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Once every few years or so, usually around the holidays, the Archmage and the Dragonborn meet to discuss Matters of Great Import. In theory.
They usually do this over drinks.
“It’s not easy being me,” the Dragonborn declares with utmost solemnity, staring mournfully into her third tankard of mulled wine.
With due skepticism, the Archmage sips his cider. “Do tell.”
“Well,” says the Dragonborn, “there are the dragons.”
“Ah, yes. Plague on us all, your dragons.”
“And in addition to the dragons,” the Dragonborn continues patiently, “which should really stand on their own merit—”
“Fly,” says the Archmage.
“What?”
“Well, they don’t seem to do much standing.” The Archmage, who considers this a very reasonable argument, gestures expansively with his mug. “Dragons, I mean. They—you know, they fly about. Surely, my dear girl, you’ve seen them fly about.”
The Dragonborn stares at him.
“Come to think of it,” she says, “I have, yes.”
“Well, there you are, then. Go on.”
The Dragonborn sighs, takes a long, resigned drink. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “There are the songs.”
“Mm. Ever a hardship, being immortalized in verse.”
“Ah, Ravi, gods only know why I still visit you.” The Dragonborn leans across the table, fixing her friend with a grim, unblinking stare. “Let me ask you something. When you are the Dragonborn, and you rent a room at an inn with your lover, and the local wise-cracking bard sees you follow her into that room and shut the door—what do you think he plays?”
The Archmage considers this. The standard alehouse bard, he thinks, knows only about five songs; running through those five, and the potential lewd implications of each, it doesn’t take him long to land on the correct one.
“Oh, no,” he says with a slow, horrified smile. “Every time?”
The Dragonborn nods, looking pained. “Every time.”
“That is a hardship,” says the Archmage, and pours her another drink.