Work Text:
In the library of Radiant Garden's castle there's an old shelf. It takes an entire wall and it extends from the ceiling to the floor. On its sturdy ledges, several books are arranged one next to the other, their spines finely decorated. On the top of the shelf, aligned in the center, a golden foil plate was installed. It shines like the most precious jewel. Carved into the plate's surface, a word reads: <Naminé>
The shelf is not immediately visible. To find it, you have to search behind the other shelves which make up the huge library like a labyrinth. You’ll know when you’ll find it. The thick wooden shelf faces a large, tall arched window mounted in a frame painted gold. It's old and the paint is chipped. Through the luminous glass panes, you can see the castle gardens below, with its flowering trees and rose bushes come springtime. In the corner, where the two walls meet, stands a lush plant in a large ceramic pot. Its long, hanging leaves fall around like a miniature willow in slander branches. There’s a vase of yellow flowers sitting by the windowsill. Last week the flowers were blue. Next week, there will be new ones.
Close to the window, there’s a low table. In the afternoon, there lies a teapot and a smoking cup in fine porcelain. Just below the window a loveseat was placed. The upholstered chair in refined wood is gracefully embellished. Its cushions are adorned with golden threads and delicate embroidery. The soft cushions can welcome two people and if you peek behind one of the shelves, you’ll see them—a young couple—sitting side by side past midday.
The girl has a book opened on her legs. She reads passages from it. Words that taste of freedom and fulfillment. The young man in his white coat listens, enchanted by the gentle voice. Whenever their eyes meet, shy smiles appear on their lips. He brushes blond locks aside and her cheeks reddens. They exchange many fleeting, furtive kisses away from prying eyes. Many more have been shared since that little corner came to be.
In the castle’s gardens, hidden behind a tall hedge fence, there’s a small rock garden. To walk in, you need to find the secret door first. Inside, the gravel beds are peppered with small plants and rocks, harmoniously arranged between small trees and shrubs. Following the exterior wall of the castle, you’ll reach a rock formation culminating into a waterfall. Spring water gushes between the openings of the rock wall, puddling into a pond where water lilies grow on large leaves.
To any visitor, the garden looks wonderful. They won’t know that only recently it regained its old splendor. The rock garden was once in disarray. The pond was covered in green mud. Leaves hung pitifully from the trees and plants. Flowers didn’t bloom. When the girl found the garden, her fresh heart ached. It brought sorrow, to see such ruin. She made a wish and found a purpose. Each day she came into the hidden garden and with diligence she removed the weed and the dried leaves. She cleaned the beds and the roots. Each day. Every day.
The young man had observed the girl for some time and found her secretive attitude quite peculiar. Burning with a need to reveal the secret, one day the young man followed the girl. He followed through the secret door into the garden and found out the truth. Moved by the girl’s resilience and perseverance, he offered his help. She welcomed it with great joy. Together, they cleansed the water in the pond and planted new flowers. They restored the old dry plants and shrubs, and arranged them inside the beds. On a hot summer day, they filled balloons with water and threw them at each other, and they played and messed around, and maybe. Maybe that was how they fell in love. But that’s a story for another time.
Thanks to their resolve, the garden took its colors back, showing them with pride on a day of spring. The water flowed again like it used to a long time before. The water lilies bloomed on the pond. Life recovered.
In a recess there’s a stone bench that used to be white as marble. It’s as old as the garden itself. If you look closely, however, you’ll notice that the dull and damaged surface is slowly being restored and polished here and there. It will be a long, hard labour. On weekends, the girl and the young man can be seen working on the stone bench. That is, if you ever find the hidden door. The rock garden it’s still a secret. But it’s their secret now.
Inside the castle, there’s a large room. One of many. But this one, in particular, is a peculiar one, so odd that it stands out among the others of the old castle. The double door leading in looks exactly like the hundreds more lined along the hallways and if you walk by you won’t notice the difference. But the young man knows the door by heart and could recognize it even blindfolded. In fact, he doesn’t need his eyes to see. The aroma of lilies and daffodils is what guides him. When he steps through, he’s bathed in light.
Three large windows face south, where the sunlight shines the longest during the day. What stands out is the long white table at the centre of the room. It’s filled with pencil sketches and canvases and all sorts of art tools and materials. There are boxes of crayons and markers; there are erasers and colored pencils and tubes of paints of all kinds; cups filled with brushes so much that they’re going to explode. More brushes are scattered on the table’s surface, along with notebooks and drawing pads, each with different qualities of paper. There’s no shortness of model figures and also a couple of small manikins laying face down and probably forgotten.
On one side of the room, there’s a desk cluttered with papers and research books and a white laptop left on stand-by, connected to a few monitors that are turned off for now. The young man doesn’t concern himself with the chaos. He’s just looking to unwind after a day’s work. He leaves his coat on a chair’s backrest because it’s better to leave it there instead of stashing it inside the closet with the clean ones. Now his attention is focused only on the elegant figure sitting on a stool on the other side of the room.
He can only see the girl’s back, with her long braid resting on one shoulder. She’s wearing a white shirt too large for her. Sometimes, she steals one of the young man’s coats too. A couple of those are so dirtied with paint that it doesn’t wash away. He loves to wear those coats for work. Maybe she did it on purpose. Under the too-large shirt, the girl wears a black undershirt above a pair of red elastic pants that reach just above her ankles. Lately, she has gotten used to wearing less white garments. She said she wanted to try more different things. Colors, for example. Maybe the young man misses the white sometimes. But he can’t complain. To him, she will always look beautiful.
The girl is barefoot and her little toes are resting on the tall stool’s footrest. Beneath her, a huge white sheet was spread, under the stool and the big canvas. The young man approaches and takes a seat on the stool next to her and observes the work. The project is still new and the canvas is still mostly empty. But new stripes and dots of colors have appeared since the morning. Today, it’s oil painting. The pungent smell of that paint is troublesome and the young man thinks he will never get used to it. But the girl, in comparison, smells really nice. When she sees him, she lowers her hands, one holding her palette and the other the thin brush, and she smiles at him.
He hardly holds a laugh when he sees the smudges of paint here and there on her face. She laughs with him and her heart flies when his fingers touch her skin, trying to smear the colors. In the end, she is still beautiful. He says as much.
They chat and inquire about their day. Or at least, the parts of the day they haven’t spent together, which are scattered and few. They make sure of it. He asks about the canvas, the paint and what it will look like in the end. She answers that it's a secret and he will know with time. They have plenty of that.
Now that the day is almost at an end, they wonder what there’s to do. Maybe they will have a nice dinner together and then a warm cup of tea in the library. Maybe they will feel bold enough for a walk in the garden after sunset. Whichever will be, it won’t matter as long as they are together.
There was a white cage once, and a small winged doll trapped inside. The doll felt lonely and sad, as she watched the world spin around her, wishing for things that were not allowed to her. Her entire world was made up of the four white walls surrounding her cage. One day, a bright light came, freed the doll from her cage and the doll flew away, high in the sky.
On the windowsill the doll now rests, sitting on the white marble. She watches outside and she sees the sky, the birds and flowers. Next to her, there’s another doll. He’s new and gracefully crafted, with every loving stitch filled with fondness and devotion. They sit together, side by side and they hold hands. She gazes at the light she sees through the glass and smiles.
A light that tastes of freedom.
-End🎨