An Unromantic Exercise (Selfmod Training, Jaeden)

[Aneira Haimati]

With a frown, Aneira watched Jaeden's pose marred and marred again by the fluttering of female hands around him. Where in the world had such an eager following come from? He must have attracted a following himself - though Tilia's artwork was well-known and loved, it had certainly never drawn so many customers at once, before. The difficulty she was finding in replicating the human form on canvas was only heightening her annoyance with the interruptions. This was the hardest thing she had ever attempted, inside the realm of painting. Her creativity was truly being challenged. To let go of her artistic whims just enough, to give focus to technique just enough, and to do it all for a living and breathing subject who was handsome enough to make her feel a bit flustered, was a trying thing. But with a determination to focus and refocus her vision over and again, and with a few helpful tweaks from Tilia, Aneira was overall quite pleased with what was forming on canvas before her. In regards to Jaeden's answers to her questions, she barely replied. Though it was a bit strange and perhaps somewhat rude, she was quickly swept up in the intensity of her work, and left the conversation hanging. Though nearly an hour elapsed without any words from her lips, she hardly realized that more than a few moments had passed. As she set down her pencil and began mixing her paints, she picked up the conversation as if it had only been a second ago that Jaeden had spoken to her. "The Bathhouse? A hunter? They seem to be vastly different occupations." As Aneira chose one slender brush out of a glass jar, she looked to Jaeden. Not at him - as she had been doing for the past hour - but into his eyes. Clearly, despite her long silence before, she was listening. After a moment, she turned her attention to mixing her paints. Vivid brights subdued to rich, fleshy tones, and soon her palette was ready. Carefully, with more freedom now that the skeleton of her work was done, she began to spread color on the body on paper. She began in the shadows and bled thinner layers of his flesh outward, mirroring the natural lines of his muscle with her strokes. For now, her focus narrowed. Rather than seeing his form in entirety, as she had with the pencil, now she saw his hues, shadows, and lights. It was, she thought, an incredibly new way of seeing another person.

[Jaeden Kincade]

Jaeden gave a slow rub to his chin. He moved every now and then as silence fell over the room when Aneira found a focus and concentration in her practice. He felt it best not to distract. After all, he would find it rude if he were in the middle of a hunt and someone suddenly came bursting out of a bush yelling something about how the animals were special creatures, before throwing red pain on him. He had thought he had patience to remain idle in one spot as a hunter, but he found this idleness a little different. Standing still in silence was one thing, standing still in silence in a room with someone else was another all together. He would have been lying if he had said it didn’t bother him. Truth be told, it got him wondering if this is what forty years of marriage felt like. A male and female in the room for lengthy periods of time, simply not saying a thing to each other, but rather finding something else to concentrate on aside from the fact that their -other- half was still in the room. In the end, he could actually feel his eyes getting heavy in the deafening silence, and was beginning to be tempted to call back the women who were feverishly attempting physical contact with him earlier. Then, fortunately, Aneira broke the silence to distract from such thoughts with her question. “Yeah, I suppose they do.” Jaeden answered casually as his shoulders drooped down for a moment and the muscle along his whole body tightened for a moment in a small stretch. “Still, one shouldn’t limit themselves to one thing. There is a great many things out there worth exploring. Do what you love, but leave a little room for something new.” Jaeden’s eyes then fell along the Konti, giving a small smile. “Tilia, could you be a gods send and bring me something to drink? I’m feeling a slight parched at the moment.”

[Tabarnac]

XP Award! Aneira XP Award: Painting +3; Drawing +1 Lore Award: Painting Live Nudes Jaeden XP Award: Seduction +3 Lore Award: Art Modeling Additional Note If Aneira comes back and finishes, we can add additional XP, but for now... Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or concerns. Keep writing!