Bathroom Monologue: Another moment with Consumer, the Dragon

"These days I serve mostly as a bank. There's no trust safer to leave your gold with than a dragon of my size and reputation. If the reputation doesn't scare them off, I'll eat them. It's a very simple policy. I like the work because mortals have a tendency to die, at which point I default on the contract and keep whatever they left. I got a whole hollow mountain of treasure out of this deal. Only have one customer right now, Ninx Anghell, who never seems to care about picking up her stuff. It's all in the dropping-off for her. She's one of perpetual thieves, you know. Like a compulsive shopper without the credit card. Ambitious as Hell, too. I'm using a golden roof for a pillow right now that I have no idea how she managed to steal. The charge to open her account was simple: seven old television sets. Of course we don't get any reception here, but I've got a way of futzing with vacuum tubes. I can tune into Limbo on most of them. How I love watch those unbaptised babies float."

Bathroom Monologue: A Moment with Consumer, the Dragon

Once upon a time stories began with, "Once upon a time." When they did, I was conscripted by some would-be demigods. They paid me in leatherbound books and chests of shining silver, to lie on and read by. I've shrunk in my old age, but back then I was as big as a healthy nation. My veins were rivers and lakes of fire. My stomach? A capitol city or two. Those would-be demigods hired me on as part of their new underworld. Anyone horrible enough to participate in ethnic cleansing, I devoured, and they were to spend something like six-hundred and sixty-six years in my bowels. These deities thought it very appropriate for ethnic cleansers to be digested and purified in the infernal guts of a dragon. Oh, how those dictators, generals and warrior kings jived and shivered on the way down. I miss that job.