05-28-2020, 04:46 PM
Il Palazzo Apostolico di Castel Gandolfo. She tested out a few of the syllables, but had no great flair for language. The accusation that followed hummed her through with laughter, distracting her from the attempt. The irony tickled her greatly, since he was the scribble of a drawing made flesh and blood and breathing. Did Nimeda remember her in that other world? It seemed impossible he had been able to find her in Estonia otherwise. Perhaps Thalia was but the cast of her shadow when she opened her eyes here. A strange thought. And a little sobering. But she felt real enough.
The first question she answered easily, truth bubbling freely as she turned to follow him once more. “Oh, lots of things. Wolves, and monsters. Sometimes there are fleeting glimpses of people, like little windows. I wouldn’t remember those faces if I saw them again though.” She thought of Nox’s expression when he discovered recognition amongst the sketches he had flicked through at the cafe. Probably the shadows and curves of his face itself sandwiched somewhere in those old pages, but he had not been remotely familiar to her when she’d plucked him from his friends at the cabaret bar. “Of the ones I would know, and that I have seen wake, you’re the only one I stopped running from long enough to actually speak to. There was a man on the tube once, but I never saw him again.” Other priests. She puzzled a little at that, but did not pause. “Mostly it’s landscapes though. Forests with rivers running through like fingers. The moods of the sea beneath a crumbling cliff. Stones on the bottom of a riverbed, and the fish who hide there. Sometimes there’s water grey and slick as ice, with a pale sky that reaches into forever.” Nature shaped all of the work that tumbled from idle sketches to actual finished paintings, but she didn’t paint landscapes; she painted people. She always had, even before they had started spilling out real and walking from what she now knew to be dreams. Emotion and connection were important treasures, but like treasures they were rarer than the rest.
“I’m no poet,” she said to the second question, smiling. “And these are only conduits.” She wiggled her fingers in illustration, winced a little when the digits on one hand protested. It was a strange and leading question. He’d been present for the dreaming, after all, and remembered it as she did not. Insight was likely to be incidental, but of course he was free to leaf through the images themselves if he chose. “But you are welcome to look at them?” The bag hanging from her shoulder was still unzipped, the papers stuffed inside. She would retrieve them if he wanted to see for himself, though it would take some rummaging. They were not part of the deluge that had plucked the nails bloody from her hand when she had run out of paper at the cottage, so the gentler musings of recent days were jammed in small corners until she purchased another book.
Her head tilted. The pinch of his expression did not care for her labels before, and she doubted anything else she said would be pleasing to his ears. Not that she suspected he sought flattery; in fact she was confident he didn’t. Perhaps he only wished to pick clean her answer to discover what she wanted from him, by analysing the frame through which she saw him. Not access to god, but unlikely to be nothing either. No one could exist only on nothing, not even him. “Unless you really do want that portrait? Very reasonable rates you know, but I would have to stick around a while,” she teased.
Father Ando had pointed out the clean square left by a vacant frame; spoke of surprise that the Pope sought an artist at all. Yet he’d lingered a little on the page featuring his own likeness. It wasn’t the reason he’d reached across such great distances to find her though, and she didn’t mistake that now. He did not seek a mirror. She imagined him to do plenty of self-reflection in the long waits between answers from his god, and he called himself nothing. Deeper philosophical waters than she waded, at least consciously. So, not a mirror, and a painting itself was actually unimportant, but she suspected him of a need to be seen. Not his myriad faces. Something far more ordinary. She grinned.
“You’re hidden quite in plain sight you know, Noc-” A frown wrinkled as she realised she could not remember the silly titles. Your eminence sounded wrong, and it could obviously not be highness despite his kingly manner. She supposed she’d have to get used to those formalities, though they did not sit naturally. Ascendancy had always sounded silly to her ears too, but even Nox called him that. “Yet I don’t think they see you at all.”
The first question she answered easily, truth bubbling freely as she turned to follow him once more. “Oh, lots of things. Wolves, and monsters. Sometimes there are fleeting glimpses of people, like little windows. I wouldn’t remember those faces if I saw them again though.” She thought of Nox’s expression when he discovered recognition amongst the sketches he had flicked through at the cafe. Probably the shadows and curves of his face itself sandwiched somewhere in those old pages, but he had not been remotely familiar to her when she’d plucked him from his friends at the cabaret bar. “Of the ones I would know, and that I have seen wake, you’re the only one I stopped running from long enough to actually speak to. There was a man on the tube once, but I never saw him again.” Other priests. She puzzled a little at that, but did not pause. “Mostly it’s landscapes though. Forests with rivers running through like fingers. The moods of the sea beneath a crumbling cliff. Stones on the bottom of a riverbed, and the fish who hide there. Sometimes there’s water grey and slick as ice, with a pale sky that reaches into forever.” Nature shaped all of the work that tumbled from idle sketches to actual finished paintings, but she didn’t paint landscapes; she painted people. She always had, even before they had started spilling out real and walking from what she now knew to be dreams. Emotion and connection were important treasures, but like treasures they were rarer than the rest.
“I’m no poet,” she said to the second question, smiling. “And these are only conduits.” She wiggled her fingers in illustration, winced a little when the digits on one hand protested. It was a strange and leading question. He’d been present for the dreaming, after all, and remembered it as she did not. Insight was likely to be incidental, but of course he was free to leaf through the images themselves if he chose. “But you are welcome to look at them?” The bag hanging from her shoulder was still unzipped, the papers stuffed inside. She would retrieve them if he wanted to see for himself, though it would take some rummaging. They were not part of the deluge that had plucked the nails bloody from her hand when she had run out of paper at the cottage, so the gentler musings of recent days were jammed in small corners until she purchased another book.
Her head tilted. The pinch of his expression did not care for her labels before, and she doubted anything else she said would be pleasing to his ears. Not that she suspected he sought flattery; in fact she was confident he didn’t. Perhaps he only wished to pick clean her answer to discover what she wanted from him, by analysing the frame through which she saw him. Not access to god, but unlikely to be nothing either. No one could exist only on nothing, not even him. “Unless you really do want that portrait? Very reasonable rates you know, but I would have to stick around a while,” she teased.
Father Ando had pointed out the clean square left by a vacant frame; spoke of surprise that the Pope sought an artist at all. Yet he’d lingered a little on the page featuring his own likeness. It wasn’t the reason he’d reached across such great distances to find her though, and she didn’t mistake that now. He did not seek a mirror. She imagined him to do plenty of self-reflection in the long waits between answers from his god, and he called himself nothing. Deeper philosophical waters than she waded, at least consciously. So, not a mirror, and a painting itself was actually unimportant, but she suspected him of a need to be seen. Not his myriad faces. Something far more ordinary. She grinned.
“You’re hidden quite in plain sight you know, Noc-” A frown wrinkled as she realised she could not remember the silly titles. Your eminence sounded wrong, and it could obviously not be highness despite his kingly manner. She supposed she’d have to get used to those formalities, though they did not sit naturally. Ascendancy had always sounded silly to her ears too, but even Nox called him that. “Yet I don’t think they see you at all.”