The Last to Comment Wins
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Anonjohn20
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You are doing something. You are cheating on the writing experience!
JayMark
It's Not Easy Being Nobody, But Somebody Has To.
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I still liked it.
It read very heavily like Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy if it was fantasy. Not my writing style, but I can appreciate reading it.
I could 100 percent envision this as an event that happened in Fruthia, the inspector working for the Dafnoli empire, everything being logged, then promptly forgotten with nothing more ever being done about the matter. This particular inspector would be unusually dedicated.
The adventureres involved in this venture were nobility of youth, because the empire wouldn't bother to help a team of commoners beyond harvesting the scales from their living bodies and letting them bleed out. Soon, one of the group signs a contract with the king, and comes back to force 'workers' to harvest every last scale.
They pull the same stunt every year to get more scales but use commoners as bait. The mountain soon becomes an excavation site until the dragon is bothered enough to go roost somewhere outside the empire.
Anonjohn20
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That book is AI confirmed. lol jk
JayMark
It's Not Easy Being Nobody, But Somebody Has To.
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AI likes to heavily rip styles it trained on, that's why it uses the same metaphors and wording over and over.
Actually, Hitchhiker's is technically Science Fantasy Comedy.
Anonjohn20
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I am aware that AI can only copy others. It's why one day I shall make the worst story known to man, and AI will get progressively worse after reading it.
Also, the jig is up! Real dragons eat cows, so we all know that you aren't a real dragon since you angry reacted to my beef comment.
Tempokai
The Overworked One
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maybe that's why he wants to retire after two years of work lmao
georgelee5786
I'll never let you down when you're riding with me
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Shadow of Intent is an American deathcore band from Connecticut. They formed in 2013 as a Halo-themed studio project by Ben Duerr and Chris Wiseman. They are not signed to a label and have released all their albums independently. They have released five studio albums to date, along with two instrumental versions of previous releases, and a deluxe album. Their fifth studio album, Imperium Delirium, was released on June 27, 2025.
The group released their EP Inferi Sententia on July 18, 2014, and debut album Primordial on January 10, 2016. The tracks on both albums were produced via homemade recordings. All of the tracks on Inferi Sententia were re-recorded and featured on Primordial. The drum tracks are programmed on both releases. Keyboard and orchestral samples are also present on these releases.
Duerr was responsible solely for writing and performing the lead vocals during the production process while Wiseman was responsible for all of the remaining songwriting.
On September 19, 2016, they announced the addition of Matt Kohanowski on drums, marking the end of the group's time as a two-man project. On March 31, 2017, they announced the addition of new members Federico Zuccarelli on guitar and Keith Kohlhepp on bass. This brought the total members of the group to five.
On April 28, 2017, Shadow of Intent released Reclaimer, their first album without programmed drum tracks and the first album to feature a unique player on each instrument.
The band released The Instrumentals on October 20, 2017. The album contained instrumental versions of all of the songs from both of the preceding albums.[1]
On March 30, 2018, they released their first single 'Underneath a Sullen Moon'. This was the first track which was not Halo-themed and their second released track which did not begin with the word 'The'. The band went on their first major tour in the spring of 2018 supporting Carnifex on their Chaos & Carnage tour headliner. Oceano, Winds of Plague, Archspire, Spite, Widowmaker and Buried Above Ground accompanied Shadow of Intent on this tour.[2] In the summer of 2018, the band toured alongside Whitechapel, The Black Dahlia Murder, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Aversions Crown.[3]
On December 14, 2018, the group announced that Anthony Barone (ex-A Night in Texas) would be joining the group as their drummer.
On August 16, 2019, Shadow of Intent released Melancholy which included a remastered version of the aforementioned single as one of the tracks on the album. Francesco Ferrini of Fleshgod Apocalypse contributed to the orchestral work on this album. Melancholy has been described as a concept album depicting mass suicides orchestrated by a demonic goddess.[4] This album marked a departure from writing strictly Halo-themed music. An instrumental version of Melancholy was also released on November 22, 2019.
In the winter of 2020, the band performed on their first major headlining tour throughout the United States accompanied by Inferi, Signs of the Swarm, and Brand of Sacrifice.[5]
In 2020, the group announced they were parting ways with Anthony Barone and that Bryce Butler (Contrarian) would be replacing him.[6]
In October 2021, The band announced their fourth studio album, Elegy, for a January 2022 release,[7] which was ultimately met with great critical acclaim.[8] A deluxe edition of the album was released digitally on September 9, 2022, featuring a B-side track titled 'Frozen Tomb' and a cover of Lamb of God's 'Laid to Rest'.[9]
In the winter of 2022, the band toured the United States alongside Cannibal Corpse, Whitechapel, and Revocation.[10]
On March 30, 2023, the band released a new single titled 'The Migrant' which showed a return to writing Halo-themed songs.[11] Another new single titled 'Flying The Black Flag' would be released on August 30, 2024.[12]
The band has done some touring from September to October 2024 in North America with bands Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ingested, The Zenith Passage, and Disembodied Tyrant.[13][14] They also toured with Cattle Decapitation, Revocation and Vulvodynia in Europe in early 2025.[15]
The band released their fifth studio album titled Imperium Delirium on June 27, 2025.[16][17]
Shadow of Intent's musical style has often been referred to deathcore,[18][19][20] symphonic deathcore,[21][22][23][24][25] melodic deathcore,[25] and technical deathcore,[26] and has been compared to Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ovid's Withering, and Dimmu Borgir.[27] Their sound is often blended with blackened death metal,[25][28] melodic death metal,[29][30] symphonic metal,[25][28] progressive metal,[28] technical death metal,[29][23] progressive death metal,[23] and symphonic death metal.[30]
The group released their EP Inferi Sententia on July 18, 2014, and debut album Primordial on January 10, 2016. The tracks on both albums were produced via homemade recordings. All of the tracks on Inferi Sententia were re-recorded and featured on Primordial. The drum tracks are programmed on both releases. Keyboard and orchestral samples are also present on these releases.
Duerr was responsible solely for writing and performing the lead vocals during the production process while Wiseman was responsible for all of the remaining songwriting.
On September 19, 2016, they announced the addition of Matt Kohanowski on drums, marking the end of the group's time as a two-man project. On March 31, 2017, they announced the addition of new members Federico Zuccarelli on guitar and Keith Kohlhepp on bass. This brought the total members of the group to five.
On April 28, 2017, Shadow of Intent released Reclaimer, their first album without programmed drum tracks and the first album to feature a unique player on each instrument.
The band released The Instrumentals on October 20, 2017. The album contained instrumental versions of all of the songs from both of the preceding albums.[1]
On March 30, 2018, they released their first single 'Underneath a Sullen Moon'. This was the first track which was not Halo-themed and their second released track which did not begin with the word 'The'. The band went on their first major tour in the spring of 2018 supporting Carnifex on their Chaos & Carnage tour headliner. Oceano, Winds of Plague, Archspire, Spite, Widowmaker and Buried Above Ground accompanied Shadow of Intent on this tour.[2] In the summer of 2018, the band toured alongside Whitechapel, The Black Dahlia Murder, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Aversions Crown.[3]
On December 14, 2018, the group announced that Anthony Barone (ex-A Night in Texas) would be joining the group as their drummer.
On August 16, 2019, Shadow of Intent released Melancholy which included a remastered version of the aforementioned single as one of the tracks on the album. Francesco Ferrini of Fleshgod Apocalypse contributed to the orchestral work on this album. Melancholy has been described as a concept album depicting mass suicides orchestrated by a demonic goddess.[4] This album marked a departure from writing strictly Halo-themed music. An instrumental version of Melancholy was also released on November 22, 2019.
In the winter of 2020, the band performed on their first major headlining tour throughout the United States accompanied by Inferi, Signs of the Swarm, and Brand of Sacrifice.[5]
In 2020, the group announced they were parting ways with Anthony Barone and that Bryce Butler (Contrarian) would be replacing him.[6]
In October 2021, The band announced their fourth studio album, Elegy, for a January 2022 release,[7] which was ultimately met with great critical acclaim.[8] A deluxe edition of the album was released digitally on September 9, 2022, featuring a B-side track titled 'Frozen Tomb' and a cover of Lamb of God's 'Laid to Rest'.[9]
In the winter of 2022, the band toured the United States alongside Cannibal Corpse, Whitechapel, and Revocation.[10]
On March 30, 2023, the band released a new single titled 'The Migrant' which showed a return to writing Halo-themed songs.[11] Another new single titled 'Flying The Black Flag' would be released on August 30, 2024.[12]
The band has done some touring from September to October 2024 in North America with bands Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ingested, The Zenith Passage, and Disembodied Tyrant.[13][14] They also toured with Cattle Decapitation, Revocation and Vulvodynia in Europe in early 2025.[15]
The band released their fifth studio album titled Imperium Delirium on June 27, 2025.[16][17]
Shadow of Intent's musical style has often been referred to deathcore,[18][19][20] symphonic deathcore,[21][22][23][24][25] melodic deathcore,[25] and technical deathcore,[26] and has been compared to Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ovid's Withering, and Dimmu Borgir.[27] Their sound is often blended with blackened death metal,[25][28] melodic death metal,[29][30] symphonic metal,[25][28] progressive metal,[28] technical death metal,[29][23] progressive death metal,[23] and symphonic death metal.[30]
Anonjohn20
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You pretender. Fake dragon.
JayMark
It's Not Easy Being Nobody, But Somebody Has To.
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Well at least I'm not resorting to Wikipedia copypasta!
Edit: Also, you wanna know what's really a draggin, yo fat momma's belly!
Anonjohn20
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I would never! I just noticed are you confusing me with George? Don't mess with the guy who once answered my car-related question.
Yo mama so fat, she got cast in Planet of the Apes as the planet!
Last edited:
Tempokai
The Overworked One
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Mogg-dell Beef Ear Pie had a name that sounded like a clerical error escaped from a bakery, which is fitting, because Mogg-dell was himself an administrative nightmare. He was a bull, technically, anatomically, philosophically. He was also a shapeshifter, which was something he had discovered by accident while trying to scratch an itch between his horns and suddenly realizing his horns had become an embarrassing number of legs. Evolution does not explain it. Bureaucracy does. Somewhere a Ministry of Agrarian Peculiarities approved a grant for “self-modulating ruminant research,” and then—poof—Mogg was born, or licensed, depending on how you prefer your truth cooked.
He had a pasture. In the grand tradition of male delusions, he called it “my realm,” but, in fairness, he had worked for it: a gracious spread of knee-high grasses, a creek that pretended to be shy until it flooded, a stand of crooked poplars like bony fingers pointing at nothing useful. Also: a large and opinionated harem of cows, whose agency he respected, because he had a healthy fear of women the size of dining tables. They followed him, mostly, and scolded him, often. He loved them with the stubborn, domestic ardor of a creature who chews the cud for about eight hours a day and considers that a form of meditation.
The problem, naturally, was neighbors.
The pasture was bounded, unfortunately, by the local idea of “public leisure”: a thin strip of grass, two warped benches, and a weeping willow that never stopped auditioning for tragedy. Children came with buckets. Couples came with kites. Bards came with a weaponized instrument called a cittern and an optimism about busking that clotted the air. There were picnics. There were flutes. A man with an unconvincing goatee lectured his friends about “energy vortices” while standing directly on Mogg’s best clover, which is how you invite divine judgment in a just world or bovine mischief in this one.
At first Mogg tried restraint. He parked himself along the fence, let the sunlight pool on his back, and glowered in the universal bovine dialect for “sod off.” The neighbors waved and said, “Look at the big sweet boy!” as if he were auditioning for nursery wallpaper. He put up a sign, laboriously spelled with his hooves in dirt: PRIVATE PASTURE. The neighbors took pictures and posted them with captions like Found art! He sent a herdmate to politely knock over a barbecue. This resulted in a petition titled “Save Our Saturdays” and an influx of more picnickers. People adore a cause, especially when it involves being annoying.
Then the wind chimes appeared. One set. Then three. Then nine. Somewhere a catalog had promised “hand-tuned bronze pentatonic tranquility,” which is a long way of saying: haunted tin clatter in a minor key.
By the third chorus of ding-ding-doom, Mogg’s patience sublimated. He is a bull, which is a polite way to say: he is a block of certainty with hooves. Also, a shapeshifter. Also, tired. And so, one evening, he willed himself taller. He willed himself longer. He willed his hide into scales and his breath into a suggestion of flame. Dragons had always been the neighborhood association’s historical explanation for everything unpleasant anyway—bad harvest? dragon. Weird smell? dragon. Useless son? dragon. It felt only fair to honor their mythology with practical application.
He picked a sensible dragon design from cultural memory: long, barbed, impressive, tasteful. He didn’t go overboard. He was not here to be fabulous; he was here to be left alone.
The next morning, the park bench crowd met a silhouette rising from mist and dew. It was large enough to blot out someone’s sense of proportion and just shy of violating city code for “sightline obstruction.” Mogg let the sun flare along his ridges. He opened his mouth and exhaled. Flames would have been impressive, but also a lot of paperwork, so he settled for a phenomenon like hot breath that had studied abroad. The grass smoked. The wind chimes clanged like a guilt-ridden orchestra. The man with the goatee said, “Ah,” in the tone of someone who had just met his thesis advisor’s fist.
Picnics faded in an undignified cough of retreat. The willow made a sound that can only be spelled with hyphens. The bards gathered their instruments as if they might be used as shields. This, Mogg thought, was fine. In the days that followed, the neighbors detoured. The kites fled. A polite hush settled over the place like a sensible tablecloth. Mogg returned to a pleasant life: napping, grazing, standing monumentally in the way of breezes, being admired by cows whose standards were literally “large” and “not a wolf.”
It worked, admirably, for a while.
Then the sky acquired an opinion.
It arrived in the afternoon, when the clouds were blaming each other for the weather. A bite taken out of sunlight, a scythe-edge shadow crossing the pasture, a ripple in the air like it had swallowed something too big. The cows looked up and made musical objections. Mogg looked up and exhaled in the manner of a man who realizes his fake ID is about to be checked.
A dragon came down. A real one. Not a pleasant one.
She spiral-folded from on high like a broken cathedral reassembling itself mid-fall. Wings like stained glass held together by malice. Eyes like coins a king didn’t pay. She landed with the grace of a grand piano that had passed its licensing exam. The ground politely remembered it was solid. She sniffed, tasting iron and old stories.
“Well hello,” she said, in a voice that could sand a door and sell you the varnish. “I smelled tugged geography. A nest where there should be none. And then I see: a handsome hazard.”
Mogg realized he had left his dragon shape out on the line to dry. He was still draked—scaled, smoking slightly, horns traded for spines. He was also, fundamentally, a bull. He puffed himself larger on general principle.
“Hail,” he said, and immediately regretted the word. Hail gave the wrong impression: formal, available.
Her head tilted with lethal curiosity. “No ley lines here,” she mused. “No geomancy worth the gossip. Yet you raise your banner. Intriguing. I thought I alone had the poor taste to consider rural romance.”
Mogg tried to look like he had plenty of options. “I was… migrating.”
“Spoken like a commitment-avoidant.” Her smile was a map of accidents on the road to glory. “Good. We’ll get along. We can split the imperial grain carts and make a nest from their pennants.”
Mogg could feel it now: the temperature of consequences. It had been warm. It was getting hot.
He attempted tact, if you can call it that when you’re six tons of forged insinuation. “Your interest honors me,” he lied, “but I have a prior arrangement. The cows.” He gestured vaguely toward a cluster of black-and-white matrons, who were watching with the judicial calm of beings who will, in about eight hours, complain over everything they saw today.
The dragon blossomed into a laugh. “Cows,” she said, savoring the vowels like a bad joke. “I’ve eaten curses that were more charismatic. No, my dear, you have a spine worthy of a banner. You called. I came.” Her gaze softened, marginally. “I am Lekka-of-the-Aster-Fold. I propose we do terrible things together, then argue about whose idea they were.”
Partnership, apparently. An offer of… partnership.
Mogg was many things. He was not suicidal. He was also not inclined to become a plus-one in someone else’s legend, mostly because legends are terrible for grass. He needed an exit like yesterday needed a better plan.
He glanced toward the horizon—toward the imperial city, a collection of spires so sharp they could afflict a cloud with paperwork. The city that had invested copious gold in “anti-dragon emplacements,” a euphemism for several very determined machines whose job description was: say no to reptiles loudly.
“I would celebrate,” he said grandly, “by flying before witnesses. The imperial city, perhaps? Such symbolism. Such panic. A courtship sketched in flak.”
Lekka’s eyes narrowed into mischievous crescents. “You do have taste.”
“Tragically,” he said.
She launched first, a cathedral lifting. Mogg followed, every flap of his provisional wings an argument with gravity. He wasn’t a real dragon, which meant he was cheating: lighter, smarter. He could feel the wind like an old rumor under his belly. Behind them, the cows grumbled in a committee of disapproval; he would be bargaining for silence later with salt licks and the dubious charms of whatever weeds passed for flowers around here.
The imperial city grew from the distance like a moral. Spires. Flags. Walls with tough ideas about their own permanence. The river that bisected it like a silver apology. And on the battlements: hardware. Ballistae that were, technically, ballistae, but had been to war college and come back with runes tattooed on their egos. Towers with glassy oculi that blinked and whispered to one another about trajectories. The Emplacement Masters had a motto: You Can’t Have Too Many Springs. They had built machinery that agreed.
Lekka roared. It was not gratuitous. This was a roar that carved dates into memorials retroactively.
Alarms rose. Screams. A few speculators took notes and updated their ledgers. On the highest wall, counterweights shuddered and locked into place. Bolts as long as poverty were cranked home. Runes woke, yawning blue-white. Somebody blew a horn that reminded the air it had obligations.
“After you,” Mogg said, gallant as a rumor. He peeled higher, letting her take the front. He calculated angles. He considered the particular bird he’d reduce into. Sparrow? Too small; gusts throw sparrows around like loose receipts. Goose? An act of aggression. Swallow. Fast, narrow, nobody expects anything important to be a swallow.
Lekka dived. Seven ballistae answered with the enthusiasm of civil servants who had trained their entire lives to say “no” in new and exciting ways. The sky filled with engineered opinions. Runed bolts sought anything that glowed like a mortgage. Lekka swerved, laughing. The first bolt kissed a wing membrane and took offense at the texture. Her laugh became annoyed thunder. She turned toward the tower that fired it, promising intimacy.
Mogg shrank.
There is a sensation one experiences when changing out of a dragon and into a bird that cannot be described without violating several treaties. It’s a compression, a folding, a delicate re-argument with geometry. His horns became nothing, his scales became feathers, his mass fled like a budget under inspection. He wheeled, small and precise, suddenly on the edge of the wind like a pencil stroke.
To the men on the battlements, two dragons had gone screaming over their city. The smaller one—Mogg, currently the size of a rumor in a cathedral—vanished into sky-clutter while the larger one attempted to swat a tower like it owed her money. The emplacements loved it. Springs shrieked. Runes crackled. Bolts lanced. One caught Lekka along the ribs, called her a liar in Sanskrit, and detonated light.
Insulted and smoking, Lekka lifted, snarling. “Another time,” she promised the city in a voice like burnt wine. She veered toward the north, trailing anger. The city exhaled in bureaucracy. A scribe began inventing the accounting category “Act of Dragon.”
Mogg, swallow-small and debt-free, rode a warm updraft with all the smugness of a plan that shouldn’t have worked and did. Then he tilted, preened a bit because he could, and arrowed home over fields that were suddenly very honest about how flammable they were.
When he reached the pasture, nobody was positioned adjacent to his clover. The wind chimes hung un-struck, which is to say: perfect. His cows had assembled into a tribunal. He landed, returned to bull, shook himself out of residual geometry like a dog shaking off a dream, and stood there, waiting for the verdict.
Brownie, the eldest and most sarcastic, chewed, considered, and finally said, “Drama.”
“Necessary,” Mogg said.
“Always what they say,” murmured another. They were not wrong. He endured the chorus of complaint like a saint suffers icons. He had bought them quiet; they paid him gossip.
Word traveled. It sprinted down lanes and took the stairs two at a time. Two dragons had been seen over the grasslands, far from any ley lines, which meant either the maps were wrong or reality was impolite. The imperial astrologers argued with the imperial geographers, who argued with the imperial accountants, who had the only power that matters: the power to say, “We can’t afford this,” and mean it. Papers were posted. Patrols were ordered. Couples stayed home. Children gave up kites and took up quiet, temporary monasticism. The man with the goatee moved to his mother’s house to reconsider vortices.
Teams in red cloaks drew circles in fields, muttering about currents that did not exist yet somehow had ballots. A wizard suggested the region might be under a “mobile node event,” which is the sorcerous term for “we don’t know but we’d like to sound expensive.” The Emperor’s Office of Perimeter Overreaction rebudgeted itself into a frenzy. The Department of Unscheduled Apocalypses had a staff meeting; they brought muffins; they stared at the muffins like they might be prophecies. A sign appeared at the boundary of the old picnic ground: DRAGON RISK—NO LOITERING. Another beneath it: NO CHIMES.
Meanwhile, in the pasture: silence. Wind through grass. Contented ruminants. Mogg-doing-his-best.
He knew it wouldn’t last forever. Lekka would heal and brood and perhaps come back to insist on complicated arrangements. The city would improve its weaponry in ways that were aesthetically distressing. Some bureaucrat would eventually notice the consistent witness of cows. Perhaps inspectors would visit, pencils like tiny spears, asking whether any unusual livestock behaviors had been observed, something something emissions, something something tax.
For now, he lay down in clover and stared at the sky with the flat contemplation of someone who has seen the abyss, waved, and then sold the abyss a used cart. He had been a dragon. He had been a bird. He had been, crucially, unbothered.
The cows settled with the soft thunder of trust. “You will not,” said Brownie, “bring further dragons to our grass.”
“I will not,” said Mogg, which was almost the truth. He would not bring them. He would invite their attention elsewhere. He had learned the art, rare and powerful, of weaponizing other people’s panic. Summon a larger predator and let the bigger city shoot at it. Was it moral? Morality comes in many shapes; cows prefer the one that lets them nap.
He dozed. The willow across the way sulked. The wind chimes did not dare so much as wink. On the horizon, the city’s towers spiked the sky like exclamation points in an argument they would be eager to continue.
Mogg drifted into the happiest version of sleep a bull can manage: the thin veil between grass and oblivion, punctuated by the confidence that he had, for the moment, gamed a system that deserved to be gamed. If tomorrow brought a dragon suitor, he would lead her toward a different skyline. If tomorrow brought inspectors, he would be a wren and poop politely on their regulations. If tomorrow brought peace, he would accept it as a personal favor and not interrogate the motives.
The cows breathed, a soft tide. The afternoon ripened as if nothing world-class ridiculous had happened. Of course it had. Of course it would again.
But for this thin, golden interval, the pasture held. The realm was quiet. The big harem dozed. And Mogg-dell Beef Ear Pie—shapeshifter, bull, occasional dragon, accomplished liar—chewed cud and considered himself a genius in a world that made such things not only possible but necessary. He didn’t need a ley line or a prophecy. He needed a nap and the continued prejudice of neighbors against anywhere two dragons had ever been seen.
Sometimes salvation is just geography with a rumor attached. Sometimes the only difference between a monster and a solution is whether the anti-dragon emplacements are pointed at you. And sometimes a bull pretends to be a dragon, fools a dragon into thinking he’s something worth partnering, flies like he means it, shrinks like a secret, and comes home to the only applause that matters: no applause at all. Quiet. Grass. The clatter of chimes not daring.
Peace by panic. Classic.
He had a pasture. In the grand tradition of male delusions, he called it “my realm,” but, in fairness, he had worked for it: a gracious spread of knee-high grasses, a creek that pretended to be shy until it flooded, a stand of crooked poplars like bony fingers pointing at nothing useful. Also: a large and opinionated harem of cows, whose agency he respected, because he had a healthy fear of women the size of dining tables. They followed him, mostly, and scolded him, often. He loved them with the stubborn, domestic ardor of a creature who chews the cud for about eight hours a day and considers that a form of meditation.
The problem, naturally, was neighbors.
The pasture was bounded, unfortunately, by the local idea of “public leisure”: a thin strip of grass, two warped benches, and a weeping willow that never stopped auditioning for tragedy. Children came with buckets. Couples came with kites. Bards came with a weaponized instrument called a cittern and an optimism about busking that clotted the air. There were picnics. There were flutes. A man with an unconvincing goatee lectured his friends about “energy vortices” while standing directly on Mogg’s best clover, which is how you invite divine judgment in a just world or bovine mischief in this one.
At first Mogg tried restraint. He parked himself along the fence, let the sunlight pool on his back, and glowered in the universal bovine dialect for “sod off.” The neighbors waved and said, “Look at the big sweet boy!” as if he were auditioning for nursery wallpaper. He put up a sign, laboriously spelled with his hooves in dirt: PRIVATE PASTURE. The neighbors took pictures and posted them with captions like Found art! He sent a herdmate to politely knock over a barbecue. This resulted in a petition titled “Save Our Saturdays” and an influx of more picnickers. People adore a cause, especially when it involves being annoying.
Then the wind chimes appeared. One set. Then three. Then nine. Somewhere a catalog had promised “hand-tuned bronze pentatonic tranquility,” which is a long way of saying: haunted tin clatter in a minor key.
By the third chorus of ding-ding-doom, Mogg’s patience sublimated. He is a bull, which is a polite way to say: he is a block of certainty with hooves. Also, a shapeshifter. Also, tired. And so, one evening, he willed himself taller. He willed himself longer. He willed his hide into scales and his breath into a suggestion of flame. Dragons had always been the neighborhood association’s historical explanation for everything unpleasant anyway—bad harvest? dragon. Weird smell? dragon. Useless son? dragon. It felt only fair to honor their mythology with practical application.
He picked a sensible dragon design from cultural memory: long, barbed, impressive, tasteful. He didn’t go overboard. He was not here to be fabulous; he was here to be left alone.
The next morning, the park bench crowd met a silhouette rising from mist and dew. It was large enough to blot out someone’s sense of proportion and just shy of violating city code for “sightline obstruction.” Mogg let the sun flare along his ridges. He opened his mouth and exhaled. Flames would have been impressive, but also a lot of paperwork, so he settled for a phenomenon like hot breath that had studied abroad. The grass smoked. The wind chimes clanged like a guilt-ridden orchestra. The man with the goatee said, “Ah,” in the tone of someone who had just met his thesis advisor’s fist.
Picnics faded in an undignified cough of retreat. The willow made a sound that can only be spelled with hyphens. The bards gathered their instruments as if they might be used as shields. This, Mogg thought, was fine. In the days that followed, the neighbors detoured. The kites fled. A polite hush settled over the place like a sensible tablecloth. Mogg returned to a pleasant life: napping, grazing, standing monumentally in the way of breezes, being admired by cows whose standards were literally “large” and “not a wolf.”
It worked, admirably, for a while.
Then the sky acquired an opinion.
It arrived in the afternoon, when the clouds were blaming each other for the weather. A bite taken out of sunlight, a scythe-edge shadow crossing the pasture, a ripple in the air like it had swallowed something too big. The cows looked up and made musical objections. Mogg looked up and exhaled in the manner of a man who realizes his fake ID is about to be checked.
A dragon came down. A real one. Not a pleasant one.
She spiral-folded from on high like a broken cathedral reassembling itself mid-fall. Wings like stained glass held together by malice. Eyes like coins a king didn’t pay. She landed with the grace of a grand piano that had passed its licensing exam. The ground politely remembered it was solid. She sniffed, tasting iron and old stories.
“Well hello,” she said, in a voice that could sand a door and sell you the varnish. “I smelled tugged geography. A nest where there should be none. And then I see: a handsome hazard.”
Mogg realized he had left his dragon shape out on the line to dry. He was still draked—scaled, smoking slightly, horns traded for spines. He was also, fundamentally, a bull. He puffed himself larger on general principle.
“Hail,” he said, and immediately regretted the word. Hail gave the wrong impression: formal, available.
Her head tilted with lethal curiosity. “No ley lines here,” she mused. “No geomancy worth the gossip. Yet you raise your banner. Intriguing. I thought I alone had the poor taste to consider rural romance.”
Mogg tried to look like he had plenty of options. “I was… migrating.”
“Spoken like a commitment-avoidant.” Her smile was a map of accidents on the road to glory. “Good. We’ll get along. We can split the imperial grain carts and make a nest from their pennants.”
Mogg could feel it now: the temperature of consequences. It had been warm. It was getting hot.
He attempted tact, if you can call it that when you’re six tons of forged insinuation. “Your interest honors me,” he lied, “but I have a prior arrangement. The cows.” He gestured vaguely toward a cluster of black-and-white matrons, who were watching with the judicial calm of beings who will, in about eight hours, complain over everything they saw today.
The dragon blossomed into a laugh. “Cows,” she said, savoring the vowels like a bad joke. “I’ve eaten curses that were more charismatic. No, my dear, you have a spine worthy of a banner. You called. I came.” Her gaze softened, marginally. “I am Lekka-of-the-Aster-Fold. I propose we do terrible things together, then argue about whose idea they were.”
Partnership, apparently. An offer of… partnership.
Mogg was many things. He was not suicidal. He was also not inclined to become a plus-one in someone else’s legend, mostly because legends are terrible for grass. He needed an exit like yesterday needed a better plan.
He glanced toward the horizon—toward the imperial city, a collection of spires so sharp they could afflict a cloud with paperwork. The city that had invested copious gold in “anti-dragon emplacements,” a euphemism for several very determined machines whose job description was: say no to reptiles loudly.
“I would celebrate,” he said grandly, “by flying before witnesses. The imperial city, perhaps? Such symbolism. Such panic. A courtship sketched in flak.”
Lekka’s eyes narrowed into mischievous crescents. “You do have taste.”
“Tragically,” he said.
She launched first, a cathedral lifting. Mogg followed, every flap of his provisional wings an argument with gravity. He wasn’t a real dragon, which meant he was cheating: lighter, smarter. He could feel the wind like an old rumor under his belly. Behind them, the cows grumbled in a committee of disapproval; he would be bargaining for silence later with salt licks and the dubious charms of whatever weeds passed for flowers around here.
The imperial city grew from the distance like a moral. Spires. Flags. Walls with tough ideas about their own permanence. The river that bisected it like a silver apology. And on the battlements: hardware. Ballistae that were, technically, ballistae, but had been to war college and come back with runes tattooed on their egos. Towers with glassy oculi that blinked and whispered to one another about trajectories. The Emplacement Masters had a motto: You Can’t Have Too Many Springs. They had built machinery that agreed.
Lekka roared. It was not gratuitous. This was a roar that carved dates into memorials retroactively.
Alarms rose. Screams. A few speculators took notes and updated their ledgers. On the highest wall, counterweights shuddered and locked into place. Bolts as long as poverty were cranked home. Runes woke, yawning blue-white. Somebody blew a horn that reminded the air it had obligations.
“After you,” Mogg said, gallant as a rumor. He peeled higher, letting her take the front. He calculated angles. He considered the particular bird he’d reduce into. Sparrow? Too small; gusts throw sparrows around like loose receipts. Goose? An act of aggression. Swallow. Fast, narrow, nobody expects anything important to be a swallow.
Lekka dived. Seven ballistae answered with the enthusiasm of civil servants who had trained their entire lives to say “no” in new and exciting ways. The sky filled with engineered opinions. Runed bolts sought anything that glowed like a mortgage. Lekka swerved, laughing. The first bolt kissed a wing membrane and took offense at the texture. Her laugh became annoyed thunder. She turned toward the tower that fired it, promising intimacy.
Mogg shrank.
There is a sensation one experiences when changing out of a dragon and into a bird that cannot be described without violating several treaties. It’s a compression, a folding, a delicate re-argument with geometry. His horns became nothing, his scales became feathers, his mass fled like a budget under inspection. He wheeled, small and precise, suddenly on the edge of the wind like a pencil stroke.
To the men on the battlements, two dragons had gone screaming over their city. The smaller one—Mogg, currently the size of a rumor in a cathedral—vanished into sky-clutter while the larger one attempted to swat a tower like it owed her money. The emplacements loved it. Springs shrieked. Runes crackled. Bolts lanced. One caught Lekka along the ribs, called her a liar in Sanskrit, and detonated light.
Insulted and smoking, Lekka lifted, snarling. “Another time,” she promised the city in a voice like burnt wine. She veered toward the north, trailing anger. The city exhaled in bureaucracy. A scribe began inventing the accounting category “Act of Dragon.”
Mogg, swallow-small and debt-free, rode a warm updraft with all the smugness of a plan that shouldn’t have worked and did. Then he tilted, preened a bit because he could, and arrowed home over fields that were suddenly very honest about how flammable they were.
When he reached the pasture, nobody was positioned adjacent to his clover. The wind chimes hung un-struck, which is to say: perfect. His cows had assembled into a tribunal. He landed, returned to bull, shook himself out of residual geometry like a dog shaking off a dream, and stood there, waiting for the verdict.
Brownie, the eldest and most sarcastic, chewed, considered, and finally said, “Drama.”
“Necessary,” Mogg said.
“Always what they say,” murmured another. They were not wrong. He endured the chorus of complaint like a saint suffers icons. He had bought them quiet; they paid him gossip.
Word traveled. It sprinted down lanes and took the stairs two at a time. Two dragons had been seen over the grasslands, far from any ley lines, which meant either the maps were wrong or reality was impolite. The imperial astrologers argued with the imperial geographers, who argued with the imperial accountants, who had the only power that matters: the power to say, “We can’t afford this,” and mean it. Papers were posted. Patrols were ordered. Couples stayed home. Children gave up kites and took up quiet, temporary monasticism. The man with the goatee moved to his mother’s house to reconsider vortices.
Teams in red cloaks drew circles in fields, muttering about currents that did not exist yet somehow had ballots. A wizard suggested the region might be under a “mobile node event,” which is the sorcerous term for “we don’t know but we’d like to sound expensive.” The Emperor’s Office of Perimeter Overreaction rebudgeted itself into a frenzy. The Department of Unscheduled Apocalypses had a staff meeting; they brought muffins; they stared at the muffins like they might be prophecies. A sign appeared at the boundary of the old picnic ground: DRAGON RISK—NO LOITERING. Another beneath it: NO CHIMES.
Meanwhile, in the pasture: silence. Wind through grass. Contented ruminants. Mogg-doing-his-best.
He knew it wouldn’t last forever. Lekka would heal and brood and perhaps come back to insist on complicated arrangements. The city would improve its weaponry in ways that were aesthetically distressing. Some bureaucrat would eventually notice the consistent witness of cows. Perhaps inspectors would visit, pencils like tiny spears, asking whether any unusual livestock behaviors had been observed, something something emissions, something something tax.
For now, he lay down in clover and stared at the sky with the flat contemplation of someone who has seen the abyss, waved, and then sold the abyss a used cart. He had been a dragon. He had been a bird. He had been, crucially, unbothered.
The cows settled with the soft thunder of trust. “You will not,” said Brownie, “bring further dragons to our grass.”
“I will not,” said Mogg, which was almost the truth. He would not bring them. He would invite their attention elsewhere. He had learned the art, rare and powerful, of weaponizing other people’s panic. Summon a larger predator and let the bigger city shoot at it. Was it moral? Morality comes in many shapes; cows prefer the one that lets them nap.
He dozed. The willow across the way sulked. The wind chimes did not dare so much as wink. On the horizon, the city’s towers spiked the sky like exclamation points in an argument they would be eager to continue.
Mogg drifted into the happiest version of sleep a bull can manage: the thin veil between grass and oblivion, punctuated by the confidence that he had, for the moment, gamed a system that deserved to be gamed. If tomorrow brought a dragon suitor, he would lead her toward a different skyline. If tomorrow brought inspectors, he would be a wren and poop politely on their regulations. If tomorrow brought peace, he would accept it as a personal favor and not interrogate the motives.
The cows breathed, a soft tide. The afternoon ripened as if nothing world-class ridiculous had happened. Of course it had. Of course it would again.
But for this thin, golden interval, the pasture held. The realm was quiet. The big harem dozed. And Mogg-dell Beef Ear Pie—shapeshifter, bull, occasional dragon, accomplished liar—chewed cud and considered himself a genius in a world that made such things not only possible but necessary. He didn’t need a ley line or a prophecy. He needed a nap and the continued prejudice of neighbors against anywhere two dragons had ever been seen.
Sometimes salvation is just geography with a rumor attached. Sometimes the only difference between a monster and a solution is whether the anti-dragon emplacements are pointed at you. And sometimes a bull pretends to be a dragon, fools a dragon into thinking he’s something worth partnering, flies like he means it, shrinks like a secret, and comes home to the only applause that matters: no applause at all. Quiet. Grass. The clatter of chimes not daring.
Peace by panic. Classic.
Shiriru_B
Hi again.
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2020
- Messages
- 358
- Points
- 133
This is highly suspicious, dragons don't moo!
*explodes*
Anonjohn20
Pen holding member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2023
- Messages
- 1,859
- Points
- 153
Exactly, he's only pretending to be a dragon. He must actually be like a bison or something.This is highly suspicious, dragons don't moo!
