The Vampire & Her Witch

Ashlynn and Nyrielle lingered over the meal, savoring not just the food but the comfortable intimacy of eating together, and sharing the fruits of their collaborative labor. The fire crackled softly beside them, and the room was warm with more than just the heat from the hearth.

When the last of the dishes had been set aside and Ashlynn had arranged them on a tray to be carried away when she left in the morning, Nyrielle rose with a smile that held a hint of mischief.

”Now,” she said as she moved to one of the large trunks in the room, opening it to reveal several trays of neatly organized art supplies. The trunk held everything from brushes and pigments to blank canvases of various sizes. There were even jars of oil and turpentine, along with palettes and rags, all packed away neatly in exactly the right place. ”I believe it’s my turn to teach you something.”

”You’re going to show me how to paint?” Ashlynn asked as her eyes widened with delight.

”You’ve shared so much with me, my darling,” Nyrielle said, selecting two small-sized canvases that were about the size of a dinner plate, and carrying them to the low table they’d just cleared. ”I felt like it was time to share something more of myself with you.”

As she spoke, she set out a pair of small, folding stands to prop up the canvases, followed by a series of pigments, arranging them on the table with the same focused attention she’d given to studying the cooking ingredients earlier. Each pigment had its own small glass jar, sealed with a cork stopper, and the colors ranged from black and indigo to browns and yellows, bright white and deep crimson.

”We’re going to paint waves on a beach,” Nyrielle announced, settling onto a cushion beside Ashlynn and pulling the table close. ”Nothing specific today, not Blackwell Harbor or any particular shore you know. Just... a beach. Waves. Sand. Sky. Maybe some clouds if you want,” she suggested. ”Just the general idea of the beach instead of trying to make it look like any place that you remember visiting.”

”Why not a specific place?” Ashlynn asked, accepting the instructions but curious about the reasons. ”Wouldn’t it be easier to paint something I can picture clearly?”

”You’d think so,” Nyrielle said with a slight smile, ”but actually, when you’re first learning, trying to recreate specific details gets in the way of understanding the techniques. You become so focused on getting every rock and curve of the shoreline exactly right that you forget to learn how paint actually behaves, how colors mix, how light works on a surface. It’s better to start with the general concept and let your hands learn the skills. Later, when you have the technique, then you can chase specific memories.”

For a moment, Nyrielle paused as a memory stirred within her, one she hadn’t thought much on in many years, but she turned away from it, ignoring the faint voice that echoed from her memories as she resolutely chose the kinder of her mentors as a model for teaching Ashlynn.

”We’ll start simple. I’m going to teach you the way I first learned from Uncle Tausau,” Nyrielle said as she used a small metal knife to scoop out small amounts of paint onto a wooden palette, showing Ashlynn the colors she’d selected as she went. ”We’re going to paint with our fingers, instead of brushes. Fingers let you feel the paint so you can understand its texture and weight, and how it behaves on the canvas.”

”We can always learn brushwork later,” Nyrielle added as she handed Ashlynn the paint knife and gestured to her lover’s palette so she could set up hers the same way Nyrielle had. ”But there are so many different brushes and different techniques for using them that it becomes overwhelming.”

”Today, you’ll start like I did, with the oldest paint brushes anyone ever used,” she said with a warm smile as she waggled her delicate digits at Ashlynn.

”You learned to paint with your fingers?” Ashlynn asked, surprised. Nyrielle’s work was always so precise and controlled, perfectly recreating people and places; she’d assumed it had always been done with fine brushes.

”I did,” Nyrielle confirmed, a nostalgic smile touching her lips. ”I was much, much younger then, younger than your little sister,” she explained. ”Two hundred years ago, when I was still too young to leave the Vale to visit other vampires, Uncle Tausau came to spend a few years helping Torbin to teach me since my parents were learning to be vampires at the same time that they were learning to be parents.”

”Tausau was different then,” Nyrielle said wistfully. Not long ago, it would have been a painful statement, filled with grief for the once vibrant ’uncle’ she’d lost. Recently, however, she’d seen more and more of the man she once knew emerging in the Clanless vampire since he’d received her gift, reawakening his heart.

”Tausau’s painting was always expressive, sometimes abstract. There was deep, genuine feeling in what he did,” Nyrielle explained as she checked Ashlynn’s palette before gesturing for the young witch to add more black and white for mixing. ”He had a way of putting raw emotion on canvas with a few swipes of his claws, suggesting shapes more than perfecting them.”

”I think he did it to remind himself that he could still feel,” Nyrielle said, a touch sadly. ”Like he felt time’s millstone wearing away at his heart, and he wanted to put all of his feelings into paintings before it was too late. The last time I saw him paint, it was right after Torbin died,” she said as a faintly pinkish tear snuck up on her, glistening in the corner of one eye.

”Do you think,” Ashlynn said softly, reaching out to take Nyrielle’s hand in hers. ”If I asked him, do you think he’d give me a lesson too? Do you think he’s ready to paint again?”

”I don’t know,” Nyrielle said softly as she wiped away the tear. ”But I think he would appreciate being asked, even if he said no. But before you go to him, you should at least let me teach you a thing or two,” Nyrielle teased as she fought to shake off the persistent ghosts of the past in order to focus on the beautiful present before her.

”Starting with your horizon,” Nyrielle said as she dipped the tip of her fingernail into a deep, rich blue. ”And how to paint a sky...”