I found a harp.
Fine. I stole a harp.
Tiny thing. Lap-sized. Strings still smelled faintly of lemon oil and rich people. It had been hanging on a wall in the last townhouse I robbed, right between a landscape painting and a very judgmental-looking ancestor with a beard like a disapproving broom. Clearly loved. Clearly unused. Clearly coming with me.
So now I'm sprawled on a rug at camp, legs out, toes dirty, harp propped against my thigh like I know what I'm doing. The fire's low. The night's warm. The Dragon is coiled nearby, pretending not to watch me with one eye half-open like a suspicious cat the size of a chapel.
"You do realize," he says, "that instruments are commitments."
I pluck a string. It twangs wrong. I wince.
"It's a small commitment," I say. "Like stealing shoes. Or lying about my name."
He snorts. Smoke curls out of one nostril. "Last time you 'remembered' something artistic, you tried to cook."
Low blow. Accurate, but rude.
"Shut up," I tell him, adjusting the harp. "I'm concentrating."
I take a deep breath. Like I've seen real musicians do. Count inside my head. One-two-three-four—no, wait, that was dancing—whatever. Close enough.
My fingers hover.
Then I start to play.
Carefully at first. Tentative. The melody comes back slow, like an old friend I didn't expect to recognize me. My hands remember before my head does. The notes stop tripping. They settle. Warm. Soft. The tune winds out into the dark, simple and a little sad, the kind you hum when you're walking alone and don't want to think too hard.
The Dragon goes very quiet.
I don't look up at first. I don't have to. I feel it. That shift. That heavy, ancient stillness he gets when something sneaks past all the armor and sarcasm.
I keep playing.
Eventually I glance up.
There's a tear in the corner of his eye. Just one. Glittering in the firelight like he's been stabbed emotionally by a very small, very rude knife.
I smirk.
"Oh don't start," I say, still plucking. "You're going to make it weird."
He immediately turns his head away. "Dust," he says stiffly. "Very… aggressive dust."
"Sure," I say. "Emotionally targeted dust."
He huffs. "The melody is… adequate."
I grin wider. "Adequate made you cry."
"I did not cry."
"You leaked."
He grumbles something about acoustics and sentimental scales and how harps are structurally manipulative instruments. I let him rant. I finish the tune with a neat little flourish I absolutely meant to do.
Silence settles again.
I rest the harp against my knee and look over at him, smug as sin.
"See?" I say. "I do have some skills."
He doesn't look at me, but his tail curls just a bit closer.
"Don't let it go to your head," he mutters. "You're still banned from cooking."
Fair.
I pluck one last soft note anyway, just to annoy him.