It was bad. Real bad. A pack of humans? A group of humans? A Rave of humans. Yes that's the word. A rave of humans kicked open the doors to the Intergalactic Federation senate. The entire senate turned to see what the commotion was. They had a dude carrying a boombox on his shoulder and it was playing Rick Astley. Loud.

"Order! Order in the Senate!" The speaker tried to shout over the horrific racket. The humans ignored the command and approached the podium. Only upon reaching it did they turn down the volume and switch to a kareoke machine. They started with What's Up by 4 Non Blondes. He-man dance remix.

Yeah. Once the guards threw them out again, this time they were banished to their own alternate reality universe where life could never evolve. They were DONE with humanity. Transported the entire planet, just pushed it through the Tannhäuser Gate. Nobody deserved neighbors like them. Memory wiped them AGAIN for good measure.

The historians writing about the ascension of the young Princess Tiffany and the death of her immediately family have been able to clear up some details which weren't readily apparent at the time.

The portraits formerly in the possession of the dragon Chester Earthen Flame and now in the Treasury Museum of Draconic Hoards on the face of it were non-traditional hoard items. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Chester Earthen Flame, much beloved by his family, was cognitively challenged. They tried hard to shelter him from the slings and arrows of life but weren't always successful. He had unfortunately become aware of the relationship between princesses and dragons but only in the vaguest of terms. He became obsessed with their acquisition, but had no real notion of what one was.

The historian Princess Westal of Harpavia, sixth in line to the Harpy thrown, recounted a tale of Chester Earthen Flame told by his older brother during her captivity about how Chester had to be told repeatedly moose weren't princesses. He went on to tell how their parents had come up with idea of making the princess thing a collectable trading card game. They knew if he ever encountered a Princess Protection Squad it would be the end of him so they convinced him princesses where beautiful paintings of the daughters of monarchs. They even would seed the woods with one periodically and let him 'capture' the princess. They quickly became Chester's pride and joy and he would spend days with them. With the assault and theft he was inconsolable and took decades to fully recover.

While it is widely known that Princess Tiffany was taken hostage, rarely is it mentioned her subsequent ransom consisted of the royal portrait gallery.

The walls of the castle shook and dust fell from the ceiling. The guard captain tried again "Sire, we need to get you out of here be-" but was once again silenced with a "Shhhhhh" from the king. The king was struggling to hear the recording crystal that was playing. He rewound it once again.

None of it made any sense. Nothing he'd seen yet would explain why dragons were sieging his castle. The recording started with the adventuring party skulking their way around some caves high in the Craven Mountains. They were searching ever nook and crevice. He was beginning to wish they hadn't finally found what they were looking for. They found a dragon cave.

It wasn't a very big cave. It wasn't a very big dragon. It was clear what the "quest" they were on: Slay A Dragon. The king groaned. Only idiots took that quest and the dragons got a free meal so nobody complain, especially not him because he had fewer idiots making trouble. And what trouble they had made.

He looked more closely at the dragon they had ambushed. He wasn't just small... he was kinda malformed. His scales were mottled brown and orange. The head seemed a little misshapen? Also what were those things the dragon was... organizing. Were those portraits? Portraits of women? Hey that looks like a portrait of his daughter. How? Why? He shook his head in confusion. And that's when the barbarian rushed in screaming. What an idiot.

The dragon spun around, the barbarian already anticipating this along with the dragons fiery breath and so had leaped into the air. Except the dragon hadn't breathed fire and really wasn't that fast so the barbarian had mistimed it and the tail by shear luck thwacked him into a wall. Blood went everywhere.

That's the point when the rest of the team rushed in but instead of finding a dragon on the offensive they found a sad pitiful dragon in the corner crying and trying to get blood off one of the portraits. A dragon on the offensive isn't that hard to kill oddly enough once on the ground. But a defensive dragon all turtled up? Yeah much harder to kill.

Poor thing was totally distraught too about killing someone and what did they do? They did the only reasonable thing. They stole his hoard. The recording ended.

Guess he'd better get caught up on what's going on outside. "Captain. Report." he commanded.

The captain stood to attention "Sire, the big orange dame set our outer wall is on fire. We are running low on arbalest ammunition. One of the juvenile browns collapse the east tower. I'm not sure how much longer we can hold out."

The king pondered and finally spoke "You've seen the crystal, would you say that dragon is similar in appearance to those outside?"

"Sire, they look very similar sir, except this dragon is a bit... runtier sir? Less majestic? Kinda I don't know. Just overall less?"

The kings eyes opened wide in horror and realization: "You know Edmund, the footman's boy, Down syndrome? You think dragons...? Any ideas for how to placate the parents of a Down syndrome dragon?"

The coffee shop looked pretty typical from the outside. Opening the door however, it had a spicy fug that took me back to the bazaars of Samarkand in it's heyday. The sent of coffee and rich tea blends had me recalling a happier time of exploring and sampling the many vendors with my wife. They bore me now as to the counter, my feet barely touching the ground as I drifted forward. It was like going home.

I suppose the cashier he asked for my order but my brain long and far away must have responded in Avestan because he was shoved aside and there she was. And there went my mood.

"Hi" I tried. "Nice place you got." The shop was dingy and the furniture worn but damn it, now I really could do with a drink.

"Don't 'nice place' me, you have some gall coming in here. What do you want." She glared at me.

So many ways this could go if only I could find the words to connect the 'now' to the backstreets of 'then'. I'd like to say her ire abated, that we sat, drank soma and reminisced. Or that I said something witty but as she would say, that would require wit.

I smiled bemusedly and ordered a chai latte. Maybe next time.

There is this part of my brain that keeps saying: "the picture is upsidedown"