What I wanted to paint was the truth of what it was to be Ai-Naidar. To chase that subtle understanding into a single word, that we assume solidarity and communion, so much so that even our language builds on that basis. That to hold oneself apart is to be incomplete in a way so implicitly understood we don't even name it. Even our expressions are different from yours: you say of someone that they are complete in themselves. We say we are complete in others. And we both think this brings serenity.
So I painted an absence. Of Kor. Of Ajan. Of Haraa, the lord, his lovers, of what might have begun with Seraeda and had not. I painted the absence of my beloved Sejzena. Of my lost Marul. I painted the absence of my family, still in the country serving their rithkedi Noble. I painted the absence in my heart and the silence of my studio.
I painted flowers, ornate and delicate and lovely, peach and pink and silvery gray, lavender and yellow faint as dawn. I painted sorrow-nots and sovereigns and cloudsbreath, honeyfletch and brightsheaves, lilies and pansies. I painted blossoms that herald youth and those that honor death and all the flowers that celebrate our paisath in between.
I painted them around a vacuum in the center of the page, and left the center blank.
Now, as in the beginning, came the time that blurred, without form or context. The days between my return home and the summons that began my new life seemed one long stretch. Very little about them remains distinct in my mind: the sunlight, warm without burning, so gentle on the felt-soft fur on my face and ears, that I recall. The lack of strain in my walk when I walked... and all the walking I did.
That I remember best of all. That I walked everywhere. To bid it all farewell.
This has been my studio since I came to the capital; some of you might know a little of that from other tales I have related. I lived in the atani of the lord of Neriethen, who first engaged me as a Public Servant artist on behalf of his people. When Thirukedi came to claim me some years later, Neriethen's lord told me he would be honored did I remain in the studio he had given me, despite my now being osulkedi to the empire entire, rather than his district's calligrapher. So I stayed, because it was home, and from that studio I went forth on my errantry when I was required, or stayed home and painted scrolls that were given to whomever Thirukedi deemed needed them. But I had never felt the need to leave. I had had good years here, and it was in this bed that I honored my vows to Sejzena in her lifetime, and conceived my only daughter... and in that bed that I honored my vows to Sejzena after her death, and slept alone.
So many memories.
Nor did the studio own them all; the district itself was dense with them. The cafe with the melon and sweet rice dish. The shrine where I burned incense for my ancestors, and my father in particular. The clinic where my friend the district physician dwelt; the route to the library, where I was a familiar sight to the ancient and enigmatic librarian. The fountain where I first saw ajzelin close enough to read the joy in their eyes...
This place was home.
Was home. How could I stay here, with the ghosts of the lost and the weight of the empty years that had followed? How could I make a life here without my ajzelin? I could not imagine living in the temple with Shame, but neither could I imagine him trapped here, in a sunlit studio barely large enough for me alone. I could not conceive of what my life would look like after this, but I knew it would be different. And so I walked, to all the places I had frequented before. To look at them, again. And to come home and paint them, in miniature: little rectangles on a single page, glimpses of a moment in time, of morning sunlight on the awning of the cafe, of late afternoon gilding the water rippling from the fountain's center, of the warm red glow of the paper lantern that still hung outside my studio door, gift of a son of Saresh.
These miniatures were all painted in the moments stolen between my long peregrinations. But I stopped my work at supper, and did not resume it again until the following day. After that first evening, I did not keep the dareleni. Instead, I sat on the window-seat, or in my bed, and read the journals that remained in the trunk I could not bring myself to fully unpack. And this time, when I found reference to blood and guilt and expiation, I thought less of literal knives, and accepted Correction. The harm I had done myself was no less grievous for it being exacted in silence, in a form that no one would easily recognize. To allow oneself to bleed to death unnoticed is no less a form of suicide than to ply the knife directly.
There came an evening when there was a knock on the studio door and I opened it to find Shame, and my two worlds, the new and the old, suddenly touched. To this day, that image remains an imperishable memory: the glow of pale starlight on the fringe of hair against a cheekbone limned by the dim red glow of the lantern hanging alongside. I can even smell the sweetness of the night-blooming irises that drifted in with the evening breeze as we faced one another across the threshold of my studio.
And then I stepped aside and he entered. I began to ask the question when he interrupted me by gathering me into his embrace; he knew better than I did what we needed, and we did, we did need it. I folded my arms around him and together we leaned against one another, breathing in tandem, until I had the smell of temple incense in my nose and he, no doubt, the smell of sizing and oil and lampblack ink.
When at last we parted, I said, "Ajan?"
"Home," he said. "At the temple sleeping under the eager watch of the others. He will have no want; I think they sent for the physician just to be sure of him, but he is hale, Farren. He made the journey upright, if worn."
"Unbelievable," I whispered.
We both savored it in silence: from death's certain grasp to returning home in some handful of days? In some things, aunera, your temerity cannot be trammeled in words. You ordain, and somehow, sometimes, the world obeys.
"I have sent word of my return," he said. "You have not spoken to Him?"
"I await His summons," I said. "I have come to believe He is waiting on your arrival."
"Then it won't be long," he said, and turned in place, studying the room. "So," he said. "This is your studio."
"This is my studio," I agreed, quiet. "Shall I show it to you? Or do you wish to investigate on your own?"
He glanced at me with a quirk of a smile, and I remembered anew his complexity of expression, and loved it anew. "You ask such questions, Farren."
"Only to learn the answers," I answered, affecting innocence.
He chuffed a low laugh, then said, more seriously, "I think... I would like you to show me."
So I did. It is not a large place, my studio. But I showed him my work table—much larger than the shabati I had used in Qenain—and the flat table on which I spread designs before clients. We toured the area near the window-seat and the back room where I made my bed and performed my ablutions. I showed him the storage for all the scrolls and paintings, and the cabinet where I kept the pigments too expensive or dangerous to be left untended—you wonder perhaps at crime, but I bid you think instead that ours is a society rife with children one might not want playing with pigments made of ground gemstones. I led him past the samples hung on the walls, where so many others had browsed; in keeping with his habit, he truly looked at them, each one with separate attention, in a way that no Ai-Naidari had before and none have since. Finally I made him tea at my little dinner table, where I once entertained other callers—the historian, the physician, the Merchant who made masks—and there he considered the final paintings I had made for the darelen in his absence: yan, which he hadn't seen; paisath; and the absence crowned in flowers. On these things he made no comment, but I found I did not need them. I was glad merely to have him near.
After this tour, he returned to the window-seat. I had left one of his journals there; he picked it up and thumbed through it, then looked at me.
So I sat in the window-seat, and instead of the book, Shame joined me there. It took some arranging of our feet and clothes and tails, but we fit. And then, comfortable in our shared silence, we looked out into the gloaming. When no more Ai-Naidar walked past the window and the lamps outside had dimmed, we retired by tacit consent to my bed. We settled easily, as if we had not been apart, though I had forgotten how heavy his arm was over my side.
It had never occurred to me to wonder at how he always began and always returned to this position, with all of a Guardian's trained instinct to ward my spine with his body and my chest with his hand. It was strange and wonderful to be so precious to someone; it was perfect that being thus gave my beloved the chance to be more fully what he was. Kor, Kherishdar's Shame. Whom I loved.
I remembered then that I had painted an absence before: shemailn, treasure. I knew I would never paint that absence again. Not because Kor had filled the emptiness, but because he now stood guard at the door. Keeping me safe... and holding it open.
The summons woke us the following morning. Still in my sleeping robe, I opened my studio door for the Emperor's courier. I signed and returned his envelope before accepting the smaller note within. The courier and I exchanged bows and then he was gone, leaving me to open the message as Kor arrived, tying on one of my extra robes. He lifted his brows and I handed it to him.
Come to me, my own.
Kor drew in a long breath through his nose, eyes closed and ears sagging; watching him, I thought that his relationship with our master was different from mine; more intimate, perhaps, in a way I might never understand, not having undergone the trials. I thought it beautiful and appropriate: a priest of Shame's significance should be passionately devoted to Civilization. It made me want to paint him just as he looked then, wearing my too-long robe in all the wrong colors, warm browns and honeyed golds that only made his black and white pelage all the more startling, with his long hair tousled from the bed. I thought such a painting would have made even Ereseya, author of such famed erotic poetry, look twice. Perhaps several times.
"Breakfast," I said. "And proper livery."
He nodded, looking more settled within himself. "I will return to the temple. Shall we meet at the gates?"
"Two hours," I said, and could not resist drawing him to me. I felt the tremor in his skin, anticipation made manifest.
"You adore Him," I murmured.
