(All right, I'll confess: it's neither song nor poem.  I didn't know where else to put it, however, as I don't have a transcript of the one time I performed it, and I did want to include it, as I doubt I'll have the opportunity to perform it again.  This piece won second prize at the tall tale contest on the second voyage of the Dhu Gillywhack; I think I bribed the gnomes insufficiently, and running over time didn't help.  --Tanager.)

I can’t reveal the identity of either participant in this tale, because both paid me more shineys than you’re going to.  If you’re very curious, we might be able to talk about it afterwards... if you pay up first.

But there was a halfling who came to the Dhu Gillywhack on its last trip and fell desperately in love with a gnome.

And the gnome wouldn’t have any of it– she thought he was hairy and smelled funny....

He was very stupid, and he couldn’t solve even the simplest maze for children, let alone a real labryinth or a real puzzle.

Also, he was a coward--the first time he set off a steam valve and got a little scald, he ran screaming to an empath and cried.

But worst of all, he had no idea of the Real Importance of Tinkering.

He accidentally threw a lever away rather than giving it to her.

She was furious!  She said she’d never speak to him again, and she threw rotten turnips all over him, and he was very sad.

‘I’m a very good halfling--‘ he said, but she didn’t care... she was very mad, and said that only someone who could tinker was good enough for her.

She didn’t want anyone to be in love with her, because she was already in love with her machines, and love is messy.

‘Well, I’ll learn to tinker!’

‘Ha!  You couldn’t tinker a screw out of a piece of wood with a screwdriver!  You’ll never learn to tinker, and you’re absolutely awful!’

‘I’ll show you!  I can learn to tinker just as well as you can-- just as well!  No-- better!’

So they got into a tinkering contest.

The first one to build the biggest, most impressive machine would win.

If she won, he would leave her alone and never speak to her again.

If he won, she would have to go out to dinner with him in the Landing.

So she secretly worked in her quarters on making a big impressive machine to show the silly halfling what real tinkering was like.

It had beveled vultite gears, and long modwir levers, and haon pulleys, and splines and sprockets and tubes and all manner of wheels.

And the halfling went home and worked in secret at his home.  He asked on the amulet for spare parts, and he paid good sparklies for them, and he started working on his machine.  He used hammers and drills and splines and sprockets and all manner of wheels.

He was an awful tinkerer, but he really wanted to impress her.

Well.  The lady tinker gnome found out about how the halfling was buying things away from the tinker gnomes when the tinker gnomes needed the parts.

...I don’t even need to tell you how angry she was.  And she was especially mad because she knew he’d wind up wrecking all the parts he bought.  He was a clumsy stupid halfling and she felt bad for all the parts.

So she snuck off the Gillywhack to watch him work, and she snuck up to his door....

Well, he was tinkering all right-- sort of.  He would pick up a screwdriver, and put it down-- pick up a saw, and put it down-- pick up a pulley, and put it down, and stare out the window, and sigh....

He was so lost with love that he couldn’t think about tinkering.  Stupid halfling!

And then she saw the bag on his bed.  It was half open... and filled with sparklies.

So she knocked on his door, and hid-- and when he stepped out to see who it was, and then stepped round the corner searching, she snuck in and took away all his sparklies.

Emeralds and diamonds and pearls and rubies... they glittered and they gleamed, and she was a very happy gnome!

So she took them away and hid them in her stash... and then she had to go off and do her duties on the Gillywhack.

But the next night, when she was about to tinker on her machine, she went back to his house to see if he was working... and he’d gotten some work done--

--but more importantly, he had another sack of sparklies lying around on his bed.

So she knocked on his door, and hid-- and then snuck in again and took his sparklies away with her... but then, as she was about to leave, she saw the poor, mangled contraption lying on the floor.

He’d actually tried to tinker-- he really had... but he was stupid!

She felt bad for the machine-- it was a good machine, it was just being built by an idiot.  The halfling was about to come back, but she could tinker fast....

...so she tinkered off most of the wheels and most of the levers and took them away with her, leaving the bulky metal rods and tubes behind, because they were too heavy to carry.

And then she took the parts home with her, because they were important parts, and used them to make her own machine.

So, for the next three nights, the halfling spent every day asking for parts on the amulet and trying to tinker and failing.

And, for the next three nights, the little tinker gnome came down every night to see the half-built contraption, and she tinkered bits off, and she took away the gems that he left on the bed.

And every night, she took the poor, abused parts home, and straightened them and strengthened them, and used them on her own machine.

He was very bad at tinkering, but he was very good at finding good tinkering parts.

Maoral levers and helical gears and copper wires and and a giant brass steam tank and pressure valves and coiled springs and long glass tubes... it was a masterpiece.  An absolute masterpiece.

Then the day arrived, and the gnome– because she was a very clever, sneaky gnome-- got her contraption away from the Gillywhack without anyone seeing her at all.

And the halfling brought his half-ruined machine to the place they’d agreed to meet.

She looked at him and she laughed, ‘Well-- what does it do?’

He said, ‘It doesn’t matter what mine does-- it’s what yours does!  Those are my parts, and I paid you in sparklies to build a machine... you took my sparklies, you took my parts, it’s my machine you built!’

She stared at him for a moment... and then she said... ‘So what does it do?’

He thought he was very clever, and he said, ‘I know already, I commissioned it-- so show me....’ and he grinned at her, sure he’d won.

She walked up to her machine, and she adjusted the dials to the right position, and she set the levers up, and then she turned the big wheel to strike the flint that would light the fire that would make the contraption start.

There was a quiet hum... and then it got louder, and louder, and the gears began to turn, and the pulleys began to rattle, and steam began to build... and long mechanical arms unfolded from the machine.

The long mechanical arms stretched... flexed their fingers... and reached back and opened a hopper in the machine.

Inside....

...were lots of rotten vegetables.  It was a vegetable-throwing machine!

Squash and potatoes and tomatoes and turnips hailed over the halfling, and he ran around in a frenzy of panic, squeaking and yelping, as the gnome laughed and
laughed...

...and then, when there were no more vegetables, and the halfling was cowering in a vegetable-pulp mess, the long mechanical arms picked up the halfling, dusted him off, reached back, and dropped him....

...onto a catapult springboard.  The springboard went SPROING! and it launched the halfling so high into the air that he was only a speck, and, with a long howl of panic, he plummeted into the Trollfang forests, probably to be eaten by grizzly bears.

And the gnome took her contraption and she re-boarded the dirigible, and the dirigible flew away.  She hasn’t had a problem with amorous halflings since, and I doubt she ever will.

(Personally, I think that was only the beginning of this halfling's adventures, potential grizzly bears aside.  I suspect it taught him a wonderful lesson in manners, however.  --Tanager.)