Alison, I am not buttering this up one bit (I never do, but it's especially important this time that you realize this) when I say that I LOVED your story. A renaissance festival geek myself, *grin*, I found myself going, "We have the dragon jousting at the Maryland Fair too!" You captured the air of the faire (that rhymes!) perfectly. More than that, I liked the main character's personality, as well as the whole outcome of the story. I like the lightness of it, from the way you handled the exposition to the actual outcome of the "crime". OK, this is really scatter-brained, but I just really liked it.

(I only have more to say about this than your poems because, while I enjoy your poems, I never "get" poetry at all. Prose I can handle!)