Yesteryear Fiction

Sloth the Lazy Dragon
By Regan W. H. Macaulay


The dragon lurched over his haul of unfinished finery: gold goblets, loose rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, tiaras waiting for stones, unpolished shields, silver chainmail, partially finished gold necklaces and rings, shining weapons encrusted with jewels, waiting for filigree.

A dwarf hovered in the archway, the exit out of the lower mountain. The dragon’s head lolled to the side and he noticed the diminutive fellow, with his pointed hat in his tense, gnarled hands. The dragon belched a small flame and rolled over onto the golden mound.

“Sir,” the dwarf began with a shaking voice, “this is the workshop. These goods are not complete. Surely you wish a finer hoard for yourself?”

“Hm?” the dragon replied, as if roused from a long slumber, rather than the beginning of his nap. He opened one yellow eye and yawned. His mouth was a chasm of brown, rotted teeth. The dwarf raised a wrinkled fist to his face to block the stench. “A finer hoard, as you put it, would mean flying to the top of this mountain. That would mean getting up.”

“But surely, a great dragon such as yourself…”

“Use your eyes, little man!” the dragon exhorted. “Can you not see my girth?” he sneered. He gave the poor dwarf a stare so foul it rivaled the reek of his breath.

The dwarf frowned and his manner altered. The dragon opened his second eye to regard this change in the little man. He postured like a man nearing the full extent of his patience. The fear appeared to have dissipated.

“Maybe if you got up off your hairy ass and moved around,” the dwarf sputtered, “perhaps flew to more mountaintops to pillage some real treasure, maybe then you wouldn’t be so fat – a pudgy, hideous beast stuck at the bottom of a mountain in a workshop filled with second-rate booty!”

The dragon snickered. “Nah,” he rolled onto his back, exposing his soft belly, “and my ass is not hairy. Clearly I am a reptile – no hair.”

“How can you expose your underside to me, stupid creature?” spewed the apoplectic dwarf. “Can you not see I am armed?” The dwarf unsheathed his sword – merely a dagger in relation to a human man – but it was sharp and gleamed for the dragon.

“Silly, tiny man,” the dragon sighed. The dwarf ran at him, his dagger gripped in both hands. “Why all this bother?” the dragon muttered, watching this absurdity.

The dwarf bellowed a warrior’s call to arms and drove on toward him with his weapon. The dragon waited until the dwarf was mere meters away before opening his great gob and blowing a rank wind upon him. He watched the dwarf stop, draw his limbs into himself in a wild convulsion, then drop to the ground coughing and covering his face. The little dwarf rolled back and forth on the ground, holding his grey beard to his face. The next breath the dragon blew at him was more lethal. He watched the dwarf alight. A moment later, he was a crisp.

“What an asshole!” the dragon remarked.


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Regan has been writing since the age of seven, directing since high school, and producing theatre, film and television for the last eighteen years. Writing prose is her current focus. She has a strong interest in frogs, dragons, zombies, pink things, fuzzy creatures, and her husband.