10-12-2018, 07:01 PM
He raised a surprised brow. Thalia questioned the reaction before she recalled the nature of his company, and then her impish smile twitched in amusement as she stole him from his friends. It was not privacy she desired so much as a straight answer, one unshadowed by the curious gazes of others who might theorise upon (or ridicule) the peculiar request. But the moment they stepped far enough away the question spilled out like burst banks, the copy of the illustration thrust into his hands. She noticed he was already frowning.
"Do you know what this is?"
Thalia watched his expression, prepared for accusations of crazy or a blithe shrug of the shoulders, which would more-or-less spell the same answer. She wouldn't take offence. It was crazy, but such was the curious current of her life lately. She'd made peace with that, and found the world a more remarkable and baffling place because of it.
He didn't shrug her off, though; instead he blinked and asked her quite emphatically how.
A great question, actually, but one she couldn't answer.
"You do know what it is." She breathed the words like wonder. Her head tilted, considering. Truthfully she hadn't actually known for sure that it was real; or at least it was a certainty she only felt in her bones, purely intuitive. Even Aylin doubted her this time, and she had been there throughout the entire strange fairy-tale of Yana. Some of the old discomfort crept into Thalia's expression. These kinds of portraits did not go easy on her soul, wherever they came from; a steady haunting, and one of many reasons she tended towards flightiness from the people who dipped in and out of her life.
But she'd never been compelled to draw something inhuman before. And the creature's expression.
"Hmm. This seems like the bad kind of thing. Why is it always the bad kind of thing." She chewed her lip, brows furrowed as she pooled the consideration inward. His height shadowed over her, and he didn't look like the kind of man to scare easily, yet he shuddered. The floor was uncomfortably sticky beneath her toes when they scrunched (she needed to find her shoes). But while worry circled like a predator, she also felt something else; the thrill of having captured an answer. Or the promise of one.
"You didn't tell me what it is," she chided, though it was with a crooked grin. "I don't know where it is now. I've never seen it before." An unlikely confession considering the detail of the drawing, and yet her words were utterly guileless. For once words escaped her, but only because she had never tried to articulate such understandings, even to herself. She'd always filled reams of sketchbooks; sometimes beautiful, sometimes strange, and sometimes terrible. But nothing compared to the ones that demanded life.
The last time had been just before the tube that broke down, when Katya had died.
"Is she really so bad? I thought she looked in pain."
"Do you know what this is?"
Thalia watched his expression, prepared for accusations of crazy or a blithe shrug of the shoulders, which would more-or-less spell the same answer. She wouldn't take offence. It was crazy, but such was the curious current of her life lately. She'd made peace with that, and found the world a more remarkable and baffling place because of it.
He didn't shrug her off, though; instead he blinked and asked her quite emphatically how.
A great question, actually, but one she couldn't answer.
"You do know what it is." She breathed the words like wonder. Her head tilted, considering. Truthfully she hadn't actually known for sure that it was real; or at least it was a certainty she only felt in her bones, purely intuitive. Even Aylin doubted her this time, and she had been there throughout the entire strange fairy-tale of Yana. Some of the old discomfort crept into Thalia's expression. These kinds of portraits did not go easy on her soul, wherever they came from; a steady haunting, and one of many reasons she tended towards flightiness from the people who dipped in and out of her life.
But she'd never been compelled to draw something inhuman before. And the creature's expression.
"Hmm. This seems like the bad kind of thing. Why is it always the bad kind of thing." She chewed her lip, brows furrowed as she pooled the consideration inward. His height shadowed over her, and he didn't look like the kind of man to scare easily, yet he shuddered. The floor was uncomfortably sticky beneath her toes when they scrunched (she needed to find her shoes). But while worry circled like a predator, she also felt something else; the thrill of having captured an answer. Or the promise of one.
"You didn't tell me what it is," she chided, though it was with a crooked grin. "I don't know where it is now. I've never seen it before." An unlikely confession considering the detail of the drawing, and yet her words were utterly guileless. For once words escaped her, but only because she had never tried to articulate such understandings, even to herself. She'd always filled reams of sketchbooks; sometimes beautiful, sometimes strange, and sometimes terrible. But nothing compared to the ones that demanded life.
The last time had been just before the tube that broke down, when Katya had died.
"Is she really so bad? I thought she looked in pain."