Tattered Sketch - Elyas Machera
Author: Leala ni al'Dareis t'al'Caleum
Published: July 11 2021 - Tar Valon Times Blog Link
This article contains spoilers for The Eye of the World.
As you may or may not know, my life has been a bit busy, getting ready for my upcoming wedding! It’s in less than two weeks now. [At time of article submission.] So when our Editor, Jahily al'Karee asked me who I planned to draw for this month, I turned to the love of my life, Ignis al'Caleum, sitting on the sofa next to me, and asked him. Because…my brain was just the shrug emoji when put on the spot. He suggested Elyas Machera, so I immediately reported this back.
I really like Elyas. When Mat and Rand were separated from the main group in The Eye of the World and were on their way to Caemlyn, they had Thom Merrilin as their older mentor figure. Perrin and Egwene stumbled upon Elyas, a strange old man with a pack of wolves as his buddies.
It was a good thing that Perrin ran into Elyas when he did, because he was given a crucial heads-up that he would be communicating with wolves a lot, and soon. Elyas introduced Perrin and Egwene to the pack that follows him, and explained what it’s like to communicate with them as well. Egwene, always willing to learn about the world around her, and trying to be polite but ultimately being awkward in this instance, asked if the skill could be taught.
Elyas is described as having really long gray hair, and a really long beard, which makes sense, because he only hangs out with wolves all the time. He has the golden eyes of a Wolfbrother, and his clothes are made of mostly fur. He also has a delightfully dry sense of humor.
I knew I wanted to draw a specific scene from the first book that I had recently read during The Wheel of Time Re-read. But when I read the scene again, it was so much better than I remembered from just a few weeks ago.
Yup, it’s the scene where Elyas catches Egwene and Perrin in their half-baked lie about why they’re on the road. The part that I didn’t catch at first was that the wolf to make a comment about how delicious they look was the one that had snuggled up to Egwene.
Oh, Burn. You scamp.
