Work Text:
Each time. It is that portrait, each time.
Each and every time, the Elvenking pauses on the stairway in that very same spot. The place where the portrait hangs.
On the painted canvas, brushstrokes immortalize the memory of a Queen in her regality whole, a child stood by her side dressed in woodland green regality, silver emblems gleaming from the fastened length. At the time, the young prince simply wouldn't let up, and the queen, gone soft, requested for an exception for his behavior, with no shortage of husband-persuasion. She wouldn't have it any other way.
The scene was set with a rare warm winter sun's rays upon skin, streaming in from the left side's open noon sky with a warm cast. The young ellen's pearly blonde hair is a bright contrast to his mother's silken purple robes, beaming with the reflection of the high sun's shine. Behind the pair is draped a length of purple curtain, a wood bench on which they sit placed on cool stone floors.
This painting depicts a beautiful fair-skinned elleth with shining silver hair, cascading in gentle waves over her shoulders and tucked gently behind the shoulder of her grinning son. Her skin undertoned with winter's pink and the soft shadow of purple-blue across it.
In her eyes and certain strands of her hair shone flecks of speckled gold. A lowly churning fire so fitting for her soul, ever-flickering within the molten depths of her smoldering irises. This fire, shared with the power of that winter's sun in the pale blue sky, cast down into her hair like the kiss of Valor, granting unto her the reflection of a soul of Dragon fire.
She wore a light, flowing garment made of what seemed to be starlight, resting around her figure crystal blue, frozen in motion with the whim of winter winds.
Dapples along the tail shimmer, phases of the moon embroidered across the hems of both sleeve and train. A circlet weightlessly rested upon her head, shining with silver beads in the light. A halo was painted behind the head of the royal figure as she stood, hands clasped, in all of her regallity.
She was the Elvenqueen.
The king would never know how the artist seemed to capture every trace of her beauty, every scar's edge across her weathered and war-torn skin, the amber flecks in her eyes, how light bounced off her sancted figure. It was a truly beautiful piece.
What the Elvenking loved most about it, however, –what truly captivated him, was the exact replica of his queen's eyes in all of their glory.
Every fathom of her endless heart shining in mirth– from her devotion and loyal sanctity to her protectiveness and aged distrust– from her unshakable compassion to her ferocity. All of it lingered there in her eyes, laced with millennia of grief and fatigue, yet embraced completely by a content, gentle love.
He would never forget those eyes. Her name vaguely rested on his tongue each and every time he'd marvel at the painted lifelike depiction.
It was yet only a few fleeting years of endless grief and turmoil that followed his queen's passing, and still he could never bring himself to throw out the beautiful work. Love and reverie was in every brushstroke.
At last, he turned his head from the portrait, pulling himself away as he continued to ascend the stairs. The Elvenking made his way through the halls toward his perilously late council inquiry.
Afterwards, he was certain to rid himself of the damned reminders hanging in nearly each hall. All would be moved to a corridor doomed to be untouched for centuries to come in the following days. Each painted ray or contented smile, locked away and left to age and flake.
Every face of his wife, collecting web and dust away from his eye as the Elvenking was certain to find solace in the arms of grievous abandon and drunken refuge.