Emrys Sanders

:sandygrin:

> But of course - patience is paramount. Likewise, I am prepared to wait all night, if necessary.
>
> - Emrys, to Terrence

Emrys Sanders, commonly nicknamed as Sandy by Tilan, is an assassin residing in Levispolis, Evensol.

## Summary

Little introverted assassin kid who happens to be one of the most overpowered people on the continent. So overpowered, in fact, that he has achieved the ultimate state of being an assassin, i.e., appearing as a piece of background furniture by default.

Primary talents include stealth, combat, acrobatics, dancing, reading, academics, going unnoticed in plain sight, manipulation, scaring people, politics, and being secretly the pettiest little gremlin you can imagine when it comes to certain matters. He once went to the lengths of defeating a pineapple.

His general attitude to life is to act chill and swag about everything, hiding the fact that mental stimulation takes up over 95 per cent of his nutrient consumption, which isn't as extreme as it sounds since he somehow survives without eating that much. Or sleeping that much. Or maintaining his body temperature at all. Consider him one of those MUD characters whose bodies run on air.

If left alone, he probably would have been dictating the city by now for the sheer purpose of having to find something interesting to do; but right now he has Terrence, who is infinitely more complicated, infinitely more difficult to upset, and by the way actually manages to scare Sandy. Just a bit.

Together they demonstrate one of the worst ways to go about a relationship, being stuck in a state where both sides know the other person likes them and they like the other person back but refuse to engage in normal love activities of any sort, resorting instead to trying to annoy (for Sandy) or hurt (for Terrence) the other person as much as possible. Their primary method of communication involves a complex system of psychological analysis, expressions, subverbal cues, body language, staring, eyebrow raises, another inverse system of analysis, and, occasionally, using a few words as an indicator that a conversation has taken place.

Other acquaintances include Stephen Stephenson, his former teacher and now friend; Jack Dawkins, a student assassin who keeps on fanboying him; and Ralph Hayburn, his friendly acquaintance and werewolf business partner.

## Appearance

Sanders, with a height of 6'3", is surprisingly tall. He is in his mid-twenties, though there is something in his pose that suggests that he is much, much older than he seems, and that he has witnessed most that can be witnessed upon this world. His skin tone is on the far pale side, with a slight greyish tint to it.

His eyes are by far his most outstanding feature, being a piercing shade of pale greyish green. He seems to have near to no eye movement at all, and while he may smile, no expression ever appears to reach above his lips when around strangers.

His hair is medium length with a split on the far left, with the lowest strands never quite below the height of his eyebrows. There's a certain soft silky texture to them, and, alongside the sharp chin, the sharp wisp-like eyebrows, and the thin lips, it could be said that he looks more like a teenager than a full adult.

Though he has no fixed attire, he seems to prefer anything with coat tails (he likes the way they flap and flow after him) and lightweight shirts as his usual form of garment, as long as they're all in dusty black. For shoes, either French heels or (occasionally) ballet shoes when he's practicing dancing.

In proper assassin's gear, he sports a linen hooded cloak as well as black shirt and trousers, wearing a pair of heeled boots with the trouser tips tucked in. Around his waist is a belt carrying one of two pouches and a dagger in plain sight, though he almost certainly hides about a dozen of the things on his person. Should he ever need them, he could add another belt, a satchel, and probably a lot more, but since he dresses like an assassin for the only purpose of annoying Terrence, he finds them unnecessary and overly heavy for his liking.

## Personality

*"Him? He's a charmer for sure. Keeps throwing knives at me."*- Trikala

Sanders lives for challenges. He deals in politics and social networks, ascending the pole (and probably around the pole and just taking the pole away as well, considering his general style in these things) through series of sharp manipulation and the general quiet terrifying of everyone else.

His socialising side as an assassin is a brilliant example of what happens when an introvert kid is forced to take part in nearly every party and ball in the city from a young age since it's his job description. He's definitely still an introvert: quiet and rarely speaking among strangers, mostly standing somewhere in the background, but the years of attendance have become a habit, of sorts - he goes to parties not because he particularly enjoys them, but because he's used to going to them.

To those who encounter him during these mass social events, he's a quiet and polite young man whose mind seems to be constantly somewhere else when idle, but whose attention instantly focuses on you with the intensity of a dagger once you look at him for too long or attempt any form of interaction. There is also definitely the hint of a hidden sharp edge about the way he tones certain words. Though he's rather nice to be around in general (in the non-existent way that air is nice to be around too), over two or three hours of staying in the same room with him could be a deeply unsettling experience for any visitor. It's something about his gaze, how it never quite focuses on you while encompassing every detail of the whole world. Or perhaps how he has no eye movement at all, or his erect way of standing that is so slightly off from the normal stance. Either way, it would not be wise for a stranger to spend too much time in his close proximity.

His personality in private does not change that much, as for the most part he is still as quiet and unobtrusive as ever. When he does relax, though, he does so absolutely to the full. He dances jive, flaunts with cha-cha, throws knives at people, cheats at throwing dice during board games (as claimed by a disgruntled Stephen), and of course goes to find Terrence to do *stuff*.

Conversely, his full-fledged political side is just as stunning. As witnessed by several leading members of the Levispolis merchant class and most of the Peronium top-notch nobility, the fact that he looks like a teenage boy with questionable fashion sense and an even more questionable haircut does not diminish any of his talents at ~~quietly threatening people~~ negotiation.

## Skills

First of all, he is overpowered. I am very much aware of that and I currently do not have any wish to change it. Being overpowered is more or less the point of having him. Let the silly kid be a silly kid.

**Stealth**: He successfully stowed away on twenty-two different carts and carriages at the age of twelve, covering a total distance of over one hundred miles in the span of about ten days without even bothering to hide himself much. He also managed to trip up a seasoned assassin by just sitting quietly in the corner of an alley. What do you expect? There is only one mortal person in the continent who can detect him when he doesn't want to be, and that person can only do it while sleeping.

**Staring**: Very good at staring at people. A stare unnerving enough to rival or even surpass that of a witch. Very unnerving. *Very* unnerving. I'm sure I meant to write some more on this section... what was it again?

**Night vision**: Sandy had often secretly stayed up till two or three am reading books when he was primary school age, which was not that unusual untill you count in the fact that he never found the need for a candle or lamp. He was also able to read a newspaper without problem in the shadows of a shady alley when Stephen found him, and he sometimes reads at Terrence's house to while away the night regardless of whether there was moonlight or not. Sandy has never seemed to act like he considered this to be something that normal people do not do.

**Psychological manipulation**: He knows how to just generate the correct amount of fear into the air. There was in fact a silent contest between him and Stephenson's pet pineapple Charles (a being famed for terrorising visitors) when he first entered the household. Emrys won. This ability makes him masterful at negotiations, which become, to be frank, no longer negotiations once he enters the fray.

**Reading people**: He looks as if he's zoning out during every public or social event. As anyone who looks at him for slightly too long will quickly and regrettably realise, he's not. He has been, in fact, noting their every move from the start of the event and knows exactly what their worldviews, morals, fears, motivations, and current thoughts are. He is also the fastest person to have ever read Terrence, taking a total of about fifteen seconds during their first meeting.

**Dancing**: Very cool dancer; quite flexible too. He dances everything from waltz and tango to samba and jive, and he knows the female parts too.

**Body temperature**: Sandy is the very opposite of a cold-blooded reptile; that is, his body temperature stays exactly the same *no matter what*. It's always 34.5 degrees Celsius regardless of the environmental temperature and the amount of clothes he is wearing. He doesn't really change his attire across the whole of the year, in fact, though he sometimes wears a thin chiffon scarf during winter as a vague gesture. If anyone has noticed that the chiffon only has cooling properties... well, he doesn't care.

**Assassin skills**: Something that every decent assassin ought to have, though Sandy does it to the extreme. He's generally acknowledged as the best assassin in the city, at both the traditional combat/stealth and the more widely used societal modes. Personally he prefers throwing knives and daggers with a slash of crossbows, bows, unarmed combat, and poisons at the side. His balancing and acrobatic talents are just as spectacular, with him being more than able to walk on top of railings and the edge of clifftops with a careless flair.

**Hightened senses**: For anyone who has seen him perched on the edge of high buildings, apparently zoning out, and who has wondered what would happen if they just walked over and gave a push - forget it. He can actually feel your gaze on him as you think that thought.

**General stuff**: History, geography, societal knowledge, mythology, writing, art, music, reading, memory, science, mathmatics, playing monopoly, cooking, fashion, economics, whatever. He's adept at anything you can think of and he's unbelievably fast on the uptake on all the stuff that you can't think of as well. Though he's definitely not a true expert in any of the fields he doesn't normally deal in (such as playing connect four), he can learn in lightning speed and apply that knowledge as he sees fit.

## Romance

*"I would prefer it if you could take a break from your daily routine of mugging me in the streets."*- Terrence

One of those people with slightly questionable ways of treating romance, Emrys's idea of having a good time with a potential love interest is to terrify them as much as possible. All in an extremely gentlemanly manner, of course. And the roses, albeit at a slightly later stage.

Strangely enough, this works.

...except on Terrence, who refuses to be frightened, surprised, or even pretend to be so, giving off an air of "not again" every time Sanders tries something new, and generally only acting with a blend of reluctance, dissatisfaction, boredom, and complete blankness.

Faced with this guy, Sanders took on the task of seeing *just how much* he can manage to annoy Terrence. This resulted in a variety of actions, such as a constant throwing of knives towards said target, waltzing through Terrence's window at night, going around dressed in a cloak and a hood, balancing precariously on everywhere, and jumping out of nowhere to push Terrence against a wall with a sharp object against his throat.

Terrence (probably) does not especially like this. But while he always tells Sanders to stop, he has never *actually* stopped Sandy, and never once did he fight back against the assaults.

## Fighting style

*"It would have been suicide for anyone else, and it should have been suicide for him. Don't ask me why he is still alive."*- Tilan

Sandy... *fights*. He moves like a snake, with long periods of calm followed by an extremely sharp (and probably lethal) strike, usually to the neck. His steely grip as well as generally steely everything else, topped with a lightning-fast speed and a pin-point accuracy, makes him a formidable enemy in ambushes.

In one incident, he was able to render Terrence immobile in about five seconds. As Terrence is a pretty good fighter by himself and actually fought back seriously against Sandy for once, due to not realising who the attacker was in time, this should be considered a fairly accurate estimation of Sandy's true abilities.

He doesn't usually do melees and doesn't actually kill people at all, at least, not in Evensol. Nothing whatsoever to worry about. Yes, he is an employed assassin. No, he hasn't killed anyone so far. Assassins are not supposed to kill people. However, he has killed another cat in about two seconds in the Of Stars and Sights universe - on a battlefield, *without* the element of surprise - and this is certainly a fact that one should bear in mind when talking to him.

## Movement

Like both of the other professional assassins, Emrys has a way of moving that almost instantly sets him apart from the rest of the population.

His steps are unnaturally light, with the gait of someone who is more than used to balancing on narrow beams without sound. When he walks, he does so with both of his feet padding in a straight line: a backwards kick-like motion off the ground, whipping out to the front, softly straightening, and then landing toes first like a cat.

Unlike a cat, however, he is not hunched in the least - much the opposite, especially as he is an upper member of society, producing an overall effect that resembles a cross between a panther and a ballet dancer. When he stands, it is nearly always with one of his legs crossed behind or in front of the other, never putting weight on both feet at once.

His hand motions are likewise fast and delicate, with lightning speed in the middle of the action and soft silent elegance at the start and end. As is the norm, he mostly uses only the index finger and the thumb (plus a middle finger if absolutely necessary) to hold up any object regardless of its weight.

## Speaking style

*"A continuous supplement of sodium in every foodstuff item is not required for the proper daily functioning of the human body."*- Sandy to Terrence, on the topic of why he hadn't added any salt to Terrence's omlette

Typically softly spoken and politely courteous, though even more typically not speaking at all, Sandy is very definitely the quiet sort. Naturally, as an assassin, his job description is to be social; and, equally naturally, he socialises by being, for the most part, background. Greetings, introductions, toasts, and idle chat, of course, but he rarely overly engages in any type of conversation. For the most part, he's just a dark shape standing somewhere that you'd hardly notice.

Among his friends, he gets much more casual, often a deadpan snarker with quite a dry (and somewhat questionable) sense of humour, while when dealing with politics he can be much more threatening in his tone. Nevertheless, he always retains a certain elegant subtlety to his voice.

His accent is a refined RP, but not without a sense of the less intense received pronunciation accent that most commoners have.

## History

Emrys Sanders was born 24 years ago, his father a mediumly wealthy member of Peronium landed gentry. A pretty good start in life, except that his dad was both a drunk and a gambler who then soon landed the family in debt. His parents finding themselves unable to afford to raise him further, a twelve-year-old Sandy was sent to a town several hundred miles away to live with his grandparents, where he would presumably stay for a year or two before going to grammar school.

Sandy, who didn't particularly like this plan, decided to take his chance while him and the coach driver were spending their first night at a hotel. Taking his essential belongings and a stash of bread with him, he crept out of the window in the early hours of the morning and set out for the coast, half-hitchhiking and half-walking his way towards Levispolis (because everyone knows that Levispolis is the best place to get yourself started in life), where he heard there would be a fair a month or two later.

He managed to arrive in the city two weeks before the event. He was definitely not lost, no, if only because Sandy would never admit himself to be; but he was without anything to do, and so he roamed the streets, taking shelter wherever he could find it and slowly munching away at his food.

Sandy, being Sandy, could go for days without eating anything. Young and steady in the assurance that everything would sort itself out for him, he didn't worry at all. A boy in the middle of an unfamiliar city with no money on him, his only chance being at the fair two weeks later? No problem!

As it turned out, on the fourth day, something major happened.

He was stumbled upon by someone looking for an apprentice.

Quite literally.

Emrys was sitting in the corner of an alley, quietly studying a newspaper he found discarded on the ground - just being his usual inconspicuous self, no harm done to anybody - when a passerby tripped on him.

This passerby in question was in fact Stephen Stephenson, assassin, age 35, and in search of a student. The merchant smuggler Frederick Hayburn was advancing fast up the wealth ladder, and he requested his business partner (Stephen's employer) to help train a lad for him. The task thus fell on Stephen, who was originally planning to wait for the fair for his recuitment. Stephen was quite worried that the fair wouldn't turn up anyone suitable, and was thus incredibly preoccupied when he walked along one of the emptier alleys which everyone knew was pretty much thief and assassin-only territory.

Stephen didn't expect a boy to be there. He didn't notice the boy either, not until he realised that he was travelling face-forward towards the cobblestones very, very fast.

There were two outcomes of this incident.

The first and immediate outcome was that Stephen got a heavy bruise on the head, a twisted ankle, and a sprained right arm that took a month and a half to heal completely, while Sandy received but a mere startle from the very interesting article about the rains of freshwater carp in his grandfather's town he was reading.

The second and more long-lasting outcome was that Sandy, after Stephen got to his senses, got apprenticed by the assassin and was thus introduced to 1) Levispolis high-class society, 2) dancing, 3) daggers, and 4) books, items which he all enjoyed immensely apart from perhaps the first one.

He finished his apprenticeship at age nineteen, at which point Stephen declared that only he and Sandy were the two real assassins in the city, constructing a partial monopoly on the career and setting strict barriers between assassins and assassin wannabes - barriers that were managed by Stephen and Stephen only.

Stuff happened. Stephen got himself invested in his new (unofficial) student and possible crush Jack Dawkins, with whom Sandy soon became acquaintances with. Jack turned out to be a Sandy fanboy. Sandy, eventually, learnt to live with that. And then Stephen's employer vanished during the Wave of Mania, causing his former tutor to move to the Hayburns' employment as well.

In the meantime, Emrys established a firm relationship with the young inheriter of the industry Ralph Hayburn and soon found out that the kid was actually a werewolf, making the assassin one of the only six people in the city to know that secret. (The other five are, in turn, Frederick Hayburn, Ralph himself, Stephen, Aquila Lawson, and Serafine Ferrier.)

The huge change in the Hayburn company as it annexed Stephen's former one didn't cause Sandy too much stress, but the adjustments meant that he started to take walks along the docks, usually in the middle of the night. It was thus that one evening he dropped down onto the balcony of what he assumed was an abandoned government building and came face to face with a certain Peronium army lieutenant, who was, in fact, also taking a walk.

The two stared at each other for a solid two minutes, the assassin in the middle of reaching for his dagger, the officer very pointely *not* reaching for his sword or in fact anything at all that could ever be mistaken for a weapon.

It was confusion at first sight.

Sandy made the first move, straight-up demanding for the other person's name and address, a question which so startled the officer that he answered without thinking and regretted it *almost* as immediately, but by then the assassin had already dashed past him, made a swift leap over the side of the railings, and was vanishing away into the night.

This marked the start of Sander's romantic career, a relationship that would be later known as the infamous Sandrence ship.

As Frederick Hayburn began to embark on ever-farther sailing trips, the task of running the huge company fell more and more on Ralph's shoulders, who started to come to Emrys and Stephen to discuss matters. When a letter from the older Hayburn arrived saying that he will be retiring permanently to a nice island resort, however, the whole firm was much shaken. Ralph faced an rising tensions: partners and competitors alike thought they spied an inexperienced cinnamon roll in charge, i.e., a free buffet for everyone.

Ralph, determined to stabilise his position, announced in a business meeting that Sandy would be his secretary from now on, a move that completely toppled the social norms at the time. Everyone knows that you don't bring assassins to important stuff! Everyone knows that assassins are only used for socialising and showing off! Everyone knows that assassins only dance and drink and go to parties and... don't do anything else...

And everyone remembered where the name of the profession came from. How someone who could dance jive for a consecutive two hours without a sound could employ those same skills while on a rooftop. How, despite all the etiquette and classic education, the main and most central part of their training still consisted of the simple art of killing people.

...How faint amusement seemed to dance in the Hayburn lad's eyes as he read out the next item on the agenda.

And then they looked at young Sanders the assassin and realised that, even after all their interactions during events, they didn't know him that well at all. They never heard him talk beyond a few sentences, never mind hearing his opinions on the principals of market and economy, which, when you thought it, wasn't all that comforting.

Within two months, Sanders had ascended to the co-owner of the Hayburn company in all but name. Where Ralph was, there he would be also. While Ralph specialised in technical details of money flow and organisation, Emrys became the face of the firm, negotiating, bargaining, persuading, getting deals on better and better terms. Business bloomed.

On the year when he turned twenty-four, there was a turn in events as the biannual tax collection from the Peronium government came. While Levispolis flourished as the largest trade centre on the continent, the Peronium Empire to which the city-state belonged to wasn't doing that well. Under a corrupt dictatorship with a government that demanded more and more money, the burden of tax was soon placed on this pearl of city-ports. Or, more specifically, the smuggling/merchanting trade.

The total tax turned out to be seventeen per cent greater than the tariff and tax for common non-Levian merchants combined together.

Ralph was outraged. What was the point of being a smuggler when you had to pay more taxes than normal merchants?

A council of all the major company owners was assembled. They agreed that while they all hated each other in various degrees, this was nothing compared to the hatred they shared for government spending. The tax collectors were sent back with no money. Levispolis would not accept the taxing conditions.

The Peronium Empire declared war.

Fine, said Levispolis, and declared independence.

Ralph was by now pretty much the leader of the bunch, and agreed to Emrys heading out to the Empire for peace negotiations first. The very painful truth was that Levispolis had no military of its own of and wouldn't last more than a few weeks against the full onslaught of the Peronium army, corrupt as they might be. Sandy declined taking anyone more than a clerk along with him - no guards, no company, nothing.

(This also meant that he had to be away from Terrence for a while. Terrence took this chance to get himself into heaps of trouble with his superiors that Sandy later had to nearly literally drag him out of.)

Sandy's arrival impressed nobody. Apart from the fact that all Levian trades were heavily discriminated by the Peronium nobility, he had no titles (and even if he had any, everyone knew that Levian titles were not the real thing), no lineage, looked like a teenager, had what was known as an unacceptable fashion sense among upper class Peronium society, and *hey do you even call that a hairstyle.*

But then he started to talk and maybe, they realised, the kid wasn't that much of a kid after all. They had thought that he was a kitten pretending to be a cat. And then he turned out to be a panther.

Barred from a direct counsel with the Emperor, Sandy nevertheless made himself useful on the first few days. He visited nobles, contacted secretaries, and dealt with two assassination attempts with a level of professionality that would have even surprised Stephen.

A private meeting with the ruler of the Empire was finally arranged on the fourth day. After some lengths of discussion that stretched over a week, a compromise was apparently reached: that Levispolis would issue an apology, would still pay nothing more than the amount of taxes paid the year before last year, and trade relationships between Levispolis and the Empire - sorry, the *rest* of the Empire - would continue as normal, if not better as before.

*Apparently.*

The Emperor only agreed to it by mouth. Levispolis was rich and defenseless, two perfect reasons for attack. The Empire needed thise taxes, or at least thought it needed them. So why not detain the envoy and just invade the city instead? Levispolis didn't even have city walls.

Sandy then gave a very good demonstration of how to walk out an ambush, which was to not walk in one. To the initial amusement and subsequent alarm of the Emperor, Emrys started to Talk about Matters.

No one quite knew what happened next. But a day later and Sanders was back on the way to Levispolis, and everything was okay again. He had to bail Terrence out on the way back (much to Terrence's displeasure), but all in all the trip was pretty uneventful.

And everything went back to being relatively normal once more, if you counted the everyday chaos that is Levispolis as normality.

## Relationships

### Terrence Milligan

...Or, as Sandy calls him, the Lieutenant.

They have quite a *thing* going on.

Sandy is the only person to have seen Terrence for more than half of who he is upon their first meeting. Sandy was intelligent, subtle, and manipulative, and he recognised others like him when he saw them.

But Terence... one look into Terrence's eyes and he was head over heels. When he looked, he didn't see anyone manipulative in the least; what he did saw was a person who would never be seen as a manipulator, someone who would go about his daily business and still bend both himself and the world around him to his will. While Sandy had thought himself at the top of the ladder, Terrence was walking on the air as if he had been doing it all of his life.

The magnitude of all this gave Emrys quite a shock, and from then on he was dead obsessed with Terrence.

Once getting himself over the initial jolt, however, Sandy thought sensibly about stuff and started to annoy Terrence as much as possible, mostly in the form of being a maniac threat to society, or at least being a a manic threat to Terrence. Terrence, in response, makes a point about not making a point about any possible feelings which he might have for Sandy, which to any intelligent observer is a definite signal that Terrence does have feelings for Sandy, or at least that Terrence wishes to signal that he is signaling that he is making a point about not making a point about the fact that he does have feelings for Sandy.

Though neither of them will ever admit it, Emrys was and still is slightly scared of Terrence.

Their relationship gets more chaotic by the day, as is the case of any attempts at psychological analysis for stuff that Terrence does. A more detailed documentation can be found here as this space alone is simply Not Enough.

### Stephen Stephenson

Their first meeting resulted in Sandy getting nearly everything that he could wish for in life and Stephen getting his arm almost broken. Sandy as a student was a reason of a ton Stephen's headaches, partly because young Emrys was a brilliant student who tended to outswag himself, but mostly because Stephen got his head hit on the cobbles really hard when he stumbled on the kid.

Despite all this, the two assassins have always had an amiable relationship between them. Emrys is a frequent visitor to Stephen's attic (which by now has become this sort of assassin club lounge), and often hangs out with Ralph, Jackdaw, Aquila, and others at private parties hosted by Stephen.

Emrys and Stephen are now close friends, though Sandy, whose family got ruined from alcohol, is still quietly disproving of Stephen's extraneous drinking habits.

### Ralph Hayburn

Emrys didn't pay much attention to the Hayburn boy at first. He was aware that the lad was the nephew of his employer, but teenage Emrys didn't get a lot of chances to speak to the younger boy, who was constantly busied with study. Once Ralph graduated as a lawyer, he was immediately sent as a student secretary or something to Stephen's company instead. As one of Sandy's life philosophies was that everything would sort itself out for him, he didn't think too much about the young clerk.

And then there was the thing with Mania and the disappearance of Stephen's employer, which meant that everyone formerly in the same firm as Stephen would now be in the Hayburn company instead. This of course included Ralph, and Sandy started taking a keen interest in his apparent future employer.

And of course Sandy found out in no time that Ralph was a werewolf.

He kept the secret, of course, and was in a close enough relationship with Ralph for the latter to eventually introduce Sandy onto the wider playing board to maintain Ralph's own position. The two - one the official owner of the company, the other a co-manager in all but name - now work in almost perfect complement to each another.

Regardless, their relationship is still more on the business side, and there is a thinly-veiled wall between the two ever becoming more than trusted acquaintances.

### Jack Dawkins

Jackdaw, the kid who will always remain a kid to Sandy.

Stephen took on Jack as an unofficial student when Sandy was twenty-one. Emrys was quite aware of the Dawkins boy's existence and fanboying activities among the assassin wannabes in the city (Emrys keeps track of all prominent merchants and any amateur assassins extremely well), and Stephen proclaiming to him one day that this kid is now the third assassin in the city came as a somewhat anticipated event.

Emrys is fine with being with Jack as long as Jack doesn't overstep the boundaries. Generally pleasant to hang around with, but never close friends.

### General perception in society

Strangely enough, Emrys isn't all that famous outside of the circles he deals in; even inside those circles, those who haven't encountered him privately rarely think of him as anything more than a piece of background, or, at most, a shadow to either Stephen or Ralph, depending on what he is doing at the moment.

There is just something about him that eludes attention. Stephen is the clear leader of the three assassins, being the oldest and the teacher of both others, making all the decisions about who to include and who to not. Emrys, though the actual best at being an assassin, has never asserted his place as a co-leader. In truth, Stephen would never have been able to marginalise everyone else if not for Sandy, as Sandy is clearly better than Stephen in terms of assassin skills and it wouldn't make sense for Stephen to just declare himself an assassin and exclude everyone else (including Sandy).

Emrys just goes along with whatever shenanigans Stephen has thought of. Declare everyone else not really assassins? Have a club lounge? Include Jackdaw? Set up a bar at the club lounge? Have a sadistic pineapple as a mascot? He is fine with anything. And, because Emrys never objects, Stephen has enough support to do whatever he wants.

Something similar goes on with Sandy's more business-oriented side of his job. As Ralph's secretary in name, he trails Ralph in most of Ralph's meetings as a note-taker and an observer, usually taking over the conference by himself only when Ralph has other pressing business. His assistance, however, is more than substantial: mostly, just him being there would force the other side to tip to a more favourable hand. It might be the way he seems to listen, or the way his eyes indicate a complete attention to every word as a passageway to your mind.

To those who have dwelt with Sandy, let me put it this way: they wish they haven't.

There is also a theory going around that Sandy is secretly in charge of the whole company with Ralph as his puppet. Both Ralph and Sandy have denied this.

## Galleries

*Any uncredited piece of art was made by Tilan.*

### Reference art

Headshot; also square version of Tilan's pfpHairstyle design :>EEEEK ASTONISHING ART BY SkyjanQuest!!!!EPIC sandy art by MysticParadox :D wistful expression at twilight = waiting for nightfall so he could bother Terrence:sandygrin: for the apof discord lolHe has Habits.
### More amazing art

Sandy with Terrence. By Fincloud! :DSanders with his spirit animal, a black mamba. Rubbish art by Tilan that makes him look Asian when he is in fact white.Sandscale's snake form by Nappy!Sandscale text art by Silvery :3Sandy but he's a cat :DDD by OnyxDo not hold daggers like Sandy T\_THe's actually got a reference!Vetinari + Moist von Lipwig = golden childASTONISHING comic by Onyx! :DDDBy yokunna. Absolutely amazing person and artist. Sandy is grinning so hard even though his dagger can barely reach Terrence's sword hilt xD love this so muchBy TopTop\_L :3 So cuteSandy by zombiyh! And no, he isn't actually going bald ;-; sandy really has marvelous hair /genSandrence by ausiecat! Amazing person, kept talking about how gay the two are in my dms :pEmrys expression sheet by MorganGallagher! Extremely ooc but i love it :3 he's so cute omgby ArchDoodlez, with Sandy the second from left :DSandrence by Xen! She's a feral artist and she actually drew humans for me?? aaaaaby Nappy. This came as a surprise at the end of af <3Af mass attack by renkummi, with Sandy at the top right looking cute.THIS IS SO CREATIVE aaaa. by Forelle!By Amber-Lynn :DArt trade with Ink! EPIC aaaaaChibi art by Holly :3
## Creation

Sandy was created in June 2022, but to get to that I must first talk about Vetinari.

I first came in contact with the Discworld series in the spring semester of 2020, when I was in fifth grade. Covid was raging at the time, which meant that I didn't need to go to school anymore and had very easy online classes instead. I finished all my school stuff each day before lunch, spent the afternoon doing more academic stuff (as well as playing with my guinea-pig), and still had loads of free time left over.

My mom was recommending Discworld since I had loved Douglas Adams's The Guide, and, because my English level was finally enough to understand Discworld, I read them. And fell in love.

And then there was the test for my current school's ~~Earth Destruction Project~~ Early Development Programme, I got in, and things got busier. I still read Discworld though, because it was a thing I did <3 There wasn't a moment when Discworld wasn't my favourite series pf all time.

The spring of 2022 marked another wave of covid in my country, and we were reduced to online classes again. And I, to put something that isn't at all brief briefly, fell in love with Vetinari.

I also had this interactive rpg going on with my bestie before the second covid break, because I was (and still am) the sort of person who enjoys doing these things B) When we were reduced to online messaging, our game naturally paused and I was left with a break.

For background, my bestie in this game was a lenix called Frostina, belonging to a social fox-like species that could climb trees. She was born as one of the four successors to the tribe, and she had managed to kill all her three siblings (Reis, Hound, and Slit) through a series of political challenges to secure her place at her throne.

But now she had to deal with new challenges, namely the Clans over the mountain (we both read Warriors), MoonClan, DayClan, CloudClan, and NightClan, that her tribe had been in tense relationships with. The leader/her dad Steel decided to invade them once and for all, managed to conquer them (with Frostina leading the attack on NightClan), but then had to sort out secret organisations and s t u f f inside the unhappy Clans, a task which fell on Frostina.

To do this, she made use of two young orphaned spies, Darkstream and Silverfeather. Frostina carried intel of the rebels over to Steel, who decided to stage an ambush on the plotting cats; unknown to the tribe leader, however, Frostina planned this with the two spies - she was going to have her dad ambush them, but her dad would get ambushed by the Clannies instead, and then after her dad "gloriously perished in the fight" she would lead the rest of the troops over to finish the Clannies. Bam. Two birds with one stone, and she'd get to rule both the tribe lands and the Clan lands.

Unknown to Frostina, Darkstream and Silverfeather were actually double agents working for the rebel leader/past NightClan deputy Echostab all along. So when Frostina's forces went out to ambush the rebels who ambushed Steel's forces who were going to ambush the rebels, they got ambushed by the rebels instead. And then there was more war and Frostina's tribe getting eventually chased out of their own land onto the plains by the Clan cats and Frostina had to deal with her still-alive mother Spirra who kinda wanted to abuse her daughter's throne, her aged general Foxash having a fever, and her sub-commander Rice not being the best subordinate.

Fortunately Frostina still had her most trusted general Moor and her friend/past-mentor Thornshadow :D which meant that everything was all right. Moor was middle-aged and yet not really old (about forty-five in human years), reliable, wise, intelligent, politically acute, and, most of all, loyal, the perfect deputy to trust <3

And BOOM comes Sandy, this small black dot on the plains who came from nowhere and introduced himself as Sandscale, and said that he wanted to join the tribe :D

Moor, even though his back was turned, visibly stiffened at the sight of the newcomer.

There were some who could be said to have a natural gravity in terms of acquiring power. It just flows to them. On this scale, Moor would be a neutron star - he was the second-in-command of the tribe, had the elite force of the whole lot, and to tell the truth probably held more power than the leader herself. He had been Steel's friend/advisor when Steel was alive, and now that Steel had died he was Frostina's most trusted. Slay.

But Sandy was a black hole.

And the power struggle began - between the older, more respected general and the younger, more competant newcomer.

Frostina, knowing better than to put Sandy directly in Moor's forces, assigned him to Foxash's group. Foxash died soon after and Thornshadow took over Foxash's soldiers, which naturally led to Sandy quietly terrifying the young general enough for the Thornshadow to recommend him to Frostina in place of himself. And so Sandy and Moor started disagreeing constantly at war discussions, almost tearing the tribe apart in a battle of their own. Frostina wasn't pleased by this, but it at least meant that she wouldn't have to deal with her mom anymore.

No further plot because we never got to advance beyond that part T-T

So Sandy was born B) He was humanised half a year later, with his earliest design looking like Vetinari; at about April 2023 though, Tilan took inspiration from Emily's The Other Side animatic and completely altered his design to the current version, giving him medium length hair and a sharper chin.

## Trivia

1. He was made in the middle of June 2022 as an npc for Tilan and her bestie's rpg game, with Tilan being the gamemaster.
2. He was originally heavily inspired by Lord Vetinari from Discworld, though now both his appearance and personality has vast differences to the Patrician.
3. Emrys is an expert dancer (best mortal dancer on the continent, in fact) and can do anything from waltz and tango to cha-cha and jive. Including the female parts.
4. He wears high heels.
5. His eye colour as a kid was dark brown.
6. He does cook, though only for Terrence. And no, he will never add salt or in fact any spice at all.
7. He once wore a dusty black party hat during Tilan's 2023 bday.
8. He spent fourteen thousand levs (about two hundred thousand US dollars) to get an extremely fancy dagger for Terrence, knowing that the latter will hate it.
9. Another thing that he has bought for Terrence is a black chiffon scarf, equally unused by the latter.
10. He would definitely be a Linux user B)

1. ↑ Terrence and his subconscious.
2. ↑ i.e., pushed to the wall, knocked out of breath, and with something sharp on his throat.
3. ↑ I am not sorry but I have severe brainrot.
4. ↑ Unknown to Sandy, Terrence earlier the same day had also given a very good demonstration of how to walk out of an ambush, which was to *walk out of it*. This actually worked.
5. ↑ Because he would sort them out himself if they didn't, and Sandy is very aware of his ability to *sort things out*.
6. ↑ In any other world, this would actually be definitely true. However, this is Evensol and Sandy is too preoccupied with Terrence to care about anything else.