You cannot make her love you.

"I will not let this lie, Erik," I said. My voice did not sound like my own--a low, weary growl tinged with raw anger. I leaned in, my jaw set. "You will not imprison this girl. Do you hear me? I will not stand for it."

His sunken eyes flashed a sharp yellow as they surveyed me from beneath hooded lids. I imagined he cocked a brow beneath the smooth porcelain of his mask.

"Of course you will not stand for it," he said coolly. "You will doubtless charge into the fray bent on rescuing the fair maiden from the monster's clutches, trailed by hordes of villagers brandishing torches and pitchforks. I must say, Nadir, the entire plan smacks of banality. But then again, you never were one for panache."

He rose from the chair in one fluid motion and swept toward the hallway like a shadow sliding across candlelit walls.

"Now remove yourself from my premises," he said without looking back at me. One skeletal hand waved in a languid, dismissive gesture. "I've much to do and I tire of your heroism. Foist your nobility upon someone foolish enough to give a damn."

I shot up out of my seat, heat pricking my neck and ears and pulsing furiously in my skull. Anger had always suited me ill. I was not by nature an angry man. I disliked the risk it posed to my reason. I disliked its clipped tones, sheathed like poisonous daggers beneath my tongue.

Yet I owed it to Mademoiselle Daae to give my fury free reign. If that was what would protect her, then so be it.

She would not become his casualty.

I would not allow it.

"Erik!" I called.

He made no indication that he had heard me and continued his silent exit.  He had nearly reached the door. I shook my head and took several steps toward his retreating figure. And that heat creeping in tendrils about my throat suddenly seized it and spilled out of my mouth in a rush of indignation.

"You cannot make her love you! You cannot! She WILL not! Not like this!"

He froze.

Every muscle in his body pulled taut, every tendon in his twitching hands stilled and calcified into granite. His breathing had stilled and stopped, and concern momentarily flared brightly in the back of my mind.

But slowly, deliberately, with an almost palpable, seething menace, he turned. In an instant, the hostility in his gaze flared with godlike vivacity. No man on the receiving end of that gaze had ever lived to describe it. I felt keenly the weight of my error--he meant destruction, and I stood heedlessly in his path.

Yet as quickly and as vividly as that fury had appeared, it suddenly flickered and sank, like the sun drowning in the horizon of a twilight-soaked sea. 

And the darkness it left in its wake was infinitely barren.  

"Get out," he said quietly.

He stared at me unseeing. When I did not move, some force remote from his being spurred him into motion once more.

"Get out," he intoned, "or I will eviscerate you where you stand."

Somehow, that low, deadened echo was more terrifying than the heights of his violence. 

Fixing him with one last determined look, I held up my hands and backed away, around him, and toward the door. He did not move. He did not watch me leave. He stared, motionless, at the spot where I'd stood, and he scarcely appeared to breathe. 

In the dim lighting, the jutting angles of his figure blurred into the heavy, encroaching darkness.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I found some screen caps of Loki being quietly menacing in The Avengers and, yes, we've been over this before, but in certain ways, he reminds me so much of Erik that I had to use him as a reference for everyone's favorite Opera Ghost. I meant to add Nadir and dialogue and appropriately dim lighting, but the drabble above that was swimming around my head got the better of me while I was drawing this, and I copped out so I could write it.

I so wish I had the resources and talent to animate an original(ish) version of Phantom, because Erik in motion is so crucial to the way I picture him. Who knows? Maybe I'll make a live-action film version one day and find an actor who can capture Erik's subtlety. I imagine Erik's movements to be fluid and elegant, but always tinged with subtle hints that he's frayed and fraying around the edges. I absolutely LOVE it when actors understand how critically important the human body  is when it comes to conveying emotion, particularly emotion under restraint. Ralph Fiennes is brilliant at it. Subtle changes in the eyes that convey vast emotional turmoil. A certain tilt or slight hunch of the shoulders, something white-knuckled in the hands....sort of a low, simmering turmoil that eventually erupts is just Erik to a 't' in my book. 

I always try to etch weariness into Erik's features when I draw him. Not just a "exams-are-coming-up-and-I-need-a-long-nap" sort of fatigue, but the kind that permanently settles into your bones when you've seen and felt too much. The kind that slowly begins to inform your every movement. So no matter how menacing Erik looks, I want to ensure that somewhere, that weariness is apparent in his features. That doesn't mean that he's dulled in any way--it just means that I try to infuse him with a mix of passionate, almost desperate vitality and complete and utter exhaustion. Like when you're so tired you feel like you're going insane, and everything's just sort of buzzing around the edges. 

This is why Erik is my favorite character of all time. I'm (obviously) a very visual person, and I always picture things in terms of how it would play out in a performance or on a canvas. Sometimes before I draw, I'll act out the movements myself and take pictures for reference. It's almost like muscle memory that I can then transfer to the page. If I remember how, say, my back or the set of my jaw felt when I was acting out a panel, I can put that feeling into the sketch, along with the emotion that goes with it.

Erik's such an endlessly compelling character, so I've sort of infused him with all of these physical quirks and ticks and it just makes me love him even more.

Incidentally, I'm so pleased with how the fourth panel came out. You can't even see his face (or lack thereof), but it's probably the closest I've ever gotten to drawing how I picture him, movement-wise.

Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux.