When Magic Never Truly Disappears

Perhaps they ought not to have eaten the dragon. There had been people objecting to it at the time. Surely such meat was poisonous. Perhaps it was even an affront, an insult to some intangible order of nature they ought to honour. But the city was starving, the siege had gone on too long, and the king's troops were still a week's march away. The scorched earth would be fertile again in time, but right now it was barren. Right now there were mouths to feed. So they changed their crossbows for butcher's knives and got to work. None of the royal commanders asked any questions that could not be answered. After all, their aid had come shamefully late. The dragon's hoard still made a whole city a fitting tribute from a tyrant city to its humbled king. Who would have thought to question them? And none of the townsfolk spoke up, when the first golden-eyed babies were born. Children who grew up barefoot and fearless, clambering over the city's patched and rebuilt roofs like they had no notion of falling, with a strange glitter to their skin when the sunlight hit it just so. No one breathed a word about dragons. Because soon enough there were deft, young hands taking loaves straight out of the oven, heedlessly lifting iron from the forge, plunging into boiling laundry water. And some of them more wondrous still, wild, warm-skin youths, with inexplicable knowledge and peculiar remedies. A blessing, their families said proudly. A blessing after so much hardship. Which it was, in its way. This city would never fear dragon fire again. FANTASY MEDIA WHERE MAGIC VANISHES FROM THE WORLD FANTASY MEDIA WHERE MAGIC CONTAMINATES THE WORLD

A long fantasy passage describes a starving city that eats a dragon during a siege. The dragon’s magic quietly remains in the city: children are born with golden eyes and unusual abilities, while later generations gain magical talents and resistance to heat. The punchline contrasts fantasy stories where magic disappears from the world with stories where magic contaminates and permanently transforms it, illustrated by a man holding increasingly large cabbages. EN: A long fantasy passage describes a starving city that eats a dragon during a siege. The dragon’s magic quietly remains in the city: children are born with golden eyes and unusual abilities, while later generations gain magical talents and resistance to heat. The punchline contrasts fantasy stories where magic disappears from the world with stories where magic contaminates and permanently transforms it, illustrated by a man holding increasingly large cabbages.

• @rzeczyzabawne / 17238 2024-07-03