MEMORY

[trinn 5146]

HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, Hadrian I of the House Horen

⊰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊱༒︎ •✦• ༒︎⊰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊱

 

Has his appetite shrunk? He looks more gaunt. Have I painted wrong?   The criticism found itself spilled into an overflowing cup — piles of abandoned sketches discarded before it. The last stroke of paint was the  pale, white glint in his eye, eyes she had not met much. Not in these recent years. The Imperial Princess Joan Mariana relinquished her brushes, the remnants of paint upon her fingers swiped on the canvas of her apron. “Will he like it?” She questioned   The Lady Valentina d’Asturias, peered upwards from her work. Joan loathed to look at her. “It seems rather risky,” The Asturian spoke, “to send a gift that starkly paints his wound.”   •✦• The pallid grey of her eyes settled in her examination of her brother’s portrait. An eye lost, and his daughter with it. “. . .Yes, perhaps it is. How wise, Lady Asturias.”  She wondered if this is how she will remember him - perhaps, she might forget him in his youth.

 

 

⊰━━━━━━━⊱༒︎ •✦• ༒︎⊰━━━━━━━⊱

 

 

Joan. . . 

 

 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Joan. . .?

 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ “Joan.” ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

 

 

Her head raised, attentive by the third beckon. Valentina’s worry was palpable in her stare towards her, a palm pressed to her forehead thereafter. “Are you ill, Your Imperial Highness? You have not been so-much yourself.”    “Have I not?” Joan feigned her ignorance to the query, “It is a mood affecting Lady Mareno, too, I think. She, too, seems quite tired. . .” Joan felt herself slip back to her memories of youth, her own words heard through murky waters.    ⊰━━━━━━━⊱༒︎ •✦• ༒︎⊰━━━━━━━⊱       “You were not there, Joan. You haven’t been here.”    She pressed a brush against her chin, mulling over the words which stung in each repetition. It was not something she could defend against, not without twisting and bending the truth. Or by bringing his own faults as reproach, deflecting blame elsewhere – away from herself. I should have done that, she considered – could I have done that to Johannes?   The Imperial Princess considered the painting again. He will hate it, she concluded, he will punish you for it. Yet, still, she found herself signing her name upon the canvas.    There were things that she loathed to put into words. She had a habit of twisting them; pleasantries that were never meant – japes too wicked to be earnest, but said with such talent that its humour was lost. A simple fear settled in her heart, for a wrong word to take the wrong turn. Whatever she loved, she found comfort in professing only by paint.    “. . .It is only a portrait of my Dear Brother. Why should I complicate it?”      By morning, she had sent the painting. A wordless gift, if he would consider it one.

 

Spoiler

 

a painting and some doodles : 3 hehehehruyheue.

 

[Werew0lf 24181]

The Emperor’s hands clenched either side of his table, and his nails dug into the chipped wood. His singular eye fixated on the mirror — how ugly, Hadrian. You have grown weak, and now, hideous. If it wasn’t your personality, now, it also bears on your looks. 
 

His fingers grasped the vase of flowers nearby; the Emperor heaved it out towards the wall, cracking into splinters of glass. 
 

Knock.

 

Knock.

 

Knock.

 

“Come in,” The imperial bid, his attention snapping towards the door. 
 

A frightened servant entered the room, offering out a large, veiled canvas. 
 

“What is this?” Hadrian bid; he had little time for gifts, there was a war on the horizon. 
 

“From your sister,” the servants voice quivered. 
 

“Leave me.” The Emperor waved his hand, and promptly, the house-guard darted out of the room. Hadrian slowly lifted the veil, and his eye shrunk into the painting.

 

. . . 

 

. . . 

 

“Hm…”

 

Hadrian collapsed onto the chair. If the Emperor was cruel, what would he do to his sister? She had painted him, scarred and injured. His quill started to write upon the paper.

 

My sister. Do you mock me with this paint-

 

The Emperor halted, crossing out the line. What is wrong with you, Hadrian? Do you not remember our youth together? We looked so happy, Johannes, Joan and I.
 

Dabbling the quill into the ink-pot, once again, he wrote.

 

I hate my face, sister. Please do not make more paintings of me. Thank you for the gift. Use your talents to spread joy in the Empire.
 

Your brother, Hadrian.