Chapter Text
It’s a warm, dry night, a rarity as Khadgar knows it in his limited weeks of discovering winter in Stormwind. He’d been lead to believe, by the fading summer pleasantries at his first arrival and from Stormwind’s altitude and geographic positioning, that it’s mild winters would be a vast improvement on the steal-your-breath, bone-deep chills of winter in the mountains of Lordaeron. Instead he finds he’s traded the predictable slap of a set few weeks where, true, his extremities might feel like the ice had drained his soul from them if he spent more than a few minutes outside, at least it wasn’t exposing him to hypothermic whiplash whenever the variables of wind-chill, humidity, cloud-coverage, and precipitation decided to reset themselves into unholy mess of atmospheric texture and temperature. He’s spent days sweating in his jacket under direct sunlight, knowing the minute he takes it off the fickle breeze would pick up and drop his core temperature down to one generally recommended for storing raw meat, only to wake up the next morning to a day spent under heavy cloud coverage and high humidity that made every breath feel like he was attempting to vape supercooled water. He’s given up on predicting what to expect, and thrown on a coat in a half-assed attempt to remain conscientious of season.
No gloves? His memory taunts him, the ghost of warm, strong hand slipping through his fingers and back into non-existence as quickly as it came, and in defiance Khadgar cranks up the volume of his music until his headphones vibrate with it against the bowl of his ears. None of that, now, please, he reminds his subconscious, we’re trying to move past that.
Anyway. Warm night. Medivh is out, which should and does worry him, just in the same way the average person worries about faulty wiring causing an electrical fire or a flash downpour flooding the local river. So, in other words, his absence could be a major concern, but since it wasn’t at critical levels right now he was probably fine. Garona was at work. All the chores in the house had been delegated or otherwise taken care of. His music track changes, the beginning thrums of a old favorite threading through his mind like a welcome home.
And yet, despite all the harmony, the canvas in front of him remains blank. Not from lack of staring. Or intent. Or creative energy for that matter. He doesn’t even feel particularly sad or angry right now, so emotional state is out the window as an excuse.
The image just… wasn’t… gel-ling.
Okay, there had to better ways to phrase that.
His music marched on without him, each beat reminding him that the clock was ticking and his window of maximum unbridled creative energy was bound to close sooner rather than later, and he was totally wasting it for no apparent reason .
God, he’s such a loser.
It wasn’t like he didn’t want to paint. He wanted to, he can feel the whorl of creative energy building under his skin, the rise of expectation in his gut that drowned his stomach and buoyed his heart. He just… couldn’t. It was almost like all that energy and the canvas in front of him were located in two separate, uncompromisable realities, and as with the rest of the natural laws of reality would passively ignore all attempts he made at defying them.
Granted, he was an artist. He could put paint down and it would look halfway decent, but that sort of mindless exercise felt insulting to his current need for creative fulfillment. Giving in would be productive, and may even fool others into thinking it was actually art, but he would know and in knowing even the brightest praise would be reduced to hollow compliments in his mind.
Which was all well and good, a real credit to his artistic integrity and all, except that the canvas remained unacceptably blank.
Fuck.
With some effort, he breaks his staring contest with fabric he was supposed to be painting and throws himself on his cot. The motion tugged at his earbuds but ultimately didn’t pull them out, so at the very least he was still wrapped in the volatile allegro that made up most of his favorite songs. Normally the music helped, giving him a more organized version of his own stream of thought, but as he stared at the imbrication of different styles and sketches of the sky that papered his bedroom ceiling, he realizes he had the opposite problem today. The notion lingers until, with the rapid impetuosity that defined all his crux points, he yanks on the headphone cord until his phone materializes and switches to a lesser used playlist titled ‘Slow Down.’ Once the first song loads, the effect is immediate: soft piano strokes ripple through white noise at the perfect tempo to breathe to. He feels more attuned to his reality now that he’s drifting restless on a singular eddy of thought and no longer trying to simulate the poorly directed feeding frenzy of a creative epiphany.
Better attuned he may be, but not happy. There are easily five other things he could be working on if he weren’t so mentally hung up on-- whatever this was --that his hands stuttered and he had to recollect himself every other step. Medivh’s bizarrely complex, inexplicably moody by design project for Sarge he kept calling Campaign, for one. Or that Medivh had a loving family he managed to keep secret for six years. Or that Medivh thought his composition still needed work.
Medivh, Medivh, Medivh. That’s who this should be about, considering Medivh is his boss and is currently footing the bill for all his supplies, food, and housing, not to mention the sporadic, often extravagant, art lessons the older artist gave him seemingly free of charge.
But it’s not. Because why would the source of his creative frustration be rooted in the perfectly logical explanation that his current mentor was off fucking around with a entire second life he never mentioned ever when it could be rooted in the decidedly less logical fact that for the life of him Khadgar could not bring himself to paint unless he was staring at Lothar’s ridiculously toned abs. Which. Fine. So he’s infatuated. He’s known that for weeks. What he can’t really explain is why Medivh having a previous relationship with his current infatuation would be so unsettling.
And that’s just the thing, really. Why is it unsettling? Medivh hardly spoke of the past, true. For the year Khadgar assisted the man on his politically charged guerilla art installation warpath, the man showed no acknowledgement to the past or the future, always lost in creating a single moment in a single location, never stepping out of the frame of his mind to consider things such as temporal standing. Which, yeah, made the second life of his startling, but was it really unexpected?
Award-winning Photographic Journalist Owns Private Aviary , Khadgar tries, imagining bold sans serif fonts. Nope, no surprise.
Medivh, Man of Mystery, Secret Consort to [insert actor here?]
Nothing.
Artist or Arts Dealer? Private Residence to Well-Known Photographer Found to Contain Lost Tomb.
Not an ounce of surprise.
Suspected Sarge Alias Friends with Local Disabled Hero.
Not surprise, not any longer, but he feels… Something. Something he has no name for, but makes him want to text Lothar and ask what he’s doing, if he could come by again, if he’d like to go for a walk-
His music changes track, now all lively strings that left haunting vibrations in the wake of each draw of the bow. He’d been recommended this song back in Lordaeron, sort of. He’d been asked to an art showing, more like, one that promised live music, and the musician turned out to be worth more than the art that evening. Khadgar sighs. Maybe he should go check on the Morass, or call Moroes’ desk for the eighteenth time to check on Medivh’s gallery showing…
His phone text tone chimes. Ro, telling him to come to the coffee shop immediately, no explanation. Great. Khadgar sits up, running his hand through his hair. The blank canvas jeers at him one last time, and he sighs again, shutting off his music. Might as well. There’s no painting to be done here, anyway.