Work Text:
Beside a wooden easel draped with ivy-green cloth, Ignatz paced around the room, listening exclusively to the sound of his heavy shoes on the resplendent old oak of the floor. How severe they sounded- how severe he felt, standing on a precipice from where he was unable to observe the ground below.
Though he had long learned to not be so reticent regarding his artwork, or in regards to matters in general, this was different. Even contemplating what lay beneath the covering rendered his stomach, turning into a thick, sickly anxiety. He would only have so long before judgement was passed against him- before, potentially, the rest of his life began.
Footsteps echoed from the corridor, too slight for them to be his own, and Ignatz snapped to attention. Making sure to face the solid wooden doors, he scuttled over to where the easel still stood undisturbed. Taking his place next to the concealed painting, he wrapped his hands around his back, and stood to attention in the way he’d learned to do as a knight. Even if he was facing a future where that wouldn’t be the life he’d pursue. Still, even with all the formalities he was sure to put on in front of noble society, he couldn’t quell a slight flash of excitement as a flash of dawn-sky blue flashed from behind the entrance as it opened up to the yawning palatial halls lying beyond. Or the way his heart suddenly beat so fast, so furiously, as if he was a newborn rabbit trapped on a patch of heath.
Marianne , he thought.
“Lady Marianne.” Ignatz spoke as he bowed. She was several paces into the room, now, dressed in the more comfortable of her regal fashions. Ignatz, too, had gone out of his way to don the few clothes he owned that weren’t covered with paint, blood, or both.
“Ignatz.” She replied gently. “There is no need for titles here.”
“Ah.” His face heated up a little, and he silently hoped that no evidence of it was visible. “I simply wanted to show you respect.”
There was no reply to that, but Marianne stepped closer, only to stand still on the other side of the easel. Brushing her hand over the velvet fabric, Ignatz swore he saw the slightest formation of a smile on her face.
“How fine this material is. It is the sort of thing which your art deserves.”
“Now, now,” Ignatz mumbled, and rising heat only worsened, “it simply prevents damage to the surface. It hasn’t been framed yet, of course. In case I need to redo it.”
Marianne turned to him, and, as she’d promised him years ago to do, looked him in the eyes. The twitching flutter in Ignatz’s heart, the one he’d been trying so hard and for so long to force down, the one which he himself believed was desperately futile to even try repressing, revived itself. “I am sure it will be a splendid work. But I believe I may be able to look at it better without it being hidden.” Her fingers continued to ghost against the slim draping of the cover, and Ignatz tried to wrench his eyes from where they ran delicately against the folds, from where he could almost imagine that it was something else. That it was grass, and she was lying peacefully beside him, or that it was his hair-
No , he told himself. This is Marianne’s marriage portrait . It is to be passed along through the hands of nobles, there for them to assess their interest in an eligible woman of their rank and pedigree . And even if Ignatz hardly knew why such a process was necessary, why they could not come to see Marianne’s beauty in person if they held such a deep desire for her, he had long resolved himself to refrain from any unnecessary disruption. This was his job. And if Marianne was pleased with his labours, he could look to receive similar employment from other nobility. Whether he got to see her smile was a factor external to this.
And yet-
“Ignatz.”
Ignatz turned his head to where Marianne stood with such dazed intensity that it nearly bruised him. Fumbling his hands behind him, he tried to meet her gaze in the most respectful fashion possible.
“Ah, yes. The painting.” He gulped, but resigned himself to not hesitating. “Would you like to look upon it now?”
“Very much so.” Marianne’s voice betrayed a desire for expediency, one which felt so alien to Ignatz. How it made his heart beat even faster, bathing in the knowledge that she so sincerely desired to see his work.
Without further ado, Ignatz tugged on the golden tassel which hung from his side of the covering, and the drape peeled away from the surface which it had obscured. As it was whisked rapidly to the side, light began to filter down onto the painting. Onto where Ignatz had so lovingly painted the cherubic corners of Marianne’s mouth in peach-blossom shades; where he’d tried to for hours to capture the angelic softness of her skin in tones of silken cream.
“Oh, Ignatz.” Marianne murmured. “It’s absolutely radiant.”
“T-thank you, L- Marianne.” The honeyed words made him feel unsteady, like he had been finally inched to the precipice.
“But I can’t take this.”
And now, he was falling, with only rigid spines beneath him to catch him as he did.
“I- I apologize.” He tried his best to resist the urge to bow again, to do anything to repair his potential trespass, at least on the surface level.
“There is no need for apologies.” Marianne’s voice was laden with a sort of pensive sigh, Ignatz noted. “It is a radiant piece. And I shall compensate you extensively.”
“...May I ask, then, what the issue is?” Ignatz inquired. Marianne sighed, and shook her head with a graceful subtlety.
“There is no issue, Ignatz. I do love it. I particularly admire the eyes. How you achieved that shade of brown- ah, I have seen nothing quite like it before.”
Ignatz knew how he’d achieved that shade of perfect brown. He’d mixed the paint from coffee grounds; with the purchase of the beans themselves constituting over half of the cost of his materials. But it had been deeply worth it, if only to hear Marianne say those words.
“But it is of no use for its intended purpose.”
It struck Ignatz then that he felt very much akin to the way he felt the first time he’d drank the coffee he’d brewed from the beans in the first place; a jittering little thing being thrown against a world which was at once much too big and much too small to contain him, not to mention his feelings. It felt fitting that Marianne was the one who did that to him, even if such a sensation was destined to be unfruitful, to be unresolved.
“I promise you that it is of no pain to me if it is damaged.” Ignatz lied. It would, truthfully, upset him immensely. But he would accept that.
“It’s nothing to do with that. It is more…” -Marianne hesitated- “to put it as best as I can, I believe that the man I wish to marry has already come to appreciate whatever might be beautiful about me in its fullness.”
There it was. He was spoken for. Even if he would still be compensated, even if he had not slighted Marianne, the spines still laid underneath the precipice. How he feared them, even though he had always known them to be there.
Ignatz smiled, trying to betray nothing. “A lucky man. And one of impeccable taste.”
“Truly.” Marianne replied. “And I hope to let him know soon.”
“You haven’t already told him?” Ignatz knew that courting between nobles was a rather conservative matter, but to hear that still instilled a feeling of surprise in him.
“I have done my best to express my feelings,” Marianne sighed as she turned to gaze at Ignatz, “and he remains still oblivious. But I shall not understate how much he has done for me. Or-” she took two even steps forward, towards Ignatz, close enough that he could feel her warmth mingle with his- “how much I should like to kiss him.”
Before Ignatz could release the wistful sigh which lingered in his throat, Marianne’s lips were on his, and the bird’s-egg blue of her nail varnish entangled with the gentle green of his hair. As she drew back, the sound encaged in his throat became closer to a gasp, escaping almost immediately in the briefness of the pause before Ignatz came to meet her once more.
It was, Ignatz thought, much nicer to kiss Marianne’s lips than to paint them.