Golden Children: Fantasy

[penthius]

It was the fate of the children that made the earth dragon so angry he split his mouth wide and swallowed them up. They should never have done what they did, or rather, let the king do what he did. They huddled their few remaining children away in their houses and turned down the king's offer of a golden child to replace their own. It had seemed not such a bad thing to let their children go off to the king's special school--an education, maybe a government post in the future, and one less mouth to feed. There were so many children, most people kept only their heir with them, or sometimes, they sent their heir to learn and kept only a girl child to help--

Inspiration: News about the China earthquake, earlier reference to Midas elsewhere, and thoughts of the Pied Piper.
Potential: High, sort of.
Notes: It's unique enough, all right, but executing it would be tricky, and the story needs to be fleshed out.