Once upon a time and place there were three brothers. By mean, they were three perfectly moderate men. Unaveraged, they were a little less so.
“My brothers!” cried Fantasist Frank, “I have heard such tales today! Three dragons menace three kingdoms near here! ‘Tis providence! We should go forth and seek our fortunes.”
“Crises mean money,” said Pragmatist Pete. “If it works, it works.”
“Three places claiming to have the same problem?” questioned Realist Ron. “It’s probably one dragon being spotted in three places. If there even is a dragon. What are we working with, eyewitness accounts? Transmitted orally by gossips? Seems unlikely.”
“Farewell!”
“See ya.”
“Goodbye.”
And so the three brothers set forth, with joyous heart, full stomach, and slight headache divided equally unevenly between them.
***
Fantasist Frank took the high road through the dark woods, singing as he strode, and thereby he proceeded to the nearest kingdom with sure steps until he found a dying knight by the roadside.
“Beware the dragon’s venomous breath,” said the knight, “but takes my arms and armour to battle it.”
“Why, ‘tis providence!” cried Frank, and did so with confidence and haste before returning to the road, which became rougher and rockier as it ventured closer to the wild places. There he heard a faint wicker and lo and behold, there was a horse bearing terrible wounds from sharp teeth and claws, and as he watched it ate the fruit of a lone peach-tree and those wounds were closed.
“Why, ‘tis providence!” cried Frank, and he saddled and mounted the horse and took a pouch of the fresh peaches with him before returning to the road, which soon ceased to be a road at all and turned into a hellish canyon, and at the base of that canyon was a foul and noxious pool, and in that pool, spouting poison from its maw, wallowed the dragon.
“Aha, ‘tis providence!” cried Frank, and he charged the dragon three times. Three times it breathed venomous vapors upon him and he nearly died, but was saved from staggering backwards in retreat to sneak a bite of a peach, and on the third he put the peach in his mouth between his teeth when he charged so that when his body weakened he bit down and was refreshed, held his breath, struggled through the mist of death and cut loose the beast’s head.
“Ah, ‘tis providence in truth,” he cried, as he took the beast’s head and heart as a proof to show the king of the land. But the heart was such a tasty-looking thing that he instead roasted and ate it, and no sooner had it passed his lips than he understood all the languages of the birds and beasts, and he overheard the two birds in a tree watching him.
“He knows the king’s going to try to kill him at the wedding, right?” asked one bird.
“Nope,” said the other. “And it’s not like knowing that would do him any good. The king’s a tricky dicky – if the poison in the wine won’t do it, the poison in the meat will; and if the poison in the meat won’t do it, the poison needle in the wedding ring will; and if none of those work he’ll probably ask him to fetch water from the witch-well to clean the church’s steps before the service, which would make god smite him.”
“Wow,” said the first bird. “He’s fucked.”
“Why, ‘tis providence!” cried Frank, and so saying he rode to the king’s castle and presented the dragon’s head, and perceived that the birds had told him no lie: the king was indeed a very crafty and malicious man.
“You shall marry my daughter on the morrow,” said the king. “But first let us toast your heroism!” And so they did, but Frank put a slice of the magical peaches into his cup, and so the poison did nothing to him.
“Now let us feast your bravery!” said the king. And so they did, but Frank ate a bite of meat and then a bite of peach all evening, and so the poison did nothing to him.
“Here is your wedding ring, wear it proudly!” said the king. And Frank thanked him so but begged politely that it would be bad luck to don it before the ceremony, then spent half the evening in his bedroom removing the needle.
The next day the bells at the church were just ringing when the king came running up to Frank in a terrible hurry.
“Oh no oh dear oh no alack alas!” he blurted out all at once. “The steps of the church you are to be wed in are dirty, and will soil my beautiful and kind and true daughter’s feet! You’d better get so water to wash them. Take this bucket and fill it from the well wrought of pure white stone and rinse them quickly!” And Frank took the bucket, but filled it from the common well made of grey stone, which rinsed the steps clean without a single problem. Then he got married and the moment he put the ring on the princess’s finger a bell rang twice, the evil king turned into three ferrets in a crown, and three black birds flew out of the witch-well and pecked out all three of the ferret’s eyes until they were dead.
“Why, ‘tis providence!” cried Frank. And so he was king in that land.
***
Pragmatist Pete took the middle road, which was safest and clearest, and as he did so he kept an eye out until he found a very long and sturdy sapling. He took it with him all the way to the next kingdom, asked around the pubs and taverns where the dragon was, then spent some of the little money he had on paying a blacksmith to make him a very sharp and long and barbed fishing spearhead (which he had fixed on the sapling) and a good tough shovel.
“They’re not pretty, but they’re good tools,” the smith told him.
“Good,” said Pete. “If it works, it works.”
Then he walked to the desolate hillside where the dragon’s cave lurked, found the path the dragon walked (its scaled belly and heavy tread made such a thing no secret to anyone with the slightest eyes), dug a pit, covered it with brush, and sat in there for two days, and at the end of the second day Pete heard footfalls.
He waited. The brush shook overhead.
He waited. A shadow passed between him and the light.
He waited. Something rustled long and low and scaly against the branches, and Pete stopped waiting and slammed the spear upwards with both hands as hard as he could, then let go and retreated to the far end of the pit.
It took an hour of screaming, thrashing, spraying of boiling blood, and wheezing before the dragon tired. When that was done, Pete pried himself loose and looked it in the eye.
“You have won my hoard, murderer,” it wheezed, “but be warned: my gold is cursed, and none may touch it who will not be consumed by it.”
“Okay,” said Pete. And the dragon died.
Pete cut off its head as proof, sliced free its largest and most impressive claws, fangs, and scales, then took them to the blacksmith and asked for some arms and armour and the names of a few clean-nosed local laborers. Then he brought them and some wheelbarrows and a bunch of extremely long-hafted shovels up to the dragons’ den and lo, he brought the wealth back into town, which he only handled to exchange for other coin, and that only with his arms clad in impenetrable dragonmail.
In this way, Pete bought himself a horse, and a retinue, and plenty of armed soldiers. And a good job too, because the kingdom was inexplicably beset with madness and greed, with all the moneychangers Pete had visited coiling their coin in their beds and growing scales and spitting fire from their mouths. He and his men went house to house, saving the townsfolk, killing the infected, confiscating their cursed coins (and the noncursed coins, to be safe), then visiting the next town and very mysteriously finding it suffering from the same sort of outbreak.
“The dragon-slaying hero!” they cheered.
“If it works, it works,” he shrugged. And hired more soldiers.
After Pete had visited every town in the kingdom, taken every coin in the kingdom, and hired every eager –beaver with a spear and a shield and a lust for fighting, he went to visit the king, with the dragon’s head hoist high upon the barbed spear he had killed it with, and the sword carved from the dragon’s peerless and searing fang at his hip, and his army at his back, and bedecked in the armour shaped from the dragon’s impenetrable blade-turning carapace (it hadn’t possessed a plastron, more was the pity for it).
“Hello,” said Pete as he thus stood before the castle gates.
“You know,” said the king, “I was JUST SAYING how I so very badly wanted you to marry my daughter and rule over my lands with my blessings while I spent the rest of my life hunting and not making trouble.”
“If it works, it works,” said Pete. And so he was king in that land.
***
Realist Ron took the low road, since it was the one he actually knew and therefore was least likely to get waylaid on or suffer great accident. There he walked, suffering many blisters in his shoddy shoes from the poorly-laid cobbles and occasionally having to wade through mud, before at last coming to the edges of the kingdom he had lived in, where people quailed and trembled of the dragon.
“It eats maidens,” muttered a drunk in the pub.
“How the hell’s it supposed to know the difference?” said Ron. “Seems unlikely.” And he got a punch in the mouth for his trouble.
“It lurks in the hills beyond a lake of fire, where it spakes blasphemy daily in unholy sermons against the will of god,” warned the priest of the small chapel.
“The only bird I even knew that could talk was one-legged Jim’s pet raven, and it never mentioned the church once,” said Ron. “Seems unlikely.” And so he was chased out of town for his opinion.
“It ate my entire flock last week – wool, bones, hooves and all,” wept a mourning shepherd.
“A whole flock? The size of the one you have right now?” asked Ron incredulously. “Just last week? Seems unlikely. I think it ate your best one and you’re angling for extra sympathy to show off.” And he received a shepherd’s crook to the groin for his hypothesis.
After receiving another half-dozen similar gifts and gratuities, Ron came at last to the village where the dragon had been most recently sighted, where he spent the last of his coin to buy all the rat poison in town and a cheap cow on its last legs, which he took out to the pond where the dragon slumbered and killed humanely by bashing its head in with the sharpest rock he could find.
Then he waited three days, and after the dragon – which resembled nothing more than a big, scaly lizard with a broad snout and a powerful bite – came out and dragged the poisoned cow into the water he waited one more, and then he fished its floating corpse ashore and very, very, very slowly dragged it back into town.
“That’s not the dragon,” everyone told him. “It’s not big enough. And you just poisoned it like a wild dog. That’s not brave enough.”
“Critics, critics, critics,” muttered Ron. “I don’t suppose there’s a reward? Seems unlikely.”
“Your reward,” said the captain of the king’s guard most grandly, as he and his men picked up the dragon, “is that if you don’t ask for the hand of the king’s daughter in marriage, you can stay for the victory feast tonight and leave with your head attached to your shoulders, even though you are clearly a stranger and a peasant.”
“Seems unlikely,” said Ron, and left in a hurry before anyone could get ahold of him. He travelled home throughout the night without stopping and with many stubbed toes, got home, slept in for three days, and married someone for purely socioeconomic reasons. And so he was not king in that land.
***
And so the three brothers lived, happily, kind of, but not until ever after because there never is an after ever.
Fantasist Frank lived until the age of forty, when his beautiful and kind and true daughter came of age, whereupon he was cursed by a witch, his wife was burned by a dragon, his kingdom was looted by giants, and the day was saved by a hero. He staggered bleary-eyed from his curse’d sickbed and gazed out upon the approaching gallant youth as he crossed his drawbridge, sunshine breaking through the clouds in his wake.
“Ah fuck me,” he creaked, “‘tis providence.” And lo, he died.
Pragmatist Pete lived until the age of forty-five after many decades of rule by abject terror, profligate bribes, occasional murder, and remorseless executions, when his youngest daughter (age ten), after witnessing her six older siblings perish one after another in failed assassination attempts, snapped and spontaneously shoved him off his castle while they were inspecting the battlements, without a single ounce of forethought or planning. The impact of the fall drove the unbreakable scales of his dragonmail armour (which he never took off, even asleep) through his body and out the other side.
“If it works, it works,” he bubbled absently to himself before he expired.
Realist Ron died in bed age fifty of cancer of the bowels exacerbated by the long-term effects of a life of hard and unforgiving labour with little adequate nutrition, following a decline of statistically reasonable length.
“Yeah,” he whispered to his spouse with his last exhalation. “This seems likely.”