Meeting Fire with Fire
by Ajay Shenoy

"I'd say there's no hope at all," Mike said - or rather, called. "You may as well give up now rather than go down in humiliation." His neck hurt from the continual craning this conversation required, but it could not be helped - his boss was the type of person to whom one simply had to look up.

"Why not?" Varsynne ground his teeth angrily, producing a sound no doubt audible in neighboring buildings. "My record is spotless - the state of Narvin has less pollution, less crime, and lower taxes than when I first sat in the governor's chair." Clearly, he meant that phrase figuratively. "And my policy proposals make the other guy look like a kid playing king of the world. His platform's all rotten wood - come the debates, I'll show him what I can do to wood."

"Oh, crud...the presidential debates! I hadn't even thought of that!" Mike started pacing around Varsynne as he talked. Each circuit took him at least thirty seconds. "Imagine you on national TV...Children will run from the room screaming-"

"How many children watch the presidential debates?"

"-the press corps will have to zoom out to the point where the other guy looks like an ant next to you. And this is just the beginning! Have you seen the other side's latest ads? They all end with the words, 'Lizard in the Whitehouse?'"

Varsynne stamped his foot angrily, creating a level 4.5 earthquake. "Lizard? What a moron! Lizards are cold-blooded - I breathe fire, for crying out loud! You can't possibly be telling me a guy this stupid is going to beat me in a fair election!"

Mike sighed without pausing in his agitated relay. "You know as well as I do that it's not his brains that are going to win this election. His star attributes are his not being twenty feet tall, not having wings, and not breathing fire. I'm giving you my professional opinion as your campaign advisor: Narvin might be liberal enough to elect a dragon as governor, but Banaria as a whole...This country has yet to vote a female human into office! I'd say a dragon is a bit of a stretch."

"Why? The Free Trade Area of Sapienna agreement was signed over fifty years ago, and since then, the economic ties between the human nations on mainland Sapienna and the dragons of the Conflagaran Islands have ensured that not a single shot has been fired...or a single fireball spat, for that matter. They have no reason to distrust a dragon - especially one born and raised a Banarian citizen."

Mike finally halted his orbit of the dragon. "Sir, I know the history as well as you. But you can't sign hearts and minds into a new outlook. All throughout Banaria and the other human countries, people still read their children bedtime stories about valiant knights slaying terrible dragons and saving beautiful damsels in distress."

Varsynne snorted, sending a smoke detector just above his head into a squealing frenzy. "Knights!" he exclaimed with disgust as he crushed the offending alarm into silent submission with a flick of his claw. "Honestly, where do these absurd stories come from? Can you really imagine some pompous ass in a metal suit taking on someone that can spit fire at a range of one-hundred feet? And why exactly do all the dragons in these stories have this unhealthy fixation on damsels? If they wanted to have a good time with the ladies, I assume they'd pick mates more anatomically suited to the task..."

Now it was Mike's turn to snort, though with substantially less impressive effects. "I somehow doubt the average six-year-old analyzes the logical inconsistencies of his bedtime stories with quite the same depth as you."

"Why not? According to you, these same six-year-olds intently follow the presidential debates."

Mike rolled his eyes. "Oh, never mind - that's really not the point. What's important is that most kids in Banaria learn to hate dragons at a young age. And I've found that people don't magically lose their prejudices the moment they register to vote. This here should be ample evidence of that," he finished, holding out the latest edition of Banaria Today.

Varsynne unfolded the newspaper carefully between his claws and turned to the editorial section, straining his eyes to make out the print. After a minute, he shook his head with irritation. "I wasn't expecting much in the way of enlightened tolerance from something that started out with the words 'I'm no racist, but...' However, it still seems a bit much to say 'While it is customary for politicians to kiss babies on the campaign trail, mothers' unwillingness to risk their children's being carried off to candidate Varsynne's lair might leave his campaign bereft of even this photo op.' I assume by my lair, he means the Governor's Mansion." Varsynne demonstrated his opinion of the press by setting Banaria's oldest and most respected newspaper ablaze while the flattened smoke detector quivered impotently.

"Now do you see what I'm saying? In political climate this hot, your campaign is as good as dead."

Varsynne dropped the remains of the paper into an ashtray on his gigantic desk and chuckled. "Oh, you'd be surprised at how much heat a dragon can take..." He paused for a moment, apparently deep in thought. "Don't worry too much about it," he said at last. Mike, who aside from having legitimate cause for worry was also essentially paid to worry, looked up in surprise. "I think things will start going our way pretty soon."

* * *

The smell of smoke was obvious even at an altitude of five-hundred feet. The Governor swooped down to investigate and alighted gracefully in front of the nation's capitol's largest orphanage. A small crowd of onlookers was busy gasping at the dancing streaks of auburn (and perhaps the sudden arrival of a dragon), but Varsynne could see no sign of firefighters. Over the low rumble of flames, a thin, piercing scream was audible. Varsynne paused for a moment, attempting to pinpoint the location of the scream in the building, then heaved himself head-first through the (thankfully large) door as the onlookers gasped even louder.

Though relatively spacious, the halls still required Varsynne to wriggle like a worm - clearly, this orphanage was never designed for abandoned baby dragons. He carelessly plunged his head through a door (and the majority of the wall surrounding the door) and found himself surrounded by fire. A tongue of flame was licking at his neck, so he responded in kind with his own tongue and savored the pleasant warmth. He then eased his arms through the shattered remains of the doorway, grabbed hold of two support pillars in the center of the room, and pulled the rest of his body into the inferno. He was busy examining the room, which had once been a stairwell but was now a spiral of orange oblivion, when he heard the screaming again. He pulled himself a floor at a time up the stairs, climbing arm-over-arm in the center of the stairwell as though the entire structure were a gigantic ladder. Even as he climbed, he sniffed at the pleasantly incinerating air, smelling no humans until he reached the top floor, from which the screams still sounded. Once again, he launched his head through a door/wall and emerged in a large room not yet flooded by the orange tide.

The screaming had abruptly stopped - apparently, simply being in a burning building was enough to drive the little boy into hysterics, and the sudden appearance of a dragon pushed him over the edge. Whereas he collapsed into an unconscious stupor, the other four children stared with wide eyes as Varsynne wriggled his full body into the room. If the children were at all disturbed at confronting a fire-breathing dragon while their home burned down around them, what came next undoubtedly did little to improve their emotional state: Varsynne reached out and grabbed each child, popping them one by one into his mouth, making a conscious effort to avoid drowning them in saliva. While the environment inside his maw was balmy (and, of course, humid), at least it was protected from the flames. He then covered his head with his wings and dived straight though the wall, bursting into the noonday sunlight.

The crowd, which had already proven its gasping abilities repeatedly, now once again showcased its talent as Varsynne unfurled his wings in midair and slowly flapped to the ground. He was dimly aware of cameras and microphones crowding around him as he spat out five wet but live children. The sudden cheering drowned out whatever the reporters were trying to ask him.

* * *

Varsynne gazed at himself idly. His arms were crossed, his wings were unfurled, and his tail was wrapped around the fiery words "Varsynne - He'll Face the Fire for You." The real Varsynne changed the channel on the six-foot television back to Channel Six News, which happened to be showing the opinion polls for the upcoming presidential election. Varsynne was fifteen points ahead of his closest competitor.

"I still can't believe it!" Mike was attempting to watch the TV from behind his employer, a task none too easy despite the size of the screen. "Just last week, your numbers were barely in the double digits! This has to be the biggest turn-around in the history of Banarian politics!"

Varsynne grinned. "My stunning good looks, no doubt."

"Of course, although I don't suppose the TV interviews, the testimonies of the children, the documentary, and the upcoming full feature film had any effect at all on the outcome? And donating half of your campaign funds to the orphanage for reconstruction - I feel professional disappointment for not having thought of it myself." Mike shook his head. "Wow, Governor - no, President! - someone up there must like you."

Varsynne curled his neck around to look his campaign coordinator in the eye. "Or rather, someone at the orphanage likes me." A thin wisp of smoke was trailing from his nostrils, a fact that the new fire detector noticed in short order. This time, he let it scream. "It was a risky gambit, I admit - unlikely it would be linked to me, but if something had gone wrong, one of the kids might have been hurt. I'll also admit it was morally wrong - almost as wrong as refusing allow someone the position he deserves because of his species. It's just meeting immorality with immorality - fire with fire, so to speak." He seemed to be brooding out loud rather than speaking to Mike.

"Uh, boss...What are you getting at?"

Varsynne turned his head back towards the television, which was playing his thirty-second ad again. "Yes, dragons can face the fire. But we can set fires as well."

 

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