Dhei Rysen

Dhei Rysen is by all accounts not a nice fellow.

Yes whilst Dhei may look like a girl we assure you he is male.

As with most members of his species, the Alary fae he maintains the flawless look of a child although his lusciously long and shiny white blonde hair is clearly the envy of many a woman. Being bird-winged with fair hair and skin those belonging to the Alary species are often mislabelled as angels or angel fairies when in reality the word Alary literally means ‘of or pertaining to wings’ and an angel Dhei certainly is not.

Standing a mere 4ft 8in tall, Dhei is blessed with levitation and has during his 40years of living cultured the unique and dangerous skill of remote empathy. By this, we do not mean he is empathic to anyone, quite the contrary he is one of the few people capable of gaining emotional control over others simply by thinking about doing it.

A dangerous talent indeed, so much so, that those schooled in it are branded by law with the purple sign you can see here stamped on Dhei’s forehead. It is purposefully placed on the forehead, in a large and quite distinctive pattern so that all who meet bearers of this talent know immediately what the person they are speaking to is capable of, unless of course said bearer wears a headscarf, like the one Dhei never normally removes.

Therefore as with Karyf’s interview we feel we must point out that any gushing love we express towards this man is probably a result of his influence and does not reflect the way we here at Black Wednesday’s truly feel.

Now Dhei does possess an odd allure and innocence that defies his true nature, right up to the point where he opens his mouth and a surprisingly deep voice bolts forward to demand, ‘what are you staring at?’ He doesn’t seem satisfied by our artist answering that she has to stare at him in order to sketch him but never utters a word in response. Not quite so much a mystery then when said artist collapses in paralytic fear, that Dhei has taken a disliking to the woman. Thankfully we have relief staff on hand who are, shall we say, not in the least relieved that we called upon them after we carefully explain how Dhei almost hospitalised the first sketch artist he decided he disliked. Lucky for the next illustrator our interviewer is able to keep Dhei’s glacial eyes firmly fixed on the questions at hand.

A sharp character then, Dhei is somewhat severe in his outlook, an openly mean and snide man whose greatest pleasure outside of manipulation appears to be arguing with others. His partner in life and in ‘business’ Karyf Aster fills this need to spit vitriolic words quite succinctly. As the interview progresses, we learn that the two met at a relatively young age and schooled in the separate yet unified disciplines of thought and emotion control. Their families were never close but the two bonded during study in the same way that oil and water like to play with ducks and sand. Their resulting unstable and somewhat sticky emulsion of personalities appears to work by the logic that if they wind each other up far enough things will tick along nicely.

Still we aren’t here to question the logic of their ice and fire type relationship. Although we do feel the need to point out that in translation his name means ‘Dusk Rising’ whilst hers reads, ‘Dawn of the heavens,’ which is almost as clichéd as if their names were day and night. Yet the reason they argue, aside from taking great pleasure in it, appears to be more about the fact they are incredibly similar to one another to the point of grating. Forthright, vicious and self-righteous are all words we used to describe Karyf, words that apply with equal measure to baby-faced Dhei.

Both work in the field as ‘covert specialised operatives’ and as a team have been charged by Lord Luk with dragging around young Naiad on their missions to give her some experience. Tutoring the ditzy damselfly it seems is one subject that Dhei and Karyf agree to be a true chore. In short, they hate having Naiad around. If Nai were more mature she would actually be a logical choice for a teammate, her superior healing skills, strength and physical agility would be of great benefit to the duo; a shame then that Nai apparently has as much brains as Karyf and Dhei have muscle.

Much to the distaste of Karyf and Dhei, we decided to have all three pose together for height comparison, partly as a means to point out how tiny these fae are and partly because we were quietly paranoid that Dhei is making us feel terrified on purpose.

Bearing in mind that Nai herself is only 5ft 3in tall you can see how precisely small and yet perfectly proportioned Karyf is, Dhei on the other hand refused to stand but he’s roughly an inch taller than Karyf so we’re sure you get the idea.

To be fair we’d probably look as miffed as Karyf and Dhei here if we were charged with babysitting a mentally unbalanced half-Fae like Naiad, getting her to stand still and stop drinking all the free wine was challenge enough for the time it took to capture this portrait.

Nenigin Oakwood

At 15 years of age and 4ft 11in tall Nenigin Oakwood features amongst the youngest and shortest interviewees we’ve had on the island.  Being shockingly blue with small antennae and huge wings it doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out that Nenigin is an insectoid anthropomorph. Perhaps less instantly obvious when meeting him is that he is of the damselfly variety. Not only that but he is younger brother to the luridly red Naiad, though why the two are vastly different eye-popping colours isn’t exactly clear. Sadly, as he informs us from the outset, they are the last survivors of Oakwood lineage and whilst they once worked together, he hasn’t seen his sister in many years.

Perhaps the most interesting point that isn’t visually apparent is that the Oakwood’s have Welkin ancestry, which makes Nenigin and Nai two of the rare few anthropomorphs who are also part-Fae.

Being part-Welkin undoubtedly has its advantages, particularly for one born as an insect anthropomorph. Needless for us to tell you that all Fae are born with a natural instinct for levitation, and thus can ‘fly’ from an early age and never have to learn the skill unlike the rest of us. However due to the two species opposing expected life spans, Nenigin is a fully-fledged adult in damselfly terms but merely an infant amongst the Fae.

So which is he? We ask in spurious excitement and intrigue because like yourselves we find discussing ancestry and genealogy with a fifteen year old about as fascinating as dishwater.

His grinning inconclusive response is, ‘well, I just have to wait and see.’ Obviously the possibility that he might drop dead in a couple of years either hasn’t occurred to or doesn’t bother Nenigin in the slightest, or maybe it just adds to the flavour of thrills he seeks on a daily basis. 

We’d like to say it saddens us to know that in a few short years his face might shrivel like a dried-up blueberry but having a perverse sense of humour we actually find it rather amusing. This might also be because regardless of the fact he is an adult amongst the damselfly we deem him as an irritating teenager, a boy full of naïve idealisms, endless energy and all those grandiose half-baked ideas about life that we swear we never possessed.

That said Nenigin is, in fairness, a gentle soul at heart, an easy-going lad who takes things in his stride and each day as it comes. He is thoughtful, considerate and has quite a measured personality for one so young. He is also the highly active type and tells us he likes extreme sports, magic and challenges but dislikes puzzles, ‘hatred’ and is strongly against war.

Being part-Fae means he found it relatively easy to learn magic and has progressed quickly in his chosen discipline. An intrepid thrill-seeker Nenigin tells us he chose to specialise in elemental magic with his focus being on fire in order to accumulate an array of impressive tricks such as fire breathing and juggling.  Although we assume he doesn’t literally mean ‘being on fire’ because to our knowledge insects aren’t particularly resilient to flames let alone flamethrowers.

Less of a surprise then that to learn that the Oakwood family have long been circus performers touring the globe with a troupe of amazing oddities called ‘Rynjik.’ This name translates quite literally as ‘mind force,’ which we hasten to add sounds mightily less impressive in translation but still succeeds in having a half-hearted jab at making a pun out of the word ‘force.’ The Rynjik troupe specialises in performers who possess unusual talents for their species, a weird and wonderful collective of potentially powerful individuals ready to ‘contort, contrive, disturb and surprise,’ all whilst dangling over pointy objects from perilous heights or submerged in the ‘agrusanc,’ which considering it means, ‘terror water,’ doesn’t actually sound or look all that terrifying. Prepare to be, ‘disturbed and amazed,’ the flyer tells us, however the only thing we find truly amazing is that the troupe has been at large for over a century.

Nenigin joyfully expresses how all of Rynjik’s employees are considered family even those who are not directly related and sings praise on how most of them have travelled together their entire lives. He tells us he was lucky enough to have been born into the troupe and that their way of life is simply ‘vaitsche.’

Which brings us nicely to our main point of contention because the most grating thing about Nenigin it that he seems to know only four adjectives; one is the Ordic word ‘trepid,’ whilst the other three stem from the Aftlands second major language of Mythic and Neni uses precisely none of them in the correct context.

Now we here at Black Wednesday’s aren’t renowned for being too strict when it comes to correct word usage but the Aftlands only have two spoken languages for good reason and bastardising the lesser-known of the two is even less endearing than corrupting the first.

Call it teenage colloquialism if you will but it becomes increasingly infuriating to hear him describe literally everything be it good or bad, as ‘trepid,’ (fearful) ‘vaitsche,’ (harsh), ‘vasche,’ (nasty) and ‘mhiern,’ (set). He explains that he means ‘nasty’ in a good way, like calling a challenge ‘brutal’ or ‘excellent’ and that he thinks, ‘harsh’ is a good substitute for ‘awesome.’ The word ‘set’ he simply litters in between everything else apparently to emphasise how ‘great’ or ‘cool,’ things are, or whenever he is lacking a descriptor. He also seems to use ‘trepid’ in place of the word ‘difficult’ which sounds to us like a deliberate waste of his brainpower and a good way to confuse people.

Or maybe we here at the studio are just old and aren’t ‘mhiern’ enough, or maybe calling us too ‘mhiern’ would be more appropriate, as in, ‘set in our ways.’ Nenigin doesn’t find our turnaround or teasing of his slang amusing. He defends the misappropriation as something everyone in the troupe does because they all, ‘have quirks,’ and they are, yeah you guessed it, ‘really mhiern, you know?’ No Neni we don’t know, but we guess by that he means that they are good, solid and reliable people.

Still if there’s one thing Nenigin feverishly describes as ‘vasche’ it’s putting on a show with Rynjik. He tells us he is happiest when pulling off a new stunt or particularly difficult trick for the audience, or in his words, ‘it’s vasche when I pull off a new one, I mean really vaitsche like and we’re all down there and it just happens, really trepid, like mhiern, really vasche to be in that moment you know?’

No, we don’t, stop asking. And for the love of Luk learn to speak.

Thankfully Nenigin’s role in the circus is a silent one because rest assured, if any of us even so much as hear the words ‘vaitsche,’ ‘vash,’ or ‘mhiern,’ misused near us in the next week, we shall set about doing something harsh and nasty to whoever dares utter them.

Naiad Oakwood

Naiad Oakwood is 24 yrs old and 5ft 3in tall. Most relatives and friends shorten her name to Nai which she finds quite appealing; some call her Ni-Ni which she loathes. Arian and Kale often tease her with ‘Ni-Ni,’ which she suspects is because they know she hates it.

Despite the fact that her lurid red skin is offensive to anyone with a hangover, Naiad’s face has a strange allure that is just quirky enough to make us reassess our idioms of beauty yet also a touch too creepy for us to deem truly attractive. They do say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder however in this instance Nai is likely the one to be holding our plucked-out eyeballs.

She is the playful sort with an outward persona that could be mistaken for a girl much younger than her years. She is an energetic, eager, and bubbly soul who drinks wine as though the nectar of gods were running dry. She may act innocent but is far from it. Her idea of play consists of some rather dark contraventions to normality. She appears to disassociate actions and consequences and therefore has little sense of social, political or moral correctness. Most of life is merely a game to her. Being invulnerable to weaponry and possessing healing abilities are likely the reasons she does not understand the concept of suffering.

Knowing she serves Luka we are less surprised that Naiad has a skewed perspective of reality. She sees little ill in certain heinous acts, for example, murder is more of a chore to her than a worry. It’s as though there is a wire missing in her head, specifically the one that identifies the difference between good and evil. So far as she has ever known war is play, and no-one she likes gets hurt or dies.

She pops and zings in off-balance ways. An utter mismatch when you realise that concentration and physical balance is something that as a professional circus performer Naiad knows better than most. Being part Damselfly obviously gifts her with a few unique abilities. Flight is the least of these. She is able to bend and flex in a way that would make even the best contortionist green with envy. Her one learnt and cultivated skill is healing others, a talent at which she greatly excels.

Her translucent wings are impressive no doubt. A few of us wince at the many times we’ve plucked the wings from crane flies, lacewings and all manner of bugs, we secretly wonder if it would hurt to pluck those huge appendages out and begin to feel bad about the idea until she reveals that she also loved plucking the wings from smaller insects as a child. This left us a little lost for words. After all, wouldn’t that be like us regular folk going around pulling the toenails from anyone smaller than us? 

To say her heart is as pure as the driven snow is ironically apt; pure in its icy intention, unrelenting and defiant. Her anarchistic goals are without question in her mind.

Nai may be a little freaky but we like her a lot.