((a/n Let me know if you want more of these. I may post the others I have written up as extras after ATG finishes))

+++ An All That Glitters Intermission +++

Her earliest memories were of a bright, wild garden, in the full bloom of spring. It surrounded a modest estate on all sides and held plants of varieties her 6-year old self could never have dreamed of, in all manner of colors, shapes, and sizes. She spent every free moment she could exploring each bush and tree, smelling each blossom, until she was dizzy with their fragrant scents, her hair a tangle of leaves and twigs. There were other beautiful things to look at in the garden as well: whitewashed gazebos in which she hid from the long spring rains, a pond with a great, drooping willow tree, its green curtain of leaves barely brushing at the surface.

And of course, there were the sculptures. On great pedestals throughout the garden were hidden figures, in groups or alone, of bronze or marble, posed in evocative formations. The rippling muscles of a man wrestling with a serpent captivated her. She traced the curves of his taught calf, standing on her tiptoes to reach. An image of lovers embraced made her scurry back behind tuft of pampas grass to observe from a distance.

She liked to stand in the middle of a group of six bronze men, all part of one piece. They towered over her like the trees on the edges of the Garden, and sometimes it was a comfort, but sometimes it emphasized the fact that she was alone.

“How come there aren’t any kids?” she remembered asking the Sculptor one day. The rain had driven her back inside the manor and she was on her knees at the window, staring out through the fogged glass at the marble figure of a woman lying prone on the ground. Her back was sensually arched, exposing the lines of her stomach and her full s to the grey skies above.

He turned from his desk and regarded her. “They are all my children,” he claimed in his grandfatherly voice, watching her look out at his work. He was a portly man, comfortable in his age, with a full, curly beard and receding hair. “Yes, each one,” he said again, thoughtfully.

Irene turned to look at him in confusion, but it was hard to glean any meaning from those perfectly black eyes of his.

In time, she came to understand his cryptic answer. As she began to grow up, he taught her the meaning of beauty, and helped her to see it in everything around her. The natural world was full of exquisite forms from the beetles in the grass to the clouds in the sky. But to the Sculptor, no form was more lovely than that of the human body. While he let her play in the garden and read his books, he was in his studio with guests - persons whom she would watch enter, but never seemed to quite catch leaving again.

And the next time she was in the garden, she would find another statue.

It became a game to her. She grew excited when the Sculptor welcomed someone new into the manor, anticipating what kind of creation they would inspire him to make. It wasn’t until she was about sixteen years old that she began to suspect the truth.

She was tall enough now to reach up to the snake wrestler’s ribs, letting her fingers run over the undulating surface of the figure’s torso. She no longer hid from the various groups of statues caught in the throes of passion. She circled them critically, marveling at how a curve here, the use of negative space there was used to evoke such a feeling and rawness of emotion. How the Sculptor had been able to capture such a moment and translate it so faithfully.

It almost defied belief, like he was some medusa pulled straight from myth to turn people to stone.

And she was horrified to discover she was right.

He brought her into his studio one day, the one room of the manor she had never seen before. She had gone through periods of curiosity, wanting desperately to have a peek inside, but her interest would wane again as she became more drawn to the thrill of the surprise of what statue he would reveal next. All of that changed he told her she would begin learning how to sculpt.

“You are just as beautiful as any of those statues you see out there,” he began to tell her, sitting on a stool off in a corner, beginning to sketch the figure of a guest he had welcomed into the studio that afternoon. It was a young man, and the Sculptor had asked him to wear a simple robe, and not mind his young pupil. The man was obliging and gave her a lovely smile. She was so caught up in the excitement of finally being able to create something of her own, that she barely had the sense of politeness to return his smile.

“You’re just as beautiful as this young man before you,” the Sculptor continued, glancing up from his sketch from time to time. “I think the older you get, the more you will find people will be struck by how pretty you are.”

Irene’s smile faltered a bit. What did this have to do with art? She wanted people to be moved by her work, not by her looks.

The Sculptor glanced over at her with those black eyes of his. He seemed to sense her hesitation. “There is a power in your beauty, Joohyun. It is this you will learn to harness in order to fashion your creations.”

He stood up from his stool and came to stand behind her. He turned her so she was facing the robed man, making sure her posture had her standing to her fullest height. “You see how each one of my sculptures is caught up in their various expressions. The human condition is beautiful, Joohyun. The pain, the pleasure, the happiness, the fury humans feel, all of it inspires awe. So look inside yourself and see what sits there, at your core. Grab ahold of that emotion, and use it. Captivate him as my works captivate you.”

Irene had no earthly idea what it was the Sculptor expected her to be able to do with that series of instructions. He wanted her to… look at this guy? And try to captivate him? How was this art, again? She looked at the Sculptor skeptically, but he was already walking back to his stool. Once he was settled, he gestured for her to try.

With a wane sigh, she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to search her core for whatever ‘emotion’ may be lurking there. There was mild confusion, annoyance, even a little bit of disappointment. But the deeper she looked within herself, the less superficial and reactionary her emotions became, until she found something quite unexpected.

Loneliness.

She slowly opened her eyes and saw their guest still amiably standing there before her, and she realized how starved for human connection she was. The fact that she had grown up quite alone dawned on her like the cold quiet of a winter morning, lending a stillness to all of her other thoughts. The only companionship she had ever known was the impartial touch of stone and metal, the only conversation the gentle instruction from the Sculptor.

As Irene watched their guest, she felt a keen desire to draw nearer to him. She wanted him to talk to her. She wanted to know his thoughts. She wanted to know who he was, where he had been, what he did before coming to the estate. She wanted everything. And as she became overwhelmed with this greedy sensation, she felt it seep out of her in a glittering wash of light that filled the studio.

The man was riveted, and his expression changed from faint curiosity to awe as she held him spellbound. She had his complete attention, and she drank it in, needing more, demanding more. She never wanted him to look away. And maybe the Sculptor was right; maybe she shouldn’t be afraid of being beautiful, and of using that to captivate and inspire. She realized there was some small, dark part of her after all that had been waiting for someone, anyone, to look at her the way she looked at works of art.

But the more she indulged in this feeling, the brighter that light coming from her became, and it was doing something to the man. He took half a step forward in his passion for her, before he paused again - no, he didn’t pause, he was stopped. She watched transfixed as his skin began to change: from his bare feet, slowly creeping up his legs, he was turning to bronze. Even as the transformation reached the hem of his draping robes, the cloth itself changed.

Irene watched in horror as he reached out towards her, seemingly unaware of his plight in his desire to be near her, until he was completely overtaken. His chest no longer rose and fell. His eyes no longer blinked. He was a statue.

“No,” she breathed after a long moment. Her light extinguished. She ran over to the statue and grabbed at its outstretched hand, its bronze robes. “No…!” He was solid. She couldn’t even move him as she suddenly beat on his chest. “Why?” she choked out in anguish. “WHY?”

She was alone again.

“My dear,” the Sculptor said quietly from his stool.

She froze.

“He’s exquisite,” he praised.

A sob escaped her as she slid to her creation’s feet. “What have I done?”

“You have done very well,” the Sculptor replied to her rhetorical question. “I believe he will look quite nice in the front of the house, out by the gravel walk. What do you think?”

But all Irene could do was cover her head in her hands as she cried.