Concerning Bycatch: Ch 13

First Chapter

Index

He screamed as he fell. 

The cry rang through the courtyard, off the castle walls and back into the rain. Then all fell silent. 

King Boo hung in the air, frozen halfway to the well. Purple jolts tainted his aura and his crown glowed dully—its last dribbles of power bleeding out through the cracks in the gem, turning the rain to a halo of steam over his head. Soft tremors juttered through him as he stared, half blind, through the glow hanging before his vision. The notion that Mario would come bounding out again fluttered in his dazed mind. But no such thing happened. 

The reds and purples of spilled magic reflected off puddles and lit the faces of the statues. Boos floated aimlessly in the air or lay panting against the ground, burned out by the overflow of magic they had saved him from. The King felt empty, cold, and tired. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt tired.  

Illustration - Dark Hallways

I should not have drawn this.

There is so much writing stacked up for me to work on right now: Concerning Bycatch is still running full steam, paving the way for writing full length novels of my own; I've officially begun work on Aunt Lira's Stuffy, which I intend to publish by the end of the year; and there's a whole shoal of short stories floating around my head, just waiting to be preened and polished for submission to various writing magazines.

So of course I work on art.
I mean, it only counts as procrastination if you have nothing to show for it, right?

This piece is actually the back-drop for a much bigger project. I'll lay out more details whenever I get around to working on this properly, but for now, I'll just say it's another animation attempt. Even though I really didn't have time to be making stuff like this now I'm glad to have it done, if only because it moves the project from the realm of 'potentially good idea' to 'project to be done in the future' even if it takes a while to get around to it. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and even that small shift feels very good.