Storytime!

Back around breakfast I figured out that today wasn't just an ordinary day! There I was, shoveling rice and egg and natto into this perfect chattering mouth, and it hit me that today was going to be the day I figured out what exactly the GLASS DRAGON was. Those two words just popped into my head! Glass. Dragon. Like, I know I've heard the words around before, or maybe I just thought I did? You have to remember that I was eating at home, and home's really, really weird, because I live in the family shrine, which isn't a collection of buildings like most shrines are but is made out of what used to be an old Jotun building back when they lived here instead of people, which is why the ceilings are so high and there are so many corridors and you can get lost in there if you aren't paying attention, but really all you need to do is follow the cats because even if they don't lead you out at least they won't lead you into any real danger, because cats might be mean sometimes but deep down even the most cranky of tomcats doesn't want to see you get really [i]hurt[/i] because, well, then who's going to open the canned tuna and plop it down in the bowl? Well, other than me, I mean, but cats tend to lump "people with thumbs" all together. Like, the way people just think about "cats" and they don't distinguish between different breeds and personalities unless that cat's really important to them? That's how cats feel about people, we're all just a bunch of dumb hairless talls with thumbs, except for me and my family, because we're the people that the cats own, except we also own the cats, but they definitely own us, so maybe it's like a double ownership thing? That's weird. If two people own each other, who gets to give the orders? Because you can just order someone not to give you an order. I guess it'd work like me and the cats, which is to say that we care about each other and just generally try to pay attention to what we're doing.

Anyway, Glass Dragons! You'd think that all that glass would make them really fragile, but, nah, that's not the way I see it. These are thick panes of stained glass, the most durable of all glasses, except for the safety glasses that they wear down at the Hayashi shrine while they're working on hot glass. Each scale's its own perfect pane! And then in its guts it's got this roiling molten glass gunk that it can puke on people instead of breathing fire, which makes it ultra super dangerous, because at least you can put out fire, but if you got the glass on you it'd meld with your skin and maybe then the dragon would be able to control your tormented zombie body to use as a minion with thumbs. Also it'd be able to shoot lasers out of its eyes by aligning the glass inside just perfectly, and letting the light zap out!

But Rinley, you may ask, but Rinley, I can't help but notice that we are [i]not[/i] currently suffering under the iron boot of a dragonocracy. And the reason for that is simple! Like all super OP villains, the glass dragon had a weakness of some sort that made it explode, boom, pssssh, just like in that one episode of She-Ra! But because it's been so long since the glass dragon was around, that weakness has been lost, and now if someone who's smart and brave and incredible doesn't figure out what it was, then what will we do if the glass dragon ever comes back and starts shooting people with its eye lasers and then vomiting hot gunk all over them? We'll be toast! And glass zombies! And before you say of course the glass dragon isn't going to come back, isn't that exactly what you'd [i]want[/i] people to think if you were a glass dragon? Think about it! Think about it.

So I am out here by the creek trying to figure out how exactly I'm going to figure out what the glass dragon's weakness was. Because, like, maybe it got written down at some point? But it must have been so boring that nobody ever included it when telling stories about it blowing up or melting or however it actually got beaten, I don't remember how that part went. I [i]could[/i] break into Professor Hayashi's Archive again. Yeah, you heard me. I'm a seasoned criminal. I've got the place [i]cased[/i]. Just walk in through the front door? Ha! That's what she [i]wants[/i] you to do. That's why I know every window that doesn't close right, every one of the patrol routes and bathroom breaks, and the blind spots where you can hide from detection while you shovel your way through books that don't even have pictures [i]or[/i] narratives, like, okay, I'm not a kid, I know that not all books are going to have both, but if you don't have [i]either[/i] then you might as well just be like a school textbook, and I'm not here to learn, I'm here to figure out how to blow up and/or melt glass dragons. But, as I just mentioned, half the books in the Archive are [i]boring hot garbage[/i] and the other half are mislabeled or misplaced or make Professor Hayashi go white as a sheet when she notices that I'm reading them, and, like, I'm not a kid, I know what dicks look like, I literally was reading that one because I wanted to get to the part where it explained where the chakra points were and how to punch them to make people explode just in case I ever ended up being given an amulet by a dying man on the beach and then suddenly the FBI's after me and I need to punch them in the chakras.

Or I could do something [i]Rinley[/i] would have done. Which is what I'm trying to figure out. Would he have cracked open a nut and had a note fall out, written by the glassmaker who made the scales, saying that there was one scale right on his belly that was flawed and brittle? Or would he have been trying to grab a fish out of the water for dinner, when one stuck its head up and told him to listen up, because this was going to repay him in advance for saving the life of the Fish Princess? Except I don't have any fish in the creek today except for the teeny tiny ones that are fun to catch with a net, and the only thing in these nuts are snacks. And a wasp, weirdly. I have no idea how that got in the nut.