[mesolec] Lóngs fill me with dread every time I approach them. They're just so... happy.
The wind picked up as I was on my way to see the Lóngs. A Nor'Easter. I have no idea whether that cretch of dragons had the ability to control the wind, but at that point it seemed ludicrous to suggest that any torment I suffered didn't spring directly from their scaly hands, so I blamed it on them anyway. In retrospect that was probably the first mistake of that leg of my journey, because t kept me from noticing that the wind was coming in staccato bursts that I only later recognized as Balarian Morse Code. Now, aside from having missed half of the message and the Balarian Morse Code's atrocious syntax, it's more than a pain to try to read patterns in the wind and as a result I got very little of the message. I understand it was something about control structures and contingencies, which meant one thing--the acrolec was alive and at his tower.
It didn't mean anything else. It really didn't even imply it. The acrolec was supposedly the symbol of Estunal peace and prosperity, but the man is quite capable of sitting in his ivory tower while the nation burned down around him. (He wouldn't play a fiddle, though; at best, he'd set one of his contraptions to synthesize orchestral works, and that probably only to drown out the screaming.) (You might think this sort of man to be surprisingly callous, but then you should probably take a moment to reflect upon what kind of man would allow the construction of an ivory tower to begin with. God is in his heaven, and all's still screwed up with the world.)
Getting information from the acrolec would be, if instinct served, even more aggravating that trying for the dragons--because while the dragons had a kind of humour that might at least be amusing in retrospect from the vantage a few decades hence, I've never had an encounter with the acrolec that didn't make me want to go back in time and retroactively make his life hell. He's that type of man.
I've had very few dealings with the Lóngs, but they share that peculiarity common to all magical creatures: they tend to be really, really odd. Their society is what the acrolec terms "totally implosive"--they don't generally interact with the rest of the world. Why should they? They've got a pretty sweet life in the Lóngjia--playing all day in hot springs or sunning in the rocks, kicking up a good fog if they feel like it or soaring like ribbons through the air. (You might at this point point out that ribbons don't generally soar, and you'd be right to do so. But if you've ever seen a Lóng in flight, you know that there's really no other metaphor.) (...besides, it wouldn't be the strangest thing I've seen the flying around the Lóngjia. The talking cake would have to take that cake.)
Dealing with the Lóngs is a tricky affair. They're not consummate business, but they do love to barter, for stories especially. But you have to be careful what stories you tell them, because when an idea strikes their fancy you'll be in luck if they forget it by the next blue moon. After some bard told them the story of Rumplestiltskin they went through three years when all they would accept in barter was golden straw. Last I heard of the bard he had changed his name and moved to Anatoly, and good riddance to him.
The Lóngjia isn't exactly well hidden. You can smell it before you see it--the smell of wet fur and steam and plant life too abundant to survive on the sun and steam its fed. (You can bet the Lóngs have their dextrous little paws in that particular petty miracle. Aesthetes, all of them.) And you can see it from a long way away--the perpetual blue sky, the low-hanging blanket of steam, the rivers of a spectacular (and utterly unnatural) white-blue that the Tay King would kill for, and probably has.
Let me tell you a bit about the Lóngs.
To imagine a dragon, it's pretty easy. Just think of the most smug cat that nature's ever designed, turn it into a lizard without losing any of its essential cattishness, blow it up to the size of a small house, and stick wings on the back. Lóngs--still called "dragons" by some of the folk who don't know what they're talking about (or insist on general terms for everything)--are a bit stranger.
First, I guess, you have to start with an otter. A good happy otter in the prime of its life, whose life is a good life. An intelligent, playful otter, with the natural cleverness that allows it to use tools like rudimentary hammers, bandsaws, and Rube Goldberg-like pully arrangements. They you very carefully stretch that otter to be two, maybe three times as long as normal between the forelegs and the hindlegs. Then you color-shift it into any color you wouldn't expect to see on anything other than a bird in the Tropics or possibly a tiger or one of those brightly-coloured monkeys. (Some Lóngs are brown. They're generally regarded by the rest of the Lóngs as homely, apathetic, or just plain dull.)
Once you have your elongated otter, stick a pair of antlers onto it. It really doesn't matter what animal they're from, as long as they're antlers; I've seen antelope antlers, moose antlers, wildebeest antlers, even (in one horrifying instance) stag beetle antlers. It really doesn't matter what color they are, either, as long as they don't clash violently with the Lóng's coat. (Minor clashes, unfortunately, are perfectly allowed and in some portions of the Lóngjia even common.)
Make your elongated antlered otter triple-jointed and as clever as a squirrel with hir paws. (Or more clever.) Imbue them with a fixation on pretty things and an insatiable curiosity about everything. Limit their attention span. Make them as shrewd as a card shark and as jovial as a six-year-old with a year's supply of candy. Give them the power of flight and a grab bag of other little magical quirks.
Congratulations, you now have a Lóng. If you are a god, observe your creation and snicker. If you are not you can still do the same, but I'd recommend you do it from behind lead shielding.
But they're friendly little buggers--even if they can't seem to tell the difference between stories and reality--and usually up for having visitors as long as they aren't required to leave their hot springs or go out of their way for anything. Most people get fed up with them long before they can annoy the Lóngs.
Please note that that wasn't a pun.