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CH 15.5

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Amber huffed at Lughes as he leaned back and frowned at his handiwork.

“What…? It looks fine,” Amber said with an annoyed tone. It seemed she was growing tired of Lughes wanting to correct and change the painting of me.

“No. It’s not. Look, if I continue this part then her ears won’t have that fuzzy glow they have. They’ll become muddled and stiff, unnatural,” Lughes pointed out.

I frowned a little as I tried to imagine what he was talking about. My ears…? He was throwing a fuss because my ears wouldn’t be fuzzy enough…?

They were fuzzy…?

I felt them twitch a little, and I worried over his comment as he and Amber debated how they’d fix my ears in the painting.

Were they really that fuzzy? Did they look funny? He mentioned some kind of glow… did that mean when under light their fuzziness was so strong it made them look like they had a glow? Like how certain furs or animals looked under the bright sunlight, where you could see all the tiny little hairs you normally couldn’t otherwise?

If so that was very embarrassing. That was akin to something of having bad bed hair or something, and I wasn’t sure what to think about it. Maybe I should start really brushing my ears too, even if it itched terribly when I did and…

“There. Much better,” Lughes said, and nodded confidently.

Oh. Woops. I sat back up straighter, going back into position. I had started to slouch a tad in my thoughts and worries.

I was sitting on a small stool in the middle of the room. The window behind me was half hidden by thick drapes, but the other half let in a midwinter sunlight that felt oddly cool and not warm, even though it has been beating down on my back and neck for several hours now.

Amber and Lughes were painting me, and I honestly couldn’t contain my excitement over seeing it. As far as I was aware, they were almost done. I had been allowed to look at it over the last few days, since we only sat for an hour or two at a time, but I’d rejected the offer. I wanted to see it only once it was complete.

I was very excited to see it. I’d painted many times in my life, alongside Nory since that had been her favorite pastime. But I myself had never been painted by anyone… and especially not so by who I’d consider a master of their craft.

Some of Lughes’ paintings were utterly impeccable. There were many down in the shop that drew my eyes and made me stand there, as if in a daze, while staring at them. I’d likely learned more about painting and art just by looking at his works these last few weeks than I’d done in my lifetime of drawing and painting myself. It just went to show the how powerful true skill and experience was. Lughes was old, and had been painting for a very long time… so…

“Hm. Well?” Lughes sat back again after tapping his brush a little. Amber leaned forward, studying the painting with a dutiful eye and then she leaned forward even more, and disappeared behind the large canvas. She was a little shorter and thin so it was easy for the canvas to hide her from me, even at an angle.

“I like it. Though did you really need to make her look older?” Amber asked with an exasperated sigh.

“Older…?” I worriedly mumbled. What’d that mean?

“What? What are you talking about?” Lughes though didn’t seem to even realize what Amber was talking about.

Amber sighed again and shook her head. “He’s done Renn. You can stand up. Though you might want to wait a few hours for the paint to properly dry, since you don’t want to see it until it’s truly finished,” Amber said.

“Hm. I’ll touch it up a little more too, I think,” Lughes mumbled as he leaned forward to study it closer.

Amber shook her head at him. “It looks good, Renn. You’re pretty, and pretty people always look good in paintings. It’s not fair really, I always look like some dark stick that doesn’t belong,” Amber complained.

Unsure of what to say to that as I got off the stool, I smiled at her. “I find you to be very pretty Amber. I like your smile.”

She hesitated, and gave me an odd look as she huffed and turned away to the door. “Flattery like that will get you cookies!” she shouted as she hurried out of the room.

I giggled at her, and then heard her run into someone in the hallway. The happy greeting that quickly followed told me it was Lomi who she had ran into.

“Yes. A touch up here is all,” Lughes mumbled to himself as he went to ready his brush with a new color.

I decided to let the man be, and did my best to not look at his handiwork as I left the room. I succeeded in leaving without glancing at the painting, and relaxed a little as I stepped out into the hallway and found Lomi, Amber and Vim.

Hesitating for a new reason, I felt a strange tremble throughout my body at the sight of the man. The protector.

He didn’t look intimidating at all… and in fact looked very average, but… well…

Something about him made my hairs stand up. Particularly the ones on my ears and tail. I wasn’t sure yet if it was a sense of danger, or something else, but… well…

I had a sinking suspicion the weariness I felt around him wasn’t fear of danger, but instead fear of something more serious and important.

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He was the protector. A person of importance in the Society. Odds are he could deny my right to join and live here amongst them, if he chose.

So…

“You stink, Amber,” Lomi then said, which caused Amber to jolt as if she had just been slapped.

“Do I?!” Amber turned to look at Vim, who frowned at her.

“You smell of paints,” he pointed out.

Amber calmed down a little, but not a whole lot. “Oh. Yes. I’d been helping Lughes with his painting,” she said with a point towards me.

“Huh? Are you a painting Renn?” Lomi asked with a giant gleeful smile.

“I’m being turned into one, yes,” I said.

“Can I see?” Lomi asked hurriedly, running around Amber and towards me.

I smiled gently and wondered if I should stop her or not. Would Lughes be upset if I let her into the room…?

“Just don’t bother Lughes Lomi,” Vim said gently to the girl, who slowed a bit as she stepped up to me.

She paused next to me as she glanced at Vim and Amber, who were both gently smiling at her. She must have realized that meant it was okay, for she then looked forward and stepped around me and into the room.

“Oh my!” Lomi exclaimed as she took in whatever she saw.

I sighed a little as I listened to Lomi’s excited footsteps as she hurried over to Lughes.

“Look upon my marvelous skill. I’ve turned something rough into a beautiful wholesomeness,” Lughes sounded very happy to show off his painting to Lomi.

“Uh…” I hesitated as I wondered what to think of that.

Something rough…?

“Don’t mind him Renn. He’s weird,” Amber said.

Right… he was. But… well…

I grumbled a bit as I stepped away from the room and towards Amber and Vim. Now I really, really, wanted to see the painting. Maybe I should just suck it up and go see it, even if it wasn’t finished yet. It was now starting to worry me.

Amber had said he had made me look older. He just mentioned I had looked rough, and no he made me into something wholesome. What’d that even mean? To be wholesome?

“I don’t stink Vim, really, right?” Amber asked Vim softly as I stepped up to them.

“No, Amber. She’s just likely never smelled paints before. She’s young,” Vim said to her gently, as if to calm her.

Amber sighed as she lifted an arm to smell herself. “Do I stink Renn?” she then asked me.

“No…? As they said it’s the paints. Honestly I kind of like it,” I said.

“Gross,” Amber groaned as she stepped away, and at first I thought she meant my own personal opinion but I realized quickly she hadn’t meant it that way.

“Most women don’t like smelling so strongly, no matter what the smell is,” Vim told me.

“I… uh…” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Did he not realize I was a woman too?

He smiled at me. “Getting painted?” he asked, seemingly willing to completely ignore his previous comment.

I nodded.

“Good. If yours is done then he can hurry and finish Lomi’s so we can leave,” Vim said as he glanced down the hall. We could hear Lomi and Lughes talking from the room, but I was doing all I could to ignore and not notice their conversation. I had heard something about my tail and ears, and didn’t want to hear the rest.

Still…

“Ready to leave, are you?” I asked softly. That wasn’t too surprising. They’d been here for ten days now. And although I wasn’t entirely sure what Vim’s job really entailed, something told me he was a busy man.

“Places to go. Places to see. Places to conquer, you know how it is,” he said.

Places to…? “You conquer places?” I asked, stunned. Did he really?

He smiled gently at me which told me he had been making a tiny joke. “Not anymore,” he mumbled and then stepped around me.

I reached out, to grab his arm and stop him… but hesitated. I knew now he’d be okay with me touching him, and I felt almost comfortable enough to do so… but… well…

Watching him go, I mentally kicked myself. I really wanted to talk to him more. He was such a strange man. His life was likely so amazing; I wanted to hear more about it. To hear more about him, the Society he protected, and all the people involved… but… well…

I gulped and felt tiny, as if insignificant. He spoke to me calmly, and seemed willing to answer questions… but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he saw me as he did Lomi. Some random child to notice but not do much more with.

No…

Vim stepped up to the room I had just left, and paused a moment. I studied the way he studied the things inside the room, and I couldn’t help but warmly smile at the man who smiled and nodded at whatever he saw. He seemed to approve of whatever it was.

A tiny pair of hands reached out from the doorway, to grab at Vim’s hand and tug at him. I heard Lomi say something to him, and by the way he was smiling she was pointing and speaking about the painting. My painting.

That smile on his face somehow hurt. It was different than the one he had just given me. It was softer. Kinder. More real.

I wanted that smile too.

I was jealous.

So very jealous.

He very obviously cherished Lomi and those here. Even Amber, a human, he seemed to treat kindly and with a strange sense of respect. It was such a far cry from the men I’d known in my life that it made me wonder if I had really known any of them at all.

To be honest I had expected someone like my own brothers and father. They had dubbed him a protector, and made off-hand comments about how stoic and odd he was. So I had expected a… well… a cruel man, maybe.

Instead…

“She’s pretty!” Lomi shouted from inside the room, and I felt my tail and ears go stiff again.

“Hm. She’s pretty in real life too, so what’d you expect?” Vim said back as he entered the room.

My heart thumped oddly as I hurried away. Feeling strangely excited and worried at the same time, I headed for the stairs as to descend to the first floor.

Even if he had just said it nonchalantly, as response to a little girl’s comment…

Groaning as I went downstairs, I felt terribly itchy as I realized how little I knew of this world and how out of place I felt within it.

If such a man was the Societies Protector… then who else existed? What and who else would I meet if I stayed here? How many more wonderful people would I encounter and get to know?

This place… these people… Lomi and Vim… they alone had made this all worth it. It made trying to be good enough to join them worth the price and effort.

Hopefully I could find my place here amongst them.

Hopefully I found I could actually belong with them.

Hopefully I was not just another member of my family… to ruin and destroy the things around me.

Hopefully that painting wouldn’t be the last and only thing I ever left on this world.

Hopefully.