HEARTHWANE · GUARDIAN
dragon, 1140
Hatched on the high ledge before there was a road, and watched the first lamp lit below.
THEIR STORY
Ketterow is a dragon of eleven hundred years, slate-grey scales gone pale as old pewter and one amber eye clouded. She hatched on the high ledge of Gall's Tooth before there was a road, and watched the first lamp lit below. Three centuries ago she agreed to guard the pass for a tithe of cheese and wool, and she now carves every village's tally-stick in claw-script because the shepherds cannot count high enough. She asks each visitor their name twice, slowly, as if tasting it, and she wishes she could remember why she agreed.
FROM
Gall's Tooth, the high pass of Kestrel Road
HOW THEY LOOK
Slate-grey scales gone pale as old pewter, one amber eye clouded, a ledge's worth of carved tally-sticks heaped around her like a nest.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
“Say it again. Your name. Slower. I want to keep it this time.”
“Cheese. Yes. There was always cheese. Why was there cheese?”
BEFORE THE TALE
1140 years ago · Gall's Tooth
Hatched on the high ledge before there was a road, and watched the first lamp lit below.
300 years ago · Gall's Tooth
Agreed to guard the pass for a tithe of cheese and wool, split on a hazel stick with a man in a grey coat.
60 years ago · Gall's Tooth
Began carving every village's tally-stick herself in claw-script, because the shepherds could not count high enough.
3 years ago · the high pass
Asked a goat who it was. The goat did not answer, and she took that as an answer.