Oh boy, this one's a doozie.

I've got a lot to say about this, and a short story to go with it.

This is a very sad and heartfelt piece that was inspired by thoughts about what hardships a young sentient species that's treated like vermin might go through in Valsalia's world (elsewhere, not in the ValSalia region). Also inspired by a real life event, though the pic is not as bad as my RL event. This was drawn with inspirational asisstance from a few sad and somber songs, but the one most listened to while drawing this (and writing the story) was this beautiful piece, "Watching Seabirds Soar (Harmony)".

I kinda poured some of my heart into the short story below... I am not much of a writer, so this took hours.

Also, I realize I forgot his whiskers, I'm still figuring out how to place those, so some of my sketches are missing them. It's tough to just draw them in over his face and edit later... no undo button on a pencil. I'll re-upload this if I draw them in and re-scan it.

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Life in the city can be rough sometimes, especially for a young species that's often perceived as little more than vermin... even moreso in a lawless frontier town.

This little yinglet had been left alone here when he was younger. Being the only yinglet around, and with no enclave in this frontier region, he had no idea what to do or where to go. Yinglets instinctively stay together to survive, and the dangers of travelling alone meant he was stuck all alone in this town to fend for himself.

Nearly a year passed. Life as the only yinglet around was tough. The residents of this town were not at all fond of yinglets, seeing them only as pests, so they were unwilling to provide any help to a "lowly scav". There were no streams or rivers in this region, either, so finding food had been very difficult. With nary a generous human around, he had to spend his days rummaging through the trash for most of it, and he was barely able to fend off starvation. Many times he had tried to ask for work so he could buy food, but none would take his request seriously, and he was not very good at selling trinkets he scavenged from the trash, either. Life was very poor for him. He was very sad and lonely, and was beginning to lose his confidence. Despite this, each evening sleep cycle, he would return to his makeshift home, which was little more than a place to sleep, and look up at the sky. "Just one more day... zhings will be better tomorrow" he thought as he curled up to sleep, having hope for the next day.


Many more months went by. Food had become even harder to come by as some of the places he'd been scavenging food from began to chase him off, yelling at the starving yinglet for stealing from them. It was getting too dangerous to risk scavenging at these places, and he was no longer able to find enough food to survive. He was losing strength and hope day by day, and his confidence and self-esteem were all but gone by now, which made things even more difficult.

Then one day, he had started to get very sick from starvation... his eyes had already grown pale days ago. Hardly able to move, he sat against a wall in an alley. He didn't know what to do anymore. He just sat there, staring at the ground, wishing that someone would help him... anyone... anything... but his hope was all but gone now, too. He was dying and he knew it. He weakly reached his hands up to cover his face and slumped forward, tears welling up in his eyes. "At least I won't have to suffer no more", he thought to himself, "...all alone." He couldn't bear the thought of suffering another day just to live another to suffer again. Teardrops falling to the ground, he layed down, then cried himself to sleep... just hoping he wouldn't have to wake up again.


He slept for many many hours, much longer than usual due to his depression and weakness. He awoke with a deep sigh... then was shocked when he saw a plate of food sitting in front of him. He wasted no time grabbing the food and scarfing it down, already starving so much that it hurt. As he ate, he heard someone ask "You feel better now, yes-yes?" He turned his head to see something he had given up hope of ever seeing again... another of his own kind. He had tears in his eyes as he leapt forth to hug his savior, crying out praise as this couldn't have happened at a better time.

The new yinglet gave him some more food and told him his tale of how he came to this region as an assisstant to a human, but ended up stuck there, much the same way as this yinglet was, when his human met an unfortunate fate at the hands of bandits. The new yinglet was greatful to have found out there was one of his own kind here, realizing quickly that things would be hard living alone here with the residents of this town. He had only been there a few days, but was a very good merchant, and was able to make a few coins to buy food with. This yinglet was so grateful that he gave the new yinglet his only posession, a little red neckercheif / neck scarf thing. They became instant best friends.


A week had gone by, and this yinglet's new friend was able to make enough money to buy food for the both of them, helping to nurse him back to full health once more. He was so thankful and more than happy to help his friend any way he could by scavenging around for trinkets for his friend to sell for food. Things had finally gotten better, and for the first time in a very long time, he was happy. So very happy to have a friend, someone he could count on to be there. He felt safe with his friend... much needed to help rebuild his shattered confidence.

* * *

A few years pass, and these 2 manage to survive quite well in this hell hole of a frontier town, helping eachother, getting into yinglety micheif together, having good times, fun times, a few bad, but overall, things had been so great ever since his friend found him on the verge of death and rescued him. His friend even taught him to become a little better at being a merchant.

Then one day, he had noticed that his friend had been gone awhile, much longer than usual. At first, he didn't think much of it, believing his friend was just having a long day selling trinkets. But then hours went by... then nearly a day. He was very worryied, pacing all over, then decided to go look for his friend. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get much help from the residents, as usual. He looked everywhere he knew to look, every place they'd scavenge together, every place they'd get food or have fun at, every place they'd been around the last few years. Then he started to look where he feared going the most, the places he'd stopped going near due to the risk. Checking behind shops and many alleys, after some time, he finally sees his friend laying on the ground.

He runs up to his friend, hoping for a reply, but as he approaches, it's clear he had been very badly beaten. Cuts and bruises, blood all over, his shelltooth shattered, stripped of everything he had... and he couldn't see him breathing. "Oh... oh no....no no no...." He sits down and drags his friend's motionless body up over his feet, resting his paws on his friend's head, then started to shake him a bit. "No.......no......" Tears begin to stream down his cheeks as he shakes his friend a bit more... but there's no response. He didn't want to think about it... he couldn't accept it... he couldn't be....dead.... he just couldn't. He shook his friend again and spoke softly. "Please wake up....." Shaking again and again, but still no response. "Please......."

---

Don't worry, his friend isn't dead, just very badly hurt.

Description written to "Just forget" (Samurai Champloo).
(I didn't even know how fitting this was till afterwards when I looked up the song's name.)

Originally, this piece started out as just a practice doodle for drawing a very sad expression while I practiced all sorts of expressions and emotions for yinglets to get better at drawing them. At first, it kinda looked like crap, and I didn't plan on refining it, joking that he was sad because his right eye looked all fucked up. But then a certain song I was listening to (above) while thinking about some things and looking at this unfinished sad expression I had started to fix up gave me ideas for exploring what kinds of hardships some yinglets probably have to endure in a world like this. I thought, if yinglets always prefer to be together, at least pairing up as part of their survival instincts, what would happen to a yinglet if they were all alone in the world in a place where no one would help them?

As I was drawing, he looked so sad that I wanted to give him a reason for being so sad, and just started sketching the other yinglet. He was just going to be another yinglet this guy found hurt, but it kinda led to thinking about the story above... what would happen if a yinglet living a shitty life alone finally found a friend and then lost that friend? At first, the idea was that his friend was going to be dead, but I quickly decided not to be cruel like that. However, he's been beaten to the verge of death and had everything stolen (such is the dangers of being a scrawny little yinglet). He has a black eye, cuts and blood dripping, tears rolling down his cheeks, some bones broken, and his shelltooth busted, too. His eye is just barely cracked open from being shaken and he's barely breathing.... but that's about all he can manage at the moment. Looks like it's this yinglet's turn to rescue his friend from near-death... though it's going to be hard... he still isn't as good of a merchant as his friend, but his friend did teach him a bit. And I have decided that in the end, things will be ok, though it's rough. This is a learning experience for yinglets... a very hard one.


Yeah, yeah, I know I said "this yinglet" and "his friend" and stuff a lot, but without names, it's hard to think of anything else to distinuish them by... again, I'm not a writer, and I suck with names.

Fun fact: I spent many hours over 2 days putting this description and story together. Also, this is my first real piece of art in 12 years... save for a single splatfest image. I can't believe it's been so long...

And now I end this with "Shiki no Uta" (Samurai Champloo).
Roll credits, I'm out. *hand up 'bye' while walking into the sunset*

Yinglet species created by  Valsalia

EDIT: I scaled the image down a bit, I didn't realize I uploaded the unscaled version... should fit in the view better, but might scale it a bit more.