Raymond
Raymond Other names Ray Species Avia Titanus (33A Lineage) First appearance The Glass House, chapter 9 |
Raymond, called Ray, is a figure of the C9 universe: a colossal white avian of the 33A lineage, almost certainly the last of his kind, and the companion of Akio Nakayama. Chryssander names him on sight as a Rimfeosta, extremely intelligent, and the original 33A[1].
He came from System 33A and the high peaks. He is white from end to end, and large enough to carry twenty people, though the feathers make the size hard to read. He holds eye contact, which is the first thing about him that is not animal.
Before the House
The record's account of his early life is solitude. He was the last survivor of the Rimfeostas, and carried the weight of that.
With the House
He met the House of Confidence after the fall of the Klak Grove. In The Glass House, chapter 9, Akio puts a hand on the enormous head and it presses back with the weight of something that has decided to trust him[1].
The initiation between them was a drop. Ray worked out from it that Akio would survive the fall, which confirmed the 33A durability, and after that they were not separable[1]. He carried the House where it needed to go and answered when it called: in the last chapters his courier is the one bringing the corrected map, and Akio relays his timings[2].
He was fiercely protective of the Helvig twins and treated them as hatchlings.
Death
Raymond died on the highest point of the Great Plateau, where he had spent the last months of his life. He was on his side, his enormous white wings half-spread across the basalt, still wearing the armour Rad Albert had forged, buckled across his chest. His eyes were open, turned toward the direction of the 33A system, and he had not looked away.
Akio found him, put a hand against the thick down of his neck, and kept it there until the warmth was gone[3].
Flight
Ray processes wind shear, thermal current and trajectory continuously, and his structural mass is enough to make him a lifting platform rather than merely a flier. What he is built for is carrying.
Character
What he held early was that the sky belonged to him because he was alone in it. What he came to was the opposite: the sky is lonely, and the ground is where the heart is.