The knight shone brighter
and smiled wider than the
princess who would be his
bride and said, “I have done
It. I climbed the cliffs until
the clouds wove fog from
my breath. I broke through
your untamed forests. I speared
the leopard, one-eyed ravager,
and left its head for the townsfolk.
I rode when I could and
walked when I could not.
I ate my horse.
I stood at the edge of the caldera
and looked down on lava and felt
the dragon’s breath, brimstone
blossom and drew my spear
and launched it true”–
and the princess raised her hand
and said, “Enough.
“Unasked you drove
spikes into our sacred mountain
and destroyed our wood, the
prized wood of which so little
remains and killed a leopard
and killed the dragon,
our dragon,
the beast which so many flocked
to see, that so many watched
riding the thermals under our
hot sun, and left its carcass
here, for us to remove, to eat
or bury or let rot under our hot
sun, and for this you think you
have earned my hand
and our land.
“And I ask you, who will clean
your mess?”
The knight turned red
and furious and his fury
was nothing,
a dead dragon’s corpse
lying under a hot sun
that was not his
and he was silent.
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