Alex Beecroft's Blog, page 39

Reward selected.

10,000 or so words still to go on Elf Princes’ Quest. With six scenes left and a scene length of somewhere around 1,500-2,000 words, that sounds about right. If I can manage to keep up the 3,000 word days I did last week, that means I can get the first draft finished next week.

To keep up the motivation, I’ve told myself I can have a reward for finishing, and in the spirit of all my Avengers excitement at the moment, I think I’m going to go for this:

It’s a bit more subtle than a big picture of Dr. Doom. I was also tempted by this one http://forbiddenplanet.com/62400-marvel-t-shirt-stark-industries/ but Iron Man does not need any more adulation. (Also, I’ll have to write something else first if I’m going to get that one too.)

I’m somewhat annoyed at the fact that out of hundreds of choices of Marvel t-shirts, there are about three choices cut for female bodies (and two of those are Punisher t-shirts in black or pink.) You’d have thought they would have realized they were overlooking the fangirls by now. I guess I’ll have to hope that the presence of hoards of young women outside The Avengers wearing home made “Loki’s army” t-shirts should clue them in that they are missing a large chunk of their market. But I think I’m happier to support a different green-cloaked, metal-clad mad-man for a change. Stealth fanning is more my style

Fingers crossed that I am not jumping the gun with this post. I probably am, aren’t I? I’ll post this and then spend the next three months with no movement in both hands, or something. I had better leave with the disclaimer that while this is my hope for next week, I in no way expect the universe to deliver on that. I’ll see what happens when I get to it.

She is not dead, she is only sleeping.

Actually I’m not sleeping either, but I’m having the usual reaction that comes from blogging a lot – the desire never to go on the computer ever again. I think I am one of the most introverted people who ever inted because I clearly have strict limits on how much I can interact with people even by text.

We’ve also switched to a new ‘how to get everyone out of the house in the morning’ routine which gives me extra writing time before lunch and means I can do three sessions instead of two a day. This means I’m now doing about 3,000 words a day instead of 1,000. The plan being to get the first draft of Elf Princes’ Quest finished by the end of May, so that when Eldest gets out of school at the end of May and is hanging around the house all day, I can edit both that and Pilgrims’ Tale. I need deep concentration to do a first draft – the sort of deep concentration I can only manage if I know I’m alone – but editing is much more left brain, and I can do that with other stuff going on around me.

The new 3,000 word day is, however, eating ALL my free time, so I suspect blogging is going to have to go on the back burner in future. This would not be a bad thing except for the feeling that I’m completely losing any social life that doesn’t revolve around morris dancing. I like morris dancing, don’t get me wrong, but the imagination cannot live on “Room for the Cuckolds” alone.

I don’t know how my aim to write 200,000 words this year will survive four months of editing, but (help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, my maths skills are not up to this) I hope I can get 100,000 done by the end of May and then do another 100,000 between September and the new year. I strongly suspect that I will not achieve this aim, but that isn’t going to stop me trying.

Part of the reason why my word count is so low may be my typing speed, which is apparently 48 words per minute according to this test:

Visit the Typing Test and try!

Though frankly I don’t think my brain works any faster than that anyway, and there’s no point in being able to type faster than I can think.

This concludes this ‘state of the Croft’ broadcast.

Bonus irrelevant factoid below:

Did you know in Anglo-Saxon times we had birds a metre tall in Britain? European Cranes.  Try hunting that with a falcon!

And today I'm on Kay's blog

Today I'm on Kay Berrisford's blog, talking about fantasy and historicals, and answering questions such as "your elves versus a pack of werewolves – who would win?"

http://kayberrisford.com/2012/04/12/guest-interview-with-alex-beecroft/

I give you two guesses

An interview with Kay Berrisford

Well, I'm pretty blogged out about my own novels but that's OK because today I have Kay Berrisford aboard, talking about her Greenwood series instead. Darker and sexier than mine, if you're fond of m/m fantasy with a bit of sizzle these may be just your cup of tea.

Over to you Kay:

What upcoming project of your own are you most excited about?

Right now, I'm pretty excited to get going on my third Greenwood novel. I'm going for an Iron Age winter setting this time, and want it to have a darker, grittier (and colder!) feel from the first two novels. The dynamic between my two protagonists is going to be very different. I'm having fun brainstorming the characters right now and have a feeling these two are going to be less willing to get down to the romance side of things than Brien and Scarlet, or Tam and Herne, although I'm hoping they're going to oblige on the mansexing front Like 'Bound to the Beast' and 'Bound for the Forest,' it will be set in the same universe but be completely stand-alone.

While doing research have you ever done anything really exciting or
strange?

I'm very lucky, in that my whole life has been a project of historical research, which I constantly feed into my writing. I used to work for the National Trust and go behind the scenes at a lot of beautiful properties. I once spent the night in one of the best bedrooms in a stately home, on a sleeping bag on the four poster bed and gazing at a rather stunning portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson! I've also uncovered a Roman meat cleaver on an archaeological dig. Imagining the kind of person who held it last was rather special. These, and many other wonderful experiences, have triggered story ideas (I haven't got around to writing them all yet.)

More directly related to the Greenwood novels, I spend a lot of time taking pictures of gargoyles and trees!

Who is your own favourite character?

Right now, definitely Herne the Hunter. I've had great fun creating my own version of his legend for 'Bound to the Beast.' My Herne was a tribal leader toppled from power at the time of the Roman conquest of Britain, and gifted immortality and his crown of antlers by the Mother Goddess. Ultimately, he's a good guy, but by the time we get to 1588, the age in which the rest of the novel is set, he's brooding upon a very dark past as the leader of the Wild Hunt. He's the ultimate tortured hero.

How long have you been writing? What made you start?

I've written most of my life, apart from when demands of university and work have got in the way. I took up writing seriously again about six years ago, and wrote fanfic vociferously until I finally took the plunge back into my own original fiction.

What was your first book and what was it about?

My first book was about a creature called Ogog, who lived in a cave. I wrote it when I was four. The illustrations were quite, uh, blobby, but the narrative structure of Ogog's tale was sound. Honest.

What are you enjoying reading at the moment?

I've just started 'Game of Thrones,' by George R.R.Martin. I'm enjoying the setting and world building so far – and it's certainly getting me in the mood to write some gritty sword and sorcery fantasy of my own.

Do you do anything to summon up inspiration – write to music, have a special writing hat etc?

I wish I had a good answer to this one, but I can't write to music. I need silence. When I get stuck, I kind of bash my head against the wall till I get through, as it were! I use 'muses', I guess – pics of people who have inspired characters, my favourite band members, actors etc. Looking at pretty pics doesn't always help, but it usually cheers me up!

What do you do when you're not writing?

I love travelling, and partially thanks to my husband's job, we get to see some amazing places. Over the past few years, we've spent time in Melbourne and Milan, and later this year we're off to Montreal and Dubrovnik. I write a bit when I'm on my travels, but I also like to take time to absorb the feel of new places and refresh my imagination. I tell my husband it's *all* work, because writers have to have interesting experiences to draw upon, right?

When we're at home, we love walking in the New Forest and visiting castles and other sites of historical interest. Once again, it's all work really. Honest.

What works in progress have you got on the go at the moment?

I'm just polishing up my first contemporary supernatural story, a novella about an elf who busks on the London underground. In this universe, elves are persecuted beings – but Kit, my elf, is hardly a defenseless, retiring violet, and is about to give the elf catchers as good as he gets, and a little bit more.

Have you seen those 'author's cave' photos that show the office/study/corner of the table where famous writers work? What does yours look like?

Actually, I've not seen many, but I'd like to. My study is a mess. There's books all over the desk, notebooks on the floor, scraps of paper covered in my illegible handwriting, a dirty coffee cup. It ought to be censored, but I've attached a pic!

~*~*~*~

Bound to the Beast, a Greenwood novel, is out 10th April, published by Loose Id.

Genres: m/m, paranormal, historical, fantasy, BDSM. Novel, 67,000 words.

Short blurb: The Greenwood, 1588. When a ritual goes wrong, Tam is bonded to legendary warrior, Herne the Hunter. As Herne's mastery awakens Tam's darkest sexual fantasies, will Tam beg for his freedom or to be bound to the beast forever?

Blurb: England, 1588. When a fairy betrothal ritual goes wrong, village lad Tam is bonded to Herne the Hunter. Warrior, legend, and Greenwood spirit, Herne once led the terrifying Wild Hunt, an army of the undead who rode as harbingers of doom. When his passions are stirred and his blood is up, Herne sports the antlers of a mighty stag.

Herne could be the lover Tam secretly craves, but Herne's past makes him fear the brooding warrior will enslave or kill him. While Herne admires Tam's toughness and humor, he has rejected love—as he has sworn off leading the Wild Hunt—and wishes only for solitude. To break their betrothal, they must travel into the Greenwood, a realm of magic and bondage where their desires for each other grow dangerously irresistible, and the Wild Hunt bays for their blood.

As the threat rises, Herne's mastery and compassion realize Tam's darkest sexual fantasies. Soon he's no longer fighting for his freedom, wishing to be bound to the beast forever. But can Herne's tortured heart be reawakened? And if so, will their love destroy them both, or prove Herne the Hunter's greatest weapon?

Bio: Kay is a historian who realized it was even more entertaining to make stories up and add a ton of fantasy, sex, and BDSM fun. She loves writing stories set in any time and place where she can indulge her love for research, while imagining two hot guys getting it on, but has a particular passion for English folklore.

She lives in Hampshire, UK, with her beloved 'other half' Chris. When they aren't both madly working, they enjoy drinking wine, visiting castles and gorgeous countryside, and stalking cats and greenfinches.

Her first novel, Bound for the Forest, was published in September 2011 by Loose Id.

More info and links to amazon etc.: http://kayberrisford.com/bound-to-the-beast/

Buy it now link: http://www.loose-id.com/The-Greenwood-Bound-to-the-Beast.aspx

For more about me, visit: http://kayberrisford.com

Elin Gregory gets the thumbscrews out

Well, her blog title is "Alex Beecroft put to the question," so I thought I'd follow the theme I'm guesting today on Elin Gregory's blog, where she asks me all kinds of fascinating things such as "what makes a hero?" and "is everything better with elves?" and "your characters – which would you snog, marry or avoid?" Even though I'm not a great blogger, it's hard to be boring when asked such interesting questions. To see whether I managed it nevertheless, go here http://elingregory.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/welcome-visitor

Thank you, Elin.

Bomber’s Moon Giveaway

I’m sorry! I know you must be even more bored of me going on about UtH: Bomber’s Moon than I am, but I did mention something on Tuesday about a giveaway. So I thought you might like to know that I’m running a “give away a copy to a random commenter” thingy over here on the Coffee and Porn in the Morning blog where I’m also waffling on about my love of rural England, Wallace and Grommit, and Dogrose Morris’s Beer-tray dance.

I hate it when people hard sell stuff to me, so I’ll just say ‘come if you want to, stay away if you want to, it’s all good ’

Bomber's Moon Giveaway

I'm sorry! I know you must be even more bored of me going on about UtH: Bomber's Moon than I am, but I did mention something on Tuesday about a giveaway. So I thought you might like to know that I'm running a "give away a copy to a random commenter" thingy over here on the Coffee and Porn in the Morning blog where I'm also waffling on about my love of rural England, Wallace and Grommit, and Dogrose Morris's Beer-tray dance.

I hate it when people hard sell stuff to me, so I'll just say 'come if you want to, stay away if you want to, it's all good '

Jessewave's blog gives Bomber's Moon 5+ stars and a Desert Island Keeper badge.

I'm so relieved – that gap between first publication and first review is always so full of angst. Will anyone like it, or will I have to change my name and tattoo someone else's face on top of mine just to show myself in public again?

But mega thanks to Leslie S for a review that made me squee repeatedly. (Yay, so delighted that Mr. Smith gets a shout out. He was a favourite of mine too.)

It's too long and detailed a review to sum up here. I'll just link you to it

http://www.reviewsbyjessewave.com/2012/04/04/bombers-moon/

and quote the conclusion:

"This is quite simply a perfect story—no slow moments, no 'meh' characters, gorgeous writing, a complex and coherent plot. I cannot wait to read the second part, Dogfighters, which is released in May and which I'll be reviewing later this month. Fantasy fans absolutely must pick up this book—and if you're not a fantasy fan, I urge you to get it anyway—you won't be disappointed."

Thank you so much, Leslie!

~

And to celebrate both the review and the heroism of Mr. Smith, here is that excerpt I promised you yesterday.

A bit of background – Ben knows the elves are trying to kidnap him. He's been given an amulet to protect him, which is basically a teaspoon of holy water in a BPAL imp. With this on him, the elves do not seem to be able to touch him directly. However, they are clever creatures and are slowly figuring out ways to get around that.

At half past one, Ben went back to work after lunch, spent a good couple of hours doing filing in the haunted basement. He's just come out to the bank proper again, and discovered that it is still half past one. And that's only the start of the creepiness:

EXCERPT

 

Outside the toughened glass, only the old man still sat in the same chair, his hands in the same position on his cup, the tea untouched. Something else was wrong. What? Ah, Ben couldn't make his brain work. It was as though he'd been turned to stone.

My mind is darting around like a fly in a jam jar. The thought came with a snap of self-disgust as bracing as a face full of cold water. Phyllis wouldn't panic like this. Grace wouldn't. All right. So they were here. What did he do?

Get out and run for the nearest cover. That's the pub.

He picked up one of Don's golf clubs as he passed the cubbyhole where they stood, unlatched the door to the foyer, dived through, club raised to shoulder height, ready to smash down on the first silver-limbed shape he saw. Despite the air conditioning, it was hot as a greenhouse out here, smelled like one too. The thick, acrid smell of hot-house plants filled the air. As he burst through, the old man seemed to come back to life. His expression of bemusement was closer to panic now.

"They all went," he said. "I've been sitting here for three quarters of an hour waiting for that lady to come back. And when I tried to get out, the door…"

The door! It revolved, as it always did a great, glass-and-chrome fan with four panels in a great glass-and-chrome cylinder. Outside the windows, he could see the movement and sunshine and the normal workday bustle of Bakewell on a summer afternoon. Through the glass of the door, only a glimpse of dark foliage and a smoke of pollen. The brushes on the bottom of each panel swept through moisture, and the glass was clouding over with steam.

"Bloody hell." Ben grabbed a phone from the nearest desk, raised it to his ear. A humming vibration began along the surface of the desk. The tea slopped over the edge of the cup. Silence on the end of the phone.

He slammed it down just as the computer screen flickered into life. The sound of its hard drive whirring up to speed was echoed from all the other desks in the foyer.

"What's happening?" The old man put down his plastic bag of documents, hauled himself upright. He was beige from head to toe, saggy as his cardigan, and Ben thought, Why couldn't I have a damsel in distress at least, as one by one the computer boxes began to shudder beneath the desks. With a tinny little ping, the first light bulb shattered above his head and shards of glass came raining down.

White light through the monitors filled his head with jagged edges. The whine of the tortured machines scaled up until the veins burst in his nose and blood poured over the back of his hand. The old man began to hobble to the door, and Ben grabbed him, leaving a red handprint. "Sir! Don't go out there. Please. I don't think you can get out that way."

"I fought in Singapore, you know."

"Yeah, but you've never faced these things."

The first computer monitor cracked with a shower of sparks. Wire and circuit boards came spewing out on to the desk. The thick glass of the screen lay like daggers on the floor, and a hot, thick wind skirled in under the door and lifted them into a whirlwind around his feet. "Please, sir. Just…um…" There wasn't anywhere safe in the damn room!

He ran to the door back into the old building, punched in the combination. If he could shove the guy through there, back into the fortunate bubble of real time wherever the rest of the staff were, then—

But it didn't budge. The same whining, gnat-wing vibration shivered through each tiny silver button, made his hand hurt with tingling, drove needles through the heel of his palm as he tried to force it open. Cracks had begun to form in the bulletproof glass of the windows.

Mr. Smith looked at him, hopefully.

"Don't look at me! I don't know what to do!"

From beneath the nearest desk came a bang and clatter as the metal sheets fell off the servers of each computer, rattled along the ground. Green jagged edges of exploded motherboard glinted with solder and chips as it burst into fragments and joined the whirlpool in the centre of the room.

Ben circled the thing, looking for something to hit.

"What is it?" Mr. Smith was fumbling with his glasses, peering at the frenetic shape. A wind tugged them out of his hand, and the thick lenses and wire frames were sucked into the pillar of metal and glass. "Those cost nearly one hundred pounds!"

"Just stay away from it!" Ben raised the golf club, took a swing at the whirlwind entity, and a sucking magnetic force wrenched his weapon out of his hand, sent it spinning. "Fuck! You just stay back, all right? I think…I don't think it's you it wants."

"It wants something?" Mr. Smith took a firmer hold on his walking stick, propped himself carefully upright with the other hand on the back of a swivel chair. In a moment of terrified irrelevance, Ben thought, This is what Chris would have been like, if they hadn't taken him. Shit. And he felt a strange wash of gratitude towards them, even as the spinning pillar of metal and glass began to speed, and to compact, shrinking inwards with pinging noises and giving off sparks and showers of debris.

There was a shape in there. The components scrunched together as though a great hand was assembling a man out of clay. Ben thought about cartoons, the grotesque violence of them, and shivered. He grabbed a chair, but it was padded, swivelling on castors, badly balanced and too heavy for a weapon. What else? Come on, there must be something in here I can use!

Beneath his cuff, he could feel the sweatband pull on the material of his shirt, feel the padded dimple that was a glass imp of holy water, tucked into the folded stretchy material. His whole defence and a weapon only of last resort. If he used it once, nothing would stand between him and their next attempt.

The thing had developed arms and legs now. The sound of metal crumpling added to the disturbing tick of the crack in the windows spreading. Darkness spread slowly out from the door. Ferns were nodding in a thick undergrowth a foot into the right-hand window. The dappled radiance of a green sun dazzled on the flagstones of Bakewell high street to the right.

With a thud, a thrown dictionary bounced off the coalescing creature. Ben looked beside him, found Mr. Smith holding his wrist and breathing hard, hurt and too proud to show it. The spirit was willing, but the body was weak. Taking courage from the example, Ben opened the nearest desk, threw files, Miss Cartwright's spare shoes, the wad of unopened printer paper.

They bounced off. But the whirlwind in the centre of the room slowed, stopped, and there stood a creature seven feet tall, its face formed out of broken glass, its body armour-plated with computer systems. Its metal hands held an axe of glass. Around its head, the torn-off cover of an office chair was wrapped like a red scarf. The little book of fairies turned up unbidden in Ben's mind at the sight. Red Cap, he thought, remembering tales of dread, not remembering that there'd been any advice at all on how to deal with them, other than "run away".

A smile made out of copper wire, and the creature's diode eyes fixed on him. It raised the axe and swung, turning. Ben had barely time to launch himself straight at Mr. Smith and push him out of the path of the blade. It whiffled down just beyond Ben's snatched-back fingertips. He felt the faint breeze of it, and then a cold, tingling rush of adrenaline and fear, and he grabbed the handle of the axe as the creature raised it, trying to pull it out of its hand.

All the mad strength of fear and fury did was to let him hold on as the Red Cap lifted the axe again, took him with it. It drew back its hand. He flapped from its wrist like a medieval dagged sleeve. To the thing, he might have weighed as little as a length of cloth as it tried to shake him off, and—failing—struck at the old man, Ben tugged helplessly through the air behind it.

Mr. Smith threw himself to one side with a soldierlike movement, but hit the ground like an invalid, crying out in pain. The wrist he'd cradled before he now pressed into his stomach, bowed over it, hunched over something broken. Ben got his feet under himself and lurched up, smacking his shoulder into the gnarled elbow of green plastic and grey metal. The pain was excruciating, it was like having his arm hacked off at the shoulder. He heaved in air to breathe around the zinging white agony of it. Pain spread like infection from shoulder to spine and thence throughout his whole body.

And the creature's arm didn't move a centimetre. It was like punching a steel door. It picked him up again. He got his feet under the armpit, reached one foot up and over to smash into the glass face, astounded at himself. But that too was as effective as kicking bulletproof glass. All it did was drive the edges deep into the rubber of his sole, make him wince and cry out as a knife-sharp shard pierced his instep.

Mr. Smith was fumbling with a dropped file, his broken wrist cradled against his chest, his other hand too weak to pick up the heavy bundle of papers on its own. The axe swung back with a crackling sound of thin metal and thick green plastic. The old man managed to raise the papers in an inadequate shield in front of his face, his mouth tight with Dunkirk spirit. The swing forward began, accurate and deadly, and Ben unlocked one hand from around the creature's arm, fumbled with his own wrist, and smashed the vial directly in the grinning glacial face.

Under the Hill Release day – universe crashes.

LOL! Well, perhaps that was slightly exaggerated for effect. But hurray! UtH: Bomber's Moon is out today, *and* it's available at a reduced price on the Samhain store. Down from $5 ish to $3 ish, which strikes me as a bargain.

However, and this is the sort of thing I've come to expect on a release day, because the universe likes you not to get too much of a swelled head, this apparently coincides with Samhain's entire site being down.

I believe that the buy link for UtH: Bomber's Moon is http://store.samhainpublishing.com/under-hill-bombers-moon-p-6712.html

(I hope so, because that's what I've put on my links on my website and sidebar.) But I can't actually check at the moment. I hope it comes back up while the bargain price is still available, because that was a good deal and it would be annoying not to be able to take advantage of it.

Of course, I could conclude that the site crashed because so many people all rushed to buy the book at once… But then I think the universe would have to humble me some more, and I'd rather not go there.

Anyone fancy an excerpt and a give-away, once I've come back from taking my youngest around town?

Under the Hill, Rogue's gallery

I may have mentioned before that I'm not the kind of writer who sees a movie in their head and writes down what happens from that. I'm the kind who has a head full of grey fog above a dark and unseen lake of words. I don't have pictures of anything. If I want to know what something in the book looks like, I have to stop writing, make a concerted effort to visualise and then reach for the words.

And I can do that fine for scenery. Houses, reed beds, dust bowls, Elven spaceports? No problem. But I don't seem to be able to do it for people.

This is why I now go out and find photos of people who look relatively right for my characters, gather them together in a folder on my computer, and periodically revisit them so I can hold their faces in my mind. Previously I've only bothered to cast my two heroes this way, but for Under the Hill I did all of the main cast.

Having done it, I thought I might as well share them. If you don't like having someone else's picture of what a character looks like thrust upon your imagination, look away now

 

OK, so this is Chris, our fearless but somewhat bemused fish-out-of-water leader

whom you may remember as an extra in an episode of Dr. Who. He appeared for about three seconds, had no name and no dialogue, and stuck in my mind so much that he ended up as the inspiration for the entire two volumes of UtH.

This is Ben, who is in the narrative position of being the damsel in distress – which at some level he is aware of and it annoys him mightily.

I sent these two pictures to the art department of Samhain when we were in the cover art design phase, and while they haven't got people who are exactly the same (naturally – how could they?) I am really happy with how close they came.

If I'm going to carry on assigning characters tropes that don't really fit them, then Flynn is the Princess in the Tower. Flynn was an easy man to find a picture for because that's not really his name, it's just what his mates used to call him because he looked so much like Errol Flynn:

Then we have Chris's team of eccentric ghostbusters. Here I moved away from actors and trawled iStockphoto instead, but they still turned out a little more glamourous than they ought to be.

Grace is the local vicar and the team's heavy-hitter in terms of supernatural ammunition.

This lady is close, but you'd have to imagine her with pink hair and a pink clerical shirt. She's more hippy chick than business chic.

Phyllis is the team's photographer – which is cleverer than it sounds since most of the things she photographs are invisible to the human eye. She started out birdwatching and moved on to ghosts for the challenge.

While Phil might look like this if she was going out to a party, normally she's more likely to be found dressed for hiking and weighed down with numerous camera bags.

Stan is the obligatory computer whizz-kid, to whom the team are indebted for their technology, which he cobbles together during woodwork lessons.

Meanwhile, back in Elfland we have

Sumala, who is slightly more literally a princess in the tower. That is, she is an Apsara princess, and like Flynn – with whom she teams up in an attempt to escape – she is being held prisoner by the elves.

This doesn't look an awful lot like her, tbh. For a start, she would never wear those shoes. This http://lightinthedarknessoflife.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/copyright4.jpg is actually a lot closer in appearance. But while the playfulness and sexiness of the linked picture is definitely part of her character, I like the sense of power and intelligence of the iStockphoto one more. Sumala may look like a sex kitten but you shouldn't judge her book by its cover.

And the antagonists of the piece:

Oonagh, queen of the elves

and Liadain the leader of the elvish resistance

(She's a tree, actually.)

And really these photos don't look a lot like them either (particularly Oonagh, who shapeshifts to suit her mood.) It's pretty impossible to find good photos of elves – for fairly obvious reasons. But these were a good combination of beautiful but eerie. Both of them like to look fragile, even though they drive the plot by machinations, lies and ruthlessness. Those things are only good political acumen when you're an elf, after all.