And according to that article about the worm taking his own life, apparently the switch from vegetarian to carnivore had been too much. And the worm even scrawled a short suicide note in blood on the bathroom mirror: CAN’T STAND ANOTHER BITE OF MEAT.
But my train of thought is interrupted by Professor Nog’s voice: “It’s been crazy up there on the island this week. These are dark days for WarWings. I do hope Dr. Terrible is doing OK. I know some of my colleagues are whispering among themselves that Dean Floop murdered Dr. Terrible. Or that he’s keeping Dr. Terrible prisoner somewhere. That would be hard to believe. But one thing is for sure, your grandfather wouldn’t have deserted his Institute if he weren’t afraid for his life.”
Now I have to hand it to Nog, the old scaly green bastard has really put me at ease with the words coming out of his beak. But I should’ve seen it coming. And the only excuse I can offer for why I didn’t is because I was so wrapped up in it being Crown Day and all. Any dragon could’ve seen the lecture coming like dark clouds gathering on the horizon.
Me, though, I get ambushed. Like a first-class fool.
“Now Gork, there is something else…,” says Professor Nog. And this is when the lecture starts. Of course I know Nog enjoys having his students lie on his couch made of flaming hot coals and lecturing them, but I didn’t know Professor Nog would lay into my scaly green ass like this. Especially on Crown Day and all.
“Now Gork, I know somewhere inside you there’s a cruel Ruler who wants to conquer his own planet! But you’re never going to be able to live up to your potential if you don’t first grow a pair of big horns! And shrink that heart of yours! And stop fainting all the time! And if you don’t grow a pair of big black horns you’re never going to get Dean Floop’s daughter to be your Queen! And none of this is going to happen if you don’t first get yourself some WILL TO POWER! Do you hear me, Gork! You need to focus on your BIOCON LEVS! Where’s your STRATEGIC DESTRUCTION COMBAT READINESS?! Where’s your MATING MAGNETISM?! How do you ever expect to conquer a planet with your current attitude?!”
I cough and roll over and look at old Professor Nog. “Conquer my own planet, sir? I don’t know, Professor. Couldn’t you get hurt doing that? Is it possible that I’m just not cut out for that line of work? Maybe I got the wrong kind of heart or something? I don’t know, sir.”
“Hurt?! You’re worried about getting hurt?! Where’s your WILL TO POWER, Gork?! You need to focus on your WILL TO POWER!” And then he whips out his powerstaff and uses it to project a 3-D holophoto in the air, right there in the middle of his lair. Old Nog says, “Just look at the long line of Terrible studs you’ve descended from!”
He presses a button on his powerstaff. “This photo is from when your great-grandfather conquered the planet Blistrixia Moof, which is in the Fubwidge Quadrant. And that red creature your great-grandfather is busy choking is a Frodaptherox. Now every Frodaptherox has five lives and each time they rise from the dead they grow another eyeball. So this fella here, well he’s clearly on his fifth life. It took your great-grandfather three hours to conquer the entire planet of Blistrixia Moof and if you go there today you’ll see big gold statues of your great-grandpa all over the planet. The Frodaptherox worship your great-grandfather as a god! Now don’t you want to be worshipped as a god, Gork?!”
All this talk is getting me riled up. Or maybe it’s the flaming coals scalding my wings, I don’t know. Anyway, I hiss and spray sparks out of my black beak.
Then Nog presses a button on his powerstaff and growls: “Now this photo was taken at the You Belong to Me Now ceremony on planet Breg 3.27, which is in the Sarconian Quadrant. In this photo, as you can see, Dr. Terrible is assuming rule over the Slitch species on planet Breg 3.27. Now the Slitches have very long forked tongues they use as propellers to fly up and down the timestream.
“So your grandfather Dr. Terrible had to travel as far as possible up the timestream and conquer the futuristic Slitches there and then return to the present-day Breg 3.27 with a holovid showing his victory. Upon seeing the holovid, the present-day Slitches surrendered to Dr. Terrible, as you can see here in this photo.”
Then Nog presses a button on his powerstaff. “Now here’s a photo of your father, Stenchwaka The Terrible—”
“Sir, what was my father like?” I say. “I never got to know him. He’s always been a big mystery to me, sir. On account of him dying during his Fertility Mission.”
“Well,” he says, “come to think of it, your dad, Stenchwaka The Terrible, was more like you, as I recall. He was, how shall we say, challenged. He had small horns. And his BIOCON LEVS were atrocious. Then during his senior year he turned into a time-travel addict. A junkie. Or so I heard, anyway. I’ve never been very clear on that part of the story. But for him to have procured your mother as his Queen, well he must have had something special that the rest of us couldn’t see. It came as a tremendous shock to everyone when she accepted your father’s crown.”
“What was she like, sir? Did you know her? Nobody ever talks about my mother. I don’t know anything about her, sir.”
“Ah, your mother,” says Nog, his ancient scaly green face brightening as if lost in pleasant memory. “She was one of the special ones, wasn’t she? She was incredibly smart. Your mother had a gift, she did. Maybe the best poet we’ve ever seen at WarWings. She could sing her poems and make things happen—”
“Make things happen, sir? What do you mean?”
“Well,” he says, snorting blacksmoke out his nostrils, “it’s very hard to explain. We professors had never seen anything like it, to tell you the truth. But your mother was an incredible dragoness, who possessed the very essence of poetry in her blood. When she was a senior, every fella was trying to get her to be their Queen. The whole thing caused quite a ruckus, I’m afraid.”
Professor Nog coughs and quickly wipes the corner of his eye with a talon.
Why are Nog’s eyes all misty? Is this ancient monster crying?!
“But sir, why did my mother go with my father?” I say, squirting blacksmoke out my nostrils. “If my father was such a loser, sir.”
“Well,” says Nog, with a mournful streak in his voice, “I heard your father promised your mother great things. Because of his facility with time travel. He claimed they could do things a new way. Set an example for generations of dragons to come. Of course it was malarkey. But I’m afraid your mother was a romantic dragonette at heart. Plus she had the gift. And sometimes when a dragon has the gift of poetry, it makes them too confident. I’m afraid she didn’t understand that there were limits, even for a dragonette as unique as your mother. It’s very sad, I’m afraid. I’ve never forgotten your mother. I’ve always wondered how things would’ve turned out for her if she’d accepted a different cadet’s crown for EggHarvest. Please don’t quote me on any of this, young Gork. I can’t claim to know all the specifics.”