HOME | DD

Description

Some people were asking about the shark guy from my last comic vignette , so I figured I ought to introduce him!
Ridge is a close friend of Alex’s. He was born in the city-state of Ironfrost, and as the younger son of an old military family, spent a lot of time cleaning uniforms, maintaining machinery, tending furnaces, and doing other small janitorial tasks even before he was old enough to enlist himself. He remembers the day when the strange little orphan girl wandered in from the tundra, carrying an antique big game rifle that must have weighed nearly as much as she did.
For the first few years, they didn’t talk much. Alex was very withdrawn. She was intent on being taken seriously and would never admit weakness or discuss much about her past with the other soldiers–she claimed her hometown was destroyed in a “cave in”.
The truth was revealed several years later, when she and Ridge were partnered up for a stakeout mission. Initially tasked with tracking a smuggler, they encountered a teeny tiny little complication when their quarry was ambushed and consumed by the Shadow right in front of their eyes.
Ridge now knew that the Shadow existed–forbidden and politically inconvenient knowledge, given that speaking of the Shadow at all was treated as sedition by the Ironfrost ruling class. This did, however, give him something in common with Alex. As Ridge tried to process his shock over the incident, Alex opened up to him with the truth about her past , and the two grew closer.
Though their personalities could hardly be more different–Alex is businesslike, serious, and brooding, while Ridge is more relaxed and cavalier–the two shared a strong work ethic and equally strong sense of pessimism. With time, the two of them developed a strong and lasting friendship, knowing that they had each other’s backs both on the battlefield and off.
It was the strength of this friendship that eventually drove Ridge to betray his homeland, embarking on an ill-fated rescue mission with Alex that introduced them to The Rising Dawn and permanently severed their ties with Ironfrost (but that’s another story).
And it was the strength of this friendship that would be tested when a certain individual was unexpectedly pulled out of the snow, alive, suddenly altering the course of the Rising Dawn’s mission and throwing a wrench in the group’s social dynamic.

Description

Some people were asking about the shark guy from my last comic vignette , so I figured I ought to introduce him!
Ridge is a close friend of Alex’s. He was born in the city-state of Ironfrost, and as the younger son of an old military family, spent a lot of time cleaning uniforms, maintaining machinery, tending furnaces, and doing other small janitorial tasks even before he was old enough to enlist himself. He remembers the day when the strange little orphan girl wandered in from the tundra, carrying an antique big game rifle that must have weighed nearly as much as she did.
For the first few years, they didn’t talk much. Alex was very withdrawn. She was intent on being taken seriously and would never admit weakness or discuss much about her past with the other soldiers–she claimed her hometown was destroyed in a “cave in”.
The truth was revealed several years later, when she and Ridge were partnered up for a stakeout mission. Initially tasked with tracking a smuggler, they encountered a teeny tiny little complication when their quarry was ambushed and consumed by the Shadow right in front of their eyes.
Ridge now knew that the Shadow existed–forbidden and politically inconvenient knowledge, given that speaking of the Shadow at all was treated as sedition by the Ironfrost ruling class. This did, however, give him something in common with Alex. As Ridge tried to process his shock over the incident, Alex opened up to him with the truth about her past , and the two grew closer.
Though their personalities could hardly be more different–Alex is businesslike, serious, and brooding, while Ridge is more relaxed and cavalier–the two shared a strong work ethic and equally strong sense of pessimism. With time, the two of them developed a strong and lasting friendship, knowing that they had each other’s backs both on the battlefield and off.
It was the strength of this friendship that eventually drove Ridge to betray his homeland, embarking on an ill-fated rescue mission with Alex that introduced them to The Rising Dawn and permanently severed their ties with Ironfrost (but that’s another story).
And it was the strength of this friendship that would be tested when a certain individual was unexpectedly pulled out of the snow, alive, suddenly altering the course of the Rising Dawn’s mission and throwing a wrench in the group’s social dynamic.