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     he added, pointing at Seron, “I must ponder.”
    “You must not offend me,” Kyra reproached gently. “Seron is my husband, and if you like
     me, you must also like him.”
    The dragon made a frown. “Is this a rule of the humans?”
    “It's my rule,” said Kyra. The dragon nodded.
    “Good. Now come, let me give you your new cape.”
    Tosch lowered his head, and Kyra tied the red cloth around the dragon's neck. It was a
     pitifully small splash of red against the creature's massive body, but Tosch didn't seem
     to care. He was thrilled with his new appearance and he revelled in it - posturing every
     which way and asking how he looked in every pose.
    To Seron, it was all rather silly, but Kyra took the dragon seriously, giving him her best
     advice on how to wear the cape to his best advantage.
    Finally, Tosch stood still and turned to Seron. “Your wife gave me a wonderful gift,”
     stated the dragon. “What are YOU going to give me?”
    “I'm going to paint your picture,” he calmly replied. “Once humans have seen your
     portrait, they won't be so surprised when they see you in the flesh. Isn't that what you
     want?”
    Tosch looked at Kyra. “Can he draw?” he asked.
    “Raise your right wing just a little higher,” said Seron, as he painted Tosch's picture in
     the forest clearing where they had first met. “Just a bit higher. Yes. Good. Don't move.”
    “I think I look better with my wings lower and my head higher,” complained Tosch. “And
     I've got a great profile from the left side. You said so, yourself.”
    “My purpose is to create a dramatic effect,” the painter reminded him, “not necessarily to
     make you look your best.”
    “I don't understand the difference,” sniffed the dragon. “If I look good, the picture
     looks good, right?”
    “It's the other way around, my friend,” laughed Seron. “If the picture looks good, you'll
     look good.”
    “Hmmph.”
    No one else was offering to paint pictures of Tosch, so he remained a willing model
     despite differences with Seron. The peacemaker was Kyra. She often joined them in the
     forest clearing, stroking the dragon's head when her husband released him from a long,
     torturous pose.
    Tosch, however, was not the easiest model to paint. The brass dragon would often arrive
     late for sittings;
    sometimes he wouldn't come at all. Often, he would quietly mutter a magical incantation,
     slap his tail against the ground three times, and make Seron's brushes disappear. The
     dragon seemed bent on driving the artist to distraction.
    But Kyra always soothed Seron's anger by explaining yet again that the dragon tales of her youth told of the creatures' freewheeling nature.
     “A brass dragon,” she said, “comes and goes as he pleases and likes to play tricks. It's
     his nature; don't blame him.”
    And so the painting continued. At least for a short while . . .
    Tosch might have stayed for years instead of a few short months, but when the Highlord and
     her forces invaded Flotsam, the young dragon fled to the mountains.
    Seron and Kyra might have done the same, but Flotsam was all they had ever known; they had
     both been born there, and neither of them had ever been anywhere else.
    The truth was they were afraid to leave. Times were hard after the dragonarmy took over.
     But even so, Seron eked out a living. He managed to sell his pictures of Tosch, despite
     the fact that dragons were now far more commonplace. One of Seron's portraits went to the
     owner of the inn where he worked as a cook. He sold another to a fierce female ship
     captain who said she would hang it in her cabin. Yet another was bought by a traveling
     peddler. All of the buyers admired how skillfully the artist had, at once, captured both
     the youthful innocence and the natural arrogance of the dragon.
    With each sale, Kyra became ever more proud of her husband. His reputation as a painter
     was growing, yet nothing really changed.