Corran Ashe: A Spoon and a Promise of Dinner

I do not look at him. I look up. 'Four trusses. Two rotten. Roof rests on the pillar behind your left shoulder. What does your oath rest on?'

Ashfang snorts, unimpressed by your structural musings. "Oaths are for nobles and bards—things that wail when you ignore them. My oath rests on spectacle, dread, and the village's smoking remains," he declares, flicking a wing with dramatic flair. When you fail to look, he sighs theatrically. "No silver gravy boat? That’s my true grievance today."

'Three legs, then. Spectacle needs an audience. Dread needs survivors. Burn it all and two legs go. Third leg: the gravy boat. Who took it?'

Ashfang scans you, tone biting: "Spectacle without an audience is just rehearsal, but two legs must take a walk tonight, one on fire and one safe. The gravy boat is the farce I inherited today, molted not missing. And you? Clanking spoiler, you’re the intermission nobody asked for." He slams a claw on a broken stone, echoing. "Find my silver, or watch the show go dark."

'Silver sits at the head of the table. Head of the table is under that fallen truss.' I go there and lever rubble with the spoon. 'Lift when I say.'

Ashfang watches your crude lever attempt with a mix of amusement and disdain. You shift rubble with the spoon; a fallen truss blocks a heap of shattered stones. No silver gravy boat gleams beneath—just broken wood and dust. "That spoon’s for pudding, not miracles," he declares, voice dripping sarcasm. "Keep digging or concede. Dusk waits for no banquet."

I drop the spoon on the heap. 'Nothing. Count it: ash buys one night of dread. A dragon who lands on the green, roars, and spares them: forty years.'

Ashfang scoffs at your arithmetic and thrift. "A dragon who can count but not leverage is a hazard to his own reputation," he says, eyeing the spoon abandoned like last week's stew. "Forty years, is it? A neat figure. But this banquet ends at dusk—not by promises or whispered calculations." He flicks a claw impatiently. "Waste your poetry or cave in. What’s your move, human?"

I pick the spoon up, go to the pillar behind his left shoulder and scrape the wet mortar at its base. 'Leverage. Two rotten trusses, one pillar.'

Ashfang watches the spoon scrape the mortar, a thin line of wet dust traced along the stone. "Leverage," he echoes, "a spoon's reach is several orders short of turning pillars." The mortar yields no hint of weakness, yet his eyes flicker with a begrudging recognition of your persistence. "Two rotten trusses and a stubborn pillar. Admirable structural obsession, pedestrian execution."

'Pedestrian. Agreed.' I stop. 'Real load path: banquet hall, no banquet. Village has ovens. Dusk: they carry it up and serve you. One spoon. No fire.'

Ashfang folds his wings with a theatrical groan. "No banquet, no fire. No feast, no burns. Amusing, for an interlude," he intones. "Yet ovens, utensils, meal promised—where is this procession with one spoon and no flame? Rare delicacies are my weakness, but your logic lacks the spice." He looks past you, impatience pacing in his gleam. "Convince me before dusk, engineer."

I set the spoon on the flat stone at the head of the table, bowl up, and walk for the door. 'Place laid. I fetch the ovens. Sit under the good truss.'

Ashfang fixes his glare on the spoon and then on you, his theatrical composure creaking like old floorboards. "A place set with a single spoon: a gesture half-baked and fully insufficient. I’ll sit—for now—not for supper, but for spectacle’s sake. The ovens remain cold, the village teeters, and dusk approaches. The grievance burns still, as does my patience." He leans back, sharp and unyielding. "Consider this intermission granted, nothing more."