Xianyu gave a long, breathy sigh and shook his muzzle a little, waving a paw idly through the air for emphasis, his tail giving a slow flick. "I did not make the rules. It is one virgin, of age, or nothing." He said bluntly to the village elder standing before him.
Far from being an imposing dragon, Xianyu was barely five feet tall at the shoulder, with a long, lanky body covered in scales that at once looked blue and green, depending upon the angle at which you saw each part of his body. He was discussing with the elder the payment he was to receive in return for protecting the village. Currently, he was lying on his side, atop the pedestal that usually held him, his stone form sloughed for the few precious hours he was allowed to remain free.
"But we have only one virgin of age...Why can you not take my daughter?" The chief asked plaintively.
"Because she is not of age. Were she but a summer older, I would." He said in calm, factual tones.
It was not widely known outside of China exactly how their spirits received payments. The medieval people had once upon a time believed that sacrificing a virgin would suffice to quell the dragon. But then had come stories of these virgins who had 'escaped', how the dragons had raped them. And then were born the knights who would 'save' the virgins. Of course, they never got there before the virgin was 'raped' and their tales of slaying the dragons were merely wildly fabricated exaggerations of taking a virgin out of a cave in which an uncaring, usually sleeping dragon rested.
Over time, the church had diluted the legends of old, and the true stories were lost in antiquity, and thus it was a wide misconception that in the days of the Chinese dynasty, you sacrificed a virgin to the dragon. Far from sacrificing an actual virgin, it was the virginity itself that was sacrificed to the village protectorate.
This was not as bad as it sounds, considering that dragons in China were much smaller than their western counterparts. For all that they looked the same anatomically, Chinese dragons, and Jade Dragons in particular, were much gentler by nature, their goatee and long, slim muzzles giving them a wise, benevolent look, which they lived up to perfectly.
Xianyu sighed and shook his head slightly, his tail giving an irritated flick. "If you do not wish to pay the toll, then it is my duty not to protect the town for the next decade." He continued bluntly.
The chieftain spluttered a moment, and then went silent, bowing. "As the dragon wishes..." He murmured, giving the protectorate a kowtow before turning on his heel and striding away.
It was not the way Xianyu would have preferred to operate, but rules were rules, and his rules were passed down from generation to generation of Jade Dragons, said to have come from the gods themselves. And there were very real dangers if the rules were not obeyed. He had seen with his own eyes a dragon struck down by an invisible force for refusing to protect a town after he was paid in full for that particular service.
Sometimes, payment was negotiable. Particularly bad periods of time had been marked by Jade Dragons asking for much more than usual to protect their towns. Xianyu knew of one, his brother, who had asked for 3 virgins, instead of the usual one. And he was given all three, for not having a dragon protectorate during times of extreme troubles was not a wise decision. The dragon protectorate blessed the soldiers, made the crops grow, subdued wild animals so that they would not attack without provocation, and in general kept the land in harmony with the people. Without the protectorate, crops withered, animals attacked, and soldiers went into battle without blessings and were much more likely to be struck down.
The protection of a protectorate was high on the list of things a chieftain needed to secure, especially in these times, when much of the workforce was banded together to help build the wall to keep the Mongol hordes from gaining a foothold within the country.
Xianyu smiled to himself as the chieftain came back, a young woman in tow, and he saw quite immediately why he hadn't wanted to give her up.
She was beautiful in a way that most women would never acquire, with soft, porcelain features and a gentle, quiet grace, a simple yellow and white silk robe her only clothing. The chieftain brought her before him and then motioned towards the forest nearby. "There is a place in there that you can be alone." He murmured, kowtowing again before hurriedly making his way back to the village.
The Jade Dragon grinned, his wings ruffling slightly as he stepped down off the pedestal and peered at the woman who he was take into his bed, his tail giving a slightly excited flick and wings ruffling.
For her part, she didn't seem to be scared, and kowtowed respectfully to him, not even making a sound, or flinching as Xianyu stepped forwards and snuffled at her face gently, giving her cheek a slight nuzzle.
"What is your name, milady?" He asked, a brow raising curious even as a paw beckoned her to follow, the Jade Dragon starting to amble towards the bamboo forest.
Following after, with her eyes respectfully lowered, she responded, "Liang Xu, sir."
Xianyu nodded once, peering at her over his shoulder. "And you know why we are going?"
Liang nodded, stepping around the bamboo as they zigzagged their way into it.
As they went, Xianyu lifted his nose, breathing out gently, the fireflies around them waking up and starting to flit about, lighting the way forwards with their softly glowing abdomens.
Very quickly, they were at the designated spot, and old, worn hut, in the middle of the bamboo forest, a platter of food, offerings to the dragon, laid out in front of it, the door opened invitingly.
"After you..." Xianyu rumbled softly, grinning, sidestepping and nudging her towards the hut, his eyes narrowed and tail starting to flick a little faster.
He made no attempt to hide just how excited he was getting. The Jade Dragon didn't much like receiving payment in this way, but after ten years of standing in stone, aware but unmoving, unable to do anything at all other than think...Well, it was like putting a feast in front of a starving man. Morals, restraint, good judgement, and reasoning all went out the window, the scent of the female filling his dilating nostrils as he followed her into the hut.
