Poor Sleet, left there alone and tied with a magical rope. It doesn’t look very good for him, now does it? At least there’s the slight hope that he might learn about his ancestry and then, perhaps one day, Liz will finally be recognised as the greatest hero of the story. Or not, since nobody knows what her true motive was, Sleet will probably just be told she took Arra as a bargaining chip. If they won’t twist the truth against his former friends (“The monsters, they killed your mother!”) or outright lie to him. Ah, this makes me sad 🙁
I probably didn’t make it very clear back when I drew the prologue (will have to add it to the list of things to fix when I redraw it), but Lis’ motives aren’t meant to be secret in the story. She lost all of her family in the centuries-long war the Veslian Empire has been waging against Falia, and was more mentally damaged by the loss than anyone realised (none of her fellow soldiers even knew she was pregnant with her mate’s last child as wyverns don’t show very much. I know Sarah says her stomach was bloated, that will be fixed too). When she saw tiny Arra whom she knew would be killed, her maternal instincts took over. She just got as far away as fast as possible from the warring countries so she could raise Arra and Sleet in peace.
Nobody knows that Sleet is Lis’ son. It was assumed that she died along with Ka, Tor, and Strake when the mountain collapsed in the ‘earthquake’ (which we know was not an earthquake at all, but an explosive magical backlash, but no one else knows that). Arra’s appearence in Terival is a complete conundrum to everyone, as only that village knows how he even got there, but have no idea why a wyvern was carrying him, or that he is Strake’s son.
SOooOo, we must assume there is a very different reason for Kira to be so interested in Sleet. As for that tidbit, only time will tell. 🙂
Okay, insanely long ‘extra detail’ rant is over. This is some of the reason that I really feel I should be writing Eryl as a novel instead. It’s insanely hard to get this kind of detail across without sacrificing flow or turning each chapter into a 100 page artistic nightmare. :/
Ah, sorry if I didn’t explain myself very well there! I found Lis’ motives crystal clear myself, I think that was actually explained well. But none of the characters in the story know, do they? Lis didn’t get to speak to anybody before she died.
Lis seems to be possibly the biggest hero of the story so far. Presumably the Veslian army is composed mostly of slave soldiers (hence the tattoos and fear of Veslin) and she was one as well, but despite that she still sabotaged a mission of high importance and then fled all the way to Terival, without rest, stopping only to feed Arra. All the while she knew that she was pregnant and putting her unborn child at risk, and that she would become an outcast everyone would try to kill on sight. All this just to give a chance at a better future to two babies, one of whom was offspring of her enemy. If that is not the mark of a hero, I don’t know what is.
And it looks that Sleet will never learn any of that, since nobody else knows either. There was a bit of hope with Kira, but now we know he has no clue himself. Ah well…
Honestly I enjoyed reading this a lot! On the other hand, I think a lot of the charm would be gone if you went with a more expressive medium, the mystery adds a lot to the story. Sometimes it’s better to drop breadcrumbs to the reader than to give them the whole loaf 😉
I am glad you like the way I’ve been writing this story. What I mean is more that I’d like to be able to include more world-building, history, and culture – something that’s very hard to do in a comic without the page count becoming overwhelming to draw. Plus, this story was originally GOING to be in novel form, and I still feel that format would work better. But regardless of how I tell a story, I like to keep the mystery. I want readers to be able to come to their own conclusions about certain things. It makes the experience much more personal. I’m not out to deliver some grand message, or preach my views, or try and get people to feel the same about the characters as I do – too many writers do this already. I’m here to tell a story – what aspects people take from it and love or hate about it is theirs, and I’ll not force my own subjective feelings on them. 🙂
… freak!
Poor Sleet, left there alone and tied with a magical rope. It doesn’t look very good for him, now does it? At least there’s the slight hope that he might learn about his ancestry and then, perhaps one day, Liz will finally be recognised as the greatest hero of the story. Or not, since nobody knows what her true motive was, Sleet will probably just be told she took Arra as a bargaining chip. If they won’t twist the truth against his former friends (“The monsters, they killed your mother!”) or outright lie to him. Ah, this makes me sad 🙁
I probably didn’t make it very clear back when I drew the prologue (will have to add it to the list of things to fix when I redraw it), but Lis’ motives aren’t meant to be secret in the story. She lost all of her family in the centuries-long war the Veslian Empire has been waging against Falia, and was more mentally damaged by the loss than anyone realised (none of her fellow soldiers even knew she was pregnant with her mate’s last child as wyverns don’t show very much. I know Sarah says her stomach was bloated, that will be fixed too). When she saw tiny Arra whom she knew would be killed, her maternal instincts took over. She just got as far away as fast as possible from the warring countries so she could raise Arra and Sleet in peace.
Nobody knows that Sleet is Lis’ son. It was assumed that she died along with Ka, Tor, and Strake when the mountain collapsed in the ‘earthquake’ (which we know was not an earthquake at all, but an explosive magical backlash, but no one else knows that). Arra’s appearence in Terival is a complete conundrum to everyone, as only that village knows how he even got there, but have no idea why a wyvern was carrying him, or that he is Strake’s son.
SOooOo, we must assume there is a very different reason for Kira to be so interested in Sleet. As for that tidbit, only time will tell. 🙂
Okay, insanely long ‘extra detail’ rant is over. This is some of the reason that I really feel I should be writing Eryl as a novel instead. It’s insanely hard to get this kind of detail across without sacrificing flow or turning each chapter into a 100 page artistic nightmare. :/
Ah, sorry if I didn’t explain myself very well there! I found Lis’ motives crystal clear myself, I think that was actually explained well. But none of the characters in the story know, do they? Lis didn’t get to speak to anybody before she died.
Lis seems to be possibly the biggest hero of the story so far. Presumably the Veslian army is composed mostly of slave soldiers (hence the tattoos and fear of Veslin) and she was one as well, but despite that she still sabotaged a mission of high importance and then fled all the way to Terival, without rest, stopping only to feed Arra. All the while she knew that she was pregnant and putting her unborn child at risk, and that she would become an outcast everyone would try to kill on sight. All this just to give a chance at a better future to two babies, one of whom was offspring of her enemy. If that is not the mark of a hero, I don’t know what is.
And it looks that Sleet will never learn any of that, since nobody else knows either. There was a bit of hope with Kira, but now we know he has no clue himself. Ah well…
Honestly I enjoyed reading this a lot! On the other hand, I think a lot of the charm would be gone if you went with a more expressive medium, the mystery adds a lot to the story. Sometimes it’s better to drop breadcrumbs to the reader than to give them the whole loaf 😉
I am glad you like the way I’ve been writing this story. What I mean is more that I’d like to be able to include more world-building, history, and culture – something that’s very hard to do in a comic without the page count becoming overwhelming to draw. Plus, this story was originally GOING to be in novel form, and I still feel that format would work better. But regardless of how I tell a story, I like to keep the mystery. I want readers to be able to come to their own conclusions about certain things. It makes the experience much more personal. I’m not out to deliver some grand message, or preach my views, or try and get people to feel the same about the characters as I do – too many writers do this already. I’m here to tell a story – what aspects people take from it and love or hate about it is theirs, and I’ll not force my own subjective feelings on them. 🙂