Encounter with the Mythical Aroran
- Kindrie Grove
- Aug 4, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 12
Encounter with the Mythical Aroran
Excerpt From: Arorans and Tynithians
The Messenger From Myris Dar, Book One of The Stone Guardians
Listen to this Excerpt.
Arynilas spoke quietly from the mist ahead, but his voice carried to Rowan. “Something comes. It is large!”
The morning passed slowly as they threaded through the twisting trees and tall marsh grass. Rowan’s thoughts turned to Hathunor. Her giant friend was out there alone somewhere in this vast morass of water and reeds and mud. The more time that passed without Hathunor’s return, the more worried Rowan became. She envisioned his scaled skin covered in wounds and blood. She saw him lying dead in the waters of the bogs, having somehow been caught and overwhelmed by the Drae Raken that pursued him.
She strove to dispel the dark images from her thoughts by reciting the message she carried. It ran through her mind again and again, until the words lost their meaning, becoming a string of sounds in her head.
It wasn’t until Nathell’s horse stopped in front of her and she had to rein in, that she realized how absorbed in the mantra she had become. Arynilas’s voice echoed quietly through the mist ahead. “Something comes. It is large!”
The companions gathered into a defensive circle, and Rowan reached up to draw her sword. The sound of weapons leaving scabbards was muted.
The mist billowed, revealing a screen of trees, and the sound of movement––the sloshing water, and the breaking of foliage––reached her from the other side. She stared, her heart pounding in her chest as the ground shook, telling her that something huge was approaching.
Roanus tossed his head, ears flicking uncertainly. Rowan placed a hand on his neck to calm him as the sounds became louder, accompanied by the blowing of a great breath.
The mist ahead of them darkened as a huge shape loomed over the trees. Rowan gasped and Nathell whistled in wonder as a gigantic beast materialized out of the swirling fog. Seeing the riders, it stopped and looked at them carefully, its small eyes passing over each one. Rowan held her breath, staring in wonder.
It looked as though Erys had taken several different animals and combined them to create this behemoth. Its short tan hide was covered with pale vertical stripes, and the huge head on a short, massive neck, sported an elongated snout, which was busy chewing the marsh grass that dangled from its mouth. The creature’s legs were long and thick, disappearing behind the screen of trees. Its tail, which ended in a horsehair-like tuft, swung continuously from side to side, brushing away the annoyance of insects.
The beast snorted and the horses spooked at the percussive sound. Rowan hauled on the reins to keep her horse from bolting, but when she looked back up, the enormous creature had already turned away, fading back into the greyness of myth as though it had never existed.
“What in the name of Erys was that?” asked Nathell his voice hushed.
Dalemar opened his mouth, but it was Arynilas who spoke. “It was an Aroran, a creature that used to roam all across Eryos. They have dwindled to a few pockets of inaccessible land where they cannot be hunted. Most people have forgotten them––much like you, Messenger, and your homeland of Myris Dar.”
"I have wanted to capture this moment in an illustration for a long time ..."
Adding this drawing to the growing body of new illustrations for Book One has been on my wish list for a long time.
"I imagined it somewhere
between a giraffe and a dinosaur."
When I initially wrote this scene, I didn't have a clear idea of what this creature would look like. I imagined it somewhere between a giraffe and a dinosaur. The drawing for this scene came intuitively, with the Aroran emerging from multiple lightly inscribed pencil lines.
The group of riders looking up, to show the gigantic scale of the creature, was so much fun to draw.
I wanted to keep the mist as a major feature of the drawing with a hint of the tangle of twisted trees reaching up through it.
About the Drawing
This piece was slowly layered with Faber Castell Pitt Matt Graphite pencils. I used HB, 2B and 6B.
White Prismacolor was used for the mists. Much of the tree limbs and branches were simply left as the paper's grey tone, which read perfectly as mid-values.
I am working on Strathmore Toned Grey multi-media paper. Drawing time was about 4 hours.
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Encounter with the Mythical Aroran: Fantasy illustration for The Stone Guardians by Kindrie Grove All art work and illustrations by Kindrie Grove. All written content and characters related to The Stone Guardians Books by Kindrie Grove are protected under copyright law.
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Copyrights: ©Kindrie Grove Studios Inc.
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