#bought the only dream that he was sold. 『 cecco 』

[oceanoecielo]

▸   @sinshosted​   ⟶   ❛  " could we just be ordinary townspeople for a day? " //gun. royal!au ava.  ❜   ╱   (  the crown and the knight , accepting .  )

There was a time long ago, well before anyone but himself could remember, when Francesco was an ordinary person, perfectly normal with no wealth, no accomplishments, no intrigue.  He got bored of it and promptly found a way to instate himself among the country’s nobility.  However, he still remembered the quaintness of his life before and did not find it entirely without merit.  He personally enjoyed the life he had these days, but there was a certain simplicity with which peasants went about their days that he could see appealing to others, especially those who had never known it.

“Well, certainly!” he chirped.  It might have baffled some people how the seemingly ever playful and frivolous Cecco maintained his position, but he was capable of being serious when it mattered.  It was just that he was one of the few people in the kingdom who realized that it rarely mattered.  There was nothing so urgent that they could not afford to take the day off, and Cecco found that many people among the nobility created busywork for themselves.

“We’ll have to go out in disguise,” he said, “if you wish to experience life as a commoner.”  He snatched a scrap of her rich red silk between his fingers to show her how fine it was, draped over her in so many splendid layers.  “If you go out as you are, I’m afraid you will never get people to treat you as anything other than what you really are, m’lady,” he added, winking, putting on the affect of the lower classes to remind her what they would call her if she was not adequately camouflaged.

Then, his hand moved up to the plaits pinned up against the side of her head.  “You’ll want to change into your plainest dress”—which might be too lavish, still—“and undo some of these.  You can keep one to three of them, but no more.  Lower class girls don’t have time or ladies to do their hair for them.  I can help you do it back up if you’d like.”

[oceanoecielo]

▸ @multi-lefaiye​ ⟶ ❛ ⏰️ ❜ ╱ ( memories , accepting . )

Another snap, another rip, another canvas shredded by Francesco’s own hand, the thing that brought these abominations into the world, the thing that takes them out. The forms of the figures are all wrong and distorted, not meticulously crafted and detailed the way Tintoretto taught him—or should have taught him. The composition is lackluster, and he doesn’t know why. He knows all of the rules, all of the ratios, and he ought to be able to deftly apply them in a way that will impress the council, and he just can’t.

The skies, though, the skies are immaculate, perfect fluffy clouds, a flawless blend of hues, delicate attention paid to variation in the shade and strokes. The sky looks uniform when you look up at it, yes, but you can’t paint it that way, he has learned never to paint it that way. You have to give it intrigue and mystique, but not so much mystique that it distracts from your subjects.

And that is the problem—Francesco does not know how to paint the subjects better than the skies. Tintoretto upholds the human figure as the most important part of any painting, and everything else is meaningless busywork. Busywork, busywork, as if his works would be complete without a sky against which to silhouette his perfect human figures. Busywork, busywork! Does anybody actually look at the skies in that man’s paintings? Do eyes ever fall on what Francesco has learned to do so dutifully, so well?

Snap! Tear!

He drops the canvas on the growing fire in front of him, with all the others, and he watches as his hellish excuse for a human being twists in agony and shrivels into ash, vanishing in a wisp of smoke, curling up towards the perfect, black sky, alive with glittering stars. He has exhausted himself with the effort it has taken to decimate years of hard work in under an hour, and he sinks to his knees beside the fire. He does not know what to feel anymore, having run through the entire gambit of his emotions, and he settles into an uncomfortable numbness while he turns his eyes toward the sparkling shroud above him.

Nothing, it has amounted to nothing. Two decades of his life gone, and he has nothing to show for it, nothing that won’t be charcoal in another moment or two. It can’t be for nothing, he thinks, and the night sky twinkles back at him as if chuckling to itself. I have to have something, he argues back at it. It can’t be for nothing.

[oceanoecielo]

〝   @closedcoffins​   ⟶   ❛  i think we made some enemies. - cyran!  ❜

Cecco clutches onto the sleeve of Cyran’s shirt, eyes wide and fixed on the mob of people that have started to gather around the two.  Both of them have their fronts saturated in blood—Cecco has figured out what Cyran is, not that it was particularly difficult, and it delights him more than it ought to.  He didn’t choose to run away in the face of monstrosity, like the other man thought he might.  Cecco is his own type of monster at this point.

He has chosen to indulge Cyran’s bloodlust, to the point of actively participating in it sometimes, especially if he sees an opportunity to knock somebody off of something, although it is not always an exact requirement.  It is true that that kind of behavior does not net them very many other friends, though.  Not that either of them are very bothered by it.

“Yes, I think that we have,” Cecco says, a crooked, uneasy smile creeping over his face.  He tears his attention away from the crowd—a bad idea, perhaps—to look at Cyran instead.  “I don’t know about you, but I have never been one to stick around for this sort of party.  It’s really quite different from my usual, so I think I’ll take my leave, if it’s all the same.”

〔  why you shouldn’t drink  〕  〢  accepting .

[oceanoecielo]

@closedcoffins | cont from here

Cecco is his own flavor of monster as well; at least, everyone whom he pushed into Tintoretto’s paintings would probably tell you so.  Come to think of it, he has no idea what happened to them.  He doesn’t really know if they fell to their deaths somewhere or if they’re still falling, although he knows in his heart that the sky did not treat them as gently as it did him.

Anyway, he is not going to focus on that right now.  Who cares what happened to them, honestly?  The point is that they are both monsters, bonding over the inconsequentiality of everything, and there’s something joyously magical about that.

“Well, in my experience,” he says, “each step usually means nothing at all.  And the mountains tend to resist moving, no matter how many anthills any one individual flattens.”  How can people say that they are making real progress when they haven’t even gotten off of the ground yet?  No, a lot of people won’t live to see anything earth-shattering, but they all have themselves convinced that they will.  “Usually, stepping on an anthill just results in moving a slightly larger anthill, and by slightly larger, I mean there is maybe one extra grain of sand on it.”

He knows that Cyran has just said that he doesn’t care about the in-between steps, citing them as ‘too complicated,’ but Cecco is a little bit different.  It’s not that he sees them as ‘complicated,’ he just sees them as useless and likes to spout off about it.  “That’s why I take everything as it comes to me, because there’s not exactly a point in doing much else.  In the end, everybody comes to nothing, so we might as well go on enjoying ourselves.  If everything is ultimately in vain, I like my frivolities to be fun.”

His tone has become just slightly more grave since he started speaking, since the whole coming to nothing thing does frighten him, even if he can’t seem to stop talking about it.  He turns to Cyran again and flashes a grin, his previous one having slipped off of his face for a second there.  “I’m glad!” he says.  “I’m rather enjoying myself, too.”  Even if he had a lapse there where he seemed like he wasn’t.  But now it is his turn to laugh.  “Perhaps, we should try sticking together and see how long our respective whims allow us to stay that way.”

[oceanoecielo]

//y’know.

[oceanoecielo]

“Oh!” Cecco exclaimed at the girl’s reference to the documents in the castle’s library.  He laughed.  “All of that sounds rather interesting, although I’ve never been for much reading myself!  I must duck into that room and explore the shelves for a while when we return.”  Cecco would undoubtedly skip the building plans and rifle around the room for information more worthy of gossip.  Whether he would tell it to anybody depended on how he was feeling, and he planned to hold on to it until a less interesting day in court, when he needed to stir the proverbial pot.  There typically was not a want of entertainment in the Queen’s court, but there were slower days.  It was difficult to keep him engaged, and not even Her Majesty could offer him all the excitement he could ever want.

Cecco shook his head.  “Some castles aren’t still standing.  At least a few ruins stand to the east.”  And perhaps Ava knew about them as well, having read about them in books or some such.  “But as long as people are still around to keep them in repair, the structures can hold up for a while.”  A trifling blip in the universe's history, but a while by the standards of a fifteen-year-old girl.  “So, at least, you will not have to worry about the roof coming down on you anytime soon!  Unless something awful happens.”

A guard post at the front would be great, provided the sentries stay alert.  “Of course,” Cecco said, wandering over to their last descent, a much slighter slope over this wall and through the rich garden, “the more appealing entrance shows we’re an inviting kingdom.  Putting defenses too high can sometimes appear an act of war to others.  You and I understand it’s not, certainly, but it can seem that way.  And so, the extreme in either direction ought to be avoided.”

Cecco hooked his leg over a lower part of the wall and glanced back at his companion for the day.  “But that’s the opinion of a man with an artist’s background, not a warrior’s, so I would take what I say with a grain of salt.”

Given that there is little else Ava could do about it, she does find herself running out of greivances to air after a short amount of time. There wasn't much anyone could do, and she has gotten rather good at internalizing her issues. Plus, she finds other subjects far more interesting.

"If you're ever interested in it, the documents and the like are in the castle's library. Sometimes, when I have nothing else to do," Or rather, she needed a break. "I will occasionally go in there and find something to read. The additions made to the castle are often a little easier to find, but they're rarely bound." So long as Cecco didn't mind rifling through loose papers, they were there.

When they do reach solid ground, Ava opts to skip the last few footholds and jumps down. Dusting herself off, she glances up at the stone. "I've always found how many errors there were interesting, obviously some of them were down to the elements wearing them down, but the others... It does make me wonder how some things are still standing as well as they are."

This section of the grounds is less familiar to her, at least in terms of being there physically, but it's a sight she can map to layouts and a more aerial view. "...If memory serves, there was a proposed structure a little further back, a full guard's station, but I believe it was scraped in for something more... Visually pleasing in the front. Better for us that it was, hm?" Her hand absently feels for the satchel around her hip, resting on it once she finds it.

[oceanoecielo]

   Cecco hmph’d and gave a small shrug.  Honestly, he was tiring of this talk about the Queen.  He possessed no strong opinions about her one way or the other.  Of course, Ava did because she would be stuck living—or dying—here when everything turned out badly.  But he was running out of faux sympathy to extend.  If she wanted to keep talking about it, he would indulge her, listen, but he had little to add of his own.

   “Maybe she should, and maybe she will, who knows?  One thing’s for sure, there’s never a want of entertainment in her court.”  As of right now, life was just as tumultuous as he liked it, not chaotic enough to be stressful, but not quiet enough to be boring.

   At this point, the discussion of the brick walls was of more interest to him than the subject of Her Majesty.  He looked from Ava to the dusty brown walls and back again.  “Is that right?  That certainly makes sense!  You sure know a lot about the history of this place.”  She had been here for longer than he had, and the nooks of rooms he hadn’t bothered closely examining.

   “I would suppose that even if they noticed their errors during the construction, it would already be too late to fix.”  He continued his descent until his feet found an elevated path that wound around the castle walls.  A guard was supposed to patrol it but would not be back for a quarter hour or more, assuming he was not asleep around the corner.  “Stone is a bit hard to move if there’s even so much as one more stone on top of it.”

Hell, even by Ava's standards, neither herself nor the Queen were even close enough to being old enough to rule. They were prone to flights of fancy, which was fine, but they sure as hell weren't ready for the intensity that a real war might bring.

"She should be..." There is no use commenting on parents, in Ava's mind. She hardly knew them even when they were alive, much like she hardly knew her own. The main difference between them now, at least, is that Ava does try to be aware of what's going on internally and externally. War is a terrifying thought, one that she hopes will not come to light in her lifetime or the Queen's rule, but one that she also realizes is very possible. "At the very least, she should be cautious of how she treats others."

Her bitterness remains useful in her descent, as does the discussion of the history of the castle itself. "It was more they opted to build from the inside, up and under. They could have corrected the few extreme mislaid stones, but I suppose that would also be a little too much to do." It would have likely involved them going outside, and what was the point in repairing the old if they were going to be using the new anyways? Besides the fact that the former could cave in all the new work done, obviously.

[oceanoecielo]

   Cecco tutted almost playfully at the Queen’s lack of concern over invasion.  If Ava was disrespecting her by being too harsh, he was doing so by not taking her seriously enough, treating her like the child she was.  Maybe by society’s standards, she was old enough, but by Cecco’s?—not hardly.

   “It’s a shame her parents died so young, or they might have been able to tell her about a time when there was more of a risk of invasion.  Ah, well, fortunate that things are peaceful right now.”  If they weren’t, he would be nowhere to be found.  He was only gracing this particular kingdom with his presence because it was quiet.  The second the Queen’s tactless ruling style caused external conflict, he would vanish.  It would be as if he had never existed at all.  “I know she is not terribly concerned with military affairs, but then neither am I!”

   He had taken a few more steps and jumps down the wall while speaking, and he had to pause and wait for Ava to catch up with him.  “Well, I don’t blame the workers for messing it up a bit,” he said in regards to the stones.  “It’s such a detailed job and often done in the blazing sun.”  No one would ever see him working that hard, that was for certain!  “And besides, if everything was laid out perfectly just so, it would be so boring!  I like things to be a little crooked.”

Ava opens her mouth, about to ask who would want to enter the castle grounds of their own volition and remain there, but shuts herself up before she can voice that stupid question. She knows exactly who Cecco means by that, and beyond that, she knows Her Majesty. A disgruntled, annoyed huff leaves Ava as she descends.

"She's been spoken to about it in the past," She grumbles, carefully stepping down with his guidance. "Doubt she cares since nothing has happened yet." Making each step was easier when she was more focused on her own annoyance with the Queen than the height, and while she doubts it was intentional, it is helping.

"There's a section of the palace that has been downsized," Ava tells him, breath hitching for a moment as she lowers herself down onto the stone in question. "Except they didn't bother to fill the gaps between the old and the new, so occasionally when something from the older section falls, it'll end up inside anyways." That one, for once, had nothing to do with the current ruler, but had been something she read about - and then further confirmed when it happened one day. "Somehow, a few mislaid stones doesn't surprise me."

[oceanoecielo]

“Oh, there are others,” Cecco said.  “I’ve gotten out of most of the windows here at least once.”  There were a few kept from him behind locked doors and suspicious guards, so he had not had an opportunity to leave out of those yet, but he had wormed his way out of an impressive number of them.  “I like knowing I can get out of places if I have to.  What if there is a fire or raid or the like—God forbid, but what if?”  That excuse generally concealed the fact that he was just as much, if not more of a flight risk than Ava, that he might very well be gone tomorrow if he woke up and decided he wanted to.

“Because of that, I happen to know that this one is a bit more poorly guarded than the others, but you won’t tell anyone that.  If they notice a discrepancy in their formation, they’ll undoubtedly rectify it.  That’s also why I like to switch things up.”  If he wanted to run, there was nothing anyone could do about it, but he was used to pretending like there was.

The roof dropped off more steeply, and Cecco felt for the stone he usually used before stepping down more securely onto it.  “You are wearing sturdier shoes, yes?”  He assumed so, but he had not been paying especial attention when she lifted her skirt.  “I can only imagine how difficult this might be with slippers.  I’ll go down first, of course, so I can watch your steps and guide you through finding the right holds—and catch you if you fall.  But remember not to be too loud, even if you do get startled.  Although this wall gets watched a little less, the guards are not complete dunces.”

Though she tries not to let it show, Ava truly does hate being under constant scrutiny. She hated the constant feeling of eyes on her, every movement she made watched and scrutinized. It did little more than put her further on edge, wound her up so tight that she felt like she may explode at any moment.

That being said, looking decidedly unimportant made her feel calmer. Despite the effort of how quickly she had been moving, her shoulders are far less tensed than they had been, and there's a light in her eyes that is not usually there when Cecco opens the window.

"You like to live dangerously, don't you?" Ava reaches out for his hand, lifting her skirt with the other to make it over the sill. "I see why you wanted this corridor, though." The view was stunning, and it was better out on the rooftops, and she makes a mental note to do this more often. Sitting on the roof, that is.

Her eyes are locked on either the skyline or the roof, trying for Cecco's sake not to break his hand with how tightly she'd likely end up be holding when they started their descent. "Have you come down this way before?" Figuring that it would be easier to keep her mind from the drop if she was talking, she offers him a small smile. "Or are there other windows you exit through regularly?"

[oceanoecielo]

Of course, Cecco was not about to chastise her for wanting to go out.  She was still young and it was only natural that a young person would thirst for adventure.  No matter how dutiful they tried to make her, she was always going to end up with the same rebellious spirit always going to end up with the same rebellious spirit that plagued children her age.  The more they tried to kill it in her, the more they actually fostered it.  That lack of foresight perhaps resulted from the Queen being the exact same age and similarly lacking in adventure.  It was not fair that one should have it while the other could not.

Cecco was was of the opinion that all young people ought the romp about a little.  Of course, everyone had to do their part to keep life running smoothly for everyone else, and that romping did not inherently entail a shirking of one’s duties.  But it was just dreadful to have them only working.  Best to let them out every once in a while, give them space, let them decide for themselves what they wanted.  Perhaps, Ava would spend a day in the city and decide that squalor did not suit her at all, but nobody would know if they did not let her try.

“Certainly,” Cecco said.  “Just be careful about what you bring.  Your possessions can be just as telling of your status as your appearance.”  He did not believe Ava needed the reminder, and he was not trying to patronize in his advice, just chatting as he was wont to do.  “I have to go put myself together—or take myself apart, rather.”  He chuckled heartily at his own jest.

“You should meet me upstairs when you finish, on the fourth story, in the southernmost corridor.”  It did not see much foot traffic, and there was a sizable window that did not give a view of much interest, being nowhere near the sunrise or sunset.  And they were even less likely to run into anyone on the descent than in the garden.  If they did it right, they should have quicker access to the public dirt road that wound around the outer walls.  It might also leave them dusty and with tears in their clothes, which would make them look a touch poorer—if not peasants, then at least nobles fallen on egregiously difficult times.

Cecco did not tell Ava that the plan was to leave out this window, although she would have to be terribly slow to not figure it out, and he walked away from her with a knowing smirk.  If she wanted an adventure, he was going to give her one.

She had expected him to shoot her suggestion down immediately, chide her and tell her that she is better of here, and that there's nothing for her in the city. Ava would have tried to figure out a way to do it on her own if he had shot her down, but Cecco agreeing takes her by surprise.

His chipper attitude was welcomed, as it made the whole thing seem normal. Like she was asking to walk outside, not dropping everything and abandoning things for a while. Or, more aptly, to further strengthen Ava's own desires to leave her position and do something useful with her life.

Laughing as he reaches over to remind her of what she had already been thinking, Ava rolls her eyes, resisting the urge to swat at Cecco's hand. "I know, I know," Maybe her quick answer would make it seem like she had been thinking about this for too long, but she didn't really care. It was Cecco, after all, not anyone else. "Having more is a pain anyways, they can be left down even when we are done." It feels better when it isn't pinned to her head, the weight of each plait feeling more like a shackle than an object of beauty.

Reaching up, she absently tugs at one of them, not hard enough to cause it to become undone, but enough to test how settled it is against the pin. "If I could get away with leaving it all down, no fancy pinning, I would." Venturing out into the gardens is a rare chance for her to attempt to leave all her hair down, but even that is best done under the cover of darkness, where it is less likely someone will stumble upon her.

"I'll return shortly," Ava tells him as she rises from her seat. "I have a few things I wanted to bring with me as well."