My art-soulmate, МОЯ БЕСТИ, drew these beautiful pieces based on a silly fanfic I wrote featuring our characters. I'm kinda embarrassed, but I really want to post a snippet of that fanfic:
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After that, their meetings no longer began at the door of her modest dressing room, no. They began much earlier, when Zaira noticed the flicker of his cloak in the gloom around a corner or discerned his stately silhouette following on her heels, patiently waiting for everyone to leave the corridor so they could be alone. Zaira herself was amazed that no one else noticed his presence! Perhaps to others, this vision also seemed a ghost, a fleeting apparition they were quick to dismiss. But Zaira… He would take her hand, gallantly offering the invariable blindfold - the sole condition of their singing lessons - and his hand was so tangible and warm even through the fabric of his gloves that she would momentarily forget his phantom nature.
When her eyes were once again shrouded, and the air around them grew saturated with that special, charged anticipation ready to carry her singing to the world, doubt would awaken in her again: he seemed to belong to another world. He never demanded the difficult from her. Didn't force her to hit impossible notes, didn't ask her to shatter crystal with her voice. In the first lessons, he asked for the simplest of things: to sing a song without a single word.
Zaira was bewildered. She, accustomed to arias, to texts, to clear parts, didn't know how to sing without words, without support. She stood there, nervously fidgeting with the hem of her dress, until he took her hands in his. This time - without gloves. Skin to skin. Warm, living, with slightly rough fingertips.
"What do you feel?" he asked.
"Warmth," she whispered. "And life."
"And how does life feel?"
She hesitated. He didn't rush. Simply held her palms in his and waited.
"Tell me its shape," he said finally. "Draw warmth and life with your voice, and everyone who hears will see it as clearly as a picture before their eyes."
He turned her around himself lightly, without letting go of her hands -one smooth, almost dance - like circle.
"Make the imagination work. Yours and others'."
And she sang.
At first timidly, uncertainly, because before her closed eyes there was only blackness. But he didn't let go of her hands, and Zaira suddenly imagined a palm - an ordinary human palm with five fingers, which could clench into a fist or open to the world. His palm. Tender, despite the strength she felt in his wrists and shoulders when she dared to run her fingers over them.
She sang an open palm. Then - a palm carefully embracing a rose stem, avoiding the sharp thorns. Her voice trembled, rose, fell, curved like petals.
Thus, lesson after lesson, he taught her one thing: to see with the heart and paint with the voice what the heart sees. It turned out all genius is simple. And it was a shame that she, Zaira, hadn't realized it herself sooner.
Between exercises, the boundaries of their touch grew bolder. He no longer wore gloves. She, growing bolder, ran her fingertips over his wrists, moved higher - to the firm lines of his forearms, to the sloping shoulders beneath the dense fabric. He didn't stop her. Only his breathing became slightly deeper.
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