She always arrives the same way, in a flashy sports car driven by another woman, a woman with short blonde hair and strong blue eyes. They call her the 'painting lady', because that's all she ever does.
Each time it is the same. She gets out of the car, kisses the other woman on the cheek, plucks her paints, a canvas or two and her easel from the car and walks away. The path she takes leads her down from the road, to a small stretch of golden sand by the water.
At first she doesn't do anything. Instead she sits, her dress folded neatly beneath her, watching the waves roll in. Sometimes it is dawn when she comes, other times it is dusk, but never in between. Then she stands, and then, as the sun sets, or as it rises, she starts to paint.
Most of the time she only paints one canvas. Often, by the time she is finished, the canvas is a cornucopia of colour. Strands of fragile gold break across a painted horizon, casting yellow shadows across a pale pink sky, tinged at the edges with cerulean blue, all of it over a stained glass sea, its crystal surface more perfectly transposed by her brush than any camera could ever manage.
Other times she paints the dusk. Indigo, violet and ebony wing their way across a darkening sky, heralding the descent of a dark orange sun, fading, fading, then gone, leaving only a crimson sphere of flame, its fire forever captured in her mind's eye, seared onto her canvas.
But every now and then, so very rarely that only the regulars, the people who jog down past the sea every day, or the old folks who live nearby, ever see it, she paints a second canvas.
She only ever paints four things.
The one she paints most often is a riot of motion. It shows someone with short blonde hair and cobalt eyes as stern as steel, and yet somehow soft, perhaps mellowed by love. The other features are impossible to make out. She paints the woman, and it is a woman, dancing, hands thrown up above her head, slender legs outstretched in the middle of a graceful leap. It looks like the woman is flying, as though the wind has caught her and will never let go. Only the woman, the painter knows how true this is, it makes her smile. It is a happy smile.
Sometimes, when the clouds roll in, and the rain comes only lightly, a gentle drizzle, she paints someone else.
She paints crimson eyes and emerald hair, and face of ageless beauty. Only the eyes are different. They are eyes that have seen too much, eyes that measure time not in years, decades or centuries, but in epochs, in the boundless passage of the ages, year after year, each a single grain of sand on a beach that stretches out into infinity. Again the woman smiles whenever she paints this painting, only this smile isn't a happy one. It hurts.
There are other days too, other days that come most often in autumn, when the wind kicks up and the waves come rolling in and wash against her toes. She loves those days, for she loves the sea.
Once, someone stood over her shoulder as she painted. They saw a beautiful young woman on the canvas, her purple hair reaching down just past her shoulders, violet eyes gleaming with faint amusement, lips curved upward just a little. They also saw a girl standing still as the whole world moved past her, a girl staying silent as the whole world spoke. The woman doesn't smile when she finishes the painting instead she frowns. She sees the sadness behind the girl's smiling eyes and wishes she could make it disappear. She can't.
Then there are the days that come most rarely of all, the days when she can't stop crying, the days when the brush tumbles from her fingers and she gropes for it in the sand. On those days, no one ever tries to look at what she's painting. It wouldn't be right. But if they did what would they see?
They would see two people. A tall young woman, with short blonde hair and cobalt eyes as cold as iron, but filled with loving fire. They would see a woman with aqua hair and eyes a shade somewhere between blue and green. They would see the sea behind them, and the wind brushing against them, and the sun rising in the east, casting a faint golden glow over them.
And between the two of them they would see a little girl, a little girl with cobalt eyes and aqua hair. They would see a little girl with her feet in the sea, the waves lapping gently over her feet, the sand swirling between her toes. They would see the girl's eyes dancing with delight as her she bent down to cup the ocean in her hands, or leapt up to catch the sky itself in her fingers. That's what they would see.
There is always a long silence after she finishes that painting. She sits there, crying silent tears, sobbing quietly, with only the wind to wipe the tears from her cheeks, and the sea to soothe her sorrows.
Eventually a sports car pulls up with a roar that can be heard down the street. That is when she knows it is time to leave. She breathes deeply, and smiles, although it never quite reaches her eyes.
The young woman with short blonde hair kisses her on the lips as she gets into the car. She always asks her what she's drawn. Her answer is always the same. The sun, she says, the sea, and everything below it.
She never tells her the truth, for as much as she loves her, as much as she loves the life they lead, she'll never get what she really wants, because it is the one thing she can never have.
A little girl, a little girl who loves the wind and the waves, a little girl with cobalt eyes and aqua hair.
Author's Note
Yay! I got another one done. Paintings, like stories, say a lot about us. In Neptune's case, I've always wondered why she was so quick to adopt Hotaru. I think it's because deep down, in her heart of hearts, she knows that she'll never have a child, her own child. And I don't think that's the sort of thing you can keep inside, no matter how strong you are.
Anyways, that's another done and as I've said before, I'll say it again : I live for feedback, so drop me a lineā¦
Cerii-Chan : I'm glad you liked it ; your review just about made my day. You don't know how much it means to a writer to have their work appreciated. Yay!
