Pinterest Story Prompt:

“You said you didn’t need me any more.”

“That was before the dragons escaped sir.” – sites-google/site/thesiteforwriters/

Ex-commander Samuel looked at the nervous courier and raised an eyebrow, but didn’t move from his seat by the fire.

“It’s a pity you didn’t find me isn’t it.”

The courier paled further, “Please sir, you’re the only one…”

“The only one what? The only one both experienced and expendable enough to send after them? I might have gone a few years ago, not any more. Tell your self-absorbed masters I couldn’t be found, or if you’re too weak to lie, tell them I don’t care, not about them, not about me, not about this stinking mess of a city they pretend to protect. I’m done.”

He raised his voice, “Of course I could tell them myself if they weren’t too stinking lazy and cowardly to actually deliver the message in person.”

The cottage doorway darkened as a tall, cloaked figure spun into it from their position outside. “Here I am, tell me to my face.”

Samuel chuckled, the courier looked ready to collapse, “I don’t care about this city, about the dragons, or about what you or your precious parents think they can do to coerce me into this – you lost your leverage the day Sindra died.”

Any reply from the city’s heir was drowned by a sudden blast of wind and the sounds of large, heavy beings dropping in to land.

The courier squeaked into the sudden silence, “You’re the only one they like.”

Samuel growled and heaved himself up from his chair, shouldering past the now nervous heir to stand in the doorway, “You stinking lizards so much as breathe wrong on my peonies, I’ll turn the lot of you into garden mulch.”

It took a moment for the other two occupants of the cottage to realise the unnerving sound coming from the five dragons outside was laughter.

Yes, ex-Commander Samuel’s name is inspired by Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Vimes is a rather different person though.