Vae
Human
due to patient/doctor confidentiality, I can't tell myself anything
Posts: 47
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Post by Vae on Apr 1, 2007 22:38:01 GMT -5
The man's studio was like a work of art itself. The staircase leading up to the apartment, outdoors instead of in, was just one of the eccentricities that made it unique and therefore interesting. The porch turned balustrade was the ancient writing that framed the more mundane subjects of his artwork, the shadows that played across the shelves and sculpture and easels and canvasses were the brush strokes here strong and clear and elsewhere angeled and out of alignment. Even Illiam, who was as innocent and unwitting participant within the frame of Vae's perception as the paintbrushes, was a piece of the craftmanship, the personal touch that brought an otherwise simply realistic sketch that dash of recognition that made it pertinent. The entire thing was a piece, a product of Aubin's work, personality, talent. It spoke volumes and in the short amount of time in which it was displayed to her and with the limited capacity of her befuddled human mind Vae rushed to try to take it all in.
What struck her first about the interior of the place was its familiarity. Some people claimed that science and art were two opposite ends of one spectrum of learning, but Vae didn't see it that way. The laws that governed both endeavors were exactly the same. People thought of creativity as a spontaneous combustion for which an artist was merely the medium, at entirely the beck and call of their muse who could at one moment shine down on him benevolently and the next leave him high and dry without relief. Vae knew that the same thing was true for a person of science. A doctor could open a patient up for something routine and relatively non-invasive and in the next moment find her patient flatlining inexplicably beneath her hands. She had memorized every rule and practiced her arcs and rays to perfection. She chose her tools and medium of cure wisely, began with cautious exploration to lay the general groundwork of her work, carefully drew a stream of crimson on her canvas with a smooth and decisive stroke. Then like a painter who looks at his half-finished work and knows with a strike of panic that Calliope has left his fingers dumb and expressionless, the surgeon realizes to the tune of beeping equipment that her subject is getting away from her, as uncontrollable now as a train off the tracks. No amount of frantic battling will bring a work back from that precipice, but both the person of science and the person of art will wrestle with destiny anyway and demand to have their fate back in their own hands. As Vae looked upon Aubin's loft, in an extraordinary bout of clarity she didn't see a studio at all but a hospital,with every canvas and paintbrush the instrument of a prolonged delivery, perilous and unpredictable. She knew this world; it was her own.
The next thing to leave an impression on her was Illiam. His presence was at first alarming only because Aubin had not mentioned him prior to his appearance, and if the artist was an axemurderer he would certainly be far better at it with an accomplice. But she was fairly sure it was against cosmic law to commit a grievous murder in dress socks so she relaxed a little, allowed herself to step forward and smile at Illiam properly. He seemed to be more her own age than Aubin and that, too, was strangely reassuring, as if they were kindred merely because of their apparent ages (though Illiam, like Aubin, had a certain old feel to him despite his softer cheeks and lighter build). Perhaps most comforting of all, however, was the level of stark affection between the two men, which while not a matter of noting for them was very much notable to her because it meant the likelihood of either one of them having any designs on her body other than for artistic purposes was greatly decreased. Besides, who ever heard of gay axemurderers?? Puh-lease.
Illiam's reaffirmation of the going rate for Aubin's models was also bolstering. They hadn't spoken to each other so it seemed clear to her that the rate before mentioned must be an across-the-board payment to Aubin's models and so she didn't feel singled out or oddly sought after. She nodded in acknolwedgement, her fingers curling absently together in front of her in a sign of youth and inexperience with negotiating a price for her nudity. She replied, "Mmm-hmm, I work at night, too, so that's actually better for me." She gestured as she explained, "I don't have to get my days and nights mixed up." She realized only belatedly that this response and level of thought-out reasoning made it seem prematurely that she had accepted the offer so she quickly added, "If I am to acccept, I mean." Returning her gaze and attention to Aubin she then continued.
"But actually, I was wondering if I might ask of something else in return for posing, something besides money?" Her chest had become rather full here, unsure of how she would be received and rather attached to her idea despite telling herself not to be. "I was actually thinking that you might do a second painting as well, only, not in the nude, just a sort of regular portrait, something my parents could put on their wall?" Something old and ancient and long-living, like the slip of napkin he had shown her, something that would still be present in her parents' home even when it was no longer possible for her to do so. Despite her atypical request she met Aubin's eyes evenly and dauntlessly. The money was a great deal to be going on with and she wanted it badly, but she wanted this even more.
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Aubin
Aurillian
Posts: 64
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Post by Aubin on Apr 2, 2007 0:10:19 GMT -5
Vae’s request was, as she rightly imagined, a decidedly atypical one. So atypical was it, in fact, that it caught both Vampyrs by surprise and set them both to blinking at the bold little human. In a silent, telepathic conversation, Illiam reminded the artist that such a payment would be time consuming in a way that simply handing over cash wouldn’t be, but Aubin ignored the good advice resolutely. Being ignored was part of the job (particularly when it came to Aubin) so Illiam was not offended in the least when he sensed Aubin’s growing resolve to consent to Vae’s request long before Aubin actually said anything to that effect.
“That would be,” said Aubin slowly, “an…acceptable situation. $200 per hour then, and a portrait for your parents. Very well.”
As he spoke Aubin wondered yet again about the woman before him. Something in her had caught his attention at the bar, had forced him to focus on just her amid the literally thousands of people who had packed into the entertainment centre’s various clubs, bars, theatres, and operas. Now no longer surrounded by the jangle of a so many other bodies and thoughts, Aubin was finally able to focus on what it was that made Vae so very different. However each time he thought he was just about to get a grip on the core of her uniqueness it slipped away, leaving him more and more perplexed.
That the painting itself might reveal Vae’s secret did offer Aubin some level of comfort. Either the process or the final work was bound to offer some additional insight after all, and even if Aubin was left never knowing exactly what it was in Vae that made her so different the addition of another major clue might be appeasement enough, might offer just enough explanation for why he had so inexplicably picked her out from among a thronging anonymous crowd. The time spent in close contact while he painted not one but now two portraits was also likely to be revealing and despite his best efforts Aubin found himself looking forward to their first session.
“What sort of portrait are you imagining?” asked Aubin, turning a curious gaze on the girl. The way in which Vae wanted to be portrayed would say much about how she saw herself as, indeed, was always the case with portrait subjects, at least in Aubin’s experience. “Any particular style? Setting? Type of dress?”
At Aubin’s side Illiam now began to move. It had become apparent that Aubin was in full business mode and that nothing of what would soon be discussed would be of any interest to Illiam. Resolving then to return to Aubin’s bed (which was not, despite Vae’s assumptions, a bed the two shared in an official capacity despite the fact that they did indeed often share it) the younger Vampyr nodded his farewells to the human and moved to depart. Just before he stepped away, Illiam pressed a soft kiss to the joining place of Aubin’s shoulder and throat, a highly intimate manoeuvrer that immediately stilled the larger man. The two stood still together for a moment, locked in a position that undoubtedly meant far more to a Vampyr than it could possibly mean to the watching human. Eventually the pair parted, Illiam trailing the flat of his hand across Aubin’s chest as he went, burning a trail from where his beating heart should be, over his pectoral, and then ghosting off into oblivious when he reached Aubin’s side.
“Goodnight,” offered Illiam at last, nodding once more to Vae before he disappeared into the bedroom, “I’m sure I’ll see either you or your likeness soon.”
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Vae
Human
due to patient/doctor confidentiality, I can't tell myself anything
Posts: 47
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Post by Vae on Apr 2, 2007 12:44:47 GMT -5
Vae had opened her mouth to protest against the price Aubin named and then comically, like a baby alligator snapping prematurely at a fly, clamped it back shut. She hadn't meant to ask two hundred an hour and the portrait. She had meant to just ask for the portrait. But why look a gift horse in the mouth? She couldn't tell him she wouldn't take his money, that would just be weird! So she said nothing, and battled with herself not to show too much shock at his generosity.
She then turned her thoughts to the second portrait, the one that was hers to plan. As she contemplated, she watched Illiam's departure, and was left with the distinct impression (although probably incorrect) that his display of affection towards Aubin was for her own benefit. They embraced as if they wouldn't be seeing each other for a long while, when he was only departing to another room of the studio, and the embrace was so intimate that it made her turn her eyes away, which blocked her out instead of inviting her in like a simple kiss on the cheek would have done. So she lowered her gaze as Illiam seemed to wish and then raised it back up as he said his vocal goodbyes to her. The tone of his words solidified her impression, 'I'm sure I will see you or your likeness soon,' as if one were interchangeable with the other. She got his meaning. Aubin was off limits. Or so it seemed to her.
She gave her attention back to Aubin and the situation at hand, feeling only a little embarrassed at Illiam's conduct but not enough to make her truly apologetic; she had done nothing wrong, and had no designs on Aubin aside from getting her portrait out of him. Now she turned her thoughts to how she wanted it to look. A few images flashed through her mind as possibilities but they each seemed so mundane and uninteresting, real, the way everyone already knew her. But the idea that kept forcefully pressing itself to the forefront of her mind was a little more fantasy than reality. It wasn't quite what she was but how she imagined she would have been had she been given more time.
"I'd like something where I'm playing the piano. Not that I'm any great player or anything," she felt the need to explain, "I'm actually crap, like a five year old playing, but I like to play and would probably play well if I had time to practice. Other things just always seemed more important. And, I should be in a dress, because my mother always told me to wear them more often and I never listened to her." She continued, eyes somewhat spacey as she imagined the picture. "It shouldn't be in too concrete a style, like something that really happened, but more like something out of a dream, like what might happen, like... heaven." She glanced up at Aubin and this time really did blush.
"Of course you can change those things, if you feel you can't work with that. It's just, that's how I imagine it." She shrugged softly to atone for her domination of the subject and then asked. "Do you think that would be alright?"
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Aubin
Aurillian
Posts: 64
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Post by Aubin on Apr 2, 2007 17:56:32 GMT -5
And just like that, Aubin’s waited for insight was revealed. The Vampyr’s eyes widened slightly at the girl and he turned his head suddenly to the bedroom, checking to ensure that Illiam really was gone from the room (which, fortune had it, he was). Sure now that he and Vae were alone, Aubin stepped forward, staring at the girl first in bald-faced surprise and then with an expression of increasing scrutiny. He paused just before her, a foot at most between them, and stared for a moment longer, amazed, before gently touching his forefinger to her chin and resting it there, apparently delighted by her mere presence.
“You’re dying,” he said simply, clearly more distracted by the fact that she had unwittingly uttered the truth than with the truth itself, “Or you think you are. You speak of your life in the past tense, hu-young people, people your age, never speak in the past tense like that. You don’t think you have time enough to listen to your mother, to wear the dresses she’d always told you, told you, not tells you, to. But you should have time, you should, but you…you don’t think you do.”
Something like a smile spread across Aubin’s features as he stared at the girl, as pleased with sorting out why she was different as a child would be upon suddenly mastering a complicated new toy. What Vae might potentially be dying of was of no interest to Aubin, it was the fact that she felt she was dying at all that made her so interesting. Humans rarely bothered contemplating their brief spans of life in Aubin’s experience, and those who did were always significantly older that the woman before him. But Vae was not only aware of her mortality, she viewed her impending death as an immediate reality, as more than a vague philosophical precept. This was rare in a human and Aubin couldn’t help but treasure the insight the moment he realized it existed.
“And yes,” he added, remembering belatedly that the woman had asked him a question, “yes, yes, that’s all possible. It will be exactly as you like.” He smiled at her again, brightly now, and broke off the delicate touch. “Exactly as you like it,” he repeated, turning to search for his sketchbook, “It won’t be a problem at all…”
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Vae
Human
due to patient/doctor confidentiality, I can't tell myself anything
Posts: 47
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Post by Vae on Apr 2, 2007 19:39:26 GMT -5
She was not surprised by his coming closer or the strange inspection he subjected her to when she was done speaking. She wasn't even thrown off by his touch or the way he molded her head into different carriage. She merely assumed that he was studying the way the light hit her, or seeing some flaw that he would have to edit out in his painting. She did not understand how much he had learned from her speech until he spoke those first two fated words and she realized how much she had given away.
"You're dying."
Despite the fact that this was her reality and that she had long ago come to terms with her disease, long ago quantified and weighed the idea of death and more importantly the idea of her life as a completed work, still it shocked her to hear it spoken to her so succinctly, matter of factly. It sent an electric chill down her spine and perhaps for the first time since the entire thing began a few months back with her friend's diagnosis she felt a gutwrenching stab of fear. If he could figure out her secret, could others? Did she have death written across her features? Were her friends and family merely humoring her the way she hoped to humor them, shielding her pride from the humiliation of needing their support just as she shielded them from her needing them. The thought terrified her, and she suddenly wished to be at home so she could call everyone up and try to judge by the tone of their voices whether or not they knew.
Perhaps what was most astonishing of all, however, was the inflection of those words and the rambling, almost scientific babble that came after. Most people when they learned that someone else was dying were horrified. It didn't have to be someone they loved or cared about for it to be appalling, it only had to be someone who was nearby, someone who might transfer their nearness to death to them. It was a rare glimpse into an unfathomable black hole that no one liked to be reminded existed, but this Aubin fellow didn't seem to be frightened of that mystery at all. The way he said she was dying he almost sounded pleased. She tried to figure out why he would be but she was largely inhibited by the fog that had erupted when he had figured out her secret.
For reasons she could not explain, she felt tears stinging at the back of her eyes. She was not crying - there were no sobs, no runny nose, no dramatic chest-crushing emotion - and yet tears were gathering at the corner of her vision as if she had just had the wind knocked out of her. She was glad he turned to get his sketchbook because it gave her a moment to turn as well, press the dampness back into the hollow ducts where it belonged, and generally compose herself. Through the cloud of the moment's oddity, she mumbled.
"Does it make the painting more valuable?" she asked innocently, unknowingly. "That the model in it is dead?" She had heard of things like that making a piece of art go up in value, a history and story that gave a piece added interest, something for the buyer to talk about when they had visitors over. It reminded her of the little plates below paintings in the museum that said such and such a painting had been through such and such a war, and survived such and such a number of years in a French wine cellar. Would they put a little plaque by her painting in the art gallery, saying, 'The model in this work died of cancer.' Maybe it wouldn't be a testament to her life at all but instead a testament to her death. People would look on it and think to themselves simply, She died.
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Aubin
Aurillian
Posts: 64
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Post by Aubin on Apr 2, 2007 21:17:35 GMT -5
Had Aubin been graced with Illiam’s superior telepathic capabilities, he would have heard, by some definition or other, the questions his simple statement had set off in Vae, would have sensed the torrent of sudden insecurity and self doubt he had unwittingly unleashed. Indeed Illiam was skilled enough that had Aubin shared a similar level of skill with interfering in the minds of others, he might actually have been able to speak each of Vae’s questions as she thought them privately to herself. But Aubin’s telepathic abilities were but a fraction of Illiam’s and human thought was a mystery to him beyond very vague, shadowy, almost animal like impressions of only those emotions that were strong and vivid rather than those that were gradated and subtle. As such, Aubin had no idea what the impact of his words were and as he was turned away from her when she blinked back the tears, he never had the opportunity to witness the physical side effects either.
It was unfortunate, perhaps, that Aubin didn’t realize that Vae was not as comfortable with her own reality as he had assumed she was for Aubin knew, as all Vampyrs knew, a little something about death. Aubin himself had died once after all, and his death had been, as perhaps Vae’s death was fated to be, one that was long, slow, and painful. Although Aubin never spoke of his own death to anyone he remembered the experience perfectly. It had taken weeks for the plague that had ravaged the city to finally find and end him, the last four days of which he had spent balled up on the floor of his studio, alone, coughing up blood and half digested food until death finally released him from the almost unendurable agony that had seized his body. Death could be, Aubin well knew, something to look forward to. It could also be, as Aubin also knew, the gateway to something more.
Vae’s next question, so innocently asked, made Aubin smile once again. Having found his sketchbook, he pivoted on heel and lowered himself onto a box, studying the poor, ignorant girl with open affection. The full smile made him look younger somehow, perhaps less careworn, although the quality of antiquity that seemed to hang about both he and Illiam was not entirely banished. He was, to be totally honest, amused and arrested by the girl. Her combination of innocence and awareness was uncommon among Vampyr society and, perhaps because of this, decidedly alluring. Strangely however his interest in her was for some reason not sexual (which was, as it happened, the thought, along with a joking remark that perhaps he was coming down with something, that Illiam had been sharing with Aubin during their kiss). This of course didn’t mean that Aubin was opposed to such a development for, insightful about death or not, Vae was a good looking girl.
“Not really,” said Aubin, chuckling as he replied, “Death tends to be part of most models histories, it’s not exactly a unique characteristic. Besides, I wasn’t planning on updating anyone on the mortal status of my paintings’ model. It’s not about you really, it’s about…the possibilities of you. And possibilities, unlike bodies, are eternal.”
Aubin’s smiled shifted, becoming one that was indulgent and gentle. “Would you want me to tell people?” he asked politely, watching her for her reaction, “Would you want people to know that you were living? Or dead, when the time comes? It seems you attach a special significance to death or, at least, to your death.”
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Vae
Human
due to patient/doctor confidentiality, I can't tell myself anything
Posts: 47
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Post by Vae on Apr 2, 2007 22:04:33 GMT -5
The idea that his models had a history of dying wasn't particularly comforting, but she supposed he meant it to be a gentle tease more than a confession of axemurdererism. After all, everyone died. Did he keep tabs on every model on the off chance that she would croak and the stock of the portrait she had been in would go up? No, she supposed not, she thought, but she could imagine people, had even studied artists, who would. But his art spoke for itself and needed no stupid storyline to sell them.
What he said about possibilities made sense to her. It was what had drawn her to the idea of posing for a work in the first place. She could be captured, her essence, her look, her impression, without it actually being her. And it would be timeless. Even the impression she left on the people of this world would soon fade, but in a painting people would at least know that she had existed, or at least a woman who looked like her, or moved like her, or seemed like her. And maybe that was enough to be able to let go of this place in her time.
She had to admit that his query was as amusing to her as her own question had been for him. "It's a great deal of personal significance to me," she reminded him, but conceded, "but worldly significance? No, not at all. I wouldn't want you to tell them I was dead or alive either way. I wouldn't want to them to care. They should just be caught up in it, and not think about mundane things like 'who's that girl?' and 'why'd she agree to pose nude?' and those things; they should just be... enchanted." That's what artwork was, enchantment. "But sometimes artists sell their work with gimmicks instead of real emotion and I didn't know if you had hired me for just another gimmick."
In the silence that followed these thoughts she watched Aubin and his sketchbook, and wondered if she oughtn't be doing something specific besides stand there and moralize. "Should I stand a certain way?" She grinned, amused at how ungangly she felt, which was a new thing for her. "You've probably hired the worst model in all of Valir; I hope you don't lose your patience with me before the paintings are done." She could see him throwing down his utensils and shouting at her, Get out! OUT! the way her old piano instructor had one day when she insisted on playing chopsticks in the middle of Beethoven. (But it sounded funny there!)
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Aubin
Aurillian
Posts: 64
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Post by Aubin on Apr 2, 2007 23:12:20 GMT -5
Aubin’s delight in Vae grew with each word she spoke. It was rare to find a human so willing to stare death in the face and rarer still to find one who would laugh at it, would find honest pleasure in the humour it could sometimes embody. True there were tales enough of heroes who faced death without flinching, but Aubin had little time for heroes and found them to be generally false. The heroes of old tales almost always had something on the line when they locked horns with death, reputation most usually, but as far as Aubin could tell, Vae had no such investment. The girl was facing death because she had to and she clearly expected nothing to arise from her tangle with her unseen foe but an early end to her own existence. Most Vampyrs Aubin knew couldn’t face death with such upstanding honesty, not on either side of the divide.
“You aren’t the worst model in Valir,” whispered Aubin, standing as he spoke in a hushed tone, “That would be Illiam’s honour.” He gestured vaguely to the bedroom the other man had disappeared to and added, “He’s completely incapable of standing still. Or sitting still. Or laying still, for that matter. He always wants to see what I’m doing, always wants to know if I have a buyer, if I’ll have a buyer soon, how much it will fetch on the open market if there is no buyer lined up, if I have a place to show it. He can’t stop himself from being my agent which is, I suppose, a good quality in an agent although it is a decidedly frustrating one in a model. In fact the last time I was able to get anything decent of him he was asleep.”
Long, even strides brought Aubin to a pile of finished paintings in the corner of the room. From their number he withdrew a largish completed canvas which he leaned carefully against a stand so that Vae could see it. The male figure at the centre of the image was without a doubt the man Vae had just seen. In the painting Illiam was sprawled across an armchair in a state of partial undress, as if he had simply been too tired to remove the shirt he had already unbuttoned or remove the socks from both his feet. In the painting Illiam looked content in his slumber while around him nightmarish scenes depicted a dark and forbidding wood, a raging pyre, and anonymous silhouettes enacting scenes from a ritual that, one scene made clear, involved a human sacrifice. Weaving in and out of the scenes and encroaching onto Illiam’s painted body were symbols somewhat similar to those in Aubin’s sketch. Strangely the symbols didn’t appear as an aspect separate and apart from either the images in the background or Illiam himself. Rather the symbols tied the two images together and softened the impact of both demonstrably.
Aubin himself didn’t spend any time reviewing the work which, as he knew and Vae didn’t, depicted Illiam’s changing as the younger Vampyr remembered it. Instead he moved swiftly beyond Vae and, shuffling a few more canvases, produced and set up a full length mirror.
“I like to take preliminary sketches of my models in several positions,” he explained as he checked the angle of the mirror, “usually whatever positions they themselves feel comfortable with. But I do like to get a base sketch in a basic position, a zero point you might say. So, if you don’t mind…?”
Aubin let the question hang in the air as he stepped behind Vae and then, moving slowly so as to not startle her, began gently arrange her limbs into a relax stance completely devoid of any suggestion or emotion. His gaze was fixed to the mirror where he could watch the reflection of he and Vae standing before the painting of Illiam until he found the exact stance he wanted.
“There,” he breathed, whispering again because his mouth was at her ear and speaking loudly at such a range would be startling to say the least, “Now, promise me you won’t move your body?”
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Vae
Human
due to patient/doctor confidentiality, I can't tell myself anything
Posts: 47
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Post by Vae on Apr 2, 2007 23:55:24 GMT -5
At first the description of Illiam's shortcomings as a model was no comfort. What if she was incapable of sitting still? But as Aubin explained that Illiam's hyperactivity was due to his need to see the canvas as it worked she decided that wouldn't be any problem of hers. In fact she didn't think she wanted to see the canvas at all until it was finished. That way she wouldn't spend any time away from the studio wondering what it was to look like. And she thought she could even deal with sitting in one place for a long period of time so long as Aubin continued to be so steady a conversationalist and so long as they remained comfortable in the interims of silence as, she remembered, they had been on the walk over here. He hadn't even asked what was killing her. She was glad that he didn't show much interest in that topic; it wasn't something she was ready to shrink enough for small talk yet.
As Aubin predicted Vae did not understand the paining showed to her for what it really was, but art had that malleable quality to it and so she stapled her own meaning to the dark shapes and symbols. She thought it was nightmares, and she could understand that. She had been prone to nightmares in her youth, but once she learned not to be afraid of them they stopped coming to her. Now the only nightmares she had featured herself and a too-long hallway while she rushed with cinderblock feet to get her rounds done before her resident realized she was late. Decidedly less frightening than the monsterous scene depicted in the painting, but then this was why she was a doctor and not an artist.
Watching the process of his preparation was enlightening and she was struck by the ingenuity of using the mirror for positioning despite its simplicity. She shook her head to show that she didn't mind his positioning her physically and lightened each of her limbs unconsciously, even her legs, so that he could place them how he wished. She watched him in the mirror, blushing once when he glanced up and their eyes met because in the end she had done exactly as Illiam had done, despite saying she wouldn't. She averted her eyes from the mirror and stared at the opposing wall instead, allowing him to move her body as nonresistant as a real mannequin might.
The result was so mindbogglingly passive that she realized she couldn't have reached it if she had tried on her own. Some amount of her current emotion would have shone through, her feelings of slight awkwardness or her amusement at the entire scenario, something Vae-like would have appeared. The way he had positioned her, she felt very non-descript, and it amazed her how little she had known about her own body language. It was exciting, in a way, to learn that about herself. She thought if she could emulate his tactics later she might somehow become anonymous, and the benefit of anonymity was obvious. (You could shout out rude things at a concert and the police would never know it was you!)
She swallowed when he asked her to swear not to move. She started to nod her head in agreement, realized that this would probably throw her out of the frame of dispassion he had so painstakingly fashioned her into, and so she giggled and really threw the thing off. "I'm sorry, yes, I'll be still." She rolled both lips inward and bit them lightly to keep herself from giggling again, before taking a breath and mentally shaking off the silliness. Hey, this was harder than it looked! She sympathized with poor Illiam, and thought she might rival him for worst model ever after all.
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Aubin
Aurillian
Posts: 64
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Post by Aubin on Apr 3, 2007 19:43:04 GMT -5
Aware of how hard it could for a first time model to remain still and in a single position Aubin did his best to move quickly. Vae’s giggle had indeed disturbed the position the Vampyr had placed her but it took only a touch to get her chin back to rights. Vae successfully repositioned Aubin moved quickly to his sketchbook and began to working, using rough shapes at first in case Vae moved again and then adding detail, shape, and shading. He said nothing as he worked initially, too focused was he with getting the bulk first sketch done in a speedy fashion. Only once he had moved to the finer details, the marks and blends and shades that made the figure Vae rather than an non-specific woman, did Aubin attempt conversation, his words half muffled by the angle of his head over the paper.
“May I ask,” he ventured as he drew, his pencil still speeding across the surface of the paper, “why you agreed to model for me? I wasn’t sure the offer would be welcome when I first joined you and your friends. They warn pretty young women from going home with strange men these days, and from agreeing to ‘model’ – particularly in the nude. You can speak, by the way, just don’t move anything but your lips.”
The question, to be honest, was not his so much as Illiam’s. When the two had embraced their rapid fire telepathic conversation had done much to explain Aubin’s intentions for the girl (Illiam had thought, at first, that Vae was meant to be supper rather than artistic subject) but had done little to explain what Vae’s intentions were. In ages past it had been far easier to find unknown models but the growing general suspicion among the human community had made women over the past several hundred years increasingly less willing to follow Aubin to his lonely studio. Of course models always could be found in the end and there wasn’t exactly a drought of pretty and willing girls but the numbers were decreasing. Strangely it was Illiam, not Aubin, who was the most distressed by this change. The artist was content with drawing scenes not including women (he had seen more than enough nude women, after all, to draw them) but the agent was often anxious by the dip in income a shortage could mean.
Vaguely Aubin wondered what Vae would make of Illiam’s alarm. She had been worried that an image of her body would be relative value to the state of the living original, had she ever stopped to wonder if the value had something more to do with her sex? Did women ever wonder about such things, Aubin wondered. Or non-artists? Vae’s friends had said she was a doctor and he wondered how that coloured her view point. How it changed it, particularly in light of her own impending death. It must be viewed differently though as doctor’s eyes he decided, just as life was viewed so differently by those who lived on despite surpassing it.
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Vae
Human
due to patient/doctor confidentiality, I can't tell myself anything
Posts: 47
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Post by Vae on Apr 3, 2007 20:50:19 GMT -5
Vae thought about his question for a moment. Why had she agreed? She remembered having a list of reasons to do it at the time, but now for the most part they elluded her. For the most part her reasons seemed to be to her, why not?
"Things change when you realized you're dying?" she began uncertainly, a shot in the dark at naming her real reasons. "Instead of thinking why you should do something, you approach it with, why shouldn't I? I'm dying. The worse that anyone or anything can do to me - take my life - is going to happen anyway. Skydiving holds no danger, axemurderers neither. I'm going to die soon anyway. Now it's just a matter of how it's going to get done. So that's why I wasn't afraid of you." It didn't explain why she agreed, but it explained why agreeing was a possibility in the first place.
"Oh, and, Mannie recognized you. Her parents have had some dealing with you, it seems. Do you know the Jords?" She grinned a little, careful not to shift positions. "She said if you tried anything dodgy she could just get you blacklisted. So I thought, what the hell?" She laughed lightly here but was able to maintain her position anyway.
"I suppose," she continued, more thoughtfully. "Your work just looked so... everlasting. And, I'm afraid of being forgotten, so I thought maybe if I were in one of your paintings..." She would have shrugged here, but without that mode of expression her words merely trailed off, silence encompassing the possibilities that existed if she were captured in art.
"Nudity doesn't bother me," she then added after a moment. "I see people every day who have much more indecent shows of nudity than this." Her grin was wide and amused here, and she would have chuckled again if she weren't afraid of upsetting her posture. "I have seen more butts than I ever care to remember," she told him. Nudity wasn't a shameful thing, to her. It just was.
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Aubin
Aurillian
Posts: 64
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Post by Aubin on Apr 4, 2007 1:13:51 GMT -5
“I see,” said Aubin as he added the finishing touches to the base sketch of Vae, “You’re already dying so why not tempt death? Why not go with the artist-slash-axe murderer, and thank you, by the way, for that vote of confidence, Illiam will love that description. And if he, by which I suppose I mean me, kills you in a heinous and gory way, well, things were heading that way anyhow and if he paints you, ever better, right? At least in the second scenario you get some cash which is always nice, and a shot at immortality which, might I suggest, might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.”
Aubin glanced up then and offered the girl a smile to show that he was neither offended by her suspicion that he was an axe murderer (which was probably an acceptable concern, really) nor was actually making serious fun of her logic. Although Aubin didn’t agree with the girl’s indifferent attitude towards death he couldn’t actually fault her for the opinions she had. His own perspective, he knew, was entirely the product of his own continued, unending death which was, in turn, a perspective the young human couldn’t possibly understand. He likewise knew that his own perspective made understanding hers impossible, so he undertook no attempt to try and instead chalked it up to the universal need to do whatever it takes to get one’s self through the day.
“You can move now,” he added, gesturing along with the gentle command, “and, when you’re ready, you can pick a position. I try to get two or three addition positions of the model’s choice; it gives me an idea of what the model feels they can do and gives me some shapes and images to work with. Just tell me when you’ve found something you like.”
As he waited for Vae to find a new position Aubin turned his attention to sharpening his pencil. He kept one eye on the girl to see how she moved (the way a model moved into a position said as much about her as the position she chose) and, after a moments debate, added casually, “I do know Jords, actually, Mrs. Jord in particular. Is that you’re friend’s mother? Because I slept with her this evening….is that going to make it awkward when I meet your friends again? Assuming I do meet them again?”
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Vae
Human
due to patient/doctor confidentiality, I can't tell myself anything
Posts: 47
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Post by Vae on Apr 4, 2007 18:11:13 GMT -5
Vae grinned broadly at his mild teasing, not offended in the least. She supposed, like he did, that he did not understand because he was not dying. And perhaps he had never known anyone who was dying, either, as Vae had. Her grandmother, Gamma Toto (which was a nickname, actually, whose origins was a widely debated topic), had also died of cancer though her case was much later in life. The illness that stole Gamma's platinum silver hair and racked her bony, elderly body had never seemed to dampen her spirits in the least. No, in fact, in some ways it seemed to only enliven her. When chastised by her husband for driving too fast (she had never done above ten miles under the limit prior to being diagnosed), she would only lean over to the wide, green-eyed youngster beside her to whisper conspiratorially: "I don't have a death wish or anything," she told her girl, patting her knee. "I just like to drive fast. I've been following rules all my life! And now I'm dying, well..." She would gesture with one knobby, wrinkled hand, and then shrug, her lip pouting out in her usual expressive flair. "Why the hell not??" And the youngster would only giggle, because Gamma had just said 'hell!'
When Aubin said she could move it was unexpected relief. Well that hadn't been so bad! She shifted into a more Vae-like stance, but didn't know exactly where she was supposed to go from there. She decided to take her cue from the room around her. Like most fine apartments the windows along one wall stretched toward the ceilings in an almost awe-inspiring height, and because the windows in her own apartment were decidedly puny in comparison she decided to take advantage of the view while she could. The sill was obviously not built for sitting, but she was just thin enough after the ravaging effects of her disease and the medicines she took that she could manage to squeeze herself into a seated position. She relaxed against one wall of the window's frame and slipped her foot out of her shoe so she could bend her leg in front of her without dirtying the whitewashed paint. Her arm nearest the glass she drapped easily atop of the raised knee, and the other arm was lowered simply by her side with her hand splayed on her thigh as if it was any moment going to start hammering out a jaunty musical beat. She laid her head against the cool glass of the window, and because it was so bright that it would have, if the room were dark, cast her features in sharp relief, she raised her eyes to the near-full moon above.
Just as she was shifting into the finishing touches of this pose Aubin made his remark about Mannie's mother. She raised her face to him again, for a moment her eyes and mouth registering astonish. And then her head fell back and she laughed out loud, so boldly in fact that she feared she might have awoken Illiam and so clamped her hand over her mouth, squirming in her seat as her laughter muffled to mere giggles. "Whatever you do," she said, when she was able to speak, "Don't tell her! She's sensitive about her mother's whorism." She chuckled again, shaking her head. Mrs. Jord. Lord only knew how many hours of therapy it would take to correct the damage that woman had done to her daughter's self-perception, though she supposed she couldn't blame her for her choice in men.
Her face serioused somewhat though at the silence that fell after her amused reaction, and she studied the world outside the apartment in earnest for a few moments before adding. "And... on the off-hand chance that you do see my friends again, you should know..." She turned her eyes to Aubin and then stubbornly returned them to the window's view. "They don't know about the leukemia." She bit her lip uncertainly before uttering her next line, which she felt rather guilty about on the whole. She didn't like to ask someone else to lie for her, so her request was remarkably inarticulate by comparison to the rest of her conversation. "If you could...just... you know?"
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Aubin
Aurillian
Posts: 64
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Post by Aubin on Apr 4, 2007 19:28:25 GMT -5
While Vae laughed, her head tossed back in merry abandon and then, later, through the muting clamp of her fingers and hands, Aubin drew her, his pencil moving swiftly across the paper, trying desperately to catch the curve of the girl’s neck, the way her hair fell at the height of her pleasure, and the shocked cheer that flashed so obviously in her eyes. The positioning of the body came next and was easier to draw, even at this incredible clip, as neither Vae’s laughter nor her speech had caused her to move so much the old shape and alignment of limbs could not be recaptured by an artist as skilled and practiced as Aubin.
His own laughter had rumbled across the room when Vae described her friend’s mother’s…willingness…to bed strange and largely unknown men. Aubin found himself in the bed of his host (or, alternatively, in the bed of said hosts’ wife, daughter, or son) often enough that Mrs. Jord’s desire to bed him hadn’t come as a surprise, although it had come earlier in the evening than it sometimes did and with a measure more shamelessness than was always the case. He agreed all the same to not tell Mannie of his interlude with the poor girl’s mother, smiling and nodding obediently when the request was made.
When Vae turned the subject to her cancer (so that was what was killing her), Aubin’s expression turned slightly more serious. He glanced up to meet her eyes and nodded, consenting once again to another of the girl’s requests. “I won’t tell them,” he said, sketching as he spoke, “If you don’t want them to know. It’s not my place as after all. But I wonder, do you plan to never tell them? Just stay mum and then die, no explanation given? You can do what you want of course, but if you’d like my advice, I think you should do all you can to avoid dying alone. There’s no honour in it, I can tell you that now before you even attempt it, and in the end all you’ll get for your troubles is friends who are hurt and offended and you just as dead as you’d have been if you’d died with them standing by your side.”
“Take another position,” he added a moment later, gesturing for her to move again, “I’ve got this one now.”
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Vae
Human
due to patient/doctor confidentiality, I can't tell myself anything
Posts: 47
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Post by Vae on Apr 4, 2007 20:56:19 GMT -5
She moved from the sill, toeing at her shoe and then slipping it back on. Habitually she threaded her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans and shrugged her shoulders up as she walked eased slowly away from the window. She was quiet and musing abouts his thoughts, and because he seemed to be sketching rapid-fire now she didn't go far before coming to rest again. This time she came to rest against the wall between the windows, leaning her back against it and bending one leg beneath her, with her hands still resting at her hips.
"I will tell them," she ventured, because despite the fact that they hadn't been in each other's presence long he seemed like the type of fellow whose good opinion might mean something. She didn't want him to think that she was keeping it a secret because she was under the delusion that it would be better for everyone involved. She was merely... well, stalling was what it was. She wasn't so sick now that she couldn't still operate normally most days so long as she got plenty of rest and so she could still fool people, even herself sometimes, into thinking she was well and whole. When that illusion faded, she would of course admit to everyone what was happening: her parents, her friends, she even imagined she would tell those few professors from college that she kept in touch with. Whoever she didn't want to be shocked when they read her name in the paper or got that phone call from a mutual friend.
"It's just that, at the hospital I get all of the backstage glimpses of the dying and the people around them. And when a loved one first learns that someone they care about is dying, the grieving process starts right then, immediately, wham!" She tossed her head here, the fingers of one hand splaying demonstratively out from her hip. "They're still alive, but from that moment on every interaction they have with people is colored by the fact that it could be the last time." Her face looked disgusted and incomprehensible.
"It's like you're tainted. And people go back and forth between wanting to avoid you at all costs because you remind them of all the terrible things they're afraid of, and in the same breath they are desperate to find some way to prolong the inevitable. And you just want to take them and shake them because in your last moments you don't want them to be running around like chickens with their heads cut off, you just want them to hold your hand and tell you how much they're going to miss you." She blinked, memories of patients for whom she had performed that same service racing through her mind, and wondering vaguely which category each of her friends would fit into.
"Besides," she added, lowering her eyes and toeing the drop cloth covered floor uncertainly. She shrugged very slightly, agitatedly: "I just can't stand the idea of all those flowers I'd get. Can you imagine? Ugh!" She scrunched her nose with distaste. What a way to say, 'Gee, sorry you're dying.'
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