The man inched his way to his right, carefully clearing the small rocks and pebbles that threatened to send him on a quick journey back to the bottom of the mountain. He continued his slow shuffle. As he moved one foot after the other, he could see his breath as it crystallized in the frigid air. The hard gusts of wind stealing the small amount of warmth that he had been able to build up while wearing the worn out rags he called his clothes.
The muscles in his legs yearned for rest, but the mountain side trail was too thin for him to sit on. His chest rubbed against the rocky surface for support as he continued on. He had been climbing since before the sun had even begun to rise, and no it was beginning to retreat below the horizon, casting long streaks of orange, pink, and purple across the clouds to his back.
The man knew that if he failed to the the mouth of the cave before nightfall, he would die. The lack of light would remove his vision, making him unable to continue pushing forward. The lack of strength in his limbs meant he would be unable to stand and wait until morning.
So, the man continued to inch his way along, casting his doubts aside. Either he would make it, or he would not.
Relief flooded his body as he saw the lip of the cave, just a bit further. The hole in the mountain was immense. A massive round window into a pitch black void. He continued to move his legs, the pain and exhaustion suddenly gone.
Just as he pulled his body up and into the cavernous hole, the last of the daylight slipped away. Only the stars remained, bearing a faint light, barely enough to see.
The man let his body collapse on the ground. He need not worry about taking an express way back down any more. He laid on the cold stone more many minutes, simply breathing and allowing the pain in his arms and legs to dissipate.
He could have fallen asleep there, at the entrance to that massive cave. It was tempting. The thought of what resided within stopped the idle fantasy. He had climbed up to the top of the mountain to ask a question to the creature that resided within. The type of creature that lived in massive caves, on the sides of massive mountains, a massive journey away from any civilization.
He knew that a dragon called this cave its home, and he intended to speak with it.
The man shakily got back to his feet. He instinctively went to grab for his backpack, only to remember that it been stolen getting here.
The man had given up his mansion to speak with the King. Then he gave up his gold and horses to speak to the Wise Men. Then he sold his expensive clothes to speak with the Stag. And then, he had his bag stolen while trying to speak with the Dragon.
He had lost everything. His title, possessions, and even his time, while on this crusade to find the answer to his lifelong question: “What is the purpose of life?”
Now, as he stood before the entrance to the cave, he would finally have the answer.
The man had used his title, and most of his family’s wealth to buy his way in to see the King. The King, after all, was the most powerful man in the realm. Surely he had the answer to such a question.
Upon arriving before the King, the man asked his question, “What is the purpose of life?”
The King answered, “The purpose of life is to serve your kingdom. To serve one’s own kingdom is the greatest action one can make. Just as you serve this kingdom, by being its servant, I too serve this kingdom by leading its people.”
The man thought for a moment, before voicing his dissatisfaction with such an answer, asking further, “How can the purpose of life be to serve one’s kingdom? There are many kingdoms. Can each person from each kingdom be following their purpose, if they are all serving different kingdoms? Is one’s purpose to fail should the serve a kingdom that opposes your own?”
The King dismissed him, with barely more than a hand wave and a few words, “If this answer satisfies you not, go and speak with the Wise Men of the North. They will tell you the same. But know this, for such callous disrespect, your title is forfeit. None question the authority of the crown.”
The man was quickly taken from the audience with the King, and tossed out. He was permitted only his gold, and whatever possessions he could carry on a single horse.
As the man arrived in the North, to speak with the Wise Men, knowing he was unable to continue feeding his horse, the man parted with it, receiving enough for it and the possessions he could no longer carry to continue traveling for several more months.
The man waited several weeks to see the Wise Man. They were known far and wide to have been able to solve any problem or answer any question. Many Kings had visited to discuss how to handle situations within their kingdoms, and every time one listened, their kingdom prospered.
It was this benevolence and wisdom that caused the line to form. It stretched from the city in which they resided, and wrapped around it many times. Any could ask questions, if they could wait. By the time the man was permitted an audience, his gold pouch was beginning to feel light.
“And what would you ask of us,” the man at the center of the table asked. There were a total of nine Wise Men sitting before the man. Four Wise Men to either side of the one in the center.
The man straightened himself, then posed his question, “What is the purpose of life?”
The Wise Man at the center answered, “A common question indeed,” said with a chuckle, “And yet the answer is quite simple. The purpose of life is to serve the gods and to spread his glory. To achieve such perfection is to fulfill the very purpose of one’s own existence.”
The man stood before the Wise Men, once again thinking this answer through. His face frowned, and he once again asked further, “The gods of my kingdom, the ones I was raised with are not the same as your gods. And your gods are not the same gods as the kingdoms surrounding you. How can I ever be sure I am working towards this purpose, if I know not which gods are the correct ones? Which gods should I spread the glory of, and how does one know that is the correct choice?”
The Wise Men all stood, angered by the response of the man. Once again the Wise Man at the center of the table and responded, “Through faith, such an answer would be clear, for the gods know, and would guide you had you the faith in your body to listen. If the answer of the gods satisfies you not, then go and get your answers from the Stag. Maybe the beast will show you your folly.”
The man knew not who the Stag was, but before he could ask what they meant, he had been removed from the Wise Men’s presence. Once more the man was no closer to his answer, and much poorer than he had started.
Many weeks passed, and the man’s gold purse dried up. He sold the jewelry he wore, and began to work the jobs he once had servants do. Still, he continued his search for the Stag that the Wise Men had spoken of.
Many months passed as the man sought out the mythical Stag. He had been reduced to selling his fanciful clothes in order to finance his search. They were the last of his possessions from before his quest for an answer had started.
Many years passed, and the man’s hair began to turn gray. Still he searched for the Stag, and still he found it not. And, yet, despite the lack of progress, the man continued his search. He picked up many skills, and obtained vast knowledge as he continued to travel and work jobs as he could find them.
The man had slowly became a self sufficient, capable of traveling through the woods alone for long periods of time. He learned what was safe and what was deadly to eat. He learned how to hunt and how to clean game. He learned the ways of the woods. Then the ways of farm life. Then the ways of smithies.
And, one day, while traveling south on his own, while the man was about checking his traps for a meal, he beheld a most regal sight: A white stag, glowing in the early darkness of the day. It stood proud and tall before the man, and eyed him contemplatively, before it calmly turned and walked away, back into the brush and tall trees.
The man looked down at his trap, a small brown rabbit having been caught, and cursed. He released the string that held the rabbit hostage, and watched it sprint out of sight.
He wasted no time; grabbing his things, he ran to follow after the Stag. It did not take long for him to enter a clearing within the trees. The grass was short and lush, and a large stone sat at the center of the circular meadow. Up, at the top of that rock, was the Stag. Once more it faced the man, and once more it put on a regal air.
“You have searched for me for a long time,” the Stag said, nodding its head so that its horns lowered towards the man, “I usually ignore your kind. They often give up their search quickly. You have not.”
The man stood silent for a long time. The reality that the Stag was real, the fact that it spoke, the truth that he yearned to know, all bubbled up within him as it had many years ago.
Even despite the man’s long silence, the Stag patiently waited.
Eventually, the man found the words he had been looking for, and spoke, “I have spent many years, and given up almost all of my worldly possessions in search for the answer to my single question. What is the purpose of life?”
The Stag’s ear twitched. Possibly as it contemplated the answer, or possibly as it contemplated the question. It took only a few moments for the Stag to respond, “The purpose of life is to protect and nurture the future of this land, all land. Nature and its living and breathing connections must be protected at all costs. Doing so, one would fulfill their purpose, and be welcomed back into the embrace of the world’s energy without fault.”
The many years of the man’s journey resurfaced, as he remembered the answers from both the King and the Wise Men. The man sighed with tired disappointment. He gestured around himself, “How can the purpose of life be to protect, when nature exploits itself? How can the rabbit, which eats and kills the grass, share the same purpose as the wolf that would eat the rabbit?”
“I understand why you have persisted on this quest to find me for so long,” the Stag said, moving down from the rock, “it is because you are unlike the others of your kind. Others would accept an answer, and move on, or fail to find one and give up. But you? You are strong willed. Strong willed but stubborn in your own belief. The answer does not please you, so you look for a reason why it must be wrong,” it said, beginning to make its way close to the edge of the woods, “If my answer does not satisfy, as any others have not, then seek out the beast at the top of the mountain, south of here. It lives in a cave, and sleeps upon its gold, and may have the answer that you seek. But, I expect that its answer, too, will not satisfy you.”
And, as the Stag finished speaking, it entered into the brush and tall trees, and the man never saw it again.
The man took the words that the Stag had told him, and thought about them long and hard. A beast at the top of a mountain, asleep upon a pile of gold. There was only a single creature that he knew of that would fit such a description: a dragon. A mythical monster know to burn and pillage whole kingdoms. The Stag told him to seek out such a creature?
The man thought about whether or not he should seek the Dragon out. A beast of pure destruction could not possibly have the answer to his question, could it? But, even if the man did get the answer he wanted, what would be the odds that he would be allowed to leave the cave alive?
He toiled over the possibility, in the middle of the meadow in which he spoke with the Stag. If he did not at least try, would he be able to live with himself, never knowing if he could have had the answer?
With firm resolve, the man set off towards the mountain. He was able to use the skills he had picked up over his many years of hardship to keep himself from starving on his journey to the south. It took him several weeks to reach the rocky plains surrounding the mountainside.
Now, he was no more than a day or two of hiking away.
The man sat down, drew off his pack, and made himself a fire. His feet ached from the rapid pace he had forced upon himself. He rolled out his ground cloth, and quickly fell asleep.
The feeling of cold metal on his neck was what woke him.
Three men stood around the fire, while a woman, stood above him, holding the sword that was pressing into his neck. The four of them were all covered in thick hide leathers.
“You’re quite a ways from civilization, friend,” the woman said, “You could get in trouble without anyone around to help you.”
The man gulped, before responding, “Please, I mean no harm. I only wish to get to the top of the mountain.”
The four laughed at what the man had said.
The woman pressed the blade harder against the man’s neck, “And what would be up there for someone like you to be so interested?”
“I only wish to speak with the dragon that resides there.”
Once again, the four laughed.
This time, it was one of the men that spoke up, “A dragon? There haven’t been dragons for a hundred years. And even if they was dragons still, why’d you want to go get roasted, shredded, and eated by one?”
“I have a question for the beast that I think it could answer.”
The four all looked at each other, confused, before the woman spoke again, “And what question could only a dragon answer? How best to roast a steak?”
“I want to ask it, ‘what is the purpose of life?’”
“That doesn’t sound like a dragon type of question to me,” the woman said, as she pulled the blade from the man’s neck, which the man greatly appreciated.
“The Stag told me to ask it.”
The four exchanged glances, before bursting once again into laughter.
“I can tell you what the purpose of life is,” the woman said, grabbing the man’s bag, “the purpose of life is to take what you can, and enjoy what you can take, before someone comes along and takes it from you,” she tossed the bag to one of the men standing around the fire, “Usually, this is where I’d kill you, but I doubt that a man going to ask a dragon about the purpose of life, after being told to do so by a stag, will live for too much longer regardless.”
The group of four walked away, into the darkness of night, with the man’s bag in tow.
It had been two days since the incident with the highwaymen, and now the man stood before the entrance to the cave. The journey he had start, many years ago, was coming to a close. He was sure he would find his answer within. Any other outcome was impossible in his eyes.
The man took a step into the darkness of the tunnel, ready to meet whatever awaited him.
The man’s eyes, to his surprise, quickly adjusted to the dark. To further his disbelief, the man swore he could see the walls themselves glow a faint blue. The floor before him clearly illuminated in front of himself as he made his way deeper, turning and twisting as the rock’s path wound themselves into the mountain.
Unlike the rest of his journey to get to this point, the man quickly arrived at his intended destination. He knew it when he spotted gold coins beginning to gather along the walls as he continued to walk. The odd gem lying about with the stray gold soon became a piles of gold and gems. It only took a short period of time before the man saw it.
A mountain of gold, jewels, and gemstones, hidden within the mountain. The wealth of nations stood before the man, who could only look up at it and see not top. It was a collection of treasure that no kingdom, nay, not even all of the kingdoms of the world could compare to.
But, for the man, despite this miraculous sight before him, found that he could not rejoice. For the one thing he truly desired, the Dragon that could possibly answer his question, lay upon the pile of riches, fallen to the endless slumber. Only its skull and bones left to witness the site of the riches it once guarded.
The man fell to his knees and wept. He had been ready to die for the answer to his question, and now he was unable to even pay that price for what he sought.
The sound of clinking gold pulled the man from his weeping state. Up, he looked, finding a small avalanche of gold forming. At the top of the avalanche’s apex, a small, red scaled, head popped out.
“Flee! Run in terror! For you have disturbed my hoard,” a high pitched voice squeeked.
The man stared in dumbfounded awe as the tiny reptile, no larger than the stray cats that had roamed the streets of his home town, pulled itself out of the mountain of gold. The beast looked just like the way the man had pictured the Dragon, if only many, many sizes smaller.
“You,” the man said, “You’re the Dragon in the mountain?”
The Dragon hopped up on a pile of gold, helping to get its eye line above the man’s. It did this just so that it could look down upon him, “I am,” it proclaimed proudly in its high pitched voice, “Now begone before I show you anymore reason to be terrified.” The Dragon then jumped from the gold pile and glided to a spot in-between the man and the valuable metal pieces. It puffed up its chest as it stood guard against the intruder.
The man glanced back and forth between the small dragon and the massive skeleton behind it.
“Surely,” the man finally said, “A dragon as fierce as you has nothing to worry about when it comes to someone as week and old as I, oh terrifying beast.”
The Dragon turned its head, confused, but also very interested in what else the man would say about him, “Continue, mortal,” he squeaked.
“Before you force me departure from your magnificent hoard, may I ask you a few questions? I have traveled far for this moment.”
The Dragon puffed out its chest proudly. It was a quite magnificent hoard, “Very well.”
The man pointed to the skeleton behind the Dragon, “If this is your hoard, who was that?”
“The hoard,” the dragon said, eyeing the skeleton with the corner of its eye, as if it might come back from the dead at a moment’s notice, “may not have started as mine. But hoards of weaker dragons regularly are taken by those that are more fierce. As you can see, I have bested the previous owner of this hoard. I, and I alone, now lay claim to its riches.”
The man nodded, not believing the story, but also not particularly caring about the truth of it either. The man looked at the little dragon, “Would you mind if I asked you a question I initially meant for the previous owner of this hoard?”
“If that is your final question for me.”
“It is,” the man sighed, “I have been on a very long and tiring journey, the last several years,” the man said, recounting every event and milestone he had gone through, from meeting the Kind, to being robbed by highwaymen just days prior, “I now stand before you, ready to ask the same question I have asked many times before: What is the purpose of life?”
The dragon sat, pondering the story of the man, and the question he posed. There was a long silence before it finally responded in its high pitched voice, “You have never gotten a proper answer to your question, because it is a bad question.”
Offended by the tiny thing before him, the man responded, “And I believe that to be a foolish and dismissive response.”
“It is a bad question,” the dragon repeated, settling into a bit of the gold it was standing upon, “You asked a King the purpose of life. He responded rightfully that the kingdom is his purpose. You asked the Wise Men the purpose of life. They responded rightfully that their gods are their purpose. You asked the Stag the purpose of life. It responded rightfully that nature was its purpose. You even asked the thieves that stole from you the purpose of life. And they too responded rightfully that their purpose is to take until they no longer can. Their individual circumstances and views dictate what purpose they deem is correct. They have a goal that they work towards, no matter how pointless or foolish it seems to you. They care not what you think the purpose of life is, just and as you do not care what their purpose is.”
The Dragon stood, turned around, and began to climb the mountain of gold.
“So,” the man said, annoyed, “If I have been asking the wrong question all this time, what question should I have been asking?”
The dragon paused and turned its head back towards the man, “We agreed on your other question being the last.”
“And you only told me that my last question was a bad one. So what is a good one?”
“The dragon huffed, “Why worry about “life’s purpose”? Surely no single purpose could serve every single living creature. Just as you said a wolf and a rabbit cannot have the same purpose, could you and I? The Stag and a king? A thief and a Wise Man? No. So, instead of asking what the purpose of life is, ask what your purpose in life is.”
The man silently rolled the question about in his head, “And what is my purpose in life?”
The dragon turned its head and began climbing up the gold mountain once again, “I know not, and anyone that claims to be able to tell you is either a fool or a cheat. Only you can answer why you wake up in the morning. I wake up to protect my hoard. Why do you?”
A Donut with Sprinklez 