((You will become weapons,)) the mad-drake seethes gleefully, ((and kobolds will be your masters!))
At this, Dizzy-tail breaks out laughing outrageously, causing you to turn in confusion and Blunt-snout to glower at him hatefully. ((You are as dumb as a hatchling!)) Dizzy-tail giggles. ((How do you think that these dumb animals can be masters of anything? They aren't even masters of themselves, let alone dragons, you colossal dummy!))
((They build!)) Blunt-snout hisses.
((So do ants!)) retorts Dizzy-tail, ((It's all programmed like a spell. If you let me work a little first-year magic, I'll put an enchantment on a few lodestones, and I can make them do a mambo for you.))
As you try to pick apart that thought by your lover, you wonder whether you actually heard "mambo" or some draconic equivalent of the concept, or did he pick the concept of a mambo from out of your own brain without you noticing? Distracted by these thoughts and not being fully able to follow, you quietly let the conversation continue.
((And they have magic!)) Blunt-snout bellows over the muffling spell. ((Music, culture, literacy...))
((You're a senile, old doofus...)) Dizzy-tail chants over Blunt-snout's appeal.
((...everything that dragons have and more, right under our silly snouts all of this time...)) Blunt-snout continues with increasing tones of hopelessness.
((...who has abducted two innocent drakes to try to carry out some popinjay fantasy...)) Dizzy-tail continues to retort, his tone more disdainful and withering than ever.
You are almost starting to feel sorry for Blunt-snout, but that only lasts for about a half a second as he reveals the reason why he chose you and Dizzy-tail specifically.
((You are not innocent by tribal law!)) Blunt-snout bellows triumphantly. ((By tribal law, Dizzy-tail, you are guilty of subverting the natural use of your body, and I have enough material as evidence that you would be put to death as quietly as possible, with the memory of your existence being erased and buried. The very mention of you would be grounds for not even something as dignifying as punishment, just ridicule. Your existence itself would be undone, its imprint rubbed over with sand. You would not be remembered badly, Dizzy-tail. You just would not be remembered at all.))
((You are an outsider,)) Dizzy-tail retorts. ((The word of a crazy, old hermit, heck, even a retrieved memory is not worth much. I know the law as well as you do. I'm a star pupil for my level of advancement, not some young idiot. Save it for some hick from the outskirts of tribal lands. You don't intimidate me, you pathetic, old drake.))
((A death-memory is absolute and cannot be challenged,)) Blunt-snout points out querulously.
((Fuck you!)) Dizzy-tail snarls, hissing.
((Reserve that for your lover if he will ever let you on top,)) Blunt-snout spits.
You find your voice. ((So you abducted us just so that you could blackmail us,)) you observe disgustedly. ((You are filth.))
((I am Machiavellian,)) Blunt-snout amends flatly. ((If you are going to call me names, I prefer they be accurate and specific. Castigate me for it. I deserve it. This is heartless of me and unpardonable. I have no adequate defense for it, and I am surely damned. I have given up hope for my shameful and wretched soul, which I have sold for what I realize might yet be insanity. You may try to understand my purpose for what I do or not. You will cooperate, either way, for better or for worse.)) Blunt-snout's broken tone tells you there is not going to be any reasoning with him, that he has already thought through every conventional moral argument. Shit.
The tip of Dizzy-tail's tail flicks with suppressed fury as he sits there on his haunches. ((Amber-fields is not under the commandment of tribal law. He would just be declared a savage and driven into permanent exile, not unlike a solitary kobold that isn't worth the effort of killing. The law binds only me. You cannot use him to control me. I hereby refuse to cooperate with you, and I shall hand myself in to receive my punishment under tribal law. I resign myself to death and erasure for my betrayal against the natural order, and I only pray that my next life in this world shall punish me adequately to compensate for that which is inexcusable under...))
((Can we listen to what he is suggesting first?)) you urge him gently.
Dizzy-tail pointedly turns his back on Blunt-snout, and he shoots over to you, ((I have been submissive to you, Amber-fields, and I remain submissive to you. You may listen to this dolt carry on if you choose to. Where you lead, I will follow. If you chose to follow this wacko, then I would bear it only as your mate, pulled along against my better judgment by my foolishness for you, not as a willing party. From henceforth, I am only involved as YOUR fool. I submit to either dying or being humiliated. I forfeit both my dignity and my life, and they are yours to abuse. Neither belongs to me anymore.))
Blunt-snout now looks into your eyes. ((I assume that I must appeal to your judgment, you who has most likely correctly called me filth. I come to you truly ashamed for how I must use you, but it would be easier for me to make my plans come to pass if I could convince you that my ends might come close to justifying my despicable means. I am at your mercy to just give me your listening ear.))
You realize that the thought has been translated for you into your human terms. "Open mind" means something different, to a dragon, than what it means to a human. An open mind does not always mean open-mindedness, but it means just being receptive to hearing broadcast thoughts. "Listening ear" would imply physically listening for a sound in the distance, which seldom is related to communication. "Listening ear" is the closest thing your remaining human memories have to a meaning that is related to what he actually said to you. ((I shall reserve judgment for until after you have spoken,)) you reply.
((First,)) Blunt-snout says delicately, ((let me inform you that this involves you becoming a mount. These whelps are going to learn how to ride you, even while you remain a whelp yourself. Your mind is malleable, which gives you an advantage over an adult mount. While my own mind remains set on perceiving myself as having a paternalistic role that I know really inhibits me from this transformation, my hope is that you will learn to see yourself as being a part of an intimate symbiotry, between kobold and dragon, in which notions like those of dominance or submission or those of the presence or absence of equality are the meaningless constructs I know in my intellect they are. This process of transformation will involve you being domesticated, tamed, and cared for. If you submit to these creatures' curiosity instead of snapping at them and humor them instead of spurning them, then I am pretty sure that they will automatically begin the process of converting you into a tamed animal. Both your mind and your body might be altered, though, both becoming softer as a consequence of gradual hormonal shifts that I have noticed the beginnings of even in myself.)) Come to think of it, you do notice that he seems pudgier than you and Dizzy-tail, although you had previously chalked that up to him being older. His attempts to be authoritarian also have occasionally come across as querulous, which you had also chalked up to him being just an old drake but now see as possible signs that his mind is becoming more like that of a domesticated creature. He may never be truly tame, but it seems almost like he would prefer to be.
Dizzy-tail snorts contemptuously. ((We are the animals now, in your mind? A traitor to your own species. A quisling. A...))
((I thought you were a fool,)) Blunt-snout reminds him silkily.
An injured silence is all that Dizzy-tail offers back.
You ponder Blunt-snout's scheme carefully. The benefit of just letting Blunt-snout have his way is that, if it is proved that he is, indeed, completely crackers, then the shame for it would fall upon him. He might even apologize for the failed experiment and release you and Dizzy-tail on the condition of it never being mentioned. On the other hand, if the crazy drake were to turn out to be right, then that would mean changing the destiny of an entire species, but perhaps such would be a good change: the idea of defending the domestication of horses while condemning the domestication of dragons seems dissonant to you.
You may also attempt to undermine Blunt-snout's scheme and potentially escape the fate of becoming enslaved to a colony of kobolds, for even if these creatures do have intelligence, you might not entirely approve of becoming, effectively, a beast of burden. However, you know that the ultimate outcome of this is likely to be the permanent extinction of the kobolds: if it doesn't happen now, it will happen eventually as the systematic eradication of them, by the dragons, just keeps getting worse. Blunt-snout would be left more spiritually broken than he already is, and you might just end up with genocide being on your conscience.
On the other hand, you could tread a middle-way of some sort. Perhaps Blunt-snout is on to something, but maybe dragons have a more dignifying sort of destiny, insofar as the kobolds, than becoming domesticated creatures that might obediently pull war-chariots for them. Allies, perhaps, rather than traded goods. This option has inherent risks, though. You are starting to sound, to yourself, as if you were buying into Blunt-snout's insane beliefs, and Dizzy-tail might just renounce you if he believes you have become a grandiose fool like this one. Like all possible plans, this one has risks and drawbacks that would have to be accepted.