Serializations of the Hitherby Dragons novels

Categories Navigation Menu

Elf Wrangling

Elf Wrangling

The faculty position in Elf Wrangling at the Lethal Magnet School for Wayward Youth in Brentwood is the result of a peculiar historical accident.

The problem of atypical— read, inhuman— students had been raised at the board meeting.

Known species were quickly disposed of.

Vampires? Ineligible. Demons? To be trapped in the bodies of children and resocialized, using standard disalienation techniques. Ghosts could be exempted from P.E.; nithrids would power the school. Svart-elves would be carefully monitored—

Someone asked: “what about regular elves?”

And nobody knew.

That’s why Professor Gregory Rapawy, Lethal Magnet Professor of Elf Wrangling, goes out every morning to the wrangling fields. That’s why Professor Rapawy stands there, with lasso firmly at his hip, just in case the elves show.

It’s only paid off once.

There was this thing. Kind of like a dinosaur. Kind of like a moth. It came up from the elf-fields. It had a number of heads and a number of eyes. It breathed fire, or something that was kind of like fire, anyway. The science kids said it was weird.

Professor Rapawy subdued it, of course. You don’t train for everything from Fingolfin to Keebler without being able to handle some random dinosaur-moth. But there wasn’t a bounty.

It wasn’t an elf.

<<

>>

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *