La Cession de Dragonbait


(The Demise of Dragonbait)


By Sean Collier



Prologue

A long time ago, before Yorkshire was a shire and before London was a don, there lived a squire named Mel. Mel lived in the legendary Swamp Castle, which inevitably sank into the swamp. Luckily, Mel and his parents narrowly escaped to a nearby village. Unfortunately, this particular village was plagued by a dragon the locals called Corpulent. Every night or so, Corpulent waddled into the village to pillage the villagers’ krillage, krillage being a popular beef dish at the time. Fed up, the knights of the village got together to put a stop to the krillage-pillaging. Numerous ideas and strategies were discussed ranging from leaving the village to just stop making krillage all together. After hours of arguing, a quiet voice was heard coming from the back corner of the hall. The voice belonged to the rather ugly Mel. After acknowledging Mel, the knights brought the hideous squire to the front of the hall to hear his plan to stop Corpulent. In 10 minutes, Mel explained and re-explained his ingenious plan to the dull-witted knights. The knights, who were utterly confused after hearing Mel’s simple plan, decided instead to use Mel as bait for the dragon because he was so repulsive. Hoping that Mel’s acne and boils would overcome the dragon, the knights would seize the moment and attack Corpulent from behind.

The next night, Mel stood tied to a tree near the outskirts of the village fully clad in krillage clothing praying that Corpulent would not arrive. To his dismay, Mel heard Corpulent’s thundering footsteps in the distance. Two hours later, Mel still heard the footsteps. The next night, Corpulent finally arrived at the village. The rotund dragon saw Mel and slowly crept up to him. Corpulent lowered his nose to Mel’s feet and slowly sniffed the krillage all the way up to Mel’s neck. When Corpulent got an up close look at Mel’s various skin conditions, the mighty dragon fainted. The next night, Corpulent woke up to find Mel still tied to the tree dressed in krillage that had now acquired its share of flies and maggots. Repulsed and angered by the whole situation, Corpulent left the ugly squire alone and decided to take out his rage on the village. Unbeknownst to Mel, the knights of the village lost interest after the first night and went on living their lives again. Unbeknownst to the knights, Corpulent was ready to do some slaughtering. Within a few short hours, the village’s entire population and krillage supply was wiped out, except of course for Mel and his krillage “supply.” Corpulent left the ugly squire alone that night because he had gotten his fair share of humans and krillage for a month. Fortunately, the rats and small dogs eventually chewed their way through the ropes and Mel was free and still unattractive. Forever changed by the adventure, Mel decided to change his name to Dragonbait, thus, begins The Legend of King Dragonbait.

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