The Emperor's assistant burst into the throne room, sweating and heaving great breaths. In between pants, he managed to exclaim, "sir, sir! We have just learned a great new technology!"
The Emperor, already quite shocked, rose up and eagerly asked, "oh, do tell me more... what have our scientists from our most advanced universities and academies discovered? Something earth-shattering? A cure for syphillis? What it is that makes the stars and planets to follow their courses? How to mix the elemental substances of nature into new concoctions? A way to build better roads and siege engines? Perhaps that whole 'gunpowder' thing we've been hearing so much about? Well, tell me, what is it!" Indeed, this would be the technological discovery that would carry his name and reign into the history books!
"Sir, we have learned... how to raise animals for food!" the assistant responded, a great grin across his face.
"Do what now?!"
"Yes, raise animals as crops, then eat them later!" he responded again, still grinning wildly.
"You mean like fishing?" the Emperor's enthusiasm slightly dropped as confusion took its place.
"Yes, well, something like that. But instead of just catching them in the wild, we keep them on farms!" the assistant responded again, still quite enthusiastic, but with some doubt now creeping into the seams of his grin.
"Farms AND animals, you say? That sounds preposterous... Who would do a thing like that, the animals would eat all the food!" enthusiasm turned devastatingly into rage and historical embarrassment.
"Yes, sir, but, well, then we eat them!" insistently now, the grin quite forced at this point, as the assistant nodded, trying to get the Emperor to at least mime him.
"Yes, but they would eat all the food still... This must be why those Europeans always look so skinny and sick, they let their animals eat all their food..." In his thoughts, 'Emperor Putabo of the llamas' started to enter into his mind.
"Perhaps... sir, I do not feel you appreciate such a fundamental discovery..." the assistant's grin finally fell into utter disappointment.
"No, well, we already knew the Europeans were doing it, but that's no reason to do it ourselves. They also like killing each other relentlessly, should we do the same now?" Rage, silent, quite loud rage.
"Well, there are those pesky Mancha that keep -" abstractly opined the assistant.
"No, they don't deserve the 'European treatment', I'm afraid, and there will be no more such talk!" Rage of rages, the Emperor would have no such barbaric talk.
"Yes, sir. Anyway, should we begin converting our farms now?"
"No, of course not! What animals are we to raise anyway, pumas and bears? We have none here of note, save llamas, and their meat is quite disgusting..." 'I should have been the one to discover gunpowder and engineering, and now I'm the jackass that finally got around to raising animals for meat. I'm a damned vegetarian, what sense does this make?' he thought to himself.
"Yes, sir..."
"Anyway, might as well learn how to ride the damned things now that we can keep them on farms. Might come in handy some day, being able to ride the llamas into battle." Well, hopefully something will come of this. Yes, visions of triumphant spearmen atop glorious, bearmored llamas crept into his mind, an unshakable visions that preoccupied the Emperor for the remainder of his day.
But what color to paint them?




We were meaning to get around to that someday...








Death of an Emperor















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