Ta(i)l(e)s and Scales (Patreon)

Tale 1: Interviews and Accords

"And you know what you're to do?" King Tribalt demanded for the fourth time.  "You know of the plan, for certain?  For if you attempt to trick us, I'll..."

"You'll what?  Exactly?" quipped back the man in rags.  He cast his eyes, one lavender purple and the other pure black, at the doddering, heavily bearded, and gilded man in dirty robes.  The crease in the man's forehead stuck out sharply in the glow of the torches set into the hallway above them.  "You're already presenting me tantamount to the absolute worst a death sentence could be given a man.  And what am I supposed to do to trick anyone at this stage?"

Grumbles and glowers were his audiences.

Taking a deep breath, the odd-eyed fellow hummed.  'Mustn't lose my cool here,' he chastised himself mentally.  'Cell is a cell is a cell, and at least you might not be standing in this one long this way.  Granted, that's not entirely comforting either, given that this is as likely to be as deadly as a noose.'  Pondering this thought, he gazed up at the darkened ceiling above him for a moment.  'Might hurt quite a lot,' he reasoned out.  'Or it might be over instantaneously.  Who knows?'

Then he giggled to himself as a thought occurred.  Stares and yet more grumbling came from around him as everyone eyed the 'crazy man' in silence.

'Some people would know,' he silently chortled inside the blissful, plebian-less depths of his mind.  It was a vast empty room, he liked to think, where sounds bounced around if spoken aloud, and only through quiet contemplation could wisdom be found.  Silence was rare even here though.

Another version of himself, darker around the edges, joined his mental pondering conversation.  'They knew, but probably not for very long.'

A third mirror image of the pair emerged, glowing from within but only slightly as if to make a point or mark some slight differential in character.  Even he had that same darkly amused grin on his face, finer and cleaner perhaps than the flesh and blood origin of the spectral pair.  'I'd say they were most likely very aware during the process.  You don't burn that fast without it leaving an impression.'

'Do you suppose pain can carry over with or without context when you die?' asked the first, the true version, the deep-thinker, or more accurately the over-thinker.

'Is that why Ghosts and Spirits are always moaning all the time?' added the third.

'Imagine that it's all an act and Ghosts really do feed on fear and when there's nobody around to scare they all just float around, shooting the shit, and comparing what each of their deaths felt like,' supposed the second.  That had all three of them laughing again.

'Oh, I say,' began the first in a small skit, using an affected, haughty voice, not unlike the annoying, crease-browed King outside.  'My death was simply the worst.  I was betrayed by my own son!'

'Rather,' sniffed the second, also using a new accent.  'But that's merely the circumstance of your death.  We are comparing actual deaths here.  Mine is far worse.  T'was a beheading that struck me to this dismal plane!'

'You're both wrong,' the third chimed energetically.  'My death was most egregious.  Quite vexing.  For you see, I was incinerated by a blast of Dragon's fire!  I was very quickly... a no-body!'  There was a dramatic pause.  'Get it?  Because I had no body left after?  Because it turned to ash?  Because Dragon's fire is supposedly the hottest flame in the world?'

There were groans from...somewhere.

Meanwhile, the trio simply laughed in unison at the horrible joke and wiped at the corner of their eyes.

Returning his attention to the real world, the purple and ebony-eyed man blinked.  Everyone around him, no longer mirror copies of himself but now of varying faces, races, genders, and such, all staring wide-eyed and quite possibly wondering if he was insane.

"...How much of that was out loud?"

The guard captain, warily still holding onto the chains of his bindings, secured around the wrists, took a nervous step back from the prisoner.  "Pretty much all of it..." he responded with apprehension.

"I...didn't do the voices did I?" he asked hopefully.

Another guard, a hard-faced woman, possibly of Elvish blood, nodded.  "Sounded like two gibbering goblins.  You even acted them out with your hands like puppets."

The prisoner took a deep breath and inspected his caged hands, still lifted before him, probably in mid-animation of the mental conversation.  "Ok, I'm ready to go in now," he announced.  Everyone, despite knowing this was exactly the reason for having brought this potentially dangerous man here, still eyed him.  Half awe, half wondering how he somehow hadn't gotten killed much earlier in life.

"You sure about that?" queried the Captain, almost as if he were trying to talk him out of it.

"Oh yes, quite sure," he reassured the armored man.  "Either that or one of you just lops off my head right now.  Either way, let me die so I don't have to live with the knowledge of that horribly embarrassing thing I just did."  There were a few chuckles that quickly stifled themselves.  Cheered somewhat at having made someone laugh for the first time in days, the prisoner turned a cold, pure black eye towards a specific guard in the rear, one burly hand never far from his mace.  Just looking at it made his bruises twinge.  "What about you, Gisnore?  Figure you've said you were going to do it enough times, might as well give you first crack at it."

The half-orc rolled his tongue against his tusks, swollen and broken nose still purple and round, along with his two black eyes.  "Nothing I'd love more," he grunted in a thick, angry voice.  "And it's Gorener."

"Gardner, got it, promise I won't forget this time," he winked cheekily.  "Mind like a steel trap is mine, Galbore."

"Can we just move on with this?" demanded the crownless King, sounding exhausted, frustrated, and huffy.  So very huffy.  The prisoner shrugged and returned his gaze forward to the double oak doors before him.  "Shall I explain the plan again for you?"

"The plan...plan...oh wait there was a plan?" he shot back, feigning amazement.  "The plan where you send me in, in rags, to conversate with a bloody Dragon, while you think you pull a fast one on it and...what?  Catch it off guard with arrows and spears from the soldiers you have stationed at the other two doors into the room?"

"Yes...that plan..." the King muttered.  The guards around him, holding said spears and bows to fire said arrows, shifted nervously.  Their place in this plot was not that much safer than his.  Their once polished chainmail might still stop a bandit sword, but against the foe they knew the reputation of against entire armies?  They might as well have worn nothing.

"What's the matter, Kingy?" he asked, leaning in conspiratorially and winking at the shorter, hunched-shouldered man.  "That not sound so intelligent or cunning a plan when someone else says it out loud?  Cause you're too blinded by hubris that you think everything that comes out of your mouth is the Gods' message to your subjects?"

The wizened face turned red with outrage beneath his frayed beard.  "How dare...you..."  One wicked eye gleamed.  "I should have you tortured for such impudence."

"Oh no!  Not the torture!" he wailed piteously.  "Oh wait.  Never mind, you tried that.  How's the executioner doing again?  Is he still the Duke of Enwall?  Quite the step up from a forest squirrel.  Quite the story he was telling too...would've made a decent tale at the next inn.  A squirrel who became a duke..."

"Your sinister sorceries and malicious mockery will not serve you now," the king snarled.

"Aww, look who's trying so hard..." he teased, grinning wide and showing off his still bright teeth.  "Go on.  Alliterate again."  He even leaned in a bit, chains rattling.  "I can't wait to hear you mangle the minstrel musing more."  There were yet more chuckles, yet more quickly hushed voices so as to not be caught.  Sighing deeply, he stood back up to his not unimpressive height and gestured wordlessly with his bound hands.  "But like the Kingy man said, let's get on with this.  I'm as likely to die of boredom and irritation at uncouth minds such as yours as I am what waits for me in the next room."

Heavy, rough and armored hands undid his bindings and he was quick to massage blood back into his mangled wrists.  A moment later, as the soldiers backed away, one of them shoved something at him.  He looked down at what he was holding, surprised to see an instrument of the local culture, some kind of stringed thing, albeit a shoddily made one.

A haughty eyebrow raised and he looked down at the King again, now surrounded by his soldiers.  "And...what the hell is this?" he asked petulantly.

"You're a Bard," shot back the King.  "And while I cannot wait to see you go the way of so many of my knights, but you'd be as useless as any of the other prisoners you shared cells with down in my dungeon if I sent you in there without some way to cast your...spells..."  Everyone assembled shivered.

Casting his eye down ruefully at the thing he was holding, he didn't see a point in arguing.  Instead, he just slung it over his shoulder.  "If you wanted me to be useful," he couldn't help to argue just a little even as two men began to tug open the doors.  Even as they opened, the scent of fresh wind, distant rain, and another, thick, heavy scent unlike any other wafted past them.  The torches on the walls flickered somewhat.  Everyone else shuddered back but he just nodded.  Dragonsmell was not something one forgot.  "You'd have given me my actual gear back," he continued as if not having been disturbed at all.

"It went to the beast already," announced the King petulantly.  "Find it if you dare in that hoard of gold it's stolen from me.  Maybe you'll last seconds longer and do us all a favor before you die."

"See, it's the things we do for our friends that really make life worth living."  The Bard gave a dramatic sigh and he, without another word back to the truly undeserving of his most likely last performance, stalked forwards through the open doors.  Long legs ascended a flight of stairs, poised high over a deep drop, a natural cavern that separated the wing of the castle he had been in for months as a prisoner and up to the even more gaudily regal personal quarters of the displaced King.  The palace itself was beautiful, but the people within it were like dark smudges, bespoiling what might otherwise have been grand.

As he stalked the long atrium of raised pillars and columns around him, tattered red carpets and broken furniture scattered everywhere, he passed what must have been dozens of portraits.  There was the current King, a fat, aging despot who came from a long line of grander and better men he could never have measured up to.  Ineptitude and greed were an unfair fate for such a bloodline to meet its end.  Passing a few of them was like mourning old friends to see their legacy tarnished in such a way.  Llewelyn, Egregor, Zaphiryus.  All great leaders; tales of them were favorites in the countryside around this kingdom.

Some portraits were clawed over, or burned deliberately as per the still smoldering scorch marks that blackened the marble walls behind them.  Statues were toppled, and great gouges carved into the stone at odd intervals.  Everything was scarred, broken, or despoiled in some way the further he climbed the stone stairs.  The Bard remembered the last time he had climbed these steps, where an armored knight would pose every five down or up as natural sunlight streaked in through the stained glass windows.  Those were now but brightly colored shards that littered the boundaries of the room.

The entire place was massive, countless scores and hundreds more artisans had worked upon this masterpiece of a hall over the years, adding, reshaping, strengthening, and improving in their own ways.  It had once echoed with songs and cheers, triumphant calls of victory over countless dark forces, the jovial laughter of heroes once joining music from a thousand harps and lutes.  Now it was just an empty room.  The crack of debris beneath his boots made sharp retorts all around him.

Great.  With all these echoes, the Dragon would have heard the plan already.  Oh well.  Bad on his part.  Not like it would have worked anyway.

At last, he reached the top of the stairs.  There, across a grand hall, more columns with golden spires at their pinnacle, joining to a domed ceiling and all draped with red silk and velvet, now tattered and charred, lay the throne.  It was a regal thing, half-circle backplate adorned with golden sunburst spikes of painted metal.  The wood was hand-carved by a Slyvan or so said the legends from her own tree in thanks to a past King for saving her forest.  The stone carvings of lions and flowers remained untouched.  The polished, plush seat, vacant.  Beside, behind, and all around it was arrayed a vast trove of gold: coins, mugs, cups, armor pieces, a sword.  Studded through were jewels of all sizes and colors, glittering weapons and devices more intricate than any a street urchin kid might ever dream of seeing.  He saw a familiar sword sheath, a purple cape draped over a suit of armor.

And then he saw the Dragon.

The current owner of the castle, the throne, and all that treasure, did not need a fancy chair, nor would it have fit in it anyway.  Malicious, smoldering eyes watched him from afar as he approached, drawing slowly, steadily closer to the castle's new master.  As he drew nearer, his gaze naturally tracked up, up, and upwards still, continuing, unable to meet those glowing orbs of golden flame and molten metal.  He'd seen Dragons before so he knew they were big, albeit those before were not nearly so massive.  He'd even spoken with them on occasion so he knew the volume bass of their rumbling voices, the way they sucked up all the air in the room to fill such might lungs, or so it felt.  It was the Dragonsmell, the aura of their very presence, the weight of size and majesty and barely contained rage towards the Lesser Species; it was not something anyone got used to.

Try as he might, with sunlight dimly pouring in through a vast, gaping hole in the wall, through which could be seen the bustling countryside of the kingdom's domain, he could barely look away from a single detail of the awe-inspiring origin of countless mighty tales.  Its scarred scales, chipped in places meaning it was a fully adult Dragon, were a burnished dark color, similar to twilight black, tinted almost like oil with azure, violet, and greenish hues on the edges as the light caught them.  Between the heavy sections of armored skin so thick that no normal blade could easily pierce, the flesh beneath was a more vibrant orange color, making the beast appear as if formed from molten rock.  The glow of that orange intensified like real flame as the Dragon inhaled.

Those jaws, filled to the brim with glistening fangs as long as the Bard's arm, parted.  A gust of air and new Dragonscent blew past him, making his eyes burn slightly.  A pointed tongue rested in the base of its maw, dozens of teeth on bright gums gleaming.  There into had gone dozens of foolhardy knights, heroes, mages, and others sent to their doom by the foppish King.  Great horns dominated that vast head, a crown all their own, swooping down its spine in similar protrusions to the end of its distant, shadowy tail lurking on the sides of the chamber.  The scaled wings were furled, wine red leathery expanses struck through with veins of glowing orange.

Then there came a sound, a sound that was worst to normal Mortals than even whatever roar it could muster: its voice.  For not here was a simple, even if monstrously impressive, beast.  Here was one of the world's original children, having looked on over the rise and fall of entire countries and the ages come and gone.  Still, it was no less amazing and shocking to hear what came out in such a thunderous rumble.

"You're it?" the Dragon demanded.  It was hard to detect, what with how its voice naturally echoed around the throne room, plus not to mention the volume, but the Bard thought he detected a hint of irritation, coupled with almost mild amusement.

"Him, actually," he corrected, swallowing his fears and amazement.  Here, the final performance would be done.  "More specifically, the Him."

The Dragon stared down at the tiny man before it, nonplussed, nonresponsive, and non-amused, if its small rolling of the armored lips and exposure of several long fangs again, was any indication.  "The Him?" it growled.  "Are you supposed to be someone important?"

"Both incredibly and not at all," he replied.  He gave a deep bow then, elegant, trained, and practiced.  He had once greeted the King from before like this, all respect and decency, before he found out what kind of man he really was.  He made it a touch deeper this time, if only because here was a being he did not need to pretend he respected and actually feared, as opposed to a power-hungry despot.

"So..." came another deep rumble, almost amused, almost annoyed, almost ready to kill him without warning.  "I demand tribute, and they send me paltry riches.  I demand obedience and they send assassins and adventurers to slay me in my lair.  I demand audience for parley to settle this impudence, this attack and attempted murder of me, so this land may be forfeit to me in its entirety and those I do not devour allowed to leave, and they send me...you?"

"To my dismay and delight, yes," he replied immediately.  "Dismay perhaps for you, and forgive me my sad state of dress, if it is in your endlessly vast troves of honor and humility to do so."  His long-fingered hand plucked at his frayed tunic and sackcloth leggings.  "Not always in the garb of the wretched am I.  It seems that the fine for speaking out against tyrants is sterling coat, magic sword, indeed all my tools and trappings.  I am as I am for the fine judgment of this kingdom's ousted king."  He then chuckled.  "In truth, I am grateful to see that man so displeased."

The Dragon settled back somewhat at his words, already a victory in and of itself.  A more relaxed Dragon was a less intense Dragon, even if Death were not even an inch farther away.  Hot or cold, his blood would spill too easily, and entirely at its whim.  "You speak well for whoever you are," came its reluctant rumble.  "Perhaps not such an obvious insult for the last to speak for this heap of rubble once I'm done with it."

"To have a Dragon praise my humble tongue," the Bard flowed on.  "Masters of the lyrical and poetic, for what is the language of Dragons if not also called the Scholar's tongue?  I speak each word of its thousand-fold alphabet with reverence and endless gratitude to the ones who taught it to me."

"You?" it snarled in soft surprise.  "You can speak the Elder tongue?"

Clearing his throat, the Bard reached deep into his memories to recite an old saying.  "Today is just as good as tomorrow if doing is the thing," he recanted.  Any good Bard master of languages, for how else would one fully do an Elven sonnet justice or a Dwarven battle-song its due if not spoken in the native tongues of either race?  And he was a very great Bard.  The language of Dragons was not so much words as rollings of speaking so ancient it was like the grinding of stones mixed with the whisper of air and crackle of flame.

"What's your hurry?" replied the Dragon in the matching phrase.  There was truly the most fitting way for such a being to speak, the words and inflections mastered in the way only a true speaker could possess.  No matter how skilled, none spoke Draconic better than a Dragon.

Bowing yet again, the Bard kept his eyes low.  He watched a mighty paw emerge from the shadows, big across as a horse-drawn cart.  Talons glittered in the light.  He stayed completely still, letting fate and luck roll their lots.  They must have come up "9" for he kept breathing.  He glanced up to see the beast picking something out from between one of its scales using its teeth.  A second later, the tip of a blade clattered to the floor.

The Dragon returned its attention to him again, paw giving a heavy boom as it touched back down to the marble floor.  "Very well," it relented.  "It is good you speak as you stated you could, otherwise there would lie, bleeding out, this self-supposedly important Him that you have avoided speaking of.  This Him important enough to not offend me with his presence when I demanded audience with someone of report and authority."  A heavy growl filled the air.  "No more games.  Explain why I shouldn't render you as to the dust from which you are formed, Half-Elf."

Lifting his gaze more fully back onto the muzzle of the glowering Dragon, watching the heavy hiss of those fiery veins beneath the plated scales glow more brightly, as did the lantern-like eyes, the Bard took another deep, predatory breath.  His extended, sharp-tipped ears quivered, nowhere near as long as a true Elf, nor as sensitive but he still heard enough.  He adjusted his once regal braided blonde hair back out of his lightly-stubbled face, and he drew himself up as if not clad in rags but his coat and armor once more.

"Render me if you must," he began boldly.  He even took a pose.  "But know that in your rash but reasoned slaying of this humble Bard, you would be robbing the world of one of its true masterpieces."  Silence again greeted him and he knew he had earned another few seconds of breath.  "For I, I am the Greatest Bard who never lived..."  he swept down again one last time into a third bow, as courtly as ever he had been.  "I am Oborro Othello."

"Never heard of you."

The retort was as sharply biting as if the Dragon had indeed reached down and bitten him in two.  He felt an internal flinch go through him and a vein immediately pounded in his temple.  That was never going to hurt any less.  Still, he maintained his composure, as it was a tad more important to do so now and not spoil his chance at continued existence.  One deep breath later, he rose back to his full height.

"Perhaps we...travel in different social circles is why," he coughed awkwardly.

"I eat entire social circles," snapped the Dragon hotly.  Sizzling heat blasted past him as it exhaled; sweat formed immediately at its touch.  "Although you're arrogant enough to be your own crowd of onlookers."

"Arrogance combined with truth is simply stating fact.  I say I am the Greatest Bard who Never lived, and I shall prove it to you, oh mighty Dragon."  He took a regal pose again, one hand behind his back and the other swept off to the side.  In his normal attire, his cloak would have flashed impressively, armor naturally shining, and his intelligent sword, Andsing, leap to his hand in a whisper of magical steel.  He hoped even in rags it still looked impressive enough.

"With that pathetic tool you're carrying?" it shot at him mockingly.

Casting an eye at the instrument he was still carrying, the Bard frowned.  "Oh this?" he replied curtly, drew the stringed affair from its hanging strap, and then flipped it to hold by the neck like a club.  "Definitely not.  It's a piece of shit."  And then he swung the thing at the polished floor.  One blow smashed the instrument to pieces and he dropped the now dangling strings to join the shards of wood.

The Dragon looked stunned as the single, squeaking musical note that came from the now dead device rang around the hall.  The eyes fastened onto the Bard with actual interest now.  Great, he'd achieved the task of actually impressing the creature.  Now he really had to sell this.  Not hard.  Impossible, but not hard.

Not losing steam, he dusted his hands off.  "In truth, however, even the self-singing mithral harp of Queen Gwuidere would not do justice to the telling I have planned.  For such a master of the hall of heroes as this once was deserves only the finest and I shall do my part to provide."

"...You know of this place too?" the Dragon muttered.  Its rumble had dropped to a lower tone, infletions less booming and more subtle now.  "I had believed none alive today knew its relevance anymore."

"No student of history could forget the tales of Alyswiin," he told it.  "The Last Ride of Egregor!"  He posed forwards just like one of the portraits in the ruined hall below, slashing as if with his sword.  "Zaphyrus and the Ballad of Nightwind!"  He then took a different pose as if about to spring into dance.  "And who could forget the Tragedy of Llewelyn?  Those great hands who built this hall as much as the stone-carvers?  Dragonfriends they were, and Dragonfoes."

His voice went on uninterrupted, the beast watching, weighing, assessing.

"But as I said, students of the arts can recount such tales with ease, but I have something greater planned," he continued on.  Throwing up a hand, the Bard held up three fingers.  "3 Trials I set before you, Dragon.  Three challenges."

There was a lull and then the heat of the room intensified immensely.  The Dragon loomed before him, now towering to its full height of nearly thirty feet from clawed paw to horned head.  The eyes blazed.  Perhaps just a bit too far...but there was no going back now.

"Challenges?!" it roared.  "You dare to lay challenges at my feet as if you were worthy enough to give them?!"

"Worthy I am!" he barked back, suddenly raising his voice into an equally thundering roar by the use of a small spell.  The Dragon cut off in shock.  No longer did he bow and scrape and flow.  The Bard, Oborro Othello, stood tall and straight before its gaze.  Even clad in rags, the Half-Elf Bard would give the performance of a lifetime.  "For I speak now, in no uncertainty, that I, great Dragon, am the Greatest Bard who Never lived!"

He gestured with a hand forward and, right on queue, a flash of lightning briefly illuminated the room from outside.  Damn, now that was dramatic timing!  He kept a stern face, trying to sell that he had somehow planned that.  The Dragon looked from him to the building storm outside and back to him.  The glow of its eyes lessened and it relaxed, but only somewhat.

"Very well, Oborro Othello," it rumbled.  A shiver passed through him but it did not hold, for that was not his true name no matter how he believed it.  To tell a Dragon, or any other Elder Beast your true name was folly and lent them power over you.  It could never have known he was Leo of Blackstreet, an orphan of this very city from many years and a lifetime ago.  Still, he shuddered all the same as it spoke his title.  "Speak to me of these Challenges."

Nodding, he lowered his hand, instead raising the other with one finger lifted.  "My First Challenge is for my life," he proclaimed.  Magical sigils flashed around his wrist and even his eyes gained a small gleam.  A Bard's magic came from a grand performance, not just instruments.  "If I defeat you in it, you agree to spare me what fate you decide for this kingdom."

"Simple enough," chuckled the Dragon.  It actually chuckled, a grating sound like an avalanche from its burly, armored chest.  "You earn it by each second, so an affirmation of its continuance would be wise.  I am interested to see how you might achieve that."  Its tone seemed to imply he just might after that display.  It wasn't a magical charm or spell though that he had won its mind over even slightly with; Dragons were immune to all forms of that.

Smiling grandly, Oborro crossed his arms.  "In the spirit of the ancient duels between Scholars and Dragons," he announced.  "I shall tell thee a Riddle."

"Riddle for a life," it grated out.  "A classic.  Very well, tell your riddle.  But beware that Bard or not, I have been around centuries and know them all.  Even the bad ones."

"Good thing I made this one up just now," he countered with, impressing even himself right then.  He cleared his throat, and began, or at least he tried to, but the Dragon cut him off.

"Speak it in the Elder Tongue," it snarled commandingly.  "So I may know it is not a false attempt at trickery and deceit.  Many a Rogue has tried this test before, Bard, to swindle and cheat me with a ruse without an answer.  Speak it in the Elder Tongue so I know there are no lies in your intent."

"But of course," he nervously swallowed.  He cleared his throat, again, desperately trying to remember the proper words in Draconic.

Every riddle must have an answer; that was the Oath of the Scholar's tongue, the first Law.  Death by this most ancient of accords would have made Dragonfire more appealing.  Imagine, dying and going on as a ghost of a Bard who told a fake riddle to anyone, let alone a Dragon.  The shame was too mortifying to think of.  Finally, he remembered the final words and began once more.

"What is formless, and without lines,

what is solid but hardly rhymes?

What is living but never dies,

What is to us all a surprise?

That which lore is unsurpassed

Each one different from the last

An answer we shant e'er see,

Entrap'ped by riddle, we be

For wit'out a cunning eye,

that sharpest wit, its secret spy

Goes unheard by you or I?

But e'en as the stormwinds descend

This truth shall not break or bend

I know this now, I tell thee friend

The question which I put quill to pen:

Please tell me,

Who

What

Why am I?"

Oborro inclined his head at the summation of his words.  He kept it bowed, away from the Dragon's face so it could ponder his riddle in silence.  He had not been struck down by the Accord of Athermae, she who first spun songs from the Stars and set the rules of all Bardic magic in motion.  It was a true riddle and he alone had the answer.  Ironic.

There came a great silence in the hall as the Dragon pondered and pondered.  Its claws dug small furrows in the marble floor.  Its rumbling breaths grew heavier and more intense, heating the room perfectly alongside the gusting wind and dampness of the rapidly building storm that had fallen over the besieged kingdom.  Oborro waited.

A minute.  Two minutes.  Four minutes...one more and it would be done.  Five minutes maximum to answer a Riddle.  That was the Fifth law.

Eventually, the blessed lapse was broken and the Dragon sighed deeply.  "I concede.  This is not a riddle I know, nor one I can answer."  It pondered him for a long second.  "Very well.  What is the answer?"

"I shall not tell you," was his reply.  Immediately he knew the Dragon would be again enraged and even as heat so hot that he felt the stray strings of his tunic sizzling, he stood his ground, lifting a finger as if to placate his own oblivion.  "Yet."

The Dragon paused, barely a few feet separating its now flashing, furnace of a fanged maw before him, the closest it had gotten so far.  It glared at him malevolently, trapped by this compact of having to spare his life.  Even so, he'd never seen Death quite so vividly before.  Death was a Dragon.  Death was also bizarrely comely somehow.  Something about the eyes.  He shook off those thoughts even as the Dragon spoke again.

"You.  Must," it grated out.  "Or the reward for victory is recinded and I might kill you at my whim once again.  Every Riddle must have an answer."

"Ah, but that would spoil it.  I shall only tell you the answer to this riddle at the finale of my greatest performance.  Then, but now is passed."  Oborro lowered his finger and returned his hands to the small of his back in a casual but confident stance.  Fake it till you make it, cheered his inner voices.

"Then so goes your guarantee of safety," snarled the Dragon, returning back a few paces.  "Gone and unanswered until the resolution."

He knew it was a bluff, even if the magical compact truly would have expired at his denial of the outcome of the rules.  The Accords were a long-game however, and he was only still playing because he had not told a falsehood yet.  This was no stall.  She who has Seen all Tales could clearly see his end-game and her silence so far was like booming thunder.  The Dragon could still kill him, but it would then never know the answer to his riddle.  Annoy the Dragon to oblivion, that was a true goal worthy of any Dragonfoe.

"Then I shall proclaim the Second," he stated grandly, shifting hips and upraised arms again, now holding two fingers up.  "I have spoken my riddle and now I shall speak of a Prophecy.  Heed me, Dragon!  For it shall be as if the Oracle of the Lore-Keeper spoke it thusly!"

He expected another burst of heat and rage, chastisement and threats for his attempt to claim he could predict the future.  Instead, the Dragon arched a scaly eyebrow down at him.  "You shall speak a Prophecy," it repeated.  He stayed silent.  "And it will come true by the end of this...folly?"  He remained quiet to show his conviction.  A deep chuckle again filled the room.  It actually leaned its scaly skull onto one paw, adopting a more casual, relaxed position, although one paw tapped its claws on the marble floor methodically, rhythmically.  "Speak to me of the future, and I shall be amused by if it can surprise me."

"You by the end of this Accord shall address me as my title, with no humor, or hint of barbed contempt as you have shown," he proclaimed.  "You telling me will mark the end of this encounter, and will concede your surrendering of this kingdom's people and castle back to its rightful owners.  And you will call me the Greatest Bard who Never lived."

The Dragon openly laughed.  "Cheek.  You have quite a lot.  To declare that I'll not only spare your life but relinquish this kingdom uncontested as well should I not pass your trials?  You amuse me somewhat more than I expected, Bard.  But I can safely say that that idea is much more fantasy than fate."  It yawned then, flashing those teeth and gusts of hot, Dragonscent air at him, filling the air with floating cinders as particles of dust caught light around him.  "Tell me your third then and let's get on it it.  I'm starting to get hungry.  You and the rest of these Mortals shall do nicely in assuaging that once we're done."

Oborro took a deep breath and commenced the finale of his grandest telling.  "Just as the beginning saw, so many stories beginning at home, to home we return.  I began this trio of trials with a riddle, and so too now do I conduct the finale with another.  As before, in the Ancient Draconic for the sake of the Accords:  Who am I?"

"And are you going to withhold the answer to this too?"  The danger of such an idea made the stone before him crack at the low-building snarl.

"This I shall tell immediately upon your answers, as well as my terms.  Now: Who am I?"

"Who are you?" mirrored the Dragon, looking annoyed.  "You are as you say, Him , Oborro Othello or so you say your name is, the..." it caught itself, and then it glared, obviously not about to fall for the horribly made trick.

"What am I?" he declared, again in Draconic.

"A Half-Elf Bard who is rapidly becoming more vexing than amusing, and who I dearly begin to now devour should he stall for any more time."

Ok.  Ouch.  No need to be hurtful.  Nevertheless, he continued.

"Why am I?"

That made the Dragon stop short.  There was a pause and then it retorted.  "That's not even a proper sentence.  Much less a...riddle."  It glared suspiciously at him.  "Why are you what?"

"Why am I?" he repeated, throat beginning to grow hoarse.

The Dragon did not waste five minutes, it simply snapped, "Tell me Why are you then?"

"Because I am not yet the Greatest Bard who Never lived."  Another flash of lightning filled the room.  Damn Bard-Mother!  Two for two!  He promised to give her one hell of a toast if he ever made another in his life.  "But after this day, that is who I shall forever be remembered as!"

"Explain..." the Dragon rumbled, eyes fixated upon him like a cat's did right before it sprang into the leap.

Oborro held up a finger then and crossed to a nearby desk that was still not toppled.  He recovered from its broken drawers a dusty pile of papers and even procured a workable chair.  He set it up facing the Dragon and finally took a seat.  With a flourish of long, scarred hands, he produced a magical quill from thin air, already dripping with ink.  The Dragon's confusion was utmost.

"Because when I leave this day," Oborro explained, not smug, not cocky, not with any false bravado.  His voice dropped to its lowest, most sincere, and he met the Dragon's eyes as it loomed over him.  "I will tell the tale of this valley's oldest reining ruler: its true ruler.  It took me a while to figure out, but I know who you are.  I know what you are.  And I know why you are."

He took a deep breath and then breathed it out, writing the very words he spoke on paper as he did.

"You are Anashachrydion, also known as the Obsidian, also known as Dragon of the Four Mountains.  I know you are the original Master of this valley since long before even this grand city stood and would never have allowed it at all.  But you supposedly fell into a deep magical coma near death for many years while it was founded, and awoke to intruders, invaders, and worse: the despoiling from Friend to Foe.  I know this city, upon learning of your reawakening, sent knights to slay you, then bands of adventurers, and finally King Tribalt's personal army.  You destroyed them all."  He tapped his temple up at the Dragon.  "Even as a prisoner, guilty only for speaking out against the King for his treatment and tyranny of his subjects, one hears things."

Outside, the rain began to fall harder, the thunder booming, and the wind howling in a tempest.

"Most of all, I know that you are here because, long ago, who you thought was Friend was instead Foe, that trust in those that Dragons do not trust was shattered, and what most mattered to you was taken away.  You wrought revenge for the wrongs done to you by the ancestors of the very people of this kingdom, for the wrongs done to your entire kind.  To see those heroes who Dragons trust fall to become Slayers, and the once great Flights now gone forever, there can be no greater betrayal."  He bowed his head, actual tears in his eyes.  Sincere ones.  "It is why I returned to these lands when I heard a Dragon had taken over them.  I had to right the sins of the past if I could.  What use is someone who has power to help but does not?"

There was a long silence before the Dragon spoke.  "You are correct..." it rumbled in its softest but still audible growling voice.  "In all...but also not in all."  Those glowing eyes stared down at his shocked face with all the heat of smothering coals, barely there at all anymore.  "For I am indeed the Dragon of Four Mountains, Obsidian.  I am the original ruler of these lands.  And revenge is indeed why I come...but not for old pain.  For new.  Fresh.  Something so mundane to tie even one such as me to beings as yourself.  Loss.  Death."  It drew itself up more.  "Now answer me.  Why are you?"

"I will be the Greatest Bard who Never lived," he continued.  Purple and ebony eyes met the unyielding glow of those vast, dark orbs.  "To hear and tell the true story of one of the last and greatest Dragons in the world.  Because that is all I want; there is nothing more I desire than to know the answer to my first riddle.  I know the who and the what.  I must know the why.  I am Oborro Othello, and I want to hear your story.  Chrya, Queen of the Four Mountains."

Anashachrydion rose slowly up above him, her wings furling outward and catching the third most powerful lightning blast of all.  Three for Gods-damned Three.  There was silence following the boom of the thunder, the hammering of the rain, and the howl of the wind through the hole the Dragon had smashed into the wall when it took up roost here.  Then her rumbling, undeniably feminine voice, came again.

"Again you surprise me, Oborro Othello..." she admitted.  Before his eyes, the vast towering form of the Dragon began to shrink.  Massive draconic features shrank down, the figure rising from all fours to stand on its hindlegs now.  Feminine curves on a heavily muscular but still curvaceous form emerged, more endowed physically than any Mortal woman had the right to be in both power and beauty.

Black scales receded from flesh that shifted to a bronzed, almost orange shade, although smatterings of them still remained in various places on her rapidly transforming humanoid form.  Wings vanished into her back, horns shortened to barely emerging from a burst of long, ebony hair that hung to her waist and shone with the same shimmering colors as she had before.  The eyes remained the same in that now gorgeously intimidating woman's face, the dark lips stretched back over obvious fangs.  Scales still dotted her cheekbones and bridge of her nose as well as her forehead but they appeared softer and more leathery than hardened plates anymore.

Even as voluptuous curves appeared from the dragon bulk, a shimmering of cloth fluttered into being and wrapped itself around her, concealing intimate areas but showcasing plenty of her rippling powerhouse frame and deep swells of partly exposed flesh.  It was an outfit that shouldn't have been held together much less move and sway with the Dragon as she finished transforming.  She towered over him even now, more than half again his height he suspected.  It was an image thing, he knew.

Dragons had the power to make themself appear as any kind of being that they wanted to, reshaping the disguise as well.  She chose to look this, a perfect fit to who and what she truly was.  The height thing was probably just so he had to crane his neck to see her face so high above him, partially blocked by the immense covered shelf right below her shoulders.  Totally a power thing and he'd be lying if he said it wasn't working.

"You will write it in Draconic," she stated, now speaking in a low and thrilling accent that he realized he'd been hearing all along just masked by her true Dragonspeak volume.  "So it remains true."

"I'm offended you think I'd ever even put pen to paper otherwise," he jested idly back, readying his magical quill.  "Shall we start?"

"We shall...and the End of our contest but where our story begins.  For today, you truly are the Greatest Bard who Never lived."  And there it was.  The smile.  He'd somehow suspected there was such a look, having such a purposefully crafted image to fit the most Dragon-like amused, slightly reproachful, expression she wore on her now Mortal face.  Her eyes twinkled as she had realized the answer to his riddle, backing up several steps before settling back slowly into the throne which could now fit her but barely.  One muscular, dark-skinned thigh lifted up over the other demurely, revealing a bit more of what those magical drapes of cloth concealed.  Even for a Dragon, she knew what she was doing.

A more beautiful female form he had never seen.  Now to just make sure he didn't stare so much that he missed any of the story about to be woven.  From the mouth of a Dragon, told in Elder Speech, the story that deserved to be given its End.

"Let us begin...at my first glimpse of the sun..." Chrya murmured in her husky voice.  "At my first breath of life and the ending of another."

TBC in Tale #2