[ WP ] As a dragon of innumerable age you have guarded your gold horde for millennium . Many heroes have come with long speeches on how they will slay you , the great evil , none finish . However this one is odd.He throws a coin on your stash , looks you in the eyes and says `` I have a proposition for you . ''

We held our slim, reptilian pupils on him. His stench filled our nostrils as they begged for the charred flavor of human. But ah this was not merely an uncommon curio. Instead of armor he had darkened horse-leathers about his little human frame, but our superior Ancient senses detected not the slightest quickening of the heart nor flinch in stature. No runic blade -- as would be bought by the entirety of their puny mortal fortunes -- sat astride his hip. The hands of a builder, but too many scars to have been very good at it. His ears were larger than most humans compared to his head. He was just so sure. It was almost comical. Perhaps if we used such trite overtures, we might say that we liked him. That made us chuckle inside. The irony resounding through our minds that we could feel as primitively as humans made us gleeful. Anyway, of course we would kill him in the end. But for a time we would toy with this bauble. 
 
 `` Ssssspeak... human,'' we growled. Subtly here we quickened the movement of our left talon. This flicked a bit of coin and jewel up to catch the light, revealing just one night-black claw which was as large as he. We knew the subtle, unexpected fear quenches the brave heart and wanted to see him tremble. 
 
 `` Were I to begin with your name would be an insult,'' he pronounced evenly without distraction in the least. `` Yes, you are lord and conqueror of all that you see and have been so for millennium. You have at least 173 names in the written tongues and all are titles filled with dread. To use one or ten would be an utterance indescript of such a being; to say the crash of a fierce wave held all the power of the sea. So let us say we *know* who you are.'' 
 
 `` Yesss... Hero. And I suppose you will now introduce yourself to me as if the names of those whose whole lives are minutes and seconds need such a thing.'' Our voice had its usual malice and command now as we were fully aroused from our slumber. He bowed slightly from the force of the sound, but not from fear. 
 
 `` Were I so simple I would already be ash. Let only Proposition be my name. ” 
 
 “ Go on, muse. ” Here the human began slowly pacing, his hands nastily gesturing out in motions to present his thoughts. 
 
 “ See here the coin I offered you? Polished and the smoothest silver, is it not? ” 
 
 Our eyes fell into the mediocre metal. Interesting... he must have worked it with powders and oil-heavy furs for most of his short life. No coin in our estate gleamed with such pure likeness in reflection. And there in the dim light with our hundred-mile eyes we saw our own visage. Eyes with the all-powerful arcana of The Ancients. Vice-like, proud jaws. Lustrous, impenetrable scales. Will-bender! Indomitable! Unsurmountable! Invincible! Weaver of destiny! Lord and Master of All Realms… Suddenly our eyes caught his eager stare. He was excited. We had revealed something. We sneered with burning eyes. 
 
 “ You have forgotten something, ” he said calmly. 
 
 “ Brraaaagh!!!! You make no difference more than one single maggot in the putrid soil at the entrance, ” we thundered. “ If you want want my image, here I am! ” We erupted out of our countless treasures in full splendor and magnificent vileness, wings spread and chest arched, filling our cavern roof to floor. With an earth-shattering slam we let our talons hit the floor, knocking loose scores of limestone stalactites. We then placed our brow menacingly to a human-arms-length of his, the air in our nose hot. “ What king in this world can call himself king when by my painless will I can level his whole kingdom to the ground? And you think you have value to me in the slightest? ” 
 
 “ Should you consume me you will purge yourself of any chance to remember. ” 
 
 Our neck went hot, about to burst with the hate we first learned as a young wyrm. The hate that welled up and sweetened the food with blue fire. We pondered just a moment in that state, watching as the air radiated in a rolling shimmer around the human. He did nothing but stare back and sweat, mouth shut. The pain must have been great. 
 
 Hmm. He had known our power and his own fate from the start. For him to stand so unwavering he truly knew something useful… or at least interesting. 
 
 “ Muahahahaha. Don ’ t mistake that for irritation, mortal. You are merely a thing of play. Your death comes at my boredom, not as some matter of consequence. ” 
 
 “ To come within a mile of here leaves my life at your behest. But that is past. What matters now is whether I am of consequence to you. 
 
 “ Go on, mortal. What have I forgotten, then? ” 
 
 “ My proposition is that without telling you, I will enable you to recapture that which was forgotten. It is the only way. ” 
 
 “ And then? You imagine I will let you leave alive with a few of my precious, untold coins? ” If this was some kind of game we could play a little. We grinned as much as our kind does. 
 
 These coins. ” Pacing again, he scooped up a handful and let them run through his fingers. “ These mithril plates, platinum shields, chalices of gold… statues of pure electrum and gems of every color -- bigger than my fist! I wouldn ’ t want them. They are all the simple coin I just gave you. ” 
 
 “ Muahuahuahua. These are riches greater than the mightiest of demigods has ever dreamt of. I may be old, but I am not patient. I advise you to try harder than that. ” 
 
 “ Riches they are not, ” he proclaimed, without pause or blink. “ You spent centuries raiding, conquering, amassing this vast horde. You would slumber, but only to return after some time and alter history with a whim. You gained the lion ’ s share of the world ’ s wealth and here you are with it strewn across this cavern. ” 
 
 Hmph. The human spoke of obvious trivialities. We could imagine the taste of him through his chewy leather. It would be soon. 
 
 “ But what can you do with it? You buy nothing. You show no one. The only effect it seems to have is the more of it you have the longer you sleep. And I know why. ” 
 
 “ You are tiring me, Proposition. Your pacing lulls the eyes and reminds the appetite. ” 
 
 “ Each of these shiny objects is just another reflection. They sit here with no purpose but to remind yourself of your own greatness. Millions upon millions of your own eyes staring back at you to remind yourself how vastly incredible you are. You are vain. And in your vanity you have so many selves to admire you that you ’ ve forgotten it is through the eyes of others that the tower of greatness looms. Each year you sink deeper and deeper into a hole you made for yourself in which the last rays of fear and admiration ’ s light cease to fall. You have forgotten... that you are forgotten. A being with so much malice for others that it could only live with itself. Apathetic. Unimportant. Irrelevant. ” 
 
 “ That ’ s enough of this bore. You will firstly hear each of your limbs as I chew them before you die. ” We lazily grasped the soft human in a talon and stretched wide our mouth. 
 
 “ Do you even know what year it is? ” The man was laughing neither forced nor nervously. 
 
 “ What? ” 
 
 “ A whole castle has been constructed not ten miles from here. A kingdom goes about their daily life right next to a being of supposed greatness, but for them it is nothing but a ‘ haunted ’ canyon that suckling mothers tell their firstborn not to play in! ” 
 
 This made something deep inside us stir. We liked this. This was not unlike the Days of the First Kings when the castles were nearby. We would raze and pillage with more terror than ever before. Death would cascade like black rain and we would spend the next morning picking through towers for newfound jewels. If… the human did not lie. 
 
 We shuffled claw over claw out of our cavernous estate to the edge of a gargantuan stone cliff face that rose far above the chasm. We let our wings stretch full and let the invigoration wash over us. We felt the blood pump through our body as our majestic ebony wings followed suit, beating the air in massive, howling swathes. We rose to the top and perched. The human had been true. There next to the river nestled into a hill was a small castle with four round towers and a keep. 
 
 “ My greatness lies in others, does it? ” we bellowed with a laugh. We ran the underside of our talons across our serrated back scales until we found an iron pickaxe stuck in a scale. We held the human against a large rock and then tapped the pickaxe through his thigh and into the stone beyond. He screamed with aching passion to live. Finally some fear. Perhaps we had erred through subtlety. So be it. The destruction we would reign would be the furthest from it. We would tear through the pulpy, crackling bodies of scores of screamers while their wet blood sprayed the walls in patterns striking and unimaginable. Heads, suits of armor, whole stone chambers would explode from the gushing breath we would unleash. We would not circle with warning, but dive and rise up over the battlements, blackening out the sun and scattering them in shock as maggots under a lifted stone. Each one would perish horrified in excruciating pain. 
 
 … 
 
 The dragon flew down to the castle in the most awesome and frightening way imaginable. Moments before his wings were clipped by an equally awesomely-larged mechanism between two corner towers, the dragon had noticed an unbelievably strange occurrence: whole houses were blown away just by the beating of his wings. 
 
 He fell mightily onto the straw and shanty-covered courtyard which also oddly gave way into what could only be described as a giant pit. Many of the hundreds of spikes of varying lengths therein worked their way between his scales from the sheer weight of his own fall. 
 
 The Proposition watched all from his perch. Panting, he softly stated, “ You found what you had forgotten through the aeons… you wanted to die. ” 

