A scene in 6 steps

Here you have some steps in the realization of the scene "Or both ... or none of us". The illustration was done entirely in photoshop after some little doodle in pencil, no more than 5cm wide. Working in digital allowed me to move the composition with the elements separated by layers so that everything fits correctly. Normally, I start working with a few tones to give the volumes and values ​​of depth to the scene, and then gradually I add details and colours so ... somewhat intuitive :)

Allwënn; Fourth Star: to death.

 "What is in fact, more dangerous than a woman?

Read Äriel memories first.

I gripped her hand too much.

She looks at her wrist, prisoner between my fingers, swallowing a sign of weakness. Meanwhile, Gharin approaches her by one of her sides. He drags his chair to stay near enough her to propitiate a much more close and personal contact. She realizes it late or she reacts very well to bullying. She faces him with a false charming smile. Gharin's hands do not wait. We have to make a believable pantomime. We have to retain her enough time to extract the information we need without suspicion. Flirtation is the most apropriate mask in this context. Nobody would be surprised if some customer are flirting and enjoying with one of the serving girls.

She looks at me. I have already forced her to sit down with us. It's a worthy, almost proud, way to ask for mercy through her eyes. She accepts to play the game we impose.

Gharin has already started to lay his arm over her shoulders. The game is on and we have taken advantage. I leave her wrist but my hand remains on her hand. I force my smile too. I give my tankard to her, offering a drink as a peace sign.

"Pretend to enjoy the show."

She agree because she has no more chances. She drinks a short sip, enough to wet her lips. She looks at me again. Her eyes shown a thousand of readings. She fakes to be confortable with the situation, to be afloat, not to be scared... but it is not true. She is trembling because I can feel it in my hand touch with hers.

"And now... tell us why this place is not safe."
My fingers starts touching her skin. She sighs and begins to explain the details. She is nervous. Gharin goes on  caressing her. His hands sorround her. She tries not to be overcome. I like her efforts to remain upright, to show she is the one controlling the situation... however, I can feel her concern about our proximity, her alarm because of our hands... but something is making her to stay. A part of her wants to stay. I'm not doing this to enjoy. There are some heavy reasons. I'm not like Gharin, he is enjoying this play.
A trap, a bloody trap. According to her that is what is happening. Using seduction as a mortal weapon. So old... and so twisted. End with a problem inside the blankets. It is a gangs war. A bloody gangs war that is going to paint with blood every bed in this hovel and that has found us in its way. A bloody gangs war. That's all we needed!
I look around while she's speaking. Despite this pressing situation, the representation need more reality. Gharin looks like quite confortable in his role. He is not faking. She is doing it. Our hands disturb her. She can't hide she is not used to men's touching. This is something beyond any doubt. She doesn't mix with men. As a matter of fact, I don't think she has done more than serving tankards and washing the floor. She wants to look like natural, confortable, calm, but her skin gets tense with each rubbing. It's as if our contact was electric. But she has something that beats me and intrigue me. She has revealed us the danger and there is no logical reason to do it. In addition it is her effort to look like strong and that makes her really strong. She has something...

It seems nobody notices what is happening in our table. Everyone is too distracted in their "own businesses" and, as a rule, those businesses also has pretty legs. However, it is only in appearance. Madamme has put an eye on us sometime ago. It's clear she doesn't like us to detain her serving girl. But she is not the only one. There is another girl, very pretty, with a haughty gesture, confident, who is looking at us from the second floor balaustrade where she is shown with the rest of the girls. However, the one who bother me more is a big and well-built guy standing in a corner next to the girls. He bears some scars showing he is a who has made violence as  his way of life. His gaze is predatory. He knows something, he suspects something. I'm putting that girl at risk, but she is the only one who can help us.
I touch her skin and her eyes come back to mine. She goes on talking but my fingers can read beyond her eyes and her body. She make an effort to mantain the coherence in her speech and I... I make the effort for not falling into pieces with her electric touching. I try to pay attention to the seriousness of the situation. I don't know what is ocurring me. She is just a serving girl.

She confesses that she has an weapon when my hands had decided to go for a walk by her thighs. Over her thick skirt but in her groins my hand finds a lost treasure. I touch a dagger pommel, crude but sharp. It is what I was going to find but a part of me regrets having no more excuses to stay on her thighs.
What am I saying?
With a precise movement I remove the weapon from her crotch and it falls down the floor. She feels unsafe. It's necessary. It's necessary. She has been fair. She is a woman of her word. So am I. We allow her to go, thinking she wins but knowing she loose.
Gharin looks at me. The situation is getting worse. I sigh and before knowing how or why my eyes are looking for that serving girl which, when she has arrived to the bar, has centered her playmates attention. She smiles with an odd and sad gesture in her face. She is alone in the middle of a garbage ocean and I don't know why that thing should worry me more than my own fate or my fellow's... but it does. It's the first time this happens to me.

I look at the hard guy that watchs the place, again. He looks at me and then at her. That girl is in danger.
"well?" Gharin is waiting an answer for a while.
"Offer twenty Ares for the girl.
"For the serving girl? Do you want to pick her up to the rooms?" Gharin looks at me as if I was mad. Maybe I am. I should be used to it. Cursed elf. "A night with her doesn't cost..."
"Twenty Ares, Gharin!!" His question enrages me. "I want to make an offer nobody can reject. It's my purse. Get the Madamme allow us to play with her serving girl."
"For that price she allows you to play with the half-orc who is behind the bar. It's too much for one night, Alwënn" he says while he stands up with my purse in his hands.
"It's few money for a life..." but he can't hear that. My voice is swallowed by the frenetic whisper of the place.
I look for her with my eyes.
A life.
I don't even know the implications of what I have just done.
I don't know why I've done it. But I can't not to do it.

Allwënn; Third Star: The less Appropriate Night.

Read here Äriel memories, first.

An instant that had remained in a second, a brief instant that is lost among the faces of that crowded place. There is a latent stress, I can taste it. I know those eyes, those crossing stressing looks, those attentive looks. Too many eyes. I haven't forgot why we're in this place. Nothing can't distract us. We had made a great bet. I still feel the stress, too much stress. Something is happening. I can smell it. I can foresee.

Gharin has approached a table. It's full with empty jars and some liquor bottles.

One of the girls is going to clean it. I notice Gharin studying her with sharp eye, the whole of her. He smiles at her. He likes her. She smiles at him too, but it's a forced smile. I'm busy, observing the stressing enviroment. I had not realized she is the one who is serving us. I can not be distracted, so I go on watching. I hear Gharin asking some ale for us. So many years traveling togheter make unnecesary to question some likes. The serving girl passes by me. She smells like beer and cheap perfume. Probably it's not hers. Her hair is impregnated with burned wood from the kitchens. When she passes by me she leave her smell on me: a campfire under the stars, early morning chats, a cup of spirit before closing the eyes. It smells like liberty and horizons... and then I look at that place full of smoke and noise. A chorus of too much painted girls -the Bocas fashion- look at the customers from the mezzanine. They are almost a sample book. A product catalogue of this place. It's everything except liberty, everything except the horizon.

The serving girl is coming back. She has short hair and she is petite, almost fragile. She desappears among the men of that crowded hovel. Her face is sweet but she has fierce eyes. She passes by me again to serve our ales. The smell of the kitchens comes back. I'm smelling dungeons and prisions. I don't know why. There is something that makes me feel so sad, but I can't explain it. I look at her and something inside me breaks. I try to keep my concentration. I'm there for other reasons and the stress in the air beats me strongly again. Too many angry gazes. I've already said it to Gharin. Something is happening here.

I can hear Gharin flirting with the girl. It is as always. I think he fancies her just because she is a serving girl and she can not alternate. His ability is to provoke. I listen to a lost sentence in a conversation. She has been searching to stay with us. She spents a lot of her time to serve us. She is cleaning the same portion of the table. If she goes on doing it, she will make a hole.

"I would finish my drink and I would off the tavern. It's a bad night to stay here. I have said nothing."
«I have said nothing». I look at her. Her pupils pretend to be strong, they want to mantain my look, but finally they fail. She feels herself guilty. She knows something. It's an advise. She is not faking. She is trying to tell us something. Something is happening, she knows it and I want to know it. I'm betting my life, we are betting our life.

My hand fixes her wrist to the table. She doesn't wait the movement. She is in shock. She looks at my gesture frightened. I'm used to this kind of looks. Her expression has changed. I imagined it wouldn't be forever. However, now she is not the woman whose eyes confused me. Now, she is the person whose lips have the chance to give us the advantage in the destiny game. A game whose bet is our lifes.

"I want to know what is happening here." My face forces a smile. "Smile" She also knows how to fake a smile. "Pretend to enjoy the conversation."
But the fate had laid the cards on the table. I still didn't know it. I was about to know it.

Äriel seen through Allwënn eyes.

          "We are looking for a magical woman, a sorcerer, an evocative and captivating woman. It can be a non-real woman. The extreme difficulty will be that."

      "Äriel is intense, deeply magical, compelling. It's not just her beuty but what emanates from her. That is a thing we cannot achieve only with a beautiful body, we have to go beyond this. We have to overcome the fact.

This ilustration is one of the first one to be presented for the project. It has also had a longer development in time. Laying your eyes in Alwënn's eyes and transmiting with the picture the image that he is seeing... A little bit more, really; transmitting what the warrior is feeling when he observes her, the whole dream that the Hergos Virgin signifies for the character and -finally- making us to see her through his eyes. This is the real picture's challenge, a challenge that makes me park the picture for months until I felt myself ready to impress it everything we wanted to give.

Here you are some of the previous designs.

“Äriel should speak with her eyes.”

J.Vilches' note about  Äriel design.