Lyndon Stelcraft

CW: death, drowning
Lyndon Stelcraft was the first and thus far the only Paragon confirmed by modern science to have plant growth abilities, which were widely believed to be legendary. The illegitimate son of Railmarshal Kane Stelcraft and a Dreg woman, his place in society was already strange, even without being the first of his kind in centuries. Investigators believe that Lyndon fell in love with a Healer during his time at university, and the two both drowned in 1298, presumably while meeting in secret on the coast. A tragic and frankly frustrating example of what Paragon society can do to people, even those it supposedly values.

Personal History

Birth and Early Life

Born in 1278, Lyndon Stelcraft was the illegitimate son of Kane Windsilver Stelcraft, the man whose ancestor built the great web of hovertrains throughout Kingdom of Crathlia, and Cassia Blair Lyndon, a young Dreg woman. When she died in childbirth, the elder Stelcraft named Lyndon for his mother's surname, essentially giving him no proper first name. This is relatively common practice among Paragons for particularly shameful illegitimate children, serving to highlight the child's ignoble roots and the sins of their parents. It is usually instigated by the child's Paragon grandparents. However, both Railmarshal Stelcraft's parents were dead at the time, so he clearly chose this shame for himself.
As a young child, Lyndon lived much as most comparable illegitimate children of public figures do--out of the spotlight as much as possible. That changed dramatically when he surged aged seven.

Surging and Education

Lord Lyndon always liked nature. Always playing outside, putting wayward worms back in the dirt, scattering birdseed. His father hated it, really, though he won't tell you that nowadays. But it was just a no-brainer in hindsight, that it happened in the garden.
I'm not gonna lie to you, we thought it was fairies. When we turned around and there - the flowers were blooming. And then there - they were wilted, dead, before our very eyes. But it couldn't be the little lord, who stood there gaping like the rest of us.
'Course, we were wrong there.

— Biddy Jardine, former Stelcraft household gardener

Lyndon's ability was not really believed at first, neither by the servants nor by his father, but the surges were persistent and increasingly obviously caused by the young Paragon. Railmarshal Stelcraft reached out to the faculty of the Windsilver Institute for answers. This culminated in seven-year-old Lyndon being sent to the school for experimentation and training--unusual for most Paragon boarding schools, but not for the Institute, which typically takes Paragon children with dangerous or destructive surges.

War

Lyndon Stelcraft was eleven years old when the Great War came to Crathlia. Windsilver was a significant target for the naered as it held children who were often trained as elite warriors. This resulted in high levels of trauma among the students during this period, especially the younger ones such as Lyndon. His teachers report that he thought he heard the naered speaking to him even after the war was over, and he was far more nervous and scattered than he had been before the war--both common wartime trauma responses in children this age.
During the four years of fighting that ensued, Lyndon assisted the war effort via speeding up the growth of crops and then delaying ripening so that nothing would be wasted. His contributions to the home front were considered crucial, and he was injected with a tracker like a Healer in case he was captured by the naered, and senior Institute students guarded him anytime he left the school.

Uncertain Future

During and after the war, Lyndon rarely returned to the Stelcraft residence and spent most holidays with the families of his schoolmates and mentors. However, he experienced some level of pressure from his father and the rest of society to marry into one of the non-noble Paragon clans that had always leveraged their abilities to promote good crops.
Additionally, his inheritance of the Railmarshal title was often called into question by Kane Stelcraft's cousins, who argued that his unique ability made him wasted on hovertrain lines and that they ought to be named Kane's heir presumptuative rather than his (illegitimate) son. Kane Stelcraft was highly resistent to this, wanting to keep the legacy within his own family line.
All these complex political interactions led Lyndon to pursue higher education at university. He declared a major of horticulture but took engineering classes as well, likely to please his father. He tended to do very poorly in the engineering classes, and several of his professors admit that they asked why he was taking them in the first place when the Creator had clearly shaped his mind and body differently.

Death

The facts of Lyndon Stelcraft's death stand thus:

1. His roommate reported him missing on the 8th of Tinegal, 1298. This roommate later testified that he believed Lyndon was secretly meeting with a foreign girl.
2. Lyndon's tracker and that of a young Healer woman named Dominique Levvieur, who attended the local Healer school, stopped recording heartbeats in relatively quick succession, while pinging from out at sea.
3. Clothes, books, and towels belonging to the two young people were found on the beach. Their things were left as if they were coming back.
4. Neither of their bodies were ever found. This is, of course, not unusual for a death at sea.

From these facts, it can be assumed that young Stelcraft and Healer Levvieur (whose parents came to Crathlia from the Republic of Notia when her abilities were discovered) were having a clandestine romance. The reason for their secrecy is obvious. Lyndon's father would have rejected the union, and it very well might have driven away more useful potential matches. It is likely that the need for secrecy was what drove them to swim alone in the middle of the night with no one to save them if there was a rip current--and there was.
There is some speculation that the two survived. However, as this would imply that the two cut out their trackers (or that one murdered the other and cut out their own tracker--either way, treason), this explanation has been utterly rejected by Kane Stelcraft.

Written by Cordelia Colbreak Evenbrook

Power Carrier Concentration

100.77

Abilities

Plant Growth
Telekinesis

Species

Humans

Ethnicity

Paragons

Life

1278 DA 1298 DA 20 years old

Circumstances of Birth

The illegitimate son of Kane Stelcraft and his Dreg mistress.

Circumstances of Death

Drowning at sea via presumed rip current. No body was ever found.

Parents

Kane Windsilver Stelcraft

Gender

Male.

Eyes

Hazel.

Hair

Ashy blond.

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale.

Height

5'4.

Weight

Slender.

Scientific and Historical Significance

Plant Growth as Comparison to Other Biology Abilities

Prior to Lyndon Stelcraft's surging, it was believed that the only abilities that manipulated biological or organic matter were healing, draining, and face-changing. These abilities all focus on manipulation of the human body--though Katherine Weatherby's research suggests that Healers and Drainers can affect aignaoithe as well. She argues that this is because Drainers manipulate power carriers directly and Healers utilize power carriers to spur the immune system. Face-changers (the much rarer ability to change one's own appearance temporarily) are believed to be human echoes of shapeshifters.
The manipulation of plant growth is different entirely. It involves the spurring of a biological process that doesn't exist in one's own body, of cells that we do not have. Plants do not possess power carriers (that we know of). This ability shares far more with other Class 3 Paragon abilities, such as manipulation of mud, earth, water, or light.

I will, however, leave the details of this analysis to scientists. Let us turn to the historical and cultural ramifications of Lyndon Stelcraft's ability.

Recontexualization of Colonial and Dark Age Documents

As a historian, I've come across several primary sources from prior to the turn of the millenium that record plant-based Paragon abilities. Prior to Lyndon Stelcraft's surge, these abilities were generally considered to be myth or exaggeration, likely attempts to align historical Paragons with legendary fairies. Now it is known that there is a very real possibility that these people truly did have the abilities described. Other extinct, strange abilities as recorded in these primary sources (such as supernatural speed, small-scale time manipulation, wood-based abilities, and animal-based abilities) may have existed and may yet linger within the blood of Crathlian Dregs and Amalgams. Speaking of which, I'll explain my admittedly controversial take on this next.

Potential for Latent Affinities in Amalgams and Dregs

In her theory of building block classification, Aileen Dunspark argued that the building blocks that make up a Paragon's affinity exist on a spectrum of furthest from shapeshifters (ground) to closest to shapeshifters (light). While this theory is still given some credence today, it frankly shouldn't. Power carrier concentration tests proved that a person can have a ground affinity but still have a very high power carrier concentration.
Lyndon Stelcraft's plant manipulation ability proves Dunspark's belief that Amalgams and Dregs have ground building blocks to be absolutely incorrect in a way we were previously unaware of. In fact, it seems very likely to me that Amalgams and Dregs have unexpressed affinities as varying and unique as those of Paragons. Hidden beneath their low power carrier concentrations, there likely exist many more Healers, many more plant manipulators like Lyndon Stelcraft, and many more with abilities that haven't been seen in over three hundred years. This theory would explain why the myriad of Paragon affinities exist in the first place. They were already there. They simply needed the power carriers to express them.
Why, then, has this theory not been researched? Surely scientists, more knowledgable than a historian princess-to-be, have thought of this before.
Frankly, it's a matter of Paragon pride. Paragons can't take the insinuation that they are not as special or unique as they believed themselves to be and thus surpress any research that suggests otherwise. Obviously, given that I'm speaking semi-publically about this (not that many people are reading these rambles, but the point still stands), I fully intend to change this when I am queen.