☼ ISHAK ☼اسحاق
"I been looking at the stars tonight / And I think oh, how I miss that bright sun"
"I been looking at the stars tonight / And I think oh, how I miss that bright sun"
It is not often you find yourself in Dawn. It is not often that you find yourself in the other courts at all, really.
You are at Ruth’s side, as always.
The bonfire crackles and the celebrants dance and the night is young, as they say. This party, this festival, is just a little bit wild. You enjoy it much more than an Ieshan ball, even if you have a freer mandate at the latter.
Ruth plods through the crowd, aimed and intent at the edge of it all. You keep tabs on the glances thrown at the two of you, but no one seems intent on trouble tonight.
The grasslands here are supposed to feel endless, so you’d heard in the marketplace. Gossip had centered around who was off stargazing together. You’d laughed, honestly. There’s so much life here that you can’t imagine finding somewhere properly empty to tilt your head up. The bugs alone are a bit much.
Not that the desert is truly empty, of course. There’s plenty living in and beneath the sands.
Ruth stops and looks at you, as good a cue as any. Her tone is nigh on empty when she asks, “Ishak. If you were to paint me – what would you paint?”
You look at Ruth. (You are always.) You look at her.
You think of half-finished sketches and half-finished conversations. You think of the party last winter. You think of your own paints, done in blue this season.
Ruth would make a fine canvas, truly. You could paint her brightly, and the contrast would be lovely. You could use a dark metallic on her darkest parts, so that it would take a turn in the light to reveal her styling.
You’d paint the sun on her, of course. A dot for every life you’ve known her to save. (A mirror to you, with your specific dots for lives taken.) You’d put those meaningful dots on her shoulder, the same as your tattoos. You’d bisect her with a line on each side, not to match her markings but to match your scars. Above each diagonal line, you’d put another sun, perhaps.
You’d trail ancient patterns around her back legs, where they’d shine the brightest. And you’d spend an hour at least picking the beads for her hair. Gold, silver, white.
Because you’d paint in her all-white.
You can almost imagine it, like the visions you’d had in fractured crystal on that island.
“Lines and dots and suns,” you say. “It’s the arrangement that makes the meaning.”
You could show her, take a stick to trampled dirt if nothing else. You wonder if she’ll ask, or if she’ll drop it.
“In white,” you add, like it’s an afterthought.
Of course, Ruth would do better to remember that painting is a skill you lack.
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