Ifryn Macier

So we’ve been on hiatus here for a bit at Black Wednesday’s trying to locate the last few interviewees for you before my job here comes most literally to an end.

It should be perhaps be no surprise then that the most recent bedraggled thing we managed to convince to visit our studios is one severely diseased vampire. I’d say our scouts were scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one but Ifryn Macier is a stubborn old geezer who they have been trying to persuade since our doors opened. 

Ifryn, like most of his species, is of ord origin. This is mostly due to the fact that the vampire species germinated from ords and vampires fare best when they feed on similar blood types. Vampires sired from other species such as fae or anthropomorphs tend to die younger unless they feed upon those of their origin species. Worse still, some insist on drinking sugar-water and thus sentence themselves to a slow and painful death, dying as young as 50 which is a considerable markdown from the extended lifespan these beings are meant to have.

A reasonable height then for an ord at 5ft 6in tall Ifryn is still the most horrible mess of a vampire. He is 137 years old and wow it really shows. Put in stark comparison to Eyzith who is 150 and still fresh-faced you can tell how much his ills have ravaged his body. His sunken face, hollowed eyes and accompanying scowl however say more about him than his sickness because as it happens Ifryn really is a grumpy old git. 

Speaking to him it is clear that he dislikes everything and everyone. The epitome of a nasty and nosy neighbour, your business is his business and you’d better keep out of his affairs. A haggard limping and outwardly offensive individual in all ways it’s difficult to even hold a conversation with him. He gripes and snipes at every possible opportunity and generally makes it impossible to communicate. Yes Ifryn hates you and us and life and the universe. We tire quickly of trying to ask him questions, for someone so elderly he appears sapped of any wisdom.

His sickened state has no doubt left him vulnerable and likely angry; that is understandable. That said we get the feeling that he’d probably be the same awful person even if his skin were not slightly sloughing from his bones.

Alongside Eyzith, Emmus and Dro’Zar, Ifryn is one of the few remaining old vampires who recall the now obsolete way of siring and raising their kind; an outdated, well documented and draconian method for selecting children to join the species which has since perished. Due to its brutality it is hardly surprising to learn that the old system was replaced. 

This extreme method for choosing new vampires technically didn’t exist when Ifryn was born as an ord and certainly was not meant to be in use by the time he was sired. Of course, the practice was still being illegally used at the time of Ifryn’s siring, and to this day there are reports of similar set-ups occurring outside of organised society. But then maintenance of population control for a society such as that of the vampires has never been an easy thing to micro-manage.

Ifryn is then both blessed and cursed by his illness. In one respect he has become a bitter, withering old man far sooner than he should for a member of his species, in the other he has been granted immunity from their laws of population control which means he doesn’t have to pass any tests to validate the reasons he should be allowed to keep living. Incapable of breeding they are quite happy to let the man live out the remainder of his days in whatever agony the sickness brings, how nice of them.

Rae Iys

A wise and twinkly-eyed old welkin Rae is a fae who has seen her share of magic and expanded her expertise well beyond normal. She trickles energy, much in the same way Dirzryn affected the electrics of our studio when he visited, so the lights tick in uncertainty when Rae enters.

Standing at 4ft 10in she is at the upper end of height for her species but by no means tall. Externally she better epitomises our expectations of what a welkin should look like than previous interviewee Karyf. Rae has tortoiseshell wings, atypically brightly coloured butterfly wings are what we think of when we think welkin and after all, the erroneous dubbing of them as flower fairies came about for this very reason. Equally, Rae has long flowing golden curls and as a younger woman, we imagine she glowed with the kind of radiance and sparkle we inherently associate with anything bearing the name fairy.

That said Rae confesses she tidied up her hair for this interview. She relates that her curls are usually tangled with twigs and assortment of bracken and flowers, not because she puts them there but because Rae loves nature and rambling. She is the kind of woman who goes blackberry picking and forgets to wash because it takes time away from turning those blackberries into pies. Yes, Rae likes her food; she loves to cook and loves alchemy. Turning ingredients into remedies appeals greatly to this master mage, if medicine can be made from any plant she makes it.

For a woman of so many years Rae is still quite beautiful. She is 110 she tells us, cheeky little liar we know she is actually 121 according to the in-link database. The difference in energy, the pressure of her presented presence to that of a man like Dirzryn is quite stark. Her energy is calm and clean. The ‘magic’ she brings almost feels like new light. Yet we are wary, one such as Arian could cast an illusion like this, a sense of serenity and calm that isn’t there. Thus, we are cautious of her claims.

However, after speaking with Rae for some time we become more convinced of the energy she lets us see. The power of serenity and calm she exudes is intentional but as she informs us, it is also an extension of what she feels most deeply. She tells us that she is a lover of people and has a heart brimming with compassion. Even as a wiser and aged woman, she maintains a great love for others and feels no bitterness to those that are misguided. She tells us she does not judge the youth; their inexperience cannot be a point of judgement. She considers herself the hand that turns faults aside and she wishes to draw others in to her peaceable way of thinking. At the same time, she rather humorously rants, ‘harmony is bullshit, harmony is a song of notes that string together and people don’t do that!’

So we had to question, ‘what do they do?’

‘They argue,’ Rae laughs, ‘they debate and conjecture and if they are lucky they enjoy it. I am not here to refute anyone just teach what I know. If you want peace, you will find it. Same if you want war. You will find what you seek no matter what it is.’

So we goadingly question, ‘if we seek vengeance and wrath and a bath full of blood?’

‘Yes you will find it, but if you go looking for stupid more stupid will find you. Better to look for some good in this world because all similar things propel towards one another.’

Fair enough.

This might go some way to explaining why she trained Dirzryn when he was a younger man. Despite the fact Rae is a follower of Evyn she has no gripe in training any student so long as they adhere to a few basic rules of magic usage. To Rae it matters not what religion of belief a person has, particularly with magic, all she wants from her pupils is respect for the discipline.

Since we are quite curious how a powerful follower of Evyn ended up tutoring a powerful follower of Luk we have to wonder, ‘who has more power?’

‘We each specialise in different things,’ Rae elucidates, ‘elemental magic mostly. I simply teach what I know and how to use it, how it is used however is up to the student.’

We nod in false understanding because there aren’t any magic users in our studio so we can’t pass comment.

‘Dirzryn was an excellent student actually,’ she informs us, ‘not polite I don’t suppose,’ she laughs, ‘but he understood the rules then and despite his choices still uses them now.’

‘Ah I see,’ a few of the studio members profess. Actually, none of us see anything at all because we don’t have the slightest idea about magic or the rules or anything Rae is talking about.

Rae slight smiles at our inept admission and we confess if we thought we were out of depth with terrifying mind twisting people or spiders we were naïve, truly we came unstuck here.

Rae’s old face wrinkles, she has a very pleasant presence we cannot deny but the nervous among us are on edge with such an intense magical energy filling the room.

Rae does not have any empathic abilities; she cannot affect our feelings or thoughts directly. She does however possess record-breaking elemental magic abilities, we know she could freeze us where we sit in seconds, or worse flame us. Actually, after some debate we can’t conclude whether being frozen or burnt would be worse. The conversation is a little debunked and default however because good old Rae doesn’t have a bad bone in her body, she’d rather bake a pie or three and go walking in the woods than unleash holy hellfire on anyone.

Her sense of serenity stays with us for some time after she leaves. Even if several pens went missing (looking at you Tarene) we almost don’t mind. It feels like we had a clean swim in the sea and the freshest breath of air floated in to our very stale studio space. We keep looking for sparkles of fairy dust. Alas, fae and magic don’t produce sparkles as much as we wish they would.

Happy Holidays! :D 2013

So here’s a snapshot of all our elves in one place (excluding Dirzryn’s three brothers), the party invite cited fancy dress as a requisite with the theme of ‘atypical elves,’ however it seems the interpretation and effort made by various individuals varied greatly.

Christmas Elves

Left to right, top to bottom we have:

Alanor (bottom left, pregnant woman, sitting in left chair)

Dioxa (left, shy lass with piercings and stripy top in front of fireplace)

Orin (left, the lad with bright blonde hair who is stealing a candy cane)

Tor (top left the tall pale blue fellow who is propping up the drunk)

Fedura (top left, the drunk)

Tahl(upper centre, fellow with red hair who is trying to appear interested in the conversation)

Saffron (upper centre, the woman talking AT Tahl)

Lady Vay (right, the woman stood in front of the tree sneering down on everyone)

Mathiaas (right, he’s holding up a glass, almost hidden below Vay)

Riaf (right, the blonde very stoned looking lad on the sofa)

Ungus (centre, the tubby one in the santa hat)

Tomor (centre, the lass who is holding mistletoe and giggling)

Dirzryn (centre, sat on sofa wishing he were anywhere else but here)

Wishing everyone a great festive season and good elf for the new year 

- sorry just couldn’t resist that pun :P

See you all in 2014! :D

Tarene Nahge

Now imps are one type of Fae we have yet to interview, they are also notoriously difficult to locate. As it happens, we have our very own in-house imp here at Black Wednesday’s so this is our first interview with a staff member.

At 61 years old, Tarene Nahge is just under middle age for an imp and she stands at an average 5ft 1in tall. Her height is actually the only thing we might describe as average about Tarene.

Before being sentenced for major larceny, she dealt in antiquities and precious artefacts. Since imps are considered trustworthy individuals and are revered amongst the fae as nocturnal protectors, you could say Taryn was born with the ideal cover for her crimes.

A reserved yet charming woman, many have made the mistake of assuming that she is introverted or terribly shy. The opposite is closer to the truth; Tarene is highly observant and clever enough to know when to play her cards close to her chest. Smart enough to take a day job and embezzle her cash but like the majority of us here not smart enough to not get caught.

Interesting as Tarene comes from a middle wealth background; her family have never been poor which begs the question why did she choose a life of theft? The answer is simply that she likes the thrill of stealing. She explains the lure, how enticing breaking and entering is, how out-smarting technology and making a clean get away with someone else’s valuables makes her feel alive. Tarene also has a clean set of rules; she loftily affirms that the things she steals have to be of great value. A careful opportunist, she is not a risk taker outside of her ‘job,’ and even then, she plots and treads with caution. She is, as she likes to remind us, ‘no petty crook.’

Handy that her father is a locksmith working for a security company, tinkering with locks and alarm systems is therefore second nature to Tarene.  Her first job was for this same company, a job spanning enough years for her to learn all the tricks and ticks of the security systems they were selling. Shifting to sales was likely the beginning of her career, since those who refused to buy would find their homes broken into shortly after and would immediately call to get security installed.

Knowledge of antiquities came later in Tarene’s life, after meeting a crooked dealer seeking particularly rare items. She would always deliver, so it didn’t take him long to figure she was a thief.  Once clarified, he asked her to get rarer items for the black market and so their lucrative yet illicit business relationship began.

As far as criminals go the length of Tarene’s record is quite impressive if we do say so. She managed to evade capture for a good seven years before they tracked her down and shipped her off to Black Wednesdays like the rest of us.

Tarene is not a lover of material possessions; she never owned a grand house and her coin never went on jewels or lavish goods. She used her profit modestly to keep her family, a saver in fact the majority of it remained tucked away in several accounts. Saved perhaps for the time she might need to make a quick getaway and escape the authorities. Shame for Tarene then that her accounts were located before she was, preventing any great escape she had planned.

Her one self-expenditure over the years has been on her looks. Yes, Tarene is the vain sort, one who proudly plays with her ‘flowing locks,’ daily and spends hours preening in the mirror. In fact, she gets quite offended when we point out that five clumps of hair doesn’t equate to flowing locks. Still, as most imps aren’t blessed with any hair on their heads we can appreciate her pride, in the same way we appreciate stale bread after three days without eating.

Overall Tarene is a quiet soul, not a boisterous persona and one who effectively blends into the backdrop of our offices. You could say we forget she’s there at times but that’s probably because as a doubtlessly intelligent and sneaky individual she’s busy scheming who to steal from next.

So yes, when expensive things go missing in the studio we know who has them.

………….

Editor’s note: After reading her interview, Tarene curtly informed us that she has six clumps of hair not five.

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.

Hite Eade

Hite Eade is a 5ft tall 16-year-old geldern of the goblin variety and as such possesses wonderfully huge bendy ears and grubby grey-green skin.  For one whose name literally translates to ‘bright day’ Hite isn’t particularly smart. Evident in the many scars he bears his choices lean more towards the way his name sounds, ergo ‘hit it with head,’ and see what happens. Also he stinks like a field smeared in cow dung, which bodes for an eye-watering interview wherein most of our employees try to avoid breathing.

The only thing slick about Hite is his hair, a lank greasy mop of black threads that he is obviously proud enough of to protect with a leather headscarf. Usually we would ask interviewees to remove headgear whilst sitting for a portrait but in this instance we fear what might be growing beneath the feted leather and decide it’s more than our stomachs can take.

If it looks like Hite is wearing sackcloth that’s probably because he is. Clothes aren’t especially high on is priority list nor are they to anyone emerging from the grotesque quagmire that is Vidul. We gather that Hite is unaware of how foul he smells which indicates his nose must be broken in more places than we can see. Still by all rights, with his strong jawline and bright eyes Hite is quite pretty for a young goblin.

The word, ‘geldern’ as I am sure those of you don’t know are wondering, refers to those species that were once called greenskins. In informal circles, particularly in greenskin circles, the four species encompassed under this label are still dubbed as greenskins. However the politically correct brigade marched on the fact that no group should be labelled by the colour of their skin and henceforth the name geldern was coined.  This new name translates to ‘bold tribe,’ which is nice we’re sure for the two ‘geldern’ who actually cared enough to rally for the change.

The geldern then, are the only sub-group within the mythic genus known to age like regular men. All four species (that’s goblins, ogres, orcs and trolls) have an expected average lifespan of around 80 years. Like many of the anthropomorphic species the geldern age quickly in their younger years, yet unlike the aforementioned anthro’s, this rapid aging seems to taper off and balance out in their late teens and early twenties. Therefore the visual difference in age between twelve and thirty year olds isn’t always apparent. Blessed too with increased physical strength from the outset, members of these four species tend to fit well in jobs requiring heavy labour and muscle.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t geldern busy growing flowers and reciting poetry, quite the contrary. More simply most find themselves doing stereotypical hard graft work in between braiding each other’s scant strands of hair because if there’s one thing society likes it’s fulfilling a stereotype whilst bleating loudly about being politically correct.

Now Hite is the cocky sort, prone to charging headlong into confrontation with little thought to the outcome. At the same time he isn’t the most confident of fellows, he idolises his peers and wrongly believes that their adoration can be won if he gets into enough scrapes on their behalf. The problem is, no-one ever asks Hite to jump in to defend them and more often than not he antagonises situations through his desperate need to be admired. At present, Hite tells us the person he looks up to most is Lester Wye, a concept we find both unnerving and endearing. It’s bad enough after all if your current goal in life is to be as suave as the mailman and even worse if that mailman happens to be the ever-clumsy loveable dolt Lester whom everyone but you thinks is a prized twerp.

So where does that leave Hite on the scale of simple-mindedness? Probably not far from the gutter he crawled out of, still at least wanting to be someone like kind-hearted Lester is better than wanting to be like cut-throat Xio or one of the many other unsavoury characters lurking in Vidul. We think perhaps Hite is sorely lacking in friends his own age, therefore anyone, even thick skulled Lester probably seems like a promising bet.

Also Hite doesn’t really appear to be good at anything other than collecting scars. Usually in the wrong place between someone’s fist and a wall Hite doesn’t admit to having any actual life goals or hobbies. He’s interested enough in the world around him, yet we suspect not a great deal can be gleaned whilst tinkering with pipes in a place that resembles a festering sewerage system before you even get beneath the soil.

By trade he is a plumber of sorts, skills handed down from his father. He is employed as part of the skeletal maintenance crew that keep Vidul semi-operable when anyone can be bothered to actually do the work. Unpleasant jobs such as this are often passed down to younger members of the tunnel’s so-called community and cited, ‘as a privilege,’ as Hite proudly chimes, because most of the little brats don’t know any better and those that do aren’t high enough up the pecking order to complain.

Even if Hite did have the smarts to realise his elders are taking him for a ride he’d probably deal with it in another easily blindsided tantrum which makes us feel a touch sorry for the stinky lad. Not sorry enough to shake his hand as he exits or enough to say we found his company particularly pleasant.

Thus if we here at Black Wednesday’s have learnt anything from this meeting at all, it’s that we won’t be offering to braid Hite’s hair any time soon.

Dioxa Savryr

Dioxa Savryr is a 30-year-old drek elf, she stands a reasonable 5ft 5in tall and whilst isn’t plump; does carry a little ‘love’ about her midriff. Clearly, a lover of comfort foods she chooses only sweet treats from the free buffet and then nibbles nervously as if uncertain about her choices.

A demure, soft and gentle soul Dioxa introduces herself as ‘Di Goodchild,’ which whilst in literal translation is correct, we later learn isn’t actually a name she uses or even likes. Therefore, like babbling idiots we spend the first part of the interview calling her ‘Di’ only to discover mid-way that she would prefer we use her full name or shorten it to ‘Dio’ instead. When we question why she felt the need to translate and shorten her name to something she dislikes she cowers in embarrassment and answers, ‘most people find it easier, I mean if you find it easier, I just wanted it to be less trouble, it’s easier to say when translated isn’t it? I’m so sorry, really sorry.’ She is then overly apologetic to the point of it being irritating.

Yes, of course it’s easier to pronounce, ‘Goodchild,’ to about of half of our employees, the other half however would find more affinity with her actual name and the elven heritage of ‘Savryr.’ The notion that Dioxa would go to so much trouble to avoid burdening others with her pesky, not-actually-that-difficult-to-pronounce (actual) name speaks more of her ineptness and lack of foresight than her shy nature.

Her intent may have been born from kindness but the outcome proves the precise opposite of her goal, instead of avoiding hassle and confusion we wade headlong into a stinking pile of bafflement and bewilderment whilst she brokenly explains her reasoning. The offence she feared she might have caused is then tripled because we think our interviewee considers us too stupid to pronounce a simple name or too fragile to withstand being corrected if we get something wrong.

This of course both highlights and exacerbates the frailties of Dioxa herself, a timid creature so fearful of making mistakes that they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Her backwards attempts at making other people comfortable and aversion of even the smallest confrontation ultimately end up dropping back in her own lap, confirming her fears as truths and forming a weird repetitive pattern of awkward responses. Dioxa shrinks further and further away from achievement whilst believing that she is pushing forward which we surmise makes as much sense as stepping backwards off a cliff and thinking you will hit the top.

Now the observant amongst you may have noticed that drek elves are grey skinned much like the drow however, their skin tone is usually yellow-gold or silver as opposed to dark purple or blue. Fairer skinned in most cases and markedly taller than the drow, the true species signifier for drek as with all elves is the distinctive shape of their ears. That is if you consider having piercings galore as not distinctive.

Yes the drek love their piercings and body mods much in the same way that the drow are attached to their glyphs. Which in turn means that Dioxa has a lot of honorary achievements stapled to her face. We find this curious particularly for such a young elf, yet this aspect as we soon learn, has little to do with her age and everything to do with her insecurity.

To explain further we must clarify the nature of these markers because there isn’t any rule or regulation that states the drek people must litter themselves with piercings, or in fact have any at all. Unlike the drow who use their glyphs to make details about one another obvious without asking the drek have no such specifics for what each bit of jewellery might mean. Each piece is added as each individual sees fit and the meaning is personal too. There is no requisite for new additions or for them to have any meaning whatsoever. This form of reasoning, or lack thereof, is about as vague and indecisive as Dioxa’s explanations.

With a little research, we discover the only important fact about drek body modifications is that you must have at least one on show. This is because, culturally speaking, it is the norm to receive a piercing to mark important events in one’s life. As such, any drek without punctured skin is suspicious. Worse still, criminals are stripped of jewellery and bare only empty holes in their flesh; they are barred from replacing their precious metals.

That said we learn that those with few epidermal stickpins are not looked down upon and equally those with many are not revered. So why does Dioxa have so many at the tender age of 30? When asked she softly stutters, ‘I like them, they’re important, I think. It’s important to keep traditions, isn’t it, what do you think?’

We conclude it’s like battle armour, or a talking point, something to ease her anxious disposition and help her feel as though she belongs amongst her brethren despite the fact that, like most awkward teens, she currently suspects she will never fit in anywhere. Well it’s either that or fellow comrade and egotist Fedura Sarayn bullied her into getting one every time Fedura triumphed over a new conquest. Her choice of friendship with this Fedura is probably the most questionable aspect of Dioxa’s character but then as Fedura herself is the wily type we suspect she is the one who instigated and controls their ‘friendship,’ and that in most instances it is Fedura who does all of the talking.

We cannot however be too harsh on Dioxa. 

A malleable, vulnerable and easily manipulated girl with the best intentions is not one we can scathe for very long without feeling guilty. As hard-hearted as we appear here at Black Wednesday’s we do reserve an undisclosed soft spot for adorable little creatures and things that make us chime ‘awww’ instead of ‘arghhh.’ Those things are admittedly rare and whilst we dislike sickly sweet individuals, Dioxa is humble and tender enough to make us think about cuddles, kittens and see-through knitted sweaters. Ok, mostly see-through knitted sweaters come to mind but that’s because even the female employees here were a touch too polite to point out that Dioxa’s choice of jumper and vest showed us a lot more than she presumably intended.

Zachary Ayre (and Peon)

Concept credits to Luke Wooding ^_^

At a sprightly 21 years of age and standing 5ft 5in tall Zachary Ayre belongs to a species of fae known as the ven-faer. This species for those who might be unaware, typically possess fair hair, skin and eyes and are always wingless. The only physical attributes that mark out this species from ords or indeed elves such as the similarly pale skinned and fair-haired draern, are their average height and diminutive pointed ears. That and the fact they are stereotypically considered as money-grabbing executives with little interest in anything but themselves.

Now whilst stereotypes don’t always ring true and we at first question how this child of the ven-faer wound up in our studios, we soon realise that alongside being an impulsive person who loves to explore, Zachary was clearly drawn to the interview by an over-sized paycheque. Money that we might add he and his already wealthy family need about as much as we require toes stitched onto our backsides.

Zak himself is somewhat impatient and rather condescending but polite. He immediately tells us he dislikes being called Zachary and pointedly corrects us that his name is ‘Zak,’ every time we erroneously use the full version. He has a touch of a fiery temper that appears as though it may be easily lost, a temperament that we decide not to test. This decision is in part also made for us because Zak tends to talk a lot and struggles to commit to even his own random chasing of ideas. He tells us he loves his freedom and that he avoids people and social situations but that his natural charm always draws others to him which he finds, ‘most irritating.’

He expresses that he too is drawn to other ‘beautiful’ people and judging by the look on his face as he strolled down the corridor past previous portraits, he is apparently envious of those he thinks display more talent or beauty than he does.

He doesn’t bat an eyelid either in telling us that sexually he might swing both ways but that he has never met a beautiful enough ‘male creature.’ His usual preference of partner, he informs us, is women and he seems proud to admit with a seductive little wink that he is not the womanising type. We cannot decide if this admission is charming or creepy but he swiftly changes the subject to a passionate rant about how much he hates vampires and then tears up as he reveals his most precious memories of his late girlfriend who was apparently murdered by some vagabond vampires whilst they were travelling.

We’d like to be sympathetic but the pace of his conversation doesn’t really allow us time to absorb his story, it ceases almost abruptly as it began with the words, ‘well now that’s over with,’ at which point he switches on the infamous twinkling ven-faer charm. He chooses this moment to show us the small back pack he is carrying and the contents therein starting with a sketchpad and paintbrush he tells us he simply, ‘cannot be without.’ Being very artistic, Zak flaunts the fact that he was top in his class and that his college teacher gifted him the items as a special thank you for all his hard work at helping his peers improve. We are sceptical of the tale, yet once again, he rapidly moves on too quickly for us to have enough time to properly question his words, switching subjects instead to tell us he is also quite adept at fencing.

With fencing, Zak takes a more humble route and admits that whilst he could probably disarm someone he is not a fighter, his preference then would be to utilise illusion over hand-to-hand combat of any kind. Zak’s speciality in illusion is thankfully of the lower ranked variety, ‘simple legerdemain.’ Simple if you know how we suppose at least compared to most illusionary skills. Far too vain to want to learn how to alter his physical appearance or make us see things that are not there we are grateful he stopped learning once he’d figured out how to be an excellent thief. Perhaps we are being presumptuous in citing that his want to learn slight-of-hand was out of a desire to steal things, but as he displays to us, he truly is a master at the talent and clearly doesn’t work in show business.

 

Whilst Zak claims to like the outdoor life what he truly enjoys are the luxury of home comforts. Therefore, in amongst the art oddities of his satchel are practical ‘Tek’ implements. Or should we say, expensive and rare tools that make camping out more like ‘a mansion in a box.’ Instead of a flat pack tent one shakes out into shape, he has a rolled up orb that shakes out into something that resembles a small fancy villa. Sure, this building might be as fragile as a tent and void of appliances but guess what? Yes, all those home comforts are neatly secured into similar flat pack versions, that easily unfold et voila. The mind boggles as to how exactly this technology works but also makes us seethe with jealousy as the temporary dwelling stored in his back pack provides a better living standard than all of the employee accommodations here at Black Wednesday’s. In fact, if even one of us here were anywhere near as good at legerdemain as Zak is then he would undoubtedly be leaving our studio with a much lighter satchel.

We are surprised to learn that flighty Zak Ayre owns an art shop. Less surprised however to hear that his rather wealthy parents purchased the shop in his name in order to try to keep him grounded in one place. Being the entrepreneur, Zak immediately sourced a few hapless employees and put them in charge of the store thus gleaning all of the profit and none of the ties. Except that is the type of tie one wears which Zak has been known to don on more than one occasion, yet rarely on instances that might require a tie, such as this interview, we note. His clothes in general are tailored and expensive, definitely clean and acquired from his very own clothing line. He wears sharp yet practical boots for ‘rambling in the countryside’ but overall has the appearance of a walking advertisement for his own products. His clothing line, if you hadn’t already spotted the ‘A/C,’ embroidered on his shirt, is called, ‘Accentuated Clothing,’ and comes with the alliteratively condescending tag line of ‘accentuated clothing for an accelerated culture.’

At first we assume that Zak hasn’t brought along his ever-faithful companion, the one he has just finished telling us how much he despises because after rescuing the little critter it refused to leave him alone. Then in the next glimmer of an instant, ‘Peon,’ appears, albeit only for a few seconds, then it disappears. Now this dragon called Peon is of a species known as myna dragons named after the black mina birds because they are small and capable of replicating speech. These animals tend to look much like cute yellow canaries, tucking their limbs in when they sit so it appears they have only two legs rather than four. Whilst we agree, chatty little dragons are most irritating Zak doesn’t hesitate to explain that Peon is a special case because he has learnt to replicate or may have been born with the illusionary skill to become invisible. It is unclear whether the animal is of a higher sentience or not and Zak doesn’t seem to care because Peon spends most of his time playing tricks on the fae, throwing rocks and just generally pestering the poor man. At first, we assume that this might be just Zak’s opinion as he is largely impatient with everyone and everything and of course impulsive to boot, that is until Peon gets into the lighting and air vents of our studio and starts wrecking our carefully strung wiring. We realise then why Zak must be thankful for wireless technology and why he probably wants to shoot the vindictive little monster on regular occasion.

In fact, we shall end this interview with a small sketch, our interpretation of the ratty little Peon because Zak continued to talk well past his interview time and we point-blank refused to make any more notes.

ACEO 'Peon'

Ok we admit it Peon is actually quite cute, in a ‘puppy ate my kitten,’ kind of way.