A Proposal on Dragons

 I am Sir Karsten, third son of the house of Shulze, serving as a royal knight at Castle Dietrich. I am writing this report to His Majesty, the King's court, for his consideration.
 On yesterday evening, myself and the 9 other knights from Castle Dietrich rode from the castle to engage in a training exercise, while the other 10 knights stayed behind to defend the castle. On this day, the exercise was to be sparring with the King's men, meeting them at a clearing in the forest often used for such events.
 On this occasion a newer knight, Sir Pierre, rode out with us. He is from the far west of the kingdom, and is not familiar with all of our customs here near the royal capital. He has feuded with the other knights on more than one occasion due to a perceived offense on either side, like the time Pierre made a gesture at Merten which the former believed to mean simply "come with me", while the latter thought it meant something entirely different. I will not sully the King's court by writing exactly what the gesture means to us, but suffice to say it's something a man should only signal to his wife.
 But never could I have predicted just how odd this fellow would be. As we met the King's men in the clearing, we heard a distant roar, followed by a great gust of wind which bent the trees around us. The sky grew dark as a colossal beast blocked out the sun, descending upon us. As we have all, except Pierre, been trained in proper dragon fighting form, we immediately took up our positions.
 Once we realized that Pierre had not been trained on dragon combat yet, it was too late. He was outside the formation as the dragon descended upon us, mouth open, ready to swallow Pierre whole.
 But to our shock, rather than swallowing him, the dragon began to lick him. Surely, we thought, the dragon was just checking how he tasted first? But then Pierre began a bout of raucous laughter, followed by scratching the dragon under the chin. As we watched in disbelief, the beast flopped over, and Pierre began rubbing its massive belly. He told the monster, "Gregoire! I told you that you could not follow me here."
 He turned to us, laughter still in his eyes. "I apologize, my friends. You know how dragons are about listening to directions." As he looked at us, the smile dropped from his face, and he asked, "Why do you all look as if you've seen a ghost? What is frightening you?"
 Upon some discussion with Pierre, we made an amazing discovery. His father is a count which rules over a small village west of the mountains. You are aware that His Majesty controls a small enclave of territory west of the mountains, but not far past them lies Carolingia. Furthermore, the settlements within this enclave do not often intermingle with us on the east of the mountains, and are culturally much more akin to their Carolingian neighbors.
 As it turns our, Carolingians do not fight dragons, as we do here. Rather, they tame them, treating them as livestock and war-beasts alike. According to Pierre, their eggs are delectable.
 I tell this story to the His Majesty's court in order to make a proposal. Here, we send dozens of men to their deaths each year fighting dragons, in order to prevent them from burning our villages and eating our livestock. But Pierre has opened my eyes to a better way. I propose that we take these dragons in so that they and their population can be controlled, instead of allowing their numbers to grow wildly in the mountains while we slay those who fly down looking for food. With all the King's resources, we could tightly control their breeding. Undoubtedly, feeding a population of dragons will require enough livestock to sustain a dozen or more villages, but with their unfertilized eggs in return we can somewhat abate the food loss.
 If His Majesty is still not convinced, let me make one final point. We have been at peace with Carolingia for hundreds of years, but it would be foolish to think that this peace would last forever. I have heard rumors from the courts that unease between our kingdoms has been growing as of late. If we were to break out into conflict with our neighbors, would we really want their knights riding dragons, while ours ride horses?
 Yours truly,
 Sir Karsten of Shulze