The subtle beating of her heart had become stronger; it has been a while as she had shut down, in her attempt to be more robotic in order to keep the pace with her current work. Returning to the darkness within her, rekindling the spirits and demons that once drove her, throwing fuel on the dimmed fire, her heart found its best. Blood roared through her veins, pulsing, pulsing - a warmth returned across her, melting her iron corset clinging onto her thinning waist. The shackles breaking, collapsing into her knees, she was breaking away from those that held her captive.
“It was only a matter of time,” she whispered, “You’re home.”
“Almost,” she replied, “Almost…”
Her eyes locked on the moon, flickering through the clouds, energizing her, ideas flooding through her mind, encapsulating her in a trance where she sits down to draw. Charcoal scratching at the paper, the dust staining her hands, blackening her skin, pausing for a moment to take a cigarette. Click.
The smoke filling her lungs, slowly eating her from the inside out, she continued to draw biting into the cigarette butt, the ash dropping onto her work, she merely smudged it into the shadows of the woman she found herself drawing again and again.
I'm so glad, Simeon said as he kissed her shoulder before taking the cigarette from her mouth and having a toke.
Her lips remained sealed, the only noise was their almost synchronized breathing, the music caught in the wind, and the flickering candle and the charcoal scratching the textured paper.