The Path to Independence

For some time it seemed he had nothing better to do with himself than drink and stare into the middle distance. His creative output was astonishing, but he thought nothing of it; he created so as to keep his hands busy, for otherwise he would tear the world apart. He was no painter, no sculptor, no furniture maker; he was a musician, and to pretend otherwise would be to deny himself.

In all, however, the divorce did not even serve the function it was meant to serve, for Nicholas remained a target of those loathsome demons. The horse Ayresaelian had gifted him with while they were still together, Markel, was found sucked of all his definiton, a mere sack of skin, one morning upon waking (a vision that would contribute to his later conclusion that he was not meant to own a horse). Nightmarish images roll through his mind of walking around his yard and finding the dismembered parts of some girl every time he tried to turn from them, forcing him to gather them up in a wagon and cast them out into the ocean. These, though horrible, were things he could chase from his mind, hide in dusty caverns and try and forget which ones he used.

The reappearance of that false wife, Anja, could not be hidden. She waited for him in a tavern one day, stood against a wall, so gorgeous that no man thought himself worthy of approaching her. Nicholas did so immediately, however, asking why in the world she was in the Lowcountry. His hopes meant that she barely had to speak--she let him believe that she had left Braxton and meant to return home to him. What were the options but to return home with her, to celebrate?

It was when they were far, far from any help that she would reveal her true nature, the depth of his pathetic gullibility. A kiss was punctuated by a force to the couch only a demon might pull off, a pillow shoved against his mouth until consciousness left him. When awake, he found his hands cuffed with items from the stables, growing disused but serving their present function perfectly. He was helpless but to listen as she told him how much air he was wasting by continuing to breathe when he amounted to nothing, when he could not possibly move on from that woman, willing to grasp at the weakest straws to claim her again. He could do nothing but screw shut his eyes as she spit in his face, threw him about to illustrate his continued helplessness.

When at last she forced him into unconsciousness again and left his body to its own devices, he realized she was, in her way, right. There was no justification for his continued survival. Not while his death would take the Vixo from the world, would end this useless suffering of his. He'd been nothing already--no musician, no husband, no worth. Why should he exist at all? Despite years upon years of advice otherwise, he climbed into his bathtub and set a razor to his wrists, biting his belt to cope with the agony and be sure that he got both of them.

Ayresaelian retained an immense link of compassion with her former husband even after all this time however, and his life was spared his fit of despair through her hurried efforts. The thought of her cleaning his blood from the tub would prove among the most nauseating and guilt-ridden memories of his life.

Released into the world again only once his ex-wife was confident he'd not try the same thing when given the opportunity, he felt like he'd made himself into a figure no one could respect. Though Ayresaelian was perfectly capable of healing those wounds entirely, she had only shut them weakly, as they would've healed if he weren't capable of bleeding out. She waited out their full, natural healing for weeks, changing endless amounts of bandages, until they became the ugly scars that feel definitive of his arms to this day. They were to be reminders of what a stupid mistake he'd made--but, of course, to everyone else in the world as well as him. He felt forced into altering existing suits to have excessively long cuffs (as they had normally pulled up his wrist in certain gestures), and pushing his shirts with short or no sleeves to the far back of his wardrobe. For weeks, this disgusted him and he was sure he'd fail to truly hide those marks, sure that he'd miss something and the truth would be out with some stupid, casual gesture. One's eyes would fix inevitably to that place, silence would overtake whatever they'd been talking about--until they found the courage to ask him 'Why?'. And he would have no answer for them, as it would involve telling too much, frightening them off. A man who'd try to kill himself wasn't worth the dangers and stresses being with him entailed. He was marked as weak and worthless until the end of the world.

Eventually he altered his wardrobe accordingly and moved back into the world, but for ages made the same mistake of playing music when he knew nothing would come of it. This continued failure made him more and more miserable, until finally he did something, apparently in an attempt to alleviate his feelings of worthlessness. Upon visiting a curio shop, he became quite suddenly smitten with the woman running it, having flashes of what a warm relationship they might have. Yet to pursue her would be to dig up all sorts of terrible things, things that, if he were honest about them, would inevitably chase her away. And so he merely bought something from her that he would never normally buy - a small, gold and bejeweled dragon figure - and took it home, where it sat on his bedside table.

Gradually, his memories became overwritten. They had not met in the her shop, but a coffee house; he had not been too afraid to talk to her, but had eagerly engaged her in conversation; she, too, seemed quite taken with him, and they soon shared intimate conversation in her small apartment above the curio shop, where she gave him the dragon as a gift. It wasn't until she said she was leaving on something of a treasure hunt to find more items to sell that he realized something was amiss. He'd planned a picnic by the river on the day she was to return, but she never showed up. This might mean anything--that she had taken longer than anticipated, that she had been abducted along the way, that she had died--but this was the cue he needed to bring reality back to mind again: the relationship had never been.

Recognizing that he'd become a special sort of pathetic to invent a lover in the interest of finding his life more fulfilling, he decided that something needed to be done. In this time he had amassed a grand collection of work in the attic, of all sorts of things. He couldn't allow his sense of worth to revolve around a woman's love; that was not independence. Instead, he hinged it on what was certainly creative and personal output--those many things done to keep his misery from overwhelming him entirely. He poured the rest of his money into buying and renovating a place right in Celfaire's market district, a process which took months of anxious anticipation. Showing people this work felt strange to him, like laying his heart open for examination, but he didn't feel he had other options.

His success was much greater than he could've thought. His portraits of Ayresaelian--which she had agreed to let him show, but not sell--were so admired that it made him nervous, even bitter. Some days it felt like all anyone wanted to see was those portraits, and couldn't care less about anything else he made. Regardless, he could hardly complain about the commissions these portraits brought in from people under the delusion that they or their daughters could be made to look as radiant as the Lady. He didn't think that had happened, but always keeps his clients happy.

Presently, he's known as an unpredictable man to work with, sometimes friendly and talkative, other times entirely formal and intolerant of nonsense. Regardless of his mood, he's conducted himself well enough and produced good enough work that it overshadows any suspicions or fears the public might have about him. He has earned a position of respect in what he finds to be a most unlikely medium; he can't be sure if this was even what he wanted, but it's independence. . .isn't it?

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