WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS

thirty-nine | champagne problems

No, it wasn't hideous. Felix was just being cruel.

Tris' calloused hand hovered over the textured paint, the quick brushes, the long ones, his halo of dark hair. He very rarely got to see his own reflection, oftentimes he only caught glimpses of a jagged silhouette in buckets of water, of brown skin and black hair, but this painting – the Lady must've made him look better than what he was.

He sucked in a breath. "M'Lady, it's – it's beautiful."

Fabia beamed, craning her neck to look at her own artwork. "It is, isn't it?"

Felix offered a small smile before turning away again, leaning down to recline against the chaise lounge at the end of her bed. "Okay, so maybe it's not hideous. But the colours could use a bit of saturation."

If Tris knew what the word meant, he might've agreed. Instead, he just got angry. Did Felix come only to criticise the Lady endlessly, pester her with his obnoxious opinions until he was forced from her room? But Fabia didn't seem to mind – maybe she was used to it – and tutted before placing the canvas gently against the far-right wall, where it sat just below her open window.

"The paints were homemade, so they're not going to be as bright as the store bought ones," she dusted her hands over her toga, wiping off non-existent dirt. It made Tris a bit too aware of the state he was in; field workers were taken to the nearby lake to wash off every afternoon, but he'd missed it yesterday. He was still covered in leftover sweat and mud. Hopefully he didn't smell, although he knew that he probably did.

Felix waved his hand in the air dismissively. "You shouldn't waste your time on making your own, they always come out looking like mud."

"Not when I get the advena to make them for me." She hurried over to her bedside table, lifting a mirror to her face to fuss over her makeup. Tris couldn't understand why she always checking her reflection; she looked beautiful always. "Now, my muse," turning back around to face him, "a finished piece like this deserves a celebration."

He straightened quickly. "A celebration, ma'am?"

"Of course!" She tilted her head. "What is it that you do here again, Tris?"

He knew it shouldn't have stung as much as it had, it wasn't as if the Lady had any obligation to get to know him, an advena, and yet he wasn't quite able to hide his halfway wince before ducking his head and looking away. It still stung, regardless of logic. "Uh, I'm a field worker."

Her pretty bottom lip popped out in a pout, considering him for a moment. Tris had never felt more scrutinised. "Your talents are wasted out there on the field, Tris. How would you like to be my model again, just for the day?"

"The day?"

"And more, maybe," Fabia shrugged. "Slip off the shoulder of your toga – I want to start full-body sketches before I move onto my next painting."

The tips of his ears went red as he lifted himself off the stool and turned around, giving himself some semblance of privacy as the siblings chattered on about faceless names and insane nobles. Tris caught patches of information as the sleeve of his toga slipped off his shoulder and gathered around his waist, like "did you see what they were wearing?" and "oh, the scandal". The conversation was littered here and there with phrases Tris didn't understand, some high-society slang he had no hope of comprehending, and for a moment he felt more like a piece of furniture than a living, breathing person.

Sagging back into the stool, he stared down at his hands.

"Okay, okay – I came here to talk to you for a reason, you know." Felix coughed, and glanced off to the side. A beat of silence. "It's serious."