Work Text:
Asmodeus Alice couldn’t help but grumble under his breath and he set up his easel. “After five years, I’m finally allowed to move beyond object studies. But how is doing abstract concept work actually an improvement?” The blank canvas seemed to mock him with its unmarked surface, and he was tempted to just throw his palette at it and see what stuck. Then he realized that was something he had seen Clara do, and restrained himself.
Instead he gazed out over the gardens of Bablys with a discerning eye, trying to find the perfect angle for his piece. His art teacher had assigned a piece meant to convey the idea of ‘freedom,’ which Azz found impossible to do while in the Asmodeus family manor. The mere idea of trying to express freedom while in the oppressive walls of the mansion was paradoxical.
So, he had taken the opportunity to move his supplies out of the manor and to the school grounds, where the idea of freedom had first presented itself to him. The gardens, where devi-plants grew and wandered on their own, seemed a better location than the structured roses of his home. But how to express such a lofty concept in the restricted medium of a painting was still troubling the young noble.
He sighed and set his brush to paint, and then to the canvas, starting with a wash of pink for the sky before transitioning to green of the grounds. He kept a light hand, not wanting to enforce any rigidity to the piece in this early phase, where he only had the vaguest ideas of what to create. An open sky seemed an appropriate concept, and a field of wildflowers perhaps, but was it enough?
For a time, Alice lost himself in the paint, trying to find the best way to apply his previous pieces into this one. Blend the edges of the clouds against the sky, they rarely have hard lines. Add a bit of a contrasting color to heighten the impact of the yellow flowers, perhaps a touch of violet.
“Azz-kun!” broke through his concentration, and Azz looked up in shock to see Iruma walking from the colonnade surrounding the gardens, Azz turned and found himself trying to block his canvas from the blue eyes with barely a conscious thought. Iruma didn’t seem concerned by the act, merely walking up to Azz with a warm smile on his face.
“Good afternoon, Azz-kun,” Iruma greeted warmly. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it? I was surprised to see you here, given that we don’t have any classes today.”
“G-good afternoon, Iruma-sama,” Azz responded, trying to keep his fingers still instead of shaking around his paintbrush. “I--Yes, we don’t have class today, but my mother insists on giving me lessons outside of Bablys, so I’m here to work on a project.”
Iruma’s eyes, such a startling shade of blue, seemed to light up, “Really? I’ve been wanting to get better at piano ever since the Music Festival, so maybe I should ask Grandpa about taking lessons too. What are you working on?”
Azz felt his spine stiffen despite his will, before sighing and stepping aside to allow Iruma to see the canvas. “I was given an abstract concept and told to express it. I found it…difficult to properly express the concept while I was at home, and decided that the school grounds would be much more conducive for this project.” Iruma stepped closer to examine the canvas, and Azz couldn’t help but look at what he had created.
Surprisingly, he had managed to get a lot done in what felt like a short amount of time. The foreground of the painting was dark, with light seeming to burst from the center of the frame. It gave the impression of stepping out of a dark forest into a sunlit field, adorned with flowers of yellow, white, and reds. Halfway up the canvas, the ground seemed to roll away, leaving the expanse of sky open and unrestrained. Clouds lingered in the distance, creating a sense of distance far beyond the edges of the canvas. It was surprisingly detailed, if Azz had to judge his own work.
Iruma was quiet for a long time, and Azz couldn’t help but fidget before he finally broke the silence. “Iruma-sama? Is--is something wrong?”
Iruma jerked, almost seeming to come out of a trance, before locking eyes (blue, how could those eyes be so blue?) with Azz and smiling sheepishly. “Sorry, Azz-kun. Nothing’s wrong, I just…” He trailed off, looking at the painting once more before steadying his gaze on Azz. “I was just thinking, ‘I want to go there with Azz-kun one day.’” Iruma blushed, looking away from Azz, before turning around. “A-anyway, I think I hear Opera-san calling me. I’ll talk to you later, Azz-kun!” A hand waved jerkily over his shoulder as Iruma walked away, with more rigidity in his posture than usual.
Azz stood and watched where Iruma had walked back into the school for a long time, long after Iruma had disappeared from view. As the school bell rang out its usual call, Azz finally pulled himself together and turned back to his canvas. From his palette, he selected a color that had only been used as a minor accent, and started to add it, with a far heavier hand than any of his previous brushwork. He painted in a trance, trying to find the right way to add the movement he wanted. When his hand was starting to cramp, he made himself step away and survey his piece.
At the edge of the ground, a new figure had appeared, vividly blue against the magenta sky. A lighter space was almost shaped like a hand, stretched out to the viewer, as if wanting to pull something into the frame. Behind, the sky seemed more open than before, as if there was now a reason to fly beyond the hill and into the expansive world beyond.
Azz, content with his work, packed up his paints and sighed. “I would love to go with you, Iruma-sama, anywhere you wish. Afterall, you’re the one who taught me about freedom in the first place.”
The End