The Halfling stage manager waved to her and Kivaira stepped up on the stage, her head bowed until the spotlight hit her.  Then, she slowly looked up and out over the crowd as if she were Lyria beseeching the gods for help, her people dying at her feet as they fought to protect her from the Orc swordsmen slashing their way to this last stronghold of the elves of the forest.  This tale had been one of the first she had ever heard from the lips of Tomas Illendiar, bard to the once king, who had retired to live out his life in peace just walking distance from the house in which she had grown up.  He often had joked that he got little peace with her always pestering him for more stories.<br/><br/>As a little girl she had finished her studies and her chores as fast as she could, often telling the music master that she’d practice later before running down the lane to find Tomas sitting outside whittling in his favorite bench in the garden.  She’d rush up to him out of breath from hurrying to get there and stand in front of him, waiting for him to acknowledge her.  Of course, he would drag it out, carving one of the little figurines that spent hours on.  She still  had the small dragon he had spent an entire season working on.  It was the only one of his pieces that she had ever seen him dye.  He had presented it to her as a gift when she could tell back Lyria’s story.  Thanking him, she had asked him why he had dyed it green when the dragon in the story was a red.  He had winked at her and told her that it was to match her eyes, the windows to her tales.  She had known then that she would become a bard and always kept the small dragon with her onstage.  It sat in the pocket she had had made for it when she ordered the cloak she wore.<br/><br/>Reaching the part in the story where the last warrior had fallen, she stood with her chin tilted up as she told the audience Lyria had done, defying the Orcs to take her life also.  She showed them the avarice of the Orc bowman, seeing her standing undefended and notching his arrow, thinking how he would be rewarded handsomely for bringing in the head of the Elven princess, already counting his fame and wealth. Then, with a flourish of her cloak, she became the dragon swooping down from behind the clouds , his talons outstretched and plucking her from the arrow’s path to set her down well away from the battle before turning back and felling the Orcs with the terrible flames he breathed.  As she turned again, she placed a small container in her mouth and picked up one of the small firesticks,  biting down on the balloon in her mouth and spraying the liquid just over the tip of the stick.  Even those in the audience who had seen her do this before jumped a bit in their seats as a column of fire shot across their heads.  Some of those who had never seen it screamed.  Twice more she spewed fire in imitation of the great red dragon of whom it was said had felled a thousand Orcs with his breath that day.<br/><br/>Kivaira ended the tale with Lyria’s lament for those who had fallen in her service and her vow to return again with more warriors until the last Orc was dead or admitted defeat.  The crowd’s applause washed over her like a drug and when she looked up at them and took a small bow; her cheeks were pink from the thrill that this moment always brought.  Something about that applause sent her blood coursing through her as nothing else ever did.<br/><br/>Taking a sip from the water glass on the table to her right and a deep breath as she set it down, allowing the crowd to become quiet again, she started her next tale.  This one too involved a dragon, yet it was a silly one that brought much laughter as she told of the blue dragon who took it in her head to sleep in the middle of a mountain pass holding up trade for the town of Diltoninia.  The audience wiped tears from their eyes while she told of the mountain dwarves efforts to wake the dragon and get her to move.<br/>