"Rose, it's been three fuckin' weeks. You gotta get out and do something."

"No I don't, Maudlin."

"Let me rephrase that: fuckin' do something, or else I start telling people to visit and kick your ass in gear. And you won't like who I start with."

"You wouldn't."

"When do I bluff?"


I didn't have to come to the meeting in costume. I could've driven here, then stepped into a restroom and armored up. That would've taken far more effort though. I would've had to pack a bag of clothes, sit in traffic, tell Amy that I needed the car, deal with her inevitable attempt at small talk, try to navigate my way through it without showing just how much her refusal still hurts...

No, not worth it.

I look at my watch and sigh. No one accosted me as I walked through the apartment complex. Part of that is probably the numerous requests I've made in public for people not to approach me. Part of that is probably the thorns studding my armor. Say what you will about commitment to theme, walking around covered in spikes is an excellent way to convince people to leave you alone. Now I'm alone in the the third floor hallway, waiting for enough time to pass to make me "early" instead of "awkwardly early."

I sigh again.

This is stupid.

I knock three times. There's a muffled noise behind the door and I hear footsteps. They stop, the locks on the door slip and click, and the door cracks open. A hazel eyes peeks out, the color made lighter by the heavy bag underneath it. The rest of the person is hidden by the door, a sturdy length of chain keeping it from opening further.

I settle myself and look down at the eye. Business time. "I'm here for the portrait-"

"Oh! You're White Rose! Right, I totally remember that," she interrupts, closing the door again. A chain rattles, then the door opens all the way. "I'm ready if you are!" she says, putting on a smile and motioning into the room. "I mean, I hope you are, 'cause I'm pretty ready!"

As I enter I take in the artist. She's short. That's the dominant first impression. I'm tall for a girl, taller in costume, and she decidedly is not, at least a head and a half smaller than me with long, straight, extremely dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She's dressed casually, just basketball shorts and a tank top with a black cargo vest of some sort left open over her chest. She's taking me in as well, scanning me with a critical eye I recognize from half a dozen different artists. It's the look of someone sizing up a piece of work and deciding what to do with it.

After the moment of silence she gently bops her head with the heel of her hand. "Where're my manners? I'm basically set-up, but there are a few things I still gotta do. So, like, raid the fridge while I get the rest of the lights up and running." She motions towards a metal obelisk in the back of the studio, then heads towards a cleared-out area, empty save for an easel, a stool, and a pair of lamps. "I'm Seffai, by the way. Seff for short," she adds, throwing a smile over her shoulder. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too," I say quietly, a little startled by the whirlwind of interaction that just happened. As she starts messing with a lamp, flicking it on and off in bursts of harsh illumination, I shake myself out of my stupor. Artists are weird. This isn't news. I head over to the kitchen, taking a route around the empty area, carefully stepping over some discarded game controllers and a pair of painter overalls. I'm not hungry, but I figure it's probably the best place to wait for her to finish her preparations.

As I walk, I observe the flat. People tend to leave imprints of themselves when they live in the same place for a significant period of time, and it looks like Seffai is no different. The garbage can is filled with take-out boxes and paper bags bearing the logos of half a dozen restaurant chains, and the fridge is packed with finger-foods, stuff that stays good through its first bout in the cold. There are a few framed photos on the walls of untamed forests and evening prairies. A nature lover, then, but not one who wants to travel out to the harshest climes.

I lean against a counter and compare the two halves of the apartment. On the one hand, there's the workplace, clearly defined by the almost barren type of order imposed. On the other hand is the "recreation" area, with a heavy-duty backpack and several different pairs of boots lined up against the wall, cluttered in a way that makes it feel lived-in, like well broken shoes or old shirts.

Music starts rolling out from a pair of speakers, startling me. I turn towards Seffai, who has cocked her head in manner that makes me think of prairie foxes, alert and focused on the angle of another lamp, the light softened by a white lamp shade, and after a few measures of music she nods to herself.

"Yeah, that's the last of the last-minute stuff," she says, settling her hands on her hips. She walks over to the easel, a single finger visible over her shoulder as she beckons me towards her. "Hop up on the chair over there and we can get started with the first-draft sketches. Sound good?" she asks, stepping up onto a heavily-modified barstool and kicking the base, sending her spinning. "Wheeeeeee!"

I blink.

Then I accept the silliness for what it is and slowly plod to the center of light. The stool is tall enough that I don't have to bend my knees too much to sit on it, and after a moment I find a position that lets me sit comfortably. I begin to settle my hands in my lap, then remember I have an audience.

"Is there any pose in particular I should be aiming for?" I ask, turning towards Seffai. She's barely visible, the easel loaded with thin-looking paper and set at a slight angle that allows her to see me while also covering up most of her body. She shakes her head and smiles.

"Nah, you do you. Just stay still for a bit, I'm going to be cranking out some quick sketches so I have an idea about what to commit to later. Also, have I mentioned that I really, really appreciate you picking me? Like, really, really appreciate it?" I wave a hand dismissively.

"It's fine," I say, settling back into the chair. "Just draw."

It takes a while for Seffai to get going. First she has to look for pencils, for sharpeners, for extra tape, and slowly mess up the previously carefully-organized room in the search for exactly the right eraser. She finally starts the process of getting settled after that, only to realize that the easel is at the wrong height for someone my size. That takes another ten minutes to fix, and she keeps up a constant chatter throughout, filled with self-deprecating humor and bubbly nervousness. It trails off as she gets into the zone, the idle chatter fading in favor of the skritch skritch skritch of pencil on paper and the occasional request to change poses.

Then an air raid siren goes off.

"Eeep!" Seffai says, looking down and scraping at her pockets even as I suppress the urge to jump off the stool anddo something violent. "Sorry about that, it's my food alarm, there to make sure I, y'know, eat." She checks her phone and nods. "Yeah, you've been sitting still for a while. Want to get lunch?" she asks, looking pleadingly at me. I slowly stretch out my arms, feeling the muscles creak from several hours of disuse.

"That... would be nice," I reply, nodding once.

"Sweet!" Seffai says, hopping off the chair and thumbing through her phone. "So, I usually get take-out and just wolf it down as fast as possible. That cool with you? I've got a few Mexican and Indian places on speed dial, but if you're open to it there's this Hawaiian place that I haven't ordered from in a while."

"Hawaiian?" I ask, standing up and looking around, trying to figure out what to do next. During my photo shoot with Felix things went fast enough that I didn't have to think about what to do with my body during down time, but now I feel adrift, lost in a space not my own.

"Yeah," Seffai says, oblivious to my discomfort as she stares at her phone screen and taps away at it. "Kalua pork with cabbage, rice and macaroni, it's really good. I mean, not as good as it is in Hawaii, but for that you'd need to bury it in leaves then slow roast it for hours, which is kind of tricky to do in Boston. There's also basically chicken strips with macaroni, which is a nice intro for people who haven't had Hawaiian before. Like, if you're super-not okay with it we can do something else," she assures me, looking up with a nervous smile. "This's about you," she adds, a wavering note of hope in her voice.

I shrug noncommittally. "What's on the menu?"


"Are you okay?" Seffai asks as we wait for food, sipping tea and sitting across from one another at the island in the kitchen. I look up from my tea.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I ask, rubbing my mug with my thumb, concealing my nervousness in small motions behind uncaring bone. Seffai shrugs and puts down her own cup.

"You seem a little... not okay," she says, picking her words carefully as she avoids my gaze. "I mean, you're kinda way-too-quiet compared to the other models I work with, and not in a "I'm super focused" way. More like in a "cry-for-help" way." She laces her fingers together and stares at the table, twiddling her thumbs. "I mean, I could totally be reading this wrong, but you're not really all here, are you?"

I glare at the top of Seffai's head, a shard of glass-clear anger cutting through the haze of my tar-thick self-pity. Who does this two-bit sketcher think she is, trying to psychoanalyze someone she's known for all of fifteen minutes?

"I'm perfectly fine," I say crisply, trying to end the conversation. Seffai doesn't seem to want to though. She shakes her head, strands of hair drifting loose to hang down in front of a pensive expression.

"You're really not. See, normally when I'm drawing people, there's some back-and-forth, a little chit-chat, some jokes, you know. Small talk. You didn't really do any of that." She takes a deep breath, then looks up at me. "Maybe you're just kind of a jerk. Maybe you just don't like me. That'd hurt, but I could kind of get it. But if you were a jerk then Felix wouldn't have said such good things about you. If you didn't like me you would've been a little more angry when I tried to get you to talk to me." I hold myself still, hold in the shards of bone that want to escape, that want to solve this problem the simple way, that want to do something stupid becauseI can't handle the truth. "So, yeah. I'm kinda just here, a person to talk to, but if you want to talk you're probably not going to see me again. If you want to spill, I promise to keep my mouth shut afterwards. Like, I don't think I can actually offer much advice, but I want my models to be happy, y'know?" She ends on a sad little smile.

I feel my ribs flex, coming so close to breaking the promise I made so many years ago, the one that still matters and I have to keep telling myself that, just because she's gone but not gone and it still hurts like being cut open and burned and it never heals-

"How do you deal with losing someone you love?" I ask, the feather-light whispers nearly drowned out by the sound of breaking ceramic. My mug shatters as I lose control of my bones, the pressure of my grasp scattering tea and ceramic across the countertop but I'm too hurtto care, the words scraping me raw from the inside out. Jagged blades burst from my armor, destroying the chair I'm on and replacing it with rapidly-thickening tendrils, the lower half closer to iron cables than legs. "How do you fuck up the best part of your life using logic and reason and know it's the right thing to do, no matter which way the blade falls, and when the worst happens you're still completely unprepared and you still have to see her every day, knowing that it's your fault, your goddamn fault, and you see her laughing, smiling, and there's that tiny bit of melancholy that makes you think that there could be a spark left but that would defeat the whole reason for asking the question and she's moved on so what's the fucking point!?" I finish shouting at least five feet off the ground surrounded by bramble and thorns and shattered spikes that can only convey a fraction of my self-loathing.

Then I look down.

Seffai is in full-on deer-in-the-headlights mode, looking up at me in abject terror with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth. Slowly, lest I scare her into running, I pull back in the bone. First the thorned branches around my shoulders and arms. Then the ragged-looking blades, curled and angry, sprouting from nearly every possible surface of my armor. Then the limbs holding me up halfway to the ceiling, which lowers me until I'm merely standing across from her, shoulders slumped and so very, very tired.

"I'm sorry," I say, staring at my feet. "You're not a part of this." Why do I fuck everything up? "I'll leave, send a check for the damages." I left my room for the first time in at least a week and what do I do? Scare an artist half to death, dump my problems on them, and for what? Maybe I should just-

"Nah," Seffai says, voice quiet. "I kinda get that."

The two of us stand there in silence for a moment, lost in our own thoughts.

Then the doorbell rings.

"I'll get it," Seffai says, face still subdued but voice back at a normal volume. "We can talk over a meal."


When I'm about halfway through my plate of chicken, Seffai starts talking.

"I'm ace," she says as she puts down her fork, once more avoiding eye contact. "A few years back, one of my friends asked me out, and I said yes." A silence stretches out, but I don't say anything.

"He's a good guy. A good friend." She's speaking slowly, carefully, and the shift from her loose and carefree diction is jarring. "I liked going out with him, but I didn't like kissing him. Not even a little. I didn't want to think about sex." She inhales, then exhales, more sad than anything else. "We were close. Really close. He wanted something physical, though. I couldn't, can't, do that," she says, a note of moroseness creeping into her voice. "So I broke it off. I did it to salvage what was left of our friendship and so he could find a girl who could make him happy."

We eat in silence for a moment. I feel the urge to say something. Anything.

"You seem to have managed pretty well," I try. Seffai barks a cold, hard laugh.

"It hurt more than anything else," she says darkly. "Like fucking knives made of all my worst memories right to the heart for a solid week. It didn't get better, either." She picks up a fork and stabs at her pork far more aggressively than necessary, again and again and again, filling the tines to the end with meat and cabbage. "It's been years, and I even now I feel it, a little poke right where it hurts. We're still friends," she adds, glaring at her food like it owes her money. "We still hang out, still help each other out in bad times." She sniffles a little, bites into the mass of food on the end of her fork, and after a few angry chews swallows it down. "And it's because I knew when to draw the line and say 'I'm sorry.'"

I space out for a moment after she says those words.

"You okay there?" I blink and come back to the world. Seffai is looking across the table, concern in her eyes.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" I deflect. "You just poured your heart and soul out to a cape that destroyed a chair in a fit of pique."

"Chairs can be replaced," Seffai says, waving her hand dismissively. "People are a bit harder." I chuckle a little at the comment, tired and quiet. "So, are you okay?" she asks, looking at me over an empty plate. I swallow the lump of food in my throat and look down at what remains, appetite gone.

"No," I say. "I'm really not."


The next four hours pass in a blur.

We finish our meal and head back to the studio half of the apartment. Seffai asks questions, and I answer them. Questions about what hurts the most, about what Amy was like, about why it ended. I give Seffai as much as I can, telling her about waking up without anyone to hold, about the just-us gallows humor that made people ask if the two of us needed to see a psychiatrist, about the toe-curling, bed-breaking, eye-rolling sex that I still find myself aching for. I tell her about how she could make me smile, pull me out of self-depressive spirals, and how she had the most adorable sneeze in the world.

I tell Seffai that I couldn't have had her without sacrificing far too much. That I had to choose between what I probably needed and what I wanted to be able to make it work.

Throughout it all she doesn't stop drawing, throwing in pose requests between comments, some gently mocking, some quietly affirming. We play with bone, abandoning the stool in favor of Greek pillars, of long roots lifting me off the ground, of suspending myself from the rafters with strands so thin it looks like I'm floating. We experiment with flower arrangements, with framing, with bouquets I hold, with bouquets scattered around carelessly. By the time we're done I must have spent more time sculpting than an average day at .e, and I feel lighter for it.

Another alarm goes off. This time I don't jump.

"There's the next food time," Seffai says, dropping her pencil and once more scrabbling for her phone. "Also, wow we spent a lot of time on this stuff. I think the initial agreement was for, like, half of what we ended up doing?" she says, face confused before it drops into panic. "Oh shit, am I going to get billed for this?" she whispers. I laugh, pulling back in the pine tree of bone I had been leaning against and shake my head.

"If Maudlin tries to bill you for any of this, tell me. I'll set him straight," I assure her. "I should be paying you." A thoughtful look comes across Seffai's face.

"Could I get my compensation in studio time?" she asks. "Like, this is really cool," she explains, slipping off her stool and pulling the easel around to show off a rather impressionistic, dream-like interpretation of one of my poses. "I'd really, really like to do more."

"Sure," I say, smiling behind my mask. "This... this was nice." I look around the room, now given context by the woman who lives in it. The hiking gear comes with stories of where it's been, the furniture with the precise location of the garage or moving sales they came from, of who's crashed on them after a long night of geeking out over pencils and paper. "Thank you for letting me into your home," I say warmly, bowing slightly. Seffai pshaws.

"Please, thank you for coming," she says dismissively, walking to the freezer. "Big-City cape visiting a small-town artist? Seems like the start of some sort of weird drama," she comments as she opens it up and pulls out a paper box, arching an eyebrow at me over her shoulder. "Mochi before you go?" she asks. "I wanna eat these with someone so I don't feel like as much of a pig when I snarf half the box." I laugh again.

"I would love to."


"So how was it?"

"Fun."

"Fun? Fun? Did I just hear my sad-sack partner describe something as "fun" for the first time in weeks? Should I bring someone in here to check for Master influence? Are you even the real Rose?"

"Employer, yes, no, and yes. Don't make me shave and fire you."

"I give, I give. Now that you've rediscovered your sense of humor, want to hit up a few pubs? Well, one pub. New little spot I'm opening up, cape-only. Gonna be bringin' some other indies there to break her in, maybe a few of the nicer white hats too. Whaddya say?"

"Sure. Just let me change into something more comfortable."