This is the finished traditional collaboration with Alector Fencer.

My linework can be found, here.

Still love this to bits. No one bought it when it was up for sale, so Alector gave it to me as a gift. :) I gaze upon is every single day and never get tired of the brilliant work she did.

Poem is mine:

He has come a long way. Destruction, pain and agony follow his trail. He leaves only ashes and sorrow in his footprints. As a beast of war, he has served the dark lords for millenia, always being the shadow of doubt in the faces of soldiers and the terror in the hearts of victims. But he never falls, he never comes to a halt or takes a rest. As in the heart of humans, there is o much hate, grief and greed, that he will never, ever stop to be.

He is eternal and he never struggled.

But just one day, he came across the river to a forest of peace. His fiery presence would burn the flowers and the trees and everything that lives there is scared away by the hatred of a thousand human souls that burns inside of him. But there is no peace that is more evident than death and so he walks on. Like the unstoppable and unquestionable force of destruction he is, born from a thousand human minds, baptized with their hatred and brought to life by the endless slaughter.

He leaves footprints of screams, burning scars in the land, steaming from anger and despair.

But suddenly in that very forest, he stopped.

The beast stopped and lowered his head, attracted by the shy scent of a flower. He looks down and stares at her, tiny little unimposing being, that she is. Looks at her white petals and yellow little inside that she has raised painfully up to a ray of light. Standing in the penumbra beneath a giant tree, she dwells in humility, and with endless peace.

He stares at her quite a while, then he goes down on one knee and looks even closer at her white head, her green little coat and her yellow face. Slowly reaching out his arm, he suddenly stops. His dull eyes know no joy nor sorrow. And so he stares at her, silent.

Perfectly silent, he remains there this way, because he knows somewhere deep inside his wrinkled heart, that he'll destroy her with his evil touch.

But he can't go away, either. Attracted by the humble pureness of this little being, he is kept there in this very forest forever. Staring at the flower with longing, stopping for the first time of his existence, after destroying everything - the last day on earth - into all eternity.