Vassily (as an old man) (illustrated by Emonic)

In The Hunt, which appears in Fables And Reflections, Vassily tells a story to his granddaughter one evening when her parents were out on a date night.

The story he told was one of the stories from “the old country” and recounts the tale of a young boy who is also named Vassily.

Celeste, his granddaughter, is impatient and would rather watch TV or talk on the phone than listen to the story her grandfather is telling her, but she does listen.

At one point Celeste states that she does not believe in Fairies and her Grandfather replies “Of course you don’t believe in Fairies. You’re Fifteen. You think I believed in Fairies at Fifteen? It took me until I was at least a hundred and forty. Hundred and fifty, maybe.” I find this interesting because, if we are to trust the Grandfather as a reliable narrator then he is incredibly old…older than any mortal should be.

My favorite bit from the entire story is a simple quote from Vassily, the Grandfather. He states “You shouldn’t trust the storyteller; only trust the story.” This is an important theme that pops up now and then throughout Sandman (such as In Dream Country Richard Madoc states “Writers are liars, Dear”).

At the end of the tale, Celeste realizes the importance of the story, that it was not about her boyfriend or about her fairy tales, but about family and about dreams.

This is one of my favorite stories from Fables And Reflections and this is a fantastic portrait.

This portrait was drawn by Emonic and he did an awesome job with this character. I really like the details on this portrait and he captured Vassily. The line work around his eyes is exceptional and really adds a lot of depth to this character and this portrait.

Here is Vassily…