A Chaotic Cataloging: A Seasons of Hieron Fanzine

Layout note: Panels are small relative to the page and “float” in the gutter space. Adelaide swims freely between them and speaks to Hella inside the panels’ borders. The comic is laid out vertically, mostly in two columns. Panels on the left are labeled L, the center labeled M, and right labeled R. Panel numbers denote which row of the overall page they’re on.

Page 1: 3 Rows 

Panel M.1.A: Adaire hunched over a map of Hieron in a dimming twilight room.

Panel M.1.B: Close up of the map having Nacre added to it near the shore, and an outline sketched of its border, the pencil in Adaire’s hand. 

Panel M.1.C: Adaire’s hand in close-up, partially erasing the border around Nacre. 

Panel L.2: Hella outside the Ordennan border, at a tall gate. A guard looks at her suspiciously from the other side. 

Adelaide to Panel L.2: Adelaide looks at Hella condescendingly. 

Adelaide: Do you imagine that walls will keep Nacre’s gift out? 

Panel R.2: Hella and Hadrian ride in a halfling-driven cart through the refugee camp towards the Ordennan military camp. Hadrian watches Hella for her reaction to seeing the refugees. 

Panel L.3: Hella displays the emblem of the Tristes to a crowd of cheering soldiers, brandishing her sword in a stabbing gesture. 

Soldiers: Is that– From the cleansing of Nacre– She killed the queen! 

Adelaide to panel L.3: For every inside…

Panel R.3: Stornras Glasseye shows Hella and Hadrian a map of Ordenna’s planned invasion of Velas. 

Adelaide to panel R.3: …an outside. 

Page 2: 4 Rows

Panel L.1: Hella reads the book about her family being a line of traitors, inside the undersea cave. She is hunched over awkwardly, wet from swimming in, and visibly perturbed. 

Adelaide to Panel L.1: Adelaide reads over Hella’s shoulder. She’s draped over the panel like a cat, one hand dangling inside and the other holding an apple to her mouth.  

Adelaide: Our dear father did like that ancestor of yours, only for her to betray Nacre and then Ordenna. Varals love to hang people out to dry.  

Panel R.1: Hadrian and Hella interrogating Iduna Fel. Hella holds a torch up. Iduna, seated and hands bound, looks up at them and snarls at the torch, speaking of how Quintrona should burn Rosemerrow to stop the undead. 

Iduna Fel: We should be burning every place–every person–the curse has touched. 

Adelaide to Panel R.1: A family of traitors fits right in with the Tristes.

Panel L.2.A: Hella is on tour of Ordenna. She looks out distantly at the countryside. A clothesline with clothing hanging from them forming figures like people separates Hella in the panel from a mine like the ones her father worked.

Panel L.3.B: Hella on tour in an urban center, looking lost. Train tracks separate Hella from a guard station. 

Ordennan soldiers: Queenkiller! It’s the Queenkiller! 

Adelaide to panels L.2: Adelaide’s teeth are bared, her lazy demeanor dropping for one vicious moment. 

Adelaide:At least I remember that you should be called Kingkiller as well. 

Panel R.2: Hella and Hadrian walking back through the refugee camp. Refugees do laundry, multiple clotheslines crossing the panel, the clothes partially obscuring Hella and Hadrian. 

Adelaide to panel R.2: Do you believe your people to be better than me? They decide who dies to expand the borders of Ordenna. 

Panel L.3: Hella marching in front of a company of Anchor in a square formation, Ordennan soldiers crowding around them. Hella is smiling stiffly, uncomfortable. She is wearing a shiny new uniform. 

Panel R.3: Hella standing equally stiffly in front of a line of Pala-din that guard the Ordennan camp from the refugees. She watches a circle of refugees cooking and crafting, going about the business of their survival. Some are visibly undead. Two of the refugees are a Nacreite young Black sibling pair with an older boy and younger girl, invoking Calhoun and Adelaide.  Hadrian in the background examines a pala-din, his stance mirroring theirs. 

Adelaide to panel R.3: Adelaide looks at the siblings in panel R.3 but speaks over her shoulder to Hella on the left. 

Adelaide: Is it so monstrous that Nacre grows so that more may live after death? 

Panel L.4: Hella alone in a lavish Ordennan bedroom, looking out of place and small. Maybe in plain underclothes and curled up on a chair, looking angry.

Hella: Yes! 

Her dialogue fills up the panel, crowding her. 

Panel R.4: The refugees notice Hella and Hadrian and look at them warily. The boy steps in front of his sister. Hella looks small in the crowd of people. She holds a hand out to the boy. 

Page 3: 3 Rows

Panel L.1: Hella in a lavish Ordennan ceremonial chamber, on a stage. She is dressed in fine clothing given to her. A pearl-studded brooch with an Ordennan motif is being pinned on her by some military-uniformed functionary. 

Military functionary: For you, the spoils of our first battle. 

Gathered soldiers and civilians: Queenkiller! Queenkiller! Queenkiller! 

Panel R.1: Hella makes an awkward ‘open your hand’ gesture to the boy, who warily opens his hand. 

Refugees: Isn’t she….That’s the Queenkiller. The Queenkiller?

Panel L2: Hella, with her head bowed, has her arms and shoulders draped with garlands of gems and pearls looted from Nacre. The ends of the strands run down out of the bottom and side of the panel. 

Military functionary: May you always bear the fruits of our holy empire. 

Panel R.2: The boy has a handful of apple candies poured into his palm. He looks up, defiantly. A few candies fall down outside the panel. 

Adelaide, to both panels L.2 and R.2: She holds the end of a pearl garland in one hand and an apple candy in another 

Adelaide: Then tell me…What are you going to do about it, Hella Varal? 

Panel M.3.A: Adaire’s hand drawing the refugee camp in Knoll Hollow into a map of Rosemerrow. 

Panel M.3.B: The Ordennan military camp being drawn outside the refugee camp. 

Panel M.3.C: The wall around Rosemerrow being drawn between the refugee and Ordennan camps as a border. 

Title Text: The Violence of Its Maintenance 

Subtitle: Story and words by Will Xia (boo-cool-robot)

[image ID: a two page spread of Hadrian, Rosana, Ace, Throndir, Kodiak and Red Jack walking down a winding path through the rhizome to visit their children and grandchildren. Hadrian, Rosana, and KodiaK are all visibly aging.

Red Jack leads the procession of grandparents, holding a lantern up in one hand and a picnic basket in the other. He's following a fox made entirely of flowers that stands on a tuft of moss farther down the path. In a sling on Red Jack's back is Kodiak (too old to walk very far), who rests a paw on Throndir's shoulder.

Throndir is smiling up at Kodiak and leading Ace by the reins. Small in Ace's saddle are Hadrian and Rosana; Rosana is knitting and Hadrian is slumped against her asleep but still holding her yarn ball.

On the opposite page in the distance Benjamin and Blue J tend a campfire. Ben has a horned toddler in his lap and is helping it stir a large pot of soup. Blue J is helping a curly haired toddler carry a giant piece of bark to add to the flame.