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

[onthewillowsthere]

He doesn't entirely know what to say to that, so he says nothing, but after a while: "Are you well?"

[peaklordshen]

"Halfway to deciding that oil paints are the wrong medium entirely and I need to switch to acrylics or watercolors to ever actually capture the luminous quality of your eyes," grumbles Shen Yuan, "but I know that's not what you meant. I am well. The zombies last week were a surprise, but it was kind of nice to stretch my combat muscles a little."

[onthewillowsthere]

"You weren't hurt?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan shakes his head. "I'm very difficult to hurt." To someone else, it might be bragging, but he just wants Galahad to know, so he won't worry.

[onthewillowsthere]

Since he is too, he nods. He understands this to mean what it means, which is: not like Claudius. "Claudius was hurt," after a moment. "Magnus healed him."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan feels both guilty and relieved about that. Guilty because he'd known Claudius had been bitten and hadn't gone to check on him after the fight, and relieved that Magnus had taken care of it where he hadn't. "I didn't know Magnus could heal," he says, "but it makes sense. I'm glad he's alright." A brief pause, and then, "I'm sorry you had to see him hurt."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad doesn't say anything to this. He doesn't often remember people in a vivid way, and his memory is more likely to elide something terrible than preserve it, but he remembers Claudius in the greenhouse, the sleeve of his shirt torn open and soaked with blood, the ragged edges of the bite, a lock of his hair fallen out of place across his eyes, his face -- which Galahad can never read -- tight with pain. He doesn't ask for the memory: it just comes, bringing with it fear and a ferocious anger that burns under his skin.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan takes a breath at the look on Galahad's face. He wishes he had spare canvas or his notebook to sketch; he doesn't want to change the lovely invitation of the portrait's expression but this is a completely different kind of beauty, blazing and furious. It does, though, help clarify why he can't get the eyes right: this fire is always there, it's just usually banked. He sets about re-mixing his blue.

[onthewillowsthere]

For a while he says nothing, just sits still and waits for the anger to ebb out of him in a slow receding tide.

Finally he says, "You said I could draw you too. May I still?"

[peaklordshen]

"Of course," says Shen Yuan. He's finally happy with the blue of Galahad's eyes, and pleased enough to take a break if Galahad is. "You want to do it now?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. Please."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan nods and cleans his brush, standing up to shake out his hands and stretch his wrists, more out of habit than because they need it. He reflects, now that he's doing things with this body that he used to do with his old one, that there's something very off-putting about being an immortal cultivator who never gets tired. It feels wrong, that he can sit an an easel for hours and never feel the strain in his neck or back.

He cracks said neck anyway, for the LARP of it all. "Where do you want me?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Where you are." He signs, stay here as he gets up to go retrieve his sketchbook from where it's sitting with the empty earring box and his discarded sweater.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan lingers by his easel, a little self-conscious. He's never done this the other way around before.

[onthewillowsthere]

Once he has it he comes back to the armchair; he likes the angle he has of Shen Yuan from it. He opens to a fresh page, selects one of the charcoal pencils, and begins sketching, glancing up frequently at Shen Yuan.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan leans against his stool, only sort of sitting. "You like drawing." It's not really a question, because he knows it, but he wants to hear what Galahad likes about it, if he wants to share.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I like doing things with my hands. It makes it easier to listen." He draws in the strands of Shen Yuan's hair carefully. "I like remembering things."

[peaklordshen]

"So do I," Shen Yuan admits. "I like memorizing things, and keeping track of things. I used to make spreadsheets—um, like, very organized lists—about the things I liked. Mostly about stuff in the books I used to read. Plants and their effects. Creatures and their abilities, their weaknesses. People and their relationships." Luo Binghe's wives and their ambitions.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad has never written down a great many things, largely because he hasn't ever had many possessions -- paper and ink are precious things, and a blank book to write in would be an unexpected indulgence -- but hearing Shen Yuan describe it he thinks he would like to start. "What else do you like?"

[peaklordshen]

A few weeks ago Shen Yuan would have brushed this off with oh, you know, all sorts of stuff, thinking Galahad was just making small talk. But he knows better, now, knows that Galahad likes to look at people and see everything he knows of them—that it helps him fill in what would otherwise be an inscrutable hollow behind every face. "Arguing," he says, instead, with a laugh. "I like forming opinions, and defending them from other people's opinions. About inconsequential things, ideally—what foods are better than others, what the best method to complete a task is, the meaning of stories. Things you can dig into and get passionate and fired up about, but still be friends at the end of the day."

[onthewillowsthere]

The idea of arguing for fun is a completely new one, but he can imagine it immediately, Shen Yuan and Magnus bickering about pizza or fashion, and knowing that it's a game would mean he wouldn't have to be afraid of it (he hates being present when two people are angry at one another, trying to figure out what he should do and whether he'll be drawn into it, what to do with his face: it makes him step out of his body so he can be somewhere else).

[peaklordshen]

"For example," says Shen Yuan, just to test, "you told me you didn't like noodles as much as you liked falafel. I accept this as a matter of taste, because I'm a very benevolent friend." His tone is playful, clearly joking. "But if I didn't, I might argue that noodles are clearly better, because they're a solid, delicious base for any flavor at all—endlessly customizable. Whereas falafel might be better once, it won't be better every time, because it's always the same."

He hasn't actually eaten falafel, but not consuming something has never stopped him from having a stubborn opinion about it before. Why would it start now?

[onthewillowsthere]

His gaze flicks to Shen Yuan's face and he's quiet for a space before he says, "Noodles are too simple. Falafel is complex." It's slow, and not nearly as obviously playful as Shen Yuan's words, but there's a testing note in his voice too.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan grins at him, encouraging. "True genius is seen in simplicity," he counters. "Complexity can be a shield, a way to hide clumsy or unskilled cookery."

[onthewillowsthere]

"But balancing all the parts does take skill. Good falafel is better than good noodles."