<strong>Crimson Dove</strong><br/><br/>“Impatience is not the emotion I seek to capture either,” the sorcerer replied. He put the brush down, contemplated the work, picked his brush up again, and laid another stroke on it. He studied it for a long, quiet moment, then stood and, picking up a small box, made his way over to Dove.<br/><br/>The brush of his fingers against her cheek might have been, from anyone else, a lover's gesture, but Sulir's eyes were bright with a cold obsession, not romance. “You look very much like her,” he murmured, tilting her face this way and that. He opened the box, revealing a series of tiny bottles and jars and two horsehair brushes. A profusion of scents – rust, tin, starch, castor oil – filled the air.<br/><br/>Contouring Dove's face took perhaps ten minutes; he was as painstaking with her skin as with the painting itself. The larger horsehair brush tickled as it passed over her cheeks and forehead. The lipstick was last, and the source of the rust smell – it was a particularly vivid crimson color, one generally reserved to the highest nobility of the Realm. He used the smaller brush to paint her lips, then stepped back to admire his handiwork.<br/><br/>For the first time tonight, a small – fleeting – smile crossed his face.