#THEY!! THEY!!! THE BONDING OF THIS THREAD THAT'LL HAPPEN!!! SOBS

[zorkaya-moved]

He has never stopped fascinating her. A young man, an embodiment of art's fickleness and freedom, the true personification of how the process of art can become. So flexible yet so reckless, but a colorful mess nonetheless. A mess of the brightest shades that would create the prettiest picture in the eyes of those who knew what to look for. Zarina was one of the people who knew what to seek out, witnessing the blossoming flowers of creativity and potential. The ignited desire to see how far he would go and how much he could withstand in this environment that denied him, his skills, his whole existence, and his passions—she wanted to see human potential, the brightest of the colors anyone can bring into this world, and into her world as well.

This was why his presence was so surprising to see. He is a special one. One she protected with her own life, her mind and soul registering him as "one of her people" without question. Pain in her chest would echo the past experience, the serpent's attempt to survive foiled as the ritual would be activated, and the merge would happen. This potential, this blossoming flower, this spring. After winter dies, spring will come and will continue bringing life. If she could describe Kaveh as anything, it would be 'vibrant life.' 

"Hah," she can't help but let out that repressed chuckle. He's right; he never cared about how others talked about him. The guard looks at them with suspicion, but mostly because he is concerned about the 'renowned Kaveh's' safety near the 'traitor.' One of Mahamata, he is under the direct service of General Mahamatra Cyno. Not a surprise they put someone like that to watch her. "You brought your sketches? Why is that?"

She didn't need to wait for the answer as he reached for the pages, showing her the sketch he was working on. Immediately, she knew where that scene was from. The scene from the dreamscape. The discovery of her dominion over the Abyssal Serpent, its screams for help silenced as the Serpent that took on her appearance would be beheaded and disappear to prove that the one dominating remained a singular human. Lesser Lord Kusanali, shocked by the discovery, would be shocked to discover an ancient being defeated within a mind. But why did Kaveh draw that scene? The moment of exposure of her true horror? The beast in the beauty? The cold-hearted ruthlessness and viciousness? 

"No, but you seem to be taken hostage by my reality as an artist. The showcase of humanity's duality... Quite shocking how you can pretend to be a saint when you are the devil," Zarina pushes back her surprise as she looks away from him. She never looks away, never. But right now? She does. "So what did you come here for? To show me how you memorized the moment of my mask slipping? Tighnari and Alhaitham came over today's morning. They were quite... Well, hah, they've had a lot to say. What do you want to tell me?"

well respected, it was a jocular sort of thing. to be tethered to a certain empathy by association, as if they felt the burden of guilt for someone else’s crime. he wanted to scoff at their pitying glances, at their stances as they shifted uncomfortably and so they should -  what words of appeasement did he need from those who couldn’t even form an opinion of their own volition. that was the world they had co-existed within, had laughed, derisive at as they feebly attempted to preserve their fountain of pristine knowledge, never to be contaminated by something as filthy as a falsity. It was sickening, watching them fawn over their truths as if they were the sole prosperity offered to them, as if their vapid brains couldn’t fathom a future without someone to spoon feed them facts. that was what it meant to be an artisan of a craft frowned upon. art , in its many forms were disregarded by the sages as frivolous but none of them had the audacity to hold a brush nor pencil, had the fortitude to delineate the beauty in that which they feared. even as she had shown herself to him, brutal as she was in all forms, within, as she stood, hair flared behind her in undulating waves; she was the same person she had been for their time trapped in that scholarly prison. The guard whispers to him caution and he waves him off, dismissing him with a mere flick of his wrist, disdain in the fact that he would even breathe such blasphemy into his ears. “  to say goodbye.”  a solitary brow arched and he sunk into the corner across from her, sketch pad tucked neatly under his arm. roseate lips, so customary to a pout, are fixed in a firm line. “  you think i care about what they say about me.”  he was reputable in his expertise and if those fools were so blinded by their own tiny perception of the world then good riddance, he could find his mora in other, more accommodating places.   “  you don’t know me as well as I had thought zar.”  he splayed the book out before her,  its pages unfurling to reveal her, distinct outline in all her glory -  vicious and unyielding.  “  do you really think me so dull as to be unable to form a thought of my own.”