- the first time you ask to paint with albedo, he says no.
- it’s nothing against you. your request simply took him by surprise. painting has always been a very private thing for him—first, painting in the quiet solace of his room, then realizing he can bring his creations to life through alchemy, followed by his most recent endeavor, painting for xingqiu’s novels. painting has always either been for work or done alone, a magical moment of stillness hovering between him, the paint brush and the canvas.
- he’s painted you before. his studio, the one tucked away in a small room he was given as part of his work with the knights of favonius, is filled with portraits of you. of you smiling, laughing, flying and dancing—he draws you like a madman possessed, like a painter of old where they had nothing to do with themselves except paint, with his head filled with nothing but his muse. you consumed his every moment, and he poured his memory of you onto the canvas as if he could capture your essence and immortalize it along with his soul.
- but to paint with you? how is he going to break it to you that all he’d been drawing lately is none other than you, your face, your smile? for the first time in his life, albedo feels wrong-footed.
- you don’t take it to heart and decide to leave the matter alone, but the question seems to dog his every step like an insistent seelie who imprinted on him. albedo can’t get the thought out of his mind—if he paints with you, in the same room, then you’ll finally be still and close, close enough that he can paint you with all his capability. he finds that painting with a model always yields the best results, but all his paintings of you have been pulled from memory.
- his memory is fantastic, but you are always infinitely better in person.
- with that in mind, he decides to bite the figurative bullet and invite you for a painting session. you’re surprised, asking if he’s sure since he just turned you down not one week ago, but he’s certain. well, you’ve never known albedo to be uncertain about anything in his life, so you take it in stride and agree to paint with him next weekend.
- his studio is cozy. it’s large and airy with a nice wide window, but the number of canvases and easels around the room make it a little cramped. albedo takes you through this path that he must have walked thousands of times to lead you to a spot right in the middle where two easels have already been set up, the canvases neatly placed on the beam as paint cans rests next to the stools.
- the surrounding canvases have some sort of thick cloth draped over them. albedo explains it as protecting the canvas from the sun, preventing the paint from fading due to prolonged exposure to direct sunlight.
- “usually, the curtains are drawn,” he says, gesturing to the window. “but today, i thought it would be nice to paint in the sun.”
- the easels are placed at a slight angle, allowing you to still see albedo from the corner of your eye as you face your canvas. you’re a considerable novice at this—you’ve had classes when you were younger, but you haven’t touched a brush in ages.
- “you won’t laugh at whatever i draw, will you?” you ask casually, smiling as you pick a pencil up to start the base sketch. “lower your expectations. i’m bad at this.”
- “whatever you draw will be brilliant,” he says immediately. albedo is always serious with the occasional smile gracing his face, but this time he isn’t serious. he’s earnest. it’s stupidly endearing. you’re charmed, and can’t help but smile.
- the two of you sit there, the dappled sunlight falling over both your frames in large brush strokes as you spend an entire afternoon painting, and at the end of it all, albedo shows you his painting.
- it’s you, the sunlight like a golden halo around your head, wisps of hair backlit by the light as they graze your cheeks. you don’t think you’ve ever looked this beautiful, not even in a picture captured by the most developed of kameras.
- you shyly hand your painting over to albedo. it’s of the two of you, sitting in a meadow, flower crowns on your heads as the sun hangs high in the sky. it’s not great—it’s not even that good, but albedo stares at it for a long, long time, as if committing it to memory, then gingerly strokes his index finger down the canvas, his fingertip running along the faint grooves of the cotton.
- “it’s perfect,” he murmurs under his breath, and he looks entranced.