Random stories

It's like they all forget that farmers sometimes have parents who weren't farmers.

Ma and Pa were adventurers. They settled down here in our town about 200 years ago. The Humans liked them, because they were not only rather powerful Mages, but they could really work magic with bread and beer. The 4 of us kids when we were old enough, began working the land that our parents had bought over time. We didn't own too much land, but enough so that they had enough wheat and rye to make their things. Our sister was quite adapt with magic and she went off to live with the other elves. She's supposed to be back in 50 or 60 years I guess now. The letters she sends are really nice. Bree and Tuk didn't want to be farmers and left in the middle of the night about 20 years ago I suppose. I think they joined the army or something.

Me, I farm. I have learned how to do some spells to help with the farming, like keep the weasels from eating too much of our crops and I do cultivate some wonderful yeasts as well.

One thing that always bothered us was how "Adventurers" would show up form time to time to go attack the Old Red that lived in the cave a day's ride East. While here, they usually gave the local inn keep a little trouble after drinking too much. Ma and Pa had to deal with them rarely, but they usually kept to themselves when they heard their horses come riding in.

I guess what made me ride over there to see old Red was when a group of about 6 looking to kill Old Red and get his treasure made trouble in the Inn and Pa took a blade to his belly. Now, we keep some healing potions on hand, so it didn't kill him, but I was really pissed, because the asshole who did it wasn't even sorry. I wanted to see them die like the other adventurers so I snuck off after them to see the show of Old Red eating them. Maybe I'd even help Old Red with a well placed arrow to the back of that one.

Those assholes were giving Old Red a better run for his money than some of the others, but it still didn't look like a fair fight. I'm sneaky, but I knew he saw me draw my bow and land two arrows in the back of the one who stabbed Pa. The others were surprised, and to be honest I think I distracted Old Red, because one of them almost got him in the neck. I couldn't let that happen, so I hit him in the back of the leg and he fell howling. Well, howling until Old Red bit him in half. The other ones didn't take long to become wyrm food. I waited in the shadows to see if he was going to take a nap or something. He called out to me.

"Hello stranger... I know you 're still here. I suppose I should thank you, but are you here to finish the job on what seems to be a tired dragon?"

"I'm coming out to talk. Okay?" I hollered. "I don't have any quarrel with you, well, not really."

There was a pause where Old Red considered my words. "I tell you what. You keep that bow slung on your back and your knives in their places, and we can discuss today like, *gentlemen*. Is that what you say?"

"Like Gentlemen, um, Okay." My bow was slung over my shoulder and I walked in to the cave to find myself staring at an old man, not a dragon.

"Uh, I thought this would be easier. Would you like some tea? I think I smelled some tea in one of their packs." the old man gestured at the dead adventurers laying about. "Oh, that one has some mead!" and he excitedly went to find it.

"My parents make that, among other things. That's why I am here. These assholes and others like them show up in our town down the hill to the West. They have little regard for, well, you know anyone not them it seems." I reached into my side bag and pulled out a couple of bread rolls. "Try these. They are very good as well."

The old man took the bread and sniffed it. I broke open one I still had and took a bite.

"So let me get this straight, you're just a common farmer from the village?" he took a drink from the mead and studied me.

"Yes. they come to the village and cause trouble. not always THEM, because well, they are dead, but you know the type that show up. "

"I tell you what. You and your, Parents, did you say?" I nodded, " you make remarkable food. I tell you what, take a little of my hoard and you're free to go. As you see, I have plenty. Now, maybe when others like them decide to come up here, you follow them , or even lead them here? You are pretty good in a fight. "

"Well, my parents weren't always bakers and meadery owners. They, being elves, studied magic and war and taught me how to defend myself. Of course, we like meat, so I learned to hunt. I don't like the cows and sheep that the humans cultivate. They have a weird texture."

"True, that's why I don't eat your villagers sheep or cows."

"Are you really a dragon, not just some powerful wizard who shapeshifts?"

"Why can't I be both? I mean, a dragon who shapeshifts and able to use magic?"

"Never thought of it like that. I guess since you are magical..."

"Yes. I had been asleep a while, how long has it been between visits?"

"From OUR village, it's been about a year. it seems that it's about once or twice a year they show up bragging about how much treasure they are going to take from you. The Winters tend to make this a Summertime or Harvest time activity." I looked in the cave and could see things glinting in the dim light.

"We aren't all greedy you know. Sometimes it's just the treasure we collect from those who would try to kill us, or perhaps in our youth, we believed we were supposed to gather this stuff. I actually had another one of my kind show up and try to take over my cave. Their bones are in the back. Would your parents part with their knowledge of *this*?" Old Red raised both the bread which was almost gone, and the mead jug.

"It might be weird and cramped to have a dragon in their kitchen." I laughed.

"I can stay like this for long periods of time. Perhaps you walk back with me, and introduce me. You could say you slain the dragon. There are bones. People will believe you when you say the flesh and scales disintegrated."

"But we can't just leave the cave unguarded?"

"It won't be. There's a family of bears in the back. Well, they are out foraging for food. They are really good neighbors. You'll like them when you meet them."

<part 1>

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Submitted by Snowdog1967 on Wed, Sep 14, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

"So let me get this straight. You, a common village farmer, got tired of knights pillaging your village before going to defeat the most powerful dragon in the new age so you decided to go and kill it yourself." "...yeah?" "...get out of my lair. Take some of my hoard if you wish, just get out"