Distracting Eye

The dragon can use its glowing fins and eyespots in a flare to attempt to disorient attackers.

Eternal Patience

The possession of nearly supernatural patience. The dragon can wait, without need of food or drink, for up to two weeks without growing bored or losing focus.

Hunter's Mark

The ability to "mark" a single target at a time and track them through any body of water. The mark is lost if the target leaves the water.

Telepathy

The ability to communicate mind-to-mind.

Underwater Breathing

The ability to breathe underwater.

Malacostei is a creature of immense stillness, the kind that makes others pause and second-guess their own noise. He isn't cold -- far from it -- but his calm is so deep and undisturbed that it can feel like trying to read the surface of a lake that never ripples. He doesn't waste his metaphorical breath on commentary or correction. If something doesn't matter in the scale of centuries, he simply lets it pass like silt through his fins. Those expecting warmth in the form of chatter or cheer may think him aloof, but he simply speaks in presence -- reliable, unwavering, quietly immense.

Beneath this tranquility, however, is a sharp acuity. Malacostei does not miss things. His eyes see more than light -- they track behavior, patterns, shifts in tone and timing. He notices what others overlook, but almost never says it out loud unless there is genuine purpose in doing so. He doesn't think in steps, but in tides: in the swell and recession of influence, of danger, of need. And when he moves, it is always with precision. He does not warn, he does not bluff; if he opens his jaws, something is going to be devoured.

• Malacostei is another who has been feeling biological imperatives, though he has yet to find a mate that appeals to him. Thankfully he is endlessly patient, so this has been no great inconvenience, but it is ever on his mind.
• Lernaea, aware of this, passes word to him of the frenzy. Feeling neither hope nor doubt, he decides to attend. He cannot be successful if he never engages in the hunt.