Closed Paint a Pretty Picture [Trista]

[Fable]

13 Spring 515 AV

Alvadas glittered beneath the afternoon sun that shone down upon the city with a skeptical light, uncertain whether such a sparkling spectacle might be enough to rival her own redolent rays. She continued to stay aloft, her face still gracing the shimmering city of glass as if, in her indecision, she might as well admire the world below for a time more. A gentle breeze drifted in on the currents of the sea, a slight tang of brine in the air in spite of the distance the city sat away from the rocking waves of the azure expanse. People dotted the streets, some stopping to stare while others carried on; such was the way with the people of Alvadas.

A spectacle, however slight, could hold one's attention for only so long before another cropped up, then another. They lived, constantly, in a world where everything was nothing and nothing was everything. To hear an Alvad speak of surprises, it would have to be quite the surprise indeed, and that surprise sat with easel before her and pencil in hand. Wings, tail, and a melancholy sigh in her eyes, the Akvatari was certainly quite the illusion. While rumors of the child of sky and sea had begun to spread through the city so intrigued by novelties and paraphernalia of the paranormal, such things often circulate at such a rate it was difficult to tell fact from fiction. That fact might be so one day and fiction the next, an ever changing set of laws that governed every Alvad's thoughts with a suggested command: what you see is not always what is there, but what is there is often what you see.

Though some of the people stop to stare and chat with little reason to hide their words about the concentrated artist who sat quite snuggly on the corner of a street, tucked between a scintillating pair of shrubs, only one approached her. If the Akvatari was considered a foreign oddity, the woman who strode with both confidence and a lilting fluidity was a local eccentricity. The skin about her eyes were coated in silvery hues of blue and green, a mirror of her lips that sat lush and azure emerald beneath the most peculiar of mustaches: a curl of rusty tentacles that languidly stretched from side to side, occasionally playing with her chin or ear as she moved. Her head was completely bald, and her eyebrows small cousins to her mustache, skin smooth and creamy like a yellow ivory. She wore a tight fitting camise, deep blue in hue, with a knee high skirt that hung at an angle from her hips, reminiscent of the great tendrils of weed that grew beneath the ocean's surface.

She stopped before the Akvatari, her wriggling brows rising in a pensive contemplation as she tapped a tentacled finger against her chest in thought, her elbow supported by a shelled claw of similar tone as her more aquatic appendages. The woman did not speak for a time, her bright blue eyes gazing with a hungry perusal at the work the Akvatari continued, lost in her concentration. When words did find their way into the open air between them, it was several ticks after Trista had glanced up and halted her work. Her voice was deep, rolling, and heady. The baritone timbre was, perhaps, a surprising sort coming from so slight a woman, but in Alvadas, it was expected to expect the unexpected.

"A half familiar and a half not... I cannot place you." Her tentacled hand extended, the writhing skin sizzling into the shape of a jelly fish's tendrils, gently weaving through the Akvatari's ruddy locks. "My attentions are not often captured, I ask you forgive my intrusion." The woman stepped back then, her feet having, at some point, shrunk into two pointed tips of a crab's leg, the shell wrapping up over the once smooth skin to disappear into her skirt's folds. With a flowing curtsy, the woman introduced herself. "I am she who is called The Sea; a Speaker, a dreamer, and one who is quite curious who you might be." Her brows raised again, though this time in question and with the spiky spines of an urchin's armor. "I have heard whispers, but so many voices in a city such as this often carry with them a hint of fallacy." A smile broke across her face, pointed teeth, though well groomed, bore shark like in the afternoon's light, "But true you are, at least so far."

Those who had stopped to regard the Akvatari had been joined by others. Where ever a Speaker was to be found, there was almost never a reason; and that lack of purpose, in and of itself, was an alluring draw to a people so fascinated by the spontaneous nature of their beloved city. Voices had fallen to whispers of speculation and intrigue as Trista began to respond, and the glittering reflections of those gathered dotted the various gleam of the buildings and street around them. What had once been a point of passing had grown into a spectacle in and of itself, as was the way of Alvadas.

NoteIf you would like a different date, please let me know!

[Trista]

One thing that Trista had learned quickly upon arriving in Alvadas was how to ignore people who were staring at her. It was interesting, actually, how different the reaction to her presence was in the different places Trista had been. In Abura, of course, she passed largely unremarked-on wherever she went. In Mura and Ahnatep, she was simply one of many Akvatari who visited -- not a common sight by any stretch of the imagination, but not an uncommon one either. Elsewhere in Eyktol, she had been more unusual still, and many who saw her had only heard tell of her kind -- or not even that, in Ezebel's case. Black Rock was sort of another case altogether, but in Riverfall and here in Alvadas, it was impossible to hide herself. The reaction wasn't the same in those two places, however. In Riverfall, her presence aroused a certain curiosity, and in the Akalaks, perhaps a certain amount of lust, given the odd way that their race worked. In Alvadas, however, it was more like being a carnival sideshow act, or some sort of exotic animal being led about on a leash. People here were used to gawking, and Trista was Something Worth Gawking At. Anyway, Trista was drawing a single leaf of one of the shrubs nearby, and so was blocking out most of the other sounds, sights, and conversations taking place around her. She was using a hard pencil that allowed her to capture every detail of the veins and shadows on the leaf, and it wasn't until several minutes after the sounds around her had hushed that she looked up. Two seasons ago, the figure before her would have generated a feeling of inordinate surprise. However, the streets of Alvadas were so full of oddities that after a while, one's sense of surprised became more than a little strange. When everything was out of the ordinary, almost nothing was noteworthy. Indeed, that seemed to be the artistic lesson that Alvadas was teaching the Akvatari. There was a long pause as Trista waited for the other person to speak. When she finally did, it was to express thoughts not dissimilar to Trista's own. "The Sea" seemed to be a bit of an awkward --if fitting --appellation, and Trista knew nothing of what a Speaker might be. However, she had addressed Trista directly, and the Akvatari obligingly tried to answer the questions put to her. "I'm as real as one can be in Alvadas," she said with a small smile. "I am Akvatari. Most of my people inhabit a city far from here, off the eastern shores of Eyktol. I'm not aware of any others of my kind who have been to Alvadas before, but I've come to hone and practice my art." The crowd watching this conversation had grown, and Trista was more than a little uncomfortable. Normally, she would pack up and try to find a place that was more private -- maybe even her room back at the inn. However, it was hardly polite to leave in the middle of talking to someone, and so Trista tried to ignore the onlookers and focus on her interlocutor.

[Fable]

The Sea received Trista's words with all the impassivity of the ocean after whom she was called. Gently, she swayed back and fourth, a parallel display of the many shifting, twisting parts of her that never seemed to cease, as if, like the creature from whom her teeth were taken, a loss of movement were to portend a loss of life. Her smile curled her lips once more, the colors of the supple skin shifting more towards a vibrant green from its darker hues. "As real as one can be indeed."

Trista's discomfort did not go unnoticed by the woman, but there was no move to dispel. Curiosity played in every twist of her tentacles, every fluid drift of her body and languid flick of her eyes. She was a Speaker, and the name - whether understood or not - intoned a duality: those listened to the words she said and she to those said to her. The Akvatari had entered into an unspoken contract, one that was as binding as it was a privileged. The Speakers were everywhere, their Listeners spread throughout the city as their eyes and ears. While often they Spoke, it was rare for them to Listen in a such a way, to Watch, to Learn.

The Sea inclined her head, two tentacles snaking their way from her spine to join above her head, while two more extended at an angle towards the ground as her two hand came together in a gentle clap (her fingers seemingly having always been fingers and nothing else). "The Desert Dweller's land, yes. I have spoken with Eypharians before." She straighted, the tentacles released the wiggle and waver behind her like some writhing, fleshy halo. A brow was raised, the spiky nature of the urchin exchanged for the nubby smooth tendrils of an anemone, "Though, none have ever spoken of the Akvatari." Though her voice carried a lilting bemusement, there was, for just a tick, a flash of reddened rage. When it passed, it was as if it had never existed, or perhaps it never had. "A long journey from the Southern Reaches, yes? But I cannot fault you for a desire to study here, where so many things are both real and unreal. I imagine, for an artist, it is quite the study."

Her questions were rhetorical, and any attempt to answer them would be ignored as if they had never been, and they might as well have not. "Your art, Akvatari Who's Name Has Not Been Given, what is it to you?" Her tentacles, wrapped around her torso, shifting into a thick coat of fur that traveled down the lower half of her tail, glimmering hues of blue and green, mirroring Trista's own. She gestured to the crowd, finally allowing Trista a moment in which all eyes but The Sea's own were averted. "Is it for them? For the people?" The hand returned, once more a mess of reddened tentacles that just brushed the bottom of Trista's chin. "Or is for yourself, perhaps?"

Those around had fallen into silence, as if everyone about the corner wished to hear the answer, each hanging onto the promise of a reply. The stillness, save The Sea's ever moving, shifting form, was almost unnerving in its precedented nature. The city stilled, the light seemed to halt, and the glittering shimmer of the city's glass structures seemed to culminate on the single spot where Trista sat and stared back at the woman who had so abruptly shifted what might have been a usual day into something very far removed. She waited expectantly, her blue eyes probing almost invasively, almost. Where the rage had once flared was now a subtle pool of what could have been love, adoration, maternal protection, or perhaps a combination of all. "Or..." She whispered very gently, like a sea breeze drifting across a placid, navy plane at the break of dawn. "Is it for no reason at all?' There was something in the way she said it, an anticipation and giddiness, that implied it was her favorite answer, whether it was the truth or not.

[Trista]

Trista made no attempt to answer any of The Sea's rhetorical questions. The answers to them were, after all, self-evident -- it would be a poor artist indeed who couldn't learn a great deal from Alvadas, and whatever Trista's faults might be, she was by no means a poor artist. She did, however, reflexively say "Trista" after The Sea pointed out that she had forgotten to give her name. This wasn't even the first time Trista had done that; she got involved enough in answering questions that she sometimes forgot about the social formalities that were often necessary. Not all the time, mind you -- just often enough to get her in trouble. The next question, however, was much more interesting. Why did she make art? It was possible for Trista to deliver a monologue on this subject that would take the better part of the day, though she doubted The Sea wanted anything quite so extensive. Not that she was sure what her questioner did want. The whole conversation was markedly unusual. The unusual nature of the situation was brought home to her by the fact that the crowd seemed to have an enormous...awe? respect? something akin to those things but somehow different?...for The Sea. They hung on her every word, but wouldn't meet her gaze. Who was this Speaker? "I think of art as a dialogue," Trista responded, choosing her words with care. "Rarely do I draw anything that doesn't interest me, so in that sense, I do it for myself. But the creative impulse exists in conversation with the world around it -- the pieces I make purely to practice are one thing, but anything I'm proud of, I want to share." This was probably not the answer that The Sea wanted, but Trista was less interested in telling someone what they wanted to hear than she was in telling the truth -- especially about something as important as art theory. Indeed, a criticism she'd heard of her work before was that it was too honest (an aspect of her work that had played poorly with some in Ahnatep), but that was a feature rather than a flaw to Trista's way of thinking.

[Fable]

At her words, the collective silence seemed deepen. Even The Sea's movements seemed to dim as her eyes held a steady, unbroken line with the Akvatari's. Her body, for the most part, was that of Trista's own people: furred tail, gossamer wings - though The Sea's were made of what looked to be jellyfish tendrils -, and long, luscious strands of kelp drifting from where her head had once been bald, or perhaps never was. She withdrew some, allowing Trista space to speak without being forced to whisper. Those gathered remained as The Sea regarded the other woman with a glimmer in her features that was not entirely proverbial. "I see..." Neither disdain nor praise sounded in the contemplative tone of The Sea's deep, rolling voice. There was a collective breath, then she smiled.

Her teeth had found themselves flat once more, the shards of white exchanged for a healthy wall of ivory. She took a step forward, tail melting into two, scaled legs that shone in hues of blue and green, her body stooped into a deep, flourishing bow. The jellyfish wings melted into a sleek, flowing cape of water that cascaded around her, making the gesture all the more grand as she drew back, lips still curled and a fair amount of impish entertainment in her sparkling eyes. "I am please to make the acquaintance of a woman who's heart is that of Alvadas'." The people seemed to hesitate for a moment, unsure of what the Speaker meant. She turned to them, her performance never over, and raised her voice so that they might all clearly hear what she had to say. "Art as dialogue, not a static state of end, but the beginning of..." She turned, a dark brow of scales raised. "Anything."

With another flourish, The Sea began to applaud. The reasons behind it were certainly foggy at best, but the Speaker never did anything half-heartedly. At first, she was the only one to applaud, but after a few ticks others joined in until the entire gathering was cheering, most of them for no reason other than that that was what the others were doing. When the applause died down, The Sea made a strange, waving gesture, as if she were breaking some sort of physic hold over her audience who then began to mill and pass on as they had prior to her arrival. Some still lingered, though they did so in much more covert ways: idle conversation with the occasional glance, whimsical dancing that drew them a bit closer to the two women, even settling down on the street to admire the buildings with a ear turned better to hear.

She turned back to Trista, leaning against one of the glass bushes, sending a tinkling of chimes in the air as she spoke once more in her more private tones. "Trista of the Akvatari." She said the name like a game, fiddling with the accents and enunciation. "I too am an artist, of a kind. Like you, I seek only what draws my attention and perform not an act, but a colloquy." Her hair had receded to a light fluff of wriggling tendrils only a half-inch long. "You, Trista. You are... Provocative." The Sea cocked her head, a question prefaced by the slight pout of her lips. "Might I ask for your services?" She did not wait for a reply, instead pushing up off the bush to stand on her own clawed feet once more. "My brothers and sisters are well known throughout the city, but there are times and places where we could be... Better known." She offered Trista a smile, one that was not quite as warm though just as amused as all her others. "If you would be willing, I would like to see what you can do with portraiture. We've been searching for an artist that is something more and less than what might be typically expected. Though you may lean a bit towards the more..."

Shaking her head, The Sea shrugged her shoulders. "Money is not object, but for an artist... Perhaps there are other things you desire? Events to see? Objects to observe? If you prove to be as interesting an asset as hope you to be, I would be happy to show you things about the city that, perhaps, you have yet to see." She offered another, short bow, before raising a brow. "What say you, Trista? Artist of the Akvatari?" The crowd had thinned, and those that remained seemed truly invested. Some had stopped even bothering in their charade, choosing instead to stare with unabashed surprise and wonder at the exchange before them. It was rare for a Speaker to approach a simple busker, even more so for that busker to not be busking. The prestige of the position offered was inherent, whether Trista understood it or not, and those eyes that remained her on her once more, only this time, the only ones that seemed to matter where the bright blue pierce of The Sea's.

[Trista]

Her answer seemed to have pleased The Sea, and although Trista hadn't expected this outcome, it made perfect sense when The Sea explained it to the audience. Alvadas was a place of perpetual change, a place that probably did think of art as a conversation rather than a fixed product. She was a bit embarrassed by the applause, but nonetheless, she bowed slightly and tried to accept it. Bowing wasn't easy when you didn't have legs, but Trista hoped that bending at the waist implied the appropriate meaning nevertheless. Then, the conversation took an even more unexpected turn. The Akvatari listened carefully. It seemed that The Sea wanted her...artistic services? Specifically in portraiture, though Trista couldn't quite figure out what the overarching goal was. And who were these vaguely-described "brothers and sisters?" Other Speakers, whatever that designation fully implied? However, even if Trista had been predisposed to decline the offer, The Sea's next words sealed the deal. If Trista had one abiding weakness, it was curiosity. She was temperamentally unable to leave something unknown -- certainly not anything as interesting as hidden portions of Alvadas. She did not sense any prestige with the position -- she was simply an artist who wanted to know more. "I would be honored," she said simply. The Akvatari inclined her head to indicate respect, a gesture she had picked up from the Zeltivan sailors who had ferried her several times on her journeys. "Just tell me where you need me to be and what your ideas and desires for the work may be. I'll be happy to be of assistance." She didn't know if anything more formal than that was required. However, a little thrill flickered in her heart -- the thrill of anticipation, and of an unknown challenge.

[Fable]

At Trista's confirmation of interest, The Sea's teeth glared a brilliant white in the afternoon light, eyes dancing with an unabashed pleasure. "How lovely! I would test your skills here and now." She took a step back, shifting her body into are regal pose as tentacles, scales, and claws all gently shifted, each part of her body only holding its for several ticks. "Just as a conversation may change at the drop of a pin, so too does the City of Illusion. Show me, show us, how one such as yourself might portray such things." There was challenge in the deep, rolling tones of The Sea's voice, however it was not without a fair amount of humor. Her words carried with them the insinuation that should Trista create something that was not to The Sea's liking, the offer would be recanted as quickly as it had been extended, however there was little severity to it, like a game or something similar.

Those who had remained had begun to once more converge upon the two of them, their shadows casting a collective expanse of cool, dark shine amidst the shimmer and glitter of the glass illuminated by the sun's golden light. A young man with hair the color of a fire's flame and eyes as deep and bright as the sun's stepped a bit closer than the others, to which The Sea's face turned in a slow, rhythmic motion to stare directly at him. "And do tell me, my dear, if the scenery becomes a bit... overbearing." The dark, rich roll of her tone hinted at something even darker, to which the young man quickly retreated, face shifting several shades closer to his hair. Turning back towards Trista with a small wink, The Sea once more settled into her pose, the only constant about her.

Her left hand was raised upwards, something close to a wave or perhaps an address to the sky. The other was held at about the middle of her chest, palm (when there was palm and not claw or shell or tentacle) face upwards, mirroring the other hand in a shadow of its form. Her head was titled slightly away from the direction her arms faced, and both legs were naturally bent, when they were not tail or fin. As for her features, it seemed as if the entire ocean flowed through her from kelps to beasts to birds of the water, her body never ceased its steady, undulating shifts. There was amusement in her eyes as they stared off into the distance, focused on a point just past Trista's wings.

The task had begun, and the guidelines given. There was no formal statement of a limitations on time, no further direction on what it was The Sea expected, not even a hint. All was up to the akvatari. Her vision and will the subject of desire. The audience, for they had once more become so, did not stray from the invisible boundaries that The Sea had seemed to place with a single stare. They watched, some transfixed by The Sea herself, others straining to see what it was the artist thought she might do to capture the ever-changing woman before her. Again, silence filled the street, the only sounds those that Trista made or the occasional shift of feet. "Whenever you are ready."

[Trista]

Trista hadn't expected her first task to come so soon, but she didn't feel any additional trepidation. When busking, of course, she never knew what to expect, and in Alvadas, that was doubly true. The question at hand was: how to represent something (in this case, someone) that was constantly changing? It reminded her of one of her first busking clients here, the man with the cloak that was sometimes a weasel. Then, she had elected to draw the front of the man's cloak in one aspect, and the back in the other. This gave her an idea for how to proceed. Trying to represent The Sea in a single fixed form was not only difficult, but also inaccurate. Instead, Trista elected to use bits and pieces of her subject's ever-shifting form to attempt to convey its constantly-altering nature. To begin with, she drew The Sea's head, leaving half of it bald, and the other half covered in kelp tendrils. She sketched the tentacle mustache and eyebrows, and adjusted her drawing's mouth to be partly open -- so that she could show the jarring fangs on the top row of teeth, while the bottom row were almost those of a human. She did, however, try to depict The Sea's expression of concentration and amusement accurately. On a whim, she drew her subject's visible ear as a tightly coiled nautilus shell. For each hand, Trista drew each finger individually -- one as a jellyfish tendril, one as a lobster claw, one as a gracefully arcing fin, and so on. She made no effort to impose a singular look -- she simply took note of The Sea's many forms, and added them in. Along one arm, Trista drew a series of spines that became more and more closely spaced until finally giving way to a fin. She outlined The Sea's skirt, and then drew legs that were very much like those of a sandpiper, rough-skinned and tough. However, instead of feet, she drew a single fin that connected both legs, adding long filaments to some of the outer rays. In order to note her subject's perpetual transformation even more, Trista added some motion lines around her subject's arms and torso with a hard pencil. Next, she took out a blending roll and, with extreme care, blurred the drawing slightly. Not enough to obscure the drawing -- just enough to make it look less than solid, as if it were in the middle of changing into something else. This was the most difficult part of the drawing, and she took her time with it. She was not sure how much time had passed, but as soon as this last bit was finished, Trista signed her name in the lower right corner and said, "Would you like to have a look at it?"

[Fable]

Without a word, The Sea stepped forward, her fingers once more a soft pink, dexterous in their digitry, as they gently pulled the artist's pad from her hands, eyes steadily focused on the picture before her. The crowd remained still, a shiver of expectation rolling through their ranks as the ticks stretched into chimes while the woman regarded Trista's work. Her body continued to shift, only this time its fluidity seemed lugubrious, as if the waves of her ever changing figure found gravity far more a formidable foe than before.

At first, it began with her hair, or lack thereof. A shimmer of seaweed, almost tentative, which then found its way to the rest of her being. Each segment of the drawing finding expression in its proper place as the calm, pensive gaze slipped over the various details, little revealed other than an introspective consideration. As her ears curled into those of the nautilus shells, so too did her lips slip into a more pleasant curve. With a flourish, The Sea turned, the paper extended towards the audience to display its contents, only what had once been paper seemed to melt away into a living, breathing drawing that was twice her own size. It was still two dimensional in nature, and it moved as she moved, arcing so that everyone could see what it was. Some were certainly impressed, while others seemed a bit more skeptical. Whispers danced between the contemplative faces, but nothing definitive was said, even as the drawing returned to its original size and stature.

"Thoughts, my lovelies?" There was something slightly menacing about the way the deep roll of her voice drifted over those gathered, as if it were not a question she had asked but a challenge. Those gathered fell back into silence, none meeting her inquisitive stare. With a brief nod, she turned back to Trista, handing her the pad with a gentle insistence. "This..." She paused, eyes searching the Akvatari's features for a few ticks, though for what reason only The Sea knew. "I find this interesting." The crowd once more murmured, though this time there was a fair amount of agreement. "Trista of the Akvatari, artist of Alvadas' oddities, you are a curiosity." With a slight bow, The Sea drew back up to her full height, her eight legs gently twisting into a fleshy, reddish gown as she drew fourth a single coin.

She placed it Trista's hand, her own fingers wrapping over the Akvatari's as she smiled at her, jagged teeth lined perfectly into a grin that was both menacing and endearing. "An object, as promised." Withdrawing herself so that she was several steps away, The Sea gave her one last nod of the head. "We will call upon you again, in due time. Expect us when you don't, or don't when you do." With a wink, her body fell into a rush of emerald water, drifting down into the cracks of the cobbles with a hiss. Those gathered applauded once more, cheers and excitement filling the street corner until they began to mill about once more. A single woman remained, staring at the Akvatari with a mix of determination and apprehension, her dark, rolling curls framing the rounded curve of her face like a lion's mane.

When she spoke, it was soft, unassuming, and her dull brown eyes held within them a humble supplication. "Might I purchase that drawing from you?"