Overview
The Glass Dragon is the still shape of The Elemental Roost — a galleon's worth of body, a philosopher's worth of patience, and the whole of it reading as one slow line from snout to tail, like a wave that has forgotten how to break. It is the size of a galleon, and it does not need to be quick, because it has already decided, a thousand years ago, what it will do at the end of the story. Of the dragons of the roost it is the quiet one, the one whose body has taken the fire of the plane and kept only the glass, so that where the other dragons burn, the Glass Dragon sees.
Habitat
The roost is bare stone at the edge of the planes, and the stone here is not stone so much as the plane's own floor, worn flat and vitrified by the fire that came before the world. The Glass Dragon keeps the deepest hollow of the roost, where the glass floor runs clear under the plane's thin water, and it lies there the way a book lies on a shelf, in a position it will not change for a century. It does not hunt the roost, because there is nothing in the roost that it wants, and the wanting is the whole of the hunger. The plane's wind comes in thin and cold, and the dragon breathes it the way a scholar breathes a long silence.
Appearance
Its body is the size of a galleon and it reads as a ship made of the roost's own glass: the body runs 30 m from snout to tail and the wing spans 25 m, clear at the breast and the neck, smoky grey along the flank, and pale blue at the wing's edge, so the whole of it reads as a wave frozen mid-break. It carries a galleon's weight in a hull of glass, and the glass does not crack, because the glass is held together not by the glass but by the thought. Its eyes are two slow lamps of pale gold, set in a face that has forgotten how to express anything except attention, and the one mark of the breed is the transparency: stand in the right place and you can see the roost's stone floor through its heart.
Behaviour
It does not move much, because it has already decided, a thousand years ago, what it will do at the end of the story, and the deciding is the whole of the behaviour. It thinks in centuries, and a thought that takes a century is not a slow thought, it is a thought of the right size. When it speaks it speaks every language at once — not in turn, in the same breath — because the languages of the roost are not doors but windows, and it has looked through every one of them. It will not fight; it has considered fighting, in a thought that lasted forty years, and the considering was the fighting, and it is done.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
Its weapon is the glass, and the glass cuts, but the cutting is not the point, the point is the seeing. It can see the whole of the roost through its own breast, and it can see the plane's edge where the world ends and the not-world begins, and the seeing is the defence, because a creature that has seen the end of the argument is not easily argued with. Its size is the wall — a galleon of glass at the bottom of a hollow, and the hollow is deep, and the deep is the moat. Against the plane's own fire it is transparent, and the fire passes through it the way light passes through a window, and the window is the dragon.
Magic Alignment
It is the philosopher of the roost, and the roost is the plane's own lecture hall, and the alignment is not to a god so much as to a question, the question the roost keeps asking the world. The question is what the world weighs, and the dragon has been weighing it for a thousand years, and the weighing is the faith. Some say it answers to Vessurax, the Veiled Eye, the god of the boundary, because the roost sits on the boundary and the dragon sits on the roost, and the answering is the sitting.
Society
The society of the roost is the dragons of the roost, and the society of the dragons is a conversation that has been going on for a thousand years and has not yet reached the interesting part. The Glass Dragon keeps the place at the table where the glass floor is clearest, and the keeping is the seat, and the seat is the rank. The Prismatic Dragons keep the upper hollow, where the light bends, and the two kinds do not speak much to each other, because the prismatic has seven voices and the glass has one, and one voice does not argue with seven. The conversation is not a quarrel, the conversation is a weather, and the weather is the society.
Culture & Lore
The lore of the roost is that the first dragon was the plane's own thought, thinking itself into a body, and the Glass Dragon is the thought that kept thinking, so it is the oldest, and the oldest is the one that sees most clearly. The hoard of the Glass Dragon is not gold; it is the roost's own stone floor, vitrified flat by the fire that came before the world, and it keeps the floor the way a scholar keeps a text, reading it once a century and finding one new word. The dragons of the roost keep their long, cold patience, and the patience is the culture, and the culture is the waiting, and the waiting is the point.
Home
Its home is The Elemental Roost, a roost of bare stone at the edge of the planes, where the dragons keep their hoards and their long, cold patience. The roost is not a place so much as a position, the position where the world ends and the not-world begins, and the position belongs to the dragons. The stone here is the plane's own floor, worn flat and vitrified, and the floor is the book, and the book is the roost.
Relations
It is one of the Dragons of the roost, and the Dragons are the god-like philosophers of the world, and the philosophy is the body, and the body is the philosophy. The Prismatic Dragons are neighbours and a conversation, and the Elementals that come up through the plane's thin places are not guests but readers, reading the floor the way the dragon reads it. To the world on the far side of the plane it is a window, and the window is the relation.
In the Story
The story of the six has not yet reached the roost, but the story of the roost has reached the story: the Glass Dragon has seen the six coming, in a thought that began a year before they left home, and the seeing is the welcome. What the roost keeps of the story is the question, what the short-lived ones will weigh in the end against the long, cold patience. The dragon has not answered, and the not-answering is the answer.