The Dragon, a parable
Once upon a time, there was a bloodthirsty reptile. He may have been a man once, but he rose to the top in a den of vipers by being the most cold blooded of them all. He swam through the darkness of a world where you never show weakness. Empathy was weakness, and the strong eat the weak, and the cunning backstab the trusting. The only thing you could trust was that those around you are only to be trusted in as much as you make their best interest your best interest, and their best interest can be trusted to be to exploit those under them as much as possible.
By and by he had become a full grown dragon, lording over vast expanses of desolute tundra. He amassed unimaginable wealth and then he sat contentedly upon his hoarde.
But there was a problem. He felt unsatisfied. More wealth than he could possibly do anything with and unrivaled power wasn't enough, he hungered for more. He began to look around for what more he could take. He opened his fanged maw wide and embraced the a delicious morsel of land called Abkhazia with it. It slide satisfyingly down his gullet. His hunger now whetted he then took a huge bite out of the kingdom Abkhazia had formerly belonged to.
With every bite he felt himself only getting hungrier. He slithered around another neighboring kingdom, hissing threateningly "transssssnissstria." But he was a bit afraid,there were other powers out there possibly even more powerful than him, which if roused to anger could end his reign of of power. He tried to bide his time and entertain himself. He dabbled in farming trolls, and for awhile was able to play puppet master with an animated flesh golem that for awhile was worshipped as a god by a surprising number of people in the most powerful kingdom of the world, but that fell apart after awhile and he was bored and hungry again.
He took a nibble of the neighboring country. It tasted delicious. He took a larger nibble. A powerful foreign king declared that to nibble more would be crossing a red line, and he best not do it, or else, OR ELSE.
With a sly smile, while looking the foriegn king right in the eye, he pointedly took another bite... and nothing happened. He couldn't help himself then, in a bloody frenzy he tore off a large piece.
This gave him enough to chew on for awhile. He smacked his lips loudly while chewing it, and casually discussed business deals with various other leaders to enrich them all. In fact, the dragon was pleased to see that not everyone hated and feared him the way he'd given them every reason to. No, a greedy avarice shone in the eyes of both wealthy boyars around the world, and even among hopeless serfs in red hats. Against all sense they looked at the autocratic power of the dragon and they loved it. Maybe they saw themselves somehow becoming a similar dragon, or maybe they craved the absolute order such an iron rule could impose -- entertaining multiple political opinions is such a bother after all. Or maybe, they imagined the ability to devour nnd destroy people unlike themselves and hoped such a dragon would do so. Probably, all these factors live in the hearts of these people who so admire the dragon.
He spent awhile biding his time, even taking nibbles of foreign countries wasn't satisfying any more, it was too small, and too easy. He licked his lips and eyed the golden belly of the neighboring land. What if, just what if.. he took it all? The whole thing? No one had ever stopped him before, and he was so very very hungry to take literally everything he could. Finally he couldnt' stand it any more and threw himself suddenly through the blue sky and golden fields of his neighbor, lunging right for the neck. He got his teeth around it but.. he somehow couldn't swallow it. To his shock an undaunted bogatyr was standing against the odds, telling him to fuck himself, and gouging him painfully with a trident. He let go of the neck and hurriedly withdrew his jaws, leaving a third of his teeth scattered across the ground. He nervously looked up and all around the world people who had formerly feared him were laughing. He angrily dashed cities to bits but it didn't seem to help, as stingers pierced his scaly hide in hundreds of places, leaving him shuddering and feeling for the first time the animal terror of potential defeat. He withdrew growling to a corner of the land and prepared to fight for his life. Well, for the life of the locals really, since no one was threatening his home, but he was by now so madly rabid he could barely conceive of slinking away.
But how will it end from here?