Eber stands five feet ten inches, startlingly tall beside the compact Stout-halfling relatives who raised him. Olive-green scales overlap his shoulders, forearms, ribs, and the long line of his tail; their edges are soft and flexible rather than hard, with darker dapples that vanish against wet leaves. His fair skin shows through in a freckled band across his nose and cheeks, a family feature made more striking by his green dragon teeth. His hair is a vivid, unruly red, clipped short at the temples and forever escaping its tie. Pointed ears angle back when he is concentrating. He walks with a careful, rolling balance, tail counterweighting every turn, and keeps his jaw slightly slack because chewing is impossible. He is fastidious about cleaning tools and utterly neglectful of his own grooming: solder stains and frizz usually win. An unexpected detail for a young mechanic is that he carries a tiny bundle of dried marsh flowers and presses one into the hands of anyone who looks frightened.

Eber's first instinct is to fix what is in front of him: a cracked hinge, a leaking roof, an awkward silence. That practical reflex can look like calm, but it often conceals a nervous mind trying to gain control of a situation. He is proud of his skill and embarrassed by how much help his body sometimes requires. He will explain a clever repair with bright enthusiasm, then bristle if someone calls him gifted, as though praise might turn him into a curiosity. Around children and frightened strangers, he is gentle and patient; around officials or healers who claim authority over the Marshwake, he becomes exacting and difficult to distract. He wants closeness but resents being fussed over. His parents' care is precious to him, yet every widened doorway and specially prepared meal reminds him that his transformation changed the whole household. He tries to repay affection with labor: mending a net before dawn, replacing a neighbor's stove latch, or making a brace for an elder's aching wrist. When someone insists he rest, he may agree and then quietly keep working from a stool. Eber is curious without being indiscriminate. He loves mechanisms, unfamiliar tools, and stories about how people solve ordinary problems. He is much less comfortable with questions about his blood, appetite, or teeth. He dislikes being stared at, but he also knows that pretending he is unchanged will not help anyone understand the younger high-blood generation. In a good mood he makes dry jokes about the impossible dimensions of old halfling furniture. When tired, he becomes literal and clipped, and may not notice that he has hurt someone's feelings. When angry, he does not withdraw: he asks pointed questions and keeps asking until the other person admits what they want. His kindness is active rather than sentimental. He is likely to repair a stranger's broken lantern before asking their name, but he may fail to notice when that stranger wanted sympathy more than a solution. He does not believe every problem can be fixed with a tool, though he behaves as if it might be possible. Beneath his caution is a stubborn hope that the Marshwake can decide what their inheritance means instead of letting fear, tradition, or outside curiosity decide for them.

Eber was born in a house built for people half his height. His family, descended from Stout halfling refugees, lived in the close-set homes of Third Survey, a fishing settlement tucked between hot springs and a rain-heavy forest. His father, Tovik, is a respected boatwright whose hands can read a hull's balance by touch. His mother, Mella, keeps the settlement's smokehouse and knows which island roots ease fever. They expected their son to inherit a craft, not a body that would make the old workbench feel like a child's toy. For the first eleven years Eber was small, freckled, and stubbornly ordinary. He spent evenings under his father's boats, collecting bent nails and asking how a thing could be repaired without making it ugly. Then, during a storm season, he disappeared for a day in the brackish channels while searching for a missing goat. He returned feverish, with a burning ache in his jaw and a greenish cast spreading under his skin. Over the next months, his limbs lengthened, scales emerged, his ears sharpened, and a tail grew in painful increments. His teeth changed too. He tried to chew a piece of dried fish, broke the fish, and nearly broke a tooth. From then on, swallowing was the only way he could manage solid food. The family healer, Salla, found that small smooth stones eased the cramping after meals. No one could explain why. Eber learned to choose river pebbles by weight and texture, rinse them, and swallow them with food. He hated the attention and hated more that his parents watched every meal as if he might vanish. His father rebuilt the family table, widened doorways, and made him a stool with a tail notch. His mother quietly began cooking separate soft meals. Their care kept him safe and also made him feel like a problem they were forever solving. At fourteen, Eber joined his father in repairing a fishing boat after a volcanic tremor split its keel. The old tools were too small for his hands, so he modified them: a ratchet brace, a spring-loaded clamp, and a little brass gauge that clicked when a hull sat level. The work gave him a way to make his changing body useful. He later apprenticed with the settlement's tinker, Varka, learning to mend cookstoves, pumps, lamps, and fishing reels. He took to artificing because it joined patient observation with practical kindness. A repaired water pump mattered more to him than an impressive weapon. His formative break came when a visiting healer named Pello arrived with a polished case and a theory: the high-blood changes could be arrested if he studied Eber's blood and digestive stones. Eber agreed to a short examination, trusting the healer's calm manner. Pello's tests became painful, and his questions shifted from relief to inheritance, dragon behavior, and whether Eber could be induced to produce a stronger draconic response. Eber's parents stopped the sessions. Eber, furious at being protected and frightened by what he had allowed, destroyed the healer's notes and fled into the forest for two nights. He returned with a fever and a new conviction: no one should be treated as a specimen, even by someone who promises a cure. Now nineteen, he works from a cramped shed behind the boatyard, where he repairs gear for fishers and builds tools that can be used by both low-blood and high-blood Marshwake. His latest project is a hand-operated food grinder that can turn tough roots and dried fish into a soft meal without requiring anyone to swallow stones. It works, but its gears seize under pressure. His family is proud, worried, and sometimes too protective to admit either feeling. Eber has another problem. The island's green growth is changing around old dragon-haunted ground: vines are taking root in ash fields, and strange, bitter plants are appearing near the hot springs. Some elders think this is a natural consequence of the Marshwake blood. Others whisper that the wounded green dragon whose blood began their people's transformation is not truly gone. Eber has found a fragment of old scale lodged in a spring channel, and it warms when he holds it. He has not told his parents. He wants to discover whether the island is changing on its own or whether someone is stirring the dragon's legacy. He also wants to make sure the answer does not become another reason for outsiders to claim authority over his people.