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Palisander's wrist bone clicked on the hard wood of the saloon door and the half elf grimaced, narrow face twisting on itself as the doors swung shut behind him, almost catching on his cloak. He stepped out of the doorway, first impression of the common room of the Dancing Dryad not particularly favourable. His pointy nose wrinkled at the smell of dinner cooking in its stew pot behind the counter, not because it was all that bad, but more out of reflex. The floor around the entrance was made of rush mats, fresh, but they were still rush mats. Filthy things in his estimation, existing to soak up whatever detritus the entire city could track in on its feet. He was glad for his boots though wished he hadn’t spent so much time polishing them as he found a vacant chair and sat down. That wasn’t hard- there were a few perennial alcoholics drinking away as steadily as holes in the ground, but it was still the afternoon and the place wasn’t busy. What time was it, anyways? The bells had been rung recently but he hadn’t counted them, and he felt vaguely alarmed at his increasingly estranged relationship with time. His eyes hurt, and his entire body was certain it had a severe cold with the exception of his nose. Too much time spent melting down candles and doing figures.

He rubbed his bleary eyes and wondered how long it would take to get some service around here. Normally the Half-elf went to the Copper Dragon uptown, closer to the school and a much nicer establishment than this one, but he was trying to economize and had decided to try something new. Mostly he just needed to get out, out of his tiny garret room in the boarding house where the ink of his notes was starting to crawl and writhe before his eyes like a basket of millipedes. Palisander was top of his class and he new it, but he still felt like sicking up every time he thought of the test at the end of the tenday. It would be with that bastard Oakensole, too, whose one remaining pleasure in life was tormenting his unlucky students. Perhaps he’d take the money he saved by drinking worse liquor down to the shrine to Great Corellon and pray for luck.

He sighed heavily and then flinched as someone materialized next to his table. Presumably the absentee barmaid.

“Top of the day to you, sir. Sorry, I was in the back and didn’t see you come in, can I get you something to drink? We’ve got the finest fresh mead, your tongue will thank you for it.”

Why else would I be here? And Mead? Not wine or Evandra help me, even ale? Mead’s much too sweet! He tried to think at the same time.

“That sounds lovely. I’ll take a draught, but no food, I’m not hungry.”

“Right you are, I’ll be right back!”

Something flicked at the edge of his vision, and Palisander glanced up. The tiny motion was the black-scaled tip of a tail, bobbing and coiling through the air as its owner the barmaid nearly skipped across the room. The mage student blinked, forgetting not to stare at the back of the pair of huge dark ram’s horns sprouting up from her curly auburn hair like rugged bluffs rising from a dehydrated woodland.

She was true to her word (not that it said much, there were 5 people in the room, 3 of them with the personality of houseplants), back with a pewter mug of honey-coloured liquid that she slid neatly across the table to him. Then to his surprise she pulled a chair back and coiled herself neatl into it.

“Hope you don’t mind if I sit, my feet are throbbing,” she said cheerfully after touching down. “Sure I can’t get you some of the pot? It’s all fresh, we source from right outside the city, not a speck of rot.”

“Shouldn’t you be tending it?” Palisander took a sip. Actually, it was quite good.

“Oh it only wants a stir every ten minutes, most of the time it just sort of bubbles.”

“We’re outside of the Tiefling Quarter,” noted Palisander, letting the attached question speak for itself.

“That’s ‘cause it’s the Tieflings’ Quarter, not the Tieflings’ Prison,” she said, still cheerfully. “Actually, my Uncle Clay owns the Dryad, and I’m helping him run the place while I’m staying with him. How about you, you new in town?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” said Palisander. That also did not count for much, you could live here 20 years and still be that new lad from out by Oxengrad. “I’m here for the education, myself. I’m going to Bullbridge.”

“No way,” she said, seeming far too excited by this information as she put her elbows on the table and cradled her cheeks. She seemed to have trouble sitting still, almost always shifting in her seat. Her tail was long and scaly, more like a snake’s than a crocodile’s. She kept it wrapped around her skirts while she sat, but it always seemed to want to be on the move. “I am too! Majoring in Divine Health Rejuvenation. I love it, the school’s great. How about you?”

“Aracana. I’m training to be a Summoner.”

“Ow! Everyone always tells me how hard that stuff is. How’s it coming?”

“Good,” said Palisander truthfully. He smiled. His drink actually was quite good. “But if you’ll pardon the language, it is something of a bitch.”

“I’ll bet! It feels like they’re running us ragged over at the Loveshack, and we don’t get half the reading you guys have to get through.” Palisander nodded. The ‘Loveshack’, of course, was the student body’s sarcastic name for the magic college’s Temple of Sune and attached cleric academy. Palisander hadn’t heard many good things about it, not academically speaking, but he knew full well that each and every wing of Bullbridge had a tendency to look down on the others with varying degrees of seriousness.

“How’d you pick Summoning, anyway?”

She didn’t seem at all interested in getting back up and to work, and telling himself he was only humouring her, Palisander answered her questions, not even noticing himself slowly warming up or when he turned to face her full-on across the table. Hardly the prettiest, he decided quickly, and maybe she looked better when she smiled, or maybe she didn’t –she never took it off for him to compare and contrast as together they griped their way through heavy coursework, early class times, and petty tyrant lab leaders. Her eyes were nice and big, if an off-putting amber colour with no whites, but on the other hand so was her nose. Slightly upturned, it put him in mind of a pig. Also, her complexion made her look like something that had just come out of a brick-kiln, and Palisander presumed the reddish colouration just came with being a tiefling.

More concerning, she never seemed to tire at questioning him, greedily sucking up all the information he gave her. She seemed to find much of it funny for some reason, and together they swapped creative insults about the few crotchety old mages they had common classes with and made unflattering speculations about the origins of the name ‘Bullbridge’. She seemed to be vibrating slightly, face always moving from one expression to the next, (usually breaking into another smile) the huge mass of hair (was it red or brown?) that made it look like she was swimming up out of a mass of sheep’s wool bouncing and jiggling as her head turned.

The conversation went on with no signs of stopping until some more customers creaked their way in through the saloon doors.

“ ‘Scuse me a tick, duty calls!” she said brightly, and leapt up, appearing to have forgotten how much her feet allegedly hurt as she waved at the newcomers. The two men laughed at something she said, though Palisander didn’t hear it. They took a seat, the wooden wall behind them had a lighter patch shaped like their silhouettes. Palisander sipped his drink and was unsure what to make of the encounter. He had seen plenty of Tieflings from a distance, especially since coming here to Tozoa, but in his experience they were usually reclusive and suspicious and he hadn’t met many personally. Just talking to this one had been draining, she seemed to be stuck in over-drive. But at least she had been much friendlier than her race’s reputation.

The dinner rush was starting, and the tiefling was a blur, greeting by name practically every one of the roughspun characters that dragged in and made it to their chair. Doubtless they were all regulars. She kept up a constant chatter that would do a chorus of squirrels proud, pouring and ladling and using her tail to snag around the legs of chairs and pull them away form tables. The air began to smell like sweat and sawdust as the room filled up, and Palisander blinked as a glare of light caught him in the right eye. Outside it was sunset, and he sighed to realize how the time he had used up. As always, he probably should have spent this time studying.

With sunset coming on, the tiefling went over to the massive stone fireplace and squatted down, tail S-curving up behind her as she leaned one hand in. When she stood up, the fire was going strong. Palisander was staring into the bottom of his mug, and started when she sat down beside him again. No one had taken that particular chair, and he had largely ignored the suspicious glances the largely full-blood human patrons would occasionally fling his way. Certainly nobody else in the room had a cloak as nice as his.

“This one’s on me, I get half off drinks while I work here,” she said, sliding him another mug. “For keeping me entertained.”

“Thanks,” said Palisander. “I’d like to open a tab for this, I think I’ll be coming back,” he added, surprising himself. “This is much more affordable than the pig’s urine they call wine up at the Copper Dragon.”

“For sure, we always love to see a familiar face!” she said, taking out a piece of bark. She didn’t write with anything, just touched her finger to the bark and burned-in his information. “Oh, and I’m Ember. What can I call you?”

“Palisander,” the half-elf said promptly.

“Aren’t you overheating in that thing?” she flicked a finger at his cloak with one hand, resting her cheek on her other hand, elbow propped up on the table.

“A little,” he admitted. “I didn’t want it to get away from me, it’s my favourite. I should ask you if you’re cold.”

Her corset stayed on with a pair of shoulder-straps, showing off the burnt-brick skin of her clavicle and shoulders, and not a little of her bust.

“Ha, never!” She snapped her fingers, sending up a small flare of sparks.

“What’s it feel like when you do that?” Palisander asked lazily.

“Eh, sort of like a sneeze, only it takes effort and makes your hand tingle and you feel tit with your thumb? I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Can you do that with any part of your body, or just your hands?”

“Oh, hands are the easiest, by far.” She shifted her gaze to look into his eyes. The firelight was reflected in her eyes uncannily, he noticed. Except, of course, the fire was behind her and off to one side. She must be manifesting small flames inside her pupils. Palisander found the effect rather striking. “But I can do it with any part of my body. If you think I’m full of it, I’d be happy to show you,”

“Must be useful for staying warm at night around here.”

“You’d think so, but I sleep on a cot in the root cellar. Quite roomy, really, easily big enough for two, but I struggle with keeping warm.”

“Perhaps I could help with that sometime. DHR majors probably need all the help they can get.”

“Said the Summoner! Everybody knows that people only decide to sign up for that major after seeing too many silly woodcuts of succubi with their charms out. Not that I can really blame them. It’s too bad school keeps us all so busy, there’s hardly any time for romance. You have to take whatever you can get.”

“Preach,” said Palisander. He stood up, feeling far more relaxed then when he had come in, lost time be damned. “Class starts early tomorrow. Will you still be here when I get back?”

“Come Hell or Highwater, Pal,” said Ember, also standing. For some reason, he had thought she was taller, much taller, but the tops of her horns only came level with his eyes. She just had presence. “I’d better get back to work, my uncle hates it when I harass the customers. Take care, and be sure to stop back some time.”

Palisander tipped his hat. His tab was unpaid, of course he would be back, and doubtless she knew it. She grinned at him again, much nicer from this angle, and he wondered how he could have ever thought she looked like a pig. He smiled back, before spinning for the door. On the way out, something –someone- caught on his coat, and he looked at the rough owner of the rough hand with mixed irritation and alarm. But it was groundless.

“Hey, young sir,” the man said. “If Miz Ember over there’s making eyes at you, you just be careful. She’s a man-eater, that one.”

“Thank-you for your concern, sir,” said Palisander. “I’ll be very careful.”

The night was cool, not cold, and Palisander hummed to himself as he set out for home. No, not the prettiest, but he had to admit he felt charmed.


---

If she's doing the sparky-eyes thing, it means she's into you.

Actually quite happy with how this turned out. It is not exactly what I had in mind, and her scar's on the wrong hand, but I can say that after painting her a dozen times and sketching her a hundred this is the first time this character actually looks something like what I had in mind. I was aiming for 'flirty' and didn't really succeed, but in any case I've been wanting to do a more close-up shot for forever. Also let me practice drawing characters that are visibly flawed in some way.

Timestamp: Around an hour for the practice sketches, four or five hours for the lineart, two hours to colour, two hours for the background, four hours to shade, and three hours to think up, write, and edit the descriptor text, so I'll put it at around 16 hours start to finish.

Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment, and have a great day!

JD

Description

Palisander's wrist bone clicked on the hard wood of the saloon door and the half elf grimaced, narrow face twisting on itself as the doors swung shut behind him, almost catching on his cloak. He stepped out of the doorway, first impression of the common room of the Dancing Dryad not particularly favourable. His pointy nose wrinkled at the smell of dinner cooking in its stew pot behind the counter, not because it was all that bad, but more out of reflex. The floor around the entrance was made of rush mats, fresh, but they were still rush mats. Filthy things in his estimation, existing to soak up whatever detritus the entire city could track in on its feet. He was glad for his boots though wished he hadn’t spent so much time polishing them as he found a vacant chair and sat down. That wasn’t hard- there were a few perennial alcoholics drinking away as steadily as holes in the ground, but it was still the afternoon and the place wasn’t busy. What time was it, anyways? The bells had been rung recently but he hadn’t counted them, and he felt vaguely alarmed at his increasingly estranged relationship with time. His eyes hurt, and his entire body was certain it had a severe cold with the exception of his nose. Too much time spent melting down candles and doing figures.

He rubbed his bleary eyes and wondered how long it would take to get some service around here. Normally the Half-elf went to the Copper Dragon uptown, closer to the school and a much nicer establishment than this one, but he was trying to economize and had decided to try something new. Mostly he just needed to get out, out of his tiny garret room in the boarding house where the ink of his notes was starting to crawl and writhe before his eyes like a basket of millipedes. Palisander was top of his class and he new it, but he still felt like sicking up every time he thought of the test at the end of the tenday. It would be with that bastard Oakensole, too, whose one remaining pleasure in life was tormenting his unlucky students. Perhaps he’d take the money he saved by drinking worse liquor down to the shrine to Great Corellon and pray for luck.

He sighed heavily and then flinched as someone materialized next to his table. Presumably the absentee barmaid.

“Top of the day to you, sir. Sorry, I was in the back and didn’t see you come in, can I get you something to drink? We’ve got the finest fresh mead, your tongue will thank you for it.”

Why else would I be here? And Mead? Not wine or Evandra help me, even ale? Mead’s much too sweet! He tried to think at the same time.

“That sounds lovely. I’ll take a draught, but no food, I’m not hungry.”

“Right you are, I’ll be right back!”

Something flicked at the edge of his vision, and Palisander glanced up. The tiny motion was the black-scaled tip of a tail, bobbing and coiling through the air as its owner the barmaid nearly skipped across the room. The mage student blinked, forgetting not to stare at the back of the pair of huge dark ram’s horns sprouting up from her curly auburn hair like rugged bluffs rising from a dehydrated woodland.

She was true to her word (not that it said much, there were 5 people in the room, 3 of them with the personality of houseplants), back with a pewter mug of honey-coloured liquid that she slid neatly across the table to him. Then to his surprise she pulled a chair back and coiled herself neatl into it.

“Hope you don’t mind if I sit, my feet are throbbing,” she said cheerfully after touching down. “Sure I can’t get you some of the pot? It’s all fresh, we source from right outside the city, not a speck of rot.”

“Shouldn’t you be tending it?” Palisander took a sip. Actually, it was quite good.

“Oh it only wants a stir every ten minutes, most of the time it just sort of bubbles.”

“We’re outside of the Tiefling Quarter,” noted Palisander, letting the attached question speak for itself.

“That’s ‘cause it’s the Tieflings’ Quarter, not the Tieflings’ Prison,” she said, still cheerfully. “Actually, my Uncle Clay owns the Dryad, and I’m helping him run the place while I’m staying with him. How about you, you new in town?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” said Palisander. That also did not count for much, you could live here 20 years and still be that new lad from out by Oxengrad. “I’m here for the education, myself. I’m going to Bullbridge.”

“No way,” she said, seeming far too excited by this information as she put her elbows on the table and cradled her cheeks. She seemed to have trouble sitting still, almost always shifting in her seat. Her tail was long and scaly, more like a snake’s than a crocodile’s. She kept it wrapped around her skirts while she sat, but it always seemed to want to be on the move. “I am too! Majoring in Divine Health Rejuvenation. I love it, the school’s great. How about you?”

“Aracana. I’m training to be a Summoner.”

“Ow! Everyone always tells me how hard that stuff is. How’s it coming?”

“Good,” said Palisander truthfully. He smiled. His drink actually was quite good. “But if you’ll pardon the language, it is something of a bitch.”

“I’ll bet! It feels like they’re running us ragged over at the Loveshack, and we don’t get half the reading you guys have to get through.” Palisander nodded. The ‘Loveshack’, of course, was the student body’s sarcastic name for the magic college’s Temple of Sune and attached cleric academy. Palisander hadn’t heard many good things about it, not academically speaking, but he knew full well that each and every wing of Bullbridge had a tendency to look down on the others with varying degrees of seriousness.

“How’d you pick Summoning, anyway?”

She didn’t seem at all interested in getting back up and to work, and telling himself he was only humouring her, Palisander answered her questions, not even noticing himself slowly warming up or when he turned to face her full-on across the table. Hardly the prettiest, he decided quickly, and maybe she looked better when she smiled, or maybe she didn’t –she never took it off for him to compare and contrast as together they griped their way through heavy coursework, early class times, and petty tyrant lab leaders. Her eyes were nice and big, if an off-putting amber colour with no whites, but on the other hand so was her nose. Slightly upturned, it put him in mind of a pig. Also, her complexion made her look like something that had just come out of a brick-kiln, and Palisander presumed the reddish colouration just came with being a tiefling.

More concerning, she never seemed to tire at questioning him, greedily sucking up all the information he gave her. She seemed to find much of it funny for some reason, and together they swapped creative insults about the few crotchety old mages they had common classes with and made unflattering speculations about the origins of the name ‘Bullbridge’. She seemed to be vibrating slightly, face always moving from one expression to the next, (usually breaking into another smile) the huge mass of hair (was it red or brown?) that made it look like she was swimming up out of a mass of sheep’s wool bouncing and jiggling as her head turned.

The conversation went on with no signs of stopping until some more customers creaked their way in through the saloon doors.

“ ‘Scuse me a tick, duty calls!” she said brightly, and leapt up, appearing to have forgotten how much her feet allegedly hurt as she waved at the newcomers. The two men laughed at something she said, though Palisander didn’t hear it. They took a seat, the wooden wall behind them had a lighter patch shaped like their silhouettes. Palisander sipped his drink and was unsure what to make of the encounter. He had seen plenty of Tieflings from a distance, especially since coming here to Tozoa, but in his experience they were usually reclusive and suspicious and he hadn’t met many personally. Just talking to this one had been draining, she seemed to be stuck in over-drive. But at least she had been much friendlier than her race’s reputation.

The dinner rush was starting, and the tiefling was a blur, greeting by name practically every one of the roughspun characters that dragged in and made it to their chair. Doubtless they were all regulars. She kept up a constant chatter that would do a chorus of squirrels proud, pouring and ladling and using her tail to snag around the legs of chairs and pull them away form tables. The air began to smell like sweat and sawdust as the room filled up, and Palisander blinked as a glare of light caught him in the right eye. Outside it was sunset, and he sighed to realize how the time he had used up. As always, he probably should have spent this time studying.

With sunset coming on, the tiefling went over to the massive stone fireplace and squatted down, tail S-curving up behind her as she leaned one hand in. When she stood up, the fire was going strong. Palisander was staring into the bottom of his mug, and started when she sat down beside him again. No one had taken that particular chair, and he had largely ignored the suspicious glances the largely full-blood human patrons would occasionally fling his way. Certainly nobody else in the room had a cloak as nice as his.

“This one’s on me, I get half off drinks while I work here,” she said, sliding him another mug. “For keeping me entertained.”

“Thanks,” said Palisander. “I’d like to open a tab for this, I think I’ll be coming back,” he added, surprising himself. “This is much more affordable than the pig’s urine they call wine up at the Copper Dragon.”

“For sure, we always love to see a familiar face!” she said, taking out a piece of bark. She didn’t write with anything, just touched her finger to the bark and burned-in his information. “Oh, and I’m Ember. What can I call you?”

“Palisander,” the half-elf said promptly.

“Aren’t you overheating in that thing?” she flicked a finger at his cloak with one hand, resting her cheek on her other hand, elbow propped up on the table.

“A little,” he admitted. “I didn’t want it to get away from me, it’s my favourite. I should ask you if you’re cold.”

Her corset stayed on with a pair of shoulder-straps, showing off the burnt-brick skin of her clavicle and shoulders, and not a little of her bust.

“Ha, never!” She snapped her fingers, sending up a small flare of sparks.

“What’s it feel like when you do that?” Palisander asked lazily.

“Eh, sort of like a sneeze, only it takes effort and makes your hand tingle and you feel tit with your thumb? I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Can you do that with any part of your body, or just your hands?”

“Oh, hands are the easiest, by far.” She shifted her gaze to look into his eyes. The firelight was reflected in her eyes uncannily, he noticed. Except, of course, the fire was behind her and off to one side. She must be manifesting small flames inside her pupils. Palisander found the effect rather striking. “But I can do it with any part of my body. If you think I’m full of it, I’d be happy to show you,”

“Must be useful for staying warm at night around here.”

“You’d think so, but I sleep on a cot in the root cellar. Quite roomy, really, easily big enough for two, but I struggle with keeping warm.”

“Perhaps I could help with that sometime. DHR majors probably need all the help they can get.”

“Said the Summoner! Everybody knows that people only decide to sign up for that major after seeing too many silly woodcuts of succubi with their charms out. Not that I can really blame them. It’s too bad school keeps us all so busy, there’s hardly any time for romance. You have to take whatever you can get.”

“Preach,” said Palisander. He stood up, feeling far more relaxed then when he had come in, lost time be damned. “Class starts early tomorrow. Will you still be here when I get back?”

“Come Hell or Highwater, Pal,” said Ember, also standing. For some reason, he had thought she was taller, much taller, but the tops of her horns only came level with his eyes. She just had presence. “I’d better get back to work, my uncle hates it when I harass the customers. Take care, and be sure to stop back some time.”

Palisander tipped his hat. His tab was unpaid, of course he would be back, and doubtless she knew it. She grinned at him again, much nicer from this angle, and he wondered how he could have ever thought she looked like a pig. He smiled back, before spinning for the door. On the way out, something –someone- caught on his coat, and he looked at the rough owner of the rough hand with mixed irritation and alarm. But it was groundless.

“Hey, young sir,” the man said. “If Miz Ember over there’s making eyes at you, you just be careful. She’s a man-eater, that one.”

“Thank-you for your concern, sir,” said Palisander. “I’ll be very careful.”

The night was cool, not cold, and Palisander hummed to himself as he set out for home. No, not the prettiest, but he had to admit he felt charmed.


---

If she's doing the sparky-eyes thing, it means she's into you.

Actually quite happy with how this turned out. It is not exactly what I had in mind, and her scar's on the wrong hand, but I can say that after painting her a dozen times and sketching her a hundred this is the first time this character actually looks something like what I had in mind. I was aiming for 'flirty' and didn't really succeed, but in any case I've been wanting to do a more close-up shot for forever. Also let me practice drawing characters that are visibly flawed in some way.

Timestamp: Around an hour for the practice sketches, four or five hours for the lineart, two hours to colour, two hours for the background, four hours to shade, and three hours to think up, write, and edit the descriptor text, so I'll put it at around 16 hours start to finish.

Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment, and have a great day!

JD