Thelo

Thelo reads the runes, and the runes are everywhere.

For the longest time, no one realized his magical talent. That suited him. His mother was desperate for the Windsinger, and his father was himself retiring, delicate, demure. It came as no surprise to anyone that the sole child they produced to remain on the world might also be quiet and keep to himself. He spent that time alone, staring up into the sky, or into the weaving of the grasses in the wind, or at the constant shifting of the surf, and saw the Pattern.

When he grew old enough, he allowed the clan to coo over his beauty, and decorate him, and exclaim over how he is every inch Demetrius's beautiful successor. It doesn't disturb him that they see him and think first of his beauty. There is a pattern there too, in what dragons seek: loveliness, health, vitality, good genes.

But Thelo remains quietly contained. He has to, because everything else is so much around him, and trying so much to be in him.

'Push the stone over the entrance today,' he told Reina. She was puzzled, but something about his eyes, the way he spoke... she ordered it done, and that night there was a storm.

And another day: 'Send them to Light to gather,' and they came home with chests upon chests of treasure.

Reina didn't ask him how he did it. No, she asked Aspasia instead, because no more puissant mage is there in the clan. Aspasia watched him for several days, then gave Reina her scroll of runes and magic. 'Gift it to him,' she said. 'Tell the others it's because it matches his wings.'

So no one knows that Thelo has a quiet and uncanny talent, and that suits him. He lives in the flow, and to pay much more attention to things would be to removed from it. But the scroll has helped. It keeps him grounded, so that now and then he can open his eyes and live more presently. That is how he came to have a clutch of his own at last, and he finds he's glad that he had the opportunity.

Once in the while, someone will come sit beside him, without knowing why, save that they feel anxiety and agitation. And leaning on the lean bulk of him, they feel their hearts slow, and things seem to make sense again. They brush his neck, his flank--a silent thank you--and go. And Thelo remains, staring up at the sky, and seeing the world in its wheeling stars.

***

Many are Thelo's plans, and none of them revealed; at least, not aloud. But Reina saw him take young Gechel to the nest when the skittish skydancer came into season, and Anoitos was too busy with Thyatis to notice. She wondered if it was Thelo's intention to make Gechel see that she might have worth outside Anoitos's conception of it. A kindness if so, she thinks. Thelo, of course, said nothing. Not to Gechel, either, but he nuzzled her, slipped a pearlescent wing over her thin body, and she turned her face into his mane and exhaled, and found peace. When she left the nest with the hatchlings, her bewilderment was obvious to everyone, but so was the glow that seemed to follow her. Someone had treated her kindly. Someone, and a drake besides.

Thelo said nothing. No one dared ask about it, either.

Thelo did speak when Thelxinoe and Raia were discussing their nascent plan to offer rune painting to dragons at the great markets.

'I can make the runes permanent,' he said from behind them, startling them both.

'Thelo!' Raia exclaimed. 'Make a little noise next time!'

'You can make it permanent?' Thelxinoe said, eyes gleaming.

'A spell,' Thelo said. 'I know how to make it so that the runes can be slipped on and off, transferred between dragons. I know the magic.'

Raia and Thelxinoe shared glances, their excitement obvious. To have their paint made magical, like the work of famous dragon artists... Of course they would do it... of course!

Thelo let them plan, retreating to his part of the lair. When they were ready, they would come for him, and in addition to the magic that made permanence from pigment and binder, he would weave protections: for the lesser dragons, against fear, against despair, against wounds; for his kin, the imperials, against the horrific potential that awaited them all upon violent death. In this way, he would make the world a little brighter, a little safer.

It will be a goodness.

From his dark cave, he watches. He makes notes. He sees patterns. He moves.