An uncertain quiet takes over the room. The ink, perhaps sensing this change, slows down as well.
✧ Rose: Ah…was it something I said?
The ‘real’ Rose looks between you and Grant, taking in the serious looks on your faces, and her smile falls with concern. Grant manages a weary smile.
✧ Grant: No, you’re perfectly fine, Miss. Our guest has been traveling for some time and needs to rest for a moment.
You glance at him silently, and he turns his smile towards you too. You try to smile back, but the weight of knowing your hand in disrupting the fates of the ghosts in the gallery sits a little too heavy on your shoulders.
Rose, whose memories were now wiped…
Lucile, who’d clearly wished for her beloved to rest…
And Grant…
’…Who was it that you left behind?’ you wanted to ask. But his face had never once betrayed his heart, and you don’t expect that to change.
Rose brightens again.
✧ Rose: Oh there is no need to be so formal, Monsieur! Please, just call me Rose!
And pardon me, but may I ask if you have seen…
---
While Grant chats with the painted girl, you shuffle to the other side of the wall, looking up to where the final painting awaits your answer.
You’d been avoiding this painting the longest, but that’s not really an option anymore. Something about it has always made you slightly uneasy, like an uncomfortable secret that you know better than to bring up.
Grant had mentioned before that he’d almost thought this piece was a fake, and it’s clear why he’d felt that way. The painting resembles the night sky, but it’s not any kind you’re familiar with. The canvas is marred by violent slashes of dense ink, and where the other paintings had been built up patiently with layers of wash, this is composed of thick pigment repeatedly caked on by someone likely in a volatile state of mind.
But the issue with the fifth painting isn’t the material or technique—it’s the subject itself. A feather, a bird, a beast, a carp—these were all at least within reason to find.
The entire moon, however?
Your exhaustion catches up with you all at once. This might really be it then. In stories, time always flows differently in these distorted semi-realities. Who knows what year it will be when and if you leave this place.
Negative thoughts perch like vultures above your head.
You back away from the absurdity of it all, bumping into Grant’s shoulder, and he breaks his conversation to reach out and stabilize you.
✧ Grant: …Young’un. Are you okay?
✧ You: I…I need a little bit of space.
As you stagger back you feel a shockwave pass through the floor—a thud, like someone had dropped an incredibly heavy object near you. Grant and Rose clearly had not felt it, because they are both looking at your pale face with expressions of pure concern.
Your ears feel stuffed, drumming with a muted pain as though you were experiencing a significant altitude change.
You barely register that you’re still standing, awake, and shouting nonsense you can’t hear. Your companions’ mouths move in reply, but it’s as if they’re muted.
You watch as their movements slow, the ink stops shifting, and a voice comes from everywhere in the room at once:
<< You’re not supposed to be here. Leave. >>
Your eyes dart towards the carp who had “spoken” using that voice in the storage room, but the painting is completely still. It isn’t the source of the voice this time.
The ink presses on, closing in on you; but you know by now that the gallery operates by its own rules. Your struggles will not be acknowledged.
But a pale light seeps into the room, chasing the ink into its corners.
You watch the walls around you begin to deteriorate,
You give in to its embrace,
And the gallery swallows you.
✧☽◯☾✧
The movement does not stop, however—your surroundings spin and melt, shapes blending and blotting in a nonsensical manner.
You watch the landscape around you develop like ink wash on paper, changing frame by frame as though you were caught in the rapidly fluttering pages of a book.
When the spinning ends you find yourself standing alone on a windswept stone mountainside, looking over great peaks rising out of a thick cloud cover. An eagle circles overhead, no doubt in search of sustenance in the karst's sparse biome.
You try not to panic, something you admittedly have been practicing (against your will) a lot lately. If your streak of increasingly strange occurrences is anything to go off of, becoming part of a painted scene lands squarely within that realm of possibility. The scene before you has a dreamlike and two-dimensional quality, as if one wrong move would equate to stepping out of the map, so you cautiously test the “floor” with every step you take.
The mountain wind rushes past your ears, not strong enough to threaten to blow you off the cliff, but strong enough to be a constant reminder that falling here could lead to a rather unpleasant result for you.
You shout into the wind, but there’s no response. He’s not here with you.
One more step forward, you collide with a wall in front of you. Stumbling back, you look up into the bright blue eyes of a stallion.
The creature appears ghostly in the painting, emitting a faint glow reminiscent of sunlight on a pale surface. It looks familiar, and it doesn’t seem interested in harming you. You stare back at it with a slight frown before it turns its head to observe something in the distance.
There’s a lone kalon near the edge of the cliff, observing the shrouded peaks and the hunter above.
The glowing creature by your side turns to leave the cliffside. You don’t know where it’s going, but your gut tells you it’s related to the gallery.
So you scramble after it, following the path down the mountainside.
✧ You: Wait, wait for me!
---
The ‘art’ quality of your surroundings blurs as you descend, but when you reach the next flat area the ink quickly reconstructs into a new scene.
The stallion is gone, and you’re in the middle of a mountaintop village. Ink around you blooms into the forms of villagers gathered in the square. They talk hushed amongst themselves.
You spot a casually dressed figure across the clearing, ignoring the gossip all around them. Their eyes are the same striking blue as the creature’s—a color these villagers likely have not seen before—and yet nobody seems to react to their presence. You start to push your way through the crowd, catching bits of conversations here and there.
A young man's voice.
“They show their faces now that we have something they want?! Where were they when we nearly starved? I lost my grandfather last winter because they never sent the grain we were promised.”
“It just makes no sense…we are villagers of mere common blood…the sovereign could care less about people of ordinary birth!”
“But…she’s not quite that. I hear those unorthodox methods, especially combined unconventional mediums and materials, are gaining recognition in other parts of the country.”
“Of course they come after the only good things we have.”
A bitter woman’s voice hisses.
“Pfft. Don’t you know what our visitors all say? Our young great sovereign Dae has a most terrible habit of breaking his playthings. We are worth less than livestock.”
---
You finally push through to the front, where the girl you’d seen at the cliff faces stands alone before the crimson banners of the sovereign.
Someone grabs your arm, and you nearly leap out of your skin. You’re not sure whether to throw a punch or run until you hear a familiar voice behind you.
✧ Grant: “Young’un!” Grant wheezes, “Stop…just…watch…” he croaks between gasps.
✧ You: Grant! Is it really you? How—what is this, how do we get out?
Grant clutches your arm as he catches his breath
✧ Grant: Just…watch…can’t interfere…with the past…
...with the past? you gasp
These people existed?
Before you can ask out loud, the scene changes again.
✧☽◯☾✧
You’re holding onto Grant as the two of you are shrouded in pitch darkness. The moonless night feels like a liminal space. You hear a pleading voice in the darkness
???: They’ve recognized your talent…this is your chance to leave and go to the capital, where it’s always warm and food is always plentiful.
<< …We haven’t frozen nor starved to death here. I don’t need their pity. >>
???: I…I just don’t think there’s anything left for you in the mountains…you hardly see the sun, each winter brings you closer to the end, and
they never send any help.
It’s not fair. You shouldn’t live like this. Even if we can’t save everyone…
???: I…I don’t want to see
you live like this.
But…if that’s not what you want, I’ll trust you.
✧☽◯☾✧
The shadows recede all at once, blinding you with a great light. The shapes rearrange into three shapes. A great horned dragon and a gentle deer, both facing a much smaller…
You gasp. It’s the blue-eyed stallion from the cliff.
“Foolish!” the dragon growls, “This child refused to heed any of the warnings about interacting with mortals! Why did we even bother?”
“Yeon will learn with time. Such is the case with all young gods…some lessons you just cannot learn in words…” the deer chides.
The dragon sighs and turns to face the stallion. “I know you just want to help. But nothing good comes out of trying to help those who are born to bend and break. Try as we might, there is just no way to 'help' them.”
The young stallion, Yeon, stands their ground
Yeon: “I know what I’ve been taught about the living, but I promise—Ravi does not seek the destruction of others”
“...do as you like then, child. But remember: you must never show them your true form.”
At what seemed like being granted permission to leave, Yeon beams.
Yeon: Oh, that will not be a problem—to her I am less worthy of notice than a gnat on the wall! She is so fascinating, really...oh, I must return to that world!
They dash away, leaving the dragon to furrow their brows and mutter under their breath.
“No...not ‘your’ mortal companion, young one…”
“Let them be. Yeon has to learn someday, and they will learn the same way the others have. Their kind, on the other hand…it is a pity they do not live long enough to learn from their mistakes.”
The shapes of the deities dissipate.
✧☽◯☾✧
The scene doesn't seem to be in a hurry to transition, so you whisper quietly.
✧ You: ...Grant, what’s happening? Why are we seeing this? Are we still in the gallery?
✧ Grant: Among other things, this gallery is a record of the past. I believe we are witnessing a memory someone left behind. But the host…how did their memory end up in the gallery?
Ink, historical times, and a painter. Simple addition. One way or another, this scene must be related to the story of the painter from the gallery.
That would be the jet-haired girl from the town. But then how would you explain the “memories” that don’t involve her at all? It isn’t adding up. Unless…
✧ You: Grant…do you think “Yuumo” could have been a name for two individuals collaborating as one? The last scene we saw was about the deity Yeon, right?
He shakes his head
✧ Grant: It’s unlikely, but not impossible. There's no mention of a second person, much less a deity, at all in
any of the texts. It's strange. I'm afraid...there are no clues. I'm just as lost as you are.
You don't have a response for him, but you don’t need one. The next memory arrives.
---
A door bursts open and several stern figures storm out.
"She dares enter the palace? Preposterous! This place is not a playground for commoners!"
A stressed voice comes from the room
"Your Imperial Highness! Please consider the words of your advisors! How could you allow a peasant to tread on the sacred land of the Inner Palace?"
The advisors outside the door lower their voices
"His Highness has a point, though...this one is different. You saw the paintings too. No other painters have ever created works so real as to appear almost lifelike. This child alone has an undeniable brilliance."
As the advisors leave, several of what appear to be palace servants gather.
One gasps. "Really? Is it true? All of the other painters were sent home? It's difficult to think that the emperor kept just one this time."
"Lucky them." another remarks sarcastically, twirling a feather, "From the harsh high mountains straight to the Imperial Palace. What fortune."
"Quiet! Just be glad it's not one of your loved ones this time."
The sarcastic servant lowers their tone to a hiss and clutches their basket.
"I'm sick of this...we all are.
Whoever you are, since you’ve already come so far, I hope you break him this time."
✧☽◯☾✧
✧ You: Grant, have you read about this emperor before?
I think someone in the crowd called him 'great sovereign Dae'. He seems like an awful ruler, what was he doing to the families of the servants?
Grant frowns.
✧ Grant: I don’t believe there was that much on him outside of being listed as an emperor, and of course there was no mention of his lack of popularity…”Dae” was the nephew of the previous monarch. I had an idea of when Yuumo was relevant, a ballpark of one or two hundred years, but I did not think this particular emperor was involved.
✧ Grant: Because...Emperor ‘Dae’ was succeeded bloodlessly after his death, less than a decade into his reign. What little information we have on this man, was written as though he’d accomplished nothing during his reign. An irrelevant and invisible king. Based on these memories, he was barely older than Yuumo in their time...I expect he wasn't around anymore by the time they grew old themselves.
✧☽◯☾✧
The setting changes again. This time, it's a party held in the Imperial Palace.
"...the artisan who was brought to the Inner Palace during this selection”
The conversation stops as a figure clad in great robes and an elaborate headdress enters, and the palace guests bow towards him.
The emperor laughs,
Dae: We are fortunate to host the most talented in the land. Yuumo quite easily outshines five, ten of her peers combined.
Dae: Would you turn away someone gifted as though they were
chosen by the gods? Blessed by
the deities who despise mortals like us? No, we are indeed fortunate we are joined by someone who is loved by them.
The partygoers hurry to agree with him, but you spot writhing shadows of dissent crop up near the edges of the page.
”He clearly chose wrong,” one of the shapes hiss, “that arrogant child with only a little talent is no worthier than any of us—how did someone like that win the favor of the gods?
Advisor! Please forgive this humble artisan for speaking out of turn—“
"No, no. You’re quite right. Never have I seen such crudeness…what makes her so special?!"
The scene begins to fade out once more, leaving feelings of dread and unease.
But not before you hear the emperor's final musings to himself as he observed the subjects' unhappiness.
Dae: Oh, dear. Your bitterness towards one you perceive as ‘
haughty and
undeserving’
shall come to pass. You foolish peasants shall get the ending you wish for. But not before
I have decided the ending of this story.
Really, it is not hard to break such a person…
she has nothing else, after all. I'm looking forward to it.”
✧☽◯☾✧
✧ You: Maybe they were onto something by
not writing this into the history books...
What in the world is this storybook villain behavior?
✧ Grant: Unfortunately, the world was much different during their time. Being ‘king’ meant you got everything your way, even if you were of…questionable character. It would have been only too easy for him to take advantage of that.
✧ You: It's difficult to take seriously, that's all.
Grant gives you a complicated look
✧ Grant: You’d be surprised, young’un…people get away with this type of stuff far more recently in history than you’d feel comfortable knowin’
...
✧☽◯☾✧
You and Grant are standing in a hallway in plain sight of a simple room. Along the far wall, Ravi is working on a flat table in front of a large window. She waves away several servants who have stopped before her door without looking back once.
They leave, but a pale blonde servant enters with their head lowered. At the sound of footsteps, the painter tries to send them away too.
✧ Ravi: I'm good. Tell the others to not come back either.
Yeon: ...I hope you know that they're wrong.
Ravi snaps around and fixes Yeon in a cool glare. The disguised deity freezes, startled.
✧ Ravi: You. Why did you follow me here? Leave.
Yeon visibly becomes frazzled and holds their hands up
Yeon: No, wait! Hear me out, I didn't—okay yes I did follow you, but—
✧ Ravi: This isn't the kind of place for mountain-dwellers. Go home, whoever you are.
Yeon: I'll be quiet! I'll live like I'm invisible. Promise.
Ravi sighs and turns back to her work.
✧ Ravi: Fine. I can't do anything about it anyway. Just...stay out of the way. Stay out of
his way.
✧☽◯☾✧
Another transition, more chaotic than before.
Yeon: Hey, what? Wait! Can we just talk?
You hear several shouts in the darkness, including Yeon's, before the darkness fades again.
---
The emperor Dae is standing before several kneeling shapes in a decorated room.
"We did as you asked, your highness."
"Silenced."
The kneeling figures bow and leave. A few moments later, the palace servant Yeon enters from a different entrance.
Yeon: Your highness...you called for me?
A tricky smile creeps over Dae's face
No, but I make a habit of keeping in touch with my…aides. How are you doing today, anyway?
Yeon: "Umm.." Yeon scratches their head
"Well, I guess?"
Yeon: Oh, was that not the right answer...?
---
✧ Grant: "He figured it out," Grant murmurs from next to you, "The emperor knows Yeon is unkillable. He's trying to find Ravi's weakness"
✧ You: Wait, so the emperor ordered a hit on Yeon, then realized it didn't work. But Ravi doesn't seem to treat Yeon like a friend...meaning if Dae's been forced to expand his search, none of his previous attempts to bully her worked either.
Grant nods grimly.
✧ Grant: The other palace staff don't like her because of the so-called blessing of the deities. Dae tried to cut her off from everyone else, but Yeon wouldn't leave. My guess is that Dae originally wanted to dispose of them to truly isolate Ravi, before realizing that he had far greater leverage than he thought he did.
✧ You: Yeon could’ve easily beaten them, right? But they took the beating quietly to lay low because Ravi asked that of them…I don’t think this is what she wanted, though…
Wow...that's...
✧☽◯☾✧
The time changes. Judging by the angle of the sun, a season had passed since the last scene. Instead of Yeon, the emperor stands by Ravi in the workshop room.
"Extraordinary. What is this scene?"
✧ Ravi: The valleys one might expect to see, if the clouds were ever clear on the high mountains.
"And this?" He picks up another painting
✧ Ravi: My town square. The last thing I saw before leaving for the Palace.
"But there are no people in this scene."
✧ Ravi: No one sent me off.
"I see. Since you seem to love your 'home' so much, why don't you paint it for the palace?"
✧☽◯☾✧
The twisted ruler ordered his artisan to paint first, what she held most dearly to her heart.
The artisan complied, and showed him the only things she'd brought from her homeland.But that was not the taboo-breaking "true form" of the deity he was looking for.
Once again, he ordered her to paint.
Once again, the artist did as he ordered, showing him the great mountains and its inhabitants. But this was not the result he sought either.Enraged but out of ideas, he stormed around the room, smashing everything in sight. All under the same cold stare of his artisan.
When he had broken everything there was to break, the artisan looked him in the eyes...
And threw her own two paintings into the fire.
---
Some time later, a certain servant digs through the embers. They pull out the charred remains of the paintings.
Checking quickly if the coast is clear, they restore the paintings to their original state, and hide them in their clothes.
✧☽◯☾✧
✧ You: Those were the first two paintings in the gallery! She destroyed them, and then...Yeon saved them. What was so bad about that?
✧ Grant: The problem isn’t that they saved the paintings…it’s that they broke the taboo in the first place. Deities cannot let their emotions and bias affect the way they interact with the world.
✧ Grant: Stories are derived from facts, young’un. There are truths behind the morals they try to teach.
✧☽◯☾✧
The scene rebuilds itself into Ravi inside her workshop. More time has passed, because there are several new paintings in the room. You don’t recognize any of them. Yeon enters the room, still disguised as a servant.
Yeon: Your work has always been beautiful, but they have only gotten better with time.
✧ Ravi: The emperor’s endless requests seem to speak otherwise.
Yeon: Ravi…you’ve always painted for others, have you ever thought about creating one for yourself? A recollection of your life maybe—a ‘magnum opus’—for people to recognize and remember you by.
Ravi gives Yeon a sidelong glance.
✧ Ravi: Why would I want that? I have
always drawn for myself.
Someday I will die, and then who will be left to understand the meaning of my work? You, who will surely meet a similar end?
Yeon falters, unsure of how to respond.
<< But…I want to remember you. >>
The selfish words they can’t say out loud hang heavy in the air.
---
The painter sits alone in her workshop, surrounded by a great number of her ink paintings. Light snow falls outside of her window, melting as they drift into the fire-lit room.
<< It’s the fifth 'first snow' I’ve seen here. If the seasons match those at home, I must be around twenty four now. >>
<< Twenty-four…is a good age to be. >>
She must have had a thought—perhaps one that she had been sitting on for a while but did not want to act upon—because now she clears her table and sets up a new canvas.
She pauses for a moment before taking a deep breath, closing her eyes, and beginning to paint from memory.
Her ink strokes blossom on the paper. A cliff to the left, a different mountain peak on the right.
It’s a scene that gives you a strange feeling, but you can’t remember why.
She paints the bare branches of a tree.
…
The painter pauses, as if trying to recall a distant moment.
Then she adds to the scene the image of a familiar pale stallion.
---
✧ You: Wait, what?! She saw Yeon’s real form? When?
✧ Grant: This…this was the mountain, where they first met. Yeon asked her earnestly to draw something important from her life…but didn’t tell her the truth.
✧ Grant: Her life was in those mountains. But the taboo...what the emperor couldn’t make her do, Yeon did…for him.
Oh, gods…
Someone approaches from behind all of you. To your horror, you turn and see the flame-lit madness dancing across the face of the Emperor.
---
Word spread like wildfire.
The great emperor made sure news of the commoner artisan’s transgression was known far and wide. Where people had resented her before, they now grew excited with outrage.
“Who does she think she is? How audacious, attempting to depict beings beyond our understanding.”
“A common painter would be lucky to paint just anyone, but the deities?! Is she mad, foolish, or both?”
“Perhaps the praise got to her head,” another sneered, “For five years she soaked in the glow of the capital…she’s forgotten who she really is…livestock, just like us.”
“What does she go by now? Something about a ‘rain of ink’?”
“Well, this rain of ink has proven its courage to slash the clouds and pierce the sky. To be the one among us to stand up to the heavenly beings…funny, isn’t it? It suits her well now.”
“Her hubris shall be her downfall. For a common painter she has gone too far…surely, the gods will not overlook this.”
In the spring rain, the emperor observes the unease from his pavilion alone.
“Hah…this is starting to get interesting. I’m curious to see what you will do, great heavenly spirits. How will you punish someone who has nothing?”
✧☽◯☾✧
The scene devolves into a deluge of ink.
You’re back in the deities’ abode, where Yeon faces the heavenly council—an intimidating circular hall seated by twelve golden figures.
“You would never have understood this hadn’t we shown you, foolish child!”
Yeon: But that’s not fair! Ravi didn’t know!
"You still do not understand! It was never ‘your’ mortal who would harm you. The innate nature of their kind is to destroy their own—there is a reason we warned against your behaviors, but you chose to disobey. "
Yeon: What? Wait, no! Please spare her—this was my fault, she didn’t know anything! Why is she being punished for something I did?
That’s right, it was your mistake.
Remember this and learn, Yeon: whatever happens next, it was you who allowed her kind to do this.
Yeon: No! Let me return…I can fix this! I just have to…
"You’ve done enough harm to that poor soul! Has ‘trying to help’ ever worked in your favor?"
Yeon: I…You’re not saying…
What…what did you do to her?
“We” have done nothing.
“You” must learn for yourself what their kind are capable of doing to their own. Mortals are…such fragile things to be handled by those who are indestructible.
And you, baleful moon, must also choose what you will do next. Will you break her yourself, with those indestructible hands of yours?
---
The young god weeps with the paintings they’d rescued from the fire before, as if holding onto them would give them the strength to endure the time to come.
✧☽◯☾✧
✧ You: The gods wouldn't...
✧ Grant: No. Deities do not interfere with actual mortal lives. They had to find a different form of punishment...
✧ You: But you heard them, too! What did they take away from her? She had nothing to begin with...maybe they took Yeon away?
✧ Grant: If the gallery wants to show us, we will know soon.
✧☽◯☾✧
The painter is in her workshop again, looking down at a painting she had been working on. She's alive, for the time being, and the branches outside the window are still bare. Not much time has passed.
The painting before her looks rather washed out, like it had been left out in the sunlight for too long.
Ravi frowns.
✧ Ravi: How long was I away? It shouldn't have faded this much. Maybe I put too much water in the wash.
But she knows this could not have been the case, she would not have made that sort of mistake. Still, the painter sets up a new plate of ink and begins to layer wash over the faded parts.
<< ... >>
There's no discernable difference. Maybe this stick was defective? She repeats the task again.
<< ... >>
And again.
---
The night goes on, the firelight grows dim. The plates of ink empty one by one, but she doesn't notice.
The bare branches outside the window begin to bud.
✧☽◯☾✧
The scene fades and reassembles, and you and Grant find yourselves back outside the room. Ravi wakes up slowly and wanders to the desk, where the flower buds have begun to bloom.
✧ Ravi: Huh? I fell asleep again.
✧ Ravi: But...why do I keep dreaming about painting? This piece looks the same to me every morning.
She holds up the painting she'd been working on in the 'dream', and you hold back a scream.
The painting is nearly pitch black, nothing like the elegant washes she'd made before. She wasn't dreaming. She'd been layering on wash without noticing anything changing.
✧ You: Grant...She...she's been doing the same thing over and over without realizing...
Grant's voice trails off
You both turn back towards Ravi.
And you see her smiling at her mangled painting.
✧☽◯☾✧
With your heart pounding in your chest and the blood rushing in your ears, the ink shifts once more.
The room is unrecognizable. Ink covers the wall, the table, the floor, and all the furniture in the room. The painter's beautiful inkwash works are drowned in dark pigment.
It covers everything in sight, including the artist herself. Ravi is seated at the desk again. Her eyes aren't focused quite right. Each stroke feels like a slash, a punishing retort, her denial laid on its surface.
Surrounding her is a haphazard array of plates containing ink. It looks as though she'd been experimenting with different mixes.
✧ Grant: Heavens...It can't be.
✧ You: She's gone mad! What's going on? How did this happen?
✧ Grant: No...look at how she's painting
You look over her shoulder. Ravi's brushstrokes are not disorganized, nor do they seem like a product of insanity. Her eyes are less of unfocused, and more of trying to concentrate on something between her and the paper she's painting on.
Her trembling doesn’t stem from instability, but rather frustration and anger.
✧ You: It looks like...she's painting from memory.
✧ Grant: She's not crazy. She just...no matter how much pigment she uses, she can't see the ink anymore.
What they took away...was her ability to see her own paintings.
✧☽◯☾✧
Outside, there are no servants in this corridor. You see several of them hurry past the intersection, taking great care to stay out of the way.
Their attitudes are different—where people had envied and resented her before, they now felt pity.
"Her style has changed...Ink wash colors are not this vivid...it's strong, too strong..."
"Those 'experiments' of hers are terrifying. It's like she's obsessed with finding the strongest color, the darkest ink."
"How many months has it been? She never leaves except to get materials...how has she lived this long without eating?"
"Hey, you there! Don't go down that hall. It is a mess...there's ink everywhere. She's gone mad beyond saving. Truly, they showed no mercy this time...what are you doing?!"
A pale-haired servant pushes their way past the others and approaches the door, touching a trembling hand to its surface.
✧ You: That's...Yeon! I thought they weren't coming back!
Grant grips your shoulder and almost growls.
✧ Grant: ...Look who's watching.
On the other side of the courtyard, you see the regal form of Emperor Dae watching the scene, contempt and elation etched onto every corner of his face.
An advisor next to him is speaking.
"Your highness! This is the last straw. That mad artisan of yours is spending enough gold to feed several villages on her ridiculous ink!"
Dae doesn't look at him.
Dae: Let her. Empty the coffers.
"Your highness!"
The advisor bows and retreats as the emperor waves him away.
Dae: ...Nothing will be left of our dearest Ravi. All that's left will be the fading embers of that once brilliant soul. Ahh, I’m
simply overjoyed.
But I’m far more curious about you. Show me what helplessness looks like on a god,
baleful moon Yeon.
---
Yeon sinks to the floor and kneels before the door. Time passes, fewer and fewer people pass, until they are the only one left. Not even the emperor returns.
You catch their final weeping words, and the pain you had felt when you'd heard them in the gallery comes rushing back.
Yeon: Ravi, please come outside, don’t leave me alone…
Yeon: Please look at me, just one more time…
Tell me that it’s my fault, all mine! …Though i have no right to ask that of you…
The door doesn't open again.
✧☽◯☾✧
The shifting stops, and your surroundings fade to black.
<< In my dream i rode the wind, scattering like the petals outside my window. >>
<< But those same petals taunt me.
My paintings look different each time I picture them in my mind. Do you know how hollow it feels, to lose yourself? Nothing I draw makes sense anymore. >>
<< I think I’d like that too. When I leave, I want to scatter just like those beautiful petals who owe no one their beauty and are unbound by worldly attachments. >>
<< Do you know what's really funny to me? >>
<< The rain in my dreams...is always clear. >>
✧☽◯☾✧
The spinning picks up, and you feel yourself being funneled into a new landscape, possibly back into the manor.
You’re in the narrow hallway of a dwelling, and the uneven surface has you leaning against the walls. When you pull away, your hand has picked up black pigment from the surface you touched. There are stains all over the walls and floors, layered on top of each other. Some are less saturated than others, having faded out into blue or purple hues.
Your surroundings rush past you again like morphing watercolor. The scene changes.
In a field directly exposed to the heavens, you briefly see her reach for the star-streaked sky.
---
Another whirlwind of rushing shapes, and the gallery walls come rushing back to you. But the roof is gone.
You look up into the open sky above and see the moon the young woman had stood under on that starry night. The baleful moon, unchanged all this time.
Grant is frozen at your side, disbelief written over his face.
✧ Rose: Monsieur! What's happening?
Rose’s alarmed expression tells you she hadn’t seen any of the memories the two of you just had. Before any of you get a chance to recover, the last of the hall clicks into place and moonlight begins to stream in from the open roof.
The final painting mends under its cold glow.
As soon as it’s complete, the hall freezes. You turn and see that the suspended ink wisps, the shifting halls, and even Rose’s movement—all of them came to an abrupt halt.
The walls rush away from you.
The moon, the completed gallery; it seems they still have one more memory to show you.
Ink grass blossoms beneath your feet; walls and pillars form as wash flows in linear patterns. the sky and the clouds appear to bloom as if ink and water had met on the phantom canvas above your head.
It’s raining in jets of light mist, sending about sprays that reduce your vision significantly.
You recognize the entrance of the manor before you—it looks slightly smaller than it does now, and the courtyard is arranged differently—the manor of the past. There's a huddled shape on the ground, covering a canvas wrap with their body. In front of the great doors stands two figures.
You gasp. The one closer to you is Ambrose, the owner of the manor. Behind them weaves the pale form of Estate. And kneeling before the two of them...
Yeon.
✧ You: Yeon! They look...
✧ Grant: Older. They must have given up their immortality when they came back for Ravi.
✧ You: But it was...too late.
The two of you move closer to hear the voices better.
Yeon: Please… there is nowhere else to go…please protect them…I beg you.
Ambrose speaks in a soft voice, the same way they'd spoken to you.
✧ Ambrose: You have been searching for a place like this. Somewhere to protect these four paintings. But you would value them greater than your life?
Yeon: "
Especially my life," they say hoarsely, bowed.
---
A fallen deity appeared at the estate, bearing four paintings made by the mortal they'd dedicated themselves wholly to.
The manor does not turn away guests in need.
The paintings of the feather, the bird, the carp, and the night sky laid the cornerstones of the Manor Gallery, and their faithful guardian would stay with them until the end of their days.
But the deity did not know that the painter herself had wished to scatter.
And unknowingly, with their last mortal breath, they had bound her worldly attachments to the manor.
✧☽◯☾✧
The last scene fades, and you find yourself once again standing under the open sky of the gallery hall, bathed in moonlight.
✧ You: Grant! I...I don't understand. How was this all just
buried? How was there
nothing on a conflict that involved the literal gods?
All of it forgotten...just like that?
Grant looks as shaken as you feel, but shakes his head.
✧ Grant: History is written by the
victors. I’ve…overlooked a crucial detail.
✧ Grant: I'd always thought the key part of this mystery was how all of Yuumo's works and key parts of historical texts were destroyed around the time of her death. I...just didn't think she passed so young.
✧ You: But someone sabotaged the works anyway. Do you think it was the emperor?
✧ Grant: Dae seemed like the prideful and arrogant one, according to these memories. Like all rulers, he must have not wanted these blemishes to be recorded with his reign...and ordered the destruction of her works hoping to wipe her from history.
"Close, but not quite."
You whirl around and come face to face with a ghost emerging from the wispy, jet-black ink.
Ravi.
Or rather, the painter 'Yuumo'
✧ Yuumo: Between a naive deity who chose to die like a mortal, a crazed emperor who let his grudge with the gods ruin his country, and a proud artist who lost the only thing that ever mattered to her—
Who do you think remained standing to claim this 'victory'?
---
