Once upon a time…

There was a shepherd. He had a nice, calm life herding sheep.

One day in late autumn he was laying on a rock, watching his sheep do their sheep things. In the distance, his wife was hanging clothes on the line outside their cottage. He looked up at the sky and wished something interesting would happen. Like, literally anything. The monotony of life was really starting to bore him.

As he lay there, he saw a snake pass by with a root in its mouth. And then another one. Aaaand then another one.

Being bored to tears, he decided to follow the snakes.

They slithered down into a copse of trees, where there was a boulder. The shepherd watched, and soon the boulder was completely surrounded by snakes with roots in their mouth.

Finally they touched the roots to the boulder, and it cracked in half, revealing a long passage. The snakes slithered in, leaving the roots all around the rock.

The shepherd, not particularly afraid of snakes, followed them into the tunnel.

To his amazement, after a few feet the tunnel walls became covered in gems. Light reflected off the biggest emeralds, sapphires and diamonds he’d ever seen. He tried prying a couple out of the wall, but it didn’t work. So he continued following the snakes, unitl the tunnel opened up into a giant gold-covered cavern. At the back of the cavern was a huge golden throne, decorated with rubies the size of dinner plates.

And on the throne sat a huge green dragon.

The dragon roared, and the snakes hissed in return, dropping their roots.

“You have done well, my friends,” the dragon said in a deep, rough voice. “One season more, and we can put our plans in motion!”

Not wanting to know what those plans were, the shepherd ran back to the entrance. But it was closed. Not having a root, the boulder didn’t open for him. He banged on it a few times, but it was solid stone. There was no way he could break out.

So he reluctantly snuck back to the cavern with the dragon. He got there just in time for the end of the speech.

“...But now is the time for us to sleep, my friends,” the dragon said. “Let us rest, and when we wake, our time will have come!”

With that, the dragon opened his mouth and breathed out a thick, yellow-green mist that filled the room. The shepherd tried to run again, but it was too late. He inhaled the mist, which smelled like oleander and pine, and fell asleep among the snakes.

He woke up to the sound of hissing. The snakes were moving back and forth, collecting their roots as the dragon flexed his wings.

“Is it time?” the snakes asked. “Is it time?”

The dragon lifted his two front paws, grinning. “The time has come.”

He beat his wings, shooting over the snakes to the tunnel. He shot to the entrance, which immediately cracked open for him. The snakes all followed, slithering as fast as they could.

The shepherd followed as well, running to keep up with the snakes.

The dragon saw him, and flicked him back with a paw. “You are not allowed to leave. You’ve seen my treasure, heard my plans. The reward for your curiosity is a slow starvation.”

The shepherd got to his knees and begged. “Please, I mean you no harm! I haven’t taken anything from you, I just want to go home! My wife must be very worried about me, and the sheep need me! I’ll do anything, just let me go!”

The dragon growled, then rolled his eyes. “Fine. Swear you’ll tell no one about what you’ve seen and where you’ve been, and I’ll let you go back to your pathetic existance.”

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The shepherd swore, and swore again, and the dragon let him out.

The snakes and dragon went straight north; a slithering army led by the flying terror. The shepherd went south, to his home.

But he noticed something. The sheep all had lambs, and the trees all had new, green leaves. Like it was spring.

When he got to his house, a stranger in traveling clothes was knocking on the door. The shepherd hid behind a bush, not sure who this was.

His wife opened the door, and asked what the stranger wanted.

“I am a traveling magician,” the stranger announced. “Is your husband at home?”

With that, the woman burst into tears. “No! He vanished three months ago, probably eaten by wolves!!!”

The shepherd, feeling bad, stepped out of the bush. “I wasn’t eaten by wolves, and I’m back now!”

His wife stared for a few seconds, then started punching him. “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN??? You just vanish for three months, without a trace??? Do you have any idea how worried I was? And I had to tend to the sheep! Taking care of the sheep, and the house, and the baby, all alone, all by myself, it was horrible! I’ve missed you so much! So where have you been?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”

The shepherd, after apologizing… didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to tell her he was kidnapped by snakes, and he couldn’t tell her about the dragon with a magician standing there, so he just muttered apologies again.

Well, the magician decided the woman needed a reply. Which is fair. He insisted the shepherd tell his wife what’d happened. When the shepherd tried weaseling out of it, the magician offered five gold coins for the truth.

The shepherd gave in. He sat down and explained about the snakes, the gems, the dragon, and the sleeping poison.

His wife was extremely skeptical, but the magician believed every word. He asked the shepherd to take him to the boulder.

The shepherd was like “heck no, I’m not going back there. I have no desire to be eaten by a dragon, thank you.”

The magician was like “look, I’ve got magic that can get the gems out of the walls. And I have this magic rope. I say we go there, fill a couple sacks with gems, and come back before the dragon returns. You get a bag of gems, I get a bag of gems, and life is good. And if the dragon does come back, you throw this rope around his neck and it’ll be fine.”

(Note: the magician never said what what the rope would do. He just implied it would fix the dragon problem.)

The shepherd agreed, and they set off.

When they got to the boulder, the magician found a root that one of the snakes had dropped, and touched it to the rock. With a CRACK it split open, revealing the tunnel. They walked down to where the gems started, and the wizard pulled an ancient tome out of his bag.

And that’s when the dragon reappeared.

He roared “I TOLD YOU not to tell anyone about this place! And you couldn’t even keep it a secret for a full day! Now you’ll die for breaking your promise!” He opened his mouth wide, and-

The shepherd threw the rope around his neck.

The dragon paused, frowned, and flew up. Straight through the rock and dirt. Dragging the shepherd with him.

The dragon flew, beating his powerful wings as fast as possible, passing treetops and birds and clouds. The wind stung as it hit the shepherd’s face, and soon the air grew almost too thin to breathe.

A little bird saw the dragon and reluctant passenger, and flew over to say hi.

The shepherd looked at it and was like “...help…”

“OK!” the bird shouted, and booped the dragon on the nose.

The dragon turned into a normal snake.

…Which would have been great, except they were several thousand feet in the air. Without wings, the snake and shepherd began their journey back down to earth.

The bird, having “helped”, flew off. The shepherd quickly discovered that no amount of wishing was going to give him wings, and the snake just gave him a flat glare the whooooole way down.

They passed the clouds again, and the birds, and the treetops.

Watching the ground approach at a lethal rate, the shepherd thought to himself “this is gonna hurt”. And then-

He woke up.

He was back in his field, with the sheep grazing around him. The trees had red and gold leaves, and the wind had a bite to it. It was autumn. He sat up, and saw his wife waving at him to come in for dinner.

The shepherd got up, stretched, and never wished for something interesting to happen ever again.

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Moral: Don’t ask birds for help.