Book Two Letter Eight

My dear Smok,

It has come to my attention that Trubodox is furious with me, Semithino has been bombarded by relatives, my long-exiled elder sister has actually been married to REMDRIX THE MAD of all dragons for two centuries, and you, you filthy snotty failure of a dragon—you...well, actually, I don’t have anything to complain about concerning you, at least for the moment.

Anyway, my first point. I decided it would be a good idea to hold another family reunion for the first time in twenty-three years. I had my butler Xunt print out lovely invitation cards with floral designs and curly cursive font manufactured by my personal invention, the printing press. Did I mention that I made the first printing press? Yes, I did, although it seems too much of a bother to carve out letters all day just to get a single font right. Anyway, I slavishly carved that pretty script backwards into blocks of wood, inked them, and stamped them down onto the cards in precise order. That took me a day and a half, Smok! I say it again, a day and a half! Then, once I was finished inviting the family, extended family, super-extended family, and haven’t-heard-from-them-in-years-maybe-they’re-dead-extended family, I took a giant nap and accidentally slept all the way through the intended date of the family reunion.

Xunt managed to wake me out of my stupor after about four days of sleep, and I leapt to my feet to reply to Trubodox’s scornful letter to me about reincarnating the family reunion and not even showing up. I told him all the hard work Xunt and I had done, and then next thing I knew, I had a letter back from him telling me I was a liar and a lot of other words that I can’t repeat to you, because although you are an adult dragon now, you are still too young to know those. Anyway, my intentions were well-meaning, and Trubodox is overreacting. From his account of the family reunion, it was the mildest one since quite a long time ago. Only four all-out sieges during the whole thing, and nobody’s eyeballs got stuffed down anyone’s throat. All in all, it seems to have been a success, Smok.

On to my second topic: Semithino. It seems that Remdrix the Mad has acquired a connection to our family (more on that later) and is exploiting his relationship to Semithino in a very cruel manner by bringing his whole horde of useless half-wyverns to your uncle’s humble abode to live like idiots for a few weeks. Remdrix and his family are quite the obnoxious bunch, worse than Trubodox’s old persona Gargazath, Semithino, a goblin box, and me all put together. I am sad to say that in this one I cannot help but feel a little pity for Semithino. Remdrix and his gang of lunatics are the worst houseguests in the history of hospitality, and Semithino’s heart may explode from the stress he is enduring. Needless to say, start saving so you can pitch in for the funeral.

All this business about Remdrix the Mad brings me to my last point: Remdrix married my long-lost older sister Meruthia! I am so infuriatificated right now that I could tear Xunt’s head off! But then where would I be? Probably lost within three minutes.

You know the tales of your aunt Meruthia, Smok. How she ran away when she was young and never came back. It was a sort of self-exile for her cruel actions, such as half-strangling me whenever Mother and Father weren’t looking. Or so I thought it was. Really she went to Remdrix the Mad’s parents’ cave (we lived in neighboring provinces back then) and lived there until she and Remdrix grew old enough to be married, which they were.

Anyway, the reason they’re staying at Semithino’s right now is that the neighboring dragons in Remdrix’s province have threatened to evict him with lots of pain and zilch gain. So, of course, being one for a crowd, Remdrix called together all his relatives and came to Semithino’s house with Meruthia demanding his involuntary hospitality.

I am about to fly over to Zuul right now and help Semithino out. Don’t tell him, though, he’s much too nice to get the job done; I’m going to drive Meruthia and Remdrix and all the rest straight out of Semithino’s cave for good. I’ll drive them all the way to the Northern Wastes and back down to the barren plains of Treddgast if that’s what it takes, and I will, I will do it! Then Semithino will owe me a favor, of course, but that’s irrelevant.

How’s your diary coming along?

-Your serpentine uncle,

Scaligar