Bettina Crole: The Clerk Who Rescheduled Doomsday With a Spoon

I ask Ashfang to confirm the exact minute of the burning. I keep the village calendar and I need it precise.

Ashfang chuckles, smoke curling from his nostrils. “Dusk, the last golden thread before night’s curtain. Exact minutes are for court scribes, not dragons. But since you’re so keen, I’ll say... 6:17. Leave your diary's margin neat, parish clerk." He eyes your spoon with amusement. The rain muffles distant crackles; time drips like water down your collar. The village, waiting in the wings, is counting on your next act—tick tock, Bettina.

I scratch a calendar into the ash with the spoon: the week across, the hours down. I ask him to point at his slot.

Ashfang leans in, snorting embers as he peers at your scribbled time-table carved in ash. "Very... methodical," he says, his tail flicking dry leaves like a grumpy librarian shushing too many whispers. With a disdainful claw, he taps the slot marked six in the evening. "This is the hour of doom, parish clerk. Now, what says the brave with only a spoon?" His eyes gleam sharper than your spoon's dull edge, and the rain hisses as tiny flames leap nearer the village's thatch roofs. Tick tock, indeed.

He points at dusk. I ask what he has scheduled after that, and I wait while he works out that the answer is nothing.

Ashfang blinks, genuinely puzzled. “After burning the village? Nothing scheduled. No gala, no dragon committee meeting. The end, like a badly planned buffoon’s banquet.” He scratches his chin with a claw, as if surprised by the void beyond his fiery agenda. “You’re fishing for post-destruction plans with a spoon? Bold.” Ember bits drift down like confetti for a party no one will attend. Your turn, parish clerk: the dragon’s calendar has a glaring blank—how to fill it?

I ask what he did the evening after the last village. He says he waited. I write waited into every square after dusk.

Ashfang exhales a smoky sigh, eyes glazed like burnt toast. “Waited. Sat on scorched stones, watching silence spread like bad gossip. That village became a ghost story. Tonight, maybe the same... unless you clerk scribble a new ending.” You etch 'waited' into each empty square past dusk, a calendar haunted by inertia. His tail flicks, dislodging a rain-slick leaf onto your spoon. "Using ash and spoon for poetry? Impressive as a soggy casserole." The smoke thickens; the village’s flickering fate tightens. Your move—turn the waiting game into a new plan.

I offer to book him properly instead: something every week, all year, but only if the village stands to provide it.

Ashfang pauses, nostrils flaring like twin chimneys. “A standing reservation? Perpetual entertainment with a village as the venue? Intriguing... and possibly profitable!” He flicks a charred claw toward your spoon, now glistening in the rain. “But I’m no performing monkey. What annual delight would you barter for my calendar’s favor, clerk? Speak plainly or accept the roast.” The village edge glows dangerously; your spoon waits for the next stroke of brilliance or folly.

I fill the squares with the spoon. A tasting, a hunt, an argument with a woman about a spoon. Dusk stays empty.

You carve a vivid tableau into ash: feasts spanning seasons, hunts that spoil for sport, even a theatrical argument about spoons with a sharp-tongued villager—all filling every square but dusk. Ashfang watches, smoke curling contemplatively. "Performances, intrigues, and petty quarrels? Now that’s a calendar worth flipping through," he rumbles, eyes twinkling like a miser when the coin jingles. "Void at dusk remains, but you’ve paused my fiery deadline. What a curious clerk—sacrificing a spoon to rewrite a dragon’s diary!" Your metaphorical ink is running dry, the village's fate hanging on your next move.

I hand him the spoon and ask him to scratch out any square he does not want. He leaves the burning until last, forever.

Ashfang takes the spoon, weighing it like a merciless arbiter of fate. With surprising delicacy, he scratches out every square but the one at dusk — the one you've cleverly left for last, a burning slow-burn punishment. "A calendar with fire at the finale," he muses, smoke spirals like punctuation. "An intriguing contract, clerk." He folds this new schedule into his plans, abandoning immediate incineration for a future still aflame. The village’s thatch roofs sigh with relief as the rain softens into a steady hush. A dragon delayed is a village spared, and your spoon, the likely dullest yet most decisive oracle, has earned its place in legend. Not all heroes wield swords; some wield spoons and cunning.