Malta *spoilers all Hobb books*

[Farseer]

First up, I think I may have confused the 'blueness' of Tintaglia with the 'blueness' of Sintara (as it was Sintara, I think, who was particularly disappointed to discover that she was a 'common blue' and not a rarer colour!). Though Tintaglia WAS blue once she emerged, she was a silver-blue and that made me think of something I remembered mentioned of her earlier colouring whilst she was still in the cocoon, and this is where she still was during the clash of the dragons AND when she appeared in one of the dreams shared by Reyn and Malta. This being so, I went back to one of those dream-box scenes and found:

"A dragon hovered above the trees. The powerful beat of her wings spurred the winds. Even the cloud-dimmed light of the sun could not diminish her glory. She was iridescent (same word used to describe silver dragon in the original quote). Colours chased one another over her silver body and wings . Her eyes were copper."

Gotta love research !

It's almost midnight but I'm going to have a quick stab at this and hope I don't discover later that I've been dribbling!

Hmm, yes, finella. Going on this old quote I gave above regarding the dream-box scene, it does say that Tintaglia's eyes are copper and her silver body. This, at least I believe, is simply how Tintaglia saw herself and thus this is how she represented herself when she appeared to Reyn and Malta in the dream they all shared.

Obviously this was not her true colouring when she emerged, as she was surprised by her blue colour (as is evidence by your quote). As I mentioned before, blue appears to be the most common colour for a dragon as Sintara (?) too was disappointed once she'd discovered that she was only blue. For me, Tintaglia had merely dreamed herself as being silver with silver wings and if she was wrong about that, well, likely she was wrong about her copper eyes as well...the colour of which she had also dreamed.

I guess it's not unlike how Nettle dreamed of Fitz when she still saw him as 'Shadow Wolf'. She had never seen him in the flesh and so dreamed him wolf-like in their Skill-sharing in the form that she had imagined him. Like Nettle, Tintaglia was yet to actually see herself and so likely just dreamed herself as she saw herself in her imagination...with silver scales and copper eyes rather than her true blue scales and silver eyes?

Ah, I think I may have read your question wrong so will have to come back and re-read when I feel a little more awake, I think! Silver-blue...will try and go back and reference where that came from!

As for Ronica, yes, she is a Carrock just as Carillion was but that is not to say that she is definitely of Carillion's line as Carillion was only a Carrock by marriage (her maiden name being Waljin). Rather, it was her husband, Jathan, who was a Carrock by blood and it was he who left the Rain Wilds with the party who ended up at Bingtown. Ronica had once mentioned that her ancestors had left the Rain Wilds and made their home in Bingtown, which is also where Ronica grew up. In this she was descended from an original Bingtown Trader family. She didn't grow up in the Rain Wilds as she would have if she'd been one of Carillion's off-spring. Likely then, Ronica is actually a decendant of Jathan's but possibly by a later re-marriage to another woman. Of course, there are lots of theories and it will be interesting if we ever find confirmation of any of them!

For a little more of my thoughts (so likely as far-fetched as a theory is likely to get! ) on Ronica's possible connection, you may like to have a look in the Homecoming thread where we have chatted about it previously (I think I raised the issue at post # 6 but we didn't get stuck into it until around post # 15 through to post # 25).