halfman_lion | The Woods Around Base Camp, Early Sunday

Tyrion had woken early and decided to explore instead of poking at the fire with the children.

It was a long walk, and the woods changed around him as he went. Eventually, thoroughly lost, he spotted a tall young woman singing and gratefully went to tug at her gown. "Excuse me --"

The woman didn't stop singing. Badly, he thought.

I can't give you anything but love, baby.
That's the only thing I've plenty of, baby.

"Excuse me," Tyrion said more loudly.

"Oh, don't interrupt, David, it's tiresome," the woman sighed, then resumed her song.

Gee I'd like to see you looking swell, baby.
Diamond bracelets Woolworth doesn't sell, baby.

Tyrion craned his neck and realized she was singing at -- a house.

Of course.

"I'm not David," he said. Shouted, really.

"You're making me forget the words," the woman told him, then turned to blink at him. "You made me forget the words. And you aren't David."

"No," Tyrion agreed. "And why are you singing at a house in the middle of the night?"

"You're a dwarf, " the woman said, ignoring the question. "You're not David, you're a dwarf in a funny costume. Can you sing, dwarf?"

"My name is --" Tyrion decided it didn't matter. "I can if you tell me why we're singing."

The woman gestured impatiently to the house. "There's a leopard on the roof, and I have to get it down, and to get it down I have to sing. So tell me now, can you sing or can't you?"

And that was how Tyrion met Susan Vance. How he ended up in jail with her -- and how he talked his way out of jail, avoided being eaten by the leopard, and was back at base camp with a dinosaur bone in one pocket before lunchtime -- was a far, far longer story.

[OOC: NFI.]