We’re back with another character’s birthday from The Dragon Prince! We skipped this one last year because there was still plenty about Runaan we didn’t want to spoil — but now that season 3 has aired, here’s a special look at how our favorite broody assassin celebrates his birthday.
Runaan’s birthday on May 17th!
Runaan isn’t one for attention. He has a hard time relaxing and might prefer to spend the day reading beneath a tree, but he knows the choice isn’t entirely in his hands. Every year Rayla drags him to the Moonshadow meadow for a quiet day and a picnic (Ethari joins, too, usually putting up his hands and claiming, “I’m powerless to stop her!”).
With the onset of spring, the meadow is lush and full of chittering adoraburrs. For the first few years, they’d come back home with a blanket full of the sticky things… and once they started checking for them, it was too late, because Rayla had learned she could sneak them home in her pockets anyway.
Once Rayla has gone to bed, Runaan’s birthday celebration continues with Ethari and two glasses of moonberry moscato. Ethari has a little tradition: he crafts a tiny metal trinket for Runaan every year. He made the first long before they were married: a tiny jeweled mouse (a joke, as Ethari had often said that Runaan was too quiet, like a mouse). The next, a moonstrider cub (he knew Runaan liked them, he’d seen the young assassin pet them when he thought no one was looking). Later, a songbird, for affection. After they’d married, a tiny silver heartbloom flower.
Last year, he’d made his gift while Runaan was away on his dire mission in the human kingdoms: a three-eyed nightfox. A hunter, a beast of deadly fang, its crystal eyes glinting pale green and tail a swirl of coiled black wire.
It doesn’t seem fitting now. Ethari makes another, and sets it beside the dark metal fox: the tear-shaped leaf of a weeping tree, wilting at its end.
