She was Ankh-Morpork's richest spinster, who'd never thought she'd be married ~ Fifth Elephant

* * *

Oh, each morning I get up I die a little

Can barely stand on my feet -

Take a look in the mirror and cry

Lord, what're you doing to me here?

Sybil Deirdre Olgivanna Ramkin liked dragons. They didn't whisper behind your back or spread vicious rumours like the girls she'd been at school with. They didn't raise their eyebrows when she entered a tailor's, like the needlewomen there. They didn't titter that he was all she could get when she accepted Ronnie Rust.*

~

*They blew up, yes, but that was a minor occupational hazard.

~

And even he hadn't really wanted her. He'd only proposed because his father had threatened to disown a son who turned out to be not a hundred per cent he-man... and the engagement had lasted three days. She would rather be a spinster than marry him.

I work hard every day of my life

I work till I ache in my bones

but everybody wants to do me down!

She straightened up, putting a hand to the small of her back. She was getting old. Have to stop mucking out the dragons herself soon. She could get someone in, she supposed. Perhaps Sara Venturii would do it in the holidays. She liked dragons, didn't she? Sybil couldn't quite remember. She had half-a-dozen godchildren, the usual fate of the old, unmarried and rich. She hated every one of them, but they were daughters of her schoolfriends and of the other Ankhian aristocracy with whom she'd grown up, and she couldn't have turned them down.

She didn't like her schoolfriends awfully, either. Come to think of it, Society in general was a bit lacking. She didn't go out much. There was only one invitation which she would have accepted unreservedly, and that never came.

They say I'm going crazy
They say I got a lot of water in my brain
Ah, got no common sense
I got nobody left to believe in

He'd gone. He'd gone a long time ago, and she had accepted it. They'd never even been together... just good friends, and that had almost been enough for a while. She rarely saw him now; he rarely saw anyone socially.

Dragons never abandoned her.

Sometimes she wished they would.

Anybody, anywhere, anybody find me somebody to love love love!
Ooooh somebody find me, find me love.

Dragons were a nuisance. What good had a dragon ever done anyone? They would love anyone fool enough to give them food.

She was too honest to let herself get away with that. She herself was far too close to what she called wrong. She would, she was prepared to love gladly anyone who would deign to love her. But since that would never come, she was prepared to live and die alone. After all, she had her dragons.

Which reminded her. She had planned to try again to beget a line from Lord Mountjoy GayscaleTalonthrust III of Ankh. He was a dragon of the highest pedigree, but like many of the highest pedigree (humans as well, she thought, reminding herself of her immediate social circle) he was a little lacking in the masculine department. It really needed two people to try to persuade him to mate in the air; but the pedigree was impeccable and the bloodline to valuable to waste. Let his offspring be by some dragon of good healthy yeoman stock- Alicia Scaleshine would do - and the bloodline would soon have the strength it needed.

Ironic, wasn't it, that she spent her life breeding dragons when she too had been bred. Bred for centuries to be warlike, but she was no good at war. She was a woman, and the women of the Ramkins had been bred for breeding. She had failed at that too.

But Mountjoy, if she had any say in the matter, wouldn't fail. She herded Alicia into the enclosed pen and let her fly around; then she picked up the cob. A couple of abortive attempts and he was cautiously flapping his leathery wings. Not flying, exactly, but hovering at least.

"Here, Allie..." she cooed, and eventually persuaded Alicia to come somewhere near Mountjoy. Who promptly flopped to the ground, curled up and went to sleep.

Why was he behaving just as the young men of her class had?

There was a knock at the door, and she cursed. Not badly, but quite badly enough for her.

When she had struggled out of the pen and opened the door, there was nothing to be done. The first visitor she'd had for months, the first man for years, and she was wearing her thickest protective armour. But this was a chance she couldn't let slip.

"Ah, my good man. Do you know anything about mating?"

Bad, I know, but I had to write it... the characters, save Alicia Scaleshine, belong to Terry Pratchett and the song belongs to Queen (Somebody to Love)... the footnote style belongs to samvimes, of this site, from whom I have filched it without permission... slap my hand... the plot, what there is of it, is probably Terry Pratchett's... and if there's anything else I doubt whether it's mine! Too many people for plagiarism, let's call it research...