TIMING: Current LOCATION: Muertarte PARTIES: Casimira (@undeadchivalry) and Metzli (@muertarte) SUMMARY: Metzli and Casimira unexpectedly share a quiet evening painting in an empty gallery, each finding comfort in the other’s silent presence. CONTENT WARNING: N/A
The air was heavy with the scent of paint, drawing a bittersweet smile from Metzli's lips. Usually, the space would be filled with about twenty canvases, each prepared for artists of varying talents, but that day had taken on a different quality. The room was sparsely occupied, easels and blank canvases propped on the west wall of the room.
Metzli had canceled the class, still shaken by the damage their body and gallery had sustained from an unsavory guest. Sighing, Metzli set up a single station, and stood there silently. Poised in stillness for an escape that the vampire had longed for, yet now felt tinged with an unshakeable sense of longing. Their hand silently reached for their chest, laying somberly above. There was no beating heart, and yet the cage it was held in was hardly still.
While Metzli took great pleasure and pride in displaying and vocalizing their expertise in front of a full class, there was something much more satisfying about solitude. Someone had to choose to do so. To accept their thoughts and daydreams and commit them to canvas. A weighty endeavor, indeed. One few had the strength to pursue.
Their thoughts spun around those desolate visions, coaxing a gentle hum from their lips as the lead glided across the canvas. The tip of the pencil rattled against the surface, movements erratic but still precise. A subtle chaos unfolded, hinting at the beauty that would eventually emerge. Slowly, shapes began to merge into a distorted face. The heaviness in Metzli's heart started to lift, and they continued their work as someone entered the room.
Casimira hadn’t gotten the message. Not because she was technologically inept (though her stubborn flip phone didn’t help) but because she rarely looked at it unless it made noise, and it hadn’t. She preferred silence. The world made too much noise already. She hadn't brought Karma. While the horse would follow Cas into fire if asked, dragging her into a place like this— concrete, traffic lights, strangers slinking by in headphones—felt cruel. She knew what it was like to be a creature out of place. So she had walked.
Her boots whispered against the gallery’s floor, and her arrival brought the faint scent of ash, steel, and some hard-to-place herbal oil. She wore no armor today, though her presence still carried the weight of it. Her hair was tied back, but loose strands had escaped the braid to cling to her cheek from the slight humidity in the air. At her left wrist sat a wide, misshapen cuff of metal—engraved with blurred alchemical sigils. Not decorative. Not whole. The transmutation didn’t settle cleanly tonight and the jewelry bore the memory of her gauntlet, of something larger, something waiting. It would have to do.
Casimira paused just inside the threshold, noting the eerie hush, the absence of idle chatter and rustling brushes. “…Hm,” she muttered low in her throat. The canvases were untouched. One station. One artist. Her gaze landed on them, noting the way their pencil danced in their hand. Cas stepped further in, carefully closing the door behind her with a soft click. She didn’t want to disturb the work. But she wouldn’t turn back, not after coming this far. “I missed the message.” Her voice was low, her accent faint but precise. She moved quietly toward a nearby stool and sat, not at the easel, just near it, like a soldier who had entered a chapel but not yet decided to pray. “I can leave, if you’d rather.” There was no apology in her tone, but something gentler, the offer of quiet, of respect.
They smelled the woman before they heard the familiar click of the door. Ears perked and their body stiffened, and when they turned around, Metzli was surprised to discover how quiet and powerful the woman's presence was, all at once. “Oh. That is okay.” Their voice is dry, even, as it always was, and they swallowed, twiddling the pencil in their hand while they watched their company sit.
“You do not have to leave.” Metzli shook their head, dropping their pencil in their distraction. “Um,” They scrambled and bent down to pick it up. “Do you want to join? I do not have a subject. This is just…” What was that word? Oh. Right. “Freestyle?” The pitch went up higher at the end, head tilting in question as well.
“You can grab easel and canvas in the corner.” Their accent is prominent, though their English has definitely improved. “Will you?” Metzli asks, sitting back down and returning to their sketch. “Join, I mean. Will you?”
Casimira watched the pencil drop. She didn’t move. Some silences didn’t like to be touched. “…Freestyle,” she repeated, the word low and deliberate, like a name she was only now learning to say.
A faint crease formed between her brows. Then she stood, with the slow care of someone used to armor that wasn’t there. Her steps to the corner were soundless but steady, her hand brushing the edge of the canvas as if asking permission. Then, with the same reverence one might show in the threshold of something sacred, she returned to the space beside Metzli. Not quite beside, not quite apart.
Casimira didn’t sit right away. Her hand moved to adjust the stool, the canvas, the cuff at her wrist, each motion careful, grounded, like part of a rhythm she hadn’t rushed in years. The sigils on the cuff gave the faintest shimmer, coming off as simply metal catching light.
Her gaze drifted to the canvas in front of Metzli. She didn’t stare, just looked, and let the silence speak first. “It looks like something trying to come through,” she said quietly. “Something honest.” It wasn’t flattery. More like a shared understanding of things that didn’t need names. Casimira sat, shoulders relaxing just a fraction, as she then turned to face her own blank canvas, mind running with ideas of where to begin.
A blush couldn’t form on the vampire’s face, but they felt the warmth spread over their cheeks and nose all the same. It reached their ears and made their head feel as if it wanted to float. At first glance, Metzli’s expression appeared mostly unchanged, which was typical.
There was only one person who’d be able to notice the way their brows relaxed with their shoulders, and how the corner of their mouth ticked up at a microscopic level. Their posture was no longer rigid and unmoving, and Metzli felt at ease enough with their new company to look at her with renewed and earnest interest.
Whoever she was, she understood the delicate language of creativity. She accepted Metzli’s short replies and long pauses, and made her own in kind. “Hm.” They replied to her statement, adding a curt nod shortly after and returning to their sketch with a heavy and speedy precision. “What is your name?”
Each mark layered together, slowly building a haze of an image. Metzli applied a few x’s to mark where the black paint would go, then made their way to the table to collect a palette, a few brushes, and paint. They arranged the paint and grabbed a few extra scoring tools in case the idea shifted to something that required more texture. Sitting back down, they clipped the palette to the easel, but didn’t quite begin their piece. Instead, they slightly turned to inspect what their company may be doing.
Casimira’s pencil hovered above the page. Her hand had only made a few marks—broad strokes, not yet a shape, more suggestion than statement. She wasn’t looking at the paper now, though. She was watching Metzli move. The efficient way they collected their tools, the care in how they were laid out. She recognized the gesture. Ritual, again. Preparation.
At the question, she didn’t answer right away. Not out of hesitation, but out of habit. Her gaze lingered on Metzli for a moment. And she saw it. The smallest opening. “Forgive me for not introducing myself… I’m Casimira,” she said at last, her voice as even as the lines she’d started to draw. “What’s your name?”
Casimira looked back at her canvas, lightly turning the pencil in her fingers as she considered the lines before her. The marks didn’t look like much yet. She wasn’t drawing an object so much as an impression. Weight. Containment. She could hear the faint sound of Metzli’s brush, the small clinks of their tools. No conversation pressing against the silence, only motion and stillness. She hadn’t realized how long it had been since she’d shared a space without needing to fill it. Even when it was with Karma they both always had something to say to the other. Her gaze softened just slightly as she said, “Quiet like this… it’s hard to come by. But it’s different than being alone.”
“I am Metzli,” They introduced themself, “It is good to meet you, Casimira.”
As the pencil was set aside and replaced with a brush, the rest of the world slowly faded away. The room held a sort of silence that was rare in a town filled with people and danger. With or without double-paned windows. It was the real kind of silence. The kind that settled into one's bones and latched tightly, unforgiving and with no interruptions. No disturbances. No intrusions.
Metzli liked it that way. Preferred it, even while knowing it was in short supply. Far more rare than that were people who enjoyed the same. So it was a bit jarring when Casimira broke the seal, though it wasn't unwelcomed. She was admiring the quiet aloud.
The irony of that wasn't lost on the vampire, and they huffed a chuckle from their nose. “You like it too.” It was a statement, sounding a lot like admiration on Metzli's part. “There is something funny about what you say though.” Their brush rasped against the canvas, mixing the grey and blue into the shadows of a melted face. “Breaking silence to speak about it.” They smiled, a little bigger that time. “You are good to be alone with.”
The first layer was done, and Metzli scooted their seat back and stepped away to get a better visual on what to do next. For a moment, their gaze trailed to Casimira's work, and their shoulders sagged with a hefty weight of familiarity. Eyes glistened and mouth draped slightly, a single shaky breath escaping Metzli as they took a step closer. Silence overcame them once more, but their expression was screaming a score of understanding.
Casimira smiled at the irony, amused. She also wasn’t anticipating a compliment in return. It wasn’t often she spent time alone with anyone other than her horse. The compliment was welcomed, noted, but met with silence as it bloomed in her. Metzli seemed like a sincere person and if they ever had other classes open, Casimira might actually show up more than once.
She let the silence settle between once more as she focused on her own canvas. The initial markings had elongated to a slope. A shoulder. The angle of a head turned down, not bowed. The folds of something like cloth came next, draped like weight, tugged by something unseen. Wind, maybe. Memory. Cas wasn’t sure yet. She let her pencil follow the imagined pull, drawing it taut around the figure’s body, cloaking them in motion and silence. No face. No hands. Just the outline. It wasn’t armor, not quite. But it was protection.
A breeze whispered through the door seams. She wasn’t sure if it came from inside or out. It tore her focus from the canvas and she turned to see Metzli leaning back, staring. She took that moment to look at their canvas. “That shadow work… it lingers.” Hers didn’t have much yet, still needed to get her vision down before adding color. Clearly Metzli was more experienced when it came to artistic expression, especially when it came to colors. “And the grey and blue—solid choices.” Doubtful Metzli was looking for any validation but Casimira wanted to vocalize her own thoughts. There was more to the artwork but that could remain unspoken for now.
There's a sense of preservation emanating from the pull in Casimira's canvas. A solitude that doesn't quite seem like loneliness because a purpose kept the subject cloaked with everything it needed. Or thought it needed. Metzli wasn't sure if that was what Casimira intended, but it was what their heart saw, and it began to bleed.
“What is bleeding when you create?” They tilt their head like a question, brows softly pinching together as they examine Casimira's linework further. “Does it…?” But Metzli doesn't finish the question, voice almost too low to be heard anyway. They look back at their own canvas, body rigid and expression lost.
“Oh.” Taking a deep breath, Metzli goes back to their seat. They probably looked a little too long, as they always did. Their eyes had a tendency to burn into others while they etched things to memory. “Thank you,” Metzli finally said, inhaling again. “What colors do you intend to use?”
Casimira hadn’t expected the question. She glanced over at Metzli, a pause sitting heavy between them—not from discomfort, but from a kind of mental recalibration. She’d never thought of herself as particularly artistic. Practical, yes. Skilled with her hands. And sure, now and then, when time allowed, she’d put charcoal to paper or try her hand at shaping something small from clay or wire. But she’d always treated it like passing time. Like habit. Not like expression.
Maybe she’d forgotten what it could be.
“I usually work in black and metal,” she said quietly, more to the canvas than to Metzli. Her eyes shifted to the palette, studying it with the same intensity she gave a forge. Her fingers hovered over the brighter paints, then passed them by. She reached instead for slate gray, pulled in a streak of charred ochre and tested the blend with the side of the brush. “This color seems fitting for now.” She paused. “Maybe I could add an olive green blend too…”
After a beat, Casimira had to return to what Metzli had initially asked, it had settled in her chest, waiting to be spoken. “You asked earlier… what’s bleeding when I create. Do you mean what bleeds from me?” She continued looking at her canvas, not quite feeling the need to look Metzli in the eye. It had been too long since Casimira truly bled in a way that mattered. Blood, to her, had become routine. Duty. A knight gives it one way or another, and she had, again and again, until the act no longer felt like loss. Just motion. Just cost.
“Metal.” They parroted, gaze shifting all around the room to find the material, but there was none. Words had to suffice for what Metzli would describe then.
“If you look, metal has all the colors depending on shine. The intensity changes with this.” They watched as Casimira contemplated what she would use for her piece, ultimately settling for something cool and neutral. Metzli smiled quietly to themself, looking forward to how the paint would be applied. Everyone had their own technique, and each style was very telling to what the painter felt and who they were. It was one of Metzli's favorite things to analyze.
Watching still, the vampire sat back in front of their easel, nodding along to Casimira's question. “Yes.” Metzli replied, picking up their brush and going back to work. “When I bleed, my chest aches so deeply it is like it is in my bones.” They completed the background, shifting their brush to the finer details. A bit of white here and there for highlights, with a smear of pale crimson as the final touch.
It was forbidden longing stretched in a wail on canvas. As they said, their chest ached. The pain was so deep that Metzli trembled as they scooted their seat back to critique their work. What spills out next comes without them wanting it to.
“It hurts more. Every time. No matter how the image changes, I bleed and I ache. Like I am…hollowing.”
Casimira stayed still as Metzli spoke, brush quiet in her hand, the smell of paint faint and grounding between them. She didn’t interrupt, not out of politeness, but because what Metzli said sounded like something sacred, something not meant to be handled or picked apart. It was an unfamiliar ache to her. But she recognized the weight in the voice that carried it. The way Metzli’s brush had shaken. She knew what it was to endure in silence so long the silence becomes part of you.
After a moment, she reached out—not toward Metzli, but toward her own canvas. She shifted it slightly, turning it so it faced a little more in Metzli’s direction. A gesture that wasn’t quite bold enough to be a request, but clear enough to say: You can look, if you want to.
The canvas showed a lone figure, completely wrapped in heavy, colorless cloth—no face, no skin, only the folds of fabric pulled tight by unseen weight. You couldn’t tell if they were hiding or being hidden. The cloth could have been armor. Or a shroud. Either way, it was heavy. And quiet. And meant to hold something in. Unfinished as she had paused to listen to Metzli but a fair amount of the shading had been painted on.
“I can’t say what it is. Not exactly. But it’s been sitting in me a long time. Like it’s waited for me to stop moving.” Casimira kept her eyes on the canvas. There was no defense in her posture, but no invitation to pry either. Just a space opened, cautiously, like someone cracking a window to let in some air.
“It’s not the same as what you carry. But… I see it. I understand the ache that lingers, even when the bleeding stops.”
She didn’t expect a reply. Didn’t need one. The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It just meant they were still here. Both of them.
The shape on Casimira’s canvas is bulky and rigid, buried and twisted beneath a weighty tapestry. It constricted the figure, choked it. Metzli nodded along, soaking in every blot of paint and every gesture of a line. Something hid in each stroke, or they were staring too closely to see what was looking right back at them. They marveled at it quietly, feeling as though a weight began to drape over them in the same way.
Whatever level of painting Casimira was at, she was no novice. No stranger to what it meant to let your heart lead your brush and your pain bleed into the paint. But pain was good. So was the easy silence. It meant they were alive. It meant they had formed a connection, however flimsy and temporary.
Breaking the silence, Metzli sat idly in their seat while Casimira continued her piece. “Do you…” Turning just barely enough to make sure their voice didn’t halt at their canvas, Metzli swallowed, “Do you want to have a tour after you are done?” Their piece was not nearly finished, but there was little they could do while their mind was otherwise occupied.
“There are many pieces that remind me of yours.” And it would be nice to continue to share a quiet space that the two of them seemed to enjoy. It was rare for Metzli to find others who found the same level of respite in it as them. “But do not feel obligated.” They cleared their throat, standing and heading to the nearby sink to clean their tools.
The silence settled over them again, and Casimira barely noticed. Silence had never bothered her—not after centuries spent in degrees of solitude. Her most constant companion had been a horse, one who couldn’t speak back in the ways most would want. And perhaps that was part of the comfort. Presence without expectation. She valued that more than most might understand.
Metzli’s voice gently reached her, and she glanced over, the corners of her mouth lifting in the faintest smile. A tour? Unexpected. But her evening held no other obligations, and the polite offer was more appealing than anything else she'd considered. “A tour sounds lovely,” she said with a small nod.
Casimira looked back at her piece. It wasn’t finished. Not yet. But it could wait a little. She didn’t expect it to hold up to anything in a gallery, not truly, but there was something humbling in the idea that it might echo something Metzli had in the gallery. After all, feelings were rarely unique. Personal, yes, but not solitary. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready,” she added, still facing the canvas. Her voice was quiet, but sure. Casimira didn’t rush. Some things, like quiet company, deserved to unfold slowly.
