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wispofathingCurnen’s head felt tangled, and it almost seemed to her that her hair was all the harder to tame these days because of it. Ever since her disastrous phone call to Bliss where her elder sister had given her a blistering dressing down for the danger she could have brought to their people for her whimsical friendship of the Seelie prince. Curnen had assured her sister—and through her, Mandalay—that Willy meant her no harm, but by then a sister’s worry had overcome a regent’s duty and logic had left the conversation. There had been a lot of storm and stress that night.
And ever since then, Curnen had not known what to do with herself. She performed as she always had, but it rankled yet more and more that her few original songs remained lost to her, that her wings did not stir. So that day, after she finished her set she remained in the park for a long time, fiddling in the vain hope that perhaps something new might come to her fingers.
It wasn’t. It never was. She felt all too close to blowing away all over again.
And that was when she knew it was time to go see The Painting.
The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke hung in the Tate Gallery, but Curnen knew that nobody else here knew it was but a copy of a copy, a shadow of a shadow, and the Tufa destiny in paint. It showed a man, his back to the viewer, holding an axe high over his head. Around him stood myriad fae in court finery, their faces stylized and a little frightening. The original painting, known to only a very few, lay in the small town of Cricket. In the basement of the Overbay house, in Bliss’s care, the original and mirror image of this existed in tapestry, showing Rockhouse’s face, his smug and prideful face in the moment before he’d ruined them all.
And through the stylization one might discern Curnen’s own face in the painted crowd. Might. She had not been there at this moment, she had not yet been born. And yet there she was.
She stared at it for a long time in contemplative silence, wondering what it meant. For her people. For herself.
((Run into Curnen in the park or in the museum, your choice.))
And ever since then, Curnen had not known what to do with herself. She performed as she always had, but it rankled yet more and more that her few original songs remained lost to her, that her wings did not stir. So that day, after she finished her set she remained in the park for a long time, fiddling in the vain hope that perhaps something new might come to her fingers.
It wasn’t. It never was. She felt all too close to blowing away all over again.
And that was when she knew it was time to go see The Painting.
The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke hung in the Tate Gallery, but Curnen knew that nobody else here knew it was but a copy of a copy, a shadow of a shadow, and the Tufa destiny in paint. It showed a man, his back to the viewer, holding an axe high over his head. Around him stood myriad fae in court finery, their faces stylized and a little frightening. The original painting, known to only a very few, lay in the small town of Cricket. In the basement of the Overbay house, in Bliss’s care, the original and mirror image of this existed in tapestry, showing Rockhouse’s face, his smug and prideful face in the moment before he’d ruined them all.
And through the stylization one might discern Curnen’s own face in the painted crowd. Might. She had not been there at this moment, she had not yet been born. And yet there she was.
She stared at it for a long time in contemplative silence, wondering what it meant. For her people. For herself.
((Run into Curnen in the park or in the museum, your choice.))
