May DWC 2025 Day 5 - Restless, Faith
The scent of linseed oil, turpentine, and incense hung thick in the air as the afternoon light poured in through the tall windows that overlooked the city. Stellan Volanthus stepped quietly into the studio, his long coat shrugged off and hung on a nearby hook. The space was as he remembered: organized chaos, canvases leaned against walls, palettes of muddied color scattered about. His daughter stood at the center of it all, barefoot with brush in hand, her hair pulled up with two old paintbrushes skewered through it like pins.
She didn’t look up when he entered, too focused on the work before her. Her brush was moving in short, precise strokes over a canvas larger than most she’d invited him to see before. From where he stood, he could only make out harsh lines of red and gray.
“You said it was important,” Stellan said after a long beat, voice low so as to not startle her, “so I came.”
“Yes, thank you.” Vixannya’s voice was measured, but there was a charged undertone to it. Her brush paused and she stepped back from the canvas, finally turning toward him. “Do you know what I’ve been working on lately?”
He crossed the room slowly, his boots echoing off the hardwood floor. “Something dark,” he remarked dryly, glancing at the scattered paints and the sharp angular shadows in her latest piece. “Looks like you're angry at someone."
“Not angry, no, curious.” She motioned toward a finished painting covered with a cloth. “I’ve been painting killers, famous ones. Assassins, serial killers, some are dead, some still alive. Some I visited in prison, some agreed to sit for me. The ones who don’t, I don’t show their faces, only the ones who want to be known. I’m calling it ‘Monsters Among Us’.” If there was one thing that Vixannya loved, it was delicately traversing the edge of a sharp blade.
Stellan’s body went still. That gnawing sense deep in his chest tightened, the one that had never quite faded no matter how many names he buried or how many years passed in comfort. He kept his expression unreadable. “You always had an eye for the dark,” Voice quiet but steady.
Vixannya tilted her head. “You’re part of it.”
He studied her for a moment, unsure if she meant that in the abstract, or if she knew. But there it was, already gleaming behind her calm stare, certainty and recognition. “I assume this is where I ask how long you’ve known,” his tone betrayed a small crack of something darker. Not fear, but the memory of what he had always done when others found out.
“I figured it out a while ago. By accident, mostly. I had a vision of my brother’s death while he was playing the part. But don’t worry, I ensured that would not happen to him and his fate has changed.” The details were not necessary, so instead she let his mind wander. “Then it all just fell into place and made perfect sense. I started this painting with him in mind as The Chameleon, but then I stopped.” Her eyes softened. “Because he still is him, and he would never agree to this.”
Stellan exhaled slowly. That part was confirmation, not revelation. He’d always suspected she knew more than she let on, but hearing it spoken out loud shifted something within. “You’ve been keeping a dangerous secret.”
She raised an eyebrow. “From whom? You?”
He almost smiled. “Anyone else who’s ever known didn’t last long. You’re the exception.”
“I know,” she said, unflinching. “And that’s why I waited, I wanted your permission.”
“It is not just my permission you need. I am not the only one to carry the title.”
“Cazmilan would not dare come after me if that’s what you’re worried about. Anyways, I wanted this version to be you. Even if you all do look the same, there are still differences in mannerisms, moods, auras…colors. Things the vast majority would never notice. I do.”
Stellan moved closer to the easel, catching more detail of her rough sketch of him taking shape in shadows and jagged contrast. But no face, just the suggestion of power and presence. A shape-shifting ghost in motion, but his silhouette was unmistakable if you’d ever seen him kill. “You’re not showing my face.” Not that his face always looked the same.
“Of course not, never planned to. You would never give me permission for that, and I don’t quite recall how you looked back then. Just your presence, or lack thereof.”
He deserved that. “Why do it at all?”
She didn’t look at him when she spoke next. “Because I want to paint the truth about what runs in our blood, I want to acknowledge the thread that binds us together. It’s not about judgment, it’s lineage. This is a legacy whether we like it or not, and maybe a part of me mourns the fact I was never a part of that particular legacy. I think the world forgets too easily who really moves it. What lurks beneath the names in history. I don’t want to glorify it, just show that monsters don’t always live under beds. You were a large part of that world, and still are in some ways, so I don’t need you to atone, just to sit.”
He was quiet for a long time. His fingers brushed the edge of the stool as he debated. Her voice was calm, but the faith she had in him, the kind that could only come from someone who had seen what he was and decided to love him anyway. That was far more dangerous than any blade. “I’ve seen what runs in our blood in the mirror for decades. I never wanted it to pass to you, never wanted the weight of it on your shoulders. But you’re right, legacy doesn’t ask permission, it just seeps through if no one stops it. If this is how you claim it, not with a knife, but a brush, then fine. I’ll sit. Just don’t pretend I was ever anything more than what I was.”
“A monster. You agree?”
His thoughts drifted back to his father and how ruthlessly he trained him, stripped guilt from flesh and bone, taught him to kill with a clean conscience and disappear just after the final breath was taken. He didn’t regret the things he’d done, regret had no place in a world that rewarded precision and silence. The man he was had not died, he just grew tired of the noise and that’s when he knew it was time to pass the mantle. Still, the restlessness never left. It stirred inside him now, whispering that the work wasn’t over, only paused. “Yes. But I don’t need to be forgiven,” Finally, he sat down on the stool. “And I won’t pretend I regret any of it.”
“I know,” Vixannya murmured, reaching for a brush. “Most monsters don’t.”
He smirked, “Am I still one to you?”
She dipped the brush in paint and met his eyes with a small smile. “Maybe, but you’re not just a monster, you’re also a man who happens to be my father and I’m trying to paint both. Anyways, sometimes the world needs monsters.” With that, she began to paint.
For the first time in a long while, he allowed himself to be still. Not vigilant, not armored, just present. Sitting for a daughter he hadn’t raised but who somehow still believed he was worth painting even after truly seeing him, and maybe that was the part that unsettled him most.
Collab with @vixannya Mentions of @cazmilan and @cazthechameleon @daily-writing-challenge
