Short Story: The Sculpture · 2:11am Sep 13th, 2022
This is not a story about ponies. No ponies here! Go elsewhere for ponies.
But this is a story for a D&D adventure I am writing. And I suppose it's also a story about what it means to have purpose, where we get that purpose form, and what happens when that purpose vanishes. People things, in other words.
The flower turns its face to the sun.
You do not know who whispers the instructions. They warm your ear with their breath, but never in centuries have you seen the one who visits your plinth in the Master’s garden. They are a ghost, or your imagination, but they must be obeyed. To do otherwise is unthinkable.
You rise, bare feet pushing against the marble to bend your body in a graceful arc, face upward toward the sun, arms thrust back like wings. The posture is set, and you freeze, holding as still as the stone beneath you. The weightless silk of the veil falls like water over your face. It is the only clothing you have ever worn.
Hours pass in idle contemplation. Should you turn to follow the sun as it walks across the heavens? A flower would, but you are not a flower, just a statue dreaming of one. Is your wrist twisted outward too much? No, it is the edge of a leaf, and it may twist as much as it wants. In the past you considered swaying lightly on your plinth when imitating flowers, as though dancing in the breeze, but every time you reject the thought. Too radical – let other statues push the boundaries of motion. Your flesh impersonates stone, and stone should not sway in the breeze.
The hero is grievously wounded.
The suggestion graces your ear. You twist and curl, clutching your abdomen to hold in your entrails. Muscles flex, straining against each other to form a subtle map across your lithe body. It is one of your favorite poses.
You asked the Master, once, why he bid you to wear a veil. “Because our bodies are perfect in their similarity,” he said, “but our faces are perfect in their difference.” That did not answer the question, you thought, but merely asking consumed a year’s worth of precocity. None of his other statues wear veils. You wonder, sometimes, if it means you are his favorite.
You smile beneath the veil. The thought still warms you; a fitful ember of memories.
The Master and his mortal lover are in the garden tonight.
You envy her, often. His touch, his attention. She cannot appreciate what treasures they are. But then, she cannot be a statue in the way he desires for you, so perhaps she is the unfortunate one. It is something to think about in the slow hours.
The duelist strikes heedlessly.
A difficult position. Your arm straightens like a sword, thrust out before you to kill. The opposite leg reaches back, off the plinth entirely, balancing you on tiptoes. His lover could never hold this posture – her muscles would tire in seconds, and she would stumble, laughing at her failure. She was not designed for your wonderful purpose. She does not know how to be a statue.
The Master slipped away when you weren’t looking. Apparently his lover wasn’t looking either, for she ambles about the garden, calling for him. Hearing his name on her lips grates at your soul, but you endure it; a statue can do no less.
She is mortal. In time, she’ll be gone. The thought soothes your burning muscles.
You have held the duelist’s pose for weeks. Never has more than two days passed without the instructor whispering a new position in your ears. Anyone but a statue would have broken by now. The agony rending your muscles would kill them.
But you are a statue. If it pleases the Master to hold this posture forever, then you shall. Hundreds of hours are nothing in the fullness of time.
You have not seen the Master in weeks, either. Not since he vanished from the garden, leaving his lover adrift and calling his name into the trees and the night. If you weren’t a statue, that might concern you. It might even horrify you, for never has he been gone more than a day. Anyone but a statue might let that thought tumble like a stone down a mountainside, collecting more rocks as it falls until countless tons of numbing fears sweep away all other concerns but the certainty that he is gone, that you are alone now, that endless eternity stretches before you without a whispering voice in your ear offering new poses to please him.
You do not think that. You cannot think that. You are a statue.
Your sagging limbs straighten. Burning muscles find new life. You know, you know that if you hold this pose long enough, it will please him, and he will return.
The thought attends you in your lonely garden.
Thinking about that next chapter in The World is Filled with Monsters. No timeline yet, but it's gnawing at my mind.
Interesting. I wonder what happened, and happens? I hope the adventure goes well!
There's probably some meta-level tomfoolery that we could say about the relationship between art and artist here, but taken entirely prima facie, this would make a dope-ass monk backstory.
Always a good day when you post something.
It’s interesting and I was very intrigued by how much feeling the sculpture had for the artist that created it. The lengths it would go to serve him. And then to disappear, leaving it unfinished and seemingly abandoned.
This made me think of all the ideas and projects and friendships that I’ve started, only to have the siren call of other duties or a new pursuits pull me away.
Maybe I need to go back and make amends.
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So this little vignette accompanies a new playable race of sentient constructs for the setting book I'm writing. One of them could very well be a monk.
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Neat!
Glad to see you back CiG!
This wouldn't happen to be the same campaign GaPJaxie was playing, is it? I remember him mentioning it before but no matter because this is great. Any plans to share the book when finished or are you ready to share anything about it?
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Sort of. We were playing a Ponyfinder version -- the full campaign and setting I'm building it into is a straight D&D 5E product.
I imagine I'll share it eventually. It's not far enough along for that quite yet.
This is but a pale reflection to your beautiful prose...