Sirinita's Dragon

An e-book edition of The Ultimate Dragon, including the story ''Sirinita's Dragon,'' is available from Fictionwise.

''You're going to kill him?'' Sirinita said, staring at her mother in disbelief.

Sensella of Seagate looked at her daughter with surprised annoyance.

''Well, of course we're going to kill it,'' she said. ''What else could we do? In a few weeks it'll be eating us out of house and home--and in a year or two it might very well eat us. Just look how big it's getting!''

Sirinita looked.

She had to admit, Tharn was getting large. When he had first hatched she could sit him on her shoulder, with his tail around her neck, and almost forget he was there; now she could barely pick him up with both hands, and he certainly didn't fit on her shoulders.

And he did eat a lot.

''Really, Sirinita,'' her mother said, ''you didn't think we could keep a full-grown dragon around the house, did you?''

''No,'' Sirinita admitted, ''but I thought you could just let him go, somewhere outside the walls--I didn't know you were going to kill him!''

''Now, you ought to know better than that,'' Sensella said. ''If we turned it loose it would eat people's livestock--and that's assuming it didn't eat people. Dragons are dangerous, honey.''

''Tharn isn't!''

''But it will be.'' Sensella hesitated, then added, ''Besides, we can sell the blood and hide to wizards; I understand it's quite valuable.''

''Sell pieces of him?'' This was too much; Sirinita was utterly horrified.

Sensella sighed. ''I should have known this would happen; I should never have let you hatch that egg in the first place. What was your father thinking of, bringing you a dragon's egg?''

''I don't know,'' Sirinita said. ''Maybe he wasn't thinking anything.''

Sensella chuckled sourly. ''You're probably right, Siri. You're probably just exactly right.'' She glanced over at the dragon.

Tharn was trying to eat the curtains again.

Sirinita followed her mother's gaze. ''Tharn!'' she shouted, ''Stop that this instant!''

The dragon stopped, startled, and turned to look at his mistress with his golden slit-pupilled eyes. The curtain, caught on one of his fangs, turned with him, and tore slightly. The dragon looked up at the curtain with an offended expression, and used a foreclaw to pry the fabric off his teeth.

Sensella sighed. Sirinita almost giggled, Tharn's expression was so funny, but then she remembered what was going to happen to her beloved dragon in a few days' time, and the urge to giggle vanished completely.

Origins:

Back in the first published Ethshar story, The Misenchanted Sword, I established two things: That Ethsharitic dragons are large and dangerous, and that wealthy Ethsharites keep baby dragons as pets. Obviously, I needed to reconcile these two facts at some point.

Then John Betancourt called and invited me to write a story for The Ultimate Dragon.

Actually, I wrote a completely different, unrelated, non-Ethshar story at first, but nobody was very impressed with it -- it was very short, for one thing, and John had hoped for something longer, and something more like my usual work, which that first story wasn't.

My usual work is fantasy, particularly Ethshar. So I wrote ''Sirinita's Dragon,'' and John bought it, and there we are. Very simple history on this one.