Flashback A Parting Gift

[Anouk]

43 Winter, 509AV

The Pavarti household was covered with an uncharacteristic blanket of sadness. In two days time, Niva Pavarti's eldest daughter Thalia was leaving Mura for Sunberth. Though her people often left the Opal Isle, Niva had lived in denial about the fact her daughters might one day also fly the nest, and so her daughter's announcement two seasonal ago had come as a heart-wrenching shock. Thalia's choice of city had not helped matters, either. Everyone knew Sunberh was cesspit of anarchy and lawlessness. Completely different from Mura, it was a dangerous place where the most unthinkable things were known to happen every day. Perhaps as the older of Niva's girls, Thalia had felt a need to push boundaries, so as not to be upstaged by one her younger sisters at some later date

Niva shuddered. No, she would not even consider that for now. Though she had to accept that it was almost inevitable, the idea of all four of her daughters being scattered across the globe made her want to cry. But then again, had she not left as a young woman, travelling with the horse riders of Endrykas and visiting the beautiful blue men of Riverfall?

The woman smiled faintly as those old memories came flooding back.

"Mother, what are you grinning about?" Anouk's question was slightly accusatory, but only because she had not felt like smiling for the past few days. She felt sick with the impending leave of her beloved older sister. Thalia, who she had always regarded as a second mother figure, was leaving her.

"Oh, nothing, darling." Niva replied a little guiltily. How could she be absorbed in her own happy memories when one of her daughters was currently packing to leave the safest place in the world? Sighing, Niva stepped daintily towards Anouk, peering down at the parchment piece that her third-born had been drawing on. "How are you getting on?"

"Oh, fine." Anouk murmured, flailing a hand hopelessly towards the blank sheet of paper. All Pavarti girls were preparing gifts for their eldest sister to take with her to Sunberth, trinkets of their family to ease her move. Euterpe had collected a beautiful set of make-up that would match Thalia's complexion perfectly, whereas Okanis had been pressing flowers with her girlfriends and fixing them between circles of glass to make necklaces and bracelets. Anouk, for obvious reasons, had decided to paint her sister a picture. She planned to paint on parchment rather than canvas, for ease of travelling, but since that inspirational decision, her mind had been blank. "I have no clue what to do paint, mother. I thought of doing our faces, but--" Anouk wrinkled her nose, "I always think self-portraits are little self-indulgent. But I do want to make something that will remind her of us."

Niva considered her daughter's problem. She knew there was little point in suggesting ideas to Anouk, who would not settle on an idea until she had exhausted all possibilities. Instead, the Konti knew how best to get her daughter's creative juices flowing, "How do you think Thalia sees us all?"

"Hm..." Anouk bought a finger to her chin as she thought. "Well, I think she sees Okanis like an excited puppy, me as the tortured artist and Euterpe as the revolutionary. And you--" she turned to her mother, lips pouted, "as the poor soul who has to put up with us all."

Mother and daughter grinned. "Well, somehow I think Oki won't appreciate being painted as a pup." Niva said carefully, referring to her youngest daughter with the nickname her sisters had loving given her. "How about you? How do you see your sisters and I?"

Again her mother's question had Anouk frowning in deep thought. How did she see her family?

Well, as her family -- how else would she see them? When she looked at Thalia, she saw her eldest sister who had bossed her about and mothered her lovingly in equal measure. Likewise she saw Euterpe as the philosophical revolutionary with fabulous hair and Okanis as a demanding and energetic young girl. But she didn't want to paint her family is such an obvious way. It would be tasteless, and not at all creative enough to please Anouk.

Despondently, the young Konti lent back in her chair and scrunched her eyes closed. "Oh, I don't know!"

"Don't stress yourself out, Anouk. Whatever you paint will be perfect." As always, Anouk's mind filled with purple streaks as her mother spoke. The purple flashes twisted and danced against each other with the intonation of Niva's words. There were times when Anouk's sensory experience was frustrating, and other times when it embraced and comforted her like a synaesthesic hug.

Flinging her eyes open in a sudden act of inspiration, Anouk concluded, "I have an idea!" She scrambled to her feet, energised by inspiration. "I will paint us all, but not as us, as the colours I hear when you speak."

Niva smiled. Since when had the idea hearing colours made such sense? The woman remembered when she first became suspicious of her daughter's mind. The young Anouk, approximately three years old, had declared: you sound purple, mumma! She had gone on to describe the voices of Thalia and Euterpe as well, and when Okanis was born, Anouk declared sadly that her crying sounded grey. It was not Niva that defined it as synaesthesia, but her cousin. Apparently, there was a distant member of the Pavarti family who also lived with the experience, though in this instance the woman reported the ability to taste sounds. Within five chimes of meeting Anouk, Niva's great aunt had declared, "this girl is synaesthesic."

[Anouk]

"That's a wonderful idea, Anouk."

The young Konti smiled in response to her mother's praise. "Thank you, mother." And with that, Anouk turned her full attention back to the piece of parchment in front of her.

She would usually start with a sketch, a guideline that she would later paint over. But this project was different to other paintings. There was no single object such as a flower or a building that would be the focus of this particular painting. Instead, Anouk would be painting swirls of colours and different shapes. There were no rules or guidelines here. She glimmered with excitement.

The first challenge for Anouk was to decide whom she would start with first. Her mother was the obvious choice, being the matriarch of their immediate little family. But no: this was a gift for Thalia, so the right thing to do was to start with her. For the entirety of Anouk's life, her eldest sister's voice bought about flashes of a green the same shade as grass.

Picking up her paintbrush, Anouk began to mix her paints. The green pigment she owned was too close to turquoise to match Thalia's colour, so she would need to mix and adjust the colour to make it suitable. Sliding her artist's pallet towards her, Anouk transferred a blob of green paint onto the piece of wood. Next, she did the same with a smaller drop of yellow, approximately an inch apart from the green.

And, as obsessive as ever, she cleaned her paintbrush thoroughly in between

Next, Anouk dragged a thin spread of yellow pain towards the green and started to slowly mix the two together. She knew better than to rush in and add too much yellow -- that would only cause her to be trapped in a circle of adding green, adding yellow, and so on. No: Anouk was thorough and careful. After incorporating more yellow into the green, and mixing the shades thoroughly, she was eventually happy with the shade she had.

She touched paintbrush to parchment, sweeping her hand diagonally towards the bottom left corner of the page. She wanted to capture the movement of the colour that flittered about her mind whenever Thalia spoke. Paintbrush swept across the page again, creating another line approximately four inches long. When Anouk did it for the third time, she pressed harder on the paintbrush, fanning the bristles out and making this sweep of green much thicker than before.

After five or so chimes, Anouk had filled the centre space of her parchment with streaks of green. They curved and extended amongst each other, like green snakes.

[Anouk]

She moved onto her next sibling: Euterpe. Whenever her fellow middle-sister spoke, it was a vibrant orange that filled Anouk's head. Which truly matched Euterpe's bright personality. She was more confident than Anouk, more exciting. In some ways she envied Euterpe. Her sister dressed wonderfully, had great hair and beautiful make up.

Anouk wished she had that flair.

With a sigh, she began to mix her next colours. Having no orange paint meant that Anouk would have to mix red and yellow to once again try and capture the correct shade and colour.

With a clean brush, she set about this task. She added the red to the yellow - it would take less paint this way than the other way round. After all, though Anouk wanted to do her best for Thalia's leaving present, she did not want to waste all her paints.

But she couldn't quite get the colour correct. The red mixed with yellow was too dark. It didn't quite capture the brightness of the colours that accompanied Euterpe's voice. Tentatively, Anouk scrubbed her brush clean yet again before adding a delicate blob of white. After twirling the tip of her brush around in the orange smear, she was much happier with the colour.

Now for the painting.

She started in the top left corner, placing the tip of her paintbrush onto the parchment and twirling her brush around to create various loops of differing sizes. Pausing, Anouk arched her back to lean away from the painting, staring down at her progress critically. The orange paint needed more white, to yet again lift the colour into a new shade. After doing this, she continued painting the loops.

It was difficult to capture the sensations of colour Anouk felt when her sisters spoke. The splashes of colour moved in different ways and appeared in various forms. Euterpe's orange loops spun in circles around, like a collection of rings looped together.

She somehow needed to capture that sense of motion in her painting. After adding another ring, Anouk wetted her brush and went over the loop, smearing the paint with her wet brush, dragging the orange to the left side of the ring. When she leant back in inspect it, the Konti was unsure whether she had improved her artwork or not.

[Anouk]

In order to recreate the purple Anouk 'saw' when her mother spoke, she mixed red and blue paint together, and black to darken the shade. She splattered the paint against the parchment, allowing large drops of purple to land wetly and spread out across the page. Anouk went on to add to these splashes by painting additional dots of varying sizes and shapes. By the time she had finished, Niva's part of the painting was full of varying dots and splatters.

Though this piece of art did not exactly require great skill or a complex design in it's creation, it would be easy for it too look chaotic and messy. Anouk wanted to do her best and to create a piece of work that Thalia would actually take pride in and admire. As such, she was careful not to make any of her sister's, or her mother's respective sections of the page too large or cumbersome. Sunberth might not be the prettiest city in the world, but this made Anouk's job even more crucial.

However, she was at a loss over what to do for the next stage: her section of the page. Unlike with others, Anouk did not perceive colours when she heard her own voice -- so what should she do for the final quarter of the page?

She considered this carefully, placing down her paintbrush and wiping her face with her delicate hands. Whatever colour or design she chose, it would not hold the same meaning as the other parts. So Anouk chose to select a colour that was inoffensive, and would not clash with any of the other shades that were on her page. Selecting a white paint, Anouk dabbed a minute amount of yellow and mixed this in, turning her white into a pale cream.

Colour selected and mixed, she wavered the paintbrush around the final quarter of the page in a random pattern. It combined the twirls, dots and rings from the previous parts in no real order or sequence. But then again, Anouk surmised, she guessed she was a combination of all her sisters and their mother, so perhaps her respective part of the painting was more accurate than she had first thought.

[Tap]

You're Grades Have Come

Anouk: You're marked as retired and therefore inactive. If you come back please send me a PM and I will give you your grades.