“Will it fade? The tattoo?”“No.”“Why would you want it on your shoulder like that, something that willforever be there?”“As I recall, I was quite drunk at the time and thought it a good idea.”“Why a dragon?”“Symbolic. We all face dragons in one way or another, at one time oranother.”“So it’s not a good thing.”“Depends whether or not we slay them. It all made perfect sensewhen I was drunk.”“Did you slay yours?”“I thought so at the time.”

“I'm not a legend or a hero, I don't slay dragons, I don't do any of the things that a real hero can. But I can make things better, one day at a time, for most of the kingdom.”

“Why should we all act so like children? Because we are? Yes, I suppose so." She made a humorous grimace. "But even then, why?" She pondered this for some time. "I suppose it was worth while-all those things I made-in a way," she mused, "and I suppose I wouldn't have made them, otherwise." She looked doubtful. "Is that it? So we will do the things that would not seem worth while-if we stopped to think?"...Yes, that was it!”

“She was petite, small in that way that made a man want to slay dragons.”

“So then, in a pleading tone, he whispers: Why did you make me? I never wanted to be made… For propaganda, of course. It’s all in your own book. How can we persuade others to be good, without evil we can point to?”

“I would slay dragons for you,” he told her. “I suspect that finding an unoccupied bedroom will be easier.”