#project xadia

[winterstorm032802]

Claudia's voice line in Xadia being: "Elves are so rude! Not one of them will sell me their horn!" (It goes something like that)

So hear me out...

Tw for blood mention

Claudia... taking matters into her own hands on getting a piece... with Rayla... carving the horn out... Rayla is just screaming in violent pain as it happens. A piece of her horn soon carved off in such a brutal way with a dagger no less.

Then blood just rushes down Rayla's face, covering half of whichever horn is now a bloody stump. Callum finds her before or after Claudia leaves (if before he goes ballistic with the Sky Arcanum, but she escapes before he can do major damage.) Then he's left with Rayla who is in shock and unable to say a word as he cups her face and stains his hands with her blood as she numbly asks why she can't feel her horn. He undoes the cuffs on her wrists, and she just drops, unable to fully comprehend what happened. It isn't until they are in Katolis and Callum is giving Rayla a bath that the shock finally wears off and Callum has to comfort her.

...just a thought. Off a voice line... I might write about it if I get the time and motivation.

[zuppizup]

The amazingly talented Kisa Seira drew this stunning image of Dragon Guard Rayla from my fic Out of Time and was kind enough to let me share it here.

Please check out the original, as well as their wonderful work on AO3

Twitter Link to the original

[raayllum]

summary: A prominent mage and on the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Callum thinks he’s finally starting to truly leave the past behind. Until a kid claiming to be Rayla’s shows up on his doorstep, that is, asking for his help. co-written by me and @thosefiveadoraburrs word count: 5.4k

CHAPTER TWO:

It’s about as awkward as Ryn expected and not nearly as much, somehow.

He’s only heard bits and pieces about his mother’s past, and even less about Callum himself. He’s never even had a very good idea of what he’d looked like, before, just that he had green eyes. The distant look his mother would get whenever she’d briefly mentioned him told him more than her words themselves, though she’d always said he was kind, and smart, and a good man.

If anything ever happens, moonbeam, she’d said, brushing back his hair, you go right to him in Katolis. He’ll help you. 

Which made Ryn want to ask why they didn’t just go there right now, sometimes, when weather made travelling hard, or when things got a little dicey on the road, but... His mother always looked so sad when she spoke about either of the human boys she’d saved the world with; Ryn had only been able to bring himself to push so much.

Maybe he should’ve pushed harder, and they wouldn’t be out here in this mess now.

“It’ll take about three days by horseback to reach the Border,” Callum tells him, Ryn finally getting used to their horse’s gait. It’s not that different from a shadowpaw. “From there we’ll see whether we need to head further into Xadia or double back, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled on the way there in case.”

Ryn puffs out his chest. “It’s a good thing you brought me, then. Mum taught me how to look for dark mages from miles away. Their tells.”

Callum’s voice flattens. “Did she now?”

“Well, yeah.” Ryn’s not sure why that would bother him. He only did primal magic; he was a special human like that. “You gotta know how to steer clear. Better to evade and avoid, even if that means taking the tougher terrain.” His chest tightens. “Guess we didn’t evade or avoid enough.”

[moon-sky-sun-earth-ocean-stars]

Dargon prince writing prompts

I decided to do a post to ideas and prompts I have or recieved of the dragon prince, so people might decide to write them. Feel free to use them. It would be nice to get credit or message if you do use them but it's not necessary. If you have other ideas write me in the comments or in a message and I might add them to this list. If you do write a fic for one of this prompts and you'll send it to me I'll add a link to it in the post.

Sunfire elves royal family

Rayla and Suroh meet again

Trenda and Pozili (because they both scholars skywing elves)

Runaan's thoughts when he sees Tiadrin and Lain in the coins

Eltha and Somma meet and talk about botanics or has a special botanic project together

Soren in camp Katolis

Terry coming out as trans

Astrid coming out as trans

Villads adventures

Why Darys was in Scumport (ideas: could be because he lost sunforge dagger, or maybe he was undercover, or he has a hobby of going to fighting pits, or he started to trade goods from the human kingdoms after the border was opened and that why he went to Scumport)

Rayla meets Tressal in Chasing Shadows

Viren coping with Lissa leaving

In the lore book of tales of xadia there are many short folk stories, each of them can be idea for a fanfic.

Lira and Somma in bun bun fire night in Silvergrove

[spicyviren]

Oh let me meditate on the beast of devouring that feeds on the stars, that star devourer dragon Let me repel this Star dragon and banish it from the light of my Sun

- Ancient Sunfire chant, Tales of Xadia

I'm thinking about the sun and the stars and how Laurelion is, probably, both.

(Reposted because I’m a damn fool!!)

The Big Bang, in real life

The majority of atoms which make up us, our earth, and even our very own sun, were formed in the hearts of the very first stars in the universe.

These stars were made of lighter elements, mostly Hydrogen, Helium, and Lithium. But under the immense pressure at the core of those first stars, heavier atoms like Carbon, Oxygen and Nitrogen were formed. The stars eventually died - exploded - and released those heavier elements into the universe to be crafted into other forms.

As Carl Sagan famously put it, "We are made of star stuff."

And so Aaravos's quote in the teaser for season six - We are, all of us, stardust - is a blatant nod to the Sagan quote as well as, I am assuming, that aspect of the universe in some shape or form. Allegorically, it speaks to the idea of the universality of existence in the basest sense. But also, it acknowledges that the stars, like everything else, operate generationally.

So in this way, if we are to assume the TDP cosmos operates at least somewhat similar to our own, Xadia's sun is a younger (but still old as balls) star, from a different generation than the stars which are far more distant and ancient.

(As a side note, the very first stars in the universe did not last very long. Though certain stars in existence right now have "lifetimes" which are projected to last longer than the universe has currently been in existence.)

So if Xadia's sun is technically a star, even by Xadia's own admission (see Sunfire chant), then by this metric I have to ask...

What makes the Sun arcanum different from the Star arcanum?

While those first, most ancient of stars produced the materials which would become life, only a sun can sustain life and is therefore inextricably linked with the earth and all the life on it. It's this connection which I imagine is responsible for the change in the nature of the magic.

In Callum's Spellbook, Callum makes some word-association lists for the different types of magic. He associates "truth" with both Sun and Star (perhaps a trait of their shared stardom). No other words match up completely, but it feels like they are referencing similar things within different contexts.

The Sun teaches while the Stars are simply intelligent; the Sun is a "guiding light" while the Stars are associated with "destiny." Further, many of the other words Callum associates with the sun are about being in positive community with others (optimism, warmth, charisma, leadership). The nature of the sun is more giving, nurturing, and dare I say loving than that of your average star. Sun is revealing and honesty, Star is mysterious and reality-altering. Further, there is a dynamism in the words for Sun Magic that is absent from Star Magic - sharing knowledge vs simply having knowledge, guiding vs prescribing a set path.

(Another side note: Callum also mentions that Star mages are born, which, Callum's limited understanding aside, is perhaps a hint about what it will take to connect to the Star Arcanum. I have thoughts, but.... I'll just leave that there, winky face)

Obviously, these word associations can only go so far. Some of the most hostile and arrogant (eh eh!!) figures we've met have been Sun-aligned. But it does make me wonder about the beginning of Sun magic and what that introduction may have looked like.

Ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there?*

Okay, so big question for me. Is Aaravos a star, like, literally a personification of a ball of gas burning billions of miles away, or is he just like, a very special elf? The same goes for all Startouch elves.

Zubeia refers to Aaravos as both a star and as an elf, and it's one of those things which I can't decide is real or simply a more poetic way of speaking of him. Is "Startouch elf" simply another type of star? Official art also sometimes depicts him and others as constellations. Are they the formed consciousness of a collection stars?

But it also makes me think of how often Sunfire elves personify the sun/the sun orb.

JANAI: You are a student of history, yes? Do you know where the Great Orb of the Sunforge came from? KARIM: Legends say it was a gift from the Sun herself. The gift of a millenium. - "The Drakewood," S4E6

In "The Queen's Mercy," we have...

Aditi nodded. “[...]and so, as the Sun’s daughter, I will lead you into her embrace.”

...and earlier, there is this:

Queen Aditi the Merciful, they called her. Queen Aditi the Kind. The Light of the Sun Incarnate. Kim’dael had thought it all an insufferable exaggeration. Sunfire elves gilded everything they could touch, of course they would do the same to their beloved leader.

Karim personifies the corrupted sun orb in "After Darkness":

He could still see it: the top of the Sunforge Tower, upside-down from where he lay, shrouded in inky corruption. It looked ill, its sickness weeping red and crowning the spire in a haze of blood. [...] We will come back, he promised his beloved, tainted city, his lost home. We will not abandon you. The orb pulsed mutely, a cry for help he could not answer.

TDP uses personification a lot, so it is kind of hard to parse out when it's being literal and when it's being lyrical. Perhaps in the examples cited it's simply the ostentatious way of the Sunfire elves like Kim'dael thinks. But if Aaravos, a known person, can be a star, then I can easily reason vice versa.

In the Book 1 novelization, Aaravos refers to himself as "of the First Elves." And if that is true, it follows that there must have been "Second Elves."

So who is Laurelion?

The significance of the laurel in the Western canon goes back to the myth of Daphne and Apollo.

There are various versions of the story, but essentially, Apollo (popularly associated with the sun), falls helplessly in love with Daphne. Though her reasons vary in different iterations, Daphne turns away from Apollo's affections. She runs and Apollo pursues. Just as Apollo is about to catch her, she begs for help - sometimes from her father, a river god, and sometimes from her mother, a nymph or Gaia - and she is saved by being turned into the laurel tree. In Ovid's Metamorphosis, when Apollo reaches Daphne post-transfiguration, he can still feel her heart beating below the bark. From that point on, the laurel wreath was associated with Apollo, achievement, and victory.

Gold, the element, takes the symbol Au from its Latin word, Aurum, which has etymological ties to 'aurora' (dawn). Names likes Aurelio or Aurelius similarly mean "golden" or "guilded."

So, taken together, I of course think immediately of this:

THAT BEING SAID, this looks more like a weeping willow or a wisteria than it does a laurel, which has bushy foliage rather than hanging. The closest I can maybe get is a mountain laurel, which does have blooms that hang kinda sorta like a wisteria, though not nearly in such a dramatic fashion. But anyway!

The golden laurel...⋆｡°✩Laurelion✩°｡⋆

Interestingly, in Ovid's retelling of Apollo and Daphne, Apollo's love is the result of being struck by Cupid's golden arrow, while Daphne's disgust of Apollo's advances are the result of being struck by a lead-tipped arrow. And so, there is an association there with gold and love. And within the context of the myth - Cupid is getting petty revenge on Apollo after Apollo is boastful and arrogant about his own prowess with a bow and arrow - it's also an instance of weaponizing love.

Which brings us to that which is known everforth as...

The Nova Blade

It is actually quite common for stars to have companions and to exist in what is called a binary star system. In this system, two stars are gravitationally locked in orbit and can appear as a single object when observed by the naked eye. Sometimes, the proximity between these two stars results in what is called a nova - a sudden brightness which appears to be a new star. Novas are not associated with stellar "death" (you'd be thinking of supernova, in that case).

Now in our universe, novas are not actually stars. They are events, momentary bursts of brightness under specific circumstances between two stars. But the name "nova" originally came from the term "stella nova" which means new star.

…and though undying, took last breath, immortal Laurelion was no more. - "The Death of the Immortal"

Did Laurelion just...die? You know, it was really unclear...

I do not think the Nova Blade killed Laurelion in the moment described in the poem. Kazi is so doubtful and Callum is so sure - Callum you fool! - surely that would be too easy (quote quote easy)?

I will grant that "Supernova Blade" would sound kind of hokey, and even originally I had thought, "Oh cool, 'nova,' like 'SUPERnova!'" And then I thought to look up just 'nova' and it turns out it was actually its own thing. But even without all that, the 'though-undying' of it all haunts me.

And so I hold to the idea that the Nova Blade makes an immortal mortal. It does bring death's bite, but in a way in which Laurelion becomes something else, reborn with death's promise like all other mortal beings are.

I have two point five ideas.

The Light of the Sun Incarnate

My first hypothesis is, of course, that Laurelion became the tree with the Sunseed with a name that's a nod to Daphne and Apollo. Of course, I'm assuming here that the tree in which the Sunseed is kept is responsible for producing/sustaining the Sunseed, which may not be true.

Now the drawback of this idea is the legend that the Sunseed was a gift from the Sun herself. So here, it would have to be within the context of the Sun sacrificing Laurelion in some way for this purpose. There's obvious Jesus parallels here which, full disclosure, is not really my bag, baby, but there are plenty of elements in TDP that very easily slot in with Christian canon. But also, in the laurel myth Daphne begs a parent to save her, which puts the sacrifice of it all in a different light. It makes me wonder if the event with the Nova Blade is self-inflicted and, mayhaps, an act of love. So in this sense, the Sun "gifted" the world (or just the Sunfire elves, I dunno) her child by simply letting her child go.

My second hypothesis is that Laurelion became the first Sunfire elf, of the second elves. We are, all of us, stardust. It would not come as a shock to me if all elves were ultimately descended from the Startouch elves of old.

AND THEN we've got Aaron Ehasz talking about how the red dragon scale amulet (...and look, this show does color coding, that's SUN) is somehow related to Laurelion?

Sunfire elf, I say! SUNFIRE ELF!

Combining both of these scenarios, I could see Laurelion being the child of the Sun (again IF we are to assume each star is a living entity). Or maybe Startouch elves are born OF stars while not, technically, being the same thing, like an egg hatching the next evolution of its mother.

And so, perhaps Laurelion chose to become mortal, to become the first Sunfire Elf. And all of Laurelion's children, and their children's children, and their children's children's children, they were all of them children of the sun, the light of the sun incarnate, bringing the hope and optimism of something new to the world; destined to return in death to the embrace of their very first mother. And as a symbol of her love, the Sun gifted Laurelion the Sunseed, golden and cradled within a tree.

*oddly relevant Lion King reference

[finding-the-secrets-of-xadia]

Welcome to the Secrets of Xadia Blog!

Do you have young kids who love Netflix’s The Dragon Prince? Do you want them to keep thinking about it before you watch it again? We’ve written a whole host of questions to help with that!

Why are we giving you questions to answer?

Critical thinking is an essential skill for anyone to have, and it’s a lot more fun to learn how to use it when you practice with a show you enjoy. Putting yourself in the shoes of other characters can help everyone grow and develop empathy, even young kids.

Want to send us a discussion question?

We've pooled our writing, parenting, and teaching skills to get the ball rolling, but helping kids learn and grow is always easier with more brains at work. We’d love to hear your ideas for questions to ask! 

Suggest a question here.

Questions should be suitable for children ages 7 to 12, but can be used by all ages. Reflect on the themes and word choice as well as the developmental understanding needed to answer a question to make sure they are relatively easy to understand. Questions that focus on fandom shipping are outside the scope of this project and will not be considered.

Ready for the questions? Check out the Questions Masterlist.

Wanting more information? Visit our FAQ!

[temerity14]

Chapter 2 is UP!!

Summary:

After her parents betrayed Xadia when she was ten years old, Rayla was taken in by the royal family of Katolis. Desperately trying to escape her past, she embraced the human's culture, becoming close friends with the two princes. Though not everything is perfect and many people still resent her, she can trick herself into being happy.

Until five years later when moonshadow assassins, including Rayla's childhood friend Calypso arrive in Katolis.

Suddenly thrown into a web of betrayal, friendship, conflicting loyalties and romance, Rayla, Callum, Ezran and Calypso are forced to reassess everything they once believed.

I did it! I posted to a schedule! I finished editing in time! I beat ADHD! Somehow! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

[thrandilf]

do you have a guide as to the extra materials for The Dragon Prince? i keep seeing stuff about comics or books but idk where to start

Not on hand but I can make one here! :D

There are two, soon to be three, canon graphic novels.

Through the Moon takes place between seasons 3 and 4, like a little season 3.5 It isn't Necessary to read it before watching S4 but the story is cool and the extra information is neat. It feels like we might get more info regarding what happened to Rayla while she was gone later in the show

Bloodmoon Huntress takes place when Rayla is a child around when her parents leave. Lots of Runaan and Ethari, also introduces Kim'dael who will be in S5. Again, not Required reading but a fun extra story.

Puzzle House is coming out August 1st and is about Claudia and Soren as children, and we also get a look at younger Viren and other people. Harrow's father, King Atticus is still king in this one so interesting Katolis lore, SUPER hyped for when we get to read all of this one. The Scholastic link has a 15 pages preview if you wanna take a peek.

There are novelizations for Dragon Prince Season 1 and Season 2, they add a bit of introspection and small extra details. Viren in particular gets more of his internal thought processes laid out and for me it just Confirmed a lot of things. Season 3's novelization is coming out April 2nd, 2024. I'm sure all 7 seasons will eventually have novelizations.

Tales of Xadia is the ttrpg book and it's gorgeous and is probably the most lore heavy supplemental material as far as world building goes. The system also looks fun! The website has a character builder too for OC making. As a writer, it's been a great help as far as seeing some aspects of the world laid out. The system looks fun and there are videos of some of the cortex(?) team playing ToX official tales/campaigns but I haven't watched them yet. The campaigns are also available to look at online too.

I think that ToX is getting an expansion at some point since the base game doesn't touch much on Ocean or Star magic, I imagine due to spoilers for the seasons we're coming up on.

There's also a tabletop game called Battlecharged which I haven't personally played and I don't think it Adds lore but I've heard it's fun.

Also, it will likely be a long time before we see it, but there's a video game in the works as well that's in alpha testing right now called Project Arcanum. Wonderstorm is pretty busy!

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

The Free Stuff:

Reflections are official short stories hosted on TDP's website and all of them are excellent and provide little extra scenes. Some of them are quite impactful, and the ones in this second batch are promising an absolutely wild S5. The first batch was released pre S4 and the second batch is being released now pre S5 as we count down to the new season. They aren't Required reading since the most key information from them will be in the show (going by the S4 ones) but I highly HIGHLY rec reading them all. Banger after banger. As of posting this there may be one more coming.

There's also little 4 panel comics called Everyday Xadia that have been also released during countdown mode and they're just fun/cute. Volume One and Volume 2 (still coming out). Sometimes when people say comics they might mean these, or the graphic novels lol.

Thank you for the ask, I'm always happy to share the TDP love and I hope this was helpful to you and anyone else who'd like a ref!

[dawn-of-adira]

Callum, Ezran, and Soren believe they’ve traveled through time.

Sarai has so many questions.

Full ficlet under the cut

“Do you have any better ideas?” Callum’s voice drifts down the hall, raised and exasperated, but not, the guards had told Sarai, like he was arguing.

“No,” Ezran says, “but we don’t even know if Rayla came back.”

“Soren came back when he was on the other side of the room. Rayla was right next to me.”

“I’m all for finding Rayla,” Soren’s voice adds to Sarai’s confusion, “but Callum, I don’t think you should go alone.”

“I'm the only one of us who can fly.”

“You and Soren could go on horseback,” Ezran suggests.

Sarai makes it to Callum’s room, but she keeps listening because she can’t seem to do anything else.

Callum’s voice is decisive. “And leave you here alone? We don’t know if Claudia came back too—or anyone else, for that matter.”

“Slow down, Callum.” It’s odd to hear Soren be the rational one. “We’re pretty sure Claudia and her boyfriend were in Xadia when the thingy broke. The only people who would have come back with us are the ones who were in the room.”

Ezran speaks up, cheerful as ever. “Bait and Zym came back! But Zym is still in his egg. Maybe we should all go to Xadia?”

“Okay, say we do.” There’s the sound of something thumping to the floor, but Callum continues speaking. “We grab the egg if it’s here, supplies, a few horses, and make a break for the breach. How do we cross it? There’s the standing battalion and the sunfire elves who won’t let us through, and the way Rayla and I crossed the border the first time involved a giant, angry dragon who tried to kill us. I just don’t see how it’ll work out.”

Elves? Like from the fairy tales?

“We’ll figure something out,” Soren says. “Maybe you can magic up a new bridge.”

“We can’t just leave Zym with Viren!” Ezran adds.

“And we don’t know where Rayla is right now,” Soren finishes. “She could be in Xadia, or maybe she’s on her way to Katolis right now.”

Callum sighs. “I have to find her.”

Sarai finally manages to knock.

“Uh, yeah?” Callum calls out.

Sarai opens his door.

There’s Soren, sitting on the bed, mouth dropping open. Callum, sitting on the floor, painting on his bare arms, eyes wide. Ezran hugging Bait to his chest, head tilted to the side.

“Mom?” Callum nearly whispers.

Ezran shuffles back half a step as he looks up at her. “I don’t think we traveled back through time.”

[theredhairedmonkey]

This is also long overdue, but here are what I think are the shadow archetypes for each of the main characters:

Rayla's shadow is Runaan - Runaan embodies the ruthless dedication to duty and hard sacrifices that Rayla has long been taught assassins must make. He is the model of assassin virtue she measures herself against, and represents the person Rayla would be if her sense of justice and duty wasn’t mitigated by her softer conscience.

Ezran's shadow is Kasef in the first half of s3 - While Ezran can be childish, Kasef takes petulant behavior to the extreme, with his desire to invade Xadia more akin to lashing out. He’s a reflection of what childish attitudes, hardened by harsh experiences, could lead to. We see this side of Ezran shine through in the end of his short story.

Soren's shadow is Kasef in the second half of s3. While he represents Ezran’s childish nature taken to an extreme, by the time he becomes Viren’s ally he shifts to representing what Soren was trying to be: a dutiful son to his father, with the kind of machismo that Soren outwardly projected but grappled with internally. When Viren transforms Kasef into a monster, he becomes literal dumb muscle, the kind of person that Soren was initially becoming but luckily avoided.

Claudia’s shadow is Viren, and this is a particularly interesting case because we see this relationship largely from the shadow’s (aka Viren’s) perspective. Viren is Claudia’s mentor as well as father. She emulates his sense of right and wrong, and becomes loyal to her own family much in the way Viren is. She sees Xadia and its inhabitants the way that Viren does. Though Claudia initially struggles against Viren’s goals (such as confronting him on trying to kill the princes), she eventually embraces them and becomes her shadow, much to her own shadow’s horror!

[zuppizup]

Sweet Dreams

Rayllum Month 2024

July 11th: Dream/Nightmare

She dreams about it when she’s going about her day.

Callum, complimenting her.

Telling her she looks pretty or gushing about how smart and talented she is or, well, he speaks to her at all.

It’s not like he ignores her, either. He’s busy, which she understands. Being the crown prince and the high mage. He has the king to support and magic to study and she knows he likes drawing too, though she heard he hasn’t done as much of that since that big trip to Xadia to return the dragon prince.

She’s going about her duties when she sees him again, hurrying down the halls early one morning, not long after coming back from another trip to Xadia. The king is away on some dragon mission, so Callum’s technically in charge of the country, something she imagines he won’t like because he doesn’t care about things like that. Callum isn’t like the tyrant princes she’s heard about in other nations. In fact, he’s a little awkward and out of place as a person even. She likes that about him though. He doesn’t put on airs or graces with people. He treats the palace staff and nobles with the same respect and dignity.

Perhaps even if he wasn’t quite so handsome, she’d have liked him for just that aspect of his personality, though the fact he’s tall and broad and very attractive does help…

Read More on AO3: Sweet Dreams

[raayllum]

Anyways time to analyze this screencap

This was originally a split second clip from the Bardel projects' reel, although it's since been omitted... and interacted with online by some of the team / cat's out of the bag, so uh - here's the meta!

The first aim is to try to establish when this is taking place timeline wise (aka in which season and when). The second will be who I think this scene involves (which is Rayllum and I'm gonna explain why). Spoilers for 6x01 thanks to previous Cons and proceed with caution if you don't want any spoilers!

So 6x01, "Startouched," has Rayla and Callum embark to the Starscraper by the end of the episode alongside Stella. This means they will presumably not be reuniting with anyone else from the Main Cast until at least the season's midpoint (6x05) if not later (6x07-6x08), by which point the plot will likely be in full swing, even if Aaravos was not released by the season's midpoint. That means there may not be as much time for something that seems like a cute little filler moment as this seems to be.

Not impossible, but I think it's unlikely that this shot/scene is from S6 from a plot / time standpoint.

Another reason in this column is that we know Hat at least, but presumably the other Baitlings too, are with Soren and Zym when they go to Lux Aurea to meet up with Corvus again.

So there's no way, realistically, it could be in early season six. If it is in later season six, it means that Callum and Rayla succeed at the Starscraper / escape relatively unscathed enough with a small window between reuniting with the boys / Ezran and shit hitting the fan. It is a window, narrow, but not impossible

My early estimate could also be early S7 as, again, the latter half of the final season will be particularly intense, and I could see the characters trying to have some down time / make the best of a bad situation earlier on in the season when there's a bit more time, well, to let them try

As for the boat itself...

The first thing is that the boat is decorated quite prettily and prominently with roses, which just feels romantic. Stella is juggling and the Baitlings (who seem to be singing) seem to be putting on some small, endearingly silly sort of performance. possibly added by the two (Star arcanum?) birds we see. There's also a warm yellow-ish light source coming from the bottom of the picture and subsequently probably the upper middle of the boat, which makes me think of candles.

I'm willing to bet that this is a Rayllum moment since it just screams Callum being very sweet and romantic, and setting up this (maybe they have to take a boat and he wants it to be better, maybe it's just for fun) boat to try and distract Rayla because she doesn't really like them. I can't see Janai or Amaya being interested in a little animal circus performance, so that rules them out to me, and we hardly ever see Stella be separated from Rayla, even temporarily. So I think this being a Rayllum scene makes the most sense because of Stella's inclusion, and maybe it is Callum wanting to do something special for her, whether it's them officially getting back together, or just spending some time together even while the world is ending cause y'know, they missed out on two years of dates they could've gone on, and want to use some of the time they have left for that.

Stella is also juggling Adoraburrs, which have a tendency (presumably) to be primarily close to the Moonshadow forests, since we don't see the tiny ones anywhere else in Xadia, so it could even be a pit stop on the way back to the Silvergrove to get her and her family unghosted, perhaps (and all the more reason to try and take her mind off things).

My other consideration for a pair is Sorvus, since I could see Soren being silly and setting up the Bailting choir (he seems close to Hat in particular) and I think Corvus would be endeared by it, ultimately. That doesn't account for Stella though, and while Soren and Corvus are clearly friends/co-workers on the crownguard, they haven't had a lot of even teasingly romantic development, so I don't feel like the story is really gonna prioritize them heavily as a romance (especially because we have Karim/Miyana, Callum/Rayla, possibly Aaravos and someone in his past, Claudia/Terry breaking up and presumably getting back together, we're gonna get Runaan/Ethari back in these coming seasons in addition to Lain/Tiadrin, and there's always Janai/Amaya, of course). TDP already has a lot of romantic relationships in it, so I feel like Sorvus, if/when they do get together, would probably be a smaller moment later in the final two seasons, and they probably wouldn't get as big a focus as a scene like this seems to imply just from a pacing/character standpoint

Plus, Rayllum kinda has a thing with boats and important moments for them happening on said boats, but that is a meta for another day

[moon-sky-sun-earth-ocean-stars]

Tales of Xadia characters-Perris

Name: Perris Pronounce: He/him Race: Moonshadow Elf Profession: Carpenter Information: Most of his career he did furnitures and upholstered them for the upper class but he needed more projects so he decided to become the town carpenter but he really hates it. He should probably focus on his artistic side.

[halyasgirl]

“And the Dark mage showed you the mirror of the Fallen Star?”

“Yes.”

“And offered to free you in exchange for information?”

“Yes. All lies. I told him nothing.”

“That may be so. But that Dark mage invaded Xadia. Lux Aurea has fallen, its corruption seeping across our land. Now the Fallen Star walks free.” “It would have been better, if you’d taken your own life rather than risk interrogation.”

“I tried.”

(Rayla, Runaan, and Callum return to the Silvergrove to face its justice, and the lives they left behind).

(Or: Runaan, Ethari, Rayllum, and the apology that was promised).

[konmaao3]

A Dream Come True – Chapter 2/2

On their way to Xadia, Callum and Rayla stay in a cosy inn overnight. Missing scene from Season 5 Episode 2 “Old Wounds”.

Please take all the fluff I have to give.

[temerity14]

Chapter Nine

Rayla wrenched her wrists again, trying to free her hands. Beside her, Calypso twitched as one of the guards inspected his spear. 

“Ye know, we might not be in this situation if ye’d given me mah staff back in the first place,” Calypso hissed.

Rayla rolled her eyes. “Calypso, General Amaya is the best fighter in all of the human kingdoms, maybe Xadia as well. She would have beaten us both either way.”

“Ah wouldn’t have been a sitting duck, though,” he grumbled.