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blutopaz15 · 11 months

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a pining, edge-frazzled rayla ficlet based on this comic from @thedragonprince

Honestly, she’s not sure where to start.

She spends the sunset crouched in the shadows of a parapet, speculating to Stella over where he’ll be—if it’s early enough for him and Ez to still be in the dining hall, if it’s late enough for him to have headed back to his room, if he’s even here at the castle at all—but then the sun goes down and the moon goes up, and—

She has to start somewhere.

“Okay,” Rayla whispers, scooping Stella off her shoulder and into her pouch. “We’re going to try our—”

Stella squeaks at the silence…and Rayla swallows down the lump in her throat.

“—his old room first.”

It’s a long shot, she thinks. It’d be too good to be true—to find him there in the room they’d shared, waiting for her like nothing had ever changed—and she knows that, even if she hopes differently. Never mind what she knows, though, her pulse still pounds as she maps out her downclimb to the window, as she peeks her head into the dark room, as she slips silently to the floor, as she stays hidden despite how obviously alone she and Stella are.

This isn’t the moment, and as much as she wishes it were…she’s glad for the chance to collect herself.

Rayla leans back against the cool stone castle wall, her rushed heartbeat calming with the slow breath she knows he’d tell her to take. Callum’s not there…but his stuff is, she realizes, stomach fluttering at knowing that their room is still his room, smiling with relief that her hopes hadn’t been that crazy.

He’s not here, but…he will be.

Stella chirps from her hip, tilting her head and then climbing atop Rayla’s knee.

“No Callum,” she sighs, smoothing back hair that’d fallen into her eyes mid-climb. “That’s okay, though. He’ll be back, and hopefully I can get myself a little less edge-frazzled before then.”

Rayla chuckles as Stella climbs to her shoulder, clinging on as if to pull her to her feet.

“No, no, we’re not going to just go find him, Stella. Callum and I…we need to talk first, before we go traipsing all over the castle,” Rayla explains, pulling a moonberry from a pocket in apology. “Then, I promise, you’ll get to meet Ez and Bait too.”

The moonberry is quickly gone, but Stella still nibbles at her collar.

“Okay, okay,” she sighs again, doing Stella’s bidding by heading to her side of the room…or, the side that had been hers, at least.

“This…”

Rayla stops before she starts, hesitating at calling the plain, made-up bed hers—even if that’s the same stack of pajamas Callum had left for her every night, even that’s the same cut her blades had left in the headboard, even if that’s the same pillow she’d cried into—

“...is where I used to sleep.”

Maybe she would again, she thinks, chest tight with the thought that it’d no doubt be hers if she would’ve just—

Stella trades nibbling for nudging, urging Rayla to turn.

…and the weight on her heart lifts almost instantly, regret overwhelmed by fondness.

That’s definitely Callum’s bed.

“That’s Callum’s. He’s…a little messy, obviously.” Rayla breathes a laugh, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth as she scans over his rumpled sheets, his scattered clothes, his overflowing nightstand, his cluttered desk. She makes her way a little closer to look at the spines of the books at his bedside. “I bet—yep, these are all books about magic, it looks like, and ooh, look, Stella! He drew this, for sure.”

She takes the drawing at the top of the pile—of King Bait, she tells Stella—to the desk, sure she’ll find more…and, of course, she does. There are more of Bait, of course, and tons of Ez—who looks so grown up, she could cry—and Soren is there with Corvus, and Opeli, and—

Her.

“He’s an artist,” Rayla explains, not trusting her shuddering voice for more than a hushed volume, and stacks that sketch of herself at the top of the pile, hardly recognizing herself at fifteen, “and a mage, and—”

Stella jumps down onto an open scroll on the other side of his desk, and in shooing her off of the paper, Rayla sits for a closer look at the familiar signature she’d caught a glimpse of.

“Oh, apparently the high mage now,” she says, running her fingers overtop of his name with a swell of pride that Stella answers with a chitter. She ignores the rest of the ink-splattered draft, though, curious about the uneven lump beneath—

His scarf.

She can’t help but hold it up to her nose, breathing in the castle soap scent it’d had those couple of weeks here in Katolis along with the rest of that comforting Callum smell—paper and charcoal and just…Callum.

Rayla can’t help but let the scarf muffle her words and catch her watery eyes, unwilling to part with any of these pieces of him she could only remember for all this time.

“He’s…kind of dorky and really talented,” she gushes on, smiling and teary-eyed while Stella listens, “but dumb and sweet and so kind, and…well, you know. I’ve told you. That’s why we had to come here.”

This is already better than she’s felt in years, tears included, Rayla thinks, looking around the room, amazed at how nice just this alone is: just being here with all of his things after so long, nevermind the anticipation of seeing him—actually seeing Callum—again.

“I need…I need to fix this, Stella. I love him, and I miss him, and…” she gasps, catching her breath with the tears now free-flowing, with Stella nuzzled in close at her neck. “He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and—”

“—and, ugh, I’m rambling. Callum does that too.” Rayla stops herself, forcing a choked laugh through a sob when Stella backs away and looks at her wonderingly again.. “I’m sure he’s coming back here to his room soon. Guess I need to figure out what to say…I don’t think crying all over him is going to work out.”

Rayla wipes at her eyes one last time with the scarf before hanging it on the wardrobe with a sigh, and Stella is standing pointedly atop the pile of blank paper Callum’s scarf had been covering when she turns back.

“You want me to…write it down?” she asks, tilting her head, sitting again in his chair. Stella scurries to the inkwell this time with an insistent chitter, and Rayla picks up the quill, but…

Honestly, she’s not sure where to start.

—

“Hey.”

She has to start somewhere.

#rayllum #the dragon prince #tdp #rayla #stella #callum #pining!rayla

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raayllum · 2 years

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S4 and Tests of Love

Warning: spoilers for 4x01 of The Dragon Prince.

These two lines from Aaravos were ones that jumped out at me right away. Season two goes a long way to establish the thematic relevance of Love - History as a Narrative of Love as something that can break the cycle, juxtaposed with History as a Narrative of Strength that keeps perpetuating the cycle. Therefore our villain, Aaravos, commenting on Love, and beginning to sow seeds that the dichotomy between love and strength can be complicated, interested me greatly.

And now I think we’re going to finally see it come to fruition in season four, particularly with the characters of Callum and Claudia. For starters, they are paralleled in the poster and singled out specifically in having ‘fates’ that are beginning to unfold in Aaravos’ master plan.

Discover what different fates await two powerful young mages, Claudia and Callum, in the first official clip from SEASON 4 of #TheDragonPrince! (1)

And secondly, Aaravos has tethered Claudia’s tests of love to her father to his own plans for freedom. Claudia had to work tirelessly to bring Viren back from the dead after two years, not moving on or letting of this loss. Then, the plot is kicked off, as Aaravos tells her that she has one month to free him from his prison, or her father will die all over again. This is perfectly in line with Aaravos’ lines from S3.

Claudia has passed one test, and now she has to pass another, presumably by the end of S5 at the latest (so that S6 can have the heroes try and miserably fail to stop Aaravos, for ex). Aaravos knows how to use people’s emotions against them; he did it with Viren in S2, appealing to his loneliness, frustration, and sense of importance. He’s been quietly doing it, tugging on Claudia’s love for her father, and now putting that to the forefront in order to get himself out of his prison for good, because he knows she’ll do anything for Viren.

Aaravos doesn’t believe in just forcing people to do things; he believes in giving them tests to prove themselves - for better and rn, just for worse. (As he’s been given Lucifer comparisons, think the snake goading Eve to eat the apple as a Test of Faith, for ex, that she failed.)

As for Callum, I think it’s pretty clear where his Test of Love is going to be.

This is for a few reasons I’ve highlighted before, as Rayla is (unknowingly) charging right at Aaravos, and would be the perfect bait for the boy with his Key still in his possession. It would give Callum more agency in terms of choosing to go after her, help dismantle some of Rayla’s beliefs that led her to leave him in the first place, and be a choice the audience understands but also despairs at because we don’t want anything to happen to them, but we also know Aaravos getting out of his mirror is going to be terrible long term.

Additionally, this isn’t the only time Claudia and Callum’s Tests Of Love have been set up in contrast. Remember in 3x09, where they both commit powerful acts of magic, regardless of the cost to themselves, to save their loved one from the brink of death?

Callum and Claudia have always paralleled each other quite strongly, especially throughout seasons one through three. Although it seems like Callum will have even more parallels with Viren than he previously had, Callum and Claudia are currently two of the most vulnerable characters in the show, with something to lose and with something to protect.

I think it’s likely that just as Aaravos has laid out a Test of Love for Claudia to pass or fail, he’ll do the same for Callum in order to achieve his own ends - and although I think both characters will Pass those Tests, the consequences for the world will be disastrous.

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