We’re going to try it again.  Hopefully to better result this time.  Been fiddling with some old sketches in PS 7 to mixed results.

Pépin, Elven necromancer and general grumpy-pants.

His eyes unnerve me slightly, and the layers are a jumbled mess.  Not even sure if this is worth finishing up?  But I’m kinda in love with his hair, so…  maybemaybe, if I can find a way that doesn’t take millions upon millions of hours.

What follows is from role-playing nonsense from Carpe Diem featuring Aislinge, Máire’s little girl all grown up and turned half-mad demon-hunter, and Basil.

He was starving. It had been days—two and a half weeks, to be precise—since last he fed. His meals were never particularly filling, perhaps because he fed on those supposed dregs of society: drunks, junkies, half-mad bums, and occasionally those who were all three in one shit-smelling package. Basil hardly considered himself as somehow more worthy than those he killed and definitely did not view his actions as beneficial to society. On the contrary, he was just as base a creature, if not more so, a parasite and a scavenger. He roamed the streets like the jackal he was. As enticing as the steady thrum of the souls sleeping soundly in their homes were, he knew they were not worth the risk. He was weak, and while not quite desperate, if he did not fed soon, he very shortly would be.

The summer night was damp and warm, coating his pallid skin in a sheen of sweat as he hurried from the modest apartment of this neighborhood toward better hunting grounds. Hands deep in the pockets of his worn, tattered jeans, he savored the smooth cool of the switchblade hidden there. He walked with head bowed and eyes focused on the pavement before him. All other senses were attuned to the subtle shifts of the souls around him. There, to his left, were a pair of witches, and so he ducked down an alleyway, quickly putting several blocks distance between he and they. Then, ahead of him, stumbled and shouted a drunken group of anthoi. Groups were far too great a risk and anthoi an even greater one. His mother and half-sister were fond of hunting ’shifters and witches alike. He, on the other hand, was more fond of continuing to breathe. There was no thrill in this, only necessity. Rushing down toward a subway terminal, he followed the familiar, weak thumps of his favored form of prey. On the platform, several drunks and bums snoozed, but the small gaggle of giggling college students made him hesitate. It was impossible to predict how humans would react to an attack on one of their own. He preferred not to chance it.

Both he and the young humans filtered onto the next train that came screeching into the station. As they settled into seats, he moved further down the train toward an appetizing buzz two cars down. Stepping into the car, he winced as the sound reverberated between his ears. A scruffy, strain pile of a human lay stretched out over a bench near the center of the train. Holding his switchblade in hand, he started toward the sleeping man with a practiced calm.

There was no thrill in this, only fear, which manifested itself in a black-eyed woman emerging from the other end of the car. She was cloaked in black with dark red paint on her lips and smokey grey in wide swishes around her eyes. Her brows were a bright shade of auburn, and wisps of the same hue poked out from under the crooked, platinum blond wig she wore. For a moment, he felt sure she was not of this world, but rather a bean sidhe, a goddess of the world before, her powers reduced to the slightest fraction of her former glory, her only function now the serenading of those marked by death. And then he blinked and recognized that predatory gleam in her eyes for what it was. She was no fairy woman, only a female ‘menos.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

—//—

She had been asleep or at least drifting seamlessly in and out of consciousness when that empty hum drew her to stir. For a time, she had followed the mute Russian, but the roar of her guilt and the continued silence of the wind were driving her mad. Wrong—awl ready mad, silly cunt. Such madness made her a danger to all around her. So, she wandered. In the tundra, the friends of that kyn she had killed tracked her down. She let them beat her to a point, but when one of the males tore open her shirt, she broke both his arms and both his legs. Shouldn’t ‘ave been so ‘ard on ‘im. Ye’ wonted it; ye’ always wont it. The others she left unconscious—left fer dead is more like—and wandered on. She managed to stow away with some Faunoi refugees headed back to their homes in France. From there, it was but a hop to England and then a skip to Ireland. She had hoped that there, the birthplace of her family for generations past, she might once more hear her mother’s voice on the wind. But, as so often happened in her life, she was thrown off track, knocked helter-skelter, and lost track of what she had intended. (This time, it had been a beautiful little dark-haired girl who, from a distance, resembled the passionate Phoenix, but she could not remember that now.) Now, she was drowning in that dreadful buzz of life, the cold monotone of her own thoughts, and that dreadful English drawl. Abandoned ye’, they awl ‘ave, just as ye’ abandoned them long ago.

But now that soothing, echo of emptiness filled her as she stalked toward the thin demon. His hunger was writ in every feature from his weary hazel eyes to his skin so deathly wane. A cruel grin curled her lips and darkened her eyes. The florescents glinted off the metal of the blade in his hand, and her eyes flashed like a cat’s as she tilted her head back. Ye’ wont ‘im—ye’ do, ye’ filthy lil’ whore. Jus’ like yer mum. But ‘e’s got t’ earn it, eh? Looking him over, she decided he was not worth much more than five minutes of her time. Jus’ uh quick in’n'out, then? Her lips twisted into a snarl and framed a fiery curse in Old Irish.

The demon turned to run. She rolled her eyes and snorted. Waste of her gods damn time. He actually managed a few meters of distance before she leaped upon his back and knocked him down flat on his belly. Sputtering to breathe, he flipped open the switchblade. She clucked her tongue at the shine of its edges as they darted toward her calf. Grabbing his hand, she slammed it down on the grimy floor. He struggled to keep the blade, but she easily twisted it from his grasp. Shifting to grind one knee between his shoulder blades, she grabbed a fist full of his hair and tugged his head up to snake the blade against his throat.

“Silly demon,” she drawled, ”you hungry?”

“Ah, no, just fancied meself a bit a bit o’ a stroll.”

That gentle roll of his Irish accent off his tongue sent a shiver up from the base of her spine. What uh lil’ tart, gettin’ awl wet a’ th’ sound o’ ‘is voice. Her eyelids had drooped at that disdainful English growl, but they snapped wide open at the softest sound of shifting leather. Just as quickly, the blade slipped into the flesh of his hand and pinned it against the floor. She had expected a terrific yelp of pain; he gave her only a muffled groan. Her fingers were deceptively gentle as they threaded through his hair and traced the lines of his wounded hand.

“Now, now, no lyin’ to Macha…”