Shadow of what I was...

Ambiant's steps were heavy through the fresh mud that began to cover the ground throughout the ruins of Treedon. The cold wind bit through my increasingly damp clothing. I was already chilled to the bone, chattering my teeth, and shivering into what little I had to wear. Peasant's clothing, far too big for me in the first place and poorly made. Not enough to keep out the chill but decent enough at soaking up the rain. It was always raining in Treedon, another coast-bordering city. Well...what was left of a city.

The sun was already setting. Everything in the horizon looked like a single black shape outlined against the already darkening sky. Everything closer up just seemed grey, it was almost as if this place had become deprived of color. The sky was full of thick grey clouds outlined in red from the last rays of the sun. I could think of no place better for a graveyard.

In the daytime it was pleasant enough-when it wasn't raining that is. It overlooked the beach, the ruins were half overgrown with wildflowers and grass, ivy worked its way up the larger pillars that stood free from the ground threatening to consume it as it was the fallen structures. I don't know about mom, but Pen adored the sea.

I slid down from Ambiant's back, my paws meeting with cold, thick muck that worked its way in between my toes and splashed along my over-sized pants, adding to my filth. I didn't care... I was only a shadow of what I had ever been before. A prince, a dancer, a rebel, a warrior...hell even a bastard. All the ambitions I had as a child were gone, I was surviving at best. Living day to day off of what I could hunt down or steal, wearing clothing of people that had died in the ruins far too long ago after pulling them off their dead bones and washing them off in the ocean.

I walked myself up through the muck towards the graves, two of them had already grown beds of grass, three of them were fresh. Muddy, filthy... but it was the only burial I could manage for them. I'm no woodworker and the price of coffins is a bit more than I can afford. It was almost disgraceful... no one but me knew about this place, no one knew that I buried them here. No one would come to honor them or leave flowers other than me... and each one of them would be ashamed to see me now.

Each one of them had such high expectations of me... Lein had seen something in me when I was just a kid. Though I could hardly be called a man now either... but he'd taken time to try and teach me something, to help me learn to face what I was and I ignored it. Calilome had said the same thing, that I was meant for something but I always blew it off. Pen... lords Pen thought the world of me. He wanted nothing more than to see me happy and settled for once in my life. He died because I drug him into a war that wasn't even his, he died because I couldn't do it on my own... my mom too. She loved me so much but even watching the life bleed from her body I couldn't tell her the same. I couldn't tell her that she meant what she should have to me but she'd accepted it.

And Morrigan...

Lords above she gave everything for me. I was too focused on what she'd done to me to realize how much she'd lost just trying to show me that she cared, that she really honestly cared. She lost her throne, her vampirism, her dignity, and finally her life. I felt everything just rush out of me, like I had nothing left as I faced her tombstome. A pathetic attempt on my part to cut, shape, and carve stone. I was on my knees, starring mindlessly at the name carved into the stone, braced up in the mud. She didn't deserve this... a no body's burial in the ruins of a traitor's city, with me having been her gravedigger of all people.

"You were right." I managed to choke out. "I've been stubborn...and blind..."

____________________________
Not exactally the scene there but close enough. Tobias had lost his mother during the war with Dyzm, loosing his father soon after. Upon his return from the war alongside his best friend, both of them tired, wounded, and pretty much worn down they were ambushed. Tobias was allowed to live for the service he'd performed for the realm but what remained for him was hardly anything resembling a life. All that remained was a wounded love he had for Morrigan, and soon she was taken from him as well. Homeless, unarmed, barely clothed, and pretty lonely- Tobias' life's become that of a nomad and a beggar. Kind of a steep fall from what he'd become and after having sacrificed so much in the name of the realm.

I've been kind of in a bad mood lately, so I wanted to vent. I drew this while listening to "Somewhere I belong" (Linkin Park) and "Bring Me To Life" (Evanescence) so that's where it comes from. Both songs are pretty much a good description of Tobias and everything he's been through in a nut shell.

I put traditional media because honstly I spent like 20 minutes adding the shading andwhatever in photoshop. I didn't feel I should color it because I'm not sure what to do for it as far as the mood, but I didn't want to just throw up the sketch so I went with the half and half thing I do sometimes. It's sloppy but it kind of brings out the mood a bit more.

Anyway, Tobias belongs to me. So does Ambiant back there keeping an eye on mister skin and bones.