Setting her easel gently on the damp grass of the hill, Nafretiri looked at the sky, trying to judge whether this would be the location for her newest piece. Liking it better than the others she had tried, she gently unfurled her watercolor paints, favourite paintbrush and small container of water. Wetting her paintbrush and dipping it in paint, Nafretiri let the serenity come over her as she she about telling a story in the only manner she knew how.

The brush danced along the canvas, leaving trails of beauty in its wake. Nafretiri's strokes were not planned, acting upon the intinct of her being. A wave of nostalgia washed over her as she realized what it was she was painting. Upon the canvas was a scene nearly identical to the one she stood upon. In the sky, a woman was cloaked with the stars, staring longingly at the earth, and on the earth, a man dressed in the cloths of life smiled and reached out to her.

They were a part of history that she had left behind almost three millenia ago. As she continued to weave her tale, Nafretiri did not notice the slow footsteps that approached...

...The heavy, scraping footsteps of inhuman clawed feet against the ground. It was the wizened Feardorcha that stepped forth from the shadows of the trees, his slow, ambling gait veiling a promise of terrible grace and power. Long legs carried his looming form confidently, carelessly, towards the vampire on the hill. A hulking mass of claws and muscle, chains and rags. Leathery bats hung off him as if he were a piece of scenery, while around his feet large black rats skuttled and chittered. More beast than man, but more vampire than most would ever know.
"A pretty picture you weave." Feardorcha rasped softly as he slowly stalked up the hill towards Nafretiri as if he had been invited. "So some vampires still find time for the Arts, even in this day and age..."

She had heard him approach, so he did not shock he when he appeared. Turning her head slowly to him, she regarded him with a careful, calculating gaze. Nafretiri knew from the start that she wasn't dealing with an ordinary member of her race. Looking him over once more, she returned to her canvas, her brush dancing again.

"In this day and age, the Arts are all that sustain me," she replied, a hint of sadness in her voice. Brushing a hair out of her face, she looked at him again. "I miss the days of yesterday. They were so much simpler." Breaking out of her partial nostalgia, she added, "Words leak from my mouth. Pay them no heed."

Feardorcha shook his head, shambling closer to Nafretiri in order to view what she was painting. "Leaking words are more interesting to heed than ones spoken intentionally." said the monsterous vampire with a trace of humour in his gruff voice.
Feardorcha mused as he tried to interpret Nafretiri's painting, "Aaah...Interesting. There is much longing in this painting, that much is clear..."

Nafretiri looked at him through the corner of her eye. She wasn't about to read his mind, that was certain. While she could hold more than her own against a normal member of her kind, she wasn't certain how exactly how he would react and with what gifts. She would simply wait it out.

Still, that last question struck a cord with her. The woman didn't know why, but she felt like he was trying to indicate something. She wondered what he meant by his last sentence. Well, when in doubt, ask.

"Are you trying to imply something by that?" she asked, feigning disinterest.

Feardorcha fixed her with dark eyes and grinned, a fang-filled, feral grin. But through the snarling bat-like face, there was warm humour there too.
"No, you are the one who's implying it. It's your painting." Another grin, a possible attempt at friendliness, but twisted from years of dark loneliness and primitive violence. Somewhere within the rattling chains and the folds of his heavy cloak, a bat fluttered its wings. A rat chattered. Feardorcha continued to eye the painting as if he were some sort of professional art critic.

She could not help the corner of her mouth that lifted. "That it is. You speak the truth, though I merely paint the legends taught to me when I was still human." Nafretiri stared at her painting. "This one was always the saddest, but it is not linked with me - at least not in any direct manner. I simply needed something to pass the time with tonight, and here with a view of the stars, this came to me." Her eyes slid to her companion. "Do you know the story that tells of these two?"

The grin faded slightly, and Feardorcha slowly shook his head. "I always thought I knew many things, but this I do not know. Such beautiful tales rarely reach my ears." A pause. "Enlighten me, and then it will be one more thing that I do know." The grin returned, and Feardorcha sidled round to the left side of Nafretiri.
"I must admit, I had thought the painting was of your own inspiration, and that the woman in the stars was you, unhappy with your vampric state as many of our kind seem to be these days..."