Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene LXXVII

The days and weeks that Elgiva had spent housekeeping for Luteeay passed like a flickering montage. As she cleaned the house, and washed the cups, and tidied the garden, he worked unflinchingly on his alchemical avocation. Like an old master adding ever more delicate brushstrokes, day after day, night after night, to perfect a lifelike painting.

Baffled at first, Elgiva slowly came to behold what he already beheld in the eye of his mind. Each time she entered an extra glimmer added to the shining portrait.

Amidst the vials and murky materials and strange concoctions; the diagrams and scattered tools, a vision emerged. Like an ice-white sculpture in a cluttered green forest, or an angelic face amidst the haggard and wrinkled horde. There it was - something like a dragon. Standing full in the room. Its oily wings, like a weeping of rainbows, full of glorious colour. A realness to its fashioned form. Light as helium, monstrous in size, but as gentle as a dove.

Elgiva beheld the creature, but didn't open her mouth to express her wonder. Fearful to disturb the endeavour.

A bird, a graceful bird - a spirit of the aether. A swan-like golem. A pearly opus.