semi-open post: portraiture

[peaklordshen]

After shifting his way through oil pastels, watercolors, house paint, colored pencils, and an endless variety of paint markers, Shen Yuan has finally managed to get the Mansion to produce a decent set of oil paints, and—wonder of wonders—an easel. He's set up in a spacious, well-lit hall, probably for dancing or salons or whatever, where he's arranged a bunch of furniture in various configurations—wooden screens that he's draped cloth¹ over for backdrops; armchairs stolen from the lounge, wooden stools and high-backed dining chairs from the kitchens; even a lovely chaise lounge in a deep purple that he wistfully thinks he won't actually use, because it would definitely be for Aleksander, and he doubts he'll be doing that entry in his protagonists of the Mansion series after all. He has one of the stools pulled up next to the easel to hold his paints, and is wearing a wide-necked sweater over a black turtleneck and some loose, worn jeans that already have a few flecks of paint on them from when he was doing his color tests.² He's pulled his hair back in a practical bun, and he's currently laying down a layer of gesso on his canvas.

¹ Look, he has to do something with all of those robes he accidentally conjured in his last post.
² After days of feeling very lost and confused about how he's not required to LARP anymore, he's pretty much decided that it actually means he can just change who he's LARPing as at will, and the main way to do this is through fashion. Today he is An Artist.

[Primarily for those Shen Yuan has offered to paint, but anyone else is also welcome to come bother him while he works.]

Comments

[ravkanwitch]

"We don't have many wrappers," Nina says, "if that what you're talking about. A lot of the more complex materials have to be Fabrikator made and there aren't that many Fabrikators, especially to focus on food packaging. They're mostly ushered away to the laboratory to work on airships and missiles." She makes a little face. She loves Ravka and she's a proud member of the Second Army, but something in her wonders if this is truly the best use of Grisha abilities.

[peaklordshen]

Aleksander had said something similar--Grisha working in factories, producing arms. Their source material must be pretty focused on this magical war. Shen Yuan hesitates, taking an Oreo, then asks, "He didn't hurt you, right?"

[temnota]

Aleksander was startled when Shen Yuan started dragging him and the settee over the open doors. He noticed the ease with which this was done - another aspect of his powers, surely. While he was curious to know what all they entailed, he also didn't want to ask given how the subject had come up. The less either of them spoke about that night, the better.

"I would have gotten up," he said mildly.

[ravkanwitch]

"No, the only time I saw him before this was very briefly... in his future and my past. He left all of the younger students alone and made sure we got to safety during the war." She holds her half-eaten Oreo in one hand, worrying her lip a little. It's clear she's deciding if she wants to say this next part or not. "The instructors were a different story."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan tsks and shakes his head. "I liked your pose," he says, starting to block in the room around him—the frame of the doorway, the shape the light made on the floor. "If you'd gotten up, you'd never have sat back down exactly the same way."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan blinks at her. "You...de-aged? And are now re-aging?" He does not think this part was in the movies.

[peaklordshen]

"The instructors...?" Shen Yuan trails off, letting her end the question however she likes, maybe pick from the buffet of options he has in his brain, if she can hear them—he wants to know if they were killed; he wants to know if they meant something to Nina, if she was close with them; he wants to know what kind of instructors she means, at what kind of school. He's happy to have her disclose however much or little she wishes, though, it's not an interrogation.

[peaklordshen]

"Oh, okay, interesting," says Shen Yuan. He'd assumed Magnus had ended up here closer to the beginning of his story than that for some reason. "But, wait, Ragnarok is like, a long way off, right? That's some eventual but not imminent end of the world stuff?"

[summerdude]

"Uhhhh, nope, could be any time," Magnus says. "I've stopped Loki from kickstarting it a few times already. It almost happened in 2015, and 2016, and 2017, and then I flyted him, so -- oh hey dude, by the way, I figured it out!" He's remembering one of his first conversations with Shen Yuan, when Shen Yuan seemed to have a vested interest in knowing what year it was back home. "It's 2023 back home. So, like... eight years. For both of us I guess."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I was a twelve-year-old girl when I first stumbled across Narnia, where I reigned as Queen for fifteen years, and yet when we returned to England, we were returned to a point mere minutes after we'd left. Twelve again." She slices her hand through the air, a sharp gesture. "It's not important. I would be interested to see how a portrait now differs from portraits then."

[peaklordshen]

"Twenty—" Shen Yuan has to sit down. Shen Yuan does sit down, carefully, on Xiu Ya, still hanging in the air, his feet dangling. "Oh." That doesn't seem fair. If he's only lived five and a bit years in here—well not here here, but PIDW here—how come it was eight years out there?

[summerdude]

"Dude??" Magnus is tempted to jump to Shen Yuan's side, because he looks thrown, but he can't fly without Jack's help, and he doesn't really feel like passing out today, so he just leans forward instead, one arm extended toward Shen Yuan. "You good?"

[peaklordshen]

"Yeah, um." Shen Yuan waves a hand at him. "I'm cool. It's just—my sister's 26, now. My brothers—my brothers probably have kids."

[peaklordshen]

"Right." Far be it from Shen Yuan to push, especially with Susan, who, he's learning, has a tendency to say exactly as much as she's willing to on any subject and no more. "Well, I'd be delighted to have you sit for me any time." He makes a little face at himself. "Maybe after I finish some of the ones I've already started, though."

[summerdude]

Oh. Yeah. Magnus's few mortal people keep getting older, too, but at least he can see them regularly. "I'm sorry," he says.

[ravkanwitch]

"Well, Botkin was an instructor, at least. He trained many of us in our Grisha abilities. Ana Kuya worked at the orphanage that I grew up in and that we evacuated to. Botkin was somewhat of a mercenary and she was extremely strict -- but ...they weren't bad people. They were found dead, hanging in the trees." All of the things that the Darkling did later in the war, it just all seemed so unnecessary and cruel. How was he furthering the cause of the Grisha if they were dead??

"When I confronted him about it, he seemed genuinely confused," Nina hurries to add. "I think... something happened. Something made him snap and it hasn't happened with the version that's here yet." The yet does hang between them, though.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan nods. "I'll let you get back to it," she says. "But when you're ready for a new subject, do let me know." She pauses, gaze flicking to his face. "I've found the book we discussed before, as well. If you'd like to read it."

[peaklordshen]

"Book--" It takes Shen Yuan a moment, and then he remembers. "Ah, right, Freud on gay people." Why the hell not. "Absolutely--we could meet up sometime in the cafe those French boys are setting up?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I know the one." And this gives Susan somewhat of a deadline. She can bring herself to read the book if she's to pass it on to someone else. "I'm nearly finished with it-" A lie, but a harmless one; she's a fast reader. She can't go finish it now though; she has plans rapidly approaching, and if all goes well, she'll be too busy to pick it up tonight. "I can pass it along to you after the talent show?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan shrugs. "Not your fault," he says, but he's abruptly not in a painting mood. He in favor of skating over on Xiu Ya to hover in front of Magnus. "Can I sit with you?"

[peaklordshen]

"Perfect," says Shen Yuan, and dips his brush in green again.

[summerdude]

"Yeah, of course," says Magnus. He sits up a little straighter, scooting to make sure there's enough room for Shen Yuan. "Please."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan steps up next to him and then sits with a sigh, their shoulders brushing together. Xiu Ya spirals down into its sheathe and comes to a rest next to his painting supplies.

He kind of wants to tell Magnus about his dream--his sister's voice at the door. He kind of wants to explain that the idea of his family moving on from his death and the idea of them not moving on from his death are equally terrifying, but one of them has to be true. Eight years.

But--he doesn't want to be a bummer, and it seems like Magnus is already kind of going through it. So he just says, "I wonder if you could learn to sword surf. If Jack would let you, anyway."

[summerdude]

"Nah, I'd pass out," Magnus says; his tone makes it clear that he knows this intimately. "I mean, he can fly me, but anything he does uses my own strength and it all hits me when I pick him up again. Feels like I did whatever it was he accomplished. So flying is like I, like, literally picked myself up and carried myself through the air."

[peaklordshen]

"Oh, damn," says Shen Yuan. "That sucks." He glances sideways at Magnus. "You must have had a bad time after the zombie fight."