No es que se acabe lo que sentimos; somos nosotros los que nos cansamos de sufrir, de aceptar la vida como viene, o de esperar, hasta que la paz se convierte en lo único que necesitamos.
Based off of the short story by Jorge Luis Borges, itself based off of the Martin Fierro. I wanted to experiment a more unblended/dry brush style, and the entirety of the painting was done using a combination of Memileo Impasto brushes and Cloom's Dry and Dirty brush pack (for krita) (all digital bc I'm poor). It was also a bit on an experiment in painting full scenes (I usually don't do backgrounds, I hate them). All in all I'm not 100% satisfied with either of those two aspects but I still like the painting, I'll probably have to do some focused practice for drawing backgrounds before attempting anything similar again.
Basado el cuento de Borges, que a su vez estaba basado en el Martin Fierro. Quería experimentar un poco con un estilo más "de pincel seco/sin blendear", y toda la pintura fue hecha usando unicamente los pinceles Memileo Impasto y el Cloom's Dry and Dirty pack (para krita, todo digital pq soy pobre). Tambien era una especie de experimento en hacer escenas enteras, algo que no suelo hacer pq siempre me enfoco en personajes/criaturas individuales (odio hacer backgrounds). Al final no quedé 100% satisfecho con ninguno de los 2 aspectos pero igual me gustó la pintura, pero lo más probable es que tenga que hacer varias prácticas especificas sobre escenarios y arquitectura antes de volver a intentar algo así
Here we are at the end of our choose your own adventure, friends. I've said this before, but it's been an absolute delight, doing this with all of you, and writing this together. Your choices shaped every step of the narrative, so if you've enjoyed the story, you should feel proud (and if you didn't, uh, not it? 😉)
If you need to catch up on a day or two, you can find the other installments here. I'll keep this post pinned for a day or two as well, and may put the finished version up on ao3 eventually.
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8
Last, but not remotely least: my wife has been making noises about joining Tumblr, because I told her about this, and she wants to read it in its original form. I hope she does, because all of this is for her. 💜
Conclusion starts below the cut!
And tomorrow at noon, as instructed, he would meet Q in front of the Fighting Temeraire.
At precisely twelve o’clock, Bond walked into room 34 of the National Gallery. Q was already there, this time, a reversal of the day they’d met a little over a year ago. He’d swapped his anorak for a wool coat, his suit for a navy blue cardigan and a white button-up, and, in a nod to the day, he sported a navy blue bowtie with tiny white hearts on it. So much had changed, since the last time they’d been here, much of it because of the man waiting for him on the bench, looking at a Turner painting.
“James,” Q said as Bond approached. “You got the package I sent?”
“Yes,” Bond said. “It’s the best thing anyone’s ever sent me, Q. Even without the exploding pen. Though thank you for that, by the way, I still haven’t managed to clean up all the confetti hearts. I even found some in my pants, last night.”
“How in the world—actually, never mind, I’m not sure I want to know.”
Bond gestured to the envelope Q was clutching in his right hand. “And you got your letter as well, I see.”
“Yes,” Q said. “I, ah—I haven’t opened it, yet. You’re going to think it’s silly of me, but I was too nervous.”
Bond sat down beside him. “Don’t be nervous,” he said, taking Q’s hand in his own. “You can open it with me, if you like.”
Q nodded. He squeezed Bond’s hand, and then released it, taking a shaky breath as he opened the envelope and began to read.
My darling Q,
A wise man recently told me that I should be honest above all else, in my letter to you, so I’ll start with a small confession: I have read countless love letters in the last few days, preparing to write my first to you. It was the best thing I could have done, but not for the reason you might think: it showed me that there are as many ways to tell someone what they mean to you as there are people in the world.
I needed to know that, because so many of the traditional idioms people use to describe love didn’t seem to fit the way I feel for you. Take “falling” in love, for example. I haven’t found that to be particularly apt. I’ve fallen from any number of things—helicopters, buildings, construction cranes, moving cars—and loving you hasn’t been like any of that.
I’m beginning to suspect that I’m doing an absolutely shit job of writing this letter, but the thing is, so many people treat pain as a kind of virtue, as something that must be surmounted before you gain anything of value. It’s astonishing how untrue that really is, though, and it’s equally astonishing how long it took me to learn it. How the only reason I’ve begun to learn it is because loving you is the only thing in my life that never hurts.
I’m not trying to say that relationships are effortless. I’m not that daft. What I mean is—loving you isn’t falling at all, Q. It’s a lie-in on a Sunday, with you in my arms, and the cats at our feet, and the certain knowledge that all of me is welcome there. That all of me is home, because by some miracle you know me better than anyone, and you love me anyway.
So much of my life is a fight, and you remain the most effortless surrender.
I love you with all of me, Q. And I always will.
Love,
Your James
Q sniffed, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to swipe at his face. “Don’t look at me. I’m not crying.”
“Of course not,” Bond said. He reached out to wipe Q’s cheeks with his thumbs, and rested his forehead against Q’s. He stayed there for a long moment, leaning into Q, feeling the warmth of his body alongside his own.
“We’re quite the matched set, aren’t we?” Q asked eventually.
“I’d say so,” Bond said. “Oh, and there’s one more thing.“ He reached into the leather satchel at his feet, and pulled out the snow globe he’d bought in Bath. “I bought this to throw Moneypenny and Tanner off the track, but do you know, it’s rather grown on me.”
Q shook it, and watched as snow fell on the replica of the Bath Circus. His smile widened.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
“By the way, I presume that Moneypenny and Tanner aren’t actually having an affair.”
“Do you know, I’d convinced them to go down with me to Bath to mail your package, since we all had the Saturday morning free—I thought we’d make a day of it. If you’d taken the train into Bath, instead of driving, you might have run into all of us. As it was, I had to take the train back by myself. But I gather I had the more comfortable journey.”
They sat in silence for a while longer, looking at the Fighting Temeraire on the wall.
“Does it still make you melancholy, when you look at it?” Bond asked.
“Maybe a little. It’s a melancholy painting, in many ways. A painting about change. But then, not all change is bad, is it? Something ends, and something else begins. Maybe there’s hope in it, in its own way.” Q shifted on the bench, turning to look at Bond. “And what about you? Do you still just see a bloody big ship?”
“Well,” Bond said, considering. “There are actually two ships, sailing toward the viewer, aren’t there? The older, wiser, stately ship, and the younger, cheekier ship there in the front, dragging the older one into the future whether he wills it or no. It’s a metaphor, you see.”
“A metaphor for what, exactly?”
“The ships are a metaphor. The painting’s actually about shagging.”
“Oh my god. And here I was starting to think you were a romantic.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“I do love you, you know,” Q said. “In case you needed reminding.”
“I do,” Bond said. “Frequently.” He reached up to tuck a stray curl behind Q’s ear. “And I love you too. Obviously.”
“Obviously.” Q looked down at his watch. “Do you want to have a look around? I took the day, but if you have to be back at work—“
“There’s nowhere I need to be,” Bond said. “We have time.”
The gallery slowly started to fill up with people, students and tourists and docents giving tours, eddying around the pair of them like boats in a harbor. Some of them may have noticed them sitting there, the agent and his quartermaster, looking for all the world like an ordinary couple on a Valentine’s Day outing. Others never noticed them at all. But they stayed for a long while, and then they were gone, and when they left, they left together.
