The numerous wars upon their lands had left Baldir Steelfist, a dwarf of ‘considerable size’ an orphan at a young age. Thus, he’d grown up in an orphanage with peers of multiple non-human or non-elven races. When one is always several feet shorter than their companions, they learn to fight dirty and fight hard. A hard head, a strong arm, and a decent keen-mind for logic and arguments had left Baldir with the bastard’s trade of masonry, the mouth of a sailor, the capacity for drink of a fish, and the end result of having no party or home to claim.

He’d traveled half the continent at the side of one party or another. He made his coin honestly, if not without decorum. He joined some guilds, was kicked out of others. He partied on both the battlefield and in pubs. Gold slipped from his fingers like water, but he never wanted for much. As long as his belly was full and whatever…or whoever… he fell asleep on for the night was soft; he was happy.

In his late forties, he had been an unfortunate dwarf and had balded quite blatantly, from his crown back. Now, in his seventies, the sides of his hair were an unruly dusty brown that he kept long just to wear the braids of his people, or at least what he thought his people had. He didn’t associate with many dwarves. It matched his wiry beard that descended to his navel. He stood at a proud four feet tall on a good day and had menacing dark eyes like most of his kind. He wasn’t a good-looking man or dwarf by any standards, but he had all his teeth and that was a feat in and of itself.

This morning had begun like many of his mornings. He didn’t so much as wake, as he did shake his head from a drunken stupor just in time to acknowledge that he was being forcefully tossed out the front door of a pub into the feed pile for the horses. He made a quick pat for his coin purse and found it missing. All the best, it was near empty anyway. So, being that he could see the sun squinting over the mountaintops, he did what he always did and closed his eyes, rolled over, and slept. It was a peaceful night’s rest where he dreamed of the grand fight that he’d had the night before.

He’d squared off against a half-orc. The green skin had called him short, of all things. He was a small giant to his people! In fact, he could almost pass for human with a good shave! How dare he, the looming green bastard, accuse his low posture of being anything less than normal, average, or even statuesque. He felt well within his right to have head-butted the piggy in his jewels…and to have taken bets on the action. If he recalled correctly, he’d won the pot, but it didn’t matter much when you drank half of the winnings away and lost the rest by sheer stupidity. That’s why he kept his emergency gold in his… He reached into his breeches.

“Augh…that pixie stole my gold,” he lamented before flopping back into the straw for a vagabond’s snooze.

The rest didn’t last very long before he was rudely awoken by the thundering footsteps and cascading screams of villagers. Doors flung open; whores were squealing half-naked as they evacuated the bar with their clients not far behind them. Men, women, and children all raced down the street towards the haven of the church that rang an alarm bell in high toll of a warning to come.

“GET TO THE CHURCH!” Someone shouted.

He rolled over and stuffed some straw over his head to blot out the sounds. They were so rude of a morning! Didn’t they know drunkards slept too?

If the tolling bell and screaming villagers weren’t enough, a screeching shrill whine of noise came from far in the distance. It was punctuated by cavernous thundering roars. Blasts of wind, hot and laced with smoke drifted by. He groaned and sat up, his eyes filled with sleep and dust. He squinted into the distance to see what the fuss was over.

The shrill whine he heard grew from a light, ‘aaaaaaaaaaa,’ to a shrill, “AAAAA!” The source appeared to be a small scampering creature in the distance growing larger as it retreated from an oncoming force.

He had no time to take in the sight, to see what was going on. That thing, a humanoid, a creature, he wasn’t sure, collided with his legs, its face slamming into his hip before righting itself. The being couldn’t have been more than two feet tall, an imp? It was carrying something in its arms but slung it atop its head. It climbed him, straight up his pant leg, over his chainmail and onto his head. Its weight rested on his shoulders and sharp little fingers grabbed the remnants of the hair on his head in its hands much like the reigns of a horse. It jerked his hair hard.

“RUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNN,” it shouted.

Its voice was shrill, like nails on a chalkboard and it’s screeching cry rang in his ears long after it shouted.

“RUN RUN RUN WE’REALLGOINGTODIE. RUN!” It continued to screech.

Barring nothing else to do, to argue, adrenaline and instinct kicked in and his stubby legs bit the dirt and he ran like he owed someone money.

He passed the crowd of people rushing into the church. He wanted to steer in, but the creature atop his head jerked his hair hard to steer him from the congregation. They were bustling and fighting to get in, to hide.

“DRAGON!” someone shouted, but Baldir had no time to stop and ask questions. He was being steered by fate and karma.

His karma wasn’t that great.

Through the town he ran, winding through small stone houses in impoverished quarters. A shrill voice screamed orders in his ear.

“RUN! LEFT! NO, OTHER LEFT! RIGHT! KEEP UNDER!” the shrill creature sounded. Her voice was starting to bite at his ears.

They reached the edge of the village, dove into the forest, through the underbrush and around, though, between copses of trees that started and stopped at the edges of small farms and cottages.

“SHE’S COMING! RUN! HIDE!” The voice still commanded him as Baldir went on auto-pilot and let the whiskey of the late-night take control.

He pushed himself. His chainmail clinked and shook. His pack and tools clanked. His body moved faster than he had ever known any dwarf could move. Still, the shrill voice steered, jerking his hair left and right until it ordered him through a clearing, into dense brush and finally into a small alcove created by a jutting rock from a landslide. Broken and overhanging trees from the season before still showed weak hints of green, but he dove, headfirst into the alcove and scrambled as deep as the small burrow would allow. The creature atop his head scrambled free, snatched the small thing off of her head, and ducked back with him.

It was a kobold! He sighed in relief. The small sanguine red creature had a broad head, tiny rows of soft hornlike bumps, and was speckled with concentric rings and dots of a dirty blackish grey. Her red eyes came alight in the darkness beneath the alcove. She adapted to the darkness and peered out fearfully. The thing in her arms, reptilian for sure, squirmed and made tiny chittering noises. Was it a mother kobold and her child?

A great wave of fire streamed through a distant copse of trees. The smoke drifted upwards and joined a trailed stream of smoke wafting from the village. The great dragon was roaring in anger, shooting her flames. Kobolds, the slaves of the dragons, had every right to be fearful. When the dragons were angry, the kobolds were the first to be eaten.

“The dragon… It never comes out in the daylight,” Baldir said in awe. Liquor swam in his head, but he knew what he had to do.

He took a knee in the alcove and waited for his savior to turn to him.

“You have saved my life. I owe ye, creature, my life. Here now, as honor-bound, I am to serve you to pay you back for your deeds. I owe you a blood debt. What is thy name?” He spoke lowly as she turned her face to him.

“Hi! My name’s Scritch!” it said. Its shrill tones cut into his ears, offended his senses, and made him want to cringe. He was a literate man, a common trait of the dwarves, and he could hear poor penmanship, misspellings, and a lack of punctuation in her tone.

“Then you, Scritch, shall be my master and I shall serve you for my life,” He said before withdrawing his hammer, staking its hilt to the ground, and slapping his hand upon it then his heart.

“Serve? Like a slave?” The thing asked before tilting its head. It was doglike, a slight cant of its head, its features childlike and curious. She looked similar to salamanders he found near his homelands. She had small horns, so it meant she was female, he knew this. Its voice was grating, words clipped. He’d never conversed with a kobold before now. It was not a pleasant thing. It blinked one eye slowly, then the next in succession.

“If be it your command?” He asked as a growing sense of dread began to settle into his sobering stomach like lead.

“I’m not a dragon. Nobody serves kobolds. Serve dragons. Here! You can serve my dragon! It needs slaves!” She said before extending the reptilian creature in its hands at arm’s length much like a small child would a cat. His eyes went from the expectant large child-like eyes of the kobold to the tiny creature in her arms. It was a smooth little red dragon hatchling. It was a third of the size of what a red dragon hatchling should have been. Its red scales were muted and drab, as the babies were. It wasn’t even fully dry and ready for its first shed.

“Then…I shall serve…my master’s…Master?” He said, slowly enunciating his words as the last motes of liquor disappeared from his system in a horrifying moment of clarity. The tiny dragon chittered.

“Yeah. You’ll serve them,” She said, gesticulating with the near-limp and almost sickly baby dragon. It looked harried and angry. Its tiny black eyes bit into him sternly. A spark flicked in its mouth.

“And…what is this dragon’s name?” He asked slowly, taking a step back. He wondered if his honor code was really worth it at this point. He had nothing else left, so what more was it to ditch this?

“Uhhh…I haven’t asked. She just hatched,” She said, the shrill voice coming out confused before she turned the limp dragon to face her.

She made noises at the hatchling. It made chittering noises back. He’d seen opossums having fights over detritus before that made similar noises to his ears.

The tiny dragon puffed its chest, engaged in an articulated serious of self-important and pretentious chitters, growls, and hisses before holding its head aloft. For something the size of a small cat; it was pretty full of itself.

Scritch pursed her mouth, her lack of lips and rictus face structure stuck in a permanent grin. The expressions were subtle but there as she unceremoniously flipped the baby dragon in her arms, lifted its tail to her face, and squinted. The baby dragon flailed, hissing angrily as little sparks and puffs of smoke came from its mouth.

The chittering, which Baldir heard, came deep and strong through Scritch’s ears in a deep and resonating voice, “I am born of QueQua, third in succession of the Morovian mountains, blessed by the high blood of an alpha broodmother and sired by the seed of a noble warrior, Iro’Mir, long may he flame. I have no name!”

She righted the dragon, swaddled it in her arms as it still struggled angrily, and announced proudly, “HER NAME IS BLAST!”

The dragon looked up to her, stalled in shock. Dragons didn’t have names as that. Kobolds did. And how DARE she gender her as such by looking up her tail! The baby dragon should have had a grand assortment of pretentious titles followed by an unintelligible few syllables of its heralding name. The dragon’s mouth fell open for a few stunned seconds before it lost its collective little reptilian shit.

It hissed, it bit, it scratched, and it did its best to emit a tumultuous roar of indignation.

“Well. I shall…Serve you, my mistress, Blast, the dragon. Long may you flame?” He asked. The hatchling wilted in her arms, defeated as it looked to him reproachfully. He’d gotten that same look from cats that he’d startled before.

A decent amount was known of dragons in their day and age. Hatchlings were laid as eggs, incubated and tended to by the kobolds and upon the day of their hatch, were to be seen by their mother and named accordingly. They would be raised among their siblings until they fought to the death and a handful, three or four, usually survived to leave the nest and seek their own territories. There was no way this dragon could have fought its own against siblings. They were born with collective memory, knowing how to speak and would take a few of their mother’s kobolds when they left to start a new colony.

Dragons naturally had thrall over their kobolds. Their voices and mind spoke simultaneously to the creatures. Where Baldir might only hear the tiny chittering and hisses of the small hatchling, Scritch heard the booming and echoing tones of a commanding master.

“How’s that Blast? Not even a day old and you have TWO slaves,” Scritch spoke to the sulking hatchling. It huffed and swatted at her with a claw.

Baldir stood there lamely. A dawning realization overcame him. He’d royally fucked up.

“I think she’s hungies,” Scritch said before setting the angry thing down, grabbing a rock and scampering out of the alcove. Baldir could see her scale a tree almost noiselessly. He heard a shrill whistle of a projectile, a squawk, and more scampering that faded from and then back to them.

Scritch returned with a dead pheasant in one hand and laid it on the ground reverently before the hatchling.

“Did you just…strike that from a tree…with a stone?” Baldir asked in hushed tones.

“Yah!” Scritch responded as the baby dragon sniffed at the offering.

“I could cook that for ye,’ if ye-“ he started, but was interrupted by a sharp hiss from Blast and a slap on the hand from Scritch.

“NO! Wait your turn,” She spoke, “You can get yours once she’s done.”

Scritch sat down, crossed her legs, and watched with her hapless little smile as the baby dragon snuffled into the feathers. He turned his head politely as the dragon began to crunch and tear at the skin until it had made a sizable hole in its side and began to slowly eat its way into the carcass. Snapping bones, wet sounds, and gurgling noises squelched from the corpse. Scritch, he noticed, seemed unphased. He took note and sat to watch. If it was as bad as he thought, he could sneak off and be gone by morning next.

From the opposite side of the bird, the tiny head of the hatchling emerged, feathers sticking out of its maw. A strand of meat dangled from its chin. It made a series of chittering noises before submerging into the pheasant corpse once more.

Scritch made a disappointed noise.

“What did she say?” Baldir asked in slow soft cadence to the hapless Scritch, who had begun to twitch her tail and bob her head as she waited.

“Oh, she said, ‘You are a patient slave and she likes that. She says you can have the crunchiest neck part as a reward,” Scritch said, and from her slouch and hooded eyes, he could tell that she was pouting.

“I appreciate the offer. It is a gracious gift indeed, but would you be offended if I declined? I am not accustomed to such fine meat and it may turn my stomach,” he said with a slight curl of his lip.

Scritch looked to the pulsing and writhing corpse. Blast’s head popped out, dripping with ichor. It made a single grunt before going back to its meal.

“She says I can have the crunchiest neckpieces!” Scritch said. The dragon popped its head back out, made a stern series of noises, and went back to munching and crunching. The sight was making Baldir queasy.

“Did she really say that?” Baldir asked.

“No. I just want the crunchy neckpieces, but you don’t have to eat them,” Scritch said. Her brow ridges tilted, and she resumed her pouting slouch.

Blast poked its head free of the bird, bit off the head a few inches above the neck, and spit fire over it a few times. The feathers gave a burning acrid smell. Baldir gave a bow of thanks to the small dragon. He didn’t yet know its capabilities and did not want to offend something that might ruin him.

“Would you be offended if I hunted for myself, giving you first pick of course?” Baldir asked.

The dragon gave a head bob and a chuff of flame.

“She says yes,” Scritch said, watching as the tiny thing nosed and butted the crisp head towards her.

It gave her a few chitters and chirring noises in response. Scritch responded in kind and graciously picked the crisped head up with some reverence before gnawing on it happily. The crunching noises unsettled him and he left to tend to his own hunting.

When Baldir returned he came upon their small alcove with two ramshackle shelters, a small fire, and Scritch sitting to the side, tending the flames. He was surprised not to see the dragon at first but realized that the dragon was curled up and snoozing gently inside of the small fire.

“Shh, she got sleepies after eating,” Scritch said as she prodded some coals with a stick. The dragon stretched and wallowed a bit. A low chittering noise, almost like a purr was coming from it.

“What’s she sayin’,” Baldir asked.

“Nothing. That’s her ‘I eated a whole lot’ happy noise,” Scritch said. The dragon was looking a good deal plumper around the belly region. It opened one eye and looked at him menacingly. He wasn’t quite sure how something the size of an alleycat could look so threatening. It was something about the crazed look in its little dark eyes.

He politely laid down a small deer next to his seat and sighed.

“Couldn’t catch a bird if my life depended on it, but if you’d not mind me taking my piece before Blast, long may she flame roots into it, I’d be very appreciative. I don’t eat the way you do,” Baldir asked.

She dragon chittered and stood, stretched its back in a long, languid, and satisfying pose and stepped over. Her little claws made hissing noises as she touched the ground on her way over. She left little burnt footprints across the deer, tracing about before she snuffled at it.

The noise that came from Scritch’s mouth as she spoke sounded like yapping and crunching. There were clicks and chirrs. He’d heard the noises in the mountains of his homeland before, and he watched to see what the dragon would respond with. It gave a simple snuff of sound to Scritch.

“You get the crunchiest neckpieces?” Baldir asked.

“She wants the heart,” Scritch said before chirping back to the dragon who nodded proudly.

“Mind if I cut myself a leg, then?” He asked.

A quick exchange between the two, “Yes,” scritch said.

Blast hopped off of his prize and paced around excitedly. Though her belly was full and warm, she still paced and groused for him to hurry so she could have more. Baldir thought better of it and hung the deer from a nearby branch and cut the heart out for Blast first. He offered it reverently and she took it from his hand and drug it backward into the fire to eat.

She chittered up at him. He looked to Scritch.

“The heart meat is the bestest part. They’re just to small to enjoy when she’s big,” Scritch said, and the context confused him.

“She just hatched this morning! How does she know?” Baldir asked.

“It’s not her first time being hatched. She was a small egg, hatched, grew big and old, and hatched again,” Scritch explained.

“So, they’re reincarnated?” Baldir asked as he shucked a blade over the deer to skin it.

Scritch blinked one eye, then the other in slow succession. It was hard to make eye contact but he assumed this was her not knowing the meaning of a word.

“After a dragon dies. Do they come back as an egg?” He clarified.

She nodded excitedly.

“Well isn’t that something. Does she remember?” He asked.

“Yah! She hatches and she knows how to talk really good and she sounds just like she does when she’s big and she remembers things of her past life only like some don’t remember all of it but like pieces and only big special old old dragons born over and over again know all the things. Blast is big old,” Scritch bragged, waving her little clawed hands in the air and wriggling her fingers excitedly. Baldir nodded sagely. “She’s fucking crazy,” he thought.

Blast looked up from the fire and posed with her chest out proudly.

“So, she understands the common tongue?” Baldir asked. He cut his eyes towards the dragon who nodded proudly.

“They don’t speak common. It’s bad. They’re too-” Scritch started and hesitated, searching for the word, “big to say them.”

The dragon rasped and chittered back at her.

“Kingy?” She asked.

The dragon gave a chuff that sounded like ‘meh’ with a little extra phlegm.

“Ye mean noble?” Baldir asked.

The baby dragon puffed proudly in response.

Baldir Hung the flayed skin of the deer up to dry. He could have it tanned at the next town. The burning footprints stepped across it looked rather interesting.

Baldir carefully sliced a leg from the deer and asked permission to use the fire. He staked it over the coals and went about sorting through his gear to see how much of it was stolen in his last altercations. There were meager few belongings in the pack, but he was content at what he found.

“Okay, anything worth more than a silver has been knicked,” He said to himself.

He looked up to see the baby dragon, still in the fire grabbing mouthfuls of heart meat and shaking it with her head to lash them free. He leaned over and turned the leg a bit. Blast spit a spark of a flame at it and left a tiny seared spot. The leg was nearly as big as her. She grumbled up at the leg and Baldir cut his eyes to scritch.

“She says to get me some meats, too,” Scritch said. Her tongue darted out of her maw for a moment in a facsimile of licking her nonexistent lips.

“Yeh want them cooked?” He asked as he stood to go make a few cuts at the deer carcass.

She shook her head and he eyed the deer, wondering just what the kobold might like the most.

“Ye like liver?” Baldir asked curiously.

Scritch’s tail thumped on the ground and he could see her little pinprick slits of pupils going wide. She looked to Blast who only gave her a short little chuff and chitter. The kobold nodded readily and lifted her hands, making sharp little grabbing motions in excitement. It was everything that Baldir could do not to smile at the gesture. She was as dumb as a bag of hammers, and in a strange sort of way, cute in the same manner bunnies were. Then again, he’d happily eat a rabbit. Scritch, however, he looked at her while her tongue escaped the side of her mouth and began to lick in large swaths over one of her unblinking eyes. Baldir shuddered.

“Here ye go,” Baldir said as he held the liver on the end of his knife and presented it to Scritch.

With her bare hands, she held it over the fire to singe the edges a little. Blast leaned up and took a few nibbling bites, switching from her heart to the kobold’s liver. Scritch rotated it in her hands. She should be burning her fingers by now, but she seemed rather resistant to the heat. He guessed it was one of the perks of living with temperamental creatures that shoot flames at a sneeze. Scritch periodically took a nibbling bite, her short little teeth shearing off smaller pieces at a time than he thought they could have. She was slow and methodical about her eating, and it was strange to think that a creature so scared and timid might take their time to enjoy something and taste it.

For the kobolds he’d seen, she was dressed slightly different. She wore no armor, just a simple loincloth. There were no adornments, no jewelry, or strange paints on her. She just bore cloth and a keen eye for her charge.

When his leg was finally roasted, he pulled the stake from the dirt and sat back to gnaw at the meat. It was tender but flavorless. He wondered if the liver had any better taste. Scritch seemed to be enjoying it.

Baldir focused on his foot, tearing anxious bites from it until a strange gulping noise met his ears. Scritch had nibbled the liver down to a manageable piece and unhinged her jaw to insert the nibbled slab. She began the process of swallowing it whole. He stared at her with pursed lips and waited for her throat to swell, bulge, and pass the lump in a solid series of head bobs.

“Why did you take bites before if you were just going to do that?” Baldir asked.

“Have to share with my dragon,” She said, giving him a strained look. He looked to his own leg and held it down towards the dragon.

“Apologies. I am still yet to learn all your customs,” Baldir said anxiously.

The dragon made a few haughty churls and chuffs. Baldir kept his face trained on her but flicked his eyes to scritch.

“She wants the squishy insides of the bone,”

Baldir took a few large bites, taking the end of the bone down to being more exposed. He bent the bone over his armor and heard a satisfying splintering crack before holding down one of the open ends of the bone. Blast’s eyes went wide with joy and sizzling drops of drool cascaded from her mouth before it crunched against and slightly into the end of the bone with happy licking snuffles.

“This okay?” Baldir asked. Blast chuffed.

“Yah,” Scritch said.

He took a long few series of bites from his own end before switching to offer Blast more marrow from the other. It looked to him and chittered. He couldn’t tell if it was angry, but it certainly sounded petulant.

“She says to give me the rest of the bones,” Scritch said hopefully.

“Really?” He asked, looking down at the dragon to be sure. He was relatively certain it understood him.

It chuffed and nodded. He continued his hold of one half of the bone that Blast was chewing on and offered the already-chewed part to scritch.

Scritch made little grabby hands towards Baldir and he felt the bone snatched from his hands. He cut his eyes to Scritch and was almost waiting for her to gulp the bone down whole, but she gnawed on it with her short little teeth. The grinding noises that came from such a small creature were threateningly loud. He made a mental note to never let Scritch bite him. She seemed to have some impressive jaw strength.

Blast eventually gave a chuff of happiness before trotting back into the fire from where she came. She walked in circles, turning to much like a dog would with prancing little steps until she curled into a ball and placed the tip of her tail over her nose.

“I’m going to go finish cutting up this deer and see if I can smoke the rest of the meat overnight,” Baldir said before setting some sticks together to build up the fire. He moved some things around, propped some sticks, and left the remainder of the meat staked around the fire to smoke and roast gently in the dregs of the fire. Blast looked around at the towering flanks of meat with boggling eyes. It was as if she was trying to decide which one to attack first. Choice paralysis was real as she looked from stake to stake before finally she met Baldir’s eye. He knew the intuition of a small animal surrounded by too much food and pulled some of the more favorable organs out to stake before her.

“If ye get hungry in the night. There ye go,” Baldir said as the heat and flames licked the organs.

There was a nod and chuff of agreement and Blast cuddled back into her little ball.

Scritch scampered around, on all fours as she scuttled through the underbrush, ran over his pack, around the fire, and up a tree. Her eyes were dilated and breathing heavy.

“Ye alright?” Baldir asked.

Her eyes darted left, right, up then down and she zoomed off into the distance, little feet barely touching the ground as her tail raised up high. Blast opened one eye to watch Scritch scamper about.

“Traps? Traps traps? danger? AaAAaah! No. Is a leaf! AH! Root…no…New smell, nope, is short human,” Scritch screamed.

“BAL-DIR. MAH NAME ES BALDIR, and I’m no a human!” Baldir grumbled.

Scritch came to a stumbling stop and flopped into a pile of leaves before popping up and tilting her head.

“You has no scales! Has face furs…human!” Scritch said before continuing to go batshit crazy around the camp.

“I AM A DWARF,” Baldir rebuked.

“That’s a funny kinda human,” Scritch said as she reached an overhanging branch of a tree.

“Whatever,” Baldir said, Defeated, “Just tell me what the hell you’re doing.”

“Checking for danger and hiding my scent,” Scritch said before dropping down from the tree and curling up next to the fire.

“Hiding your scent? You just spread it out!” Baldir said.

“Huh….” Scritch said before shrugging and closing her eyes. Blast stared daggers at him before stepping free of the fire. He heard the little hissing footsteps even as Scritch rolled over to accept the little dragon to her chest to cuddle. He could smell her cloth singe, but Scritch didn’t’ seem to mind.

Baldir watched as the two curled up to sleep and sat there weighing his options. He furrowed his brow as all the options went before him. He had the option to sneak off at the first light, and the thought occurred to him, but the tempting notion of a long night’s sleep suddenly sounded nice.

As his eyes closed, he weighed his options. He could make it to the next town, sell the dragon, and leave the Kobold to be on his merry way. He could abandon them in a bandit’s pass, fake his death, anything to escape the duo. He’d made plenty of oaths in his day.

He thought of his oaths. He had sworn on multiple occasions that he wouldn’t cheat. He had sworn to an employer that he wouldn’t meddle with his wife, nor his daughters. He’d sworn that yes, indeed, this necklace was real gold and diamond! He’d always been gone by the time they figured out the lie or saw the cut glass and copper. He’d been tricked and lied to plenty in his travels, so there was no reason for him to walk an honest path.