“Surely, when the season’s right, they’ll … just get on with it?” the newly appointed Assistant asked as he struggled into his bulky fireproofed suit.
The Chief Keeper snorted and hauled up a bucket of fleshy chunks, “Ah, if only it was as easy as all that. They’re frigid little bastards. Worse than pandas. Come on.”
The Chief Keeper flung open the enclosure door as if it were just a garden gate and stomped inside. The two dragons lay in a vast, dozy coil, their massive green-scaled chests shifting with sleepy slowness. The Chief Keeper scooped out a meat lump and hurled it at the nearest snout. It struck and an eye the size of the assistant’s head opened lazily.
“Well, get to it.”
The assistant cautiously wrapped a hand around one of the gobbets. Folded into the steak were scores of oysters, still in their shells.
“If that lot doesn’t get them going, I don’t know what will,” sighed the Chief Keeper. “I keep hoping that we’ll get an egg out of them before I retire. This place needs more dragons.”