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Daffodil examines her coin.
The concept of a treasure being more valuable by not owning it is completely foreign to her. But the figures in her vision willingly - gladly - participate in the exchange, knowing that there must be a greater payoff. Perhaps wishes really do get granted? Or perhaps it is just fun to throw things.

The only way to find out is to try it, Daffodil concludes. While focusing on her wish, she (almost reluctantly) tosses the coin as far into the fountain as her little esk arms can manage. It lands with a splash and sinks beneath the surface, glinting softly on the way down. Tumbling to the bottom of the pool, it joins the countless other offerings.

As Daffodil stares into the rippling water, the vision begins to fade. Animal pens become vacant once again, the fountain's water trickles to a stop, and the chatter of the courtyard is replaced by silence. The other coins littering the bottom of the pool slowly disappear until all that remains is Daffodil's single offering, stark and alone in the parched, scarred basin. This place has known nothing but neglect and abuse for so long, Daffodil can't help but sense an air of gratitude. No one would venture to pay tribute to a fountain without water.
No one before her, that is.
Daffodil feels as though she finally understands. She has taken part in something meaningful, ancient, bigger than herself, even if there was no one else around to see it. There are treasures beyond the physical - knowledge and experience have a different kind of value, but are valuable nonetheless.

Knowing that her adventure has reached its conclusion, Daffodil turns to leave and is startled to find a glimmering object that was not there only a moment ago. Behind her sits an ornate glass sculpture, still glowing hot at the edges as the elemental magic fades, in the delicate shape of a familiar flower blossom.
It is possibly the most beautiful treasure that Daffodil has ever seen.

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Hooray, Daffodil! She has completed her journey, chose to be selfless, and has earned a blessing! :3 ♥

I enjoyed doing the color palette challenges for each of these pages - sticking to selected colors kept me from being too nitpicky, but I really struggled with this page in particular. None of the provided palettes really fit the mood I wanted to portray, and nearly all of them had reds or oranges, which is understandably tricky when trying to depict water. I went back and forth between palettes multiple times before finally just settling on what you see here, though I still don't consider it ideal.

Another big challenge for this whole project was just... the perspective of it all. I wanted it to take place from Daffodil's point of view, but since she's so small and low to the ground, you end up getting a lot of extreme angles from underneath, which I have always struggled to illustrate accurately.
To be honest, I wasn't too jazzed about this quest from the beginning and mostly just started it to earn the rewards. Daffodil is not a soul-searching kind of character, and I wasn't looking forward to drawing a bunch of man-made structures, but I think I managed to make something that worked for the both of us and I'm actually really proud of how it all came together. It was a nice exercise in a lot of concepts (storytelling, color theory, composition) at once!

[Daffodil]
_{Esk are a closed species by @witherlings and part of the @ThoseWhoWentMissing ARPG}

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_{Artwork: DeviantArt | FurAffinity | Weasyl
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