it's the symbolism, sister

Rayla / Soren

Blood Moon

“So, uh—” Soren waves a hand as she leads him through the glade. “What’s the deal with this whole blood moon thing, anyway?” He lowers his voice, a hand curved over his mouth as he leans down. “It’s not a that time of the month thing, is it?”

Rayla prays for patience. “No, Soren. It’s an annual harvest festival. Among other things.”

“Ah. Kinda like Hallow’s Eve?”

She thinks she remembers the boys mentioning a holiday with masks and candy. The Blood Moon certainly has candy. “I suppose.” Maybe more Moonshadow elves should go over to Katolis for this Hallow’s Eve, and show off fancy illusioned costumes…

She wonders, one day once all this is over, whether her and Callum’s kids will celebrate both holidays.

When she glances up again, Soren is grinning at her. Her cheeks heat unexpectedly. “What?”

“Nothing.” He nudges her lightly. “Just got your ‘I-love-Callum’ face on again.”

“Oh.” Her blush deepens, her smile faintly returning. She hadn’t realized she had one of those. And it’s sort of sweet that even Soren could see it, Callum back at her parents’ helping Runaan, Ethari, and a reluctant Ezran make a stew they’re supposed to be collecting ingredients for.

“I’m glad you two worked things out. He was unbearable without you, and you weren’t much better—”

Less sweet now. Rayla points him over to some bushes. “Get collecting.”

It’s a much happier traipse through the woods than the last time she and Soren had, though, she reflects. Rayla smiles to herself and brushes back her hair.

She’s never been an optimist but… life really does get easier in time. And better.

THE DRAGON PRINCE
↳ 7.01 "Death Alive"

Viren / Terry

Ghosted

Terry’s the only one who knows where the body was.

The only one still in Katolis who remembers the weight of the dragging the corpse up and out of the rubble as much as they could, before the fires became too much to salvage it. The only one who came close enough to count the streaks of ash on Viren’s pale face, the bloodied gaping wound on his chest. The only one here in Katolis, he’s fairly certain, who’s cried over the man being gone, because while Soren isn’t as unfeeling or cheerful as he pretends to be about his father’s death, Terry knows he isn’t a crier about it, either.

At least not in front of him.

Terry returns to the spot over and over again, remembering the way Claudia had slipped through his fingers like water and staggered over to her father’s body. The way she’d never returned to him, afterwards, not really.

He finds the spot in the excavated courtyard. His eyes seek it out as they construct new pillars, new walls. It gets tucked into the corner of a secondary watch tower, built taller than before, to be able to see any potential threats coming from father away. Half of it winds up as part of battlement.

Rayla finds him there one day, on a visit to the castle. She’s so quiet he never hears her until she wants him to, Terry jumping out of his skin. Moonshadow elves are synonymous with death, with ghosts.

She looks at him, softly inquisitive, and Terry wonders if she can tell that he’s haunted.

“Are you alright?” she asks after a beat, because she’s a strange Moonshadow elf who holds a knife to his throat and then asks after him. Who talks about feelings at all.

“Fine. Just…” He gestures limply. “Memories.”

She hasn’t been in Katolis much the past year and a half, staying away while King Ezran’s ire cooled over her assassin father’s crimes. Terry wonders, heart twisting with hope, if she’d understand. If she’d know what it’s like to love and miss someone everyone else around you despises.

But then Callum ambles out onto the battlements behind her, far less gracefully—"Rayla?“—and straightening his scarf, and Terry remembers what she has told him in bits and pieces over time.

Claudia, please, listen to me—

You don’t have to ask—

Terry shuts his eyes and lets them leave, summoning up an easy excuse and a smile.

The rebuilt castle doesn’t have a grave for Viren. It also doesn’t have a bedroom for Claudia.

Most days, he agrees with the decision. It’s not like either of them are ever coming home.

Soren + Miyana

Benefit Of The Doubt

Soren isn’t always the most astute person, he knows. He misses things. He makes jokes at the wrong times. He doesn’t always catch the jokes that are being made.

Here with the Sunfire elves, there’s a whole bunch of other things going: a bit of a language barrier, and definitely cultural differences around dining and greeting and various other stuff that Ezran has mastered, but Soren hasn’t had to pay much mind to as a crownguard. He’s there to protect Ezran and pay attention.

So here he is, paying attention.

And the Sunfire woman sitting alone under a tree, away from everyone at the welcome feast, well… that doesn’t seem quite right. It’s true that she’s visibly pregnant, and that the festivities are loud, but…

Soren makes sure Corvus has an eye on Ezran (whose chatting happily his aunts) before he makes his way over to her.

Miyana, he thinks it is, looks up at him, squinting; the sun must be haloing his head. He watches vague recognition enter her eyes, her shoulders dropping, even if he’d likewise recognize the posture of a soldier—of a leader, of a general—anywhere, after two wars.

He gestures to a patch of shade. “May I join you?”

She presses her lips together like she wants to say no, but lets him sit down anyway.

Soren, to his own credit he thinks, does wait for her to speak first.

“You’re the dark mage’s son. The one who felled our great city.”

Soren grimaces. “Yes.”

“But you…” Miyana twists some grass between her fingers. “You defected, yes?”

“I did. Not soon enough to save your city, unfortunately, but… I fought with the Sunfire army at the Storm Spire.”

“I was defending our Outer Rim, at the time. I heard only of the battle as hearsay.”

“It’s easy to not believe things you don’t see with your own eyes.” Claudia believing their father over him in the dungeons rises, and Soren swallows it alongside the fresh lump in his throat. Miyana rests a hand over her belly and Soren wonders what sort of father Karim would’ve been, if he’d lived—if he’d wanted to be. “It’s not easy to change.”

Miyana’s eyes flash. “You do not have to make excuses for him. He left me in his messes time and time again, and—”

“I’m not making excuses. It’s just… hard to get stubborn people to see they’re stubborn, sometimes.” Soren turns his gaze away from her to offer some privacy, instead towards where everyone else is in the sun. It’s cooler here in the shade. “That their hatred and sacrifices are…”

“I… was under the impression your father had changed,” Miyana says, though Soren isn’t sure who would’ve told her. Surely not Opeli or Ezran. Maybe Terry had tried in an effort to earnestly smooth things over? The Earthblood boy had seemed immensely relieved to learn that Viren had stayed true to his word of going back to make amends.

“Yeah.” Soren picks out some grass and grunts. “Jury’s still out on my sister, though.”

Miyana hums, her expression more delicate as she lays a hand on her stomach. “The doctor says it’s twins… I don’t have any siblings of my own. I am not sure… what to expect,” she admits at last.

He thinks of Janai, the last of three—her younger brother and older sister both taken by Aaravos and their own pride and hatred. Of Claudia sprouting the wings of the beasts she hates to fly far, far away from him. Of Callum and Ezran, even, Aanya’s arrow poised at both their hearts at once, really.

“Nobody really does,” Soren says. “But they’ll always love each other. If they’re good to each other, and if you’re good to them. And even when we aren’t, I think.”

It didn’t guarantee a path forward, or even happiness, but—he’d thought, once, that Claudia could change and his father couldn’t. Now…

“Sometimes,” he says, “we have to give life—ourselves—the benefit of the doubt. Even with all the evidence otherwise.”

“It seems foolish,” Miyana replies, though she sounds uncertain.

“Maybe,” Soren shrugs. He watches Ezran laugh as Janai and Amaya entwine their fingers. “It’s hopeful too.”

When he looks back at Miyana, this time she’s smiling, small but there all the same. “Yes.” Her hand cups her belly more securely. “I suppose it is.”

Terry + Amaya

Count Your Blessings

Amaya isn’t entirely sure what to make of the Earthblood elf boy.

He’s nice, of course—unflappably kind in a way that lifts everyone’s spirits, surprisingly close to Soren given his origins, and helpful in his own right. He comes along with Ezran and his crownguard near everywhere, including to Lux Aurea. He doesn’t complain about the hot sun on the back of his neck, nor about getting his hands dirty, as they map out where the most fertile soil would be for choosing the new farmlands.

He is—in spite of his cheer and relative comfort in any room he enters—quite obviously very sad, even if Amaya can tell he’s trying to hide it. Trying to be strong alone either because he cannot, or will not, lean on those around him.

…strong, and lonely.

She’s kept an eye on Soren the past few years. Sparring when he and Ezran visited; affirming him when she could. She might as well add Terry to the mix. It’ll be not nearly as awkward as mediating whatever grieving, resentment, tethered thing her wife and Miyana have going on.

So Amaya gathers Gren and searches till she finds the boy sitting under a shaded grove tree, his growing birds sitting in the nest beside him. He’s smiling, tapping his toe like maybe he’s humming, but his knees are drawn up to his chest, arms encircling them like he wants to make himself small.

Amaya approaches from the side so she doesn’t cast him in our shadow. “Terry,” she signs, Gren reliably interpreting. “May I join you?”

“Oh, um—” He flashes her a quick, nervous smile. “Of course, aunt—er, General—er, Queen Amaya. Your Radiance.”

She smiles, squinting slightly as she sits beside him. “In all honesty, Terrestrius, I came to talk to you.”

“Oh, erm.” Terry folds and unfolds his hands over his knees, sitting cross-legged now. “About what?”

“I think you know.”

Terry’s face twists. He looks away, his brown eyes turning glassy. Then he straightens, waves his hand dismissively. “Nah, I’m fine, I'm—”

“Crying?”

Terry wipes at his eyes, looking mildly startled when his fingertips come away wet. “Oh. Yeah.”

Amaya can guess why. She still remembers Claudia—bright, cheeky, caring, a girl who seemed a far cry from Viren despite her interest in dark magic—from her few years at the castle during the girl’s youth and well… It’s hard to reconcile that with the monster her nephews have described.

“It is okay to miss her.” Amaya lays a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently once she’s finished signing.

Keep reading

Callum / Lujanne

Still Waters Run Deep

Callum hates her for a while.

He doesn’t mean to, and he knows somewhere deep down he doesn’t really have any good reason to. They’d desecrated Lujanne’s Nexus. They’d lied to and used her partner in their schemes, and it’d been Callum’s idea. Rayla only got that stupid idea about white lies because Callum had repeated it back to her, and Lujanne… She didn’t make Rayla leave.

And yet…

Lujanne finds him by the Moon Nexus lake, the pebbled sand beneath him cold amid a thousand small intrusions of each stone. It feels more like each one is poking something hot and sharp at his heart, ready to impale it if he thinks too much about kneeling on this same shore just a few months ago, when Rayla…

Callum blinks and stares at his reflection in the water, the lake as impossibly smooth as always.

“The Moon and Ocean arcanums are closely connected, you know,” Lujanne notes. “Thanks to the tides.”

“I don’t want to talk about magic,” he says, so quick and hoarse it even surprises himself. Since when doesn’t he want to learn about magic? Especially when he and Ez are only here as a pitstop on their way into Xadia to visit Zym, Callum’s stomach at the thought of returning to the Storm Spire without her, and—

Lujanne is quiet for a long time, before she says, “You are a strange boy, Callum.”

That gets him to look up. He’s been called many things over the years. Sweet by his mother and talkative by his (step)father. Absentminded by Opeli, but dedicated, too. Weak and helpless by Viren, both worse and now better by Soren.

He’s noble and true—

But strange or odd has never been one of them.

“How so?”

“You do the impossible and connect to an arcanum, and yet you seem to think the moon won’t return, night after night, bit by bit.”

He sighs; he doesn’t want a proverb. “Lujanne—”

“If Rayla lives, she will return to you. Despite your quick successes, being a mage demands patience. You contain enough multitudes, I know you can do it.”

Callum snorts, some of the tightness in his chest ebbed minimally. “And what happened to ‘humans can’t do magic’?”

Lujanne’s lips curve. “Your still waters run deep, Callum. You just have to make sure you are looking clearly enough to see it.”

Rayla + Barius

Blessing In Disguise

Barius has always been prone to seeing people at their worst.

People often come to the castle kitchens, whether past or present at their most mischievous and inconsiderate (the boy king, back when he had just been a boy); or at their hangriest, desperately needing something to eat (Opeli, bustling between meetings without a thought to herself, until Barius insists on handing her a muffin); or, most commonly, stress eating in order to try and manage bigger feelings they can’t address (Soren’s favourite jelly tart flavour is persimmon).

Still, he can admit he’s rarely seen Lady Rayla come down to the kitchens in the four years they’ve been rebuilt—at least not on her own, or for herself. She’s come down on occasion to fetch jelly tarts for the king, or more often to apologetically collect food because her husband hasn’t eaten nor realized how late it is.

But the hovers in the doorway now, uncertain till he sets down his oven pan and glances her way.

“Er—is there something I can help you with, Your Ladyship?”

She startles, seeming to snap back into her surroundings. That’s even more unlike her from what little he does know—Rayla is quick and sharp and grounded despite being perpetually light on her feet.

“Yes,” she says at last, grimacing. “I was wondering—if you had any sweet buns?”

Ah. An unusual treat—not to either King Ezran or Prince Callum’s tastes—but not an unpopular one, although Barius hasn’t known Lady Rayla (she’d refused to be called princess) to have a liking for it.

“We have a few left over from the morning,” he says, her face lifting with relief before he bustles over to fetch them. Her expression has fallen again by the time he turns around. “Is something wrong, er—”

“Do not call me milady,” she grouses, taking a bun into her hands. She turns it over. “But thank you. For the bun. I’ve been craving it all day today. You… do you think there will be some tomorrow?”

Barius’ brow furrows. Other than his sister—resulting in a singular niece—this isn’t a part of life he knows a great deal about, other than the other women and people who have come down to the kitchens for just that over the years. Strange food cravings begetting something else at play in their bellies.

“Of course, Rayla,” he says, glad when she relaxes, “I’d be happy to make some.” He tilts his head at her. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m…”

Barius leans against the counter and pats the side; after a second, Rayla hops onto it, sitting. She blinks rapidly.

“We said we’d wait,” she says softly. “Till… we can’t bring a baby into this. Two years isn’t barely enough, and…”

“It’s alright to be scared,” Barius assures her. “But—I’m sure His Highness will be delighted when you tell him the news. See it as a blessing.”

Rayla worries her bottom lip. “You think?”

“Mmhm.” If anything, the prince has been a stressed lately, able to tell that Rayla has been a bit more distant but unable to tell why. It’d probably give him some peace, temporarily at least. “And you two have beaten far worse odds, haven’t you? Always come out on top.”

“That’s true.” Rayla turns the sweet bun in her hands over one more time, then raises it and takes a bite, closing her eyes for a long moment. Then she swallows, opens them, and hops back off the counter. “I’ll tell him tonight, then,” she resolves, shaky but sure.

Barius smiles. “I think that’s a wise idea, princess.” And he know she’s grateful because she allows it, as he adds, “Then Prince Callum can come collect the sweet buns in the morning.”

It’s his first Summit meeting, and the inside of Ezran’s shirt sleeve just won’t fold right.

Or Ezran and Aanya's first reunion during the timeskip

Viren + Terry

Vacant

Terry misses Viren.

Not that he knew the man well or for long, of course. They had a week, maybe a week and a half, to spend time together, and Viren was hardly a man who blossomed easily. He’d been reserved if not cold, standoffish if not severe, and yet… All of that had melted away. A smile in the forest. Viren gripping him happily amid bird song.

Viren, for all his terseness, had understood the need to change. The irrefutable shape of transformation, once it’d taken hold of your life, whether you wanted it to or not. He hadn’t just been resurrected after his fall from the Storm Spire, Terry reflected; he’d been reborn, too.

Terry wonders what Viren would think of him now. If he’d be proud that like his son—like himself—that Terry had gone to Katolis and turned himself over. Made amends. Done the right thing, as much as he could; as much as he knows there’s a right thing to do, anymore.

Here, in Katolis… no one wants to talk about Viren. No one wants to talk about Claudia. Not even Soren—especially not Soren.

But Terry does, whispering to the plants as he waters them by the Banther Lodge. To himself, up late at night when he can’t sleep.

More than the man himself, guiltily, Terry thinks he misses the place Viren took up in their lives. Viren was a reason. Not a good man, perhaps, but a good reason for what they were doing. For what Claudia was doing.

Without him, they’re just—without her, Terry is just…

Viren’s eyes had slipped open when they’d moved the body, cremating it per Katolian tradition in one of the fires leftover in the castle courtyard. His eyes had looked the way Terry feels on the inside, sometimes.

Vacant.

But at least the dead man had been at peace.

what their parents would choose

Ezran and Aanya
↳ THE DRAGON PRINCE - BOOK 7: "DARK"

Queen Aanya, what do you think? What would you do in my position? King Ezran…I'm humbled you ask, but I'm not a member of your esteemed council. Please, Aanya. I invited you to join us because I value your opinion. I trust you.