Once Upon a Story [ INCONSISTENT UPDATES ]

Mūsa (3)

❝ 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘦. 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘦 ❞

word count: 807

— 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 🏛️ ❞

For days he watched his life pass in black and white, monotonous, devoid of life, breathless to Mother Nature's call. What remained of him but blank eyes floating in their hollow sockets, sunken cheeks carved from his melting buccal fat, and dry cracking lips parched for inspiring waters.

The conniving lady had painted numerous portraits, dull as his skin and simple as his mind became. Sitting there, laying at her feet, still wrapped in that heavy tarp, hiding his symbol of man, he let her soil her eyes in his image.

How revolting it was for him to support this burden, this horrible disease, viral in nature, as he slowly embraced all of her actions. How impure, disastrous, and heart-wrenching it was to feel her eyes undressing his already nude skin.

Where are you? He thought, raising his arm to the light, peeking through the curtain's crevice. He longed to return to those seas of green, luscious and ethereal to his soul.

"You moved," the woman said. "My flow is lost."

"And mine is fading to a cruel stop," he weakly replied. Looking at the unfinished portrait, the woman sought to continue but couldn't. Colours clashed, shadows looked out of place, and highlights were suddenly harsh under the dim light. Her mind looped as her eyes became disoriented in the mess of patterns swirling in her vision.

What was happening? Was this what she feared, a creator's block so fierce she couldn't overcome it?

"Is this my final stroke?" she whispered, gazing at the paintbrush held in her fingers. "My final canvas?"

She tilted her head back, letting tears flow from her eyes, blankly staring at the ceiling, and accepted her fate, mourning her future. She looked at the man, smiling without joy and said, "You are not my muse."

And these words gave him the power to lift himself from the floor, shaking, and stumble out of the room, still clothed in drapes. Not knowing where he was going or where he would end up, he walked. He marched through the haunting hallways until he reached the outdoors.

He curled up and flinched under the light; his eyes burned with pain under the sun, and his skin shivered in the warmth of its rays. And he thought for a moment he would perish, but that moment never came. Slowly his muscle reinvigorated, his hands flexed, and his jaw tightened. He straightened his body and stepped forward, walking for hours, not once taking a rest.

And as the sky turned to twilight, dyeing nature's ceiling with romancing tones of violet and red, he found her haven: his painter's museum. He crossed the bushes and saw her on the ground, staring at his portrait with unwavering attention. But he dared not approach her, ashamed of himself. Did he deserve her after being picked apart by another?

"Painter," he called.

"Mirage," she replied, turning her head to look at him, eyes filled with the same adoring fascination as their first meeting. She reached her arm to him, and he beckoned to her call. In her presence, he dropped his head in shame, but she amazed him once more, pulling off the black drape covering him. She outlined his body again, feeling the pronation of his Adam's apple, the grooves of his ribs peeking through his skin and the iliac crest of his defined v-line.

How could she look upon me with the same awe? He thought. Still, he stood unmoving until her hands lifted from his skin. Reaching for her canvas and grabbing her paint, she dumped colours on her fingers, swatching them over every inch of white. This time, he sat beside her, wanting a closer look at her creative process, following every twitch of her fingers.

And he remained fixed in this position until her hands fell, layered with oils and thick colours. Intense feelings swarmed inside him. He was scrawny compared to before, but she still made his skin glow; his eyes lively and his pose full of energy. There was no inability in her skill, her immense talent, to bring even dead bones to life.

He wept in his hands, unable to contain his amazement.

"Do I still radiate such beauty?"

Mirage, who hardly spoke, strung out long verses, stanzas worth of lines explaining his uncharted beauty, the inspiration he was.

"You are my muse, Mūsa; I will never have a reason to look away from you."

In his euphoria, he took her hands, still covered in paint and traced a word on his forearm.

𝘔. 𝘜. 𝘚. 𝘈.

He gave her more paint and opened himself to her, exposing the uncharted depths of a new medium. He was willing to be nothing but her undying flame, her passion. And as they sat together, bound in deepening dusk, he whispered, "Muse. I am your muse."