*Here I present you with a night in the life of Vitriol. This took place on the Scions of Destiny web boards.*
Lying in bed, Mahdia stares out the window, wide awake, at the stars high above. The cool night air sneaks through the cracks in the old windowpane and gently flows over her body; the thin sheet not enough to warm her. The young maiden gets slowly gets up, wrapping the thin cotton sheet around her form, and heads closer to the window; her silhouette, illuminated by the moonlight. Her fingers run along the windowsill as she makes her way over to a chair which is holding all of her clothes. Letting the sheet fall to the floor she slips on the thin gossamer gown that she just purchased at a local store. She heads downstairs.
The building sends her flowing out into the chilled air and she walks around town. For an hour or two she drags her feet through the dusty streets, gazing up at the clouds drifting across the heavens. Her strides take her to a small fountain, the trickling water calling her on as it sparkles in the lunar light. She kneels down beside the old stone structure and places her hands at the edge of the water.
The elven woman stares up to the sky and begins to quietly sing. Even though her voice is so small in this dark night, it resonates off of the water and the buildings around her lifting it high into the sky, to the edge of the world, perhaps even to the gods.
“Most fare of fare, if I could share a small word with you,
For I once more dare in this time we share.
Could you glance my way?
Please be gentile with me. I can’t take much more than this.
Please be gentile with me. I can’t take much more than this.
So I have to know.
Is there a small chance for us?
Well I’ll still hang on, forever, forever, forever
If that’s what it takes.
Could you glance my way?
Please be gentile with me. I can’t take much more than this.
Please be gentile with me. I can’t take much more than this.
Well I, I can’t stop love now.
I’ll go on, I can’t stop love now.
It’ll go on and on and on.
I can’t stop love now.”
Slowly and gracefully she lowers her head, taking a few small breaths. After a few moments she comes to her feet and looks at herself in the reflection of the pool. Quietly she heads back to her room.
Upon arrival she finds everyone still in their rooms sleeping. Mahdia tiptoes through the halls, gliding up the old rickety staircase and over the loose floorboards. Back in her room she takes a seat at the desk looking out over the street below.
Quickly she lights a candle and begins rummaging through her pack. After a while she produces a small tin, a paintbrush, a watch glass, a vial, and a large sheet of rolled canvas. The elven lass unties the leather strap binding the canvas and lays it out on the desk. Next she opens the tin, revealing an almost empty kit of watercolor paints. On the watch glass she pours out some of the white powder contained in the vial. She looks around confused for a moment and then gets up to pour a glass of water. Taking her seat again she adds a few drops of water to the watch glass, turning the white powder blue, just as she had done earlier in the evening when she gave each of her friends a portrait.
Furiously, with brush in hand, she begins to paint. Her strokes are random and fevered but somehow utterly graceful. In a few hours she finishes, her eyes watering and red.
She takes her painting and lays it on the floor to dry. Finally she sleeps, curling up besides her painting on the floor she lays down to rest.
The next morning she misses breakfast. She lies sleeping on the floor, her breath is short, heavy, and very forced. Sweat pours from her body, as it lies limp on the floor.
The painting is dry.
*The painting is very mucl like this one except the man in the work she just finished is looking right out of the picture, straight to the onlooker. He is angered in this one, his muscles tensed, and his eyes flaring.
It appears that inthe construction of her work Vitriol, then going by Mahdia made herself ill with the materials that she was working with. She took the name Vitriol from the blue pigment also known as copper sulfate. It is used largely as a die and a poison.*
