the sea is always good

'Prince Lir stirred nervously as the king paced across the throne room toward the Lady Amalthea. She was again gazing out of the window, and King Haggard had drawn very near before she wheeled swiftly, lowering her head in a curious manner. "I will not touch you," he said, and she stood still. "Why do you linger at the window?" he demanded. "What are you looking at?"
"I am looking at the sea," said the Lady Amalthea. Her voice was low and tremorous; not with fear, but with life, as a new butterfly shivers in the sun.
"Ah," said the king. "Yes, the sea is always good. There is nothing that I can look at for very long, except the sea."'

--The Last Unicorn 

I recently had the good fortune of meeting Peter S. Beagle in person at New York ComicCon, I've been a fan of "the Last Unicorn" almost all my life (first the wonderful rankin bass cartoon, for which beagle himself wrote the screenplay, and then later the book) and lately the story's been on my mind a lot, so I thought I'd do some fan art (of which there isn't nearly enough for my taste)

The titular last unicorn, having been turned into a mortal human girl, arrives at King Haggard's castle and immediately finds herself the target of both the prince's naive, innocent romantic advances, and the king's cold, predatory, lusting focus. King Haggard suspects from the first what she is, and never lets her far out of his sight. The character moments and themes of love, mortality, and lost innocence are what make the story one of my all time favorites, and what readily lend it (in my humble opinion) to rather intimate compositions (more than the work of many other fantasy writers, who are often much more concerned with world-building)

rough sketch for a painting

See also: Haggard's castle turnermohan.deviantart.com/art…
Haggard's castle 2 turnermohan.deviantart.com/art…