Rhymes With Danger

Vigilance has expanded beyond a useful habit and become this ranger’s complete way of life. Empty rooms are surveyed for assassins, ordinary meals receive tactical inspection, and every pause becomes an opportunity to issue one more perfectly unnecessary warning.

He does not consider himself paranoid. He considers himself prepared—and remains certain that one day his elaborate caution will save the entire company. Until that day arrives, the refrain “Ranger… rhymes with danger” serves as both warning and creed, carried by the steady confidence of guest vocalist Matteo di Verro.

Not every composition demandeth my own voice. Rhymes With Danger belonged to my dear friend Matteo di Verro, whose steady confidence suited the ranger far better than my own more theatrical disposition. I directed every phrase with meticulous care, insisting that each pause, each measured declaration, and each perfectly unnecessary tactical observation be delivered with complete sincerity. Matteo possessed the rare gift of sounding utterly convinced by even the most excessive caution, and thus he transformed instruction into comedy without diminishing the ranger’s dignity. The ranger track also ventured into a slightly more modern musical character than its companions, for I desired its relentless momentum to mirror the constant vigilance of its subject.

The refrain, “Ranger… rhymes with danger,” delighted me from the moment it first escaped my quill. It is precisely the sort of phrase an experienced woodsman would repeat so often that it would cease to be a jest and become a creed. Such men do not believe themselves paranoid; they believe themselves prepared. Whether surveying an empty room as though expecting assassins or examining a bowl of stew with military suspicion, the ranger remaineth perfectly content in the certainty that one day such habits shall save the company. Should that day never arrive, he shall nevertheless consider the vigilance entirely worthwhile.