This particular attack caused the good people of Skendrick to reach something of a tipping point, however. Exhorted to action by the furious Farmer Benton, the village council held an emergency meeting at the town hall to figure out what to do.
You may have noticed, and possibly been driven crazy by, the fact that I’m referring to Skendrick as both a “town” and a “village.” First and foremost, if you did notice and are bothered by that fact, you are an insufferable pedant and the type of person I like to affectionately refer to as a “kremlaut’s face:” kremlauts being a unique kind of horse found in the southern regions of Erithea whose faces look like the hindquarters of other varieties of horses, only without the tail. But, I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m imprecise with language, so, for those of you who are not tremendously obnoxious kremlaut’s faces, please indulge me as I explain why I keep going back and forth.
It all began with an event that took place in Skendrick about 200 years ago known colloquially as “The Word Fightin’” (in order to distinguish it, of course, from “The Pointy Things Fightin,’” which occurred some two hundred and fifty years ago, and which cost more than one Skendrickian an arm, leg, eye, or other doubled-up body part). The real reason for the rift is now lost to time, but the primary point (no pun intended) of the argument (The Word Fightin,’ that is) was whether to incorporate the living area now known as Skendrick as a town or village. There were, to be fair, logical reasons for doing both—towns generally have larger populations than villages (requiring at least twenty thousand or so residents to officially obtain that designation), but villages possess more farmland within a twenty-five-mile diameter. Each status confers certain benefits—towns, for example, are all highlighted in guidebooks to the region, thereby enhancing tourism, while villages receive special subsidies from the crown in order to grow more food for the kingdom. Some settlements meet the criteria for both designations, but they have to be one or the other on the royal tax rolls, and their location may make one a more logical choice.
Skendrick, however, was well-positioned for tourism—being less than a day’s ride from Bethel, which draws thousands of pilgrims each year to its shrine to Helvetica, the goddess and patron deity of printers (an odd bunch, those typesetters), and having a proud printing history of its own—and farming, with its vast tracts of highly productive land, which accounted for a third of the region’s barley crop and supplied some of the area’s finest whisky distillers. That said, far be it for me to judge anyone who…
No. Screw that. I’m judging. The people of Skendrick are morons. Or, at least, the people who were on the town council during “The Word Fightin’” were morons. This type of decision is worth about ten minutes of discussion at a town hall meeting, and that includes pauses for participants to shove donuts into their mouths, with the end result for those on the losing side being a win-some, lose-some shrug and the consumption of another donut. Instead, three straight days of heated arguments ensued, broken up only by brief periods of rest for the verbal combatants to sleep and feed their pet chickens (which tells you something, perhaps, about which designation Skendrick should have chosen). For a brief moment, cooler heads prevailed and someone pragmatically suggested the portmanteau “townage” as a solution. He was promptly shouted down, however, and the battle raged on. Pitchforks were raised in anger (again, pointing toward “village” as the obvious solution; no angry town-dweller has ever threatened someone with a farm implement), though I should note that I always have a hard time telling the difference between a pitchfork being raised in anger and one being raised in joy.
After far too many arguments, threats, and breaks to feed the ingredients of a future bowl of chicken noodle soup, the stalemate was finally broken when one enterprising young council member proposed an external designation of village (to settle the benefits question in a way that was more advantageous to the settlement as a whole), but, in a concession to the highly cosmopolitan “Townies” (as they came to be called, as opposed to the “Villains,” which was not a term those who supported the village designation particularly appreciated), suggested that, internally, they use whichever term they preferred. To sweeten the pot, he got the village/town’s leading farmers and bakers to agree to provide a steady stream of kellgaso, the village/town’s most well-known delicacy (a delicious mixture of pears, pastry, pecans, and persimmons…as for why the name of the food itself doesn’t start with ‘p,’ well, consider the collective brainpower of the governing body), to the owners and operators of the town’s most touristy attractions as a means of further attracting visitors. (“Come for the boring lesson on the history of printing, stay for the sticky bun!”)
Finally, some semblance of logic had prevailed, but only after the Townies insisted on formally memorializing in writing that, despite Skendrick’s official designation as a village, they, and their descendants in perpetuity, would be able to refer to it as a “town” as long as they were within the village limits, and that the gathering place of the village council be called the “town hall.” The Villains agreed to this provision, a deal was struck, and perhaps the most ridiculously stupid three-day town hall meeting in the history of stupid town hall meetings came to a close.
Now you, like me, have the burden of knowing far more about Skendrickian politics than you ever cared to, and, if you’re like me, feel considerably less bad about the prospect of a dragon digesting and subsequently defecating each and every resident. At the very least, you now have some understanding of the level of competence of the august body that gathered to discuss what to do about the dragon.
“I don’t see as how we have much choice,” said Alderman Wooddunny, the leader of the council, after he called the meeting to order following much harrumphing from the villagers. “That dragon keeps destroying our crops, we’ll have nothing left for trade or to eat. We need to, ah, take action.”
“Ye kin hoowel and scram ull ye’re wantin’; we’ll gae no peece like we ha’ way bick win we was gooin’ a lick ‘em but good,” added Farmer Benton.
Alderman Wooddunny looked at his fellow council members and, seeing blank looks on their faces, around the room at the gathered villagers, who showed not even the faintest flicker of recognition that what they’d just heard had in any way constituted human speech. He licked his lips. “Ah, yes, Farmer Benton. Of course. Well said.”
Farmer Benton nodded vigorously.
“So,” said the Alderman, “in light of Farmer Benton’s stirring, ah, words, I propose that we put to a vote our options.”
“You haven’t given us any, you nitwit!” shouted the Widow Gershon, maybe a little more disrespectfully than was proper.
“The Widow Gershon have the right of it, she does!” shouted an indignant and nameless Skendrickian whose only contribution to the historical record was that grammatically regrettable outburst.
“Right,” replied the Alderman, “I was getting to that. Patience, good people, patience.” The crowd quieted as the Alderman held up two fingers. “Now then, as I was about to say, we need to put to a vote our options, and I see those as being two in number.