Destruction of life, a survey of natural beauty. (Training)

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One can not emphasize enough the need for senses within an artist, for without these keen perceptions the only possibly pleasing result is surrealism. For musicians and and minstrels a keen ear is required. There is a need to sense their notes and detect the subtle shift in tone and measure which turns an otherwise simple combination of rhythm and melody into a true masterwork of the auditory craft. Likewise for the visual arts, those who hope to apply ink or charcoal or paint to paper and canvas have little hope to progress beyond stick figures without an eye well trained to pick up on the soft and subtle details hidden within the natural world of lines and curves. There is more to the world than simply shades and shapes, for when one spies something like a bird their mind will populate the outline, fill in the features, and shade the feathers without the eyes having their proper say. It is as if the world was some composed of picture book examples of nature, while in fact each leaf, each bird, even the smallest flecks of dust floating through a shaft of light possess their own shape, and thus their own character.

It is an exercise in patience to see through the mind’s assumptive filters and color the world in shades of truth. Doing otherwise compromises the form of paint on a canvass and turns a masterpiece into something tawdry and lackluster. Takado understands this principal well, and for good reason. It takes an amount of detachment from the material world to filter your eyes in this manner, to remove the bird from a tree and see only curved lines and the sway of blue and white, yellow and black eyes, an orange cone and brown twigs. A bird is composed of more shapes than one could count if they still saw the bird, but when each detail is cause with careful perfection, even that simple picture can be elevated into greatness. Of course, all of this talk of birds is meaningless, for even the finely wrought shape of the tree-perched avian is but a smaller detail among the rich tapestry of earth tones highlighting her canvass. With a brush in her hand, Takado felt the only amount of peace she was ever able to steal in her life, and if her death minded family had its way she would lack even that.

As always Takado takes her pictures from nature. A lonely walk out into the wilds bringing her upon some scene of serenity in which she can pretend, if only for a moment, that she is just a simple girl. A flat oval of wood scrapped from a refuse pile serves as a viable enough pallet but her brushes were the same each time. The dry bamboo handles felt natural between her fingers, as natural as the katana still hanging from her hip. This day she’d come across a stream, a trickling patch of blue meandering its way lazily through a scene of grey an brown and green. The scene of nature was one she had grown up near, the marsh choked valley of the Death Spiders filled with quiet brooks like this one, and rivers larger still; a maze of moving water which cut through the bedrock and left the valley floor one riddled with caves and pocked with sinkholes. There were less sinkholes here, but there were still mountains enough to remind her of home, and allow that darkness of memory to linger silently in the background of her mind, and keep her ever cautious from being spotted, or followed.

Life was one of constant paranoia for Takado, even if Kageru, her other self, was more willing to relax within sight of parents and siblings. Takado, had they known the soft heart of the girl still existed within the icy assassin’s shell they’d formed, would be beaten without mercy, and likely killed if even that could not still her artist’s spirit. Each dab of the horse hair brush into a mixed shade of paint brought a cautious survey of her surroundings. This cautious observation is directed then to her scene, her eyes adjusting the leaves for movement of the wind, placing each one as a careful extension from the swath of brown and black from which it grew. It was a careful exercise which demanded patience and care. A keen eye was nothing without these things. Each leaf was added with careful precision, their location matching with not only perfect placement on grid of her mind’s eye, but also angled and drooping as nature placed them. Twigs and patches of moss all had to be counted and carefully constructed, each tree in turn given this careful level of scrutiny and then painstakingly applied to the canvass in front of her.

Hours would pass as paint was applied in layered colors to the rough canvass she’d purchased in the market. Hours of labor from sun up towards the onset of dusk seeing the once blank, off white surface transformed from plain to perfect, and the forest in her eyes was translated in shades of mixed prime colors into the breathtaking scenes of nature for which she would never be famous. If others could see her works, if they could just lay their eyes on them, then they may see she is no monster. They could see the emotion bled out of her heart during these times, almost enough to draw tears to her eyes as she saw in herself what should could have been, but these thoughts always came crashing back down as she neared her paintings. The addition of wildlife flowed only after the scenery was finished, blue jay here, a chipmunk there, an indigo snake coiled on a rock taking in warmth from the afternoon sun; each one picked out into individual feathers and scales. She could see the life within each one after her details were done, and yet she was doomed to destroy even these bits of false life she herself created.

Perhaps she was made for the life of an assassin, those sharp eyes of hers able to read more than simple muscle movements, but the details contained within her opponents eyes. They were the mirrors to the soul, and like the hidden bundles of reproductive spores lurking beneath the fronds of a fern leaf, she need only study to see them and know their meaning. She had created this life on her own, the eyes of the blue jay staring down at her, peering into her, alight with the curiosity she’d seen within them, and the determined challenge posed if one dared to enter its domain and come to close to its eggs. That light of life, those concealed emotions made plain through paint, now had only moments left to survive. As with all paintings, Kageru had the last say. Her signature would be attached, and all the beauty would be rent asunder. A special vial of ink was needed, and by dabbing the tip of her brush into it she’d paint silently, her eyes growing darker and lips pursing softly with the tension. The explosive seal meant the end of all her paintings, but it was for the best. While she may see all, she knew that none must ever see her.