Poem: "Saving the Maidens"
This poem is from the March 4, 2014 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from rix_scaedu, aldersprig, and Dreamwidth user Rosieknight. It also fills the "role reversal" square on my 1-2-14 card for the Trope Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by laffingkat.
Saving the Maidens
Nobody remembers how it started,
this custom of chaining maidens to rocks
as a sacrifice for the dragons.
All anyone knows is that,
if you stake out a sacrifice,
the dragon will take her
and go away for a few years.
They also do not know
that the dragons
consider the whole practice
to be barbaric.
The young women strung up
are often battered from the struggle,
and rarely virgins anymore,
legend notwithstanding.
Levinclaire is particularly frustrated
because he keeps going out
and coming back with girls
who want to settle with someone else,
but he dutifully pries loose the chains
and scoops the crying maiden
into his great clawed hands.
This one's name is Chalondra,
and no, she doesn't want
to become a mathematician like him.
They never do.
They always wind up
studying kitchen chemistry
or literature or astronomy
with one of the other dragons.
She stops crying
when it finally sinks in
that nobody's going to eat her,
and when she realizes that even though
none of them specialize in human law,
Levinclaire has a few books on the topic.
It's not a university, exactly,
just a range of mountains
where few humans ever venture,
riddled with dragon lairs
and the towers of rescued maidens
who have become sorceresses.
With the tutors restricted
to wealthy young noblemen,
it's nice to have an alternative,
and besides,
sometimes the maidens are safer
with the dragons anyway.