Things I Wrote at One Time or Another

The Arcana; The Interludes: "Paint"

He couldn't sleep because Asra was breathing down his neck. The heat bothered him, he couldn't sleep in all that sticky sweat. His master was a soft headed enigma, his pearlescent curls softer than the pillow he lied his head on—but nonetheless he was a bother to sleep with in the summer.

Luca sat on the window sill, one leg dangling out to catch the night breeze as he studied his Master from afar. The air filled him up, straight into his hollow chest. He pressed a hand to it, wondering if it made a sound. He heard it in Asra—he'd put his ear against his chest while he slept. The sound was clear and slow, like the tick of a clock. It echoed like a wave in the cage that was his body, crashing against the soft skin that separated his soul from the rest of the world. It was one of the most pleasant sounds he's ever heard. Heartbeats are nothing like songs, he thought.

However when he felt for his, it was the faintest whisper—a lapse in the sea, a broken clock. He'd admit it concerned him, but he couldn't say much to Asra. He couldn't speak much at all—not that he was incapable, but he found his own voice strange, too uncomfortable to settle with.

"You'll get used to it the more you use it," Asra had told him. He looked a bit sad when he said it—he looked sad almost all the time, especially when it concerned his apprentice. He assumed, after much time dwelling on the thought, that he reminded him of someone he used to know. Perhaps a younger brother, or a lover from his youth. He wished for the latter, deep in the darkest parts of his mind, he wished Asra's heart ached for him.

He couldn't tell what his master was thinking most of the time. He was absent almost daily, often disappearing for weeks at a time. It bothered Luca greatly, and he was sure his Master knew, but he'd only apologize and make excuses.

He pulled his knees up to his chest, watching as Asra's rose and fell, and he imagined the sound of his heartbeat against his until he finally fell back to sleep.

When he woke up the next morning he was back in his bed. Either he had wandered back under the sheets on his own or Asra caught him earlier in the morning and tucked him back in. He lied there for a while—the sun was cracking in, spreading his hands across the sheets. Everything was warm but cold at the same time, his hand wandered to the space beside him—a mold of a ghost.

The smell of something cooking beckoned him to sit up in their makeshift bed, pushing side the blankets and pillows. He moved to get up when he noticed he had knocked a trinket over—Asra seemed to leave them around, spending his nights recounting his travels with them until Luca fell asleep. The light reflected on its surface, producing specters of light to collect on the opposite wall—like light on the surface of the water.

He admired it for a moment, about to pick up the trinket when he noticed something poking out from under the paint. The bedroom was painted a coarse shade of blue—hastily it seemed— but it had always been that way as far as Asra as told him. Yet when he approached the specters of light on the wall he found hidden splashes of color underneath—and a painted face staring back at him.

He couldn't discern who it was, it could've been no one at all, but as he trailed the hidden colors he found that underneath all the blue was a whole canvas.