To a charr, blood comes as an afterthought. Your pride and joy runs with your warband, your brothers and sisters from the fahrar who grew up by your side, who had your back through thick and thin, who know you like they know themselves. When you carve out your story into Tyria’s ground, theirs is the hand giving you the blade. This is your story, but they shaped it, just like you shaped theirs.
The Forum is busy tonight; what is by day a quiet haunt that feels just a touch too large for a cozy pub always fills up by nightfall, brimming with chatter and roar of dozens of charr, clink of glasses and mugs and always just a few cub reprobates sneaking off from the fahrar to listen to one too many war stories.
Yet it’s still not hard to spot them in the commotion. One just needs to listen to the sharp bark of Reeva’s laugh or watch for Dinky’s form hunched over a table seemingly too small for his size or sniff out the faint whiff of ozone emitted by Euryale’s lightning whip whenever she feels like putting someone in their place.
“Hey, look who’s here!” Maverick rises first, his toothy grin that always seems a bit too large for his face to accomodate growing somehow even wider.
“Late!” Dinky bellows happily.
“Can’t ever be on time, even to your own party,” Euryale drawls. Flames from the candles lit in the middle of the table seem to dance a bit wilder at the remark.
“Come, sit,” Clawspur’s quiet, almost melodic voice says from the shadows, its tone warm and welcoming. “Before that sponge drinks all the booze.”
Reeva’s back straightens at the comment. “Hey!” she yowls, shooting her bandmate a glare.
“Truth hurts, eh, kitten?” Howl’s playful snarl rumbles through the air. He keeps toying with some amulet the way a well-fed stalker plays with a juicy rat, like he always does when he’s particularly satisfied with his share of card winnings.
“Don’t listen to them,” the ginger female snorts in mock indignation. “Here, I saved you one. Not the best brandy in the Citadel, but it’ll do.” Metal studs on her gloves clink as she raises a glass. “To us. The best damn warband in the whole Ascalon.”
One of the reasons for me being shamefully silent recently is working on this beast of a thing.
I joined the collab project, and a fellow (and totally kickass) artist Angelique asked me to join her on a charr illustration. As a predominantly charr player, the theme of Friendship that the collab project was supposed to tie into is pretty easy to relate: every charr player starts with a warband, brothers and sisters in arms, one of whom will always be your best friend and sparring partner. Each player has a different story, yet all the charr ones share a common origin, common childhood friends to stay by their side. And whether we lean on Reeva’s humor, Dinky’s great heart, Euryale’s quiet focus, Clawspur’s shadow arts or Maverick’s bravado, they are the friends we all get to share.
I’m eternally grateful to Angelique who decided to lend her great talent to this piece, agreed to the insane idea and was patient through all my shenanigans. Thank you, my friend!
And to the rest of you… see you in Tyria.
Artwork sponsored by Arenanet.