The dragon formerly known as Beezle grit his neatly filed teeth.

His body trembled in anger as he sat hunched over his sewing machine. The banana can in his grip would be so easy to crush, that was why he very carefully eased it back onto the receiver. He’d never live down the regret of destroying such a priceless treasure.

Valuable as it was, the phone wasn’t the real treasure. The real treasure was the voices on the other end. It seemed Oenus had no idea what a trove he was sitting upon; content to trade it all away for another shot at the game. Truthfully, if what that mad god claimed even held a lick of substance, Dragon wouldn’t be able to fault his decision.

Just from the inklings of knowledge Oenus slipped into their communications, Dragon could empathize.

  “Death’s getting antsy and I need you to hurry up,” Oenus told him a long time ago.

  “Antsy?” Dragon asked.

  “Couldn’t keep that cunt out. Bought a well, that helps.”

Ignorance lead to fallacy, and fallacy was the worst of sins. Oenus had knowledge, that was for sure. Setting aside the specifics of creating a new world, a privilege most creatures would never understand, a much more horrifying implication was made. How could death get antsy? And what was worse, Oenus had personified ‘death’, an implication that puzzled Dragon.

The first question worried him; the second he chalked up to Oenus’ subjective understanding, although his discerning eyes some substance in that statement. Sometimes he called ‘death’ Mister Jenkens, other times ‘that cunt’, feminizing it. As to which was the truth, it was likely subjective.

Objectively, Oenus’ Mister Jenkens was truly terrifying. It came as no wonder why that insane god was so desperate to escape.

He scoffed, thinking how that idiot assumed Dragon’s visit was only a ‘week’ away. Oenus was so far detached from this starting realm, it was laughable.

Dragon eased out of his anger and smirked at the hulking body slumped against the wall. A hulking body Oenus no longer wanted.

To create it, Dragon’s personal attention was required. And the amount of time the hulking body took to complete was mind-boggling.  Dragon could never trust such delicate work to mass production. His usual stitched beasts were his pride and joy, the culmination of his ambitions, but the wealth Oenus offered for Dragon’s help…

That wealth, that knowledge was more than worth it for Dragon to stall his plans to build a custom meat suit. And he was so close to finishing it, too. All it took was a single call from his business partner to render all that work useless.

The final touch, a vicious tail stuffed with intestinal organs sat half completed in his sewing machine. The hulking meat suit it belonged to was so grand, it even dwarfed Dragon’s own body. That was fine. True power came from knowledge, not brute strength. Most creatures in this starting realm assumed power came from flesh, but Dragon knew that wasn’t completely true. Yes, the flesh held power, but the truest power came from knowledge, a power that couldn’t be spent.

He had no problem being weaker than his creation, after all, he and Oenus had a deal, and Dragon was honor-bound to not only follow through, but go above and beyond.

It was only right. Dragon was no scoundrel; scoundrels could never become a god in this day and age. For that reason, he’d never cheat a creature simply because they didn’t understand the value of their service, and Oenus was far too stupid to understand his own value, no matter how much Dragon tried to explain it to him. No, all Dragon could do is match the service exchanged for an equal one of his own.

Too bad he had to ‘Cancel the Big’.

Fortunately for Dragon, his business partner had no concept of time. If he had to start over and meet a deadline, he might just lose his head.

Oenus was frustrating but tolerable. Actually, he’d already given the Dragon some advanced payment, not that Dragon would admit it. If he did, Oenus might use it as leverage to make even more unreasonable requests, possibly voiding the initial deal in the process. To protect the deal, he couldn’t be honest with his business partner.

One particular trinket of payment Dragon rather enjoyed was, in fact, his own name—or rather, his new name. Granted, he’d only just learned what a dragon was, but he found it endearing. Rescuing princesses, destroying kingdoms, breathing fireballs—all romantic notions.

Thinking of romance, the high pitched voice he often chatted with caught him off guard at first. He assumed it was simply a game Oenus was playing; however, he was pleasantly surprised when the person on the other end turned out to be a woman.

Initially, he humored her conversations to try and squeeze as much knowledge out of her as possible, starting with various coatings and alternative uses for paper. During that chat, he even learned how to play a game, something he was very much looking forward to trying out.

If only she wouldn’t wait so long between calls. He was proud of his stitched beasts, but they were worthless for company.

He glared at the serving-beast standing in the entryway to his cavern.  That moronic creature simply stood there, tapping his palm. Dragon gave some of his earlier models vocal cords, but it turned out, that was a waste of effort. Stunted as their minds were, all they could manage were banal screams, ferocious to a foe, perhaps, but boring to Dragon.

Whether those early models be eating, fornicating, or slaughtering, their screams were all the same. Although, that could be attributed to the fact they typically did all three in tandem.

Instead of spending more time and effort on the vocal failings of mass-produced beasts, Dragon preferred to leave out the vocal cords altogether. He could reinvest that same time into gifting his new models the capacity for basic communication.

The stitched beast next to him was one of the new models, far more intelligent than the screaming beasts, albeit, a low bar to overcome. It seemed that beast overheard his phone conversation and assumed Dragon no longer needed the hulking body he was working on. His ‘intelligent’ new model now wanted permission to eat it.

Moronic beast.

Dragon refused the request, not taking the time to explain why. Explaining the ‘whys’ to beasts too dumb to comprehend them was a waste of effort. Instead, he gently scooted the creature out of his den, back to the primitive society it dwelt in outside.

After investing so much time sewing up the hulking meat suit, Dragon planned to finish it. Without a true host, it would only be of the most basic intelligence, but it would be strong, much stronger than Dragon. How Dragon would purpose that strength was still a mystery to him, but he couldn’t trash it after all that work.

The new ‘cancel the big’ creation he’d build after would be much weaker, but as his recently learned saying goes ‘there’s no replacement for displacement’—meaning he couldn’t do anything about the smaller body’s lesser physique.

Still, he owed an equal service.

Eta was her name. If she didn’t want brawns, then perhaps beauty. Yes, Dragons were supposed to rescue princesses, and princesses weren’t brawny.

With renewed vigor, his sewing machine squelched to life. Perhaps, Oenus was right; brawns wouldn’t suit Eta. He only lamented not understanding that sooner.

Death was getting antsy and Dragon had a princess to rescue.