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The sky is a flat, miserable grey, like a cloud has come down to surround all of Oxenfurt, and the snow crunches beneath Jaskier's feet as he trudges down the street towards his lodgings, and Jaskier is just as miserable as the weather. His stuffy old poetry professor had turned up his nose at Jaskier's latest assignment, calling it trite and overly sentimental, and had praised that hack Valdo's submission for its clever use of anaphora, as if addressing the moon weren't just as trite as anything Jaskier's ever written. His last attempt to sing at the Green Goose's open stage was met with boos and hisses and thrown scraps of food, not the applause he craves, and he thinks he has a better song for the next time but he's not entirely sure. Even the thought of the upcoming guest lecture from a Skelligan skald on poetry battles isn't enough to lift Jaskier out of his slough of despond. He trudges along with his head down, huddled in on himself to fight the cold, dodging -
Dodging no one, actually.
It occurs to Jaskier, rather belatedly, that it's a bit odd that there isn't anyone else on the street. Usually the streets of Oxenfurt are quite busy at all hours, with students coming and going and the shops open both early and late to attract them. But though there are a great many footprints in the snow around him, there are no other people.
That's…strange and rather worrying, in point of fact. Jaskier pauses and turns in a slow circle, looking around. He can't see anything out of the ordinary…
Until he looks up at a strange glint in the otherwise featureless grey sky, and sees the enormous golden dragon sitting on the roof of the largest building on the street.
It is, Jaskier thinks wildly, magnificent. Its scales are as bright as polished coins, and it has a sleek majesty that every illustration he's ever seen entirely fails to capture. It's easily as large as a cottage; its claws, gripping the edges of the roof, are long as shortswords and clearly just as sharp. It has its tail curled neatly around the chimney, and its wings folded back, and it is looking right at him with eyes that gleam silver in the weak sunlight.
Jaskier is fairly sure he's heard that running away from predators just makes them start chasing, even if they weren't going to before. And running away from a dragon in snow seems like a great way to end up flat on his face before being pounced upon and eaten.
So out of a complete lack of other options, he bows to the dragon as flamboyantly as he can and says, "Why, master dragon! What an unexpected pleasure to see you here! Would you care for a song?"
The dragon tilts its head and lets out a plume of steamy breath, then settles down with its chin resting on its forepaws like a cat, looking at Jaskier expectantly.
Jaskier takes a deep breath, wincing internally at the chill of the air, and briefly forgets every song he's ever known. There's a frozen terrible moment.
And then the song he's been rehearsing for the last two weeks, that he was planning to debut at the Green Goose, springs to his lips, and Jaskier meets the golden dragon's eyes and sings, "Once there was and ne'er will be, a plowhorse sitting in a wide oak tree, with the sky all green and the grass all blue, and the cats all laughing at my lies so true."
The dragon rumbles. Jaskier decides to believe it's a laugh, and launches into the second verse. By the start of the third verse, the dragon's tail-tip is twitching in time with the tune, and Jaskier is pretty sure the rumbles are laughter. Certainly they're timed well to go with the lines he hoped would garner mirth from his audience.
The song has a dozen verses - he learned the hard way that longer songs lose the audience's attention - and when he finishes with a triumphant high note and gives the dragon a bow laden with flourishes, the dragon rumbles another deep hopefully-laugh and taps its claws on the tiles of the rooftop, a swift rattle like applause.
"Would my magnificent audience like another song?" Jaskier asks.
The dragon stretches out like a cat getting comfortable and gives him a look that says, clear as words, Go on.
Well, the first song seemed to please it, so Jaskier sings another comic song, and another, and another, until at last even his well-trained voice begins to give out. Swallowing dry-mouthed, he finishes the final verse of Fishmonger's Daughter and bows again. He's incredibly thirsty. If the dragon wants him to keep singing, he'll need to grab a handful of snow to eat to wet his throat.
"You have been the finest of audiences, master dragon," he rasps. "But alas, all good things must come to an end, and this concert among them…" He trails off, watching with his heart in his throat. If the dragon looks displeased, he'll have to start singing again. Or running. Not that running is any better an option now than it was an hour ago. Less, perhaps, given how cold and stiff he's grown, standing here in the open as the afternoon wears on.
The dragon rises elegantly from its comfortable sprawl and leaps down into the street, enormous taloned paws making an implausibly small amount of noise as it lands in the snow. It looms over Jaskier; he trembles as much with fear as with cold, but stands his ground, because what else is he going to do?
Close up, it's even more magnificent, its scales catching the light and reflecting it back in aureate radiance, its every movement as sleek and graceful as a cat's. Its eyes seem to glow with their own light, bright and astonishingly intelligent.
It leans down and breathes on him, warm air that smells slightly of sulphur surrounding him and driving away the chill in his bones.
"A fine concert, bard," it says, in a deep rich voice that echoes down the street. Jaskier gapes. It talks?
It breathes out again, the warmth seeming to soak into the very marrow of his bones, and then it leans back and leaps for the sky, wings snapping open as it overtops the buildings, and vanishes into the heavy blanket of clouds.
Jaskier stares after it, heart so full of awe he can't even find words.
He's been called a bard by a golden dragon.
No one will ever be able to take that away from him - no stuffy old professors, no boorish drunken crowds, no snooty rivals. He sang a concert fine enough to earn the approbation of a golden dragon.
He is, in this moment, truly and wholly and irrevocably a bard.
He's going to have to write a song of this.