How to not have dragons in a Valley.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. And it should have stayed that way. Dragons are hard animals to take care of. They are picky eaters, very sensitive to the climate, and fight each other all the time. When dogs or cats fight they might scratch up furniture, but when dragons fight? They destroy houses alongside the hopes and dreams of people who had mortgages on them. So there really shouldn’t have been dragons in the Valley.

So why were there dragons in the Valley? Well, the Valley is where the castle for the kingdom of Valia is located, and supposedly when the castle was being built, an ancient dragon descended upon the first king and gave its blessing to him. Emphasis on 'supposedly' because dragons are dumb as hell, and if there really was a dragon, it probably was just looking for a snack, but that’s how the legend is told. Fast forward a couple hundred years, the current king thought that it would be cool for the Valley to be repurposed. He wanted a menagerie for each type of dragon native to the kingdom in the Valley to celebrate the legend. When he declared this idea to the royal court, the court collectively thought, “We’re screwed.” Even the court jester that would almost always laugh uncontrollably, took a seat and calculated if he had enough saved up to retire in the neighboring kingdom.

Each member of the court thought about objecting to the idea and telling the king in the nicest way possible that he was being an idiot, imbecile, and a blockhead at the same time, but all held their tongue. You see, as it is commonplace in many royal families, the current family tree for the kingdom of Valia had become… how do I say this, resembling more of a spiderweb rather than a tree. And when that happens, the metaphorical apple from the tree ends up rather twisted. Some physically, some mentally. The current king was of the latter, after all, he had recently executed his court chef for adding too much cheese to his pasta by enclosing his head in a cheese wheel. So everyone just applauded the king for such a noble idea but eyed each other to have a meeting later, away from the king.

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The court gathered in the meeting hall after the king had gone to sleep. The air was heavy, but that was partly due to the room having almost no ventilation. However, it also meant no passerby would hear them talking, so they put up with it. After a long period of silence, John, the leader of the court opened his mouth.

“So guys, do you have any ideas to deal with this?” John asked the court.

“We could always just kill the king,” Huxley suggested, he always did come up with the best solutions.

“No, no, no killing the king. We promised the queen that we would take care of him, God rest her soul,” John sighed.

“John, he’s putting people’s heads in cheese. Assassinating him is self-defense at this point.”

Huxley was right.

“Hear, hear,” the court shouted in agreement.

“No! No killing! Come on guys we’re supposed to be the smartest minds in the kingdom of Valia, surely we can capture and maintain some dragons. It probably will only be for a couple of months anyway, he’ll get tired of them sooner or later.”

“Yea, ‘supposed to be’ the smartest minds. Let’s be honest, most of us are in this position through nepotism, not merit. We can’t solve this,” Huxley scoffed.

It was in fact true that Huxley did not attend a single one of his university lectures.

“Hear, hear,” the court shouted in agreement once more.

“At least think a little bit! There has to be something we can do,” John implored.

“You know, we’re in this mess because you didn’t stop him. You’re the head of the court, you’re supposed to step up during times like these, where’s your balls man?” The jester, Jess, gave his piece of mind.

“Yea, they took them when I joined the court, they took everyone’s balls. Including yours, Jess,” John explained. It was customary for the kingdom of Valia to have its court members be eunuchs, men with castrated testes, to make sure they wouldn’t fool around with the king’s concubines.

“Hear, hear,” the court shouted in agreement, but this time there was a lot more sorrow in their voices.

“No, they didn’t,” Jess replied.

“What?”

“Yea, before the whole surgery, I told the doctor that I was gay and asked if I could get out of it. You know, no real danger of me playing with the concubines. He asked the king if it would be fine.”

“And it worked?”

“Yea. The king gave an a-okay.”

The court fell into silence. Many had a stream of tears rolling down their face, imagining the memories they could have made with their son and daughter that they now couldn't have.

“Damn, I should have said I was gay,” Huxley muttered.

“Hey, you can’t just go around saying you’re gay when you’re not for your own benefit,” Jess objected.

“Jess, you lie about being straight so you can get free wine whenever the church is having a celebration. I should be able to lie once about being gay so I can keep my balls.”

“Fair enough,” Jess agreed.

“Guys, the dragon issue?” John interjected.

The members of the court looked around at each other, hoping someone else would have a solution.

“Okay, fine,” John sighed. “There really is only one thing we can do when we can’t solve our problems ourselves.”

“Improve ourselves and keep trying?” One of the younger members of the court guessed.

“No, I don’t get paid enough to do that. We outsource.”

The court nodded and murmured in agreement.

“Yea, yea I have a couple of friends in adventure’s guild. They probably have someone that can capture a dragon,” a court member stated.

“And maybe the mages from the university can make barriers so the dragons won’t fight each other,” another court member added.

“Yea, yea!” the court members agreed.

The court was excited, it felt like they had arrived at the solution. They were the ruling party of the great kingdom of Valia, they didn’t need to solve their own problems, they had their subjects to do that! It was as if all the angst they had was melting away. They patted each other on the back, they had done it again. Now that they knew they didn’t need to plan it themselves, a menagerie of dragons did sound really cool. Let’s be honest the king might be crazy, but he was cool crazy. Putting a person's head in a cheese wheel? Was it inhumane? Of course! Psychopathic? most definitely! But was it also a cool idea? You bet it was.

Jess the jester was deep in thought as the court members were popping champagne. He thought to himself, ‘Yeah… this isn't going to turn out well.’ He was right. He sighed, he realized why his comedy routines never quite hit as well as he thought they should with the court. It was because they have always been a bigger joke than anything he could come up with.