In The Magic Painter's Atelier - 1
This thread is part of a series of threads in Zida 706 when Yrmellyn Cole meets her mentor in painting and magic, Mariuz Arbin. Arbin is an attunement mage and when he sometimes stands totally still this means he is turning the attunement on.
Rharne, 2 Zida 706
Continues from here
“Welcome miss Cole. Please come in.” The painter Mariuz Arbin smiled and took a step to the side to let the courtesan enter the hallway. He closed the door behind her and offered to take her cloak. Yrmellyn let the garment glide down from her shoulders with a practiced movement, making a show of it without even thinking of it. Pulling off clothes was always pulling off clothes and it could be used to act seductively, even if it was just outerwear she pulled off. Yrmellyn did on routine.
While the painter hanged her cloak up on one of the ornamental metal hooks on the wall right inside the door she looked around. The hallway was fairly big, which surprised her. When she said it to Arbin he laughed and told her it wasn’t a hallway. This was his atelier, the place where he painted many of the portraits he was commissioned with. It served as working space as well as entrance to his house and also as the stage for the informal kind of parties Arbin loved to throw.
“You must promise to come to my parties, Miss Cole. Would you accept if I would invite you?”
The courtesan smiled. “Of course. If I’m not busy somewhere else of course.”
“I hope you will not be busy somewhere else. Now, let me show you the atelier.”
The atelier consisted of an inner and an outer part. The outer part, where she stood right now, was a half round construction, protruding from the house a few steps over the ground level. Yrmellyn found it similar to a veranda, but way bigger and with walls of light grey stone and high glass windows and a row of roof windows. Even in the season of Zida this outer part was full of bright daylight and it felt nearly like being outdoors. The furniture was elegant. There were hairs or carved red wood, a beautifully crafted canape dressed with dark red velvet and several small tables of various sizes, shapes and heights. There was room enough to allow for a group of people to gather there. When she commented on this Arbin told her that the atelier was in fact fairly often used for paintings of families and other groups of people.
People’s homes weren’t always the best places for painting, as there could be a lot of things going on in a household. It could be easier for people to relax in his atelier, where also the light was way better and his work wasn’t interrupted by all kinds of curious people popping in to have a peek at his painting in progress. Children were notorious for barging in to satisfy their curiosity, he told her. Wives often felt entitled to come in and inspect portraits of their husbands in a critical manner that could in worst case make their husband change his mind and not pay for the painting. Servants were expert at finding excuses for being around and their employers were often pleased to see them work hard so it was impossible to shoo them out. Worst of all was however to paint a married lady in her own home. Not only would the lady herself constantly demand to inspect his work and demand changes of the picture in order to make it look more beautiful than she really was, the husband would also turn up once in a while to make sure the painter wasn’t trying to take liberties with the motif.
Yrmellyn had to laugh when she heard the stories Arbin told her about hilarious jobs in people’s homes. She could well understand that he preferred to paint in the beautiful atelier instead. Laughing together with him had made her feel more at ease when she followed him into the inner part of the atelier, the back of the room, to have a closer look at it. Albeit it was a totally normal room and continued inwards under a ceiling of normal height, it felt a bit like stepping into a mysterious cave. The bright Zida daylight poured in through the windows in the outer part of the room, but the inner space lay in mostly in shadow. Contours of doors and a stairway were barely visible, but several lanterns added small points of golden light. The inner atelier room seemed to serves as a combined dinner room and living room, furnished with a big table with chairs, as well as more comfortable armchairs and sofas. At the innermost wall, in the heart of the house, there was a fireplace where a beautiful brazier of wrought iron had been placed, a small fire burning inside it. Arbin told her that he lived upstairs. The kitchen of the house was located behind the door beside the fireplace and behind the other door was what he vaguely called “other work rooms for art and crafting projects”.
“I think you have seen enough of my atelier now. Let’s not linger here in the dark Miss Cole. I’d like to start to work now ...”
The painter walked out to the outer part of the atelier again and Yrmellyn followed in his wake. When he turned to her again, the courtesan shook out the skirt of her dress, lifting it a bit to give him a brief glimpse of her calves, another automatized routine of hers, for turning normal correction of the clothing into something subtly seductive. She finished this off by smoothing out the fabric of the skirt over her hips, not in an exaggerated way, but long enough to make sure that it must be noticed.
“Please have a seat.” Mariuz Arbin made a gesture towards an armchair.
The previous evening he had promised to paint her portrait as she had won the bet he placed for her on the spinning wheel in a gambling house in the Glass Quarter. The courtesan had been so surprised at winning and too confused to think clearly right when it had happened to her, but afterwards she had pondered the whole event with increasing puzzlement. The painter was out for something that much was easy to guess, because people were always out for something. But what? The question had left her no peace. The world was full of weird people. It wasn’t without dangers to make a living the way she did. She hadn’t had time to check Mariuz Arbin up. That was a bad thing. Despite this she hadn’t been able to abstain from jumping at his unusual offer. It had felt like it was a one time in a lifetime chance, this meeting with Mariuz Arbin.
Now when she stood in the atelier and met his smoky blue gaze she felt it again, that feeling of something so special and rare she hardly dared to put words on. She smiled at him, and unlike most of her smiles it reached her eyes.
I would be a lie to say Yrmellyn Cole felt totally comfortable, but as a courtesan of some experience she was accustomed to feeling more or less uncomfortable and professional at concealing it. She walked over to the chair she had been told to sit on. Her upper body swayed gracefully over the wide skirt of the dress and her hips made the skirt billow around legs in just the right way, sophisticated, not exaggerated. The courtesan had practiced this way of walking for a long time, and put in as much effort in it as a dancer puts into perfecting their steps. Her short walk to the chair was an enticing little performance. She sat down on the chair and spread the skirt out in order to make the most of her looks. A portrait, she figured, was about making a beautiful picture of beautiful person at her best.
The painter followed her. He stopped at the easel and started to pick up things from small but high table beside it. There was no chair for him, and obviously he didn’t intend to find one. He remained standing, smiled again and looked at her. Yrmellyn looked back. It was a bit unnerving to be inspected this way, like every small detail in her appearance was being studied with a mental magnifying glass. She was however accustomed to act unaffected by being alone with strangers in situations that could be quirkier than average.
“Painting is a process, Miss Cole. We will need more than one single session for this portrait. It can happen that I paint something at high speed and complete the picture in one day or even just in a few breaks, but I often need more time than that.”
“More time?” Yrmellyn asked.
“We can need several sessions for this.”
“I see...” she said complacently, without understanding much at all. She wasn’t averse to more meetings though. The courtesan really needed to find a new “relationship” soon, and the moment the painter Mariuz Arbin was the best prospect she had. He didn’t have as high social standing as her former protectors, but judging from his house he was well off and would probably be able to pay the expenses for a kept woman with luxurious taste. She hoped so, to be honest. Her interest in looking for other options felt low. Mariuz Arbin wasn't just a prospect. He was the one she truly wanted.
The painter’s expression shifted slightly.
“Let’s get down to the painting” he said.
Continues here
While the painter hanged her cloak up on one of the ornamental metal hooks on the wall right inside the door she looked around. The hallway was fairly big, which surprised her. When she said it to Arbin he laughed and told her it wasn’t a hallway. This was his atelier, the place where he painted many of the portraits he was commissioned with. It served as working space as well as entrance to his house and also as the stage for the informal kind of parties Arbin loved to throw.
“You must promise to come to my parties, Miss Cole. Would you accept if I would invite you?”
The courtesan smiled. “Of course. If I’m not busy somewhere else of course.”
“I hope you will not be busy somewhere else. Now, let me show you the atelier.”
The atelier consisted of an inner and an outer part. The outer part, where she stood right now, was a half round construction, protruding from the house a few steps over the ground level. Yrmellyn found it similar to a veranda, but way bigger and with walls of light grey stone and high glass windows and a row of roof windows. Even in the season of Zida this outer part was full of bright daylight and it felt nearly like being outdoors. The furniture was elegant. There were hairs or carved red wood, a beautifully crafted canape dressed with dark red velvet and several small tables of various sizes, shapes and heights. There was room enough to allow for a group of people to gather there. When she commented on this Arbin told her that the atelier was in fact fairly often used for paintings of families and other groups of people.
People’s homes weren’t always the best places for painting, as there could be a lot of things going on in a household. It could be easier for people to relax in his atelier, where also the light was way better and his work wasn’t interrupted by all kinds of curious people popping in to have a peek at his painting in progress. Children were notorious for barging in to satisfy their curiosity, he told her. Wives often felt entitled to come in and inspect portraits of their husbands in a critical manner that could in worst case make their husband change his mind and not pay for the painting. Servants were expert at finding excuses for being around and their employers were often pleased to see them work hard so it was impossible to shoo them out. Worst of all was however to paint a married lady in her own home. Not only would the lady herself constantly demand to inspect his work and demand changes of the picture in order to make it look more beautiful than she really was, the husband would also turn up once in a while to make sure the painter wasn’t trying to take liberties with the motif.
Yrmellyn had to laugh when she heard the stories Arbin told her about hilarious jobs in people’s homes. She could well understand that he preferred to paint in the beautiful atelier instead. Laughing together with him had made her feel more at ease when she followed him into the inner part of the atelier, the back of the room, to have a closer look at it. Albeit it was a totally normal room and continued inwards under a ceiling of normal height, it felt a bit like stepping into a mysterious cave. The bright Zida daylight poured in through the windows in the outer part of the room, but the inner space lay in mostly in shadow. Contours of doors and a stairway were barely visible, but several lanterns added small points of golden light. The inner atelier room seemed to serves as a combined dinner room and living room, furnished with a big table with chairs, as well as more comfortable armchairs and sofas. At the innermost wall, in the heart of the house, there was a fireplace where a beautiful brazier of wrought iron had been placed, a small fire burning inside it. Arbin told her that he lived upstairs. The kitchen of the house was located behind the door beside the fireplace and behind the other door was what he vaguely called “other work rooms for art and crafting projects”.
“I think you have seen enough of my atelier now. Let’s not linger here in the dark Miss Cole. I’d like to start to work now ...”
The painter walked out to the outer part of the atelier again and Yrmellyn followed in his wake. When he turned to her again, the courtesan shook out the skirt of her dress, lifting it a bit to give him a brief glimpse of her calves, another automatized routine of hers, for turning normal correction of the clothing into something subtly seductive. She finished this off by smoothing out the fabric of the skirt over her hips, not in an exaggerated way, but long enough to make sure that it must be noticed.
“Please have a seat.” Mariuz Arbin made a gesture towards an armchair.
The previous evening he had promised to paint her portrait as she had won the bet he placed for her on the spinning wheel in a gambling house in the Glass Quarter. The courtesan had been so surprised at winning and too confused to think clearly right when it had happened to her, but afterwards she had pondered the whole event with increasing puzzlement. The painter was out for something that much was easy to guess, because people were always out for something. But what? The question had left her no peace. The world was full of weird people. It wasn’t without dangers to make a living the way she did. She hadn’t had time to check Mariuz Arbin up. That was a bad thing. Despite this she hadn’t been able to abstain from jumping at his unusual offer. It had felt like it was a one time in a lifetime chance, this meeting with Mariuz Arbin.
Now when she stood in the atelier and met his smoky blue gaze she felt it again, that feeling of something so special and rare she hardly dared to put words on. She smiled at him, and unlike most of her smiles it reached her eyes.
I would be a lie to say Yrmellyn Cole felt totally comfortable, but as a courtesan of some experience she was accustomed to feeling more or less uncomfortable and professional at concealing it. She walked over to the chair she had been told to sit on. Her upper body swayed gracefully over the wide skirt of the dress and her hips made the skirt billow around legs in just the right way, sophisticated, not exaggerated. The courtesan had practiced this way of walking for a long time, and put in as much effort in it as a dancer puts into perfecting their steps. Her short walk to the chair was an enticing little performance. She sat down on the chair and spread the skirt out in order to make the most of her looks. A portrait, she figured, was about making a beautiful picture of beautiful person at her best.
The painter followed her. He stopped at the easel and started to pick up things from small but high table beside it. There was no chair for him, and obviously he didn’t intend to find one. He remained standing, smiled again and looked at her. Yrmellyn looked back. It was a bit unnerving to be inspected this way, like every small detail in her appearance was being studied with a mental magnifying glass. She was however accustomed to act unaffected by being alone with strangers in situations that could be quirkier than average.
“Painting is a process, Miss Cole. We will need more than one single session for this portrait. It can happen that I paint something at high speed and complete the picture in one day or even just in a few breaks, but I often need more time than that.”
“More time?” Yrmellyn asked.
“We can need several sessions for this.”
“I see...” she said complacently, without understanding much at all. She wasn’t averse to more meetings though. The courtesan really needed to find a new “relationship” soon, and the moment the painter Mariuz Arbin was the best prospect she had. He didn’t have as high social standing as her former protectors, but judging from his house he was well off and would probably be able to pay the expenses for a kept woman with luxurious taste. She hoped so, to be honest. Her interest in looking for other options felt low. Mariuz Arbin wasn't just a prospect. He was the one she truly wanted.
The painter’s expression shifted slightly.
“Let’s get down to the painting” he said.
Continues here
