Everything had started here two months ago. It was a cold Novembers day, and Lily could remember the crickets. They had seemed so loud, that morning. By the afternoon they were silent, scared off or overshadowed by the thunder-crack of the powder, the lonely moans of the three hundred people who called this small field in a village no one had heard of their grave.

Lily had met Aidan then. She had signed disciplinaries on him well before that. He was, in her lieutenant’s words ‘A vulgar lout. Has a comment for anything and everything. Compulsive liar and gambler. Feels rifle work is simple foreplay to melee. Needs this beaten out of him before the enemy does it”. He was mostly right. However as she stumbled and fell into Barn B there were no colour sergeants, no forms, no rules. Just a flight or pursuers and no witnesses. He said nothing. He just tossed himself into them as Lily drew her bearings and her pistol, his hands arcing in big, lethal blurs.

It had been a grand victory. Less than a hundred casualties, and only twenty two Gradien dead after three hateful days under siege. Three regiments forced into rout, to be cut off and destroyed utterly just two weeks later. Lily remembered little of her commanding officer. He was an unimpressive man, crawling out of whatever hole he had vanished into in the first hour, mistress in tow. Giving some bland speech about perfect execution of orders, promising commendations and recommendations he never bothered to make.

The crickets were back now. They drown out everything, even Aidan's approach. The last few weeks had been hard. The victories less glorious. Lily could feel his hand on her shoulder. Those cruel, fast hands. She hardly believed they could do something so gentle. It was inappropriate of course. But there were no colour sergeants or forms here either. He said nothing.

She loved it when he did that.

---

This commission has been done for a while, but I really wanted a little piece of writing to set the scene with. The person who commissioned me is a returning customer and great friend of mine who enjoys writing so I requested he write something for me to put here.

The Lioness is actually my older fursona.
The Cat Boy was featured in my Paralysis image.

I hope you enjoy this, I really had a lot of fun working on this step by step with my friend and he actually is a sort of muse to me a lot of the time. He keeps me drawing when I feel really uninspired. Love him to pieces.


The title is the song by The Killers. I felt it was pretty accurate for this piece.

All done in SAI.