Hobb-A-Long Read-A-Long discussion

Samantha wrote: "Volume 2 continues the Saga of the young Dragons and their Keepers!"

I know just what you mean in your message, Sam! I get really distracted during Christmas holidays too! I'm not sure I can even remember the dragon's names off-hand ( Now picture Burl Ives as a cartoon snowman at the North Pole, singing a familiar tune!).
" Well, there's Mercor and Relpda,"
" Veras and Kalo,"
" Fente, Sintara,"
" Ranculos and Heeby."
" But do you recall.... the most famous dragon of all.....?"
" Tintaglia, the Absent Dragon,"
" Signed a contract in Bingtown,"
" Supposed to help with the hatchlings,"
" Now she is not around!"
" All of the flightless dragons"- Oh, enough of this! Let's get on with it! ( Seriously, though! I just assumed that Tintaglia was going to be the main character in this series given her previous involvement with the Rain Wild serpents. Not a word from Icefyre yet, either!).

Leftrin, Alise and Sedric are all leery of the dragons' ability to read minds, as they all harbor secrets. Leftrin doesn't want Alise to find out about his shady past dealing in wizardwood, or being blackmailed into taking a Chalcedean upstream. The wizardwood use by Leftrin might particularly make the dragons angry, so he tends to stay clear of contact with them. Alise is fearful that Sintara will learn of her feelings about Leftrin and her troubled marriage with Hest, and broadcast it to others like Sedric; but Sintara actually thinks human affairs are too trivial for her to concerned about; Sedric, of course, now fears the small dragon he victimized for dragon parts will expose him.

But obviously, Leftrin and Alise are so completely smitten with each other that Sedric and others realize that an affair is inevitable between them, if it hasn't already commenced; so Sedric has confronted both of them in an effort to try and keep them separated until he can get Alise back to Bingtown.

Sedric may be able to spot the signs of attraction when he is not involved, but as always, he can't seem to figure it out when he is the subject of desire. Both Carson and his nephew have figured out Sedric's orientation, and seem to want to make themselves conspicuous in his presence. Sedric, clueless as ever, doesn't seem aware that Carson is attracted to him, even after Carson wipes his mouth for him( not exactly what bros routinely do for other bros).

During a rasp snake infestation, Thymara becomes exposed to Sintara's dragon blood, and Sintara apparently takes the opportunity (for her amusement as much as anything else) to glamour Thymara into following into an area where Greft and Jerd went. She actually comes across them having intercourse, which shocks her repressed sensibilities to the core. Up to this point, she has always maintained that because of her deformities and her hereditary predisposition to pass them on to future offspring, that she would remain abstinent and never enter into a romantic relationship, as all of the most deformed Rain Wilders are supposed to avoid. Now that she sees people like herself actually engaging in such behavior, some feelings are cropping up that she has never really dealt with before, and they are making her feel less sure of the permanence of her prior opinions. She had always considered romantic relationships between the heavily marked as taboo and forbidden, but she is not even sure that it is technically illegal( the series is never definitive about this: Is it law or just custom that keeps the heavily deformed from engaging in love attachments. For a society that needs more babies, but also doesn't want more deformities or life-threatening disabilities in their newborns, and also tolerates a degree of parental-prerogative euthanasia, it might also be too much to expect that a precise definition for what constitutes an unacceptable degree of deformity could be found, especially since nearly all Rain Wild inhabitants have some deformities; so that there may not be a sure consensus on who should or shouldn't be allowed to mate, at least for the purpose of crafting a law).

Mercor mentions to Alise that dragons and Elderlings have a symbiotic relationship, so it is not just that dragons can change a person into their conception of an Elderling, but humans also change the dragons. Both Sintara and Thymara can be stand-offish and obstinate with each other; but as Sintara makes changes in Thymara, she will actually start to get a slight sense of how Thymara feels in her despair and isolation, even if that change is not enough to satisfy Thymara's emotional need for companionship.