Book Two Letter Thirty-Six

My Dearest Nephew,

I am still in the hospital. I could cheerfully strangle your uncle Scaligar right now! But wait, I couldn’t make myself do that, he’s out of reach, no doubt by design. Curse him!

            As I have fallen out of my mentoring over the past few days or weeks, I have decided as I can do little of anything else at the moment that I should once again return to this most vital of all subjects. Plus I hear that your uncle Scaligar is writing you again and is probably trying to fill your mind with all sorts of bloodthirsty notions. Farming humans, the very idea, everyone knows you have to breed them like livestock what a truly Scaligar like notion.

            Anyway about your mentoring.

            Your title is a very important issue to be discussed, but even more vital at the moment is your food source and such. Fish is good, but don’t forget to eat the occasional bird from time to time. The feathers are a pain to pluck, I admit, but they are worth it. Also, don’t forget the fruit. Usually I would recommend large fruit suited to our large jaws, fruit such as pineapples, a dozen or so for a snack, or few gallons of coconut milk to freshen yourself up for a day of benevolent helping of the needing of help peoples.

            Always remember to clean your teeth thoroughly, gum disease strikes like an attack of gas, everything’s fine one moment, then bam! Nothing more need be said on this subject.

            Also, I hear that you are shopping around for a new Province to make your home in. Whatever you do, don’t go near Frizid. Don’t even buy the “Modern Draconian Caves” brochure for Frizid. Go for someplace tropical, where they don’t ride gas powered sleds and drink Sluj.

            Anyway, I seem to have gotten slightly off track. We need to discuss your title.

            Your uncle Scaligar you tell me has written you a list of possible titles? Cut out the list and burn it. As a matter of fact, burn the whole letter, save you the trouble of flinching every time you look at the idiotic titles he came up with whenever you look at them.

            As your scales seem to have grown to quite a fine shade of red since the last I saw of you, I would suggest that your title should gravitate somewhat around this fact. Perhaps, Smok the Vermilion, or Smok the Cinabar. I would suggest Smok the Scarlet, but your uncle Trubodox, wouldn’t you know it, has already taken that one.

            You might also try Smok the Kind, or Smok the Gentle, or Smok the Not-Even-Thinking-Of-Following-In-His-Western-Uncle’s-Footsteps (hint, hint).

            Also, about this reproduction of my suggestion for the betterment of our kind your uncle has lately sent you. I cannot deny that this is what I wrote as my suggestion during the annual meeting of the Draconian Council (which I used to be a part of before a slight incident that has been vastly overblown by the media involving a Unicorn, a greased ramp and a vat of pickled kosher dills) but I can wonder how he got a hold of my notes from that meeting. I cannot say whether these shortclaw notes were a plan for the future of our kind, a plan for breakfast, or a shopping list.

            I hear that your uncle Scaligar has been having slight troubles with a horde of Drakes camped outside his cave trying to beat down his door and rescue Xelle from him. Remind me to send them a battering ram. And flowers.

            Have you heard that your uncle Trubodox has returned from his vacation and has thrown out Geekadox? Well, I hadn’t before you told me, so I suppose you did hear of it. I hope that I don’t answer a knock at the cave door one day to find some fan of mine drafting letters to you from me. I might have to collapse a cliff on that Dragon if that were to happen.

            Anyway, I think that this concludes the matters that I hoped to discuss throughout the course of this letter, therefore I shall now say goodbye until my next post,

            Your humble servant, mentor and uncle,

                        -Semithino

P.S. What are you planning to do about this lack of a mate issue? You’re about the age now when most of us start looking for a female Dragon. I know that you are probably wondering how I dare tell you off on this matter when I am now a bachelor of a few hundred years. However, I am telling you off in this matter precisely because I am a bachelor of a few hundred years now. I waited too long and she that I loved was pledged to another. Go forth and search out pickup lines!

P.P.S. I received a letter in the mail from Drakemart lately. They want me to work with them on their winter gear section after my adventures in Frizid lately. I might have decided on the spot to take up the job, but they said that I would have to work in tandem with your uncle Scaligar. I shall have to think about this. However, a job might be a nice way to pass the time and I have been released from my advertising job in the paper, not that I miss it much, I never was much of a salesdragon.

P.P.P.S. My goatly friend has lately taken up sculpturing and has just the other day completed a perfect replica of some of the Eastern human architecture, with a few well placed improvements. I think I shall send the blueprints to the humans, they might make something of them at some point. 
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Only a few more days to go with the Week of the Dragon! Tomorrow; short story.....