David Madore's WebLog: Gratuitous Literary Fragment #80 (Dungeons and Dragons)

—All right, thou foul, stinking, dragon: thy time is up! I've come to slay thee and cut thee in little pieces.

—Oooooooooh, a beautiful, manly, warrior in shining armor! I knew someday my prince would come.

—Uh, perhaps I wasn't clear enough the first time: I've come to kill thee, not rescue thee. Thou art'nt a damsel in distress. And, in fact, I'm not a prince either: princes, seest thou, are more keen on staying safely in their castle (and on the front cover of tabloids) than on dispatching dragons; so they send underlings like me to do the dirty work. And, lastly, I don't like this sort of chit-chat before fights: so please cut it out.

—I'm sorry. It's just that I think conversation is an important part of foreplay.

—I'm sorry… Foreplay?

—Oh, yes, that's always my favorite bit. I mean, if thou wert to start driving thy thick warhammer, thy broad sword, through every orifice in my body, without first allowing me to taste the bliss of foreplay, the caress of plate armor against dragonscale, the mingling smells of (unwashed) human adventurer and dragonbreath, the arousing sight of sweat on skin and leather, I would miss the best of the experience, wouldn't I? Then I would never lubricate properly, and…

—Caress? Arousing? Lubricate? Look, dragon, I hate to say this, but I'm afraid we have a bad misunderstanding: I'm here to kill thee, not take part in some kind of pervert game of the sort which is certainly favored by princes and all the avant-garde élite but which I know nothing about, nor do I intend to.

—Oh yes, that's what the others also said. Isn't it part of the role-playing?

—What others?

—The other princes, naturally. Non-princes, that is. Humans. They came for the same reason thou didst.

—The people thou killedst, thou meanest? (Oh, to hell with this idiotic second person singular!) The people you killed, you mean? Verily I will avenge them!

—Killed? Certainly not: I think killing is unethical. They're in here: they live inside my cave, I feed them (a strict vegan diet, again, because I'm opposed to needless killings), and we get to play together as often as we wish. But it gets a bit boring after a time, since the only game they seem good at is the game of begging me to free them and let them return to their families. All role-playing, of course: the only reason I keep them chained is that I've been told it increases the pleasure of… Hey, why art thou running away? Come back! [In a different voice:] Ha, stupid adventurers! Willing to face a dragon, but can't abide the mere mention of lust? Well, my booty is safe.