Lur the Trifling

It was in the ninth year of the reign of Lur the Trifling that the snows came. Prior to that, it had not snowed for so long that snow was only known by reputation; no one had any experience of it. At first, it was potentially amusing, as people slipped, and slid, and landed on their bum-bums. But the snow fell and fell and fell, without stopping, until it was yards deep and began to suffocate people in their buried houses; and still and on it fell, until only bits of the very tallest houses could be seen. One might come and go through one's garret window; but that did not make coming, or going, at all a wise thing to do.

Finally the snow stopped, after thirty-nine feet had fallen, layers crushing layers to the firmness of stone. The few people who were left began to realize that a really uncharacteristic misfortune had come upon them and that, even were the snow some day to melt, nothing would again be as it was. Yet they did not blame Lur the Trifling, could not, for, as they justly spake among themselves, Lur couldn't make it snow if you beat him with chains.

So another scapegoat must be found, but for some time, that goal was not pursued, as it seemed out of place, meet only to commonplace disasters and not to such an one as this. But eventually the food, and the firewood, and the ability to explain anything to children, began to run low. As if at once, it was discovered that the lore of a lifetime had ceased to apply: nothing was as one had thought. For only one example, there is not much meat on a cat, and that not easy to get, or to cook. Here or there, such epiphanies might be improving; but most were gall, and therefore somebody's fault.

Meantime, Lur the Trifling was growing weary of living (if the word will reach so far) on the top floor of his palace, whose windows had no balconies. Severed from his audience, he missed them, though he had not known he would, and though they missed him rather less. He would have liked to reach out to his people with vague words of comfort (key word "vague"), but mere occupancy of the throne did not endow him with any exceptional power to shout across drifts of snow.

But that is how his subjects were reduced to communicating, and their conversations turned increasingly to the question of blame. Setting aside, as mentioned, any thought of reproaching the head of state his person, it was nonetheless clear that the snow should have been prevented, and that prevention in general was the particular job of Those, or Them, In Charge.

Anticipating sovereign desire, a chamberlain had made search in the archives for relevant historical parallels, and found that once before, it had snowed likemuch: in the fortieth year of the reign of Swinn the Inexplicable, nine- greats-grandfather of the present ruler. Eagerly turning brittle pages, hoping to find pertinent advice, the courtier gradually fell into disappointment, as it became apparent that the records of the fourth-preceding century preserved as much fantasy as fact, if not more. The stomach dropped at the thought of reminding majesty that, on the only similar occasion, the snow had been melted, and the melt, in its millions of gallons, drunk, by a fire-breathing dragon, which had then proceeded westward at speed and voided the oceans themselves. It seemed to somehow make light of the current predicament -- quite apart from the complete implausibility of such a thing happening twice.

But...! The chamberlain had a sudden flash of insight, much above his pay grade, which caused him to sit back so quickly that his chair overset. Once he had been brought round and the bleeding stopped, he was pleased to find that he remembered his brainstorm: suppose a dragon, so far from solving the problem, had caused it? Not a fire-breathing, but a snow-blowing dragon: white as the snow itself and thus conveniently invisible, and of any useful size (a hundred feet tall, two hundred...?) Here was the exact needful propaganda, accommodating the people's righteous rage while aiming it towards an imaginary target, capable of withstanding infinite imaginary retaliation.

Rung were the bells, hoarse were the shouts, as the word spread quite literally from rooftop to rooftop: it was the dragon that did this thing, the dragon that had not been heard of for three hundred and forty-seven years -- and would probably not resurface for another three centuries and change. The whole exercise unfolded just as taught in the textbooks of public relations: minute variations in the story sparked sterile debate on the margins; divisions between strategies (hot pursuit, or preparation for next time?) emerged and were lovingly heightened.

It was yet the same day, late but before dusk, when the public discourse was gradually supplanted by awareness of a series of immense crunching sounds, each louder than the last, but so deep and vast that they seemed to come from every direction at once. Louder and inconceivably louder they grew, until the next one must have split every surviving eardrum in the city: then they stopped, and there was an awful pause, while every eye searched the sky in vain for the least gradation of white on white.

Then came the voice, enormous, hollow, withal somewhat tentative, even ingratiating. Slower than slow, from an invisible height it spoke, saying:

"Y'all need some help with this mess?"