first ran my finger along the tinted canvas, in this lighting it was voluminous. I could already see an image of my aspirations for it as though it was traced in prismatic ink. Upon a second glance in shock I grabbed my towel wiping a smudge of blood away from the canvas. The dried wound from yesterday had begun to bleed afresh, a bright vermillion continued to ebb from the deep incision across my hand. I looked back at the people who observed me eagerly, I would be a certain disappointment to them. My father was somewhere in the midst of them, always tepid to my injuries. I'm.sure that he would want me to go on.
I contemplated it deeply knowing that going on and ignoring the innocuous was something that I had yet to learn. After all, I never knew what it was like to be destitute. From birth with every breath I've lived in a family blessed by opulence and yet my soul feels so impoverished. Despite the fact that unlike my sibling I sought my name through my talents rather than acquiring them simply by birth and yet I could not decipher if my father was proud or held antipathy for me.
As I was urged to, I picked up a paint brush and began to submerge the entire canvas in ivory with hints of coquelicot which served to neutralize the tint. Then I began to dip my brush into the celadon, a few drops of blood tainted it, setting the entire color slightly off. I dropped the brush staring at my hand, the window on which I saw the world became yellow and my eyes began to sting and overflow with a brackish water. I planted my hand onto the canvas smearing the entire blank slate with crimson. I looked back at my audience again, their eyes were unchanging still eager to see what I would do next.
Somewhere within the midst of those people there was a woman which I immediately gravitated towards, the only benevolent soul in the midst of them. As she sat amongst the others her faced wretched into one that felt an intimate horror. The expression of her hazel eyes reached desperately towards me. She could not bear the burden of the sight and quickly disappeared from them.
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"What the hell was that?! Are you trying to embarrass me on purpose? I've given you so much and this is how you repay me. You would be nothing without me. Your brother has learned to be such a fine ruler for our city, and your sister, well I could just marry her off when she comes of age, but you? If not for that left hand of yours I'd be ashamed to even consider my blood runs through your veins." The man that scolded me, so many nights I'd lie awake at night contemplating the joy of stabbing a metallic blade into someone's dry throat. I flinched whenever he moved towards me
"If my left hand is so important to our honor, why don't you take your own advice for once and stop hurting it?" This hand, the root of all my blessing and all my curses, he hastily latched onto it and began to dig through his pocket. I deduced he was in search of a sharp object. Every time it penetrated my skin it was somehow both worse than but not nearly as bad as I though it would be. "Father, wait!" I thought I could at least plead on my behalf.
" Opulent Lindinore? Perhaps you should refrain from harming your own son. Actually many have come to suspect that what you children endure is far beyond that. You could lose your title as Opulent if something like that were to happen. Something you've been so desperately latching onto just barely. Maybe you really should take your own advice." It was the woman from earlier approaching us, now closer to her I could tell that her stomach was protruding from the rest of her slim figure wrapped in platinum linen. She was at least five months into pregnancy.
"Who are you?" The man scoffed at the lingering woman who had slowly drawn near to his ear. They whispered back and forth amongst themselves, the man ever so stiff with a sense of fear the entire time. Alas she arose from the sacred exchange with a victorious smirk and then she looked at me. A look that pierced through my heart dissolving it into flesh.
"Shall we go for a walk until your father calms down?" As she carefully inspected my injured hand, I felt a radiance from her, one that I had never felt. "I'm Zeriah." She placed a hand over her stomach confirming all of my suspicions. "And this is Aterum."
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When Zeriah was around I had someone to accompany me through my deepest struggles of life. A person with a soul that listened to me, and took no transgression against me rather she dealt with me with clemency. She taught me how to paint for myself rather than for those who were observing my techniques. This led to me being remiss in Father's 'doctrine' but Zeriah was always there as my defense from his wrath.
"Ulysses! Did you know the other day I actually caught Zebulon trying to steal from the city's vault? I totally blackmailed him for this old map, it has all.the cities of earth." Sometimes when we were in these gardens within the confines of indoors it was easy to forget that we were in the sky hurtling through the atmosphere. It was always lurking at the back of Alora's mind, as her twin, I knew that better than anyone else.
"Well reporting him would have been great too. Could you imagine the look on Father's face. His precious son who could do no wrong commiting a felony." I chimed in as Alora carefully laid out the map that had to have been at least two hundred years old. I wondered how they preserved these kind of relics to be in such beautiful condition.
"Come on you don't really mean that, thanks to this I won't have to do my studies for weeks. Zeb's taking care of those too. Not to mention extra dessert too." Now as a devout lover of sweets that did peak my interest. "Well, speak of the devil.'
"Ulysses! Madame Zeriah will be arriving shortly. The labor went better than anyone could have hoped." It was rare that I ever felt joy in the presence of Zeb, he was always a parasite for excitement. However knowing Aterum would be closely following him I couldn't contain my expression of excitement.
After eagerly awaiting for her Madame Zeriah she finally arrived. The bump of her stomach that I had grown accustomed to seeing dissipates. Instead it was replaced by an infant in a linen cloth. A man whom I vaguely knew as her husband accompanied her. "Ulysses!" Naturally I was the first she acknowledged probably for the fact I was unharmed over the week she was gone. "Do you want to hold Aterum?" So despite the debate, they kept the same name after all?
How could I say no, I reached out my hands to him. Zeriah placed the delicate being between my arms, looking straight into his hazel eyes I could already tell that he would look exactly like his mother. "Zeb, do you want to hold him too?" Madame Zeriah took note of how Zeb was looking at the infant longingly. Zeb fumbled around with his phosphorescent pendant that was more precious to him than life itself as he pondered his answer. Such reluctant behavior, how could anyone think that he would make a good Opulent. Zeb shook his head.
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I do not have a single doubt in my mind that I have done nothing wrong to end up in such taunting confines. This left hand of mine belongs to me and only to me, so how is it so wrong that I paint for myself. It's not like I can do anything now with such strong pain pulsating across my body, through every muscle and every bone. By the hands of my own father I have faced a damnation that is worse than death.
Here in the darkness squirming through a pool of my own pathetic sweat and blood. It's been a long time since I've been here in a pit that no one will save me from. Or that was what I religiously believed until a single iota of light slipped through an open door. "Ulysses!" Zeb! After four days of hunger I was glad to see just about anyone, maybe even my father.
"Zeb! Is that you? Is it finally over?" Still deep in pain I hobbled over to the door with what little strength I had left.
"I'm afraid that it's only the beginning. They investigated Madame Zeriah and found out that she was a spy. I tried everything I could to stop them but they're going to execute her for treason." No, they can't do that to me! What about Aterum he hasn't even stopped nursing yet. I pushed past Zeb with a strength that I didn't know that I had. While both of us were on the ground I ripped out the pendant strung so delicately about his neck. There was some great power within it, so I grasped it tight as my bloody footprints painted the marble floor.
"Ulysses, wait!" Zeb called after me but I drowned out his words as I gained speed through the palace maze of marble. I barely knew my way around this dreaded hell, yet there was one path Alora would guide me down every single week.Finally light showered my face as I entered the garden, no it was more like an overwhelming flood. There she was, Madame Zeriah even in chains she was bound gracefully. Surrounded with white lilies and radiant blades yet her white dress was still more luminescent.
"Madame Zeriah, I love you!" I called out my voice carrying through a strong gust of wind to my ears. Her face lit up even when it was staring into the face of death. Even though every single piece of me wished that it was only a dream or something that could be prolonged and frozen. If only there was something that could grant me that power to put this moment into a frame. If I could paint her on a canvas where she could dwell for longer than an eternity.
"Ulysses I love you too but I have to say that on your mother's birthday she went to Ireland, a very unlikely place to encounter a tropical storm. Use this to save Aterum, when time comes you'll know exactly what to do. If they saw what I see in you they would know just how precious you are. It's not anything you can do that makes you that way." With that a scene so vibrant with white was drenched a crimson as her body slowly draining of life remained struggling before me. I wiped my cheek to find that my hand was vermilion, but I couldn't tell if the blood was hers or my own.
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Those words of Madame Zeriah lingered in my mind, every single last parable a permanent impression on my mind. Even if she was no longer present within this atmosphere I could feel her breath upon my neck, where I had tied Zeb's pendant. I refused to leave the confines of my room in my days of desperate mourning. My cries echoed through the stale palace like the entrails of a ghost searching for whatever essence of it's life still remain. She was here, somewhere, I just couldn't find her in the menial ritual that defined my life.
Every once in awhile Alora came to check on me but no amount of support could ever replenish the joy they carved from me. Alora would urge me to go outside to the garden but how could I? I feared that if I felt this room I would see her, not as I do on my dreams but in my nightmares. I still painted, I found no life in those still lives, and those eyes observing me had begun to take notice. There was nothing I could do to bring it back. If only I could see what she saw in me, maybe then it would finally return to me.
Until it finally clicked, she was in search of something and those peculiar final words were some sort of message that needed to be carried on. The question still stands, who or what was it for? I clutched the pendant searching it my hand ran over an indentation of some sort.
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A few months later the horror which fell upon the Opulent Lindinore household consecutively, one might be forced to believe in superstitious curse. For their is a tragedy riles up a great pain in one's heart that is far greater any turbulence. To be sleeping peacefully one night as any other only to wake up to the corpse of your eldest son. They say that there is no greater pain to see someone who you swore your life to protect from the precious moment that they first cried turn into a bloody lifeless mess. Zebulon was obviously murdered his corpse mutilated beyond the point where anyone could call it a simple accident.
Opulent Lindinore took every opportunity to stall confronting his only remaining son as a suspect. He wished to quietly investigate and wait until the eyes of the public were no longer scrutinizing him even within his own home. However the dire circumstances left him with no other choice than to step into the dark abyss where Ulysses resided.
"Ulysses, what happened to your brother." Ulysses refused to make eye contact with his father, his eyes fixed steadily on the canvas before him. Ever since the death of Madame Zeriah he had taken on an erratic behavior almost as though he had been possessed by a demon.
"Am I my brother's keeper?" The question left the opulent frozen, he was never good at coming up with fast retorts. "I've always wished my painting held some greater meaning, I wanted them to hold life, I wished more than anything that I could freeze a moment in canvas for eternity. I just didn't know that you knew it was possible all along. You haven't been paying enough attention to Alora have you? You should go look for her." Ulysses unconcealed his painting to reveal a portrait of Alora that was a near perfect portrayal of the young lady capturing all of her essence. At last he held up the belonging Zebulon found most precious in life.
Feeling nausea stir deep within his stomach Opulent Lindinore quickly exited the room. There was no evidence to convict his son of any crime yet even if there was he wasn't sure he could leave himself without an heir. How selfish rather than bringing his mutilated son to justice, he wanted the Lindinore name to live on in power by destroying it's honor.
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Sorry I know I had like three plot twists in there when you only asked for one. Also when Ulysses says "Am I my brother's keeper?" that's a biblical reference to what Cain says after he kills his brother. I thought it was a pretty neat implication.
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