Remember when the issue of Runaan and Rayla vs a dragon was super briefly brought up and immediately abandoned with zero context in a TDP interview? Me either, but that totally happened. (thanks to @ladyandherbooks for a great conversation on the topic!)
Is it going to be in the future or has it already happened? I think it’s already happened because of this comment Rayla makes in S2E7 when Pyrrah roars in the distance.
My favorite angsty headcanon as to exactly when Rayla and Runaan faced off with a dragon is that it was when a raging, mourning Zubeia came looking for Runaan–and for Rayla–after her egg vanished and her mate was killed.
TDP has a beautiful habit of adding backstory behind dramatic events that changes the perspective of those events. We started watching this show knowing that the humans slayed Thunder. Then we learned it was in vengeance for Sarai’s death. Then we learned that she died trying to save her people from a famine. Those kinds of layers.
So I’m wondering if this moonfam vs dragon is just such an event, which will change our perspective on Rayla and Runaan’s relationship, and on why she ended up on his mission in the first place.
I don’t know whether a Storm archdragon has enough magical power to see through the Silvergrove’s enchantments, but I want the answer to be no. Because then, see, Zubeia’s got to fly around roaring and raging and shouting above the village and freaking out all the Moonshadow elves. Like, “holy crap the Dragon Queen has lost her mind, uhhh guys what to we do??” Because see, they don’t know yet. They don’t know about Harrow and Viren and Avizandum and the egg. This moment, this exchange, this is how they learn what happened.
So the elves stare skyward as Zubeia roars and zaps her way over the forest, maybe even crying Runaan’s name. Or worse, Rayla’s. There’s no way he’d let Rayla approach an enraged dragon. But he’s the leader of the assassins. This is his village, and Rayla is the daughter of his heart. Defending literally everyone who’s currently in danger is exactly Runaan’s jam. So he leaves the village and draws Zubeia’s attention a ways away, where she can’t hurt anyone, hoping to let her say her piece in um, peace.
I don’t think it went well, for several reasons. And the first of those reasons is that Rayla sneaked out after him.
The first things Zubeia would want Runaan to know are that his friends were cowards and that her egg and mate are dead. If Rayla overheard the bit about her parents, I can see her throwing caution to the wind and darting right out to say Zubeia’s totally wrong. Runaan would be intensely concerned for her safety, but he’s got to keep a hold on the situation despite his own shock and horror. A mother who’s just lost her baby could do anything she wanted, especially if she’s got teeth that are six feet long and extremely pointy. He’s just lost his two best friends, but he can’t do anything that puts Rayla’s life in more danger than it’s already in.
And maybe it is in danger. Zubeia blames all of her Dragonguard for fleeing. But Moonshadows don’t run. Maybe she already hunted down the others, and here she is, unable to find Lain and Tiadrin anywhere, desperate for revenge, and turning to their daughter. Zubeia did lose a child. How fitting, she might decide, that her traitorous guards lose theirs in return.
Runaan’s definitely not having that, though. He’d say or do just about anything to protect Rayla. And conveniently, it’s his actual job to hunt down horrible people. Maybe he offered his services to Zubeia to keep her from killing Rayla. Tried his best to direct the distraught dragon from wild revenge to a balanced justice. Maybe Runaan agreed to take Ezran’s life so he wouldn’t have to lose Rayla’s.
Rayla would be sickened, angry, horrified, and maybe just a little lost in all these horrible details, but once she heard Runaan talking about an assassination mission, she’d pick up immediately that she could find redemption by going with him. Not just in Zubeia’s eyes, but in everyone else’s. And it would placate the Dragon Queen to see Rayla acting furious and intent on fixing her parents’ mistake.
Maybe Runaan never intended for Rayla to grow up to be an assassin at all, despite her admiration for him and his honorable position in the Silvergrove. But in such a moment, with Rayla glaring up at him and Zubeia staring down at him, he felt the strings of fate pull so tightly that he had no choice but to say yes. His job is to lead and train assassins. If anyone can get a determined young Moonshadow elf ready for an assassination mission in a short period of time, it’s Runaan.
Is this why the mission took so long to start after the event that triggered it? Avizandum died at Winter’s Turn, which is like New Year’s, but Runaan’s mission set out in May. He and Rayla might’ve spent those intervening months training like crazy. But eventually, Runaan had to make the call–Zubeia’s been waiting on him, and he’s got to decide at some point that Rayla’s ready enough.
Runaan may have negotiated with Zubeia to take Rayla with him, but only when he deemed her ready. Zubeia might not have cared much whether Rayla lived or died on the mission. But better to give Rayla a fighting chance, and a chance to redeem her family’s honor, than to refuse and risk Zubeia lashing out at her right there and then.
It’s an impossible situation, but Runaan seems to have a knack for getting into those and making hard calls. He absolutely won’t let Rayla die today, but his other options are to kill an innocent prince and to endanger his daughter while doing it. And he goes with that. He says he’ll do it, and then, because of his honor, he actually plans to do exactly that.
Harrow would be much easier to agree to take. Harrow is the one who actually killed Avizandum. But why Ezran? That’s a demand made out of rage and grief. If Rayla’s life hadn’t been under threat at the time of Zubeia’s and Runaan’s negotiation, would Runaan have agreed to take Ezran’s life?
Maybe he would. It is a balanced solution, in a very dark and terrible way. But for a guy with his own child, it feels like a really, really dark move to agree to. Maybe he didn’t make it willingly.
If Runaan felt pressured into taking Rayla on his mission to spare her life, that adds new dimension to his theme of protecting her. He basically sacrificed himself and his whole team to save her when the mission went pear-shaped. What a ride it would be if her life was actually in danger much earlier than that.
I know this doesn’t have much connection with canon. Zubeia seemed oddly thrilled with all the humans and elves around her when she woke up. But maybe we’re missing something in her character arc as well. She got Runaan to accept the mission to take Harrow and Ezran. And then she had to wait. And wait. And her rage died out, leaving her with only her sorrow. Her broken heart was all she had left, and it began to kill her. Ibis said that she’d slipped into a coma ten days earlier, which was around the time that S3 started. That was most likely after she received Runaan’s shadowhawk, telling her that Harrow was dead, but not Ezran.
Did she think Runaan had gone back on his word? Did she tell anyone at all what his message said? That he’d failed to do what he promised?
Rrgh, was Runaan worried when he shot that shadowhawk off that Zubeia might still try to exact revenge on Rayla because he hadn’t taken Ezran? Maybe he didn’t want Rayla taking the egg back to Xadia because she’d be running directly to the dragon that threatened her, and Runaan was trying to minimize the risk to her life, again, by taking it himself.
Why did he demand the egg like he did? Is he really just that dramatic? Or was he trying to keep Rayla and Zubeia apart because Rayla had to hear what a raging dragon sounds like once, and he never wanted her to hear that sound again?
The irony will be enormous if Runaan was trying to protect Rayla from a threat that nearly died from grief between the time he left on his mission and the time Rayla reached Xadia without him. Because if his mission had gone off without a hitch, he and Rayla would’ve been home and dry before Zubeia fell into her coma. Rayla might be safe in that scenario, but Zym would be lost, and Ezran would be dead.
why are there never any clear answers i love this show
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