As you are no doubt aware, thanks to your network of contacts thanks to the ‘Loons the crops of the College have failed due to a draconic tantrum an unlikely storm and we are being graded not only on the quality of the final piece we produce, but on the quantity of pieces sold and for how much. If you could point a few of your our noble patrons in my direction, I would be, as ever, in your debt.
Wow, Marble didn’t even hesitate before she took down Clay. That was impressive. She’s just so… vibrant. She embodies the Virtue of the Jester and the Power of Simon so well! I’m so fortunate that she thinks I’m… well, no, that would stink of false humility, and unlike most nobles I’ve met I doubt she’d have a taste for it. I am worth her attention. I work very hard at my art and I’m a very pious person… sarx it that’s being a braggart. “Marble,” I will say, “Thank you for defending me before I had to defend myself. I appreciated it.” And then she’ll sigh softly and say, “I would have let you but I just couldn’t stand to let Felspar run his mouth one moment longer!” I should say that. I bet it will go like that.
“Marble…”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for defending me before I had to defend myself. I appreciated it.”
Marble was silent for several moments. Not the reaction I was expecting. When she spoke again, it was slowly and intentionally. “I could tell the negative attention was getting to you, and I know you’re a bit sensitive about your angel. I couldn’t conscience letting it hurt you like that.” Wait, what? There’s nothing even… she was… I’m sensitive about my angel? My Muse of Painting? I’m not sensitive about her, I just expected that a gift from the One God would be without parallel and when it wasn’t I doubted my faith! That’s a reasonable conclusion! “Vaterin? You okay?”
Oh. I’ve been quiet too long. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
“I was expecting praise and assurance I could have handled Clay myself, not a refutation of my capability and agency.”
“See, Vaterin, this is what I’m talking about. I didn’t refute your agency, I said that I tried to shield you from the arrow of an egotistical putz because you’re a little sensitive. Like you’re being now. About your Muse of Painting.” I am not sensitive about my Muse! “You got singled out and that would make anyone a little insecure. I have no doubt that you could have quipped Felspar into a retreat, you run in rarefied circles as much as I do, if not more, and such a skill is valued there!” Well. I suppose that will do. It’s not what I was hoping for and it had to be inveigled rather than volunteered, but if I take issue with its form I’m only going to draw more criticism. “Vaterin. You’re staring at your canvas like it wants to bite you. Paint. It’s what you’re here for, not for the approval of anyone except maybe me.”
Vaterin picked up her brush and palette, and stared at her canvas. Not yet having invoked her Muse, she dabbed half-heartedly at the canvas. Grades will be tied to quantity as well as quality, and to number sold. Say. What did the Mother say? I was so excited to paint, but she said something about manifesting the angel to… let’s see if I remember. “With an offering of blood you can access the wider abilities of your angel, but if making the offering breaks your concentration it will fail.” And the ability the Muses offer, generally, is the ability to trade one’s life for the speed and talent to complete a work in time. Well, there’s no deadline per se but that could just be poetic license. She pulled out her penknife. Here goes nothing! Possibly foolish, since if this fails I’ll be unable to paint, but I think it embodies the confidence. Muttering her prayer under her breath, not yet wanting to call attention to what she was doing, Vaterin made a slice across the palm of her hand. At the culmination of her prayer, the wound sealed with motes of light as though it had never been there. So what…?
When she looked around the room, everything was normal. Completely. But when she turned her attention to her brush, her easel, and her canvas, time slowed to a mere crawl. Colors were not brighter, but they were more distinct, this orange from that, the slight differences from the drying of the paint. She swore she was moving at her regular pace, but in her peripheral vision time crawled by, everyone else painting, sculpting, and drawing with the exaggerated and almost comical movements of a monster in a childrens’ play. She glanced over at Marble and saw that she was staring, and felt her brush falter. She could have shown off, but she felt the need to explain. “I can do more than just commune with my Muse. I can manifest a special talent, trading life from my celestial hourglass to finish a work in time.” Marble sighed. She sighed?! You’d think she’d be proud of me! So I can’t paint without the Lord guiding my hand, at least I can get a good grade and support the College she’s so proudly a member of! Does she just kiss the newbie? I didn’t have that impression…
“Vaterin Lime, you stop that right this instant! I expect to keep you around for as long as possible! You are not trading spans of your life to paint like some kind of—of—I don’t even know what! You channel your angel and paint at a mortal speed!” Is she seriously telling me what to do with my own life? Vaterin looked sadly at Marble, but there was no compromise on the noblewoman’s face. Oh. She does care. She cares a lot. I just—
Okay, so maybe I am a little insecure about my angel, still. Makes me wonder how my parents exist in the same business as each other, because I assuredly take after both of them. Then again, neither of them are artists. Then again, neither am I… and we’re back to my Muse. And I was incredibly uncharitable to even suppose that Marble would be shallow in her affections. I’m an idiot! And I shouldn’t call myself an idiot, because I shouldn’t call my neighbor an idiot, and I should love my neighbor as myself, but I am an idiot! I am have been painting her for how long, and I didn’t see how faithful and steadfast she is?! It was the talent that got me here, the ability that convinced me this whole affair wouldn’t just be a waste of time, was that I could paint the best in people. Wait, what did she say before the invective against trading my life… Vaterin said softly, smiling, “You want to keep me around as long as possible?”
Marble sniffed, clearly upset. I will have to figure out what to do to make that right. After I confirm she meant what she said. “I do. You’re bull-headed and impatient and frustrating—” Okay, not the best start… “—but I do. And if you weren’t all those things you would be off in an arranged marriage with some woman with a head for sums and I never would have met you but…”This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“But?”
“But I’m very glad I did. Because despite or because of or I don’t know which, I’m glad that you’re you.”
“Ah. I, uhm… I’m very glad that you’re you, too. It’s been a privilege to paint you.”
“Everything comes back to painting with us.” That’s more like the easy camaraderie that we’re so good at feeling together!
“We’re painters. Artists. Isn’t everything supposed to come back to painting?”
“Well, we’re also Wholists. So everything should come back to the One God.”
“Fortunately, the two are inextricably intertwined for me!” Marble cracked a smile, and Vaterin felt exultant. I will have to find time to get her some of the wildflowers from around here, though. “But fine. We’ll bring it back to Wholism. You’re a clear and devout disciple of the Jester—”
“Aren’t we both?”
“Let me finish. And I am your dashing Knight, in the style of the Virtue pairing that Father Sauer espoused just today.”
“I would have thought you weren’t too keen on Father Sauer right now.”
“Because he named the reason Tourmaline let the storm batter the Isle? No. I didn’t like the attention—”
“So you admit it!”
“Marble, Vaterin, attend to your paintings, not each other!” Brother Pitch snapped from an edge of the room. Suitably admonished, the two of them did in fact devote some time to painting under the watchful tutelage of the artistic polymath. However, as the day went on and they were released to their own projects, they picked up the conversation where they had left off.
“You don’t blame Father Sauer for singling you out?”
“Not at all. I am the reason the dragon had a fit, or whatever, and it was necessary to relate that to avoid unknown dread. It’s hardly my fault and given the lack of dirty looks and the greater number of curious looks I think people know that. He was very clear that this was a surprise and he didn’t word it in such a way as to blame me.” It’s nice being the reasonable one again. Wait… that paints Marble as unreasonable. Which she’s not. She’s just looking out for me. Aww, sarx, does that mean that… “I said I was the Knight and you were the Jester, but is it the other way around? You’re brave, daring, and determined. You take mercy on me when I assuredly don’t… well, when I only deserve it a little.” Marble smiled at that.
“Vaterin, you’re being silly. Neither of us are the Knight, and the Knight and the Jester are only metaphors for angels so lofty as to be multiple degrees of separation away from all but the most insane of prophets. We both embody the Jester, and I don’t see why the Knight even needs to be involved. I mean, sure, we need to be determined and hard-working and all that for the All Saviors’ Day expo, but we’re not even… I mean, arguably it’s presumptuous to even identify too much with the Jester. We’re working on things pleasing to the Power of Ariel, of Art, and that’s the extent of it. I think we bring the Jester into it at all because Ariel is one of the Powers marshaled under that Virtue and we desperately want our prayers to be heard. So we hope that if a ‘mere’ Power cares to hear our voice, perhaps a Virtue might too, and in turn vouchsafe our wishes to the One God.”
“Holy sarx, you’ve thought a lot about this.” She thinks about everything. She’s called me on things my own parents didn’t think of when they were trying to dissuade me from attending the College of the Art of the Divine.
“I’m no stranger to adversity, and I’ve been at a cloistered college for a few years now. This isn’t the first time they’ve invoked that pair of Virtues.” She’s got a deeper and more insightful grounding in theology than I do. Then again, a noble in penury has only so much to hang their pride on. Meanwhile, my parents have the same reminder of the nobles they associate with—wealth is temporary, and the wealthy will struggle through the narrow door to Heaven.
“…is this the first time you’ve discussed whether someone is the Knight to your being the Jester?” Please say yes. Please, please say yes.
“Vaterin, you’re being silly again.” Oh sarx and blast that’s not a yes. “Of course it is. I’ve been devoted to my painting before I met you. I’m still devoted to my painting. Maybe you won’t like to hear this but you’re the third or fourth priority in my life.” Wait, what? Marble laughed. “Oh, that was written on your face. First, obviously, but often forgotten, is the One God. Next after that, my family, although maybe that isn’t so for you. Then somewhere roughly even are you and my art. And that I know you understand.” But my art is you. My best painting is of you. I should tell her that. It would tickle her.
“My art has become you. It’s bound up in the Supreme, and you’re not a means to its end, but my best painting is of you and it’s the one that, I mean… is my obsession. Not that I’m obsessed with you. Unless you want me to be. I mean that my piece, the painting I’m working on, has turned into the sort of consuming project that—do you know what I mean?” I’m babbling. For her to rebut my work would just be… devastating. Please understand.
“Of course I know what you mean, Vaterin. I’m a painter too.” Thank you, One God, may I remember you in my prayers in the catacombs this evening—say… “Marble? Would you care to go with me to the catacombs?” We’d be away from prying eyes and we’re already the subject of gossip. You’d think two students never took an interest in each other, the way people carry on over a little hand holding and a few kisses. At least we haven’t been censured. Then again, we haven’t neglected our studies. If anything, Marble has elevated my art to new heights. And if I’m coming up against the limits of my angel, I’m also practicing without her. A little.
”Vaterin?” I got lost in thought again. Oops. “The catacombs? Why?”
”Uhm. So we can kiss without a peanut gallery. I, ah… expressed a great deal of vulnerability and you were sweet and affirming and I just. I want to hold your hands, and kiss you. Nothing more, oath of an artist.”
“Is this where I should say ‘no good, I’ve known too many insincere artists’?”
“Only if you think I’m one such artist.” A cheap line, but if I smile just so she’ll know I’m joking. As opposed to insecure. I’m not insecure, I’m just a little crazy, which I think is within my rights to be as one of an artistic temperament. I should delve into what Marble’s crazy is sometime. It’d only be fair.
Marble laughed—got the smile right!—but abruptly sobered. “I don’t know, Vaterin.” Well sarx. Only one thing to do now. “The catacombs give me the willies.” Right. She’s told me that. I should have remembered. I’ve found them generally to be peaceful. It’s not like the dead are right there, they’re all sealed up in stone.
“Then we don’t have to. If you want to, we will. If we don’t, I’ll put up with the peanut gallery. Either way, I do think I need to kiss you. After you make up my mind.” Vaterin set about cleaning her brushes, a task selected intentionally as highly interruptible, albeit necessary to do on a regular basis. And she waited. I certainly hope I seem patient, she thought to herself.