The boy had changed. Or temporarily changed his focus at the very least.
Ronan, Rhea's son of seven namedays, no longer filled the halls with the sound of hammer or chisel, nor the smell of freshly carved wood.
The moons before, it seemed that every corner of Runestone and beyond echoed his name... the maester talking of his craft, children laughing at his toys, and even nobles from the Vale sending word to see the boy who made the "stick that returns" up until the tower of tumbling blocks.
But after his seventh nameday, he grew quiet.
Perhaps he has had his fill of being marveled at, or perhaps fame had become a burden to him. For now...
Whatever the cause, Ronan's works seem to no longer seek the attention of others.
His hands were still busy... always busy... but his manner was different.
The boy who once shared his creations so freely now kept his labors close, speaking less and thinking more.
Rhea did not press him.
Children grow in strange ways, and a mother learns when to let the tide take its course.
Of course, before that quiet turn, he startled the household and the locals again... this time not with flying wood, but with his own body riding the waves.
He called it surfing... using a long, smooth board of his own make.
Rhea remembered the gasps of the fisherfolk who watched him glide over the sea's edge like a seabird too bold for its wings.
They spoke of sorcery, of sea sprites carrying him, but she knew better. It was another craft, balance, and that same stubborn curiosity that had always lived in him.
And yet, after the murmurs rose, he left the board and the sea behind.
Apparently, a nasty "wipeout" happened to him and he felt it was better to visit that when he's much older. Or more skilled. Which were both a matter of time.
Still, a title as the first Wave Rider became spoken around... as many other wave riders followed in the path he paused at. Trying and eventually achieving something that they could.
Mostly locals of Royce lands, as surfing the surfboard never got too much exposure elsewhere... surfing was that much harder to learn than tying the top and kicking the takraw.
In any case, that was when clay took the place of timber for Ronan's developments.
He began with mud... common, unremarkable mud... and shaped it with his hands as if it were something precious.
The maester told her that the boy had requested books on pottery and kilnwork, and that he spent his mornings in the courtyard... molding and turning the soft clay while the maester watched with a mix of curiosity and bewilderment.
It was curious, truly.
To think he had mastered the ways of carving hard wood long before touching something so pliant.
It was as if he had walked backward into simplicity, unmaking his own difficulty.
Still, the pots he made were beautiful. The first ones were unspeakable but after only a number of tries, he was shaping beauty.
Some tall and narrow, others wide and patterned. He painted them, etched designs upon them, and then filled them with soil.
For gardening.
It seemed a humble pursuit... too plain for a boy of his mind... but her boy made it into something else entirely. The pots were not only vessels for plants... they were hosts for symbols.
It was the runes of the House. Since the time of the Bronze Kings and First Men.
He carved them on the inner sides before laying the soil over them, as though the dirt might hide their meaning.
Trying to appease herself, who always said he must keep that part of him hidden.
But a mother sees what she must but she said nothing. If he wished to play at magic, then let him. Every Royce child should at least toy with the thought of the old ways.
He treated the act as his first true experiment. Whether the runes had any direct power, she could not tell... yet.
The plants did grow, though no faster or brighter than before.
Still, he watched them like a maester with his glass, writing notes and scratching drawings.
Before long, he had written an entire book... or several small ones... about the plant variety itself and his miniature gardens.
He wrote under the name Rune and Stone again. Why that name, Rhea cannot say. Perhaps it was his way of tying himself to two worlds... the mystic and the mundane, his Royce part and his attached bastardy.
When she asked him once why he bothered with such small plants, he said it was for the cold days... and that runes were fickle...
They needed weirwood and other magical materials to make anything happen... and that maybe his time as this "Ronan Potter" was a lost cause.
Yet not entirely.
The boy was young, but not without foresight.
He spoke of vegetables that could grow in winter, of herbs that could thrive indoors. He spoke of keeping the green alive even when the frost comes.
Rhea cannot say that she understood all of it, but she saw something that was always in his eyes... a quiet planning, a sense of purpose beyond play.
In the moons before his eighth nameday, he became both potter and plotter.
It was not any toy to amuse the realm but hid a craft that was something subtler, something living, partly mystical.
Whether it was childish futility or the first spark of something greater, Rhea thought it might be both or nothing at all.
But she learned this much... when Ronan turns his mind to something, the realm should have done well to take notice.
For where others see mere dirt and clay, her son sees the shape of what may yet come.