Zojja's Pride

What happens when you have a fantasy kingdom with TWO self-professed master races?

The Story

In the blue corner we have the Asura, a race of diminutive scientists who were crafting holograms, shields and robots while the "lesser" races of Tyria are still using bows and arrows.

And amidst these small bundles of well-deserved arrogance, strides Zojja, one of their greatest minds and hardest hearts, pushing away nearly anyone who tries to get close to her, lest they cause her pain again.

That's how she treats her friends, to say nothing of how she treats those with the stupidity to have been born into another race.

And in the red corner we have the Charr, a warrior race of hulking, horned felines who literally killed their gods, then reclaimed their homeland from the humans and marched forth to the land of the human Gods.

Centuries later the Charr hold a tenuous peace with the "softer" races of Tyria, allied for now against a shared threat.

And amidst these sabre-toothed giants, strides Denjar, an engineer with a sharp mind well suited for making the great metal war-machines of her race.

But unlike other Charr, Denja sees Asura technology not as a threat, but as a chance, a way to further herself and her race's mechanised conquest. And who better to teach Denjar about the wonders of the Asura, than her idol, the great Zojja?

*   *   *

Zojja stamped along the wooden bridge, storming away with all due fury from the shared INCOMPETANCE behind her!

Re-unite Destiny's Edge?! Ha! You may as well try to bring back the dead, for that's precisely what it would take for her to forgive those simpletons, to ever trust them enough to fight with them again, ever! Oh, she's made that mistake before, thought she could trust those small-minded fools! They'd all thought they could save the world, but they couldn't even save one of their own. Couldn't save...

"Zojja!" the rough voice of a Charr snapped her out of her thoughts, the 'voice' followed by the approach of clawed feet rasping across the wood of the bridge as the animal bounded up to behind her. Reluctantly, Zojja turned, finding herself staring up at a laughable travesty.

It was a Charr, easy to tell from the brown fur covering the hulking beast from the tip of its tail to the start of its horns. But its clothes! It wore the usual thick leathers of its race, usually accented by iron plates or steel spikes, but here mixed with brass fittings, tool pockets, and a belt of glowing Asuran tools?! There was even a holo-gauntlet, the bright orange geometry of holographic controls slowly circling around a wrist of sweating fur, the controls themselves arrayed before fingers as much bone claw as flesh!

But most laughable of all was the face - a white chin and brown muzzle meeting in sabre fangs, a wet black nose and thick black mane both matching the deep black of a wide, round eye - only one eye visible, the covered by the brass, glass and glowing lines of an Asura style power-monocle. An engineer's optical tool, its leather straps running taught between bone horns and pricked feline ears to secure this piece of advanced Asuran technology to the head of a stinking beast! Oh, the sight was just too pathetic for words!

Denja couldn't understand why Zojja was laughing. Had, had she done something wrong? She'd rehearsed this so many times, what she'd say to her idol if they ever met her, what theories they'd debate, what project's they'd collaborate on - but it wasn't all meant to start with laughter! She, she didn't know what to do, she...

"I" - she blurted, "I just wanted to say that, that I, that..." Denja's words stammering to an awkward stop.

Zojja was wiping tears from her eyes, "Ooh, thank you," she began, "I needed that, I really did. Now," she drew herself up again, "go away." Zojja turned to leave.

"But -" was all Denja could muster.

"But what?" her tone that of someone who is starting to think the joke is getting old. "What do you want, Charr?"

Denja almost fell backwards. She'd heard people say 'Charr' like that before, as if it were a dirty word, but she'd usually heard it from squishy humans or lower-class Asuran portal guards. She'd never, ever even imagined she'd hear it from... "I" Denja tried, "I just wanted..."

"Wanted what!" Zojja demanded, only a hint of a smile remaining on her hard face, "Wanted to waste my time? For Alchemy's sake - spit it out already! Can you even speak? Speak words you?"

Zojja was circling Denja now, critically appraising the shaking Charr with an air of disapproval, as she continued: "By the Eternal Alchemy look at you! You wear these ridiculous clothes as if you were a real scientist, yet you can't even form a sentence?" Zojja grabbed a tool from Denja's belt, pointing it up at the recoiling Charr as she demanded: "Which Asura did you steal these tools from then? Well, who?!"

"I - I made them myself" Denja's voice was so small, "I studied Asuran designs, your designs, Snaff's designs, and then I" - the tool hit Denja in the head just ahead of Zojja's screaming voice:

"DON'T YOU EVER SAY HIS NAME, YOU, you, YOU BEAST!"

And that was it. That was the last Zojja said before storming off twice as furious as she had been before, leaving Denja staring after as her dreams fell around her. The scientist within her, ever observing from the back of her mind, found it interesting how motionless the world seemed, how silent, how the moment of such total heartbreak left you waiting, wondering if it had really happened.

Yes, it had happened. Zojja had called her a beast. Zojja - Zojja -

A Charr is a figure to be wary of at the best of times - eight feet of fur, muscles, claws, fangs and horns creating an image something akin to a wall of razorblades, even when relaxed. But when a Charr is angry - when the fur bristles, the muscles bulge taut, the claws tense, fangs sneer and beneath the horns one black eye glares at Zojja's retreating back - that is a figure to remember in your nightmares. And from that figure, a voice of dangerous calm uttered, "Beast, you say?"

*   *   *

A few weeks later, Zojja awoke, groggy with the aftereffects of a powerful tranquilliser. But no drugs could slowher mind, which told her she was in a dark workshop, underground if her twitching ears could tell from the way the rhythmic clunk of machinery echoing through the walls of the enclosed space. And she, she was bound, securely, her cuffs held taught by thick, spiked steel chains that looked distinctly Charr in origin. And she was not alone.

A strangely familiar Charr was looking down at her through the darkness, a low beast whose name Zojja never bothered to remember, but now wished she had. A face now looking much more animal, even despite the glowing power-monocle, its low orange light casting sharp shadows across the horned and muzzled visage staring down at her, a face now stripped of the childish adoration and meek fear it had held on their last encounter, all replaced with a worrying intensity and focus, and a fanged smile dark with deliberate intent.

Denjar lifted her modified holo-gauntlet, one claw bending in to press a control to start the recording. She began: “Re-Education Experiment 01 of 21. The subject is finally awake....”

The Work

This was my first really finished artwork, and also my own way of dealing with the arrogant, abrasive and extremely hurtful little Zojja in Guild Wars 2. (If you'd played the game and none of these traits sounds remotely right to you, play as a race other than Asura, and wait until you play the Sorrow’s Embrace Dungeon on Story Mode.)

Feeling a very definite desire to turn the tables on Zojja, and show her exactly what it feels like to be treated as less, I made this work, with the hope of it inspiring a roleplay, or if not an adult-themed short-story, the start of which I've toyed with above.

Enjoy. I certainly did.