#WEP: December Flash Fiction Challenge

This December challenge wraps up the year of artistic inspiration from some great works of art. The WEP is open to all, following the simple rules:

1. SUBMIT your name to the list below on December 1 thru the 15th. Add your link (URL)
2. POST your entry, put WEP is in the TITLE along with The Narcissus badge within your entry.
3. STATE feedback preferences and word count at the end of your entry.
4. READ other entries, giving feedback if requested.
5. SHARE THE CHALLENGE on social media. Tweets are ready on the WEP blog.

PLEASE NOTE: ENTRIES CLOSE Dec. 15th @ midnight (NY Time - check WEP blog clock)
ALL GENRES WELCOME except erotica - 1,000 words maximum

My story for this month's challenge is maybe cheating a little--I didn't write it for the challenge, but I decided that the common understanding of Narcissus and narcissism fits well enough, even if the story doesn't relate to the painting. I wrote this while trekking in Nepal last month, highlighting a character who certainly thinks a little too well of himself. And while Monday isn't my usual day for sharing flash fiction, it was my best bet for fitting within the time frame.

Snow Dragon

The thing was impossible. James Whitherspoon the Third had absolutely no doubt of that, so the shock was complete when it proved to be true.

Whitherspoon knew dragons; had fought them and tried to learn their language from any who would tolerate teaching him. But the dragons had all been in the low hills. They hated the cold. Whitherspoon was not up here in the snows to meet dragons.

So what in the name of all that was holy was this one doing sitting on a glacier? And it was pure white, nearly invisible against the snows, rather than the brilliant ruby and emerald of the low-land dragons. Whitherspoon stomped his booted feet more securely into the snow, stared again at the dragon to ensure it was really there, and looked around for his porters. They would surely know what was up with this strangely misplaced creature.

Perhaps they did. The porters were merely small dark specks well down the mountain slope. Whatever they knew of snow dragons, they clearly didn’t care to meet one.

So what? It was he, James Whitherspoon, not some unlettered local bearers of burdens, who had spent a lifetime studying dragons. Not for him terror and flight.

Whitherspoon continued to slog upwards through the snow and ice. When he was near enough to be heard, he planted his hiking staff, folded his hands on the knob at the top, and called out, “Greetings to you, oh dragon of the high places!”

It was a polite enough greeting, but the only response was a small puff of smoke from the creature’s nostrils, and a stomp of the left forefoot in a manner that might suggest irritation.

Not that Whitherspoon noticed or cared. He focused on the smoke: It must mean that at this altitude, or in this deep snow, the dragon couldn’t flame. Probably the thing was lost and in trouble. Whitherspoon managed to work himself up to quite a sympathy for the poor, lost dragon, which he would of course save from the horrific fate that awaited it in the high-altitude snows.

The self-proclaimed scholar approached closer. The dragon stamped first the left, then the right front foot. Whitherspoon took another step forward, again struck his pose with his staff.

“Can I help you, Master Dragon?” He maintained the respectful form of address, but there is no denying that the nature of the question was condescending, at the least. Certainly the dragon seemed to think so. It shook its head, uttered something int he dragon tongue that Whitherspoon was pretty sure was a curse, and finally deigned to speak in English.

“Leave my mountain at once.”

Leave the mountain? Or what? Whitherspoon actually laughed. “Leave, or you’ll warm me with your breath? Fire is what I crave most here, you know. If you haven’t noticed, it’s cold.”

“I warn you again: You do not belong here. Your companions are wise. They know where they are not welcome.”

Whitherspoon dismissed a vague memory of how hard it had been to find any porters willing to cross this particular pass. Still full of confidence in his own learning, he persisted.

“I can help you find your way back to the warmer lands, where you can thrive.” You fool was in his tone and his heart, if not in his words.

The dragon huffed. As Whitherspoon expected, only a trickle of heavy smoke emerged from the nostrils that, in the lowlands, could incinerate an explorer/scholar in one huff.

“See?” Whitherspoon pointed out. “You are disarmed. You need my help. In return, I ask only that you fly me to my next destination.”

The dragon lashed its tail. “You weary me. What’s more, you insult me.” It drew in a great lungful of the frozen air.

Whitherspoon expected the dragon to drop down dead. Instead, it blew the air back out, exactly as though it breathed fire over him.

The expert on dragons was instantly encased in ice.

When a spring avalanche returned him to the village below, the look of shock and astonishment on the face of James Whitherspoon III was perfectly preserved in his ice coffin.

###

The lair of the snow dragons?

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2021
 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.

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Comments

  1. Hahaha! I didn’t expect that! Good riddance to Mr Whitherspoon!
    And this is your new blog layout…I must explore further 😀

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    1. Oh, no it isn’t your new blog layout. Strange, the post came up in different format, but reverted after I commented.

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    2. Not sure why you got weirdness. But stuff gets that way sometimes…

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  2. No one ever expects frigid breathing dragons, like a blast of liquid nitrogen.

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  3. I forgot that we are supposed to provide a tag-line for the story. So here’s mine:
    Sometimes a dragon is really a dragon.

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  4. That was unexpected! Mr. Whitherspoon wasn't so all knowing, after all. ☺

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    1. As is often the case with those who think they know everything :)

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  5. Hahaha, as another said. I didn't expect this either. So much for killing an ice dragon. A narcissus never learns.
    Nancy

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    1. Or for helping the poor, lost beast that needs his expertise :D

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  6. Sometimes a dragon really is a dragon. Love it. Stories influenced by our travels really resound with me. Mr Witherspoon got his comeuppance. Thought he knew everything. Judging by the other comments, no one is sorry for the way he met his death.

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    1. We aren't very sympathetic to poor Whitherspoon, are we?

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  7. Awesome!!!
    Love the dragon and he did give Witherspoon the opportunity to flee! Silly man, dragons always win!

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    1. Ah, that massive over-confidence that ignores all the indications that he should get out of there. Paying attention to the knowledge of the locals might be a good place to start!

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  8. Lovely. That faux scholar doesn't deserve better, and his stupid arrogance was appropriately rewarded.

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  9. Huge smiles. I am a big, big fan of dragons and was cheering this one on - though it didn't want or need my encouragement.

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    1. PS: You were trekking in Nepal. Jealous thoughts. It is an amazing country and white (and chilly) water rafting there is one of my treasured memories.

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    2. I cannot imagine rafting those rivers of glacial melt-water in the temperatures we experienced! No dry-suit in the world could keep me from ending up like poor Whitherspoon!

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  10. Hi Rebecca - this was great fun - matched by your photo - cruel landscape. I'll remember this and that Mr Whitherspoon ... did he drip dry, or is he in a frozen museum - until we have an electricity cut. Honestly this was delightful - cheers Hilary

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    1. He’s probably nicely preserved in one of the bedrooms in the nearest lodge :D

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  11. I love the twist on the dragon! I guess this dragon expert still had plenty to learn. The final line is perfect.

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    1. Thanks! I guess the other tag line I could have used would be “You never know as much as you think you do.”

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  12. This was such a fun story! He certainly was overconfident, wasn't he? He wasn't as much of an expert as he thought he was.

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    1. Cautionary tales! Though I'm not sure it's about being a scholar, or just about not messing with dragons :D

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  13. Arrogance gets it's comeuppance. Well done! I love it!

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  14. When in Rome...he should have followed the lead of the locals and not gone exploring the high slopes on his own. A know-it-all Narcissus, serve him right for his arrogance.
    This was a delightful, fun take on the prompt, well done!

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    1. There is such a long history of ignoring local knowledge. I might have been a little influenced by reading about those early mountaineering expeditions :)

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  15. I was immediately captured by the confrontation between a pure white dragon sitting on a glacier and James Whitherspoon the Third, an expert on dragons. I wondered how it would play out but didn’t expect it to go where it did…
    Great twist! I love this.

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    1. Thanks! I just sort of started in and let it go where it would. But always in my mind was the many ways in which very high mountains kill people.

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  16. I do rather think that Witherspoon asked for it. Well done, both the dragon and you.

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    1. LOL! Yes, Whitherspoon was asking for it, with, now I think about it, the same sort of over-confidence that many of the early mountaineers brought, thinking the Himalayas would be no different from the Alps.

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  17. Well, he can't blame anyone but himself. The dragon did give him a warning.

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  18. What a lovely tale and how subtly you worked in his narcissism. It was an absolute delight to read this.

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