This artwork is actually of two characters of mine, who I have written some about and intend to write a lot more about.

Lumiere D'Canari is a border collie with bright, lemon-yellow fur and a symbol upon his forehead. He is a child of Sol, the son, and a mortal, and was adopted and raised by a human family. He has great magical potential he is still struggling to learn. Among his powers is the ability to create his own special kind of Coronium, a metal only stars and their children can create. Rito has this ability as well, though Lumiere's coronium is very different. Where Rito's Coronium is like a living, ribbon-like metal, Lumiere's is more a rosy gold that can cool and jarden into a blue, glass-like material. Also unlike Rito, Lumiere can produce coronium that remains separate from his body - in effect, he can create tools and objects that last. His glass-like coronium is not as strong as Rito's, but works as a superconductor and can be manipulated in all sorts of ways, improving existing technology in ways as yet not fully explored.

The cloak he wears contains the sealed spirit of Shadows, who has gone by many names but introduced himself to Lumiere as Daroque. He existed millenia ago, when the forests were young and humankind (yes, there are humans in Lumiere's world) was still learning how to build cities. He was the counterpart to the spirit of Light, another son of Sol who was given the mission of helping humans find balance with Nature. Daroque is a child of Gaea (the Earth) and Luna (the Moon), and both he and Sol are very distrustful of each other. Daroque was the spirit of the shadows, and not an evil spirit - animals depended on the night and the darkness for safety, shelter, and for hunting, and he defended the forests against excessive human intrusion.

Eventually Daroque and Liyut, the spirit of Light, met, and learned much about each other. They gained a mutual respect for each other - despite his distrust of the humans, Liyut showed him the good in them, and despite the humans fear of the darkness, Daroque showed them how to embrace it and to work with Nature, not against it.

Some humans, however, were more ambitious.

A great war broke out, and Light did all he could to maintain some sort og balance. he refused to fight Daroque, and the ambitious humans convinced many others that Liyut was holding them back, and the world and all of its riches belonged to humans, without reservation, to do with as they pleased. Liyut pleaded with them, and held Daroque and his rage at humanity at bay, until... tragedy struck.

The spirit of Light's body was strung up on a pole, and displayed as a show of the superiority of humankind.

Daroque and Liyut had fallen in love. And now Daroque was alone in a very different kind of darkness.

In his rage and hatred, he was blinded, and the humans were able to subdue him. However, his powers and his nature were more mysterious than Liyut's, and they did not know how to banish him forever. So, they sealed away his being and formed it into a cloak, locking it with seals only the Sun could unlock, and then locked him in a vault only a combination of the Sun and mortal magics could open.

Millenia passed, and a religion began to form, and its priests incorporated the story, now a legend, of the Great War of Light and Shadow. The vault was found, and a cathedral built around it. The high order who built the cathedral knew not the full story of the vault, and believed it to contain a being of pure evil who would herald the end of the world if released. They decided to take one extraordinary measure to preserve the "purity" of their world. With the most priest-wizards of the age, they tore the cathedral and the surrounding clearing from the fabric of space and time and plunged it into a pocket dimension, removing the "threat" of the "Dark One" and the End of the World forever.

As you can guess, forever is often a subjective term.

Wow, if you read this far, thank you, and I appreciate you doing so! I hope you like what you see and read.