#the pentarchy

[dragon-susceptible]

TDP Rewatch S2 E5: Breaking The Seal

Berto got the intro voice! I guess it's more the recap voice, it's the 'previously on' thing.

It still gets me in the heart that Harrow even says he's done terrible things, and he's not sure they were justified. He has regrets.

Avizandum having ragged spots in his wings reminds me of some real world science. So it's not unrealistic for him to be able to fly with the level of damage he has, the holes are fairly isolated and relatively small. If we're going to accept that a creature as heavy as a dragon could fly with wings that aren't double its own size, it's fine; bats also fly regularly with equivalent damage.

It does remind me of the Real Science of horns, though, and how the Moonshadow elves' horns canonically defy that science in multiple directions. I get why they didn't have Runaan's broken one bleed in the first episode, because of the rating, but he absolutely should have been bleeding. Also, in Lunabloom he makes reference to Rayla's horns sharpening (normal horn development) and says they'll be Fully Grown within a few years, which isn't a thing, per se, with real horns. Horns typically continue to grow for the entire life of the creature that has them. That said, sometimes we use the term "fully grown" to just mean "has reached adult form", and it doesn't mean they've stopped growing entirely, so that could also be all Runaan meant.

Back into the current episode; "Dismount, disarm, and proceed alone to the meeting point" just reminded me of that scene from The Two Towers book where the Three Hunters and Gandalf are heading into a meeting with . . . I wanna say it was Theoden? It's been a while since I read it, and Gandalf fussed about giving up his staff because He's An Old Man, Haldir, He Needs It, and Haldir is just like I don't get paid enough for this. Please just cooperate. and Gandalf was ready to argue until Aragorn started roasting him for being a petty bitch.

The monarchs interest me so much, honestly. I appreciate how Ahling, Fareeda, and . . . god I forget the other king's name. The three who were already there were talking and laughing comfortably until Viren showed up, and then Ahling tried for sympathy and kept getting Interrupted by Viren.

I fucking love Aanya's introduction. Her interactions with Viren in this episode are pure fucking gold. She goes hard-faced when Viren initially asks after her regent, and clearly assesses the situation while he's talking, and then he starts to bend over all condescending to say "these matters require an adult perspective." And she just goes Cute to reply, "It seems then that I am a crown without an adult, and you are an adult without a crown. Let's just begin." And she just turns her back and strides to HER throne, because fuck this guy. The power of this little girl. Viren gets verbally murdered by a 12 year old.

I just wanted to look longer at the elven silhouettes that Viren summons here to scare the other rulers. Runaan's there in the center, Callisto and Andromeda to the right of him. The hair sort of looks like Skor to the left, but there's no weapons and the build is too vague to be sure. What I find interesting is that the elf furthest to the left in the highlighted section is Rayla's silhouette, an elf Viren shouldn't have even known was there. There's also the figures to Ahling's left, which are slightly faded, but who I can't identify for certain as elves.

this is just gonna be an image heavy post, sorry.

I find it intriguing that even Viren's false shades have the binding on their wrists, and Rayla doesn't seem to be one of these. Andromeda, Skor, Callisto, and Ram are the only ones he's summoned as more than silhouettes on the walls. He has them shuffling like zombies too.

So he adds feral snarls and shambling to the Moonshadow elves, to make them creepier. He adds spikes to the portrayal of Sunfire elves, and height, to make them more intimidating. All of his elves have blood red eyes. This is such blatant fearmongering. I also appreciate how the other monarchs are clearly moved by this display, but Aanya sees the manipulation for what it is, because she's been dealing with it for years as a child ruler.

FLORIAN that was the last dude's name.

That is not exactly the kind of name I would have expected from a Viking analogue lmao, fantastic.

I had a friend who was deep into RWBY the first time I watched this and I cannot unsee RWBY's Pyrrha when I look at Queen Fareeda.

See here it is again, this thing with Viren, strength is more important than goodness. He snaps when Aanya is undecided, because her decisions aren't strong enough for him. Meanwhile, it's actually a much stronger position (as she points out!) to actually stop and think about this situation rather than just taking the word of some random Guy from another kingdom and committing her entire country to a war effort.

She has SO MANY fair points, Ahling.

He really just roasts his own kid in the middle of a royal meeting huh lmao. I do think it's interesting that he doesn't die later - I'm pretty sure he's the one they said survived but was in a coma or something. What happened to his kingdom in the time lapse? Was Kasef's mother in charge of the kingdom? Did he have younger siblings?

Would it even be a mercy for Ahling to wake up and find out what happened to his son?

I love how unimpressed Aanya is with Viren's offer of a story.

OKAY I NEED TO WRITE THIS SHIT DOWN, TIMELINE TIME, FIRST USEFUL THING VIREN'S EVER DONE, JESUS

Okay so this is interesting, Ezran is 10, but Harrow only became king 9 years ago. So Sarai married Prince Harrow. And he took the throne telling Sarai he wanted to make a difference from how his father ran things, which has implications for what Katolis used to be like.

Fellas, is it gay to call your best friend "beautiful" in wistful tones while staring at him getting his family portrait done, and only mention his beautiful family as an afterthought?

Also Viren telling them they could move without consulting the artist, who was clearly still working on the family portrait, was rude AF and if I was the painter (not that I can paint) I would have splattered his pretty clothes with the ugliest yellow on the palette. The best part is Harrow would have thought it was so funny I wouldn't even be in trouble for it.

Viren's account of the history does include Harrow inviting him to stand with him in the portrait, but it is just his retelling, even if it's animated as a flashback. We already know from Rayla's flashback earlier that characters' memories/stories aren't necessarily how things actually went in this universe, and it still bothers me that Harrow was frowning in his official portrait with Viren where Viren wasn't. I suspect he wasn't the one who suggested it after all.

Harrow and Sarai were such tender parents, my heart hurts watching them cuddle with baby Ezran. I like that Harrow's so acutely aware of the class distinctions in his country. It makes me think that's maybe what bothered him about his father's reign; that's what he's so dedicated to changing.

"Lady Justice?" His little smirk when he leaned back and told her "She was wearing her robes." He knew that's where her mind was going to go and he was so fond about it. "Ah, so a boring dream." She says while snacking. I love how casually supportive she is, while also trying to bring lightness to a situation that's clearly distressing him.

I do think it's intriguing that Harrow does mention skin color in his list of things that would affect a person's position in the system, given we don't really see evidence of that in the systems we witness. The races that matter are elf and human; colors within those divides don't have nearly as much of an effect on the story. Maybe I missed or forgot something - or maybe most of the story takes place after this, and Harrow just really succeeded in addressing the inequality.

Amaya standing beside Sarai on her throne is such a good little background detail. She was crownguard before she was a general, it seems. I wonder if Sarai was too, and that's how she met Prince Harrow. I saw a post point out a while back that Callum's three parents are Soldier (Sarai), Poet (Damien), King (Harrow), and now I can't get that out of my head as I think about them.

Says something about Viren's arrogance that he's telling Aanya this story of her parents' sacrifice as if she didn't grow up hearing it.

Poor Bait.

I love the background reactions to Harrow's offer of help to Annika and Neha. Sarai and Amaya are on his side. The reaction of the public doesn't seem to be poor - and realistically, most of the common people wouldn't know at that point how badly this offer of help might affect them. They would just know that their king is offering help to people in need. Viren's the only one who reacts with anger or dismay, and his reasons are fundamentally selfish. It's better to let others die when you can help, just to avoid sharing in their suffering, in his mindset, and Harrow just disagrees.

I wonder if Callum ever accidentally reminded Harrow of Viren. Carrying around stacks of books, bright-eyed and intellectual.

I wonder if he'll remind Harrow of Viren even more, as an adult mage, and how that may affect their relationship in Arc 3.

Viren just randomly having a piece of the magma titan supports my running theory that he just randomly goes on trips to Xadia to "harvest ingredients", likely stoking the fires of Xadian aggression.

His bitter af tone mentioning that he wasn't Harrow's closest advisor is telling. I'm so fucking suspicious.

The guards watching over this sparring match just standing stock still even as their monarchs bicker, and then throw a spear between them, and then exchanging money about it, give me life. I love those little details.

"Is it intelligent?" "What? What do you mean?" "Does it think? Does it feel? Does it have a family?" I like this moment so much because it frames Sarai as someone who values life, all life, right away. "Then is it the last of its kind?" We know she's a soldier. We also know that she doesn't fight because she hates what's in front of her; she doesn't even fight just to defend what's behind her. She fights when she believes she's minimizing harm.

She would have gotten along with Runaan, if they'd met in good circumstances, and that hits, for me personally.

It's interesting that Sarai is already so suspicious of Dark Magic. I wonder what experiences she's had with it up until now to make her so solidly convinced it's a bad idea. "You said you wanted to build a better world, to really change things. That's going to take decades of hard work. There's no monster you can slay and solve all your problems! There's no shortcut! This is going to be a very slippery slope! Harrow, tell me you won't do this."

"It's our only chance."

Something about how when Harrow did something Sarai vehemently disapproved of, she fought with him about it, and she never changed her position, but she stood by him anyway to keep him safe, contrasted with how when Harrow did something Viren disapproved of, he fought with him about it and trapped his soul in a bird and tried to murder his sons to stage a coup.

Amaya was going to go on this mission whether Sarai did or not. I like that, the contrast between them.

Funny how Viren said the Magma Titan lived near the Xadian border, but after he got Harrow to agree to the mission, turns out it's actually on the Xadian side of it. Which makes this significantly more dangerous.

Interesting. The hidden outpost from a couple episodes ago isn't new, which was the impression I got from how Fen and Amaya talked about it; it's where Harrow and his group are planning the assault on the Magma Titan. I wonder if that's true or a plot device for Viren's story. Or just because the animators didn't want to or didn't have time to make a new background site.

Harrow "talks with his hands", a lot, just gestures a lot while he talks, and Amaya cracking a joke about how "look he's signing" to make Sarai laugh was adorable, but it also makes my heart ache because. Callum does that. That's a bit of Harrow's mannerisms in Callum. Ezran doesn't do that as much, he's more like Sarai.

Funny how Viren's so confident about how they just need to "open it up and take what we need", but he doesn't make a move to actually assist in doing that. He leaves that to Amaya and Neha.

Callum talking to Bait about Harrow's letter made me cry again. This poor kid.

Okay, but the story telling choice of framing breaking the seal of Harrow's letter with breaking the shield of the magma titan was so powerful.

Little baby Ezran with Bait for a palate cleanser. I do appreciate those moments from the credits sketches.

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

[kradogsrats]

Okay, so new day; new insane lore history theory.

Looking at the tapestry from ToX again more closely, after my very quick scan this morning, there are actually five distinct types of soldiers shown:

Based on careful examination of the contemporary armor/uniforms used by the Pentarchy armies, I landed on this breakdown:

I could explain in great detail how I made those distinctions, but honestly it doesn't matter and people don't care. Just trust me, I thought hard about it.

Originally I misidentified there as only being three types of soldiers, because the Katolis/Evenere and Neolandia/Del Bar designs are very similar. Also because the tapestry shows three cities:

Katolis is obvious, and I still think the other two are Berylgarten and Neolandia. The map helpfully tells us there are five known cities in the human kingdoms, complete with little pictures:

I've left out Hinterpeak because it's very obvious none of the tapestry cities is Hinterpeak, Hinterpeak is literally inside a mountain. Del Bar's secondary city, Serpentongue, looks like a candidate based on its map drawing, but ToX tells us that Serpentongue actually looks like this, which is... less representative of what the tapestry shows:

We see Berylgarten briefly in s2 during Viren's flashback sections, where it's a sort of tiered city with towers around a central dome:

I think that's closer to the top tapestry city than Serpentongue is, though it's still fairly abstracted. It also makes more sense for the "capital" city of a kingdom to be represented.

Finally, we have Eboreus, which is a bit of a problem child because we have no long-distance views of Eboreus that I can recall... there are depictions of the inside of the city, but nothing that would characterize its silhouette for us. However, ToX does have another piece of "old" artwork, meant to be probably some kind of fresco, depicting the founding of Neolandia and Eboreus:

(This is the latter, Eboreus half, the right half just shows the people migrating from the east and going through a nomadic tent-based civilization period.)

It doesn't help a ton, except that construction of the city wall is given a pretty dramatic place in the visual narrative. I would definitely assume, from this, that Eboreus is a walled city similar to the bottom tapestry city. Combined with the many-spired depiction on the map, I feel okay about that identification.

It's interesting that they geographically represent only three of the five kingdoms, but if the tapestry pre-dates parts of the kingdoms' formations... well, the kingdom that's a swamp infested with magical megagators and the kingdom where they still choose the next monarch by having a literal melee free-for-all are honestly the ones I'd say probably took the longest to establish like... actual government.

However, something to keep in mind is that while I've been talking about this tapestry like it's a super-old historical document within the setting, it may actually not be from all that far in the past. All we really know is that it shows a conflict between humans and elves, divided by the Border, and that's not exactly a historically unique scenario. The main things that suggest it's showing an earlier time than "now" are that it includes only three cities, and that it clearly depicts mages being heavily involved in warfare. If that was something that was expected at series time, a lot of things would be very different. I could, however, see it being a thing as late as, say, the time of the Orphan Queen. I mention all of this because the tapestry is one of several "old"-looking art pieces in Tales of Xadia, but we have to keep in mind that one of those literally depicts Harrow killing Avizandum, so. It could be very old, it could be not-very old. (I mean, 300 years is still pretty old, in the scope of known human history.)

Really, though, what I wanted to talk about is this:

We have our "Katolian" soldier, but the heraldry on their shield is not the Katolis uneven towers, even though that's already a distinguishing feature of the kingdom (as seen in the city depictions). Instead, it's a layered uh... thing. But it's a thing we've seen before:

The guards at Allhaven Hill have their own heraldry, presumably because they're supposed to be neutral regardless of their kingdom of origin... but it's almost exactly the same overlapping geometric design as we see in the tapestry.

We also have Blondie McKatolis, in the flashback scenes during Zubeia's account of Aaravos's imprisonment, strongly implying that we are seeing representatives of the human kingdoms at the time of the Orphan Queen:

We pretty clearly also have Neolandia, Del Bar, and Evenere at this table. Also Duren, I just always get confused by her since they gave her those purple-y pink accents instead of blue. Why? No idea. What is this, Sleeping Beauty?

Anyway, Blondie up there also does not use the modern Katolian uneven-towers heraldry, nor the crown that matches it. Depending on how long the Aaravos bullshit had been going on, it's not surprising that the Orphan Queen would try for a clean slate when taking the throne. Having just averted devastation on both sides of the Border by working together with Xadia, "finding strength in our differences" is a pretty good choice for new logo inspiration. (I don't actually know how you adopt/change heraldry. But I do know logo design and branding strategy!)

Given that all five kingdoms technically appear in the tapestry, the "Pentarchy" heraldry could already be a united human kingdoms symbol... except then why isn't it on any of the other soldiers? Some of them have shields almost exactly the same as the Katolian soldiers, but no heraldry.

So here's a thought: what if it actually is the Katolian heraldry of the time, or a symbol of the kingdoms united under Katolis?

Katolis is one of the older and larger kingdoms, it's implied to have had a larger and more organized military for a long time (holding most of the Border), and Blondie is the one with Aaravos whispering in his ear. It wouldn't be super weird if Katolis at one point held a higher position than the other kingdoms, whether as "first among equals" or an actual system of vassals with a "high king" or whatever. The center, frontmost piece of the overlapping geometry, so to speak.

We have occasionally gotten weird little hints/implications that the current era of peace between the human kingdoms, even the entire concept of the Pentarchy, is fairly recent. What if that's not because they were all squabbling amongst themselves even after the mage wars wound down, but that prior to the Orphan Queen, they were all varying degrees of vassal states to Katolis? If part of what the Orphan Queen did was reset the human kingdoms as equals, doing a "this symbol now belongs to all of us, not just Katolis, and Katolis will adopt new heraldry" could be a nice gesture.

But yeah, that's how my brain has been spinning today.

[raayllum]

One thing I noted watching The Dragon Prince is that the intro splits the same continent in half with the elves/humans so they started with the same amount of magical animals/plants each. There’s still some magical animals the human side but their presence is far, far reduced comparatively so do you think that’s specifically because of dark magic harvesting leading to more “normal” to our eyes species dominating?

I’m fairly surprised there isn’t a visibly established livestock industry’s for magic animals too (that way say your lunar moths can be renewably hatched each year, or a sheep population equivalent kept etc).

You seem very immersed in much of the lore so thought it’d be fun to at least pose as a query.

I think there's a few different things here to consider (that we'll probably never get a definitive answer on) but this is my best guess + what we do know about how dark magic operates:

Both regular animals and magical creatures can be used for dark magic. We know this because we've seen human blood be used in a couple of spells, Claudia puts grasshopper goop in Soren's mouth (2x08), and then later uses the deer in its entirety to undo Soren's paralysis.

That said, it does seem that magical creatures are more potent and preferred for dark magic spells. This makes sense - while you can use the life essence of anyone/anything for dark magic, creatures with magic inside them (any arcanum) are inevitably going to have more to "squeeze out" than a non magical creature would.

With that in mind, I think canon gives us a few answers and subtextual clues.

The most important one is something Viren refers to 2x05 (which has haunted me ever since), in which he cites that, "After centuries of fighting amongst ourselves, the five human kingdoms finally found balance, an era of peace." The Book 2 novelization gives a little more information about this period on conflict, explaining that "The first summit of the Pentarchy had been held centuries ago, and it had brought an end to the Mage Wars and created the modern order of the human kingdoms" (Ch17).

We don't know, of course, if this is precisely the same period of time. Maybe by helping to imprison Aaravos (and presumably disposing of the last king of Katolis), the Orphan Queen likewise helped put an end to the mage wars. Maybe she only came on the scene centuries after the mage wars! Who knows. "Held centuries ago" could mean three, which matches up with the Orphan Queen / Aaravos imprisonment timeline (and no more mister startouch elf preying on mages) or it could go back closer to 700-800 years. We'll just have to wait and see if we ever get more details!

Regardless, the Mage Wars and the fact they were likely fuelled by dark magic, since it was humans fighting amongst themselves, might answer why we see so few (known) magical creatures in the Human Kingdoms other than maybe glow toads: mages went after the most potent magical ingredients during the fighting, and reduced those numbers to virtually nonexistent or extinct.

I would imagine before the Mage Wars / even before Xadia split, maybe, more magical creatures were held and domesticated as livestalk. (Elves certainly do keep some animals as pets, such as Janai's flying hot cat, though I'd expect something like a Moonstrider to maybe have evolved as a sort of hunting companion.) However, humans on the eastern side and elves on the western side were likely forced to abandon any farms / communities they had in regards to animal care when the Exile / Schism happened. Information and resources might've been lost, as animals on one side of the continent were likely different compared to others, although some humans (who already lived in the west) and some elves (who already lived in the east) wouldn't have had to have moved.

That said, I think the simplest and shortest answer is just that there's not a lot of mages within TDP's world. For each group of people, we see a lot more warriors or diplomats than mages and they don't seem to regularly be employed in the military of kingdom we've seen, Sunfire or Pentarchy troops or otherwise. We can also guess that in the Pentarchy due to the specificity of the ingredients needed, sometimes, that Katolis by virtue of being closest to the Border would be primed to have the most dark mages and dark mage traffic / travellers (although I've HC'd that Evenere due to its isolation has a fair bit of lingering magic more than say Del Bar or Duren). But due to the amount of knowledge and ingredients required to seemingly do most dark magic spells, as well as the toll it takes on the body, I think it makes sense that most people wouldn't have the interest, access, or ability to pursue that kind of path when there's plenty of others that are less gruelling / easier

Magic is everywhere, and small pieces of magic (like Ruthari's moon opals) are everywhere, but outside of the specific skillsets of each primal (Moonshadow illusion spells and forgery, maybe cooking, forgery and healing for Sunfire elves) it doesn't seem like magic is something they readily depend on for food or livestock in their day to day lives. And if that's not the case for the majority in Xadia (only used in times of crisis, etc), I can see that need plummeting in the Human Kingdoms simply because it takes a lot more time/energy to maintain than might be necessarily utilized because of the low demand

This was all long winded speculation and hopefully mostly coherent. If you're interested in more deep dive worldbuilding thoughts I'd really recommend some of @kradogsrats stuff as it's great and a lot more eloquent / all encompassing tbh

[wheretwofacesmeet]

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Hello!! This is kind of a stupid question but do you understand who the Moonshadow assassins kill and why? At first I assumed it was just human rulers/generals from all kingdoms but when Viren was talking about how they were a threat in season 2 the other rulers didn’t seem to think it was as big of an emergency and I was a little confused. I hope you have a great day!!

I actually love questions like this! There's some nuance in the answer, and also some uncertainty, but I'll share my take for ya:

The Moonshadow assassins don't seem to pick their own targets, they accept assignments from the Dragon Throne. The full nature of that relationship hasn't been explained in any detail, so it's a tricky, complicated area of lore for the moment.

Basically, we don't have any information on how the Dragon Throne chooses the targets it passes on to the Moonshadow assassins for taking, aside from the one that happened just before the show's plot began, with Zubeia sending Runaan and his team to kill Harrow and Ezran. All we know is that these targets are supposed to be so threatening to Xadia that the world would be better off if they were no longer in it.

It's not impossible to imagine Avizandum telling his assassins to take out someone who didn't actually deserve it. It's relatively easy actually, knowing how he liked to stomp on humans, and how long he lived. It's probably happened. The only question is: how often? (angst)

I would guess - because again, we don't really know this for sure yet - that Avizandum generally chose actual threats, or people who could easily become threats in a war. But when you're a long-lived dragon, maybe you see different patterns in the mortal lives and cultures of humans. And Runaan and all the assassins before him wouldn't live long enough to recognize those patterns themselves, so they probably had to accept their targets out of either trust or duty. (more angst)

Some of them would definitely be military type targets: generals; shining young hero types with a chip on their shoulder; stealthy human assassins; dark mages if they dared risk it; and etc.

But a dragon might see strange harmless patterns beginning to form and decide to nip them in the bud before they led to anything truly threatening: a craftsman who just had a design breakthrough with a prototype ballista; a baker who just invented hardtack that could keep an army on the move for weeks; an armorer who just made a much safer design; a clever miner who found a rare and valuable source of iron.

People like that aren't dangerous on their own. But the knowledge they might share among the humans during a long drawn-out war with Xadia could be devastating in a decade or five. A dragon who already doesn't like humans would probably have no trouble sending his best assassin to snipe unsuspecting ordinary people like that.

We're still not sure if assassins must take an assignment, or if it's just dishonorable or something not to take it. But Runaan's a pretty regimented guy, and he's not fond of humans either. Between his trust issues and his protective instincts, I don't think he'd look too hard at his assignments these days even if he had a choice - he'd believe he was doing the right thing for his people, and then he'd stop thinking and go shoot someone.

I think sometimes Runaan definitely was doing the right thing by killing someone. But it's impossible to say which missions were and which weren't the right thing. Life is way too complicated for clear-cut answers like that.

Okay, onward!

The other part of this answer is about the Pentarchy itself. I think their hesitance to commit right away, and the reason Aanya got so much time to smack Viren with her sass, happened partly because Viren lives in a border realm like she does, and the other three rulers have a nice safe buffer between them and the brunt of the war efforts.

Basically, Del Bar, Neolandia, and Evenere don't have any skin in the border game.

They don't have big standing armies, and the only threats they deal with are small incursions - either assassins from other human realms or occasionally Moonshadow assassins.

Which is the topic at hand! But when Viren tries to convince Harrow to do the switching spell in S1, he claims that Moonshadow elves are an unstoppable force. Almost a force of nature, kind of vibe. If they come for you, you're just gonna die about it. Harrow even agrees with him! It's common knowledge how deadly the Moonshadow assassins are. And that's what happened despite all of Viren's plans - he still lost his king because Moonshadow assassins are scary good at their job.

So it's plausible that the other rulers didn't see any point in committing resources to an unsolvable issue - if Moonshadow assassins were coming for them, then they'd die. Why risk anyone else? Anyone in the assassins' way would die too. (Which they did in Katolis)

Another option is that Viren has been wrong before, and the other royals did commit resources to deal with the threat he claimed was coming, only to have time and money and forces wasted. If Viren had brought them costly mistakes, they could've been hedging their bets this time around.

There's a funnier possibility though: maybe they just didn't like Viren. People in power sometimes say polite things to an underling or a petitioner, and then have no intention of ever following through with it. They might've all been blowing smoke here, telling Viren "oh yeah sure if we're all in, let's totally do war, bro" and absolutely never meaning it even a little bit because they simply did not like the messenger.

Which is mean. But: royals.

tldr:

there's a few things affecting the Pentarchy scene all at once. We don't know all the factors involved yet, and the Pentarchy probably doesn't either. But at the end of the day the Pentarchy chose to hesitate, and that left Viren on his own.

[tategaminu]

⭐PRINCESS RAYLA⭐

Playing around imagining what an older Rayla might look like (a total excuse to draw her in a dress).

I think she's between 25 and 30 here, got a bit to get used having the title as the first elven princess of The Pentarchy. The earrings are a reference to her Arc 2 concept art but for a lot of reasons it made sense they scrapped the idea so I HC that when the war is over and she doesn't have to fight anymore she will let her hair loose, wear jewerly and pretty dresses (ofc all gifted by Callum since we know how babygirl is).

Her back is open because Callum wants to enjoy the view

[catcherwrites]

For the record, you can pry my “Sarai used to be in the Crownguard before she married Harrow” headcanon from my cold, dead hands

Amaya trained the Standing Battalion and Sarai trained the Crownguard, and their ability to work together is why Katolis had the strongest fighting force in the Pentarchy

You can also pry “Sarai and Soren were insanely close before her death” from my cold, dead hands. Maybe not even then, because I’m gripping this idea tightly, even in death

Sarai helped Soren and his family manage his illness because of her experience with Damian. And Soren was just so excited that the Head Crownguard was hanging out with him! Even when he was at his worst, he’d always perk up if he could see Sarai train the soldiers from his bedroom window, or regale him with stories of legendary battles at his bedside

After Soren got better and Sarai left the Crownguard to become Princess of Katolis, she offered to show him the basics of swordplay and strategy to help Soren with all of his pent-up energy. Even though he wouldn’t be interested in poetry until years later, Soren was introduced to the concept through Sarai, who’d recite some of Damian’s old work for him during their time together. Sarai had essentially become one of Soren’s constants after his family fell apart with Lissa leaving, Viren growing cold, and Claudia throwing herself into magic

At least until she died, heroically saving his dad

[miyanaxxi]

Was looking through the Human Kingdoms on Fandom and found this.

I thought: “If Allhaven Hill is where the Summit of the Pentarchy is held, and it’s in Duren, why was Aanya the late one?”

And now I like to think she was arguing with Grark (her brother) about going on her own. Because she’s dealt with so many coups and conspiracies, he’s paranoid something will happen to her. In the end, she went: “Brother, my regent’s out of a job, I’m the queen now.”

And he was like: “Awh, shucks. Be safe, I guess. Roast some asses, idk.”

[youruinedmylifebynotbeingreal]

looooong sorvus hc:

when soren decides to propose to corvus, he goes around to every. single. person that he can to ask for corvus’ hand in marriage.

he goes to corvus’ parents, opeli, terry, gren, amaya and janai, callum, rayla and ezran. he’d have summoned the pentarchy to ask them for permission to ask the most incredible person in the world to be his husband if ezran and opeli didn’t forbid him

soren keeps insisting that they test him too. he won’t leave them alone until they come up with a challenge/task that he can do to earn their favor

amaya and janai have him fight them both at the same time (he loses but the effort was enough to ‘earn’ their support)

gren has soren bake corvus’ favorite cookies (they’re passable and a good engagement gift)

terry has soren build a rare and beautiful xadian bouquet of flowers (also for the proposal)

opeli orders soren to memorize a religious poem about love and devotion (he’s stuttering but it makes opeli cry when she hears him)

corvus’ parents have him race their family dog to the edge of their property and back (he wins! but only because he gave the dog some treats)

callum and rayla get soren to do some manual labor for renovations in their wing of the castle (which he was doing anyway so they didn’t feel too bad about the “trial”

ezran challenges soren to request a week off from guard duty (it’s the hardest trial of them all)

in return for his effort, everyone organises a surprise engagement party for the two of them after corvus says yes

.

[dragon-susceptible]

TDP Rewatch S2 E6: The Heart of a Titan

procrastinating writing the next chapter of Different Path Taken by watching the show? Me? Yeah.

This title hits different after the Mystery of Aaravos arc, I gotta say.

Why does Viren keep getting the recap voice. I'm so annoyed with this bitch.

This show does a really good job of putting different narrative arcs over each other, like Harrow's narration and Viren's, Ezran's speech over Claudia and Ibis' fight, that sort of thing.

I really, really love the parallel between Harrow's fatherhood and Runaan's. Harrow was dealing with being a stepfather, "trying to give you space to love your real father, even though he passed away." At the same time as Runaan was stepping in as a guardian for a friend who would, as far as he knew, one day return to take Rayla away again. They both had a reason to hold their distance, and they weren't bad people for doing it. They tried to make their love known without replacing those parents, and the thing is - they succeeded. They didn't get the chance to say the words before Viren cursed them both, but Callum and Rayla know that their adoptive (so to speak) fathers loved them.

God, I'm a whore for these fucking elves apparently, I'm literally pausing and going frame by frame through the few seconds we get of the assassins approaching the castle while Harrow narrates.

So Ram seems to have been responsible for guiding the others, he took point on approach to the castle. Also he wears a ring on his right horn, and these fuckers really love running in trees for absolutely no reason.

Andromeda was on his heels to his left. Callisto followed on the right, Runaan after on the left again. Skor brought up the rear, and was watching behind them. Oh this is interesting - where Ethari's facial tattoos trail under his chin and across his neck, Skor's do not. They stop at his jaw.

@ Skor, nice ass. Also, Callisto, Callisto, where the Fuck are you storing that glaive??? Ram uses knives, Andromeda's sickles could easily just be under her cloak, we can see Runaan's blades, Skor's are likely on his back, but Callisto's glaive is longer than they are tall, even if it collapses like Rayla's butterfly blades or Runaan's bowblade, where did they put it??

"A lie, a wish, and a secret."

What is it with this show and having characters just yell "DAAAA!" as a battlecry

Funny how once again, as the battle begins to rage, Viren doesn't lift a finger to help. This seems to be a trait of his. Whenever things come down to real battle or real labor, he backs out.

The sister shield launch was fucking epic, I don't care how ridiculous it is, I loved it. How Amaya looked up and just knew, and Sarai trusted her to know exactly what to do. They've done this before.

Oooh, yeah, Amaya probably also has a concussion. Brains are fragile and she just got her whole body rattled in a metal can, including hitting her head so hard her own helmet cut her cheek. She'll be battered af for a few days.

I also love how Sarai got so concerned for a moment, but when Amaya reached for lightness, Sarai joked back that she doesn't look great, but she should see the other guy. It's really nice that we can see this is just a throughline of who Sarai is; she's supportive and kind and has a tendency to respond to serious situations with humor to diffuse them. She's funny, and that's just really nice to see as a guiding character trait in a woman in media. A mom in media, at that, and her humor is actually funny, not the usual "haha parents making jokes that make their kids cringe".

Oooh I'm fucking vibrating over this argument between Harrow and Viren and Sarai and Amaya about whether to take the heart and leave the wounded or wait for everyone to make it. Because here's the thing, right. Sarai is arguing that the wounded will be fine - she and Amaya can stay back; she clearly has a plan. Theoretically, the wounded could hide and recuperate and then sneak back later. She is not wrong about this. Viren is pushing to just abandon them entirely - which he's extra eager to do because Sarai threatens his sway over Harrow. Harrow won't do either of those things, because leaving someone in danger is absolutely against his personal moral code, which is the main thing that got them into this situation in the first place. He cannot turn his back on someone who needs help, even now when it would actually be somewhat practical - and Viren drives him to extremes.

Also, "you wouldn't do this if it wasn't your wife's sister" made Harrow snap, and I really like that moment, because it's very clear right then that Viren said it because he knew it would hurt, and Harrow knew he was saying it just to sting. I also can't help but think about the conversation that must have been had among the assassins after they discovered Rayla didn't kill Marcos, and Runaan didn't kill her - would he have done it if she wasn't his daughter?

And the fundamental difference between Runaan and Harrow in that choice, which is that Harrow would stay and save them all even if it wasn't Amaya. But Runaan would have killed her, if she wasn't his daughter.

The Lie: History is a narrative of strength.

That lines up really well with how much Viren harps on strength, how it's worse to be weak than to be cruel, in his eyes. I wonder if Harrow expected Viren to use this narrative on his boys, and was trying to head it off in this letter even though he wasn't going to be there to stop Viren himself.

Something about how Harrow's narration of how he learned how the moments of purest strength appear as weakness to those who don't know better is lined up over Callum accidentally hurting Ezran during play, and dropping his toy sword to make sure he's okay. Something about how Harrow learned this lesson in love from his children, and now he's trying to make sure they hang onto that lesson as they move forward with history.

"Reject history as a narrative of strength, and instead have faith that it can be a narrative of love."

Did Villads always know Rayla was an elf? I don't remember if we get that reveal later or if that was just a really good fic or something. I'm like 90% sure he asked about her name because he knew perfectly well she was an elf and was curious if she'd admit it.

The fact that she just outright says she's an assassin is either her being a true dumbass or having a culture clash moment because being an assassin in the Silvergrove is just like. A profession. A normal thing someone can do.

"Never give up on yer dreams!" He says when she confesses she's never killed anyone.

He has definitely killed people.

There are way too many discarded weapons and banners in the sands around as Harrow's party retreats in the flashback. I'm wondering if this is Viren's narrative license, making it seem worse than it was, the animators taking some license to just throw weapons in there to demonstrate the Vibe, or if it's evidence of other battles fought there recently.

The narrative parallel of Thunder appearing in Viren's story and then framing Zym in his silhouette.

"I love wisdom. Bring it." Rayla says in the present, and based on how often Runaan just pops off with some randomly profound idiom, I wanna imagine she's just used to getting random bits of wisdom from him.

Also like. I just started thinking about it again. And can we discuss how uh . . . she knows Harrow is dead. But . . . she didn't know yet that the other assassins died? She knew it was possible, that they expected it to be extra dangerous, but since they succeeded in their mission, she had to have wondered - did they escape? How many? Did they go home to report her betrayal? Or were they recuperating and going to hunt her and the boys down?

"Life is like a river. You can't see too far ahead. (I can't see at all, as I might have mentioned before.) You don't know where the river of life will bend and turn. You don't know where it'll go at all. Don't try to control where the river goes. There's one thing you can know and control - yourself. Look at yourself. Who are you, Rayla? What do you stand for? Once ye know that, then wherever the river takes ye, you'll be right where you were always meant to be."

Rayla does the dramatic teenager thing and tries to make a speech in response, but Villads really was pretty profound here.

Love how the one time Viren actually tries to help he actually just makes things incredibly worse for Annika and Neha - and also almost screwed up their sacrifice, by dying as well and making their efforts meaningless. Also Annika reaching back for Neha before Avizandum's tail struck them was just . . . a heart-wrenching detail.

"I don't know what's waiting on the other side." is a really neat moment of contrast, I think. Because here, Harrow is saying he doesn't know what lies beyond death; humans don't have that assurance. He believes he'll be able to watch over the boys, but he doesn't know for certain what death will be.

That's a really interesting contrast to how Moonshadow elves see death as not an end, because they do know what happens to their dead. They can summon them even, with the right magics. There's no issue of belief or uncertainty in death for them.

I really don't think Avizandum killed Sarai. He unhorsed her and Viren, and she was gasping for breath when Viren turned her over, but what, he in his pretty courtier's robes wasn't harmed but she in her full plate armor - having not hit anything, there were no rocks near her that could have hurt her this badly - was killed? Also, even his narration goes black before she takes her last breath, and she chokes on it like she was stabbed.

Because she fucking was. He has her last breath in a bottle because he killed her. Avizandum was already flying away when he ran over saying they needed to hurry. And then Sarai had had the wind knocked out of her, maybe jarred something badly enough in her plate that it was hard to move, and he saw this wild chance to remove this obstacle that kept pulling Harrow out of his control, so he took it.

I hope Sarai left bruises on him that he had to cover up. I hope he suffered with it.

Harrow telling Callum to reject history as a narrative of strength, and instead see it as a narrative of love, as Viren does exactly what Harrow warned about, and tells a story of epic battles and victories and strength, to Aanya.

I still hate that Sarai's statue is the moment she reached for Viren to save him. He tainted both of their memories.

"Are you ready?" "No. But you may open the doors." No. Gods, how could anyone be ready for this? How could anyone prepare to tell this little boy that you love, that you've taken into your home, whose mother you married, that you are still struggling to express your own love for, that his mother won't be coming home?

I do love that he hugged Callum first thing, though, and Callum hugged him back.

The Wish: for his children to be free of the sins of the past.

"As a father, I have a selfish wish." "Create a brighter future from your own hearts and imagination."

The way both Harrow and Runaan frame their wishes for their children to be better than they were as selfish.

As a more meta note, I do think it's neat that the creators were just like "Annika and Neha are Aanya's genetic parents. No we will not elaborate." and then they just didn't. That's the funniest possible way for them to handle a fantasy lesbian couple with a daughter. Is one of them trans? Was Aanya a magical test tube baby? Did one of her moms just use magic to swap bits for a little while to try for a baby like a World of Warcraft character? We don't know. That's not important. I cannot think of a funnier way they could have framed this. They didn't have to confirm to us that she was their genetic child at all, they just did it and left us to speculate. This is gold.

Wait is this why people in my Ao3 inbox keep commenting that Runaan and Ethari should have babies, because canon does just straight up have a same-sex presumably cis couple having a baby already

Aanya's "I believe that they would. But I will not." Is such a good moment, especially with Harrow and Callum's plot running simultaneously. Harrow is warning Callum of exactly what Viren is doing, and Aanya stands up and does exactly what Harrow wants Callum to know to do.

"I cannot repay a debt of a hundred thousand lives who were saved, by sending a million more to die in violence." Speak! Up! Aanya! Admittedly, this is why she felt a little weird to me in Season 7 encouraging Ezran down his nuclear deterrent type plans, but like. they're both kids in positions of power from very young ages. They were bound to have chaotic eras, and we don't really know what's been going on for her in the time lapse.

Viren going straight for the other king who has mentioned having children for help "talking sense into her" happened, didn't it. Did he ever do that to Harrow, I wonder? When Soren was being unruly, did he turn to Harrow in exasperation and ask him to help talk sense into the boy, only for Harrow to encourage Soren's athletic pursuits?

Again with the throwing a fit and resorting to violence in his anger, to the point of striking out at a king, physically shoving Ahling around.

The secret: the Key of Aaravos.

Archmage Aaravos, a master of all six Primal Sources. So they told us right here in season 2 that Primal Sources can be learned, because Aaravos learned them. Harrow knew that already, which is interesting.

WATERPROOF SOCKS INDEED, VILLADS. YES. THANK YOU.

Callum just really needing a hug from Ezran after reading the letter hits. I really really love how their brotherhood is portrayed in this show, never a joke, they're allowed to just be soft. "Is this a trick?" because yeah brothers do that shit to get close for pranks sometimes. "No, I just love you." "Well I love you too." I just. I just.

I appreciate that Villads just outright calls himself a pirate. That's great.

Also, something about how Callum and Harrow both have green eyes is getting me in the heart. They're not related. It's a coincidence. But I'm sure that hit Sarai in the chest a few times, watching them bond with each other, watching Callum start to pick up mannerisms and traits from Harrow, even if she never got to see their later form.

[stuck-in-jelly]

Nightmares and Lullabies

Summary:

Two inches. Ezran has grown a whole two inches over the past five months. It’s been a bit jarring, to say the least, for everyone in the castle including the young king himself. The tailors have begun to leave growing room for each time they’ve fitted him, his clothes now hanging just slightly looser on his frame. Bags under the boy’s eyes revealed just how little sleep he has been getting, his movements slower and overall morale lower. To make matters worse there is unrest within the walls of Katolis Castle leading up to the first ever summon of the Pentarchy after the Battle of The Storm spire. Corvus, Soren, and Ezran all can't seem to shake the strange dreams they've been having coupled with their day to day duties and their own set of personal issues. Together, they may have a better shot at easing the mess in their minds.

Posting the first part of this very self indulgent fic that has been plaguing me.

I'll be posting the rest of the chapters tomorrow on AO3.

There was a sob Corvus kept lodged in his throat, one he fought back bitterly against.This wasn’t a time to cry, it was a time to act.

Dust scattered into his lungs, making his body lurch in a heavy cough, eyes stinging as he pushed forward still clawing at rubble. Underneath the seemingly endless pile his father looked back up to him, eyes calm despite what was happening.

Corvus haunches his panicked eyes looking up to the sky as the sound of dragon wings filled the forest shadows darting across the floor.

A hand touches his cheek, soft and gentle to bring his attention away from the danger.

“ It’s alrigh’...it’s alright little crow.” Corvus couldn’t understand how his father could say that now. It wouldn’t be okay until he fixed this. His father’s thumb continued to brush his cheek even as he desperately pushed at the cave debris. He was strong enough to move it now, but now it wouldn’t end.

In the distance he heard another dragon roar and a horse crying out somewhere in the noise he swears he could hear his mom crying.

With a gasp Corvus’s eyes shot open. His chest beat up and down inhaling the cold night air in sharp gasp that struck a slight pain in every breath. Another nightmare, he groaned at the realization then shame quickly filling the panic he felt before.

Corvus pulls himself up from his spot on his far too soft bed struggling for a moment to crawl out of the plush trap before he swung his legs over the side of the bed to allow his mind to catch up to him.

He thought he had gotten better, he is better. It had all happened so long ago so why now is it resurfacing? Corvus’s mind drifts to the unsent letter on his desk, the one meant for his family, the one he had planned on sending two weeks ago but had kept avoiding.

Screwing his eyes shut Corvus stands up to begin stretching in hopes the movement would provide relief to the ache in his body. A few moments pass as Corvus cycles through his usual morning stretches, his body faces towards the window as his eyes observe the outside.

It was still dark out, based on the height of the moon, it was somewhere around 1am to 1:30 a.m. The guards below shuffle on their feet, clearly not the most attentive and a few even sat on the ground, a card game sprawled out at their feet.

With a soft huff of disapproval Corvus turns his back to his window once more, his mind still racing with memories he would much rather bury.

A few days ago young Prince Azymondias had joined them, he frolicked and played with the king as one would expect but the dragonling had grown quite a bit. Perhaps it was normal for dragons but it certainly caught Corvus off guard.

It isn’t something he is proud of, but there had been a moment when the boys were playing where Zym had rushed over, wings spread out as the pair accidentally ran into him. A paralyzing fear had shot through him, one he hoped to never feel again at the sound of, although young, powerful wings.

Luck would have it that he did not strike and that his throat closed instead out shouted.

In the moment he played it off well enough, letting them get back to their game after they gave quick apologies but…Despite himself his heart skips a beat and he groans.

Already he can tell he wouldn’t be able to get himself to settle down again no matter how many Innean chickens he counted or plants he listed. 

Ever since he had moved to the castle he’s been trying to kick his habit of midnight walks to clear his head, he hated having to awkwardly nod and acknowledge the other guards who would inevitably ask what he was doing up so late or start small talk like ‘isn’t it a nice night’. 

But he thinks of the letter at his desk once more and lets out a soft grumble of defeat.

Corvus began to dress. Dawning his usual armor set but without the shoulder guards, he clips his weapon to his belt scanning it over to ensure no rust had slipped through his eyes. Corvus hangs his scarf around his neck and rubs the fabric between his fingers, a comfort tic, before making his way out of the door.

For sure he will send the letter. Tomorrow. Maybe.

---

“ We just have a few more items on the agenda today!” The words from Opeli brought a wave of relief over Ezran, anticipation grew at the idea of finally having some time to relax for a bit as he shifted in his seat.

“ So, the Kingdom of Neolandia has requested,” as Opeli went on, something warm dripped onto Ezran’s nose, he reeled back a bit in shock, wrinkling his nose in confusion. Tentatively he touches the spot but Opeli’s words begin to fade as a shaky hand pulls away from his face. Red colored his fingertips.

Another stream of the red began to drip down his cheek like sweat and in a panic he looked up to the ceiling only to find there was none, just black. His chest begins to heave as he tries to figure out where it's coming from. Ezran’s hands find his crown only for more to spill out coating his face.

It’s coming from the crown.

Ezran whimpers, as he stands up from his throne reaching up to pull at the offending piece of metal.

“ King Ezran. Is everything alright?” Corvus asks, but Ezran can’t see him. The blood covers his eyes as he tries to look around.

“ T-the crown it-its leaking.”

“ Hey, just calm down Ez, just take deep breaths.” Callum speaks, as if Ezran is a child as if he isn’t a child either.

“ Breaths? J-just help me get it off.” Ezran resorts to painfully rubbing his face trying to rid himself of the blood that has begun to seep into his mouth.

“ I know this is hard, but you can get through this!” Ezran shook his head, why weren’t they listening to him? Why was no one as bothered about this as he was?

Ezran wakes in a panic, struggling to gasp for air but it isn’t long till his gasp of panic turns to strangle groans as the very real ache of his limbs rapidly catches up to him.

The young king couldn’t help it, before he could stop himself his gasps became hiccupy, tears sting in his eyes forcing their way out in hot streams. Desperately he wipes at his face, not unlike his dream, and the image only makes the tears burn hotter.

A soft croak forces Ezran’s eyes open.

‘Are you okay?’ Bait asks, his eyes full of worry as he nudges his arm with his face. Ezran can't find it in him to respond, instead he pulls Bait into a hug and curls around him. Soft reassuring grumbles come from the toad as he nuzzles his boy softly.

In just a week he would be heading off to his first Summit of The Pentarchy, and the first one since...well everything. Evenere had finally selected a leader and things were finally stabilizing so the kingdoms wished to come together again to maintain peace and work out everything that had happened.

Ezran wasn’t looking forward to it, he had been reading books on all of the kingdoms etiquette and formalities, he thought it was already a lot learning about his home but this just confused him. For one kingdom what was considered polite was unforgivably rude to another.

How is he supposed to memorize all this in time? Bait’s tongue licks away the tears and Ezran finds he can still laugh, shaking his head at how gross it was but the pain persisted. Callum had told him about growing pains, how it hurts for a while but you just have to push through.

Ezran thought about how tall dad was, and wondered how much it had hurt his father to grow.

The thoughts in his mind were becoming uncomfortable, so Ezran pushes himself up, slinking away from his blankets that had become too warm. A glance around the room reminded him there wasn’t much to keep myself busy with besides his books and studies but his head hurt too much to sit down and focus on them.

Instead his wandering eyes eventually find a vent across the room, and his eyes light up. Quickly standing Ezran shuffles on some slippers and trots over to the covered opening on the floor.

‘Ezran? What are you doing?’ Bait croaks with a raised eyebrow but Ezran doesn’t listen, simply kneeling down to the vents level before giving it an experimental tug. To his delight, it only takes a bit of wiggling and some effort grunts for the cage to be pulled from the wall.

“Ah ha!” He cheers in triumph before he turns to Bait with a large grin, but Bait simply gives him a disapproving stare, making Ezran frown.

Bait was usually all for the heist and adventures through the castle vents, it was strange he was hesitating now.

“You don’t want to come?”

‘I don’t think you should go. You can just take the doors.’ Ezran quickly shook his head.

“No, because then the guards will want to follow me! Besides, this is more fun right?”

Ezran crawls in but uncomfortably notes how his shoulders now touch each end of the walls.

Bait behind him croaks skeptically.

“It’ll be fine, just...stay under the blankets! If anyone tries to check on me it should look like someone is in bed.” Despite the roll of his eyes Bait nudges the blankets and curls underneath them.

‘If we get in trouble it will be on you.’

“I won't get in trouble,” Ezran counters as he crawls further in with a bit of effort “I’m the king.”

The phrase still hurts, he finds.

---

Soren laughs as he walks through the town square with, well, everyone! Somehow everyone had time today, even Rayla strangely enough but he can't seem to remember why that would be so strange.

Corvus lingered closer to the back, his eyes scanning the marketplace slowly and methodically while Ezran, Callum, and Rayla dash from stall to stall looking at all kinds of weird items. Soren was just happy they were all here, it’s been a while since he felt this way.

Passing a stall Soren notices some jewelry with delight, quickly rushing over to get a closer look.

But one catches his eyes, one that makes his heart drop down to his stomach.

A snake bracelet.

“ Soren!”

Soren snaps around, eyes wide as he looks around and through the crowd.

“ Claudia?” he asks out loud, her voice unmistakable. Without thinking he begins to break through the crowd in search of the voice, he moves past so many faceless people he begins to feel nauseous. 

Finally he looked around and noticed he couldn't spot the others anymore. 

He’s lost, the realization made him panic.

“ Callum!? Ezran!” his breath was getting short and panicked.

“ Corvus?” The last plea was desperate and shaky. At the corner of his eye a purple mist trailed. Snapping around Soren catches a glimpse of purple tipped black hair ducking around a corner.

“ W-wait for me!” Soren dashes towards the smoke. He can hear her laughter, it sounds everywhere all at once.

“ Claudia...”

“Claudia!” Soren bolts out of bed, nearly sending himself flying off the end of his bed, he just barely catches himself on the wooden pillars. Soren shakes, his eyes glued to the floor where he almost fell, as he swallowed thickly. A moment passes before he manages to catch his breath and tosses himself backwards onto his bed.

It was that dream again, he realizes as he runs a hand across his face. Somehow every night he has this same dream or at least very similar dreams. The beginning was always nice, sometimes he was hanging out with Corvus by the ramparts other times he was carrying Zym on his back and chasing Ezran but it never lasted. In the end he always heard her.

No matter what there was the strange garbled mix of her voice when he last saw her and her voice from when she was a child, the tones overlapping and echoing, he could never resist going after it. Trying to find where she was hiding in the midst of everything.

If he’s being honest though he has even begun to hear it when he’s not asleep. Sometimes her phantom voice springs out a ‘Sor-Sor!’ or a ‘come on!’, something that manages to make him spin on his heel and startle anyone he is with.

Of course it wasn’t real though, it never is. Maybe it never will be again.

A loud grumble mercifully brought Soren’s mind elsewhere.

“Food will be good.” Soren muses with a smile thinking about what Barius could’ve left in the kitchen.

[kradogsrats]

it can be a narrative of love

[raayllum]

When he was a boy, Corvus hadn't liked his name very much.

He'd sulk after his father as they checked snares in the woods, black-feathered birds chirping overhead. Most of the village didn't come out this far, seeing them as bad omens, but his father was not most people, apparently, stroking his mustache thoughtfully, his blue scarf wrapped around his broad shoulders.

"Why'd you have to name me after them?" Corvus had complained.

His father'd spared a glance skyward. "You know why. They're your mother's favourite."

"Yes, but—they're bad omens."

"Says who?"

"Everyone."

His father chortled. "Just because everybody says something doesn't make it true, son."

"Yes, but—" Everybody said his younger brother Antoni was better natured than him; easier to get along with, easier to understand, and smiled at all the right times. He was never cold. Never standoffish or too quiet.

"Ravens are perceptive," his father had carried on. They were nearly to the snare now. "Clever. So are you. Would you rather be like Lord Bradford's boy, named without thought at all?"

Better that than to be named after ravens, Corvus had thought glumly, who gathered together are known as an unkindness, but—

"Still no luck at naming the city?" Corvus says, turning away from the trees to bring two cups of tea to main table at the Banther Lodge.

Terry sits by the dim light of the window, the sun long since set. His lips twitch upwards, though, as Corvus sits down across from him. "It's hard to find something that will work for all of Xadia," Terry says. "The books Lady Opeli—"

"Cleric," Corvus corrects softly, smiling; it turned out Earthblood elves didn't have those, and so he kept forgetting.

"Right, Cleric—the books she gave me about the Pentarchy are interesting, but if I pull from just one of the kingdoms, the others will be upset. And if I pull just from human languages—"

"Xadia won't be happy."

Terry snaps his fingers. "Exactly."

And it's not like naming the city is exclusively Terry's task, but much the way Soren has thrown himself into rebuilding Katolis to not think about his sister, Corvus suspects Terry is doing the same to avoid thinking about his ex.

"I'm afraid I'll be little help," Corvus says. "Neither myself or my family has ever been very good with names."

"Really?" Terry gives him a tiny, sincere smile. "But your name is so pretty."

"For the raven family, really?"

"Ravens—Moon and Earth ravens, I guess, are good luck for my people. They're symbols of kindness. Reminders of it too. There's been enough cruelty, don't you think?"

"Hm." There's a strange warmth that spreads down to his toes, and it's not just the hot tea in his mug as Corvus takes a sip and considers. "I'm sure you'll think of something," he says confidently. "You did a very good job choosing your name, didn't you?"

Choosing his own path, again and again, when the time came to choose. It reminds Corvus a little of Soren.

Terry's smile widens, light in his eyes not just for the people around him that Corvus sees often, but for himself too. He deserves more of it, Corvus thinks, after all of Claudia's darkness. "Yeah." Terry exhales in almost a snort, tension ebbing out of his shoulders. "I guess I did."

[wheretwofacesmeet]

[zuppizup]

Circumstance

“You didn’t have to put him in the dungeon, Ez!” Rayla fumed, struggling to keep her temper in check. “In chains!”

“Rayla, Callum freed Aaravos!” Soren grabbed her by the upper arm, attempting to pull her back.

“He didn’t feel like he had a choice!” Rayla wrenched her arm back, glaring at the crown guard.

“He admitted to it in front of Janai and Zubeia. He made no excuses. What else could I do there and then?” Ezran sighed, tears in his eyes. “He’s my brother, Rayla, but I still have to consider my people. He’s put more than Katolis in danger.”

Rayla tried to gather her thoughts, swallowing past the thick lump in her throat. The weight of it all hung heavy upon her. Callum had done it for her after all, traded the Cube for her life. The guilt of it all felt like a dark heavy cloak smothering her, wearing her down. She hated the thought that Callum was in the position he was in because of her.

Sighing, she shook her head. “What would you have done, Ez? In that moment, what would you have done?”

“You think you’re a good judge of that?”

Rayla turned to look at Soren, having almost forgotten he was there.

“You had an opening, didn’t you? Back when Aaravos possessed him again. You could have ended it all, there and then.” Soren raised his chin, his eyes piercing. “You could have stopped things before we ever got here, but you didn’t. You really think we can trust your judgement on any of this?”

“You think I should have killed him?” Her voice caught as she glared at Soren defiantly.

“I think neither of you has the high ground when it comes to considering the greater good.”

“I’d do anything to keep him safe.” Rayla swallowed, biting her lip. “He’d have done the same for Ezran. He wanted to protect us.”

“I know.” Soren held her gaze. “And that’s the sort of reasoning my father used to come up with.”

Rayla clenched her fists, glaring at him. “Callum is nothing like Viren.” How dare he-

“Isn’t he?” Soren raised an eyebrow, clearly challenging her. “He didn’t even attempt to excuse what he’d done.”

Rayla took deep breaths, trying desperately to think of some way to counter this.

Ezran stepped forward, taking her hands, soothing her tight fists. “They’re afraid of him, Rayla. They’ve seen what Viren did-”

Her breath caught in her throat, as she blinked back tears. “Ezran, he’s not Viren.”

“Rayla, I-” Ezran looked between her and Soren, his brow furrowed. “I understand why he did it. I do, I think most people would but... if it came down to it. If something similar happened again, if its Katolis or, or the Pentarchy? Xadia. Do you- What do you think he’d do?”

Ezran stared at her, his eyes wide. Challenging. Begging her to counter. To insist Callum wouldn’t falter again. Wouldn’t put either of them before everyone else.. everything else.

Before the world.

She tried to look him in the eye, to hold his gaze... but she couldn’t... because, well, she already knew the answer.

Circumstance II

———

Mayhaps in the continuity of Borrowed Time, I dunno