Work Text:
“Well,” Isobel says, wracking her brain for any topic she hasn’t already exhausted. “It looks to be a pleasant day for travel.”
“So it does,” Dame Aylin agrees, leaning against Reithwin’s wrought-iron front gates. Sunlight glints off of her armor, blindingly bright. “An exquisite contradiction, to witness such fair weather with storm clouds in my heart. Your town, its warmth and vitality, is a testament to my mother’s holy name. I hate to leave it.”
“Then stay!” Isobel says in a rush. “One more night, at least. Perhaps the weather will be drearier tomorrow – better fitting your mood.”
Aylin’s smile is as bright as her armor. Isobel joins her in leaning against the gates; her knees suddenly feel a little weak. “Would that I could. Alas, Dame Aylin is expected in another stronghold of Selûne’s divine light by the morrow. I am to sit for a portrait that will hang in the town’s great hall.”
“Oh yes?” Isobel says, unsticking her shirt from her stomach as casually as she can. She feels like she hasn’t stopped sweating in three days. (Aylin arrived three days ago.) “How far must you travel to the next community being honored by your presence?”
“The honor is mine, if the denizens of my next destination offer conversation half as sparkling as yours.” Aylin’s eyes are ocean and sky mixed on an artist’s palette. Isobel hasn’t looked at anything else in minutes. There could be an army of Sharrans charging toward the gate; she’d be none the wiser. “My journey would be arduous by foot, but lo – taken to the skies, it’s naught but a few wing-flaps.”
“Do you like having wings?” Isobel says stupidly, because she has to say something. Aylin is raising her helmet to cover that magnificent face, and then she’ll be gone, reduced to a speck in the heavens, cruel winds carrying her far from where Isobel can look at her.
“A characteristically unique question, darling Isobel,” Aylin says. “Your thoughts have been a joy to hear these past few days. I suppose I know no other way of being. They are most advantageous when traversing great distances.”
“And how far is it to your next town?”
“Esteemed cleric of the Moonmaiden-favored house of Thorm,” Aylin says, her booming voice undercut with a current of anxiety. “I would sooner break bread with a Dark Justiciar than cause you a moment’s embarrassment, but your dulcet voice raised this same question moments ago. Do you feel in good health?”
Aylin presses the back of her hand to Isobel’s forehead, checking for a fever. If Isobel’s face wasn’t a feverish temperature before, it sure is now. “I’m fine,” Isobel says, reluctantly stepping away from Aylin’s touch. “I’m keeping you from your duties. I’m sorry. It’s just – it’s been wonderful. Having you. …Here.”
“In all of my long life, I have never heard truer words uttered.” Aylin slots her helmet into place; her eyes still shine out. “Please pass along my sincerest thanks to your venerated father for the gracious welcome. I hope to cross Reithwin’s streets again soon.”
It comes out of her mouth before Isobel can even process the thought: “Can I paint you?”
Behind the helmet, Aylin’s eyebrows raise. “Wonders untold, Isobel! On top of your myriad talents, you paint as well?”
No! “Yes!” Isobel says. “If other communities aim to capture your likeness in a portrait, it seems silly that Reithwin wouldn’t – ”
“A daughter of Thorm painting a daughter of Selûne,” Aylin says, clasping her hands together. “O, blessed day! So devout an expression of your family’s faith, the bards will spin stories of it for generations. I will return to Reithwin in a fortnight’s time if my obligations allow.”
“I’ll be counting down the hours,” Isobel says, bowing as she was taught to do when such revered guests were leaving.
Aylin gently grasps Isobel’s chin in her cool fingers, tipping her head back up. “And I, the seconds,” she murmurs, fanning out her wings.
Isobel watches her take flight, tracking the aasimar until she disappears over the horizon. It’ll be an interesting two weeks, she thinks. Isobel hasn’t touched a set of paints since she was a child.
************************************
After spending the first few days fruitlessly searching for a way to both renege on her lie about her creative ability and keep Aylin around, Isobel makes the insane decision to dress up her room like an art studio. She buys paints and a massive canvas from a kindly merchant, claiming that she’s taking up the hobby. She steals a white apron from her father’s kitchen staff, staining it with smears of color to give it the appearance of an artist’s smock. Her nightly prayers to Selûne start to include a lot more apologies.
Luckily, Isobel’s father is out of town when Aylin returns. (He always finds an excuse to travel around the anniversary of his wife’s death, no matter how many times Isobel pleads with him to spend the dreaded date with her. She understands that he can’t bear to let his daughter see him at his most devastated; all the same, she thinks that they’d be able to bear the devastation better together.) “Ma’am,” Isobel’s maid says breathlessly, hurrying into her room. “The venerated Dame Aylin is downstairs. She says she’s here for a painting…?”
“Thank you, Clara,” Isobel says, smoothing her hands down her faux-dirty smock-apron. “Please show her up.”
Isobel sits, then stands, then rests her elbow on the canvas stand. Which position makes her look the least awkward? Listening for Aylin’s armor clanking up the stairs, she plays nervously with a tube of paint, screwing and unscrewing the cap. Isobel sits again, crossing her legs. Uncrosses them. Crosses her ankles instead. That’s how an old teacher told her to sit – it’s supposed to look dainty. Or something. Isobel and her mother had laughed about it for a whole evening.
“Isobel Thorm,” Aylin says from the doorway. Isobel jumps; she hadn’t heard the armor –
Oh. Aylin isn’t wearing her armor. She’s wearing a silver suit, a blue handkerchief folded neatly in the breast pocket. Isobel squeezes the tube so hard that paint explodes out of the top.
“I’ve startled you,” Aylin says regretfully. “A thousand apologies, my friend. I forget that mortal ears are unaccustomed to the war horn of Dame Aylin’s voice.”
“No, no, it’s alright,” Isobel says, throwing a towel over the paint splatter. “It’s my— artistic process. Please, sit.”
“You grow more fascinating still,” Aylin says, sitting back regally on the chair Isobel placed in front of the canvas. “How do you want me?”
Isobel swallows hard. “How – what – ?”
“Like so?” Aylin asks, leaning forward, her elbow on her knee. “Or more formal, perhaps?” She adjusts, sitting up straight with her hands palm-down.
“The second one, I think,” Isobel says, glancing between Aylin and the blank canvas. She holds her thumb up to her sightline as she inspects the pose. That’s something artists do, right? “Except – would you mind turning your head a bit to the left?”
Aylin obliges. The slight shift accentuates her jawline. “How is this?”
“Perfect,” Isobel says. After a moment of staring, she remembers that she should probably pick up a paintbrush.
For the next hour, Isobel swipes at the canvas with blues and blacks and yellows. She draws a smiley face, then two stick figures holding hands. It must look pretty convincing; Aylin compliments her concentration, her clear comfort with wielding a brush. Then again, Aylin compliments everything Isobel does. If she didn’t know better, she’d think –
She’s nice to everyone, Isobel reminds herself, drawing an X on the canvas. She’s a goddess’s daughter. YOUR goddess’s daughter. It’s her job to curry favor with her mother’s followers.
“You work so intensely,” Aylin comments. Her form hasn’t shifted at all since they started. “Ah! How eagerly I await the finished product.”
“Me too,” Isobel says, drawing a frowny face.
Even as she digs herself deeper into the lie, Isobel relishes the chance to really look at the half-deity, uninterrupted. She’d wondered if her initial astonishment at Aylin’s beauty would fade once she wasn’t so starstruck, but no: Aylin’s beauty is just astonishing. She looks like she was carved from marble by a lovesick sculptor. Her arms; her thighs. Backlit by the sun outside Isobel’s window, Aylin’s hair glows ethereally, falling over her broad shoulders.
“The night fast approaches,” Aylin says. “I’d like nothing more than to sit as your muse through the week’s end, but my hardhearted aunt’s soldiers work ceaselessly. I look forward to our next session.”
“Thank you for your time, Dame Aylin,” Isobel says, trying to remember that she no longer has an excuse to stare as shamelessly. “I know it’s a precious commodity.”
“Best spent in enjoyable company,” Aylin says warmly. “You are a dangerous one, dear Isobel. I can see us spending a thousand moon-cycles sharing some absorbing discussion before I remember my responsibilities.”
She’s only currying favor! Isobel tells herself aggressively. She gives all Selûnites that heart-igniting stare!
“May I view your progress?” Aylin asks, standing.
Isobel throws herself over the canvas. “No! I mean – if it wouldn’t insult you terribly, my lady, I prefer to wait until the piece is complete to show the subject.”
“The tantalizing wait continues,” Aylin says good-naturedly. “The only insult lies in this my lady business. Bah! We have grown to be bosom friends, have we not? You must call me Aylin.”
“Aylin,” Isobel repeats. Her own voice sounds sweeter, wrapped around the syllables. She wants to say it again. She wants Aylin to make her say it again. She wants Aylin to make her forget that other words exist. She wants –
“As with our first meeting, luxuriating in proximity to your pure heart and mind have done me worlds of good,” Aylin says, taking and kissing Isobel’s hand. “Until next time.”
“Safe travels,” Isobel says shakily. Despite her best efforts, her mind has never felt less pure.
************************************
Lusting after your goddess’s child has to be considered blasphemy, right?
It’s not exactly a question Isobel can take to Reithwin’s library. In all of her extensive studies, she’s never heard of another Selûnite committing a similar sin; maybe she’s the first. A dubious honor, to be sure.
Aylin returns for three more sittings, each one weeks apart. Isobel fabricates elaborate reasons for the aasimar’s visits – she’s imparting sacred knowledge for Isobel to incorporate into her work as a cleric; she left a piece of armor behind in Isobel’s room and trekked many miles to retrieve it – but Ketheric never seems to buy them, his gaze lingering uneasily on Aylin’s wingspan each time he sees her. Isobel doesn’t understand why her father is so opposed to the Moonmaiden’s own kin gracing their town with her footfalls.
The canvas fills with more nonsense: sloppily-rendered stars and moons, Aylin’s name written in a dozen different colors. Isobel feels like a schoolchild nursing a crush. She pretends at painting for entire afternoons, brow furrowed in fake concentration as Aylin – perfect, patient Aylin – holds the same striking pose. Isobel knows that she should end the charade, admit to the falsehood before it swallows her whole, but doing so would no longer solely result in Aylin’s absence. It would likely spark her anger, even disgust. Such stomach-turning thoughts keep Isobel tossing in her bed until the loneliest hours of the night.
Oh, but how exquisite are the stolen moments! Aylin’s personality is as stunning as the rest of her; the two of them talk and laugh about everything and nothing. Isobel opens up about the great chasm left in her life by her mother’s death, speaking not only of her grief but of the less-palatable rage she’s never quite without. How could the gods let such a loss happen? Why should other young women still have their mothers to comfort them when Isobel does not? It pains her to admit, but Isobel can’t even see a toddler running to their mother’s arms without feeling a spike of some ugly emotion better suited to a follower of Bane.
Aylin listens raptly. She does not offer glossy words of reassurance; her responses are simple and honest. You have suffered a cruel thievery of nature. Your fury need not be rational, for there is no logic to be found in its source. My sorrow does nothing to assuage the pain, but I am infinitely sorry. Isobel leaves their sessions feeling lighter, like she’s given the roughest pieces of herself away for safekeeping.
There is, of course, the continued issue of the thoughts that Isobel isn’t sharing. With hours dedicated to looking at Aylin perched so prettily in her chair, it’s hard not to let her mind wander. While dabbing her brush aimlessly at the canvas, Isobel thinks of sliding into the half-god’s lap, guiding that crisp suit jacket down her arms. She imagines Aylin picking her up with ease, throwing her on the bed that’s excruciatingly close to their makeshift art studio. Now, Aylin would say in a growl that could hush a battlefield, Dear, duteous cleric, show me how well you worship –
“Isobel?” Aylin says, and Isobel shakes herself out of her torpor.
“Hm?”
“I asked you what musings or memories draw your attention so far from the House of Thorm.”
“Normal…ones,” Isobel says, dipping her brush in a pot of orange and stabbing it in a zigzag. She used to spend her mental energy on poetry, even some casual piano composition. Now, she’s conjuring up smut that wouldn’t fetch two copper pieces on a bookseller’s shelf.
They fall back into a comfortable silence. Aylin usually sets her gaze on a vague middle distance as part of her portrait pose, but Isobel can feel those ocean-sky eyes fixed on her face. She adjusts the canvas, paranoid that it’s turned too far in Aylin’s direction. Has Aylin caught a glimpse of her unprofessional doodles?
“There is a question I must ask of you,” Aylin says. “I beseech thee answer honestly.”
Isobel steels herself. “I will. I swear.”
“Do you repeatedly seek Dame Aylin’s company because you wish to, or because of your admirable devotion to She Who Guides? Such a question makes no demands of its answer,” Aylin says quickly before Isobel can respond. “Whatever rings clarion and true in your heart is most assuredly correct. But if it’s the latter, I must needs tell you, fair Isobel: you are not bound to flatter your goddess’s daughter.”
That was a lot of words. Isobel blinks. “I’m not confident that I understand the question, my lady.”
“Ah, but you’ve answered it,” Aylin says mournfully, rising to her feet. “My lady. Have I not asked you to do away with these frivolous honorifics?”
“You have,” Isobel says, thinking with a pang of each time she’s watched Aylin disappear into the sky. Fearing the time that she’ll be gone forever. “I’m sorry, I – ”
“You owe me no apologies! It is I who should beg your forgiveness on bended knee!” Aylin strides toward the door. Isobel hurriedly turns the easel so the canvas is shielded. “With you, I forget my godhood. Your kindness, your generosity, make me feel as though I can shirk the weight of my bloodline for entire blissful afternoons. I am made a person. Allowed the privilege of vulnerability. But my privilege is your burden, is it not? Unlucky Selûnite, made to babysit a lonely demigod.”
“Aylin, I want you here,” Isobel says, scrambling up. “The painting was my idea!”
“The painting, yes, but me chattering your delicate ear off each time I darken your doorway? The frequency with which I return?”
“Every minute I’ve spent with you has been of my own volition,” Isobel insists, blocking the door. “If you were mortal, I’d ask you here all the same. Hells, even if you followed the Lady of Loss – well – I might not volunteer to paint you then. But it would be hard not to.”
Aylin laughs. “Very well,” she says. “My conscience is soothed. I don’t mean to moan and fret like some insecure adolescent. I just cherish so dearly our time together. You are a font of such rare goodness, my Isobel.”
My Isobel, the less-clothed Aylin in Isobel’s mind says, So good, aren’t you, so good for me, and Isobel would barely have the breath to choke out Yes, please, Aylin, yes—
“Maybe we should call it a day,” Isobel says loudly. “But I hope you can return soon. Truly.”
“As do I,” Aylin says, stepping forward. She’s dizzyingly close. Why is she so close? Is she going to – ? “One last inconvenience, friend. You’re standing in the doorway.”
“Right,” Isobel says, shuffling to the side. “Apologies. Friend.”
************************************
Isobel rarely ventures to Reithwin’s temple outside of actual services. Some townsfolk go more often, preferring to complete their daily prayers in a shared space, but Isobel feels just fine about communing with Selûne from home. Usually.
After wiping her shoes excessively on the mat at the temple’s entrance, Isobel crosses through the arched doors. The room is near silent; the only other occupants, an elderly couple by the front, are rising from the pews to begin their journey back home. They smile at Isobel as they pass. She forces a smile back, wracked with guilt at the wickedness the kindly pair can’t see. If they knew, she’s sure they’d be scowling.
Isobel finds the row of seats that she used to choose when attending services with her parents. Kneeling, she bows her head. “Our Lady of Silver,” she says. “I come to your holy house to seek absolution for an awful transgression. I ask you for the way forward, illuminated by your moonlight.”
One wall of the temple is dominated by stained-glass portrayals of Selûne amidst various acts of benevolence. Extending her hand to a cowering lycanthrope; guiding a lost ship through choppy waves. Infused with the orange-red of the setting sun, each scene blazes with color.
“Your daughter,” Isobel starts. Stops. Tries to start again. “Your daughter is – Reithwin is blessed by her visits. Thank you for sending her to us.”
The many stained-glass Selûnes stare her down. Isobel averts her eyes.
“I don’t know why I deceived her,” she says. “It was a foolish lie. Doomed to be discovered from the start. Imagining her face when she learns the truth, I feel as lost as I did in the woods during my childhood rite of passage. Now, as with then, I worry that I’m failing you. Perhaps I already have.
“Should I send her away?” Isobel says, her voice echoing in the empty sanctuary. “Should I admit my faults, then send her away? I fear my heart may tear in two when we part for good, but I don’t know how else to shield her from my sacrilege. This horrible desire. How do I quash it? What should – ”
CHILD, a voice booms in Isobel’s head, rich and melodious. The stained-glass glows extra bright. DAME AYLIN IS A HALF-GOD, YES?
Isobel stops breathing. “Yes – is this – ?”
PART GOD, the voice says patiently, AND PART MORTAL. SO WHAT GIVES YOU THE NOTION THAT THE NIGHT WHITE LADY FROWNS UPON SUCH UNIONS?
Isobel can’t form words, verbal or mental. In her head, she hears a woman’s gentle laugh.
SMART, SENSITIVE GIRL, the voice says affectionately. AS ENDEARING AS YOUR MOTHER. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG IN YOUR DESIRE, ISOBEL. I DO ASK, THOUGH, THAT YOU REFRAIN FROM SPEAKING OF IT TO ME FURTHER. SHE IS MY KIN, AFTER ALL.
“Of course,” Isobel says, slowly emerging from her shock. “Thank you. …And sorry.”
FASCINATING CREATURES, MORTALS, the voice says pensively. I AM NOT SURPRISED MY DAUGHTER SHARES MY FASCINATION.
“She does?” Isobel squeaks. But the otherworldly light is already fading from the stained-glass; in her head, she feels a sensation like a door closing, and the voice goes quiet.
************************************
The clock tower in the center of town chimes 4 PM. “Damn it all,” Isobel mutters, fumbling in her bag for the loose silver pieces she’d tossed in an hour earlier.
“Language,” the flower seller says teasingly. Isobel had known the man since she was a kid; she’d taken piano lessons from his wife. “You sure about the blue ones, Izzy?”
“I am,” Isobel says, thrusting more coin than she owes into his hand. What was supposed to be a quick shopping trip before Aylin’s scheduled arrival had turned into an agonizingly slow series of choices: should she buy a whole bouquet? A few tasteful cuttings? Would Aylin appreciate a ribbon tied around the stems, or would she view the gesture as too ceremonial? What kind of flowers did demigods like, anyway?
“Hope your sweetheart enjoys ‘em,” the flower seller says, passing Isobel a blooming bouquet of blue roses.
“Me too,” Isobel says, tossing a pocketful of copper pieces into his tip jar on the way out.
Isobel takes off running – which, she thinks with dismay, will surely leave her sweaty and red-faced when she finally makes it home. She doesn’t have much of a choice: Aylin should’ve gotten to the house five minutes ago. Clutching the bouquet to her chest like she’s holding a baby, Isobel weaves and dodges through the busy street, shouting apologies to the people she jostles.
“Where have you been?” Clara greets her anxiously when she bursts through the front door. “Dame Aylin’s been awaiting your presence.”
Isobel touches at her eyelid. She’s been trying out more of a smokey eye lately; the dash home surely transformed it into clown makeup. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs. I led her up to your room – thought you’d be there, ma’am.”
“She’s in my room?”
Isobel regrets her sharpness immediately; Clara shrinks, oblivious to what she could’ve done wrong. How is she to know that the ‘painting’ propped up on Isobel’s easel is top-secret?
“Good,” Isobel says. “Fine. Thank you, Clara. I’ll join her.”
Climbing the staircase has never felt so arduous. Isobel drags her feet on each step, the second floor looming ever closer. A thorn pokes through the tissue paper wrapped around the flowers’ stems. Maybe if she suffers a gruesome enough rose-related injury, Aylin will forego her anger to nurse her back to health.
When Isobel works up the courage to push her door open, it’s straight out of her nightmares: Aylin standing by the easel, her arms crossed as she observes the non-painting in all of its stupid glory. She sees the random streaks of color, the stars and moons, the stick figure women holding hands, Aylin’s name rendered a hundred different ways – cursive, block letters, ‘Aylin + Isobel,’ ‘Dame Aylin’ with a heart above the ‘i.’ Isobel grips the bouquet, a thorn biting into her thumb.
“I owe you an explanation,” she says.
Aylin turns, her arms still crossed. “I daresay you do.”
“I don’t know what came over me. It began as a way to keep you here, but – ”
“I demand,” Aylin says, “that you explain how you crafted such an exquisite work of art.”
The bouquet hangs limply in Isobel’s hand. “You – like it?”
“I adore it,” Aylin says rapturously, leaning toward the canvas. “An abstract portrait! But it is me, nonetheless. There I am!” Aylin points to her name, then to her name, then to her name. “And there you are,” she says, pointing to the ‘Aylin + Isobel.’ “You’ve captured not only my uncontainable spirit, but the essence of our time together. See how the colors meld from cold tones to warm. Brilliant.”
Isobel doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Oh, I’m so glad. I worried that it wasn’t what you expected.”
“It’s better,” Aylin says, beaming. “But then, anything made by your hands must by necessity be beauty itself.”
Letting the bouquet fall to the floor, Isobel launches herself into Aylin’s arms. One of Isobel’s earliest and most treasured memories is the first time she ever went swimming; her mother took her to a nearby river, teaching her how to make herself weightless in the water. How magical, to feel a wondrous new way of experiencing the world open up to you. That’s what kissing Aylin is like. Was there really a time – seconds ago – when Isobel hadn’t known how it felt to have Aylin’s cool lips against hers? Aylin’s arms, strong and sure, around her waist? How silly of Isobel to worry that the divine might oppose their pairing. After this one embrace, the first of a lifetime’s worth, she’s sure that she and Aylin were forged for each other in the gods’ own furnace.
“I have yearned for this since the moment I laid eyes on you,” Aylin says, her voice soft and tremulous. Her wings shimmer into existence, wrapping around them like a blanket.
“So have I.” Isobel rests her head against Aylin’s chest. “What took us so long?”
Aylin takes Isobel’s shoulders, pulling her back. “First of my heart,” she says, her marble face marred with concern. “Fire of my soul. Dame Aylin cannot enjoy this hallowed closeness without first making a grave confession.”
Isobel lays her hand over Aylin’s. “What could you possibly have to confess?”
“During our chaste afternoons of deep conversation,” Aylin says, “I often sullied your lovely form with” – she grimaces – “impure thoughts.”
“Did you?” Isobel says, gasping dramatically. “Would you like to show me what they were?”
“I would like nothing more,” Aylin says, kicking the door closed.
Normally, Clara stops by Isobel’s room as the sun begins to set, reminding Dame Aylin of her request to leave before the skies darken. Today, the maid makes it to the top stair before the sounds emanating from behind the door encourage her to take a prolonged dinner break. Good for them, she thinks, fetching the earplugs from her bedside table.