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Durmstrang Ship; After the feast
Topic Started: Jul 10 2009, 09:21:08 PM (677 Views)
Eleonore Collins
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Sixth Year

Ella walked across the grounds quickly, pulling her black school cloak tightly around her shoulders. She really should have changed out of her costume when she had fetched her cloak from the dungeons (her blouse and dress weren't made from very heavy fabric at all). However, as she had been both excited at the prospect of meeting Piotr and anxious to get out of the common room before the afterparty got too out of hand, she hadn't thought of it.

As many Durmstrang students were still filing in from the school, the gangplank was still lowered. She boarded the ship and, ignoring the odd looks that were being sent her way, managed to find where Piotr had said to meet him.

Edited by Eleonore Collins, Jul 10 2009, 10:17:19 PM.
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Piotr awaited Ella at the top forward bow of the ship. Set against the backdrop of the bright moon, shining in the blackness above, reflecting in the blackness below it seemed so...romantic. The boat rocked at bit, and the sound of waters of the Black Lake brushing against the shore was so...pleasant. But within Piotr's mind raged anxiety. What would happen if he were hurt? Piotr's father needed him over the summer months. What if he were killed? Mary would be the only child, and she was too small yet to work. It was irresponsible of him to enter this tournament. A great reward lay at its end, but there was too great a risk involved, a risk that could threaten his entire family.

And then there was Ella, who now stood before him, strikingly beautiful in her long flowing gown, bathed in the light of the moon and surrounded by the beauty of the Hogwarts Grounds at night. As the soft lunar light reflected on the surface of the Black Lake, so, too was the beauty of night's heavenly maiden reflected in the ebony hair of this earthly one. The moonlight shone and sparkled in her blue eyes.

"Good evening, Ella," said Piotr, trying to hide just how smitten he was just now. In his arms was a large, long metal canister with a screw-off top, "I'm very glad you could make it."

She was...a moonbeam. And as beautiful, as alluring and as unattainable for Piotr as the moon itself. She lived in a far-off land in which Piotr was just a visitor, as far away for Piotr as the moon was to the Earth. One day, the sun would rise and she would be gone from his life. And then there were his responsibilities to his school and to his family, acting as gravity to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground and away from dreams of moonbeams and beautiful maidens.

Ella was the enemy, as far as all of Durmstrang was concerned. She could be a liability if she learned something that could be used against Piotr, or if she learned any of the Institute's secrets. Few in Piotr's school would approve. And as far as his family was concerned, she could be a terrible match for him. In the lower class of Russia, where one has very little, family is important. And finding the right person to add to the family can be detrimental. Piotr's family may not approve of her.

And she was young. Not all that much younger than Piotr, not really, but too young to be considering too much her future and all the little choices that will shape it. She might not be thinking of such things as who she sees being a potential love and partner. And for Piotr, down on Earth and so very far from the youthful lunar dreams from which this young woman child seemed to have been born, the future was ever closer than it may be for Ella, even when she reaches an adult age. Life was hard for families like the Rasputins. And when life was hard there was little time for dreaming and little room for error. Happiness took a back seat to survival. It would be irresponsible and inconsiderate for him to chase moonbeams when the Earth needs tilling and caring for so that it could care for Piotr and his family.

And yet, he was drawn to her. Oh God, why can he not just have this one dream? She may not even be interested, after all. And if that was the case then Piotr could walk away knowing that it could have never been anyway. Aware of the futility of it, he felt compelled to try and chase this nighttime moonlight dream.

"Is there anything I can get you?" he asked, "from the ship?" Piotr mentally cursed himself for not getting some things out for them before, but at the same time he didn't want to look like he'd planned some kind of romantic evening, and so he didn't. Still, the thought of it--the dream--was nice.


((OOC: If this post sucks, it's because this was an experiment at poetic and descriptive writing. That, and I was inspired by imagining the Black Lake bathed in the light of the full moon on a clear night.))
Edited by Ian de Ponte du Lac, Jul 11 2009, 06:12:33 PM.
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Eleonore Collins
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Sixth Year

Good Evening, Ella.

Ella turned around to see Piotr, standing at the front of the ship (she couldn't be bothered to try and remember what it was called) with something in his hands that she assumed was his atrwork. Obviously pleased to see him, she smiled and walked over.

Hey She said, cursing her thick hair that, despite her efforts to tame it earlier that evening, was becomming increasingly wild the longer she stood in the wind. Yeah, I'm...thanks for...you know. Inviting me and everything she managed to say, trying to ignore the fact that her mouth had gone dry at the worst possible moment. She bit her lip and fiddled with the fastenings on her cloak, glancing at the Black Lake It's usually glassy surface covered in small ripples from the wind as well as the Giant Squid, whose tenticles could be seen peeking out of the water every now and then. Perhaps he (she?), too, was enjoying the crisp autum weather. Of course, he/she might just be--

What? she said, blinking and glancing over at Piotr when he said something. Honestly! Couldn't she go five minutes without spacing out or daydreaming or something? Oh! No...no, thank you, I'm fine. She said hurridly, hoping he hadn't noticed.

Is that your paintings? She asked, gesturing towards the canister in her hand.

(((lol everything I write looks boring next to your posts! :P )))
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It was a moment before Piotr could answer. Smitten and twice smitten, he could not help but appreciate the way her black hair whipped about, helpless in the wind, the string of blue flowers in her hair doing little to keep it tame.

"Oh yes," he said, snapping out of it and realizing what a fool he must look like, standing there. Quickly, Piotr unscrewed the top of the canister and pulled out a thick roll of parchments. He unrolled them.

The first painting was of large farm, with mountains in the backdrop. Though the colors were drab, the painting exuded so much life that it seemed real. However, it did not move. Piotr did not enchant his paintings to move. He liked to capture the moment exactly as he'd seen it.

"This is my home in Moscow," he said, "My father owns a farm."
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Eleonore Collins
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Whatever Ella had been expecting, Piotr's painting certinally surpassed. She had always thought the idea of still "muggle pictures" as almost laughable. Didn't the muggles think that their paintings and photos looked fake? However, looking at Piotr's painting, it was quite the opposite--she almost felt as if she could step right into it. She thought of her own home, a flat in a Wizarding neighborhood of London, and felt slightly jealous. Sure, she supposed that farming was a hard life, but if Piotr's home really did look like his painting, she was sure that his view was much better than the traffic and old brick building that she saw outside her bedroom window...

"You really painted this?" she asked, "Merlin, Piotr, that's really...that's really good, I mean..." Ella glanced up at him and, almost immediatly, felt her mouth go dry, whatever she was about to say completly forgotten. After clearing her throat she returned her gaze to the painting, deciding that it was much safer looking there.
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"You might think it odd that I do not use magic in my paintings," said Piotr, "But I...I like to capture the moment as I have seen it. To capture a single moment in time and preserve it for all time. I believe it puts me as close to God as man can come."

Piotr looked out at the beautiful night, wanting noting more than to preserve this moment. This one here with Ella beneath the bright, full moon.

"They say that God sees time differently than mortal men," Piotr went on, speaking passionately, "Perhaps that He...or She..or It...or what have you does not see it as ve do...as ve see the world as a ceaseless parade of experiences vich are here for a moment, then tragically lost forever. Perhaps God can see those moments all at once, so that to Him, human life is not so tragic or fleeting, but a beautiful, varied, and many times horrible and ugly collage of His creation. The whole of it is great and wondrous, regardless of the individual moments. So, by painting these moments and preserving them, and in that they become a creation instead of just an individual experience, ve achieve some measure of the gods themselves. At least, I believe so."

When Piotr had started talking about it, he'd felt he needed to say what he'd always thought about his art. Things he did not discuss with Sascha because she never seemed interested. But now he felt silly. Normal people do not talk like this.

"That is vhy I mostly do landscapes," he said, "I vant to remember the places I have been. People are often difficult to capture in the pigments. They don't stay still," Piotr smiled. "I sometimes to portraits but only if it someone, somevhere, and it is that moment I wish to capture in that one place. Like this one..."

The next painting was of a girl beneath a cherry tree. The girl seemed about nine or ten years old. The girl is somewhat pale, with a complexion like Piotr's, with a round face and eyes the same color as the young man who painted her. Her eyes are wide and innocent. She is sitting down on the ground, against the trunk of the tree, her knees sightly bent so that the soles of her bare feet rest on the green grass. It is obviously spring, for the cherry tree itself is heavy with brilliant pink blossoms falling all around the girl. There are cherry blossoms in her dark hair. This painting is much brighter than the one that had come before it, however it exudes as much life as the last. As if the painter had breathed life into it as God had breathed life into Adam. Pigments from the earth, and dust from the earth, both brought to life.

"My sister," said Piotr, "That is the most recent I have done of her. It was last spring when the cherry blossoms were in bloom. It is beautiful that time of year. And my sister, Mary, she is very important to me. It took me forever to convince her to sit still long enough to sketch her under the tree, but it was a moment I wanted to keep with me, because I am a mortal man and so I cannot look upon a point in time as if it were a single peak of many in a vast mountain range. I do not get to choose which moment I am in, so ven times are hard, I can look back on these moments I have preserved and can achieve some measure of solace in knowing that in those moments, life is beautiful."

And yet, still, there were some moments that had seemed, to the limited view of mortal men, to be beautiful for a time, but were later seen to be ugly. Or perhaps it was just that future events made that which was beautiful into something that which was regrettable. It must not always be easy to be God. To be able to look back upon those moments when his children cared for their fellow man, and did right by their neighbors, and then too look on and see those moments when his children would fight each other--kill each other. The holocaust...Rwanda...Stalingrad...did these horrors, mere moments in time, taint the whole of all human moments to the point where that which was good and beautiful seemed just as ugly? Was it unbearable to for Him to see those few times when His children where happy and to look on to the numerous times that they were at war or were the victims of their own brothers' greed or apathy? Did it somehow cheapen those good times to look upon the bad? Because no matter how beautiful the good, the ever-present concept of how it all would inevitably go horribly and irreconcilably wrong lingers in His mind?

In any case, it was like that for Piotr when he looked upon those moments he had captured in his paintings of Sascha. There was nothing ugly in them at all, but those where happier moments in time which felt cheapened to Piotr by the inevitable woes which would come between Sascha and himself. And so, Piotr burned those paintings when he was sifting through the ones he would show Ella.

"This, too," he said, softly, slowly, looking not at his own work, or at the scenery, but at Ella herself, "is a moment in time I would like to capture. As it is now. The beautiful night sky, the incandescent moon, the black lake, the beautiful Hogwarts castle and grounds...and you."

Piotr had shocked himself by his saying it.

"It would be a joy and an honor if you would allow me to paint you. I know it is late, but I can sketch you and your surroundings before we are to go to bed. The rest I can do from memory, though I may need you to model again for me in a few days, in order to get details right."

He had not been planning to ask that. But this moment was so perfect. Perhaps it was bold of him, but Piotr hoped that she would accept. Both this night, and perhaps Ella herself, could be fleeting moments in his life. But they were beautiful moments. Perhaps it would come to pass that Ella and this moment would be cheapened and maligned by the passage of time, but for now they were good and deserved to be remembered.

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Eleonore Collins
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As Ella listened to Piotr, she felt what she could only figure was something like awe. He was just...well, deep was the only way to put it. She felt a twinge of regret--whether she had admitted it to herself or not, Ella had been secretly hoping that Piotr would see her as more than just some kid who he could show his paintings to or, even more so, more than just Sascha's little cousin. However...how could he ever be interested in her in that way? Ella could barely keep her train of thought most of the time, let alone contemplate time and God.

And yet...and yet there were still times when she couldn't help but think that maybe that look on his face when she noticed him glancing at her meant something. Perhaps there was a reason why he had been talking to her for these past few weeks had nothing to do with her cousin. Maybe...

For the second time that night, Ella realized that she had gone far too long without saying anything. Flustered, she cleared her throat and returned her attention to the painting. She cocked her head to the side slightly as she studied it feeling, just like she had with the one before, that she was looking at more than just paint on canvas.

She's....she's pretty, isn't she? Ella said, in a voice that implied that she was thinking out loud more than anything. After a moment, she realized what she had said and went red...honestly, that's the best she could come up with?

I...I mean.....you know, the painting is....the colors are really nice and...and it's....y'know...it's really, really good, Piotr... She managed to say, obviously embaressed. She was relieved, therefore, when Piotr began to speak.

"This, too, is a moment in time I would like to capture. As it is now. The beautiful night sky, the incandescent moon, the black lake, the beautiful Hogwarts castle and grounds...and you."

Although she had always thought of the saying "felt my heart stop" as rather...hokey, Ella couldn't think of anything else to describe the way she had felt for a moment. Surely, she was getting carried away....he was just having a good time, just because she enjoyed spending time with her or something didn't mean...

"It would be a joy and an honor if you would allow me to paint you. I know it is late, but I can sketch you and your surroundings before we are to go to bed. The rest I can do from memory, though I may need you to model again for me in a few days, in order to get details right."

Oh! I...
Ella hadn't been expecting that at all. Determined not to look like an idiot, she smiled at him and said. Sure....I mean, I haven't exactly...what did you call it? I haven't modeled for anything before...I mean, I'm probably not going to be good at it or...or anything...but...wow. I mean...yes. If you would like to...
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Though Piotr had managed to compose himself quite well, inside he was glowing with excitement the likes of which his training in all those years at Dumrstrang had taught him to conceal. He had pretty much blurted out his wish that she model for him, and that was shock enough. Even greater still was the shock that she had accepted.

"Sure....I mean, I haven't exactly...what did you call it? I haven't modeled for anything before...,"
said Ell, sounding attractively flustered, "I mean, I'm probably not going to be good at it or...or anything...but...wow. I mean...yes. If you would like to..."

"No experience necessary," said Piotr, smiling warmly, "I like my subjects to appear as naturally as possible. It is true that it is not possible for them to be completely natural, because you vill be posing, but ven I do paint human subjects I like it to be a representative of my feelings for that moment in time that inspired it. You understand? Could you, maybe, stand by the port bow of the ship, so that you are in the moonlight and in front of the castle? Do not worry about the vind or your hair, it only makes it seem more natural and anyvay, you are beautiful this way, Ella."

Piotr said this with a measure of confidence. He was not, by nature, shy or bashful. However, as it was common in Russian culture, he was not forward with people he was not close to, nor was he particularly warm with strangers. It was just not the way of his people. He supposed that was why so many in other countries thought the Russians cold and rigid. However, with Ella...it was different. Perhaps he was not that close to her, but somehow he felt closer to her than he had been with anyone but his mother, father and sister for quite some time.

Despite his appearance being somewhat intimidating at first glance, Piotr's eyes shown brightly, with sincere joy in the moonlight.
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Eleonore Collins
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Ella blinked at Piotr's words, both pleased and somewhat embaressed. So sure, she had never thought of herself as ugly, and she supposed when she took the time to care about her appearence (a rarity at school, as most of the time she was too concerned with being late to class or whatever crisis Hogwarts happened to be in at the moment to worry much about make up or if her shirt was wrinkled) she was sort-of pretty but...beautiful?

Shaking her thoughts aside, Ella walked over and stood where Piotr had indicated. Unsure of how she was supposed to stand, she tried several different position before finally giving up and simply standing in front of him, leaning against the side of the boat slightly.

Is this ok? She asked, absently fiddling with a loose thread on her cloak as she looked at Piotr, her nose wrinkled in an unsure expression.
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