Titan lizards and technicalities.

The Dragon Council was in an uproar (and considering how loud dragons usually roar, particularly uproarious uproar, they were meeting via communication crystal, and within the first five minutes, they’d shattered 25 sound crystals. Luckily their minions had come to expect things to get loud considering their masters couldn’t out-show each other via sound by any other method but sheer volume, so they had prepared a particularly noisy chandeliers worth of spares, and even then they were worried that it may just prove insufficient.)

SILENCE roared Drxxas (which came at the cost of another half dozen blown crystals.) As the senior in years, there was a mistaken impression amongst dragonkind that with years came wisdom. (Anybody who has ever heard a politician speak will have indisputable evidence as to how flawed this stance is, but it was not a position Drxxas was particularly keen to divest his fellow dragons of given the advantages it brought him.)

The screaming, roaring and bellowing gradually died down to as close as a dragon politician ever got to quiet (so just the wrong side of ear-shattering), and the meeting began.

“Now, I’m sure you all know why we are here; we have a... unique situation to deal with.”

“No kidding Lord Drxxas, seems you have changed your magic to understatement,” rumbled Fyar, whelp of Flayem.

Drxxas shot him a pointed silence that suggested to the young whelp that maybe he didn’t want to engage in a battle of wits with him. (After all, it could hardly be called a battle with the opponent so poorly armed,) and also that maybe it was best that he not try sarcasm again with a dragon who was there when the Skaelds invented the limerick. (A pointed silence can say a lot with practice, and Drxxas had had a very long time to practice.)

“Now, as I was saying before, I was so rudely interrupted. An elder has emerged from before the awakening.”

At that, there was something of a hushed rumble of voices (12 crystals and one minion dashing off desperately to restock just in case.)

“Who cares? Their status is irrelevant; seniority only applies to the living.” Growled Durtdygga, the elder of the earth dragons (who may have had a slightly vested interest in not being outranked by a newcomer just because most of their body was stone, in their opinion, fossils didn’t count, thank you very much.)

A disapproving rumble from Shade, elder of the undead and darkness dragons that blew out an impressive fifty crystals and sent more minions scuttling for extra crystals (or at least cover) suggested that maybe, just maybe, it would be wise for them to reconsider their position on this particular issue rather rapidly.

“I retract my previous statement,” said Durtdygga quickly; he really did not wish to pick a fight with Shade and their companions. (Enemies who, when you rip a leg off them, don’t kick up a fuss, but instead pick said limb up and proceed to club you with it tended to make him anxious for some reason. He much preferred his enemies stay dead; in fact, he was very particular about it and did his best to make sure. Shade gave him the willies for that reason; she had a hell of a reputation for holding extremely long-lasting grudges too.)

“So what do we do? Dragon, but not dragon, do we kill? Support? what do we do?” ranted Swiftwing of the wyverns (they always were the flighty sort in all senses.)

“Don’t go getting all torches and pitchforks”, grumbled Shade, “that’s a human thing, besides I have no objections to a senior undead dragon.”

“They aren’t undead, though; a chunk of them is artificial; besides, a human had a hand in their rebirth; you want to taint this place with human magic?” Growled Scree of the stone dragons (who managed such a pathetic wheedling tone it barely blew three crystals.)

“And what pray tell is wrong with human magic? It’s not magic’s fault the primates picked it up, now, is it? I suppose; next, you’ll be saying that we shouldn’t use our fire because humans have fire too.” Griped Abrcadabr, a scholar of magic (who really did not have a dog in this particular fight until somebody slagged off magic, well... that was over his line, he liked magic and hated most of the other dragons.)

“Well, it’s about control, isn’t it?” Said Durtdygga, he had a new angle to work now, and he was going to push it.

“Well, there is the issue of control; they are, after all, a construct and one animated by human hands. We do not want humans influencing our decisions.” Drxxas said, his tone making it clear he was deep in thought on this issue. (Really, he was more concerned with covering his scaly ass, high positions in the council didn’t grow on trees and waiting on his predecessors predeceasing him so he could claim seniority had taken far longer than he would. Have; liked.)

“I have read the reports of the mage who animated them; from what I’ve read, she performed the animation and destroyed the control charms.”

“Bet the humans just loved it when they found that out,” snickered Shade (4 crystals). “They get all uppity about the undead; I mean, you lot go out and destroy a village nobody bats an eye, I do it, and they’re off with the torches, and the pitchforks, and grumbling about how the land is cursed. Remember one time I convinced this hero that fire would scare off the undead. It was hilarious; the pratt ran into a zombie nest waving around a lit torch. The look on his face when he realised zombies don’t burn, and if their clothes do, they just get bitey was priceless.”

“If we can get back to the issue at hand?” Drxxas interjected as the chuckling died down. “They can’t really count as a dragon in the traditional sense.”

“Why not?”

“No wings for a start.”

This time it was Durtdygga’s turn to growl disapprovingly (and 40 crystals went pop, the minions were frantically reloading.)

“Not all dragons have wings, remember?”

“Then they also have no magic.”

“Actually, this is a fascinating case; they were killed in the mana meteor strike. Plus, during their reanimation, they absorbed more; they are held together by Magicode.” Abrcadabr chimed in helpfully. (It really wasn’t their fault they couldn’t see the other dragons facepalm or read the room.)

“Then where’s their hoard?” Drxxas tried desperately

“They live in a whole valley full of highly valuable crystals,” Shade shot back. She didn’t care as much about being a senior undead dragon as she did on putting one over on Drxxas; that was a hill she was more than happy to (re) die on.

“What kind of hoard’s that? It’s got things living in it, eew.” Interjected Fyar (whose hoard in his mother's Volcano seemed to consist mostly of a guitar his size he’d somehow convinced a human to craft for him, then proceeded to never play, and a few naughty stone tablets he thought his mam didn’t know about.)

“Minions”, Shade said smugly.

“Do they qualify as minions?” Drxxas ventured.

“Let’s do the checklist. Do they add to the hoard? Yups, they dig out more shiny stuff.”

“What about looking after their master's needs.”

“They provide back scritches from what I can see in the ethereal network” (yes, some dragons were still on there, after all, who would want to be the admin to ban a dragon?) Abrcadabr added.

“Alright, then do they improve the den?”

“They dug the den to start with.”

Drxxas scratched his scales nervously; he was going to have to concede this, wasn’t he?

“You all are missing a very big point here.” Came a voice that had been unusually quiet so far; it was Thynka, the one who would probably have been in charge did dragons not go by seniority.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Big issue is constructs are seen as property by humans; this could set a dangerous precedent if we don’t acknowledge them as independent. Do we really want humans thinking they can own dragons?

200 newly replaced crystals exploding, and 35 deafened minions showed that there were some things they wouldn’t squabble over.