. So Gregory did the only thing he could do, he didn’t eat Richard. He sat very still and tried not to look too intimidating. His plan was only successful because Richard was born with about three times the confidence he should have had. This also seriously decreased his natural fear levels. All in all, it’s amazing he was still alive and didn’t get punched in the face more often than he did, (which was actually a fairly regular occurrence.)

Richard, full of bravado, announces to Gregory that he has this grand plan for humans and dragons to open trade relations. Richard had charts and sample products and was actually pretty thorough in his presentation. Obviously, Gregory was beyond stoked. He just needed to be able to communicate with Richard and this could be the perfect way to convince the council. As Richard finished his speal, Gregory used some pretty impressive pantomiming skills to tell Richard to go away and return in three days to further discuss this very impressive idea.

Gregory immediately went to the council with all of Richard’s charts and samples, except the select few goods he sampled on the way, and presented this beautiful opportunity. The council deliberated for almost two days straight, countering Gregory’s enthusiasm with well earned caution. Finally, Gregory was able to convince them to allow this one human to be an emissary for the humans and open trade with Gregory as the dragon emissary. Gregory spent his last day before meeting with Richard writing out all the conditions and terms of their trade so that he could communicate with Richard, even while he was in his dragon form. He argued that it would be much simpler if he could work with Richard in his human form but the council said if you want this to happen, figure out a way as a dragon. Richard already knew too many secrets for their liking and he would not be told another.

So Gregory met with Richard, who told him to call him, “Rich”, and sat very still again as Rich read through all the terms and conditions. Now, Rich, like most of us, was overwhelmed by the legalese and depth of the contract so he mostly skimmed. Ok, to be completely honest, he was just excited the dragons were agreeing to anything and signed after only the barest perusal. Richard told the dragon to call him Rich because he was so certain that he would be exactly that in less than a month. He never stopped to think about how clever and cautious the dragons could be. He never stopped to think about what would happen if he crossed the dragons in this new trade agreement. No, he just happily, and greedily, signed away his soul and wrote down a schedule for deliveries. As a sample of the delectable wares he would be providing in the future he brought a special treat for Gregory, a cranberry chocolate oat bar. This is the treat that he made.