[P] magnum opus

[Elliot]

like a conqueror,
it's good to be king

The way she talks about the city inspires something in me; an old feeling, like an ember returning to flame. Her wonder, her awe, it is almost contagious. I am imagining the expression on her face carved delicately, just-so from stone, so that it might never falter. Might never become jaded, with the realizations of the world.

I want to share her amazement with the world.

“It is quite a feat. The architects certainly knew what they were doing, but it’s the people who made every nook and square their own.” Painting their shutters, their doors, hanging plants from their windows, growing beautiful gardens. It was only a bunch of stone when it was first built, but now, now it’s a marvel.

The sound of my name on her tongue is a brilliant thing, and when she bows I am both impressed and chagrined. She has manners, some class, but I do not want her to bow to me. It is an odd feeling, and one that I’m not entirely familiar with. I smile, a slow curling of my pale lips, as she straightens. “The pleasure is mine, Nicnevin,” her name suits her, and I like the way it feels as it rolls across my teeth, “You have a beautifully exotic name.”

And no, it does not surprise me when she confirms my thoughts that she is a new arrival to Novus and Terrastella. I watch her contemplatively as she tests the word “city”, as though it is foreign and strange. Where she comes from then, there are no stone walls and buildings aching for the sky. She is not the first, but she is the first to appreciate what is here instead.

“I do, yes,” I turn, as though offering her my side; an escort. “Just outside the city, actually. I run a school for the arts, which has been in my family for many years.” I walk slowly, leisurely, so as to give her the chance to look about as she wishes, should she choose to join me. There is a place in the city that I think she would like, that I wish to show her.

“You see, I am a sculptor,” I glance sideways at her, my pale lashes fluttering against my cheeks, “It is why your wonder strikes me so, as you look at the city.” To have someone who so unabashedly enjoys what she is seeing, rather than walking on by. Especially considering some of the statues within the city are his own—well, it makes him want to know her.

♔ | @Nicnevin <3