There the dragon lay, dead. His eyes were glazed, his tongue was lolling out of his head, a blade was trapped betwixt his arm and his stomach, and his other arm was raised dramatically towards the Heavens in a last, desperate act of defiance.

“Oh get up,” Sophie said, and kicked him in the shins.

“Ow,” the dragon cursed, twitching, and climbed back onto his feet. The sword fell onto the floor with a soft thud.

The dragon rubbed his shin and glared at Sophie. “How'd you know I wasn’t dead?”

“Because the sword is made of wood,” Sophie pointed out pedantically. “Also, I saw the knight insert the sword in between your arm and stomach, only for you to collapse backwards and melodramatically cry, ‘Egads, I am slain!’ and then lie there in a silly pose with your tongue sticking out of your mouth. Why'd you have to play dead so theatrically, anyway?”

“Well, the game's no fun if you don't play by the rules,” the dragon whined. “Besides, the brave knight was behaving with honour and honesty - with the virtues of the heart and mind one expects, nay, needs of a knight. There aren't many of those left - I should sure know! - and you always want to reward a knight who behaves properly. That's a lesson I learnt early in my career, from my banker grandpappy, before I became a jobbing dragon.”

“Your banker grandpappy?” Sophie reiterated.

“Aye,” said the dragon, kneading the bruises out of his back. “I come from a long line of banker dragons, who have used their greed for the good of all humanity.”

“Who banks with dragons?” Sophie asked. The dragon looked rather surprised at this question.

“Who banks with dragons? Who? Why, everyone does - where better to bank with, than with a dragon?”

***

Buck the Brownie shuffled his feet nervously, terrified under the watchful gaze of the steaming firedrake.

His friend, Burl the Brownie, had convinced him that it was high time he stop storing his money in a spare sock under his sock drawer and store it with a real bank. Buck had accepted this - he was tired of accidentally sticking his foot into his coppers, and anyways it made his money smell - but had been rather distressed to find out just where, exactly, his friend expected him to bank.

“I bank with the dragon bank, of course. Everyone does; it's the only place to go,” his friend had said, and since what Burl said went that had been the end of the matter.

At least, before they actually met the dragon. Now that the great wyrm was before him Buck was starting to get cold feet, shuffling awkwardly as he tried to ferment a response to the dragon’s questions (which were, namely, who was he and what was he doing in the dragon's Lair).

“My-y n- name is B- Buck, sir, Buck the Brownie. I'm here tu- to open up a b- b- b- bank account.”

“Ah,” replied the sinewy serpent as it slithered down the mounds of gold comprising its private hoard. A veritable sea of wealth could be seen floating out behind it, a sea in which Buck's stinky copper sock would vanish like a raindrop in the ocean.

“So you'd like to open an account,” the beast affirmed, and then it pulled out a giant, fireproof ledger. It swung a pair of spectacles onto its nose and began examining the foremost sheet, scritching at it with a pen.

“You said your name was Buck… race, Brownie… what did you say your age was, again?”

“Twenty-one, sir,” Buck gulped.

“And you'll be depositing that sock with us, I take it?” The dragon said, eyeing the little bundle of money with a disinterested greed, uncaring of its odious container. “From its dimensions and weight it looks like it contains… about three hundred thirty-seven coppers and twelve silvers, I should say.”

“That's exactly correct, sir,” Buck said, astounded. “However did you know?”

“I'm a dragon, my boy,” the dragon declared, his tone not arrogant but grandiose. “We have a nose for these things. Now - your immediate middle term goal, is it to buy a house or open a business?”

“House, sir. I work as a shoe cleaner and housekeeper with my dad, and want to save so’s I can go alone, maybe get married,” Buck said automatically, and then froze.

“Wait a moment - why do you care about my financial wellbeing? Aren't you a dragon?”

“Aren't I a dragon? Aren't I a dragon?” The dragon roared, rearing up on his hind legs.

“And what would I be as a dragon, lad, if I did not hold the acquisition of wealth to be the start and end of all being? What dragon would I be, if I did not hoard as much gold and riches as I could?”

“Not a very good one,” Buck admitted, half under his breath.

“And if I have affirmed the intrinsic goodness of wealth to be a universal principle, ought I not affirm this not only for me, but for all others also?”

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“I suppose that makes sense,” Buck admitted, half under his breath.

The dragon reared up to his full height, slapping the logo of his bank, carved in marble on the hoard ceiling.

“Aye! Hence the motto of our bank, ‘Money Is Everything, And That's Why We Will Protect YOURS.’ Now, if you go with a high interest savings account…”

***

“Yes, everyone uses the dragon banks,” the dragon finished. They were back in his kitchen, and the dragon - now wearing a blue bathrobe, with rubber ducky prints on it - was in the midst of seasoning some steaks he'd traded the knight for.

(Sophie had, in spite of herself, been greatly impressed by the dragon's ability to negotiate a purchase for food supplies while engaging in a sword fight to the death.)

“Now, would you like garlic on your steak, or are you alright with just salt?”

“Garlic, please,” Sophie said instantaneously, then, “but why did you become a jobbing dragon? Why not work in the family business? That's what I should have done, if my father had not been a professional sewage tank cleaner.”

“Oh, well, originally I was planning to be a banker dragon, in the kingdom of Lydia,” said the dragon, naming a country that had ceased to exist more than a thousand years ago. “And in fact I was a banker dragon, for a time. But dragons in those days were good multitaskers - we had to be, because there was a big shortage in the dragon labour market and we were much in demand - and so occasionally we'd destroy some flocks, steal a damsel in distress or two, as it were, on the side. Should we open a cask of wine? I'm in a very good mood.”

As well he should be. The knight and the dragon (in the midst of their brutal brawl) had negotiated a trade for the damsel in distress model, and while the dragon had received a model of a lower rarity (being the loser of the fight) it was one he needed to complete a set, and anyways he'd had doubles of the one he lost.

A worthy trade all around, so far as he was concerned, and well can we agree with him.

“It's up to you. It's your wine, after all,” Sophie said.

“I think we'll have wine,” the dragon said, whistling a tune as he went to his ice box (where he was leaving the squooshed caribou to cool overnight) and removing a cask of chilled wine. He poured the pair of them two glasses, one decidedly larger than the other, and handed the smaller one to Sophie.

“Yes, we had to do a good bit of damsel distressing, back in those days. I still remember my very first damsel - in fact, she's the reason I'm a jobbing dragon today. Her name was Priscilla; and it was only a very few days after I'd distressed her that the requisite knight showed up, to demand her back.”

“The requisite knight? You know,” said Sophie, “I have been wondering - how would one go about, errm, finding out about dragons, as a knight? Did you post a note?”

“Certainly not,” declared the dragon. “That would be crass. A true dragon doesn't merely carry someone off, like a thief in the night. No, he damselnaps his damsel in full view of the public, while she screams her head off - or, if you'd been lucky to get a good quality one, sings a tragic song. Then her lover goes after you, if she has one; and, if she has not, her father posts a General Notice to All and Sundry, for any who dares to try.”

He plated the steaks. “There was - and remains - a large scholarly debate in the dragon community as to which is the better. Some say the latter, as it gives you a good workout and ensures that only the most noble in form can rescue the maiden. Others contend that nobility of form says nothing about the nobility of one's heart; and that, as the latter is the true mark of a knight - whether one is noble born or not - the only thing that matters is that it is true love which prompts the knight to rescue his love from the vicious beast. I confess to being of the latter camp.”

They sat down to dinner, Sophie savouring each bite of the steak as the dragon continued his story.

“Now I knew, as soon as I'd damselnapped Priscilla, that I had a good one. After They had come to me and said there wasn't enough of a todo for acts of derring do, I strolled into the capital, hands in my pockets, and grabbed the princess fair while she was admiring a dashing guardsman. I was about to fly away, cackling maniacally, when all of a sudden the princess burst into an operatic aria, keening the sultry tones of Bizet’s Habanera across the capital. This music was not, admittedly, all that appropriate to the act of being yoinked, but when one's kidnapping becomes a musical, one knows one's on the right track (a prescient consideration on my part, as I later found out that it was the only song she knew by heart, and that she'd been doing her best with what she had), and I waited until she had finished. More wine?”

“If you wouldn't mind.”

“Well, after a short jaunt back to my hoard - interrupted only by a brief stop at a delicatessen, for knishes (the princess hadn't had lunch) - we settled in, and a few days later who should arrive but that dashing guardsman. I was delighted! At last, a tale of lovers true, reunited after slaughtering all that was wicked and vile (me). Or so I thought. Midway through our epic combat - and it was truly epic, for I had taught the princess kazoo and she was providing musical accompaniment - what should the guard say to me but that he had no interest in anything save his duty, as he did not believe in love.

“I was incensed. It would be one thing, of course, if he were not marrying the princess because he was in love with another, or because the princess was in love with another, or even because he was entirely uninterested in dating, but to not believe in love? The princess, too, was incensed, and nodded along enthusiastically as I informed the despicable fellow - whose name was George - that I did not care how skilled he was with the sword; so long as he should reject the very concept of love, I would not fall to him.

“He protested - even stabbed me several times, once in the heart - but I stood firm, and after several hours of impotent stabbing he was forced to concede that the victory was mine and go back home.”

“But how did this lead to you becoming a jobbing dragon?” Sophie asked, as the dragon began ladling out the pie.

“A jobbing dragon? Oh, no, this is the story of how I became a knight; I got off track,” the dragon admitted, while Sophie tried her best not to spit out her pie.

“How you became a knight?”

“Yes; after it had become clear to me that the kingdom's knights no longer knew nobility of spirit, I realised that someone had to stand up for honour and purity of heart, and who better than the opposite of all that the knightly code represented?”

“And,” the dragon finished, gazing up at the crack overhead, “unless I am greatly mistaken about our approaching visitor, I will be serving again as a knight soon.”