A/N: Numbers 16-18 will be understood so much better if you read Rojo/Kristopher Stanton's "Francis of Nond" [which can be found on the lovely www. fiefgoldenlake. proboards. com]
-
Portrait of an Artist: Volney Rain
-
1] Volney Rain is a Marenite.
2] He considers this to be an inconsequential fact, and as a result, the rumours have him as everything from the deposed Rogue of Tyra to one of King Ain's [many] illegitimate children.
3] He secretly keeps a notebook of all the theories he hears.
4] Time after time, he's literally laughed himself out of a bad mood by flipping through it.
5] The blonde hair is a result of a high-quality, long-lasting dye.
6] Sometime during his teenage years, he had decided that the triumvirate of quiet, mysterious and dark was entirely too cliché.
7] Volney's biggest fear is that one day, his hand will become so accustomed to automatically softening the edge of a cheek, broadening a uniformed shoulder, or dabbing over the scars of childhood disease that it will forget how to draw the harsher outlines of real people.
8] When this fear gets too overpowering, he posts a Leave of Absence sign on his studio door and disappears off into the world for weeks on end, armed only with his sketchpads and a beggar's disguise.
9] On these trips, he draws as fast as he can, the pencil becoming only a blur against the paper as he tries to capture every detail of the lives that walk by.
10] He used to like imagining himself as a Player on the stage of his life.
11] The utter whirlwind of the Tortallan court and the imposing personalities of its legends soon shatter this view -- of a world where everything must, in the end, agree with the star.
12] He is still debating whether to be glad for this or not.
13] Despite his best efforts to prevent it, Volney still blushes a highly un-masculine pink whenever he passes Daine and Numair in the palace halls.
14] Contrary to popular belief, Daine is not the cause.
15] When a group of [certainly not overworked, he thinks] pages back him into a corner with chants of an artist and his grey-eyed lady, Volney can only shake his head ruefully at the narrow-mindedness of Tortallans.
16] Which inevitably leads him to think wistfully of the freedom and art salons of Maren – and of that one rainy Tuesday afternoon when a gorgeous, soft-spoken poet had entered and introduced himself as L'Assisi.
17] And how he had spent every Tuesday [rainy or otherwise] for the next three years letting himself be captivated by that melodious voice and those shyly curling eyelashes.
18] It is, fittingly enough, on a rainy day that Volney realizes that he doesn't regret never mustering the courage to ask for the poet's real name – nor, really, would he ever consider seducing the mage.
19] He prefers to create for himself the atmosphere of heartbreak.
20] Because Volney Rain believes that only through suffering is true art made.
-
Reviews are love.