//------------------------------//
// Leverage 
// Story: Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me 
// by DataPacRat 
//------------------------------//

I stared at the fierce little baby dragon, and he stared right back at me. I didn't know how he'd ended up in charge of this place - but he was right; all I had to do to take over a country of my own - if a small one - was boot him out. Probably wouldn't even have to knock him off (even if Machiavelli, in 'The Prince', did recommend eliminating all members of the previous ruler's family ). With my knowledge of everything from Adam Smith to Keynes, from Sun Tzu to Hofstadterian game theory, from Edison to Turing, I could pull a Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen and improve the place so much that I could likely take over the whole continent, in just a few years.

And while I was busy doing that, the whole planet might pull an Atlantis, making me the queen of the sunken rubble pile.

Even if I were the sort who liked politicking, which I wasn't, that wouldn't be the way to keep the politics going for the long term.

And there was still the minor mystery of how this diminutive 'Lord' before me was still alive - which, for all I knew, could throw enough of a monkey wrench into the whole operation to knock any such plans for a loop.

So I said, "Cool your jets, hotshot," to him. And as he started looking puzzled at my phrasing, I continued, "I have no interest in killing you - unless you force me to." I wasn't sure where I was going with this, either. "You might even come out of this better off than how you started."

His big eyes and forehead, and small jaw, made him look surprisingly cute - even if he looked mad enough to fry me on the spot. 'Oh, yeah? How?'

"I came here for..." I considered. "three things. The third thing was my messenger - who I've just collected. Did she manage to pass on my message before you muzzled her?"

'Yeah, right,' Firebough sneered. "As if anybody would trust a real message to a pegasus. They're almost as bad as unicorns."

"Oh reeeealy. You say these unicorns are 'bad'?"

'Haven't you heard? They can use magic. They can do anything - poison wells, make crops grow upside-down, make themselves look like anyone - it's tough work making sure they don't sneak into the city, let alone chase them out of the countryside.'

I discreetly lifted my hind leg and pushed it backwards, in the direction of Berry Blast, who was still directly behind me. He stepped halfway through the bathroom's doorway, moving his horn out of Firebough's line of sight. "I can't imagine why they'd want to be anywhere near here," I said, and not even I was sure whether I was using dry wit or simply being honest. "In the meantime - the pegasus really was my messenger. She was bringing word about my second reason in being here. One of the wolves who lives in your territory stabbed me - and said you made an edict, that cows weren't to be treated as people. Need I point out the troubles with keeping that edict in its current form?"

'I never made - oh, it must have been one from Uncle, the old Lord Firebough. You going to kill me to change it?"

"If I let you live, would you be willing to change it yourself?"

'... I guess. Gonna make it hard on us meat-eaters, if cows are off the menu, though.'

"From what I've seen, your city, and its people, have enough problems already. I don't care about the cows that can't talk, just the ones that can."

'Yeah, that makes more sense.'

That seemed easy enough. I was still having some trouble trying to figure out whether to treat him as a kid, a head of state, somebody caught in the middle of a mob turf war, or something else entirely. I decided to try a bit of fishing. "Speaking about your Uncle... I do have to admit, I was expecting to find a Lord Firebough who was... well, bigger, when I got here. Whatever happened to him?"

'Poisoned.'

"How do you know?"

'From the colors he turned. That, and all his kids ended up killing each other off, too. That's why I only eat live people. I don't even have to eat all of 'em - after they've been sentenced, they're usually happy to get off losing just a leg or a wing.'

I kept a very straight face. Given what he'd said so far, that might actually be a reasonable precaution - however horrible it seemed to me. Of course, if there were any way for him to adjust his circumstances to reduce that necessity, which he'd failed to take - well, then I just might be peeved at him.

'Say,' he said, interrupting before I could redirect the conversation to my own ends. 'I've never met a talking cow, before. Do you think you taste the same as regular ones?'

"Don't be rash. For one, I can still do anything I wish to you, from sticking you to the ceiling to slicing you in half. For another, don't be fooled by appearances - I'm just as capable of eating meat as any griffin."

'You sure don't look like it.'

"Want me to prove it? Pick a limb."

'Alright, alright, no need to get mean.'

"You haven't seen me mean, yet. You haven't seen me in a good mood, yet, either."

'Hm,' he hmed. 'You said you had three reasons to come here - and you've only talked about two.'

"I was distracted from my main purpose by getting stabbed, and distracted from dealing with that by your decision to turn my pegasus into your lunch."

'Yeah, well, you got her back, so no harm done, right?' I didn't answer, and simply glared at him. 'Nice try, but I've gotten nastier looks from my guards.' I kept on not saying anything. 'And now you're starting to creep me out. ... Look, you got her back, what else am I supposed to do? I can't pay you any weregild - just because I'm the Lord doesn't mean I've got any gold. It all went missing when Uncle died, and this whole country's the poorest in the land, so I can't even get taxes from anyone unless I go in person and start eating the people I've gotta tax to get the rest to pay up. The only thing this whole place has going for it, is we're closest to the unicorn lands, so everyone who goes there has to stock up here first for the trip, and there hasn't been much of that since Uncle died.'

"It's not cash I'm looking for."

'Then what?'

"If you're as poor off as you say - then I doubt you even have a clue about where I can find it."

'Oh, yeah?'

"Hm... before he died, did your Uncle ever talk to you? Tell you any secrets he kept just in the family?"

'Only met him once - and he was too busy dying, and I was too busy sticking my fingers down my throat, to talk much.'

"Pity. Then I guess you wouldn't know anything about..." I paused, possibly a bit too theatrically, as I looked up and down at him. "... well, for now, I'll just describe it as... round and kind of glowy."

It was his turn to look up and down at me. 'You said you can kill and eat me if you're in a bad mood?'

"Close enough."

'What can you do if you're in a good mood?'

"Quite a lot, really. Maybe you noticed that ship flying around your house? Destruction is easy - even mild forms of it, like taking out all your guards without even breathing hard. But building things, things that can do all sorts of wonderful things - there's where real power is. Arranging people so they can help you build lots of wonderful things - now there's the real trick." I was starting to babble a bit, but there didn't seem to be any particular hurry right now. "For example - I'm going to hazard a guess or two here - I've heard the word 'weregild' tossed around a lot since I got here. From what I remember about all sorts of things, that tends to go hand-in-hand along with a system where, when somebody does another harm, like killing them, it's up to the harmed person's family to make sure the harmer pays for what they did - literally pay, sometimes. Would that be a good guess?"

'Families are too small - they can get wiped out pretty easy. It's the whole clan that goes after revenge. What's your point?'

"There are other ways to handle such matters. And some of those ways work well enough, and have other advantages, that a country that uses those other ways, can't help but have everybody in it get richer and richer. One of the biggest problems with clan vengeance, is that when one clan takes revenge on another, the other usually thinks it deserves to be able to take revenge on the first - and they go back and forth, back and forth, until they're too small, poor, and weak to defend themselves against anyone else. Everyone's poorer off than if they'd stopped at the beginning - but they don't know how to stop, may even think it's a bad idea to stop. But if you read a lot about other cultures, learn other ways of doing things - you can find out ways to stop that cycle at its start. I used to think I knew the one best way to do that, but after learning of a culture I'd previously been unaware of, I'm not quite so sure that that's the only way; throwing even moderately benevolent immortals into the mix changes all sorts of assumptions. ... Where was I?"

'Ending blood-feuds?'

"Right. I know of at least one way to work on that, which could help turn this place from the poorest in the land to one of the richest. But I've got my own fish to fry." It had been just about forever since I'd been able to use that metaphor. "And even immortals only have so many days in a year to get important stuff done."

'You sound crazier than that one-eyed pony who told me I could fix things if I stopped eating people. You part of his clan?'

"Probably not - what was his name?"

The translation spell whispered in my mind that Firebough's answer meant 'Rager', but the sounds that my ears actually heard was, "Vredin." I hadn't heard of too many one-eyed ponies since getting turned into a cow; in fact, the only one that came to mind was from back when I'd gone to the Southern Rainforest, when the wood alicorn had offered me a well which was said to give the Wisdom of the Ages - said by the one-eyed pony who'd drunk from it. I also recalled that, in Germanic/Norse mythology, there happened to be a particular one-eyed figure who'd been said to have drunk from a similar well - and who'd been rumored to walk the world in disguise, sometimes passing judgment on those who displeased him, sometimes acting as a sort of proto-Santa.

"Oh, reeeealy," I commented again, mostly to buy time. "Him, is it? How very interesting." What I was saying had about as much meaning as announcing 'So, it has come to this' at any particular moment - while technically true, and seeming to imply all sorts of things, without actually meaning anything. "Well - it's possible we're related, but in the same sense that it's possible any two people are related, with the family connection lost in the mists of time. As far as I know, he make no claim to be part of my clan, and I've never claimed to be part of his. From what I've heard, we don't see eye to eye on many things... if you'll pardon the expression. I never was quite sure if the stories he told about sacrificing one eye for knowledge were supposed to be deep and meaningful, or just an excuse to cover an embarrassing accident. Come to think of it, I suppose that whatever the truth behind that story, even if he did sacrifice an eye, I could be said to have sacrificed half of each of my eyes' sight," at least if there was any truth to the idea that having spent all my time reading teeny text hadn't done my nearsightedness any favors, "and found a clever way to make up for that loss, to gain the benefit without losing my peripheral vision. But while I'm going on about myself, I've just thought of something I haven't asked you - do you have any surviving clan who will demand weregild or blood upon your death?"

'What, are you stupid? I'm a dragon.'

"Not all dragons live in the same ways."

'No, you strange cow, if someone kills me, then nobody will care. All that'll happen is some other dragon will hear about it and move in.'

"Why haven't they already? I may be able to do as I will to you - but there are dragons that would give me a run for my money."

He didn't answer, just crossed his arms over his chest.

I shrugged. "I could get the answer out of you if I tried - but for complicated reasons I don't feel like going into now, I don't feel like trying. I guess this means we're about done here - you've got your secret way of staying alive, and I've got my glowy things to go find. So unless you've got a reason for me to stay..."

'D'you want a town?'

"Pardon?"

'Not First Settlement, of course - but you seem smart, and are stronger than all my guards, and you've had all this time to kill me and haven't even tried. That's more than I can say about almost anybody. How'd you like to have a town, and everyone in it, to do anything you want with, and I'll eat anyone who tries to complain about whatever you do with it?'

"... I've had offers like that, before. There's certainly a temptation - but it's a small one."

'... Two towns?'

"To cut this short - even if you offered me the whole country and everything in it, I still plan on leaving."

'How about me?'

"Pardon?", I repeated.

'If I gave you me - would you go after anyone who tried killing me?'

This was rapidly heading into an awkward-and-weird area. "I have... adopted certain individuals - some not even of my own species. Whatever species that really is. But I will still be leaving at the end of the day."

'So take me with you.'

"Don't you have a country to be Lord of?"

'As long as that keeps me alive, yeah. But you're right - any other dragon can come by and take it from me. I really don't know why they haven't. If you're stronger than the whole country - then you'd be better at keeping me alive, right?'

I was starting to get a headache, and rubbed my forehead with a hoof. It didn't help. "I don't think you know what you're asking. However strong I am - I've got enemies who are at least as strong, and probably stronger, and you coming with me would put you in their sights. I can barely protect those I have already taken under my wing - it's entirely possible that you coming with me would just mean they kill you, instead of another dragon killing you."

'What've I got to lose, you stupid cow?'