Draw Me Like One Of Your Fae Girls [Titania]

[Lily]

The sun was setting, evening stalked the streets, and the people of Castle Town were all generally heading to bed. Except one little girl who was frantically trying to decide if the red cushion should be in front of the green cushion or if the green one should be in front of the red one and why the hell hadn't she bought matching cushions or even any decent furniture for the studio her sponsor would be here any minute oh god oh god oh god

A while back, Lily had been lucky enough to have been noticed by the queen of the fairies. Titania financed the majority of Lily's art, and therefore the majority of her life. Even in Castle Town the queen's name held weight. A weight she had used indiscriminately to batter down doors that had been previously closed to her.

So whenever she heard Titania was coming by for a visit it became really really really important to her that she impress her patron. Her studio was suddenly organized, fine wine, cheeses and fruits were on hand, and everything was clean as a whistle. Which left the sudden vast amount of empty floorspace she didn't know what to do with. The only real furniture she had in that studio was a cramped little cubbyhole with a bed, some shitty chairs, one marginally less shitty table and some food.

Which comes back to the cushions. The cushions went on a crimson chair, which made it even worse. She hadn't even bought this crap, it was on loan from a friend. If she hadn't taken an hour to get her hair to stay down and tamed into something resembling a hairstyle she would be tearing it out right now.

Green one on top. Yeah, definitely.

The downside to Titania's visits was the lack of sleep. She didn't sleep at all, then obsessively stuck to the perfect sleep schedule, then spent the night before the fated day too hyper-tense to sleep at all.

So she hadn't slept in a couple days. No biggie, nothing she couldn't handle. Nothing she hadn't done before. Everything was ready. She was calm, poised, the perfect choice to represent the Fae court in all its splendor. Idly, Lily brightened one of the lamps just a tad, grabbed a slice of cheese, popped it into her mouth and immediately started choking on it when there was a knock on the door.

Coughing and choking and gasping for breath, Lily still somehow managed to leap over to the door and pull it open before doubling over and gasping like a fish out of water.

Part of her hoped she'd just choke to death then and there. She'd prepared this for days and now she was about to get murdered by a piece of cheese. Great.

[titania]

It had been far too long since Titania had gone to check on her investment. Lily's art had earned the respect of the queen and quickly began to sponsor the young artistic Kokiri.

She had hand-picked her DRESS for the occasion, knowing that she would undoubtedly be made a model for the evening. The eyes were on her as she made her way towards the house. A knock on the door and immediately there appeared to be a heavy commotion. As the door opened in front of her she found Lily choking. Immediately the gorgeous queen was playing the role of nurse, and held a hand to Lily's throat. With a touch of Titania's magic, the cheese found its way down Lily's throat. Titania sighed with relief as Lily was very much alive.

"Lily, are you alright? she asked in a concerned way. Lily always went overboard when the queen visited, and as Titania looked around, she noticed this time was clearly no exception. "I'd ask how you are, but I'm afraid of the answer." Poor Lily never understood that she didn't have to do all that work just to please Titania, she just had to work hard and continue to churn out good art.

As Lily recovered, Titania took a glass of wine and a piece of cheese. Putting the two of them always felt snooty, but it tasted so good. An upside of her visits were Lily's choice of refreshments, though Titania always wondered where she got the wine, since as a Kokiri she looked like a child.

[Lily]

And just like that, Lily could breathe again. Red with embarrassment (and near-asphyxiation), Lily straightened up and gave Titania her deepest curtsy. There was an image in this she really liked. The Lady of the Forest laying hands on her wounded vassal. She filed that away for future reference. "I'm alright, your maj- my la- ma'am- Titania." She had never quite gotten used to Titania's nonchalant approach to their meetings. From what she'd heard, Titania was hundreds of years old, and one of the most powerful people in the land, and they were on a first-name basis.

Gods and spirits, she needed a drink. Pouring herself some wine, Lily sat down in the chair opposite the one she'd been agonizing over just moments ago. "I've been fine, really. Some pirates parked their flying ship on the roof last week. Couple of days after that I was briefly accosted by a ruffian. It was nothing that kept me from my work, as you can see," she said, motioning at the select pieces she'd had hung on the walls. Lily's style ranged from... well, everything, really. The vast majority of her work was paintings, but she could also work to a lesser extent with graphite, coal, velvet, tailoring and, to round out her skillset, tattoos.

Lily set her (already half-drained) cup down on the small table next to her chair, exchanging it for a sketch pad and a stick of coal. "Would you mind if I draw you while we talk? It's been too long since I've gotten you to model for me."

It had been even longer since she'd gotten a beautiful woman to model for her, but she didn't need to know that. Birds, stones, work, the usual.

[titania]

Titania sipped her wine as Lily explained her recent events. It was quite the exciting series of events, pirates, ruffians and the like. However, Lily was quite right that it had not kept her from her work. Quite the range of pieces, but they all had one thing in common. They all were of the highest quality. Titania was proud that she was the sponsor for such a phenom artist, though for all the fairy queen's knowledge, Lily could be 300 years old and had centuries to perfect her technique.

"If only a queen's life were as exciting. The last time a ruffian came to the castle, I invited him." And the last time someone infiltrated the castle, it was her. Quite the boring life. But visiting people like Lily made things better. And now the Kokiri wanted her to model.

"Lily, what kind of sponsor would I be if I didn't model for you?" Titania gulped down the last of her wine glass and laid herself across the chair. "Would you prefer the artistic nude or the elegant model?" The fairy queen had no qualms about being nude. It probably wouldn't be in the main hall of the castle, but she'd find a place for it.

As the modeling began, Titania simply had to ask Lily about something. "So Lily, I've been meaning to ask you something. You look like you're maybe eight or nine, but as a Kokiri your age is a mystery. Exactly how old are you?"

[Lily]

Giggling briefly at Titania's response, Lily twirled the coal between her fingers, relishing its texture. With the sketch pad between them, Lily was much more at ease. She didn't know how to handle having a patron or updating them on her progress. But drawing someone? She could totally do that.

"You'd be doing me a kindness by letting me draw you in the nude. I don't get many opportunities to draw nudes, much less paint them. Much less a body so ideal. I guess people just aren't comfortable taking off their clothes around me." She sighed, then shrugged as she started drawing. Her eyes only ever left Titania for brief seconds at a time as she teased the supple fullness of Titania's curves on to the paper. In minutes she had placed the suggestion of a figure on to the paper, heart pounding as she did her best to capture the essence of her patron, shaping the shadows with almost intimate touches.

Titania's question surprised Lily, but didn't bother her. What she appreciated about her patron was her complete disregard of Lily's apparent age. Most other people weren't quite so considerate. "In nine days I'll be turning twenty three," she said simply, but not without pride. She knew almost nothing of the Kokiri, her own people--a fact she tried not to advertise--but she took a strange pride in her age. Just because she looked like a child didn't mean she was one. This was one of the main reasons for her constant, obsessive practice. Could a child have made all of this possible? Could a child get to where she was now, speaking to the Fairy Queen as if they were equals?

"Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?" She asked, making small talk.

[titania]

Before long, Titania was nude in front of Lily, her hand resting along her inner thigh while the other stretched out past her, dangling off of the seat. It was a position she was quite comfortable with, though she wished for someone beyond an artist to appreciate it. In time, plenty would be able to, as she would be immortalized in a portrait.

As Lily gave her answer to the age question, Titania was quite surprised. Lily was quite close to the age of the fairy queen herself, older by only a few months, but quite young for a Kokiri. "Quite young for a Kokiri. Impressive that you've accomplished so much despite being the same age as your sponsor." Realizing she was vocalizing with her hands as well as her mouth, Titania retreated her hands to their portrait positions, smiling at the scenario.

"I have considered the idea of doing so, but there are many detriments to someone in my position getting a tattoo. Not the least of which being the court would probably stage a coup and remove me from power. Besides, I like to revel in my own elegance, and I don't really see tattoos as very elegant." There was a fun element to having a tattoo, but Titania liked her body better pure, serene, unblemished. While there were many advantages to a tattoo, there were enough reasons for her to decide against it.

[Lily]

Lily actually laughed out loud at Titania's segue into her own age. "Wow. Wow. This whole time I've been estimating your age at three digits. In a totally respectful not-old kind of way, I swear."

"Have I ever shown you mine?" She was wearing her usual outfit, not having had time to find something more formal while organizing her studio to fit the two of them. "I did the shackles myself," she said, indicating the delicate curled vines around her wrists. "The lilies are by my teacher. She never believed in letting anyone whose lives she'd touched go uninked. I did the rose myself the first time a girl ever showed genuine interest in me. You can guess how well that worked out." A mixed look of genuine frustration and sadness flashed over her face, and she resumed her work. While she talked, she somehow managed to balance displaying her tattoos and drawing at the same time.

After a long silence, Lily switched the subject. "I don't think I ever properly thanked you, Titania. For showing an interest in me. For talking to me. For believing in me. I... don't exactly have a lot of friends here."

[titania]

Titania pouted, Lily obviously meant the comments in a nice way, but the way it was said was too funny for her to not respond to. The pout was not serious, as evidenced by the fact that her visage cracked.

"No Lily, us fairies are not ageless. That's just the Kokiri. To be fair, I've been on the throne for a mere four years, though it feels like an eternity." The topic switched to the tattoos upon Lily's body and Titania quickly went back to posing. The tattoos were very nice. Lily was certainly an artist in many ways. And she had a teacher, which was not surprising.

"Your tattoos definitely work for you. They're incredibly well done, all of them." When Lily's face saddened, Titania knew the subject was a bit touchy, and she would not ask about it. Besides, she was being thanked for her involvement in Lily's life. Titania's face, in a rare occurrence, turned a bit red with embarrasment. "There's no need to thank me Lily, you do good work, and it deserves to be seen, and it is an honor to represent you. However, you do worry me. I know being a Kokiri and therefore always a child in appearance means your options in being social are somewhat limited, especially when it comes to romance. But I think you need to get out, be active, meet some people, you know what I'm talking about?" Titania understood the importance of social contact. A social butterfly herself, she worried about people like Lily whose contact was limited.

[Lily]

"I know, I know," she said, the tone of her voice indicating that she had obviously considered this before. Agonized over it, really. "It's just... I don't know. Out there, nobody appreciates me for who I am. And even if I do find someone who can get over my appearance I don't know how to talk to them. All I know is my art. Nobody's interested in art."

A few finishing touches and the drawing was done. Lily got out of her seat and walked over to one of her work tables, careful not to touch the image or let Titania catch a glimpse of it. Setting the image down, Lily collected a small hourglass from a drawer and set it on the table. "It's done. This'll only take a minute. Feel free to get dressed if you like." In the mean time Lily vanished into the single cramped room set aside as living space and returned with a bottle of something that was definitely not wine. You could tell by the way it was labelled in her own hand: 'BAD-IDEA BRANDY: IF YOU'RE DRINKING THIS THEN SOMETHING IS WRONG'.

Stuffing some cheese into her mouth and pouring herself a miniscule dose of bad ideas, Lily grabbed the drawing, remarkably careless of its condition now that the hourglass had run dry and handed it to Titania.

On that paper was Lily's best and truest effort to capture Titania in all her radiant glory and heartbreaking beauty and limitless generosity and infinite wisdom and experience. It represented Lily's endless gratitude for her support and bottomless passion for her work and the simple expression of her skills, honed daily and often nightly because she didn't have anything better to do.

She was pretty satisfied with it. "Don't worry about damaging it," she told Titania. "Time's stopped for that paper. You could bury it in manure and light it on fire and it won't even scuff." With that, she slugged back the brandy and poured herself some more and offered some to the queen.

Something in Titania's comment had gotten to her. Ageless. That word terrified her, dragging up the long-buried bitterness the bad-idea brandy was intended to handle. Bitterness Titania was too good of a person to have it dumped on her. So she kept it in. "Can I ask you something? I've heard rumors about your, ah, choice of company?" Oh fantastic job Lily well done that was a flawless sentence. It deserved another drink. Already she could feel a cozy haze slowly strangling her higher thought processes. "How do you do it? That seduction thing. How the fuck does it work? Can you teach me?"

[titania]

Titania couldn't do much to console Lily. "People look at you and see a small child. So few have laid eyes on a kokiri in their life. It's an unfortunate disadvantage of the race, and a likely reason why so many stay in the grove."

As Lily temporarily exited the room, Titania began to redress herself. She was still working on it when Lily returned with her bottle of bad ideas. She had just finished when she was handed a glass of the brandy. Titania took a good whiff of it. Strong stuff for sure. Titania raised the glass up high. "To the wonderful world of art." And just like that, the bad ideas were gone, to be replaced with more idea-like bad ideas.

"Ageless paper. What will they think of next?" Taking the painting, she examined it for a moment while her kind hostess was pouring her another glass of bad ideas. It was wonderful, a perfect representation of the fairy queen in all her splendor.

Taking the glass and emptying it, Lily began to question Titania on the art of seduction. Wait? Lily wanted to know how seduction worked? The brandy nearly shot out of Titania's nose in surprise as she heard this. Hearing it was very surprising, especially in this state.

"Seduction? Let me tell you something Lily, seduction is an art. An art that can be performed in a variety of ways. The way I see it, it's all about interest. And it's not too hard to get men interested, I'm lucky in that regard, men tend to get interested quickly when I'm around. A friendly shake of the right body part to get their attention, maybe a few kind words, throw in an innuendo and you've got yourself a man for the night. Of course, one must always be careful. You never know when you've seduced the wrong person and his angry wife comes at you with a frying pan." Titania laughed heartily, remembering the time not long ago when she had relations with a certain man whose sister tried to kill her. Good times.

"As for teaching, I can certainly teach, but given your childlike body I doubt it'd work. You might get the occasional creepy willing guy, but I avoid them like Gerudo raiding parties."

[Lily]

As Titania talked, Lily listened with only half an ear. "Uh huh. All that would be so useful. If I wanted me a man."

Lily emptied her glass once more and shifted in her chair so that she was lying in it, head on one armrest, legs hanging over the other, giving up all pretense that this was still a patron-artist meeting. That part was done with, as far as she was concerned. Now was the time to wallow in acid.

"I'm almost thirty. And drunk. And tired. Haven't slept since... Tuesday?"

Lily lifted the bottle to pour herself another drink and seemed to read the label for the first time. She set the bottle down with slow and deliberate care. "I mean, why should I sleep when I can work? All I ever do is work. Goddesses help me, I'm so alone. Why am I even telling you this? I don't even know you that well. You're not my fairy."

Lily was a mean, poisonous drunk. To herself.

All the other kokiri got fairies.

What did she get?

Nothing. She had no one. Nobody cared about her even a little bit. Nobody would ever even notice if she just vanished.

[titania]

And suddenly Lily had decided to poison the mood. Now she was wallowing in her own self-loathing, having only her work to keep her company, not having a fairy partner...wait a sec? Not having a fairy partner?

The closest thing Titania could muster to a stern look appeared on her face, staring down the kokiri girl who probably needed to cool down. "Lily, you're not almost thirty, you're twenty-two, let's not exaggerate here. Second, you need to sleep. Trust me, it'll do you a world of good. Third, and I know this is probably my fault, but if you wanted a fairy, you should have told me. Who do you think oversees the fairy screening?" Titania made a note to find Lily an appropriate partner when she returned to the grove. The poor girl deserved it.

Standing up and adjusting her dress, Titania walked over to Lily and gave the kokiri a big hug. "Calm yourself Lily, and know that I'm here for you. But I can only do so much if you aren't there for you."

[Lily]

"You could be my fairy," Lily slurred as she returned Titania's hug. "I'd even move to the grove. I can work anywhere."

There was a brief pause while Lily gathered what coherence and courage she had left. "'specially with a muse like you, whispering in my ear. Y'know, T'tania, y' could've kept th' dress off."

She moved her hands to Titania's back, clutching with a kind of panicked oh-god-what-am-I-doing need. "Meant what I said, yaknow. You'd look amazing with a tattoo. Y'should lemme take a closer look at your skin. I could show you some of my... ideas."

It was almost word for word what the Gerudo who'd taught her tattooing had frequently used. And it had worked more times than Lily could count. Though with the wine and brandy and recently nude Titania swimming in her head Lily would probably only be able to count to banana before falling asleep.

[titania]

Titania couldn't help but laugh at Lily's suggestion. "I love the idea, but the court would throw a fit. I'm too independent to be anyone's companion anyway." She hugged the small kokiri girl even tighter as she seemed to be falling or something like that. The girl was adorable in her own way.

The concept of her having a tattoo was quite intriguing. Even though the idea would displease the court, forget them. This was a concept worth investigating. "Well what would you suggest for someone like me? Knowing you, you already have ideas in your head. As for the dress... she slipped the shoulder straps off and the dress slipped to the ground. The feeling was very liberating, though it was a bit awkward with Lily looking like she was eight.

[Lily]

Lily's exaggerated pout quickly turned into an openmouthed stare as the dress pooled on the floor. "I- I gotta be honest here. I didn't really expect that to work."

She paced rather unsteadily around Titania, taking her time and allowing herself to think less like an artist and truly appreciate the fairy queen. Before she knew it she was putting her hands on her, exploring Titania's back, the muscles of her stomach, her hips, her arms, her- "Oh goddess, I am far too drunk for this."

And yet, as Lily's hands passed over Titania's skin, they left behind images. Spirals, patterns, pictures. Fairies in flight, nonsense words and bits of half-remembered poetry. They were warm-up sketches, in a way. They faded as fast as they came, like vibrant ivy growing on skin with a fire burning after it. It was a stream of consciousness - a flickering slideshow of what was going through Lily's head. She thought almost exclusively in images.

And in her state many of these images were really not appropriate for display in court. Or anywhere. On the bright side, they were exquisitely detailed. Almost a shame they faded so quickly, really.

As if snapping out of a trance, Lily pulled back her hands, taking a step back and blushing. The tattoos were a magic she hadn't used in years. Some of it had bled into her own skin, forming curling patterns around her eyes and, though she didn't know it, fairy wings covering her back. "Sorry. Sorry. This isn't going so well. Goddess help me but you're beautiful. Your magic doesn't cover brandy, does it?"

Chuckling despite herself, Lily took a deep breath. She held it in. Then let go. Breathe. Hold. Release. Breathe. Hold. Release. "What's most important to you, Titania? What's your greatest or most important memory? What is it that you'd feel good about displaying on your skin for all to see?"

Lily's hands clutched at the hem of her skirt. All she really wanted to do was touch Titania again. The rest was just details. She found herself understanding her old teacher's behavior more and more.