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[rubah]

Who Should Paint You: Gustav Klimt

Sensual and gorgeous, you would inspire an enchanting portrait.. With just enough classic appeal to be hung in any museum!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

It was five o'clock in the afternoon.

Earlier, Clint had come by the palace and requested to see Shannon. She hadn't seen him in the last several months, so she was geniunely pleased to hear from the prophet again. She had only just began to grow properly familiar with him before her skirting with death, and after that, he had vanished as far as she knew.


"I wonder where he's been all this time," thought the Queen. Clint had been the one who had married her to George before George's death, and she had retained his royal title into her young widowhood. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen Lowell since that time, either." Shannon had never quite understood Lowell. The young lady was more enigmatic than anyone she'd seen, no pupils, the great powerful wings, and the entire aura of perfect yellow radiance. If she hadn't known better, Shannon would've sworn she was an angel. She hadn't seen any of the Elohim during her tenure in the world of the Alive, just Him, so she couldn't be for certain, but Lowell fit the lore so precisely. That and she had associated nearly exclusively with the prophet, and he spoke for her even when Shannon, Shays, or Lyssa had tried to inquire simple things.

She made her way briskly to the entranceway, skipping steps and humming a delicious song that was wafting in from the golden streets outside, flooded with evening sunlight. She saw the shadow first, a figure leaning against the pillars keeping the arch above the doorway aloft, then the dust covered robes, hard to see with the late sun backlighting so harshly, and a face, stark in profile, gazing up nonchalantly.

She was filled with an incredible urge to run and embrace him, and she did so, disregarding the filth of the road about him. This was the first reminder in three months that her time with Shays and Lyssa, Clint and Lowell. . and George had been real. She cried as she smiled and tried to speak the words to greet her friend.

"Hey there." His voice was surprisingly light for someone as darkly featured as he, but it had the undertones of harshness that she remembered so well reciting the words "I now declare. . ." He patted her hair, turned golden not by virtue of the strawberry strands she was born with, but by the force of the emcompassing photons streaming about them, seeming strong enough to push the very motes of dust off of his robes and down towards the floor. "You're not sad to see me, are you?"

His words were so much easier now, not burdened under the stress of protecting an entire kingdom, not only from a man who would dictate over it, but also from their own mortal sins. His natural jocularity flowed smoothly, and Shannon couldn't help but laugh as she drew back her arms from around him and looked into his dark face.

There she saw the effects of years of hard living, of scorn and derision, of a man of the Word, of years of not knowing what the next day would bring, of years of inner turmoil, debating self against self and sometimes losing. Clint Ionto had worked hard for what he had become, the power he had and the knowledge of when to weld it. He had also learned how to harness the strength in words, after pouring over so many of them for so long, and he carefully measured what he said to Shannon next.

"Shannon, I have been told that there is something weighing on your soul. I know that you do not have the ability to lift this burden yourself, and I do not know that you would know how to ask someone else to do so. I've come here now, sent in the hope that I can determine what is bringing you down, and perhaps to try and free you from it." He stepped back from her and clasped his hands and bowed his head.

She stood slightly agape. For the last few months, ever since the dying, she had felt something still weighing on her. She could recall the words "You may have another chance, through grace, for love and charity." and hadn't thought at the time that there were unspoken words never uttered to her ears, but after returning home, after overthrowing Richard's efforts to take her throne, she had felt George's death still there. She missed him.

"What do you mean," she said. She could imagine what it must be; she hadn't loved Georgie when she had followed after him, when she had married him, when she had chased after him in death and been brought back from it. She had been exquisitely kind to him, in every way, but the guilt that he had gone to his grave believing in a lie started to overwhelm her.

"I'm not sure. But we must find out if we're going to cure it." Clint looked back up at her. He closed his eyes and whispered some of the words Shannon could never determine the nature of, and a shimmering haze enveloped them. She strained her eyes and would swear thereafter that there were shadows of wings upon the ground. "No one will notice us. Come on."

Without waiting for her approval, Clint started to walk up the stairs, brushing his robes off, humming the harmony of some old forgotten song. The strands of music from the street had been silenced, and his steps upon the marble were muffled slightly. She felt a gentle push at her shoulders and turned to follow him. She was rather surprised that the prophet seemed so comfortable walking in a splendid home of the degree that the palace of Icathia was.

"He was told all this before, child," the haze hanging so ethereally about her seemed to say.

After ascending what seemed must be a dizzying height, Shannon had to admit to herself that she was uncertain of where in her own home they were. Clint stopped in front of a door, heavy with resplendant carvings and gildings. She was about to ask him if he had gotten short of breath, as she had herself quite a few landings before. As she realized what a ridiculous question that was to ask someone who walked anywhere he went, he spoke.

"You need to open this door." Clint turned towards her and waited. Shannon stood for a moment wondering why he did not just open it himself, but he nodded his head towards it, goading her to open it. She did.

Before her lay spread out the entire city of Marrowsbryke, and what seemed all of Icathia. All was golden, a full and saturated yellow of the warm sun that hung brilliantly in the air that glowed with its own saffron hues.

Suddenly, she remembered where she was. George had brought her here once, when they were still young, still in school, still never been dead. She gasped as the memory of that day flooded back on the streams of light caressing her face. She stepped back onto the balcony of years ago, remembering how George had told her that this was his spot.
'I come here sometimes, never very often, when I want to feel like I'm in Heaven. Right now, at five o'clock, the air is so golden that it lights up all the buildings, and all my sadnesses are washed away in it. I'm always sad when the sun has to set when I'm there, 'cause when you're up there above the city, you just want that hour to last forever. And it seems to.'
He was right. George had taken her there just once, but she remembered it perfectly well.

He had used the same path that Clint had been told to follow. He had told her to open the door, slowly, to savor the first impression, and they had stepped onto the balcony together, and he had put his hand on her shoulder, and stepped close to her. Or perhaps she had stepped back, entranced. He had taken hold of her with his other arm, and held her to him while they stood there. She could still remember the weight of his arm, normally light and timid then steadfast around her belly, the breath from his mouth, usually hot and reminding her of sweet pickles, cool through her hair on her neck.

They had stood like that, so simply for time out of mind. The sun had not diminished at all. Then his arms had left her and taken up her hands, as he lead her to the railing along the side of the balcony. Their feet dangled yards and yards above the dark garden below, cast into premature twilight by the spires of the royal church. The bells had started to ring then, silent for years with the apathy of the royal family, obviously being played with by young boys who would pull on anything they saw to pull upon.

Back in the now, Clint heard those bells ringing now, as they rung every Saturday evening, and evey Sunday morning, and at dawn and sunset of every other day, and he thought nothing of it. He was more concerned with trying to discern what was going through Shannon's mind.

The shimmering haze spoke to him, saying "Do not worry about her. She is finding the forgiveness already given to her," and he understood.

Sitting with her feet free, Shannon had inadvertantly dropped her sandal over the head of the guard watching that the roses were not stolen, and instantly the hour was broken.

"Oh, Georgie!" She had exclaimed. "I went and lost my shoe!" Her face turned towards his and was so sorrowful that he could no longer restrain himself as he kissed it for the first time. She sat for an instant transfixed, and then her worry was melted, and she held onto him with the perfect innocent love that had been repressed in her since time out of mind.

When they had next looked up, the sun had vanished, leaving only the high clouds, speckled with purples and magentas against the largest rainbow gradient the world could ever produce on the widest screen available anywhere. She looked at Georgie, whose pale face was ruddy, flushed from exertion, tinged by the invisible rays. He looked at her and noticed there were more freckles than on the face he had dreamed of for so many nights now.

"Shannon, I think I love you."

"Don't be silly. We're little kids who oughtn't be saying such things." She turned to the task of extracting her feet from the bars.

"Come on, don't you love me?" George looked at her with the desperation that she would see so often and even nearly distateful. This time though, it was new to her, and the last bit of restraint holding out in her heart broke.

"Well. . . I guess I do. I love you Georgie David. And I love that you love me." He grabbed her hand and kissed it once, twice, and again and again. She twisted to get up and caress his head, and placed her bare foot on the concrete that had been collecting solar rays all day long.

She cried out, tried to hop on her sandaled foot, and fell over. The concrete was still hotter than the tile they had been sitting on, so she quickly scrambled up, and balanced precariously on her good foot.

"GEORGIE!"

Luckily the door was only a few feet away. George was at no time a very strong or athletic person, so carrying Shannon to the cool indoors was nearly as much as he could handle. She agreed to walk herself down to the front, where his mother, Queen Berta hugged her and returned her sandal that the guard had brought up to one of the maids, who had given it to the head housekeeper, who had mentioned the fact to the Queen. Shannon smiled at the olive face fringed by lively black hair and walkd out the front entryway, all thoughts of love vanquished from her mind.

At home, her father sent her crying to her room with his accusatory inquiries about whether a girl in her study group at school had in fact scored higher than her on a certain exam she had taken recently. Before she could remember any more of that night, there was a tap on her shoulder, and she returned to the present, with the sun still primed over the city, happier and safer after the years.

"I did love him."

"You just forgot about it." Clint looked at her and smiled his small, quiet smile. "I guess this is what you needed to be brought here for."

"I forgot about it. . ." Shannon was still looking out over the city, lost in the moment of transfiguration that was slowly being unworked. She turned back to Clint. "You know, I do feel lighter now. Ever since. . . since he died, I've been wondering if I really did love him. I couldn't figure it out. I knew I had to have, else I wouldn't be here now, no matter what else, but I could not think of a time ever that I had. . . It had been just putting up with him for so long. . . Mere tolerance."

"I'm glad you remembered. If you don't mind sharing, what exactly did you remember just now?"

Shannon started walking back indoors. "You're going to stay for dinner, right? I haven't seen you in forever! You still like chicken and rice, right?" She looked at him. He looked at her.

"Yeah, I do. I'll stay." He didn't walk.

She was nearly to the first landing.

"Well, your Reverend Clint Ionto, what I remembered was Heaven. Heaven and endless."

The prophet smiled to himself as the young Queen flew down the banister giggling. The haze surrounding them had parted, and a gust of wind from the still-open door to the outside eddied and took the wings out into eternity, and the dissipating haze giggled, too, and Clint closed his eyes and raised his face upwards, mouthing words of thanks and grace.

That's the most I've written creatively in a while. It was like writing a big fanfic, except the the fanbit hasn't come out yet:(

Comments

[baloki.livejournal.com]

Gah, your so much better at this creative writing merlark then me :S