Hades In Their Eyes

Exhausted

Dying into a dance,
The wait will be over soon.

The vision is gone,
What's left to see?
A poison for the eye, a cure for the heart
And the end of all faith.

"Qu'est-ce pour nous, mon coeur, que les nappes de sang
Et de braise, et mille meurtres, et les longs cris
De rage, sanglots de tout enfer renversant
Tout ordre; et l'Aquilon encor sur les débris
Et toute vengeance? Rien!..."

Je n'aimerais pas mourir sur de tels rivages,
Sous des cieux si vides
Où ne brule nulle promesse

— Elend, Ardour—

Une fois encore, à l'adresse de mes futurs joueurs de Mage: BEGONE! (Non, sérieusement, si vous voulez du spoiler, continuez à lire, mais ça serait dommage pour vous, surtout que ça ne vous apporterait pas grand-chose... à part du vieux spoiler de base, bien sûr.)

They were betrothed in life to fulfill the will of their families. They were estranged in death, she as a Wraith, he as a Kindred, forever unable to meet again as true human beings. This is the fate that befell Aidan Stockwell/Haven/Clarick and Wilhelmina Wallenstein in Shadow Nexus. One wields the shadows to do his bidding, a shadow himself in the darkened streets of London, surviving on blood, and frozen in the time of his first death until the night someone or something stronger than him will put a final end to his twisted being. The other contemplates the Skinlands from behind the Shroud, her hands tainted by the countless Shadows of other Wraiths she has helped to tame, yet not knowing when her own Shadow will cause her to fall as well.

Theirs is the story of a love that could have been, might have been, should have been, yet never was, and will never bloom again. But they are still strong and still here, defying centuries and the weight of their common, if brief past.

Media: India ink on paper. Wilhelmina's dress wasn't supposed to be black at first, but an unwanted blot of ink convinced me otherwise.

This picture is full of mistakes and is clearly not the best thing I've ever drawn. That said, I definitely needed to practice with backgrounds a little more elaborate than just a vague shading or shape, and I also need to improve regarding shading using inks only, so it was a good opportunity. I personnally like the final result. A lot.

The title is a pun of sorts on the title of another song by Elend, Ares In Their Eyes. I've been drawing to their music for a whole week now, and the lyrics I quoted above are precisely what inspired me to draw the present picture. (The French sentence between quotation marks is actually from Arthur Rimbaud's Qu'est-ce pour nous mon coeur... poem.)

<sup>Vampire: the Masquerade, Vampire: Victorian Age, Wraith: the Oblivion and World of Darkness are ©White Wolf Publishing. Aidan and 'Mina are mine.

Related pictures:
+ The Devil's Hand
+ Falls The Shadow</sup>