Portraits

The rain had stopped, but the cumulonimbus clouds in the sky had not dispersed immediately.

At the distant boundary between sky and sea, golden sunlight streamed through, gilding both the sea surface and the clouds with streaks of gold.

Castleton Harbour was also bathed in the sunset at that moment.

Roy walked along Brown Street. This time, he did not feel like anyone was following him, and he did not stop when he passed the Potion Shop...

However, he did run into Sabrina as she stepped out of a Long Carriage.

The long-legged elven beauty did not wait for Roy to join her and simply walked ahead along the street.

With no one following him, Roy did not want to force his way to Sabrina's side. He followed at a distance, watching her model-like figure outlined clearly by the sunset, her shadow stretching long across the road.

The long street was still wet, and the drains remained full as great amounts of standing water flowed through the gutters toward the sea.

After returning home, Roy took a bath, changed into dry clothes, washed the set he had been wearing, and hung it on the clothesline on the terrace.

Moira was standing out on the terrace, her forearms resting against the railing as she quietly watched the sun slowly sink beneath the sea.

She presented Roy with a graceful view from behind.

Ms. Belinda still had not returned before dinner. Roy ate a fried Horse Mackerel alone and left the last two Croissants untouched. The best things had to be saved for last.

"Roy, do you have time now?"

After Roy finished dinner, he heard Sabrina calling to him from outside the courtyard wall next door.

He hurried out of the house.

They had agreed to draw portraits of those sailors tonight, at Ms. Jillian's request. Roy had not caught the exact reason, but he felt it was probably related to Moira.

"Yes. At your place, or mine?" Roy called loudly from the doorway.

Sabrina's tall figure stood behind the low wall. Her hair was still damp, and she wore a loose linen dress.

"Come to my place. I prepared three candles..." she said.

"All right!"

After saying that, Roy walked toward the low wall, stepped over it, and climbed into Ms. Jillian's courtyard.

Ms. Jillian was not home either. The Fish Market at the docks had long since closed, so she was probably waiting at the docks for the Fishing Boats.

Roy rarely came over, so he was rather curious about the furnishings inside.

The house was not much different from Roy's: a living room, bedroom, and kitchen on the first floor, with bedrooms and a terrace on the second.

The bedroom on the first floor was probably where Ms. Jillian stayed, while Moira and Sabrina lived upstairs.

Moira was already waiting in the living room. She sat in a single-seat sofa beside an easel. A sheet of parchment covered the drawing board, a paint palette rested on the coffee table, and beside the easel's legs stood a tin bucket full of clean water, with several brushes soaking inside.

When Roy entered, Moira did not greet him. She seemed to be staring blankly at the easel.

She had always been like that, forever immersed in her own world.

A trident-shaped candlestick sat on the coffee table.

The candles had not yet been placed in it. Sabrina invited Roy to sit on the sofa beside the easel, while she sat on a tall stool in front of it, barefoot with her feet resting on the stool's crossbar.

Both she and Moira carried a faint, pleasant scent of lilacs.

"I'll paint Jefferson's portrait first. You can watch how I do it. Later, you can describe what those sailors looked like and what they wore. Be as detailed as possible," Sabrina said coldly to Roy.

Roy quickly pulled his gaze away from her chest.

He could not help it. The linen clearly revealed a slight outline.

Sabrina had just finished bathing. She had thought the loose dress would conceal it, and since she would be concentrating on painting, her gaze would inevitably remain on the drawing board.

Clearly, she had thought things through too simply.

"An oil painting? Not a sketch?"

Seeing the brushes, paints, and palette, Roy asked.

Sabrina tried to keep her breathing steady before answering, "I know what Jefferson looks like, so I'll paint him directly in oils. For those sailors, I'll sketch them first so they'll be easier to revise. Once everything is confirmed, I'll paint them in oils..."

It was Roy's first time watching Sabrina paint. The brush in her hand was like a tiny scrub brush. She held the palette in one hand, rubbed the brush through the paints, then spread broad swathes of color over the canvas.

She first laid down a thick layer for the background, without sketching any lines or outlines at all.

She merely applied color layer upon layer, and amid the buildup of paint, a blurry human figure slowly began to emerge.

The figure gradually became clearer, and the colors made him seem more vivid.

Jefferson's face in the painting was somewhat flushed. He held a wineglass in his hand, and there was a hint of drunkenness in his eyes.

The Dark Moon Elf's dusky skin and the gloom in his eyes had both been rendered with remarkable clarity.

The paints mingled across the palette, and Sabrina's brush barely paused as Jefferson's portrait clearly emerged on the paper.

Watching her paint live gave Roy an intense sensory pleasure. It was not like a printer directly producing a crisp image. It was more like a high-definition camera constantly adjusting its focus, slowly shifting from blur to clarity until the image finally leaped onto the page...

Perhaps it was because she watched Jefferson's portrait gradually become clear.

In the flickering candlelight, the reflected flames in Moira's eyes blurred...

Her voice carried a sobbing edge. "He always said I had the talent to become an assassin..."

Moira was a delicate, petite elf. Her collarbones were beautiful, and seeing her seated on the sofa wiping away tears made her seem even more pitiful.

"If he hadn't insisted on sending you to train at the Elf Dark Hall, Jillian probably wouldn't have fallen out with him."

Sabrina sighed from her tall stool.

"Big sister, was I born just so I could enter the Dark Hall?" Moira murmured.

"Stop overthinking it. You are yourself. We are all fighting desperately for the life we want, and you should do the same."

Sabrina touched Moira's forehead, then wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"Are you the same, Roy?" Moira looked at Roy pitifully.

"As long as you can keep your stomach full, having a small dream isn't a bad thing," Roy said, rubbing his nose.

"All right, stop thinking about it. He left our lives a long time ago."

Sabrina gently stroked Moira's soft golden hair.

Moira nodded and sat quietly to one side without saying another word.

Sabrina removed the painting from the board and laid down another sheet of paper. This time, she held a Quill Pen dipped in ink.

Roy immediately began describing the appearances and clothing of the sailors. His purpose in coming tonight was to use words to describe the distinctive features of those crewmen.

It had to be said that Sabrina's painting skill was practically master-level. Under her quill, a pair of eyes could keep changing until Roy felt they looked right.

As they worked on the portraits of those sailors, the atmosphere in the room gradually relaxed.

Moira's mood also slowly settled, and she even began chatting with Roy.

"Is Elf Academy interesting?"

"It's all right, but my day was pretty thrilling. This morning, a group of Silver Moon Elves chased me all over the streets," Roy said in an exaggerated tone.

Moira widened her bright, watery eyes and asked curiously, "You got into a conflict with someone right after school started?"

"I didn't want that either. I was dragged into it by a lousy friend. What could I do?"

Roy said helplessly.

Their conversation was interspersed with Sabrina's questions. "Like this?"

Roy would immediately scrutinize the drawing, trying to make the image in his memory clearer. Only after carefully comparing it would he say, "The eyebrows need to be darker. Oh, and he has a scar here."

"They all had a very strong presence, the kind that made them feel dangerous..."

Listening to Roy's description, Sabrina frowned and asked, "How did you get mixed up with them?"

Roy had lost count of how many times he had answered that question.

"I just wanted to ask about the Human World across the sea. They wanted me to help them find a cheap, clean inn, then find a tavern for a drink. I never expected something like this to happen."

Amid their idle conversation, Sabrina finished her second painting.

Not every person in it looked exactly right, but the sailors in the painting retained the way they had looked while sitting in the tavern. At the very least, the main people's features had been clearly depicted.

If one of them appeared alone again, perhaps the painting would not be enough to identify him. But if they appeared together, Roy was confident he could recognize them from it...

"All right. I'll press them beneath the bottom of a chest."

Sabrina peeled the second painting from the board and shook out her aching hand. This painting had been much harder than the first.

"Now it's your turn, Roy. Who do you want to draw?"

As Sabrina laid out the third sheet of Seagrass Paper, she asked.

This Seagrass Paper even had a faint greenish tint, and it was not easy to preserve. In the humid summer, it could easily grow mold...

But it was cheap! Roy had not planned to keep this painting for long anyway. He only intended to take it to the tavern and let the well-informed elves have a look.

So once Sabrina had laid out the paper, Roy began describing that Elf Thief.

The first time he had seen him was at the entrance of the temple, when he had caught sight of his disheveled figure. Later, he had seen his face outside the Brown Street tavern.

"He's a thief, rather thin, about as tall as the Boss at the Potion Shop. He has messy, greasy hair, slightly sunken eye sockets, light blue eyes, probably two wrinkles on his forehead, and he keeps his right arm pressed against his side when he walks..."

Sabrina carefully drew the elf Roy described onto the paper.

She revised it again and again.

Roy could not actually remember that many details clearly. What had left the deepest impression on him was the greasy hair and the right arm clamped around a bundle.

As the portrait became clearer and clearer, Moira stood nearby, covering her mouth as she cried out softly.

"The elf in this portrait looks like Pelius. Roy, are you looking for him?"