Poem: "Moral Victories"

This poem came out of the December 4, 2012 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by a prompt from DW user Primeideal along with this picture by Ellen Million.  It has been sponsored by janetmiles.

For centuries,
disputes between human and dragon
were settled by the raiding of villages,
the offering of virgin princesses,
and the dispensation of knights in shining armor

followed by assorted slaying
and either snacking
or the giving of hands in marriage.

Then one day,
the princess and the dragon
looked at each other and chorused,
"I call bullshit."

So they negotiated a truce
and took their decision to the king,
who stuttered his way through a capitulation
rather than have his castle burned to the ground.

When the nobles whined
about the descration of tradition,
the dragon and the princess rolled their eyes
and consulted a wizard of game design
who assisted them in devising a replacement tradition.

The next dispute was therefore resolved
by two teams, each consisting
of a princess and a dragon
supported by a dozen knights,
the objective being
to capture a flag
instead of a person.

To the amazement of various kings,
this proved quite effective,

and nobody had to get
raided in the middle of the night,
chained to a freezing monument in a very  thin dress,
sent on an insanely suicidal quest,
stabbed, set on fire, eaten,
or thrown into bed with a total stranger

besides which,
the game was far  more fun
and turned "dragon slaying" into a spectator sport.