Baudraen

Baudraen is the heart of The Mystery Love of Dragon — a king who rules a palace of dragons on a storm-beaten cliff, yet cannot find the one person he has been looking for since he was small. He is powerful, proud and feared, but the story introduces him first not as a monarch, but as a little dragon who simply wanted to fly.

Who is Baudraen?

Baudraen is the Dragon King. In human form he is a tall, strongly built man with thick, dark, almost black hair falling in soft waves to his shoulders, a neatly shaped dark beard and grey-blue eyes ringed with gold — the mark of the dragon inside him. He dresses like a king who has no patience for ceremony: a burgundy shirt with a stand-up collar worn open at the neck, a black leather jacket, black trousers. He has no horns in either of his forms.

He can turn into a great dragon at will, and that gift comes at a price. No one can come near him without catching fire. A king who can protect a whole kingdom cannot hold a single hand — and that quiet loneliness shapes everything he does. Behind his authority lies a man who remembers exactly what it felt like when someone was not afraid of him.

The little dragon who couldn't fly

Part 1 opens on a mossy rock above a forest gorge, the place where young dragons learn to fly. Little Baudraen is no bigger than a large dog: dark wine-red scales, short wings, a smooth head and big gold-ringed eyes. He squeezes his eyes shut, spreads his wings and tries with all his heart. Golden sparks swirl around him — but his body will not rise. When he leaps, the stone crumbles, and he tumbles into the forest below, ending up upside down in the thick vines of an old tree, just above the soft moss.

What follows is the moment that defines his whole life. A girl in a pale-blue dress runs out from the trees, stands on the forest floor beneath him and patiently untangles the vines until he slips down onto the moss. They land in a heap, laugh with relief — and in a warm golden glow, the little dragon becomes a boy. Before he can learn anything about her, a woman's voice calls his name in the distance, and the girl smiles and runs away between the trees. She never tells him who she is.

It is a small scene, but it explains the grown king completely. The first kindness he ever received was given freely, by a stranger who asked for nothing and did not stay to be thanked. You can watch it in Part 1: The Little Dragon Who Couldn't Fly.

Sixteen years later

When the screen reads "16 years later", the boy from the forest is a king. Thunder rolls over a gothic palace standing on a rock in the sea, and the shadow of enormous wings sweeps across the clouds. In the rain, Baudraen turns to Nicolas, his oldest friend and the captain of his guard, and gives an order that carries sixteen years of longing. He still does not know her name. He wants her found.

This is the engine of the series. Baudraen commands dragons, guards the human kingdom by an ancient treaty and has every resource a ruler could want — but he is searching for a face he last saw as a child, in a forest, for a few minutes. The question the whole season asks is simple and painful: would he recognise her if she stood right in front of him?

Personality: fire and memory

• Stubborn from the start. Even as a hatchling he refuses to give up on flying, trying again after the sparks fail him.
• Grateful to the core. His first words to the girl are not about himself, but a simple thank-you he has carried for sixteen years.
• Commanding but loyal. He gives orders like a king, but he trusts Nicolas with the one mission that truly matters to him.
• Lonely by nature, not by choice. His fire keeps everyone at a distance, which makes the memory of the girl who touched him without fear all the more precious.

Baudraen and the human kingdom

By an old agreement, the Dragon King protects the people of the human kingdom from their enemies — for an agreed price. That treaty ties him to the King and, in time, to his daughter, Princess Natali, a kind young woman who secretly carries bread to the villagers. The series description already warns that a royal debt is about to bind her to the dragon she fears. What the dragon himself will feel when that happens is one of the mysteries the story is saving for later.

What to watch for

Pay attention to the details the series plants around him: the golden rings in his eyes, the colour of the dress the girl from the forest was wearing, the kindness that people show without being asked. The Mystery Love of Dragon is built on small echoes between the past and the present, and Baudraen is the character who has been waiting longest for those echoes to add up.

For an overview of the whole cast and world, visit the series page or read the viewer's guide.