Buffy yawned pointedly as she and her friends trailed after their teacher who was droning on about yet another painting. She was on a fieldtrip with the rest of the Hemery High freshman art class to The Getty, one of LA's larger art museums, and it was excruciating. It's not like she had signed up for class because she was interested in art, she had just needed to fill a blank in her schedule and figured the class probably wouldn't give out much homework.
She had been right on that count but unfortunately what she hadn't considered was that the class also included the most boring fieldtrips ever. The hours seemed to drag by as they plodded along from one gallery to the next. The place was built like a maze and whenever she thought they were done, they came across some other room opening off to the side and the nightmare started all over again. Buffy's feet were killing her and if she ever heard the word "foreground" again, she was going to punch someone.
"And this room is dedicated to the works of Liam Kirwan, Ireland's most famous painter. Born in 1727 in Galway, Kirwan grew up as the son of a wealthy textiles merchant and was expected to carry on his father's business, but he left home in his twenties and moved to London to pursue his art. He had a few rough years, but eventually found a patron in . . ."
Buffy tuned out again and gazed uninterestedly around the room. She turned to her friend Kimberly to make a snarky comment about the teacher's shoes that she knew would be good for a laugh, but before she could open her mouth, something caught her eye. On the wall opposite her was a painting that stretched all the way from floor to ceiling. Its subject was a woman with long blonde hair, dressed in armour like a knight. She held a sword in front of her, its tip buried in the earth and behind her stretched out two enormous wings like an angel's, gold against a red sky. All of this was striking of course but what really caught Buffy's attention was the woman's face. It was Buffy's own face. A few years older maybe, wearing an unfamiliar air of weary nobility, but still recognizably her face.
As she stared at it, Buffy realized that their teacher had now moved on to talking about what she had already come to think of as her painting. "This one over here" the teacher said "is called The Slayer. It was one of the last paintings Liam Kirwan ever produced before his death in 1801. Its subject is a bit of a mystery. Classically in art, angels are generally depicted as male and to portray one as a woman would likely have been considered quite scandalous. Some people have suggested she may have been based on Joan of Arc. However, the artist himself claimed that his inspiration came to him in the form of a dream, a 'vision of another world' as he put it. In any case, it is generally considered to be among his greatest works. Moving on now . . ."
Buffy continued to stare, enraptured, at the painting. She barely felt it when one of her friends tugged on her arm. "Buffy, come on. We're falling behind."
"Sorry" she said, finally tearing her gaze away. "I kind of like that one."