She's a Rainbow

Koshka sighed, it had been a while since she'd thought of him. 

Really thought of him, anyway. Everyday, somewhere at the back of her mind she guessed she must think of him. But calling to mind his face, his voice. It was pleasant to be lost in memory.

"Go on girl, continue, please," encouraged Treave across the room. His little face peered out from around the canvas, his nose preceding the rest of him by some way, before he added, "but keep your chin up, no moving now!"

Koshka gave a cough and reclaimed her proper pose, her face tilted away to expose her neck and shoulders, staring up towards the corner of the tiny studio. Her arm was draped across her reclining body languidly, one knee coyly raised. 

"Well... I don't know what to say about him really. I suppose he was kind. Charming even," the ghost of a smile lit her lips, her fangs showing at the corners of her mouth, "Plenty of them are, of course. But him... he was different. You believe in love at first sight?"

Treave gave a theatrical sigh from behind his easel, and without leaning to look at Koshka to respond, "My dear I am an artist. A thousand times a day I fall in love with a sight." 

"Well then... you understand."

"Well go on then, tell the rest of the story," he said. Behind the easel Koshka could only see the feet of the diminutive artist balanced on his stool, and she heard the rattle of one brush being placed in the water pot and another retrieved.

"I spend a lot of time thinking... where was he from? Because he told me, I know he did. He lay there with me afterwards and he told me all sorts of things. What he'd seen on his travels, how beautiful Waterdeep was from the sea. That there was so much else to see out there. And he told me where he was from but... I just can't for the life of me remember."

"What do you remember?" came the calm and inquisitive voice of the gnome, and Koshka giggled.

"I remember his hair. It was black, and curly, I curled it around my fingers as he lay there. And his eyes, they were brown. Deep and dark and he looked right into you when he talked to you. I remember the exact size and shape of his... well, you get the idea. I remember so much, but not where he came from."

"And what happened?" 

Koshka chewed on her lip before she continued the story. It was so quiet in the room, the scratching of the brush on canvas. Dimly from outside the rom, the heartbeat bustle of Waterdeep noon could be heard.

"Well, I was laying there, on my bed, watching him dress. That nice sailors shirt, strapping on his belt, shiny silver bosuns whistle dangling from it. He came and pulled the covers back and looked at me, and said that I should come with him. Leave for adventure, on his boat."

Koshka studied the knots and whorls in the old wood boards in the ceiling, the tip of her tail fought the urge to twitch.

"So many say that, of course. 'Come with me! I'll leave the wife!' or 'Run away with me, I'll take you away from all this!'" Koshka smiled ruefully, and her white eyebrows tilted ever so slightly apart, "so I just laughed and said next time. He was still smiling at me when he left, and said he wished I'd change my mind. And I just lay there and thought for a while."

Koshka heard the cry of a merchant somewhere outside, the clack of boots in the streets. The creak of a cart going down the lane. 

"I dressed so fast I forgot to button my shirt properly. I remember running, through the alley down towards the dock. Knocked over old blind Albert who sells the shells at the corner by the fish market, I was running so fast."

Koshka listened to the slow brush strokes from behind the canvas for a moment, then:

"When I finally got to the right berth, it was empty. I watched it then, parting waves not too far out the harbour. Big ship it was, all deep dark wood, blazing white sails, a lion on them. The name he told me, The Bride of Brythony, on the back all in pretty gold letters. Up on the front, the figurehead was an Angel, wings and everything."

Koshka tail gave a flick, her attention returning slowly to the room around her. The smell of paint, her own heartbeat.

"I watched that ship until it was a dot on the horizon, and then until it was nothing. I never found out where it went, and it never came back to Waterdeep again. I... suppose I think about what might have happened if I'd been on it, quite a lot."

There was quiet in the room, and Koshka flicked her eyes aside to see Treave smiling at her. 

"Thankyou, dear girl. I always find it calms my models to chat, take their mind somewhere else."

As the gnome approached, Koshka raised one shapely eyebrow.

"Done so soon?" 

Treave gave a shrug.

"Not just yet, but in a foolish mistake I should have foreseen, I did run out of red paint. You're vibrant, you know."

"I've been told. Naturally catches the eye," Koshka said, rising from the low chaise lounge and its many pillows, and stretching. Treave looked up at the Tiefling and removed his tiny spectacles to clean them on his smock. 

"I do understand though, my girl," he said as Koshka bent over to begin retrieving her clothes, "Sometimes you only get one chance to capture something. I try my hardest to." 

He gestured his little arms around him. Although Treave was by far best known for his many portraits of the women of the realms relieved of the burden of any clothing, in between were curious sights captured in his colours. The light on wet cobblestones, gleaming fruit on market stalls, flapping sails at dawn. 

"There's many beautiful things in the city, Koshka," Treave said as he replaced his newly cleaned glasses, "It's a blessing when one of them lingers for more than just a moment."

Koshka smiled playfully down at the tiny figure, and placed her hands on her hips.

"You can't flatter yourself out of the models wages, by the way, little man." she said.

"Wouldn't dream of it, my dear."