The White Prophet with the Rooster Crown and her Catalyst
“A girl crowned with a twist of green vine came through the crowd, glancing back over her shoulder at someone. I swear she caught my eye and winked at me. I thought I heard my name called and turned my head. Upon a dais stood a figure dressed in a flowing garment that shimmered with the glint of gold thread. She wore a gilded wooden crown decorated with cunningly carved and painted rooster heads and tail feathers. Her sceptre was no more than a feather duster but she gestured with it royally as she issued some decree. In the circle about me, folk roared with laughter. I could only stare at her ice-white skin and colourless eyes. She looked right at me.’
- Assassin’s Quest
‘The crown is the property of the Ruler of all the River Lands. The ruler alone declares who may wear the crown and sing with the voices of minstrels long dead. It is a great honor for only a dragon can select you to become a feather, and only the Ruler can bestow the gift of wearing the crown.’
[...]
‘Salt could not give herself willingly to the dragon. She sought to remain a part of the coterie, and yet separate, to be only the Girl of Girl on a Dragon. And with that, she doomed them. Because she held back too much, they did not have enough life to take flight as a dragon. They nearly quickened, but then mired down in stone.’
‘Salt was the leader of the coterie, and so it was called Salt’s coterie. But, when it came to the carving, the one willing to give heart to the dragon was Realder. So. When all believed that the dragon would be quickened, it was announced as Realder’s dragon.’ ‘You saw her. Crowned with the rooster crown. A rare honour, and even rarer for a foreigner. But she had taken on the role of performer. jester, minstrel, tumbler. I had only that moment of being her. Just that brief dream, when I stood upon the pillar. I was, as I am, a White Prophet, and I stood high above the crowd and announced the flight of Realder’s dragon to the people of this Elderling town. But not without regrets. For I knew that my Catalyst would do that day what he had always been destined to do. He would enter a dragon, so that years hence, he could work a change. How it must have grieved her, to see Realder’s dragon mire and fail due to Salt’s hesitation. She probably thought that she had failed, too. But if Realdar had not made a dragon, and if that dragon had not failed, and if we had not found them there, still, in the quarry... what then?’
‘I will give Realder’s dragon the rooster crown. That was the price he named for me, the first time I flew with him. He said that he wished to wear forever the crown the White Prophet wore, on the day his beloved said farewell to him right before he entered his dragon.’
- Fool’s Fate