Bit of random something-something.
o-o-o-o-o
Volney is sitting alone at the large table in his studio and with every passing moment, his bitterness gets that much deeper. On the table are row upon row of carefully placed, locket-sized miniatures, a model graveyard for those not (yet) dead. Tiny, single-haired brushes mark out loving eyes and smiling hands, proud and determined chins. He records the memory of loved ones on scraps of canvas or wood, trinkets to remind the Tortallans why they fight – to give them something to remember the fallen.
People die, Volney records. No matter how often he tells himself the memories are important, the history is so important, it all feels so useless. He feels useless.
He remembers thinking once that he'd got to Tortall too late – that all the interesting, story tale events had already happened (the Sweating Sickness, the Black City, the treachery of Duke Roger of Conté, the passing of the Voice, the Dominion Jewel, the Coronation of the King, etc., etc.), but as it turns out, he is not at the end looking back. And now that Volney has the choice of signing up to fight, or sitting back out of the action. It is a justified fight – the defense of a country his loved ones believe in – and yet he is annoyed to find that he has no wish to fight at all. He has no wish to sit at home and wait for news of his loved ones like a woman, either.
It pleases him, briefly, that living in Tortall as he does, he still has some traces of machismo left.
The war hasn't started yet, though, and it's the whole country that waits while Volney makes keepsakes.
Approaching footsteps sound on cold stone floors and Volney focuses more closely on the image of the Lord of Cavall's eldest daughter – barely more than a girl. His visitor stops two feet from him and clears his throat, but Volney, angry at being distracted, refuses to look up.
A sigh. "Volney", Numair speaks. Volney acknowledges his presence with a passing glance. "I have a favour to ask you".
Volney runs out of the chestnut colour he is applying to the hair and exchanges portrait for pallette. The knife dips carefully into the cadmium red, burnt umber, the tiniest bit of yellow, half a speck of his precious blue and slaps them together against the board. "Well?" he asks, and gives his friend half of his attention as he adjusts the colour.
"I want you to paint me a portrait."
"A miniature?" slap, slap, scrape
"Yes."
Volney skips brusquely over who. Numair was the only one in denial there, except that….
Numair protests Volney's look of interest. "It's to find her if we're separated."
Volney snorts. "When do you want it?"
"I leave tomorrow."
Volney does look up at that.
"He wants it tomorrow", Volney chuckles dangerously. Numair is leaving, the war is starting His knuckles whiten around the pallette and he points the knife at Numair.
"You realize that it takes a week for the paint to dry, and…" Volney starts. All the energy directed into careful little strokes is bursting out.
"As long as it's done I can dry it with magic, or seal it until it does dry," Numair interjects.
"You know that doesn't work as well to set it, and that's not even the point. I have a table full of these things from paying customers all commissioned within decent amounts of time, and at least thirteen of them will be wrecked while I work on yours." Every argument is articulated by a stab of the knife.
"I can pay you for your troubles, if that's all you want." Numair's eyes narrow.
"It'll do for a start," Volney shouts back.
Numair backs towards the door. "Or I can take the work to one of your colleagues – perhaps one of them will be less busy."
"Insult to injury, taking my work to those hacks - why don't you just pour salt in my wounds?"
Numair shakes his head, puzzled and disappointed. He turns his back to go.
Volney feels the anger leave and the regret set in. "Wait", he commands.
He watches just long enough to see Numair's long body stop abruptly in the doorframe before heading towards the cupboards stacked across his back wall. He opens one, then another, yanks out a drawer and dumps the contents across the counter, mutters under his breath, "Curse the Black God into existence, where is it?", and finally finds what he's looking for.
He sets it down heavily on the table, and looks expectantly up at Numair, who did indeed wait for him.
It is, of course, a locket.
Numair reaches his hand to his belt, where Volney knows he keeps his purse. He shakes his head.
"No, you idiot. Keep your money."
The fuzzy understanding bleeding into Numair's expression is priceless, and Volney would be fascinated (or laughing) if he weren't still scowling like a wronged adolescent.
Numair works his mouth around to a bemused smile and opens up the locket. "Thank you, it's beautiful," he says.
"So keep 'it' safe." Volney is delighted to see Numair's warning glare fall flat due to his oh so manly blush. He hands him a chain he's slipped off his own wrist. "Put it on this."
A pause.
"And get out of here, I have work to do."
If Volney had a mirror at that moment, he would have noticed that he shared the exact expression of contentment as the eldest Cavall daughter. He was too busy, however, trying to make her hair look right.
o-o-o-o-o
Was initially going to have Volney drink as he painted, but we've seen how well that works out. I'm also getting interested as to whether or not I can write something that doesn't end happily (or at least on the happier side of inconclusive). Any thoughts? Ideas?
Sally.