Utena, Revolutionary Girl Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Heart of Dust ❯ Portraits ( Chapter 16 )

Title: Heart of Dust

Chp. 16 Portrait

Rated: PG-13

Poetry is mine

Characters are not mine just borrowing

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There, beneath the subtle grin

A proposition, a warning sin

A call for something unlike lust

A want for repairing what is dust

And for every moment that once burned gold

There is a truth and a lie that has been told

Feelings abscond and darkness entwines

Leaving a taste of most bitter wine

In the end, the fear, the killing move

Is but a portrait, art that proves

Beyond the shadow, beyond the light

The way to take this thing and make it… finally, right

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The heavy door to the loft slid open and Dorothy stepped inside, arching an eyebrow at the accommodations within. The immense amount of light that poured in from the skylights and four ceiling to floor windows was an unexpected surprise. She turned to face the petite young woman that stood behind her, grinning slightly.

"So this is your new place," Dorothy remarked, eyeing the large amount of splattered paint covering the floor, ceiling and walls. Everywhere but the windows there were remnants of misplaced color. "How ever are you affording this space?"

"Does it matter," was the curt reply.

"Oh no, of course not, I was just…curious. Your other apartment seemed so much smaller; it didn't seem to suit your profession."

"That's why I moved."

Purposely or not Dorothy had been keeping her glib and cutting remarks to a minimum. She wanted to say something terribly damaging but it wouldn't leave her throat. It just sat and dissolved leaving a horrid taste in her mouth. She stalked over to a large canvas covered with a sheet. It seemed terribly cliché, an artist covering their work so no one could see the unfinished piece. The word 'artist' made her chuckle and the petite girl huffed behind her.

"What are you painting right now," Dorothy asked as a matter of course, prolonging conversation to avoid her true intentions.

"I paint what I always paint"

"Which is?"

She moved a hand through her violet black hair and giggled as she replied, "My lovers and enemies."

"Whatever do you do, Shiori, when your lover and your enemy are the same?"

"I make sure to buy a very large canvas."

Shiori stepped over to the covered canvas, pulling the sheet away in a quick dramatic fashion, watching the expression on Dorothy's face grow to something deadly, a manifestation that had been missing for quite a while.

"What do you think," Shiori asked unable to contain her satisfaction.

"I think… it's a shame you should be so brilliant."

"What?" There was a bead of terror in her tone, shuffled under pure surprise.

Dorothy moved closer to Shiori wrapping an arm around the petite woman's waist, and stared deeply into her eyes, "I said you're brilliant Shiori." And then she kissed her.

Shiori pulled back, "You can't."

"I do, so you'll just have to live with it." Dorothy released the violet-eyed girl and considered the unfinished work of art. "But you have to tell me… Is that ice or glass you have me made of?"

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Oh your touch burns like ice

A frost bitten kiss to sting my heart

Would you give me more

Can you keep it up

Cos under the chill

Under winter's killing embrace

I see myself the villain

I know myself to be the dark

I feel in my heart the very shadow of lust

I would deny it though…

I want no prince

I want no fire to keep me warm

What I seek is plain in your arms

What I want is easy to see

A castle of ice

A heart of stone

And a monarch…

Made of glass, sure to cut

Run me…right through to the bone

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Juri was happy that she was able to convince Duo and Cathy to stay at home. She wanted to be alone in the gallery, knowing full well that her reaction would be nothing short of disappointing. Everyone expected her to be offended, upset and angry with the artist who created the painting and she couldn't be. The emotion, the things the image conjured were not of betrayal so much as what had been. The way she used to feel about Shiori, the way she thought Shiori felt for her was all reflected in a simple portrait, a large canvas painting that she never posed for, not really.

Her eyes shut against the image to recall the time she had woken up to Shiori sketching her. Juri was never sure what to think at that moment, but Shiori was so unapologetic simply grinning and commenting that it was difficult to get the curl of Juri's auburn ringlets just right. And somehow that comment was enough to make it okay. Shiori was an artist, she drew what she liked and as many artists do, she took from her life to create beauty and expose horror. Life made the best art. The permanent record of actual emotion held, somehow, the highest of honors.

As she stood there in the gallery pondering the work, Juri wondered if it was perhaps the way she was presented that made Cathy think she was going to "flip out". It wasn't obscene, but it was definitely revealing. She only dreaded having to explain the tattoo that had been of those things that only she and her lovers knew about.

She sighed; maybe she was taking this too easily. Maybe she should be angry that Shiori never told her about the painting. Maybe… but still she couldn't find anger as much as disappointment, a wall of sadness that she could not hold Shiori's affections and a continued feeling that she could not seem to hold anyone's affection. All her relationships ended. They ended but did not disappear from her life. Her feelings, her wants just lingered around her, blanketing her vision.

Juri stepped closer to the painting. She wanted to touch it but knew she could not. The image told her so much more than she wanted to know about herself. It was a perfect reflection and her soul seemed to be trapped in the painting… a painting of her asleep, draped in bed sheets, dreaming of butterflies and streams of color.

There she was, the stoic, the pretty (she would never actually call herself beautiful, it didn't seem like something one said about ones self), the fencer, the history major, the grocery store supervisor, the big sister, the constant friend, the lustful lover, the lost…the faithless and the terminally brave Juri Arisugawa, magnified in acrylic paint and off white canvas to show that the things that made her who she was, were not necessarily all good, or all bad.

She stepped out of the gallery and into the fading light of the afternoon. Work awaited her and then there were her last days of school. And after that would be the rest of her life. Juri could speculate forever what she was going to do about everything, but she decided to step outside and go to work. She decided… to stop worrying because it was the only advice ever given to her that made any sense at all.

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There it is

Colored regret

And I'll sip from my coffee

As you relay the tale

Should I care?

Dare I care?

And of course the answer is yes

All the while I'm sure that smile

That wondrous grin on your face

It is working to remind me

Of what I left behind

Sometime soon I'll have to confess

That maybe you were right

That maybe you were wrong

That somewhere I think I still loved you when you said you still loved me too

But it's gone away…lost to this rainy day

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The loft was void of light, shades drawn and both utterly exhausted in the plush and warm cocoon of a down comforter. At a distance it was a romantic scene, the perfect vision of contented lovers, but closer it was a cold game of tried contact and manipulation.

Dorothy was awake and she assumed that Shiori was as well, because neither really slept when they were together. She could hear a soft storm brewing outside, raindrops tapping on the windows washing away the dirt of the day, but not washing away the sin. The petite woman on the other side of the bed slowly and tiredly inched over to Dorothy's side, draping herself over the goddess, and smiling against her pale neck before offering a kiss and then a tiny bite. It ended there though, as Shiori was suddenly quite taken by sleep and dreams she would later describe as telling.

The pale blonde shut her eyes and thought of the painting. Thought of the way Shiori viewed her and wondered how something so small and cruel could be so correct in her observations. She let it slide away, running her hand up the small of the violet-eyed woman's back. She stopped at the point where, in the light, the permanent fixture of an overly metaphoric and cliched butterfly tattoo was etched.

Juri had been the only other person she had been with that had a tattoo. She never cared for them, never saw the reason or felt the want to be marked forever. Juri, though, would never tell her what her tattoo meant and in hindsight it was probably best that she didn't know…considering whom talked the angelic beauty into getting the tattoo in the first place.

And here Shiori had one but she would expect someone like Shiori to have a tattoo and have it put somewhere uncreative like the small of her back. Dorothy had guessed that Shiori designed the thing herself, but she wondered if maybe it was something someone had talked her into. Stormy eyes opened and then shut again. Yes, she could see that too.

What she could not see was the outcome of the game she was playing? She could not tell who was winning. She needed an advantage but it seemed that it would never come. Her hand slid up the woman's small back, fingers brushing away strands of violet black hair and finally resting at the base of Shiori's neck.

Shiori shifted, waking slowly, her lips and tongue absently tasting the skin beneath her, lazily inviting. Dorothy hesitated playing any further that night. Shiori was truly fatigued and though it was a game meant to hurt there was something rather rude about taking advantage so late at night. The butterfly was persistent though and the goddess was out of excuses to stall. She quickly claimed dominance and began to take. She listened to the soft pleading beneath her and considered stopping short, letting the girl suffer, but the pleas got the better of her and she saw the moment through.

Dorothy kissed the top of the petite woman's head and whispered, "I think it's time for sleep little girl."

There was an undecipherable uttering of protest followed by Shiori nuzzling closer than Dorothy was used to, and the utterance of three words that mean complete and absolute defeat in a game. The goddess sighed and shut her eyes. Winning should not have been so easy and it occurred to her that perhaps she hadn't won… at least not yet.

To be continued…