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]

Galahad nods, and does his best to relax, to hold himself more the way he would if Magnus or Shen Yuan were cuddled against him -- he tries to remember the ease he felt when Shen Yuan gave him the herbal remedy, how everything was light and he couldn't stop smiling and laughing. He does, at least, look less imposing.

[peaklordshen]

Galahad, once he's settled, is kind of an ideal portrait model. He just sits, perfectly still; he doesn't fidget, or ask questions, or even really look bored. He just—is. Usually what Shen Yuan likes about painting verses photography is the sense of gesture; you're not, necessarily, painting all of what someone looks like down to the last detail, but you're capturing something, a moment, or a composite of several, in a line of moments, as someone moves between poses or emotions. But he finds himself wishing he had a camera, rather than a brush, for this; he wants every detail of this stillness, not least because it's so different from Galahad's usual stillness—it's not wary, or reserved; he's waiting, and waiting, specifically, to be touched. He wants to capture that; the implication, caught somewhere in Galahad's gaze, that as the viewer your touch has the power to make him move, and breathe, and laugh, and sigh.

He's so still and silent for so long that Shen Yuan gets a little concerned, actually. "You okay?" He calls over to him from the easel. "Do you need, like, a snack? Something to drink?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He blinks, looking a little like a sleeper come awake. "I'm all right." And then, because he's comfortable with Shen Yuan and he thinks Shen Yuan likes it when he explains his thoughts a bit more, he adds, "It's like a vigil. I'm good at vigils."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan frowns, a little. "Isn't that sad, though? I thought vigils were for when someone has died." Like waiting with mourners and burning money for the dead.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Some are. All vigils are prayers. When I became a knight I stayed up all night in the chapel."

[peaklordshen]

"Do you still pray?" Shen Yuan asks, purely curious.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. I keep the hours, and Sunday mass."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan nods, not surprised, carving out the shapes of Galahad's shoulders, his knees. "What do you say? In your prayers? Or is it just recitation, the same words every time?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Recitation. --I add my own intercessions." He's continuing to sit perfectly still as he answers Shen Yuan's questions.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan is having the worst time finding the right blue for his eyes. Maybe it's not right, to ask him about God when he's trying to embody desire, or at least openness to desire. Or maybe he doesn't mind, maybe it's nice. "Does it make you lonely, that fewer people here pray to your God?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad blinks, which is his face's only concession to confusion. "I was always lonely."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan huffs, feeling a pang of sympathy so deep it almost manifests as laughter. "Sorry, right, stupid question."

[onthewillowsthere]

"No, it wasn't." He keeps looking straight ahead at Shen Yuan. "I like keeping the hours. It's for me, not God."

[peaklordshen]

"Good," says Shen Yuan, heartfelt. "If it was for him, he wouldn't deserve it."

[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."