"I find gardening very therapeutic. There is something very comforting about putting care into something that will bloom and grow beautiful when it was but a little spec of a seed that you planted into dirt. There is something healing about feeling the moist earth, the coldness, the smell, it is a lot of work that you will not see the beauty off for a while. It teaches patience, to cultivate something rather than rush into it. I think patience has been lost in modernity. Everything is so instant, instant messaging, instant gratification, people marry and divorce in a snap of fingers and no one breathes any more to enjoy the moment." She was old in certain regards, old-fashioned. Maybe that was why she did not seek companionship nor had anyone turned her gaze until him. He with the old world chivalry and politeness, he had traits that she found favourable in a man. He was beautiful, otherworldly beautiful and anyone that had eyes was sure to notice but she had seen many handsome men and none particularly interested her beyond a glance, he on the other hand was infectious. She found herself thinking of him more than she was comfortable, in quiet moments her mind drifted to wonder what he was up to, if he was well. If his search proved fruitful.
Shipwrecks fascinated her as a subject of paintings and he noticed. "I like a story half-told, how it is a moment frozen in time, grief made visible. A ruin that becomes a sanctuary for a new life, ruin and serenity. How glad the survivors must feel to simply be alive. How in that moment there is clarity" It was the truth…but not the entire truth. They are violent events with quiet aftermaths.The violence is over, the storm has passed, the ship lies still. A wreck is the moment after the horror, when the subjects can finally breathe she would one day tell him and complete the picture.
She watched him fascinated as he admired the figure in the fields of Elysium, as he admired the painting in thought she admired his ebony curls and how they fell, a small part of her wanted to be audacious and touch one but she would resist and entwine her hands in front of her to banish the temptation. "Do you like that one?" she asked when he finished looking at it. "Did you first notice the rivers, the meadow or the handsome warrior snoozing under the warm spring sun?" she asked. "I wondered once on the afterlife. The dead drink from Lithe the Greeks believed and so forget and are in peace. What would peace look like, to a warrior I thought. The fields of Elysium do not particularly have the sun, Helios is far away, but to me that would be a warrior's peace. A snooze in the sun naked and warm, a moment of respite. What will he do next? Does he even belong in a refuge full of peace?" she explained the sun bathing beauty.
What was that hideous feeling in her chest? He speaks but one compliment and it is as if butterflies infect her respiratory system and her digestive track, she almost wants to demand more praises out of him like some young girl. Hideous feeling, to desire someone. How dare he, had he not dishevelled her enough? Had he not done enough to infect her mind already? "You speak such words of honey, Armand. I would be cautious offering them to lonely women ensnared by your beauty. Terrible things might happen if you allow yourself to be thought of as desirable. I might grow accustomed to your praises and lose all decorum and demand more." the ancient warned him.
"I know why her. Because he is an idiot with terrible taste in women" Ysabeau answered so matter-of-factly. "He will choose her and will lose everything else, they don't write stories of choosing the familiar, no they write stories for the love that defied. But two fools in Verona are the reason six died." She exhaled softly, she didn't need to but she did as a habit she still held even two thousand years later. "If you do not stand for something you will fall for anything, yeah, yeah yeah" she waved her hand around but Armand was not wrong. Matthew would lose either way.
"It is serious. He is bonded with her. Mated. Companions. Put it how ever you wish to put it, he chose her and it will come with serious ramifications. It breaks sacred covenants and..." Ysabeau had to steady herself. "His half brother is a vampire of great distinction who has always held disdain for Matthew and this might give him ample opportunity to act on his disdain...but I apologize. You are not here to listen to our family drama. I simply dread that in this instance I am both the wound and the blade-" The ancient regained her cold composure once more but even now there was warmth in her eyes that she lacked for anyone else.
"Come, let us return to the observatory. Can I offer you a warm drink?" It was never the same warmed from a blood bag than fresh from the vein but what sort of host would she be if she did not offer her model a drink at least.
Back at the observatory the painting was curing under the heat and UV lamp to speed up the drying process. "May I show you something?" she asked and powered up the telescope and if he agreed she would show him Cygnus. "Allow your eyes to adjust, Cygnus is not the most obvious pattern, it reveals itself gradually as your eyes adjust." It fitted their dynamic she thought, something unfolding in increments, never rushed, always deliberate. "Look there—do you see the line of light? That’s Deneb. Follow it down… the wings open. It’s Cygnus. The Swan. I thought you’d like how it moves across the Milky Way. It never looks like it’s flying away. Only toward. I gazed at Deneb the other night and for a brief thought you sprung to mind, luminous but not ostentatious"
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