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"Okay, I need you to work with me, here..." The stranger set his half-emptied mug down, strong tea sweetened with honey.

"All right?" The bard had been sharing stories all evening for coppers and drinks, and was having a good night.

"You said, 'Dragons are logical, they only hunt things that attempt to run from them.' Right?"

"Yeah."

"So that makes sense. Prey runs; if it runs, it's prey."

"Correct."

"And then you said, 'they only attack that which attacks them first.' That's kind of a mistake though, isn't it?"

"I don't think so." The bard had never changed a word in the stories and songs handed down through the Guild. That was unimaginable. One mustn't ever tamper with The Truth. Do what you want with local songs and stories and of course compose whatever the hell you like, but Guild songs were sacrosanct.

"I do. That's not attacking, that's defending. It can escalate to eliminating a proven threat, i.e. killing an enemy. But it isn't attacking when you don't start the conflict. Anything that doesn't start a fight isn't an enemy, it's just another creature."

"Okay, I can accept that clarification. But the point remains that a dragon won't initiate hostilities."

"Fine. And now it all falls apart with the last bit: 'But something that does neither terrifies them.' I don't see how or why. They won't attack unless attacked first, so the base state there is to do nothing. If the target isn't fleeing, it isn't food either, so the base state there is to also do nothing. Are you telling me that if you just walk up to a dragon and stand there, it's going to be frozen with fear?"

"Look, man, if you're going to pick the old sayings apart, we're going to be here all day..."

"It's simpler than that."

"Oh?"

"Absolutely." The stranger picked up his mug and drained it, waving to the innkeeper for another. He set it down, idly turning it 'round with one finger. "And I'm pretty sure I know why."

The bard sat back. One fingernail scratched gently up a string of the lute, producing a subtle hiss. "Say on..."

"Old saying, right? Nobody knows how far back it goes, right?"

"Right..."

"But the rule of the Bard Guild is to never change the stories, because the stories are true, right?"

The stranger knew bardic law! Oh, this might be a very interesting evening... "Right."

"If the stories are true and all the statements within the story are not in conflict with each other, then some assumptions around the statements must be mistaken. To be frozen with fear by something that is neither attacking you nor running away is not logical."

"But what about the implication?"

"What about it? Implication is only suggestion, not fact. The fact is that the reaction is illogical. And that leaves only one conclusion."

"And that is...?"

"That what we have been calling 'dragon' all this time is not, in fact, a dragon."

The bard felt her pulse quicken. This might be one of the older Seeing Songs coming to light. "If not a dragon, then what is it?"

"I think it's a man."