So, I’m on an Ashen Shard kick and trying to figure out what is going on with this weird story. I did some digging around and found this master timeline. I made some changes to it to reflect updates (Lanthriel was still Progolo in this version @_@ ). Good grief I forgot how robust/complicated this story is, and I never even worked out the meat of the real conflict.
Kala breathlessly slipped through the room, her hungry eyes darting all around the furniture and walls. Took’s quarters were littered with a peculiar assortment of tools, many of which looked like torture devices. There were numerous books scattered around, too, and pinned on one wall were several maps. One looked to be a roadmap of Chen. One of them was a floor plan of JaniHarrii. The south tower was annotated with particular care, but there were other notes, too. She stepped closer to peer at them.
“Well, well, well. Look who it is.”
Kala might have jumped out of her skin. She spun on the spot.
Sahin was standing about 10 paces away, and in his hands he held a large, live serpent, which coiled around his arms. He toyed gently with it, as one would a pet. The snake, for its part, seemed agitated.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Sahin purred, his eyes glinting eerily.
Kala swallowed, hard, and drew a steeling breath. “What is it you do for Took?” she asked abruptly.
“Whatever my master requires of me,” he said silkily, though there was an edge of menace to his voice.
“Including killing trespassers.”
Suddenly, he whipped out of sight, and in the next moment, he was right in front of her. Before she could react, he shoved her against a table, sending a sinister looking instrument clattering to the floor. With one hand he pinned her wrists over her head, forcing her to bend backward painfully over the edge of the table, and for good measure, he pushed his knee into her groin to keep her from slipping away. With his other hand, he pressed a blade into her throat.
Kala gasped and attempted to struggle, but Sahin continued to push his weight into her.
“How long did you think you could continue sneaking around before you got caught, hmm?” Sahin snarled in a deathly whisper. “You think this is some kind of GAME? You are a stupid, insolent little girl. How DARE you enter my master’s quarters, while Lanthriel agonizes over your protection!”
Kala shuddered and writhed, trying to twist her neck away from the bite of Sahin’s knife. But at the mention of Lanthriel’s name, she froze and met Sahin’s piercing gold gaze.
“Do you ever think what your moronic escapades inflict on him?” he continued, still in his intense whisper, eyes agleam with malice. Kala gagged as Sahin pushed harder on her. “You have no idea what terrible suffering awaits you, you sniveling brat! You think you can worm your way out of your inevitable fate by snooping around, but all that you are accomplishing is digging a deeper grave for both of you.”
Sahin seemed positively frenzied now. He leaned right into her her face and growled through his teeth, “if you have single shred of intelligence in your abomination of a body, you’ll KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN. You may gamble your own life all you wish, but I swear to God–”
A floor below, the whirring of the aegis sounded. Took had returned.
Kala’s heart fluttered frantically. She looked wildly up at Sahin, whose furor had subsided into indecision. Kala attempted to wriggle away from him just as he made up his mind. Her grabbed her roughly by the hair and dragged her, gasping fearfully, toward a large cabinet. A moment later he had shoved her inside, nearly slamming the door on her tail. Her cry of alarm was barely muffled by robes that hung within.
Mind racing to understand all that had happened and the predicament she had found herself in, she struggled to turn around in the tiny enclosure. She lost her balance on the jumble of shoes and crumpled awkwardly into a heap. A narrow shaft of light gleamed into her face as her struggle accidentally bumped the cabinet door, opening it a tiny crack. Her mouth went dry and she crammed herself as far back into the cabinet as she could get, hoping against hope that Took had not seen the cabinet shift.
“Djinni!” Took’s harsh voice snapped as he came up the stairs.
Through the thin slit, Kala could just see Sahin tense visibly and bow. “Yes, Master?”
There was a clunking noise as Took set something down. “What have you been up to?” he asked suspiciously.
“I…” Sahin faltered.
Why did he hide me? Kala wondered suddenly, feeling blood seeping from the narrow cut Vahaadi’s knife had left in her neck. What in the world was going on?
“Djinni,” Took growled in warning. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”
“I found a snake,” Sahin said quickly.
“Excuse me?”
“Here,” Sahin said, and Kala saw him teleport over to the spot she’d first seen him. He gingerly slid the snake out from under a couch and caressed it as it writhed.
Took swore in repulsion. “How did it get in here?! Kill it!”
A brief expression of pain crossed Sahin’s face. But almost immediately his eyes shone smoky white. Kala, realizing what she was about to see, hurriedly turned her face away in horror. There was a sickening crack.
“Ugh! Disgusting vermin,” Took grumbled, striding across the room. “This fortress is ghastly. The sooner we can get out of here, the better. Speaking of which, I’ve got a job for you.”
Sahin did not respond. Kala could no longer see him, as much of her very limited view was obscured by Took’s cloak.
“Did you hear me?” Took pressed, his voice edged with anger.
There was a sound like a whip and a startled gasp.
“Pay attention!” Took snapped. His voice dropped threateningly. “Are you going to cooperate, or am I going to have to Compel you?”
When Sahin replied, the anxiety in his voice was apparent. “No…whatever you ask…”
“Good. Listen carefully…”
* * *
The door of the cabinet wrenched open. Sahin looked down on Kala, absolutely livid. Eyes ablaze, he held out his hand a deliberately dropped the dead snake on her. It fell on her head and crumpled into her lap. It’s head was twisted at a grotesque angle, its eyes staring vacantly.
She felt like she would retch at the sight. She looked up at Sahin shakily.
“If I ever find you out of line again, I will snap your neck,” he breathed.
“GET. OUT.”
I updated the sketch a bit from the original version; I realized she wasn’t curvy enough! I’m pretty happy with how this turned out! I haven’t had this much fun coloring in a long time.
So I imagine this happening pretty soon after Krissy wishes to become Spark. Not so early that she doesn’t know what she’s doing as a superhero, but early enough for her and Vahaadi not to be on the best of terms yet. I imagine this being the first of many pep-talks to come and the first time she refers to him as “My Friend.” Forgive my inability to draw panels and the words might be blurry, I’m so sorry D:
Just doodling, so I didn’t bother cleaning up the lines. Trying to flesh out her character more through drawing rather than prose.
The other night I had the image in my head of Spark asking Vahaadi to tell her a story before bed. He kind of rolls his eyes (with a smile, though, because by now he’s decided he likes her) and says something like “are you five?” she responds “hmmm…YES!” so he sits by her bed and starts to tell her a story and she interrupts to add her own twist and he says something like “are you telling this story, or am I?” and she says she’s helping, so he keeps telling the story with her “help.” They spend all night telling each other stories.
Of course Spark starts with her favorite comic books but she could have the pleasure of describing every Disney movie and all the classic fairytales, and he’d be able to tell her the stories he learned from the troupe, and since there’s only so many plots, their stories would remind each other of OTHER stories they know, so they’d just talk and talk and talk and talk forever with her laying on her side with her big eyes sparkling and him sitting on the floor beside her bed and they don’t even realize how much time has passed until Vahaadi realizes sunlight is beginning to glow outside the window.
Normally when I think of little interaction scenes for them I don’t imagine making them appear in the actual narrative, but I think this one probably should. It would be a nice way to show their relationship, AND, it could be a sort of foreshadowing of how Vahaadi is going to be a “narrator.”
I think it would also be good to show how they can be intellectually intimate without being physically intimate. Also, I think there’s an interesting sort of visual metaphor in him sitting beside her bed on the floor.
He’s lower than her, which indicates a sort of subservience, and he’s not IN her bed, which could really give the wrong idea, but he’s sitting really close, like someone watching at the bed of a sick person. So, maybe this is weird, I just think visually it would represent how he serves her but cares for her.
And of course having her on her side (and, I picture her wiggled up close, too) shows how much she adores him.
I didn’t like how Krissy turned out in the original sketch of this but CallyAnn said she liked Vahaadi’s expression, so rather than throw it out I fixed up the sketch and inked it when I had time.
http://youtu.be/9BMnXXrvcyA
I was in the mood to draw some snarky faces, so have some Krissy. These aren’t the best things I’ve ever drawn, but I needed to get my irkiness out, so this sufficed.
Stumbled upon this portfolio of a professional game artist and I thought it was cool.
Here are some of my favorite pieces:
