It was strange, to be valued for misfortune, but it is the bardic burden and he bore it well by burying it in the hair of women, whispering his magic bardic words: You are the only one into their ears so that they have no choice but to believe it at that moment, to believe as they arch and hold onto him that Yes, I am the only one just like the woman the night before was, and the one before that.

The bard wasn't precisely happy in this life, nor was he unhappy -- that's another effect of the bardic life, being forced to live on the edge of everything. Between everything. A bard can only write his verse when he lives in the middle of all extremes: Between men and women, life and death, hope and despair, happiness and misery.

Some bards grow deeply twisted from this sort of life, and withdraw into themselves, and write curses for others that they sing like so: "Yeah, did you hear? Uh-huh. Tongpu down at the pub. Yeah, cheated him right out of it--" and before long, the words have gone around and that man would be ruined. That is the power a bard has. Others try to face the other way, and become good people, singing love and light and getting approached with smiles and soon forgotten.

This bard tried hard to be the first sort, but was always the second.

It was because it was the second that when he found a bleeding injured beggar man, he picked the man up, and carried him home, and used a string from his instrument to stitch the wounds, and put him to bed. A beggar man in a home is no longer much of a beggar man but a wandering stranger instead; the stranger and the bard are, by nature, very close, nearly one and the same.

And so it was only natural that when the wandering stranger woke, the bard soon became a close friend.

The stranger and the bard could talk about inconsequentialities for hours, and the bard found himself spending less time down at the pub to ply his trade; the stranger kept his mouth shut on words and so the bard would tell him stories -- normal stories of everyday life -- as bards are wont to do, and the stranger would listen and smile. And the bard would play his cards, and win nothing (because a stranger has nothing to bet) and lose nothing (because, since the stranger could not place a bet, it did not matter that he won). And the bard would smile at him the way he'd smile at women, and receive a soft, unfamiliar back, as if so much as human expression was unknown to the stranger.

And the bard would ask no questions, because a bard demands nothing of his audience he is not given freely.

Eventually, though, it was time to lay out his hat, and he did, and the stranger deposited the following in it:

"I used to be a dragon," the stranger said. "I was young and proud and hopeful and I had the most beautiful treasure in the world. You probably don't believe me."

And the bard smiled his smile that had charmed the hearts of women and made the men long for another round of cards, and turned his back as he exhaled smoke, and said, "Why would you make something like that up? I believe you."

And the stranger who had been a dragon smiled at him, desperate and pleased and relieved, as strangers are when their faces are unveiled.

At some other time, caught up in the stranger's presence becoming familiar in his home, the bard told him: "I'm never carrying a man to bed again," by which he meant, you are the only one and, in proper bardic fashion, the words became true: it would turn out that there wouldn't be a chance, because the man who had been a dragon would stay there and live with him, and so he would be the only one.

(There are other parts to this story, a travelling monk who was seeking the dragon, and the spirit of the earth who had accompanied him, but those are other parts, and it grows late.)