The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Winterhawk99]

Fireside theatre: Rigo the Halfling


The story as spoken by Rigo:

“So there I was, farming with all my brothers and sisters one bright, spring day. The world was at peace. The sun was shining, the Burbling Stream was burbling as it streamed. All thirteen of us were in the field... Oh, and my mum and da, too. We were out planting veggies in the warm, dark soil.

“Suddenly,” the halfling begins gesturing wildly, “this big dragon, as shiny as it was black, flew overhead! It circled around us once, and fortunately continued on its more-important-than-little-people journey. But as it was flying off, I noticed that it was bleeding. Small drops of black dragonblood fell in the circle, blighting the soil (Well, the tiny bits of blood didn’t change anything noticeable ‘till the next day, when everyone was standing around, murmuring about crop circles and little people from another world.).

“Anyway, none of my family had very good eyes, except me, and when I pointed out the dragon was dripping, they didn't believe me. It was just little drops, though. Very little of the crop was actually touched.

“But that night I followed the path of dips. I came to this cavernous cave, like a catfish's calculating cage. Hmmm, that doesn’t make much sense, does it? But it’s what it was like! So I was pattering as quiet-like as I could. Maybe I was pittering, then. I was close enough to touch the cave, if the cave wasn’t a hole and couldn’t be touched, when I was snuck up on from behind by a snarly grizzly bear with a snappy snout who tried to snuff me for a snack.

“Then ensuing battle was a long fight, which mostly involved me running faster than the bear (good thing I put my running shoes on, huh?), and minorly involved me throwing a small stone at the slowly-seething bear.

“I ran around up the hill above the cavernous cave, and we were all in a line; there was the bear, then next there was the me, then next there was the drop in front of the cave. When the big, brown, broiling-angry bear came bounding at me, I jumped to the side!
The bear fell and hit with a thumpy thud on the ground in front of the cave, while I was peeking over the side from above and a little to the right. Remember how I said it was a big cave? It was a long drop!

“NOW I saw the dragon. The big, black dragon stuck its head out of the cave. It sniffed at the body a little, then sniffed the air. It arched its scaly, shimery, shiny neck up and looked right at me! So what did I do? I was scared more than when mum found out I stole a turnip! I looked at it right back, and said, in my loudest hobbity voice, ‘Hi!’ What else could I do?

“Have you ever heard a dragon whose neck is twisted around at an awkward angle laugh before? Well, after blinking at me in surprise, it did. Big, snorting laughs that send out a lot of dark icky stuff from its nose.

“Well, I was lucky! It seemed this dragon could speak halfling. So the dragon asked me if I was crazy, or something like that. I can’t remember the words. I said, ‘I'd have to be to try to give you dinner and not run away,’ as I pointed down at the dead bear. The dragon said, ‘I should eat you right now for being so fooling, but I have something that you could do for me.’ I nodded, and it continued.


“‘I have been injured by a knight. He will be looking for me. If you could mislead him, I would appreciate it greatly.’ Or it said something like that. I agreed, and went back home.

“Remember how there were those crop circles left from the bleeding dragon? Well, everyone was out staring at how amazing it was, but since I knew what it was, I stayed back by front yard. Soon, a knight and his escort of servants wandered down the road. He was wearing bright, shiny armor, and he seemed to look down upon everything (which wasn't hard when everything was me and I'm smaller than him.). He stopped by the path to our house and had a servant come get me.

“In a rather bored voice, the servant said, ‘His holiness, son of Hornar, Sir Pernac requests your audience, in all his glory.’ So I stood up and followed the servant back to the knight. He was only about ten feet away from where I was sitting, and it seemed funny that he didn't call me. I guess some people just hate to have to raise their voices for country louts. Well, I'm guessing he would have trotted his horse through the yard if I hadn't agreed.

“I looked up at him and he said, talking really slowly like I was an idiot, ‘Have...you...seen...a...dragon?’

I just gave him the most quizzical look I could manage and said, ‘Dragon?’

“’Yes...Big...lizard...Has...wings,’ It looked like he was getting a little annoyed.

“I said, ‘Well, we have crop circles in the field out back, if you want to look at them.’

“He didn't seem to like that I wasn't calling him "sir" or some such, and he got really angry. He said, ‘Are you an idiot? Crop circles don't exist!’

“So I said, ‘Hey, you're trying to tell me there's a kind of big lizard that flies!’

“He got mad and galloped off, almost running me over. The rest of his escort glared at me as they passed, except for the last guy, who grinned at me and silently mouthed the words, ‘Thank you.’ They were heading east, but the dragon flew south the day before. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly honest, but I already told the dragon I’d help it. I figured it was safe from them, so I went back to the dragon's cave and told it what I said to the knight. It seemed to think that was amusing, and it let me live.


Rigo does not tell the rest of the story; some of it is because he does not know it, and some because it is private. It shall be summarized in the following story.

Rigo befriended the dragon, whose name is Cerdrarron, a young adult black dragon. She was feeling a bit lonely because there was a deal made before she was born, where she would be raised by a bronze dragon, who brought her up following all that is good. Thus, it was a terribly lonely world for one such as herself, when the rest of her kind was generally vicious. She was not sure whether there was something wrong with her, of if it was something wrong with the rest of her kind. Often she prayed to Bahamut or Tiamat for guidance, but neither gave her any.

Nevertheless, she posed as being evil to find a mate, who she never saw again after a "casual night." This yielded three eggs.

Getting back to Rigo's story, Cerdrarron taught (or tried to teach) him many skills, including sorcery, swordsmanship, and shadowdancing. She also would sometimes leave the halfling guarding the eggs when she needed to leave to get food or stretch her wings.

A few days after the eggs hatched, an unknown human sorceress magically put her in some type of trance and attempted to steal the wyrmlings. Rigo happened by at this time and managed to wake the dragon up, but he was knocked unconscious in the ensuing fight to save the wyrmlings. The human managed to escape, but with only one of Cerdrarron's children. Since she had her hands full with the other two, she sent Rigo after the human to try to get the third baby dragon back.

Rigo followed the tracks she left, and soon caught the woman, who was near a strange portal, with the two wyrmlings unconscious and bound nearby. She grabbed them and jumped through the portal, and Rigo jumped after her.

Rigo ended up in a strange place, where space seemed to take different dimensions, then at once he was beyond, and lying in the dirt in front of an old cottage, tall trees around him and no sign of habitation. The sorceress was nowhere to be seen.

This was Sierra Na.


Story by Micteu