Work Text:
His fear pulsed like a metronome, dull in the back of his skull.
A young boy, no older than twelve, clung anxiously to his ill-fitted robes. When he had gotten dressed, he insisted that his sash was just fine, but he'd tied it too tightly, like butcher's twine squeezing him taut. His collar choked his neck with each nervous breath, and his sandals felt far too heavy for his feet. If sitting already felt like this, he loathed to wonder what it would feel like to stand.
Lukai Hwei was an heir by birthright, but as was determined as early as he could speak, he would be taught alongside other ink mages. It was natural; special treatment would designate him as an other, and connection was something essential to art, as well as leadership. He was to be treated as a student as everyone else; despite his showcase in natural skill, he was to attend each class meant for standard curriculum in ink magic, and, as such, he would take each exam as well. Just beyond the door in front of where he sat would be his first of many, many exams in his future.
Hwei never did well with eyes on him.
Footsteps shuffled beyond the door, pulling his head up like a string. He blinked past his shaggy hair, just long enough to hang over one of his eyes. Master Huan had reminded him again and again to get it cut, so he awkwardly tucked the strands behind his ear, not in the mood for a scolding before he began his work.
The door opened, and out came a student his age, a girl he knew by face, but not by name. Many students were like this, he came to find — faces, but never fully people. Just behind her, he could see a taller figure, familiar, clad in one of the identical robes of the masters. He did not yet raise his eyes, terrified of what color would betray his feelings.
Only when the girl made her way down the hall did Hwei rise to his feet. His gaze followed her, the sun from the far window bending and lighting her in something amber and gold — he imagined she must have done well. When she passed the corner, Hwei's head turned back, meeting the firm, unimpressed gaze of Master Liu. The lines to his face were deep and angular, pulling his face into a perpetual frown.
"Inside," he instructed, the tone light, but the expectation clear. Hwei kept his head low as he ducked out of view from other students in the hallway. If he'd been wished any luck, it fell on deaf ears.
The expectation weighed down on Hwei as he stepped into the examination room. The space was stuffier in here, the windows closed and the scent of oil permeating the air. Though the smell left him lightheaded, frying his nerves, that airiness had a relaxing quality to it. It was something familiar, something he knew he could rely on, something he had a kinship with, unlike the four sets of eyes trained on him as he unpacked his supplies.
He hadn't realized he'd been staring down at his brushes until a hand, skin like soft leather, landed on his shoulder. He tensed, pulling his eyes back up, and a woman met him with a pitiful, albeit sympathetic smile. The way age stretched a face could tell so much — worry collected around her sunken cheeks and between her brows.
Sympathy was not the same as empathy. She couldn't understand how he felt, not exactly, even if she tried.
"You're on time today," Master Huan quipped. It was something lighthearted meant to cut the tension, but Hwei wilted anyway, offering a bruised smile in turn.
"I couldn't sleep," he replied, emboldened to honesty. It felt easier confiding in Master Huan. "Nerves, I think."
"Don't worry," she assured him in a whisper, leaning down to meet him at his height. "This will be a brief one. I suspect it won't be difficult for you at all."
Hwei's lip twitched, trying to take Master Huan's comfort to heart. As he dipped down to pick up a canvas from the pile, she finally let go, allowing him to work through the motions.
Art wasn't difficult. Not in the literal sense, at least. Hwei found that colors and composition could express things well enough on their own, and he didn't doubt his own skill. What he struggled so much with was everything else.
Once his instruments were aligned, he turned back around. He awkwardly folded his arms in front of him before thinking better of it, remembering just how Master Jiang had critiqued him for looking too meek. He clasped his hands behind him instead, straightening his back, feeling not quite as confident as he was trying to get across. Silently, Master Jiang nodded in approval.
"Good morning, Hwei," Master Fei greeted, too impersonal for how often they'd painted together. "How are you feeling?"
This question was commonplace, and yet, each time, Hwei didn't have a concise answer. They should have known not to ask it by now; he struggled to imagine just how someone could explain something like feeling in words. It was endlessly complex and contradictory, and every time he tried to make sense of it, it would send him in circles. They could have just asked him to paint it instead.
"Good," he lied, settling for an easy answer. It was cushioned with a smile, and Hwei could feel his awkward, crooked teeth pressing into his lips.
"Excellent," Master Fei nodded, dropping his head down to a clip board held tightly in his hand. Hwei couldn't see what was on the paper from this angle, but he could hear a sharp scrape of a fountain pen across it, pulling goosebumps from his skin.
"We'll spare you the frivolities," Master Jiang spoke up, finally, and Hwei tensed without thinking. "Are you ready to show us what you can do?"
Of course not. He could feel tension riding up into his shoulders, up his neck, down and squeezing his calves.
"Of course, Master Jiang," he dismissed his thoughts, turning away from their prying eyes to focus on the canvas. His fingers were numb, begging to call forth some of his mana. "What is it I will be painting for you?"
The masters looked amongst each other, before Master Huan spoke:
"You will be painting Koyehn's sea."
In that moment, Hwei swore he could hear the shore past the shut window.
"Koyehn's sea," Hwei murmured.
A heavy silence hung in the air, drowning them all, as Hwei fell into thought. What did Koyehn's sea mean to him? Something so all-encompassing, so magnificent and unimaginable in size. His brush picked up a hue from his palette without thought, covering the canvas in a light wash.
The sea was capable of so much harm, and yet it was paramount to the livelihoods of Koyehn's inhabitants. It was a mirror, and it was an endless pit intent on sucking anything in that stray too far. It was symbolic of the future: of what lay beyond the sandy beaches Hwei knew all too well, but it held such profound nostalgia as well, so integral to the identity of the island. It was light, soft, soothing, and it was terribly dark, inky and murky below the surface.
How was he meant to decide?
Hwei had nearly once drowned in Koyehn's sea. As he spread a dark cobalt, edging towards grey across the canvas, he could recall the way the waves swallowed him under. His robes were too heavy to keep him afloat, and the currents pulled him out until the sand left his feet. He'd been turned over and under until he didn't know which way was right, and his limbs flailed violently against the never-ending blue, broken only by the panicked bubbles of air escaping his throat.
As his consciousness faded, the brilliant hue grew darker. Colder, too, though he had only been vaguely aware of that fact. The exhaustion he succumbed to weighed down his limbs as he painted, and his lungs hammered against his ribs, overcome by the water pouring down his throat. Notes of phthalo and indigo blended into an overwhelming black, beckoning him closer, distracting him from his fading vision. Water was so heavy, but it was never characterized that way. The weight could only be realized once it was up to the knees, anchoring him down to the floorboards.
Briefly, a calmness washed over him, something akin to clarity. Then, now, it didn't matter. As he turned over, there was a smear of light across from him, from what could have been above, though he couldn't ever be sure. He never saw color quite right. It blended into the darkness around him, bathing the hand outstretched to him in a pale blue. He could see the impression of thin fingers, bony and fragile and easy to snap.
He'd been pulled out of the sea by Master Huan gripping the front of his cloak, leaving him sputtering and gagging as water rushed past his eardrums. He was pressed into her chest with what Hwei imagined to be a maternal urgency, coughing sea water into her collar out from his lungs. Her hands kept to his back, cocooning him as life flooded back into him. Now, too, he could feel the urgent grip of her fingers on his shoulders, trying with all her might to pull him away from the draw of the ocean.
Unimpeded, he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't accepted her help. The ocean was loud, thrumming against his ears with an unimaginable pressure, until everything fell silent. A funny thought, really, that a struggle was what caused such agony; if only he had accepted such a feeling rather than fighting it, perhaps it wouldn't have scarred him so.
Color surrounded him, threatening to drown him in his own thoughts. It was familiar, in a way: the crushing weight crashing into his back, the sea foam brine pouring past his tongue and coating his throat. His lungs seized at the memory, overcome by reliving something so visceral, and yet he couldn't stop.
He wanted to feel it fully this time, its full, painful potential.