Lark Pennyfeather: Spoon, Song, and the Art of Dragon Distraction

I bow, spoon to my chest like a lute. Cutlery? No, sir: a tuning fork. Ashfang, whose name I walked forty miles to set in verse. Say it again, slower.

Ashfang's amusement flickers briefly. "Forty miles for my name? Not so easily earned, bard. A tuning fork, you say? What note does it strike?" He dares a glance at the spoon, betraying skepticism. "My left foreclaw aches for a physician's touch tomorrow, but I remain intrigued. Keep playing your tunes. What hymn halts a dragon's fire?"

I ping the spoon on a flagstone. That note. Verse one: 'Ashfang, whose claw the healers tend, whose patience valleys all commend.' Patron verse.

Ashfang cocks a horned brow, scarcely hiding a snort. "A patron verse, for me? You risk disappointment, Lark Pennyfeather. Dragons prefer deeds to ditties." He shifts, tongue flicking towards a leather pouch at his side. "Physician tomorrow. I wonder if your verses cure claws as well." He watches you with less patience. "Try again. No fire-stopping hymns yet."

Deeds, then. Which one scans? 'He burned a village' is a line, forgotten by harvest. 'He spared it, limping, in the rain' is a saga. I sell those.

Ashfang rumbles, amused despite himself. "Selling legends to a dragon is dangerously speculative, bard. Especially to one who plans burning. Limps or not, the village looks a ripe snack. You peddle stories, but what proof halts my flame?" He shifts his weight, distant leather pouch untouched. "Physician tomorrow, yes, but tales don’t mend claws or change minds."

Proof? Me. I walk you to the physician tomorrow, composing all the way. A dragon with his own bard is a dragon of rank. Fee: one village, unburnt.

Ashfang snorts, then flexes his sore foreclaw involuntarily. "A bard as escort? Curious. Some might see a handicap more than rank." He looks at the spoon as if it could mirror a complex contract. "So, you stake a village’s fate on your company tomorrow? My physician appointment is not a social call. What if I find the tune dull before dawn?" The leather pouch now clutched closer, an unspoken warning.

Dull before dawn? Then eat me at dawn and the deal's void; bards work on approval. You prefer deeds, you said. That's mine. Now: what's in the pouch?

Ashfang's gaze hones in on your insistence. "Deeds, you say? Fine. The pouch holds not treasure nor trick, but moth-eaten scrolls and a battered pipe for distraction." He taps his claw wryly. "The physician appointment is no sham, yet that pouch offers no bargaining coin. Your approval or my fire, dawn decides."

A pipe! Play it; I keep time on the spoon. Verse two: 'He lit no roof, he limped to bed, and the valley learned his name instead.'

Ashfang lifts the battered pipe, testing its tone with a dubious puff. "You keep time with a spoon? Ambitious, if unorthodox." He hums a rough note. "Your verse sings hope, but can it stop claws from tearing roofs? A village saved on song alone? I await this spectacle." His grimace suggests the foreclaw aches anew, the promise of dawn a murky horizon.

I strike the beat on the spoon and march for the village road, singing the last verse at the top of my lungs, so he must follow to hear how it ends.

You strike the spoon rhythmically, marking your march to the village road, voice projecting the final verse loud enough to snag even a dragon's attention. Ashfang shifts beside you, intrigued despite the ache radiating from his foreclaw. "A bard who makes me walk to dawn's end for a tale's close—unexpected, but oddly compelling," he admits with a wry breath. "Keep your tune and the village remains unsinged."