Well, that was different. Garrett blinked at the newcomer, rendered speechless for a moment. The children seemed surprised by her entrance as well, so she obviously wasn't someone they knew. Something about the woman set all of Garrett's instincts on edge, but she seemed innocent enough despite her glowering. And she was pretty. Forcing a grin back onto his face, he said, "Sure thing, lass." He adjusted his position on the stump, and all the children turned back to him as he continued his tale.
"I was standing atop a cliff one old day, whiling away the hours on guard duty, when all of a sudden I heard a piercing shriek in the distance, a scream like no other."
"The dragon!" A little girl gasped, her hands over her mouth in horror. Garrett nodded solemnly.
"Yes indeed, sweetheart. It came searing from the sky and whoosh! Right over my post." The children all whimpered in fear. "It banked around, clearly sensing that I was the only man alive who could provide it with a real challenge. It descended until it rested on the mountaintop with me, it's big, snotty nose not three feet away."
"It didn't speak, of course, and neither did I. I looked into its bleak, soulless eyes and knew that I had to beat it, then and there, or all of Serendipity would fall prey to its hunger."
"What did you do? What did you do?" A boy asked, hopping up and down until he lost his balance and put a hand on Emilia's shoulder to keep from falling down."
"I did what any man would do, my friend. I hefted my spear--" here he grabbed his spear from where it was leaning against a tree and leaped up onto the stump, causing the children to shriek, "---and I leaped onto its face! The bugger tried to shake me off, he did. He took off soaring into the air and tossed his head this way and that, like a dog trying to get off a stubborn flea. But this flea wasn't going anywhere. I clambered up the lengths of its snout, barely keeping a grip with one hand and both legs, and then..." he leaped off of the stump and brought his spear down with a cry--until it was less than three inches from Emilia's eye. "--I plunged my spear into its eye socket, killing it instantly. The fall was great and terrible, but thankfully the dragon's body softened the blow."
Relaxing, Garrett sat back down and chuckled at the awestruck gaze of his audience. "Unfortunately, the landing pulverized its body into dust, so I wasn't able to salvage any trophy from it. And the dust it left completely ruined my cloak." The children laughed at that, then immediately began to clamor for another tale, but Garrett was watching only the newcomer.