Well I guess this 500 watcher raffle thing really is happening XD

The prize is art from me ofc- you can choose a character (or two) you'd want to see drawn, in any style I've tried before! (paintings, coloured sketches, lined etc.)

Thank you to everyone who has supported me and my art for the past year and a half! ;o;


THE WINNER IS StyxLady



the early styx gets the art

A big thank you to everyone who has joined! I'll be doing more of these in the future as I hit more milestones ;o

Crispy. It was his favourite thing about Autumn in the lands outside the fences and of this region. Dry enough for leaves to give way under his paws with a soft crackling as he walked through the trees, and just cool enough from the sparse breeze that flowed between the moulting trees at the forest’s edge. Ri blinked and took another step forward. He liked it here. Despite the slow pulse of numbness that repelled his presence not unlike that of two like magnets, he kept pressing on through the sunlit patches of untouched leaf litter. The forest was too much of an inviting host to stop here.

Clear film glided over Ri’s eyes again as he listened. To the scratchings and gnawing between the roots, the slow rustle of scales rolling over dead leaves… and most importantly he listened to them. The chitter of the feathered and the furred inhabitants was a distraction to how his home called for him like a siren’s song, like a dull ache in the back of his mind. Listening reminded him of a time before the frost and cold that had left him as what he was today. So, Ri listened to the forest- and the forest allowed the small traveller through its living columns in exchange for his attention. 

Minutes turned into hours, and Ri blamed it entirely on the abundance of new sights and sounds jumping out from behind every nook and cranny as he inched through the blazing forest of colours. Everything that moved was to be pounced on, stalked and nudged. Nevermind that he was entirely too small to get anywhere near the singing canopy; the forest floor was filled with enough interesting gimmicks to occupy his attention. But slowly Ri began to feel drained- spiritually and physically, if he could call his current existence a physical one. The wall that he bumped into, however, felt physical enough.

Ri scrunched up his face in surprise and looked up at the low wall that had somehow majicked itself into existence right as he bounded over a clump of saffron milk caps (that he should have been collecting as a treat). Stretching all three inches above his head, the wall was rather unimpressive with its weathered stone bricks and cracked mortar. My fences are better, Ri thought to himself. He nuzzled the coarse stones, relieved at the familiar sensation. Walls meant civilisation, and civilisation was home. The wilderness was filled with wonderfully fascinating creatures and sights, but with the bright blue kingfishers and cowled robins he did not belong. He could help but feel the same way about the once bright forest now that a blanket gloom had layered over everything in sight.

He supposed that he did like this wall after all.

It was the only part of the forest that kept him from feeling well and truly lost. The cold stone braced the ebb of his strength when he rubbed his side on it. But the wall was still just a wall; it was a piece of what humans had left behind in the middle of nowhere, and it wasn’t enough to bring back every part of the squat esk. Nonetheless, it did provide some comfort.

With nowhere else to go, Ri padded forward in the dark. He pressed himself to the wall as he moved. It was sturdy despite the ivy that riddled the cracks between the stone. It was… comforting. The colours around him had melted away from vibrant oranges and passionate vermillion to withered browns ringed with ghostly maroon. The air hung still. Even the breeze had changed its course to avoid this stretch of man-made unnaturalness that stretched further than the eye could see.

Did Ri feel afraid? No, he was more… uncertain. I can go home when I need to, he reasoned. Ri was not going to ruin a perfectly good adventure because he couldn’t see an end to this new path. And the treats…! Ri scrunched his face again. How quickly he had forgotten his original task in this place thanks to his own curious eyes. Ri dipped his head guiltily.

Tonight my friends will be saddened. It’s too hard to find mushrooms or nuts in the dark.

Ri lifted his head and called out soundlessly into the silence. None answered his call.

There’s no one around to help and share the search. There will be no search, and my friends will be without their promised treats. But maybe, just maybe, he could bring back something else. Yes, that was it! He could bring back new playthings for the others to compensate for the lack of the usual delectable gifts. For that to happen his new gift had to be so much better than just an interesting stick or a few shiny, tinted stones. Ri added a burst of speed to his pace and smiled with his eyes. Oh, he was going to blow them all away with the best souvenir he could find at the end of this wall.

Just let them wait and see.