Beyond Time (closed)

[KieranSoares]

"Next time I have to leave, I ought to leave you a project," Ashien smiled as he looked back to his own work. "I had thought about starting a little project with you... I've always wanted to paint the stone walls in the parlors and some of the other rooms, and not cover them with canvases."

 

[heartofcourage]

"I've never painted stone before. I've seen it done, but it always seemed difficult." Dylan said, looking at Ashien as he smiled at her. "We could paint the studio. Perhaps of things that are near and dear to our hearts."

 

[KieranSoares]

"It's easy once you get used to it," Ashien assured her. "We can paint any room you like. We just have to think of what we want to paint."

 

[heartofcourage]

"Well, sparrows, of course." Dylan said with a grin towards Ashien. "Perhaps scenes of Inverness to make you feel a little closer to home."

 

[KieranSoares]

"That would only serve to make me more homesick, love," Ashien chuckled. "What about you? Anything you'd like to paint on the walls?"

 

[heartofcourage]

"I think fairy tales would be lovely for a nursery, I think." Dylan commented absently as she finally put her brush to paper.

 

[KieranSoares]

"A nursery...?" Ashien paused, looking over at Dylandra in surprise. "Where did that come from?" Ashien was certainly a family man and he had thought of children with Dylandra, but it had been just about the furthest thing from his mind as of late.

 

[heartofcourage]

"I don't know. Maybe it's time that we think about a little family of our own." Dylan said with a shrug of her shoulders. "You said you want one. Perhaps we should plan for one just in case."

 

[KieranSoares]

"I've always wanted a little family of my own... More so since I built Darkwood and it ended up empty... But what do you want, love?"

 

[heartofcourage]

"I'm not filling the mansion." Dylan chuckled, looking over at Ashien. "Maybe two or three. I think a little family would be perfect. And I think we're in as good a spot as any to start one."

 

[KieranSoares]

"I never said we had to fill it," Ashien chuckled. "I'd be happy with even just one lass or lad of my own. And maybe they'll actually think horses are interesting," he teased with a smirk.

 

[heartofcourage]

"I'm from a different time and place, Ashien. I'm sorry that I still haven't gotten use to horses." Dylan said with a smirk over at her husband as he dreamed about the little lads or lasses that they might have some day. "Proper British children. Unless you start using that accent more and make them little Scottish bairns."

 

[KieranSoares]

"It's less that I'm covering it up, and more that I'm used to the English accent now. But you should've heard me when I was organizing the ranks. I almost couldn't understand myself, I was so unused to it."

 

[heartofcourage]

"I like it." Dylan said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I think it makes you sound dark and dangerous. Maybe a little sexy."

 

[KieranSoares]

"Dark an' dangerous because yer English?" Ashien asked with a smirk as he let his accent come out. "Or because you used to watch too many o' those... What'd Jennings call 'em? Movies?"

 

[heartofcourage]

"Because your voice sounds silly and smooth. The dark bass might make me a little excited." Dylan glanced over the top of the canvas to her husband, chuckling as he brought up her grandfather. "I never liked movies. My imagination was far too active for them."

 

[KieranSoares]

"So what did y' do, then, in a time when you could do anythin', and the furthest point on earth was only a day's flight away?" Ashien asked with no lack of interest.

 

[heartofcourage]

"I liked to walk the city." Dylan said, finally putting her brush down as Ashien looked at her with such interest. "Looking at all the museums and the monuments to wars and people that died long before I was ever born. It all seemed so magical to me."

 

[KieranSoares]

"So they still romanticize death and war even nearly a thousand years from now?" Ashien asked, though it didn't upset him. "It's fine stock for art and poetry, true... But I imagine even in your time, people still think it's all heroes fighting courageously against evil, some returning home triumphantly to feasts while the dead are supposed to be the greatest heroes, welcome in Heaven or Valhalla or whatever it is people believe in... Those are the people who never came in contact with war themselves."

 

[heartofcourage]

"They still fight wars. It's just...different now. More sophisticated. More technology. But the pain and death and anguish is still the same."

 

[KieranSoares]

"Hm... More machines... Sort of takes away what little nobility there was in fighting. At least with a blade, you meet a man face-to-face and he knows his end, rather than like those cannons, never giving a man a moment to know he's dead..."

Ashien sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and setting his brush aside. "I'm sorry, love... It seems to be all I can think about lately... Those cannons. I'm not looking forward to spring when the thunderstorms come..."

 

[heartofcourage]

"We'll work through it, Ash. Just know that I'll love you no matter what happens. We're a team now. Nothing is ever going to pull that apart." Dylan said standing from her spot to hug her husband tightly.

 

[KieranSoares]

"I love ya, lass," he murmured, his accent creeping back in as he held her close and drew her into his lap with a kiss to her cheek. Now on his side, she could see the painting he'd begun. He was using a warmer pallet than some of his more recent paintings, and it turned out he'd sketched and begun laying down the first colors for an image of the Inverness Keep at sunrise with people seemingly returning to it like they had when Julia had retaken the town.

 

[heartofcourage]

"You should give this one to your Ma. She'd enjoy it." Dylan said as he pulled her down into his lap and kissed her cheek. "It would look lovely in her sunny little parlor too."

 

[KieranSoares]

"Barely got one coat o' paint, love. For all I know, it'll end up lookin' terrible," he chuckled, lifting his brush once more to begin laying down the keep's shape. "Odd... Fer all th' times I've drawn or painted the keep and fer how well I know it... I've never actually painted the front doors from th'outside, not this close."