Expansion of 8M candle.

This bit of character development work has come of recent years, and I love the depth it adds to the characters. Marie is actually an orphan, she has no parents she can find in regards to her actual birth parents. Unfortunately for our smol leopard girl, she ended up on the doorstep of a pretty low end orphanage that couldn't even really afford to keep electric torches around. Her clothes are raddy, torn and patched several times over; the fabric faded and completely stretched out. The few times she managed to sneak away while doing her chores, she saw her foster home parents watching Virtual Warfare matches on the televiewer.

She wanted the life they had, getting to play in this grand spectacle and not have all these things hanging on her as a poor lonely orphan. Marie set about spending all her free time going to the local library, finding and reading through books on anything she could find about Tanks and armored vehicles. Marie started to view the kind librarian who was always willing to help her as her second mother, always coming back to visit and ask for any books she could find on tanks. The librarian let Marie have one of the books to take and keep, it was an older copy of Trails, Tracks and Tactics; a tank driver's textbook.

She was hooked and read the book cover to cover many times, eventually finding a test she could take to try and get into a tanker school against her foster parent's demands.

I decided to expand on candle with a shot from her younger years, sneaking out of bed to try and read through her driver's book. Looks like she got caught this time. I really like how this new setup influences their relationship, hopefully everyone likes some adorable snow leopard.

art © ArcticFox7(2)