The Monster and the Scroll

The Monster and the Scroll

In a distant kingdom, the crown passed hands after a bitter contest. The people quarreled over who had truly won, but in the palace archives there already lay a scroll. It spoke of wars that must be fought, enemies that must be named, and lands that must be brought under the throne’s shadow.

Once the crown was secured, the scroll was unrolled. Yet to follow it, the kingdom first needed a spark, a wound so deep that no subject would dare doubt the throne again. One morning, the towers of the city fell. Smoke filled the sky, and with it rose a story: a monster from the mountains, a faceless foe who hated the kingdom’s very freedom.

The people trembled. The armies marched. Faraway lands were broken open, and gold poured from the treasury into the furnaces of war. Yet from those same lands, spoils returned — hidden riches, contracts, favors, and rights to future harvests. Fear was the coin of the realm, but profit gilded the vaults.

Years passed. The monster was never seen, only spoken of in whispers and tapes. Some said he was ill, perhaps already dead, but the story kept him alive. Then, one night, the king’s knights returned with a tale: the monster was slain in his den.

No body was shown. No head on a pike. They said it had been cast into the sea — too dangerous to keep, too sacred to bury. The people were told to rejoice, for the tale was finished.

Some cheered. Others whispered. Had the monster truly lived so long? Or had the story itself been the true weapon, the spell that bound the kingdom for an age?

And so the fable ends: when a monster has served its purpose, it is cast away — but the fear it taught, and the bounty it unlocked, remain useful long after its body is gone.

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