Eber is a young man of 5 feet 10 inches, startlingly tall beside his stout halfling family. Fair skin and freckles show between overlapping olive-green scales, which are supple rather than armor-hard and dapple darker along his spine. His original red hair has grown coarse and rust-bright, usually flattened beneath a work cap, while a narrow green crest begins at his hairline and lies folded back over his crown. His amber eyes have vertical pupils and a reflective, molten quality in dim light. His pointed ears have small, unobtrusive openings instead of rounded outer rims. His teeth are strong, greenish, and sharply conical, useful for gripping but awkward for chewing. A long tail balances him as he walks, giving his careful steps a quiet, gliding quality. He is unexpectedly fastidious about polishing the brass buckle on his apron, even when the rest of him is dusted with sawdust.

Eber's nature is a knot of opposing needs. He longs for the crowded warmth of his childhood home, yet his changed body and new solitary habits make closeness exhausting. He will work late beside a sibling without complaint, then leave a family meal early because the attention around his food makes him feel like a problem to be solved. He is clever and patient with objects, but awkwardly defensive when people try to read his feelings. He can be gentle with children and animals, especially when showing them how something works, while becoming coldly precise with adults who treat him as a spectacle. His humor is dry, usually delivered after he has watched a conversation long enough to find its weak joint. When relaxed, he enjoys teasing Rodrick back and lets his tail curl around a chair leg. Under pressure, he becomes practical and overly controlled, asking about measurements or chores instead of admitting fear. Anger brings blunt honesty rather than shouting: he names the insult, its effect, and what he expects to stop. If ignored, he withdraws before he lashes out. He is proud of being useful and ashamed of needing help. That contradiction shows most clearly around meals. He resents his family's concern when they fuss over his stones, but is hurt if they forget to set them out. He dislikes being called the baby of the family now that he is taller than most of his siblings, yet he still seeks his mother's approval and feels safest when his father is nearby in the workshop. He wants to be accepted as high-blood without being pushed into the cold, calculating role some villagers expect of him. He distrusts dragon worship and the new fashion for dominance, but is curious about the source of his changes and does not want to reject his own body simply because it is strange. With strangers he is watchful, economical with words, and alert to exits. With family he is more expressive, though he often communicates care through repairs, food preparation, or quietly taking the unpleasant task off someone's hands. Around Rodrick he is quick to bristle but trusts his brother's loyalty. Around Ignatz he is patient, understanding that shame can make a person retreat. Around Yonda he alternates between affection and irritation when she tries to make him socialize. He is not a naturally solitary person, but solitude is currently the only place where he can hear his own thoughts.

Eber is the youngest of Trogi and Wilma's eight children, the last small body carried through the family kitchen before the older siblings began leaving its benches. For much of his childhood, he was the red-haired baby of the household: passed from one set of arms to another, allowed to nap beneath the worktable, and teased into helping with harmless jobs in the family workshop. His father, Trogi, a calm low-blood craftsman, taught him to fit gears and judge a tool by its balance. His mother, Wilma, taught him to weed the garden, feed the chickens, and offer thanks before a shared meal. Eber's red hair was unusual, and relatives sometimes joked it marked him as high-blood, but his eyes were dark brown and his body was unmistakably halfling. He felt safe in the crush of siblings, cousins, and grandchildren. That safety altered during adolescence. His brown eyes turned amber, his limbs lengthened, and green scales spread over his fair, freckled skin. His ears sharpened; his teeth changed into gripping fangs; a tail grew in fits painful enough to keep him awake. The change did not make him a dragon, but it made his own home feel built for someone else. He became too tall for the old beds, too strong for the small chairs, and too visibly different to disappear in a crowd. Most unsettling was food. His new jaw could not chew. He learned by miserable trial that he had to swallow food and small stones, letting a changed second stomach grind it down. The first meal after the change ended with him frightened and choking on a mouthful he could not manage. Wilma and Ignatz stayed with him through the night, and Trogi built him a small, careful kit of smooth stomach stones and a wooden case to keep them clean. In the days that followed, Rodrick and Ignatz, his two high-blood brothers, slept in the kitchen with him. There was no room for their growing bodies in the old sleeping arrangements, and none of them wanted Eber to wake alone among unfamiliar aches. Rodrick pretended the floor was an adventure and made sharp jokes about Eber's strange meals, but stopped when Eber's anger turned real. Ignatz, already frightened by the strength of his own hunting urges, kept watch and quietly fetched water. The brothers were awkward, close, and scared together. Eber remembers the warmth of their shoulders on either side of him more vividly than the pain. His family is a whole village's worth of care and pressure. Windle, the eldest, is a balding low-blood with hazel eyes who works in the workshop and expects to inherit its management. He has two young children, Otto and Anika, and fears they might someday undergo the same transformation as Eber. Karl, second eldest, is a gear-loving craftsman in a difficult marriage with Leanora, a sailor descended from the dragon hunters Wilks and Nailia. Karl's son Hansel is black-haired and black-eyed; Ragni, Leanora's pale, white-haired child with milky blue eyes, is also part of the family's complicated household. Yonda, the only sister, is a generous social butterfly with five children. She is kind to Eber but keeps urging him to join village gatherings. Her sons Hans and Birke show signs that may mark them high-blood, while Willow, Trude, and Liesel are low-blood children with their own temperaments and appearances. Alder, a low-blood part-time guard who often chooses merriment over duty, has a clever high-blood son, Black Alder, who visits with stories of adventure. Kasper, a low-blood watch repairer and garden hand, is content with his wife and two daughters, Wonda and Ilse. Eber's high-blood brothers have become different men under the same changes. Rodrick, twenty-one, is bigger than Eber, with auburn hair, yellow eyes, reddish-tipped green scales, and an arrogant streak he calls honesty. He has sorcerous magic from his draconic inheritance and enjoys showing it off. Ignatz, twenty, has ashy blond hair, green eyes, grey-green scales, claws, and a flexible tail. After he deliberately killed a chicken during a sudden hunting urge, he retreated into workshop labor, ashamed of himself and afraid of what he might do next. He supported Eber during their shared adolescence even when he did not know what help to offer. The village itself is a compact settlement of timber homes, stone footings, steep roofs, covered yards, and muddy paths, built by survivors who endured drowning, hunger, dangerous woods, and a volcanic eruption before reaching the island. Three generations later, their halfling customs of shared work, gardens, hospitality, and remembrance still bind people together. But high-blood youths are numerous, and old mutual habits are under pressure from dragon worship, status display, hunting prestige, and stricter ideas about gender and power. Elders blame the green dragon whose blood changed their people. Some young folk see that legacy as proof they should rule. Others suspect an unfinished ritual, or the influence of a dragon's daughter. A secret circle is exploiting those fears, while a returning green dragon patriarch treats the village as a useful piece in his revenge. Eber has become an apprentice artificer in the family workshop, especially good at small mechanisms, kitchen fittings, and adaptations for bodies that do not fit old furniture. He is clever and observant, but his first instinct is to watch from the edge rather than join in. He collects polished buckles, glass beads, bright screws, and any little object that catches the light. He tells himself he likes their workmanship. The hoard-like impulse embarrasses him, and he worries it is evidence that the dragon in his blood is becoming more than a family resemblance. He is trying to learn what his body needs without treating it as a curse, and what his family needs without disappearing into their expectations. His present problem is practical and urgent: the old house has too few beds, clothes, and food stores for its growing high-blood children, and Eber's stone-dependent diet adds strain to a household already stretched thin.