A Dragon's Hobby S.A. Barton “The Low Riverfront is full to bursting and more. We're bottled up like pickled herring—it's getting so that murder is the only way to manage the crowding,” Old Red said, tapping out a funerary beat on his clay beer-pot with callused fingers. Outside, a dark lump of something the right size for a corpse floated down the Sapphire River—and the water it floated in was anything but its namesake color. Old Red and his friend watched the lump through the open shutters as it passed. An eel-boat swerved to drag its net away; a trade ship rowing upstream bumped over it. “It's crowded, Red, sure. But what to do about it? You know what Hotmouth does if we dare even pitch a tent where it's not artistically pleasing to him,” One-arm Bullneck said, scooping his own beer in close with his stump. “Kill Hotmouth,” Old Red said, drawing a ridged thumbnail across his throat. “That'll change his mind. Easy-peasy.” He snort-laughed, bitter. “Maybe all ten thousand of us might kill that old lizard if we rose up at once. Never happen, o'course.” He drained the pot and hooked his thumb in the air for another. “Is there an easier way to change his mind, I wonder,” the barmaid mused as she set the fresh beer-pot down. “You're a genius, Flowers,” One-arm Bullneck said to her. “Talk to the dragon nice-like. Dear Mister Hogue-mot sir, could you pretty please stop pruning Sapphord Town like a pet shrubbery? Thanks with sugar on.” “Like a pet shrubbery, are we?” Old Red said, and pounded a knee, laughing. “Like a pet shrubbery... arranged like flowers...” Flowers said to herself and wandered off, forgetting to notice One-arm Bullneck's gesture for a fresh beer. “Daft lass,” he said. # “Dear Mister Hogue-mot sir,” Flowers said, basket at her side, kneeling in the mouth of the dragon's hollow hill to keep her knees from knocking with fear, “could you pretty please listen to my suggestion for pruning Sapphord Town? Thanks with sugar on.” The dragon's great horned head emerged. By itself, it was as large as the common room in which Flowers served beer. Its neck, stout as the oldest old oak, disappeared into the darkness, so long there was no hint of the body. “Speak quickly, morsel,” the dragon Hogue-mot said with a snicker that sent a smoke ring rocketing over her head. “You prune our city so it is beautiful and artful, like a potted tree, when you see it in flight,” Flowers said. From her basket, she pulled an arrangement in a wide, flat clay tray. “May I present for you to consider: not a single shrub or tree, but a forest arrangement.” She held it up. The dragon brought its eye near, blinked. It stopped snickering. It smiled. END