==This piece was drawn in mid-2024. Following my first art commission, my Ko-Fi supporters voted for me to begin uploading art here, including pieces that have been up on FA that I still like. This is one of those pieces.==

In the first week adventuring with her current group, Amelia and her friends had taken great care to avoid attracting attention from the local goblin patrols. The bird-like feathered creatures with their strong, hunched bodies were stealthy, coordinated, and dangerous, and they kept a careful eye on their surroundings. The lioness then had been...okay with a blade, but she'd been far better at handling paperwork. There was no sense in charging into such a problem headfirst.

A month or two in, and they'd directly marched up to the goblin patrols. Thanks to the teachings of the druids, she'd begun getting a slight capability with magic, but that was hardly the druid's gift they were relying on. Instead, through the new fluency of Arthur—their doctor, tracker, and wilds-squirrel—they had arrived to address the citizens kidnapped by the goblins. The creatures' understanding was that the entry into their territory had marked these individuals as "gifts". Following her friends' passing of the tests to become allies of the goblins, Amelia's true strength in deal-making and diplomacy shone through: she would arrange with the barony a sort of sponsored exchange, so all unwilling might be replaced with willing and skilled persons for more reasonable durations than "permanent". Yet still, they avoided conflict...especially with the morrigna, the even larger boss of their encampment.

Now, approaching a half-year of adventuring later, Amelia was staring at the largest goblin she'd ever seen: the gro morrigna, the keeper, the biggest boss of the known goblins. For permission to investigate the holy site under their protection, he challenged the party to a trial of combat atop his tower, and they had agreed.

Amelia didn't look all that different from when she began. Other than the jewels marking her as recognized nobility by Altradere, the mild competency with druidic magic, and the exotic weapon at her hip, she was still the same lioness that'd begun thus journey. At least, she was...on the surface.

In reality, though...her eye glinted. She'd been practicing. And suddenly, with her family's blood-right weapon in her hands, she felt ambitious. To the confusion of the giant panda brawler who always sought to challenge the strongest fighter on the field, and to the shock of the weasel paladin that sought so frequently to be strong for the women he protected...she positioned herself as the gigantic goblin's competitor and left the other slightly smaller bosses to her allies.

Then, it began. As her allies engaged, she rushed past with a speed she'd never mustered before. The titanic blade airmcoinneála cleaved down with ease in the hands of the massive creature. The training of years past swelled in her heart. She lunged, catching the sword's arc in the inwards curve of her own blade. Extending the spear-like heavenly saber, she diffused the strike's power by letting it slide down the length of her weapon only to catch in the secondary crescent blade at its hilt. She'd never gotten this far in true combat before, but now...she was certain she could do the move that'd eluded her in Juaccai all those years ago.

As the moon...into the sun.

Amelia inverted her wrist, twisting her blade with the parried sword still caught inside. The gro morrigna's eyes widened as his own wrists felt the twisting strain before he instinctively let his two-handed grip go. The massive weapon spun out and up from the sheer force of her leveraged maneuver, whooshing through the air and glinting in the sunlight as it went. It would eventually crash and clatter to the stony ground some distance away, but time froze in that moment for the lioness. Despite most her attentions primarily being given to lessons of true nobility—leadership, diplomacy, negotiation, and presence—she'd not neglected the lessons of her home entirely. Now, she had truly led the charge in battle...and in a single strike, she'd bested a creature far her superior in strength with the heavenly arts of her homeland. In this moment, she knew...even her father would have been proud. And yet, he wasn't first on her mind.

"...take that, Captain Menes," the noble lioness smugly and quietly remarked, trying her best not to show the excitement at showing up her harsh combat teacher that the fourteen year-old 'Alexander' was sharing with her.
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Had a short burst of artistic energy, and I've been trying not to let any of it go to waste. So I looked at an old list of ideas I wanted to commission and...well, I decided to do them myself!

This one was a newer addition to the list. Just a few days before I sketched it was when it happened in-game in the Iron Claw campaign :linkSamanthaWeltzin: runs. Amelia was a half-martial half-social character to start. But due to how the system works, she meandered into a ton of different directions...and not dedicating mastery to a combat art means said combat art becomes near-useless. (It's why she almost never uses her pistol.) But Amelia had lots of reasons to want to become someone worth respecting martially, and upon gaining a newly forged version of the weapon of her bloodline and homeland, she started training HARD. The first true time to use it? Against the biggest, most intimidating creature the party had encountered yet to date. Thankfully, it wasn't to the death, so she felt a little ambitious...and for the first time in her life, she truly used the Sun-Moon Style to its fullest effect.

I felt really damn cool and wanted to try and put that feeling into art. Still not 100% sold on how to draw motion, but it came out better than my previous attempts at least. x3

Art, Amelia Majesty (c)  MavenTreecat

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