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⸻ 𝐢 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 【 introduction 】
Neil Kersey was left alone.
He remembers the day altogether. He was just a child at the time. His father was heading out to work and he had been occupied. The young boy was far too immersed in the paintbrush latched in his hand. He was too focused on the paints scattered around him to notice that his father had left with a trunk at his side. He bid his goodbyes. Neil didn't hear the slight crack in his tone. When Arno Kersey had left his only son, he did not cry.
Neil sat in place, his attention falling only on the subject of the painting. His hand brushed over the canvas. The delineation of colors etched on the surface with each stroke. His skin barely touching the linen as it moved across. Shades of Aegean blue crossing along the foreground. Remnants of a hue of mauve purple grazing the semblance of a sky. The painting presented a clearing. A mark of the water by a cottage on a mere summer day. He traced one last brush stroke before leaning away from the painting. A look of bewilderment was lost in his eyes with his lips turned up in a small grin. The boy presumed the subject came from a distant memory. One he was hoping he could relive. He was sadly mistaken.
He waited for hours to welcome his father back home. To engulf him in a warm hug, his little arms wrapping around him tightly. Longing to never let go. Neil sat in front of the door waiting. Reeling in the delirium of his art that his father would always compliment. He would not be met with him that night. Nor the ones that followed.
It was until a woman stopped by at the small house. A boy laid out on a small armchair, paintings surrounding him. Only a blanket dawning his small frame. The house was empty. An eerie silence hung to it. No indication of life around the Kersey boy. Neil was sent to live with his distant uncle.
As he grew older, he strayed along the confinements of the attic that had become his only home. The older man made it clear he would keep his distance. Beren taught Neil how to properly tend to a garden in hopes it would mend to the younger boys' eagerness to study nature. His time was divided between taking care of the old cottage and painting. When his uncle would run off to the market, Neil found his escape with every stroke of a brush. His works would take forms of landscapes to portraits. He'd pay mind to any strangers he'd cross that had left a reminiscence within him. At times he found himself painting his father. A face that he become kindred to the only vestige of his past life.
Neil found himself along the lines coating his paintings. Each one with an entrancing subject. He'd find a new muse to guide him along during his time at Camp Half-Blood.
