Cold Ashes & Fiery Seas — Episode 6: Are You With Me?
Aeneas comes down to the camp before the last fires die. Creusa has long been asleep; old Anchises is still reading the stars and tells his son that Zeus will show them the way. At the name Aeneas's pupils widen, but he only says that the gods left them the night Troy fell. By morning the camp is hungry again, and Sergestus blames the mercy that spared the village. Aeneas explodes: the hungry are not their enemy; the kings and gods who ate Troy's grain and left it to burn are. He calls everyone who suffers under gods and kings to march east with him. At first there is only a murmur. Then Creusa takes his hand, a shivering boy grips his tunic, and one by one the camp follows. Village by village the fish keep coming and the young keep joining, until thousands of fires burn below the walls of the first imperial city of the east.
1. Aeneas comes down into the winter camp before the last fires die. Creusa has long been asleep. His father Anchises sits in front of his tent reading the sky, and far off at the edge of the camp two sentries keep watch.2. Anchises, full of hope: 'Zeus will show us the way, I know it.' At the name Aeneas's pupils widen, but he says nothing about the thunderbolt. Only: 'The gods are long gone, father. When Troy fell, I understood they had abandoned us.'3. 'Go and sleep now. It will be morning soon.' Anchises goes into his tent. Aeneas stops at his own and looks at Creusa asleep by a clay lamp; he does not wake her. Over the two sentries the stars go out one by one.4. By morning the camp is hungry again. 'Fish again?' 'How will we get through this winter?' Nobody answers. In front of a tent a thin boy sits shivering, wrapped only in a torn cloth.5. Sergestus, who wanted to plunder the village, comes to Aeneas: 'All of this is the result of your decision, my prince. Next time, please turn your mercy in the right direction.' Aeneas's face darkens. 'My mercy is in the right place, Sergestus!'6. Their survival does not need people as desperate as they are to die, robbed of what they don't have; the Trojans stand on their side now. The enemy is the kings and the gods who fed on Troy's olives, wheat and grain and left it alone when it was worst. Sergestus: 'Who are we to challenge the gods?!' Aeneas climbs onto a cart: 'I am Aeneas! Grandson of Zeus, prince of Troy!'7. His call: everyone who suffers under gods and kings, come with him, until the last empire falls and the last god is afraid to face them. East, to the mountains and the plains, to new villages and new peoples. Whoever follows him will not go hungry until the last river runs dry, and those who watched Troy die will answer for it. 'Are you with me?!'8. At first, only a murmur. Then Creusa comes up behind him and silently takes his hand. The shivering boy sees her and holds the edge of Aeneas's tunic. The women come first, then Anchises, then the spears.9. 'Get ready. At first light tomorrow we march east. Our first stop is yesterday's village.' Every village gets fish and gives its young; one night in each, and on the third morning they move on. Below the walls of the first imperial city of the east, thousands of fires burn.
The cast
AeneasDardanian prince, son of Anchises and Aphrodite. A soldier of Troy on the night it ends.AnchisesAeneas's father. Old, scarred by lightning, keeper of the household gods.CreusaAeneas's wife, daughter of King Priam.AscaniusAeneas and Creusa's young son.AchatesAeneas's closest friend and shield-brother.PriamKing of Troy.PolitesPriam's youngest son.NeoptolemusSon of Achilles. The man standing over Priam at the altar.ZeusKing of the gods, and Aeneas's grandfather through Aphrodite. He speaks once, then turns his back.AthenaGoddess of wisdom and war-craft. She stood with the Greeks, and she tells Aeneas it is over.AresGod of war, Aeneas's uncle. He loves the fight more than any side in it.HadesLord of the dead. The only god who is kind to Aeneas, and the one who offers him a bargain.PoseidonGod of the sea. The kings of Troy never paid him for their walls.SergestusA Trojan spearman who got out of the burning city with nothing and nobody. Says aloud what hungry men think.MyrinaElder of a small hill village. She has outlived three raids by refusing to fight them.LykaEight years old. Frightened and brave at the same time.
How it was made
1. Four faces, one camp
Aeneas, Anchises, Creusa and Sergestus are drawn from the same reference sheets as in the earlier episodes. This time every figure was also asked for natural human proportions and an eye-level camera, and the colour a reference sheet slipped into Creusa's dress was taken back to black and white.
2. Room for the words
Aeneas's call is the longest speech of the series. In the first drawings his head filled the top of the frame and the balloons covered it, so those panels were drawn again with open winter sky above him, and the page composer was told where the faces are.
3. Faces first
Every panel states what each face must show: Anchises's hope and then his hurt, Aeneas's pupils at the name of Zeus, his fury, Sergestus's shock, the boy's fear and Creusa's silence.
4. Nine pages
Written by the Ghost Writer from the author's beats, drawn panel by panel in the Graphic Studio, then lettered and composed into nine pages.
Written and directed by the author, drafted and drawn with the AI tools in Boost Your Imagination.
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