• “Seamus Patrick O’Riley, you are not going to leave me here to go slay a dragon!” yelled Eleanor O’Riley. The village cringed at her shriek.

    “But I have to, dear sister! The old dragon has been feeding on the livestock! It won’t be long before it starts on people!” Seamus replied. “I’m leaving right now, and you can’t stop me!”

    “Fine! But don’t expect any sympathy from me when you get yourself killed!” With that, Eleanor turned her back on him. Seamus sighed, scrubbed his fingers through his hair, and left the village.

    “Such a shame to lose a bright boy like him,” commented an old crone.

    “Aye, it would be,” said Eleanor, “except I’m going to knock some sense into him.” She ran off in the direction her brother had left in and caught up to him quickly.

    “I’m not turning back,” Seamus said. “No matter what you say.”

    “Fine,” said Eleanor. “Then I’m coming with you.”

    “What? No! You’ll get yourself killed!” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Mum and Da’ are going to kill me when we get home,” he moaned.

    “If we get home,” Eleanor said. “The dragon will probably eat us both.”

    Seamus groaned. “Don’t say that!”

    The two walked in silence for a while. Then, Eleanor had a thought.

    “The dragon has been living here for thousands of years, right?” she asked.

    “Aye,” he replied.

    “Well then why has it just recently become a problem? It never took more than a few animals a week before.”

    “Maybe we made it mad.”

    “How?”

    “I don’t know. Maybe someone poked it in the eye or something.”

    “The only person I know who’s idiotic enough to do that is you.”

    “Hey! Well, no. I might actually do that.”

    They stopped for lunch and then continued. Within an hour, they had reached the dragon’s lair. It lay in the foothills of a great mountain. The brother and sister began scrabbling up the rocks to the dragon’s cave. The air was hot and heavy, weighing Eleanor down like a boulder. Sweat dripped down her forehead and soaked through her thick woolen dress. The smell of sulfur and burnt flesh and decay hung in the air so strongly that she gagged. She could see a trail of smoke coming from the lair. They soon reached the cave and peered inside.

    “I don’t see the dragon,” Eleanor said.

    “Way to state the obvious,” her brother replied. “Maybe it’s hunting.” Eleanor shrugged and looked around a little more. Something caught her eye in the back corner of the cave.

    “What’s that?” She stepped closer. It moved!

    “Come away from there!” Seamus yelled. “That’s a baby dragon!” The baby dragon opened its copper eyes and blinked at them sleepily.

    “Rawk!” it chirped.

    A great whoosh came from outside and a huge head attached to a long neck reached in and plucked Seamus and Eleanor from where they stood. Eleanor screamed as she was lifted through the air and set on the ground outside the cave. The mother dragon fixed them with a glare and shooed them off.

    “Hooahrrrroah!” she roared.

    Eleanor and Seamus could not run home fast enough.

    Just outside the village Eleanor said, “How about we say the dragon wasn’t home.”

    “Aye. Can’t slay a dragon if it’s not there,” Seamus replied. “Maybe another day.”

    “Maybe.”

    End