The Villainess was Loved

Chapter Twenty-Seven: What Lies Beyond Reach

It started with notes.

Regina would wake up every day past the summer they met to a note by her bedside table filled with sweet nothings from an untraceable sender. At first, she welcomed them. Life with her uncle and aunt was lonely. She was isolated from society; who would not cling to an admirer in her shoes?

When she entered the Academy, the notes then turned to pictures, daily portraits of what amused the sender; could be a hill, a doll, a*****e, the sunset. The sender was too adept with the brush for her to throw the little gifts away.

However, after joining the Academy, Regina grew less lonely. She did not need to cling for company from an unknown being. She was a lady now, with guards, popularity and royal attentions. She was living her dream and leaving everything else behind, including the sender.

So slowly, the paintings morphed into portraits of her, only each grew more distorted than the last as he tried to spell in paint form that he could no longer remember what she resembled.

The newly sent portraits of Regina turned seductive under his anger, and the notes, once flattery filled, grew repugnant.

When she no longer received the ‘Gifts’, when she began destroying them on sight, the sender plastered them on notice boards with the intent of isolating her.

Because she was theirs, none elses’.

Such a shame the famous obsessed painter, Grey Gildoff, died at the hands of the third prince’s Knight, Leon Tagen.

A member of her glorified Harem.

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“Wh- what are you doing here, you vile thing!” the man began, backing away towards the portraits of Regina that warmed his walls.

I am here early, but this is where it all began.

His maddening obsession towards Regina Alpensa.

The reason for it was simple, Regina is beautiful. Not beautiful in the traditional sense, but angelically beautiful.

She gave off an aura of peace and warmth, one that even my smile could not portray.

Was I jealous that she was pretty? No, I didn’t want to die, so I never permitted myself to feel competitive.

Hah, it happened either way.

Grey Gildoff is an artist who lives for beauty, one famously and flamboyantly pansexual at that. Regina’s uncle tasked him to paint her, but after a while, he grew frustrated at not being able to capture the full extent of her beauty.

That was when he began following her, then painting from his memory what he saw her do. He did so over and over, each time with a flimsy and easily dismissable excuse until finally the abyss that was her, consumed his sanity.

And now, a once-beloved painter, turned to this emaciated, filth of a person standing before me in just a white vest and underwear.

“You look hideous, Grey.” I said as I strolled towards him, “But I am glad I can skip the introductions.”

While he sent gorgeous portraits to Regina, he sent me dead birds. All until Regina’s popularity grew, and he forgot about me, focused only on Regina’s unreachability.

“Why- why are you here!! I have done no- no wro-! I am not in the wrong! You are!!” he screeched.

“Spare me your middling thought process. I am not here to apprehend you. I am only here for two things, the painting you did for the Marquis’s manor and, well, to ridicule you.”

“Ridicule me?” he repeated, “Do you not know who I am?”

“Ew!” I laughed, “No, I only know who you were. You know, the playboy artist who once made a million for doing a live portrait in under six hours.”

“Not the man who….” I turned my gaze around the darkroom filled to the brim with litter, “Well, you know, this…this whole vibe?”

“Your white vest has pit stains that are visible in the dark, and are you wearing a diaper-!?”

“Stop! Stop! This is for art!! This is art. I am preserving art! I am an artist! Don’t you know never to question an artist’s process!!”

I chuckled a bit too audibly, which caused him to still.

“You laugh at me?” he frowned.

“You are not preserving art. Art is consuming you!” I said, “No master ever strives for preservation of their craft; they strive for mastery! They strive to do what has never been done, see what has never been seen, bathe in what has never been concocted, masters are free; they are not slaves!”

“Masters are slaves to their crafts!” he answered, “Why do you think a painter must paint? That a singer must sing? Why do you think birds must fly!! That fish must swim, That-?”

“They swim because it is joyful to swim, they sing because it is joyful to sing, because it is joyful to paint! Because it is joyful to fly!!” I near screamed the words out of desperation that he understood them, “Do you want to know what term is used for artists who can no longer find joy in their work? Who can no longer find the energy to put pen to paper and compose life-changing melodies?”

“I am happy!”

“they are said to be in a slump, blocked. Their art no longer obeys them, rather it bears fangs at them, drives them to the bottle, to the wall, to addictions, in every shape or form because their art no longer requites their love.”

“I am not in-,”

“Where is the joy in this? You surround yourself with darkness and your own filth. Are they not warning bells, or can you not tell the difference between what feels good and bad anymore?” I scoffed, “An artist must know. They must know when they no longer feel themselves! Do they not go with their feelings? They do, do they not?”

Hah…but it is pointless to grow passionate for you, Greg.

I took a deep breath to regain my composure.

“Well, a good artist would know,” I finished.

“Shut your mouth!” he yelled before lunging his entire body at me.

I used my mana to attract the still alive wood in the wallpaper to my command. Without any resistance, it swirled itself magnificently and squeezed onto his body, leaving him to hang mid-air.

Using the already present wood is better than leaving my plants in the room.

A person's mana holds their print. It is best to leave hardly any in any scene.

“Not to kill your whole… ‘how dare you,’ ‘I am going to get you…’ thing,” I waved my hand over his restrained body. “but I have taken a bath. I’ll have to take another… if you touch me, and I…I don’t want to. It’s freaking cold.”

I walked past him to the area he previously crowded.

There were piles and piles of portraits of Regina, some destroyed halfway by his frustrations while others tossed aside incomplete. Some paintings were stuck to each other; the open, poorly discarded canisters acted like adhesive, destroying some images in the process.

I was partly gladdened.

The smell of the oil paints was more overpowering than the gamey scent one acquires after not bathing for an extended period.

I picked the image I searched for. It had been discarded in the corner next to some mismatched portraits of flowers and sunsets. After hearing that Regina would make her come back into society, Greg painted the Marquis' home. He wished to immortalise her innocence by tricking himself into believing she was not lovely because she had been hidden away, but rather that she maintained herself.

“Wait! Don’t touch that!!”

I took the painting, and snapped my fingers, dissipating the mana attached to the wallpaper, causing them to snap back into their prior position, which led to Greg being dropped flat on his face.

“Your muscles have atrophied from the lack of exercise, so do not pretend you can do anything to me for taking what is yours,” I said, “It would only be embarrassing.”

“Anyway, I’ll see you around, yes?” I smiled then turned to the door.

“Stay away from her! Stay away from Regina.”

I stilled for a moment, then turned back to face him.

I could have said something, something witty or catchy or just teased him, but no sound left me.

This was the fate of extras who spun their lives too tightly on the main cast. A fate that was just as easily extended to me.

So I said nothing, merely turned the door’s handle and left.