Scherzad The Scribe

Okay, with a little research into the lifestyle and tendencies of Dragons, I have figured it all out:

Once upon a time, there was a poor village scribe who had gone into the mountains to escape his daily toil. He worked hard for the village head man. He wrote letters for him, to the king and to the heads of other villages. He recorded births and deaths for him. He was called upon occasionally by the headman’s daughter to write love letters and poems to her suitors—and then called upon to read them, and reply, by the suitors themselves. He had been ordered by the headman to keep a daily account of the doings of the village, and to inflate the importance of his employer in these accounts. But, secretly, his real love and pursuit was writing stories—a pointless pursuit, for sure, since no one but he could read. Nevertheless, he persevered.

This retreat to the heights was intended to expand his imagination, to heal his soul, withered by years of trite details and drippy sonnets. He had packed rations for a week--taking besides, only his walking stick and cloak. Now he found himself, exhausted and elated, standing on a shelf far above his river-valley town, able to see beyond the kingdom, to the very ends of the earth it seemed. Scherzad, he said to himself (for that was the name his unfeeling parents had bestowed upon their defenseless child), you will return to that mean little town a great writer. This trip was your best idea ever. It will expand your literary horizons to match what your eyes behold from this mountainside.

And with that soaring thought, a dark shape swooped in from the left and the poor scribe was snatched from the rock shelf and carried off into the setting sun. When the struggling, terrified man could think rationally again, he found himself in the grasp of a scaly foot, big enough to pin his whole body. One arm was trapped in the talon cage, but his other, and his legs, remained free to dangle alarmingly far above the valley---which was rapidly disappearing into the distance behind him. Looking up he finally made out his captor, and he heart stopped beating long enough to make his chest hurt. No, that was the tip of one of the talons, piercing his skin, just above his breastbone. Above him, enormous wings stirred a gale into his eyes, as the long, scaly neck twisted to allow a head to peer back at him. A head with nascent horns, a long snout and---as he watched, horrified---a long, red, rope of a tongue, forked at the tip, that whipped back to taste his sweaty face. A Dragon! I’m doomed. My life, my literary aspirations! To end this way is just simply not fair!

Dragons don’t do “fair”, though. He was being borne off to some crevice of horror, probably to become a tidbit for dragon whelps. The cold, rushing wind of the leathery wings, the dizzying height, the sight of the monster above him—the shock built to its screaming climax and he fainted. Limp prey flopping in his claws, the dragon swiftly flew back to his nest.

I know--the story doesn't explain anything. Bear with me; I'm getting there.