Work Text:
These are needful things.
To start a journey, you need a prophecy, a dragon to speak it, a boy to believe it,
and most important, a pair of good walking shoes
(without which you would get nowhere for all the boys and dragons you can gather).
To kill a griffin: a spellbook with the right spells in it, a lance, and a friend to wield it.
Of course the friend is most important
(you can always run away until you find the book and the lance; the griffin will wait for you).
Questing Beasts are more complicated: you need a Seer to warn you, a prince's blood to shed (for nothing else can quell it),
and if you want to keep the prince afterwards, you need a life you are willing to trade
(a life for a life, always, and your own doesn't count).
Say you wish to forge a legend for a sword: You need a dragon to temper it, a lake to cast it in,
and a cursed maiden to guard it
(do not lift her curse, or else she won't be able to eat interlopers and that will not at all be helpful).
To raise a king, you first need a king to kill and a brave prince to succeed, and there should be sundry villains for the prince to fight and brave knights to follow him.
You may also require a maid to be his queen
(because you may love him, but not keep him; see the the next part).
To make your king a legend that will live forever, there must be a few betrayals - his kith and kin must turn on him unjustly:
his loving queen, his sworn knights, his loyal friends, so that common voices may cry out for his being so wronged,
and finally, you need a lake where you can set him adrift, to vanish into mists and legend.
Afterwards, you may follow him, if he will still have you.
(He has always needed you, and you, him. What happens when both no longer need each other is up to you.)