A bright star raced by, just for a second, in the skies near the city of Venus. Its light twinkled brilliantly--mesmerizing like a hypnotist's watch, a witch's hex. For what felt like hours it held the heart of Arthur Blaylock, wresting from his scarred form the desire for something, something more than everything that he'd had: death in spades, pain in multitudes, agony _en masse_. It was even to his own surprise that he'd said it: _"I just want to be happy."_ It meant two things. First, he could, in fact, acknowledge that losing his mother and falling into the wrathful clutches of his father for many years (and, by extension, his stepmother and siblings); and, second, that here, in a sprawling grassland near where the city now was, he wasn't afraid to say it. But a flicker of light in his hopeless eyes ... was it enough? No. It would never be. The romantic idea of wishing upon a star and having all one's dreams come true was just that--romantic. He wasn't the dreamy child of a monarch fated to rule the kingdom with the hand of his beloved, nor was he some pauper destined to prove himself. There was only one thing that he could do: he could choose to rebel. To go against everything that his father, that Pwyll, that Xena, that that vile structure of power and manipulation had established. He had to choose. He had to act. It wouldn't be easy; but maybe, through that action, one day ... he would be happy at last. ----- This was an attack for ArtFight 2023 on [dragon](https://inkblot.art/profile/dragon)! I'm a big fan of their character, Arthur Blaylock, and I wanted to depict Artie in his element, among the stars. At the same time, I wanted to strike a somber chord with this piece. I tried to intentionally use paintbrushes throughout the entire creation of the image to give it that kind of texture and lean toward a more painted style. I'd say I could have done more, but I'm still happy with the result.