It was a lively place. Bathed in red silks and braided weaved patterns and paintings on the walls. Gilded in golds and silvers, and the floors of every room carpeted with something soft and comfortable to lay on. Meraki had the day off today, but all her art supplies were here because the lighting of her room was too perfect to paint anywhere else. She avoided all the rooms she knew her regular clients attended when she wasn't in. Most of them had a rather unhealthy attachment to her- and while it worked out well for money making, it didn't exactly bode well in wanting privacy in her suite on her off-days.
The front counter on her level was being run by a younger new-hire. He wasn't one of the sex workers, but he did know all the directions and goings on, so that Meraki knew who was where. Charilaos looked up from the workbook as he sent a client down the opening to the right and behind the desk, then found Meraki walking in.
"My, my, Mera," he mused, "Hard at work, even on your paid leave? Such devotion."
Meraki gave a soft laugh into her sleeve-covered hand. She stepped up to the desk with a smile at Charilaos.
"Oh no, dear. Simply here to paint today- I have someone in mind who makes an incredible muse."
Charilaos inclined his head slightly, "That woman the other gals here said you were hanging off of the last visit to the temple?" he teased.
Meraki flushed and waved her hand in his face for a second before sighing and shaking her head.
"Not exactly. Of course, she was… is, ah- ethereal but no, no this painting is only loosely based on her. It's just someone in my dreams I keep seeing," she managed out between moments that she seemed a little out of it. Charlaos made the kind of look that implied he thought she was talking out her ass. To be fair, it made Meraki almost believe that she was. Charilaos let her go after that, informing her of the whereabouts of her clients if they'd been in for a while to ensure she didn't find them on their way out.
As she pushed aside the curtain into her suite and let it drape gracefully behind her, she took a deep breath in. The scent of honey and lavender incense burning filled her head and lungs, and she relaxed. Her paints and canvases were stacked to the side, behind a small cupboard for her own sakes of not having any pigments stolen. The set up was muscle memory at this point. Meraki was glad, though, because her mind kept feeding her images of the woman from her dreams, and mixing the image with one of 'Erin' from the temple. 'Erin' really had looked so similar to the dream. It was uncanny. Eerie, if she thought too hard about it. But oh, 'Erin' had just been so pretty.
She hummed a tune, light and summery, as the paint on her brush began to line over the charcoal sketch she'd done the night after the visit to the temple. Meraki didn't quite know the song. She was making it up as she went, but it sounded like the taller woman, like the dream, like the both of them. It did occur to her to gift the painting to 'Erin' once it was done, but Meraki really didn't know her that well and- being honest- she wasn't sure 'Erin' had even liked her all that much. She'd had a half-apprehensive look on her face the whole time, and looked somewhat taken off-guard by the fact that Meraki and her coworkers were even there. Maybe she simply hadn't been told.
Either way, Meraki let the paint drip down the canvas, and watched as the tip of her brush and her spatula and her fingers painted the face of the woman her mind couldn't rid the thought of. She was upset that she couldn't seem to capture the dream woman's enormity. Couldn't seem to scale her correctly, to give her the feeling that she so desperately felt the woman needed, to be presented as perfectly as possible. The dream had been abstergent.
She barely noticed the sun setting behind her until she could no longer see her brush strokes correctly. Her mouth let out a sigh before she could stop it, and she packed away her easel and brushes, and laid the painting against the wall to dry without falling over in the night. On her way out, she found that the shifts had already changed. Already being used quite loosely there, though, as Meraki had no real concept of how much time had passed nor how late it really was. She managed to slip past the regulars unnoticed, as most were at least the tiniest bit too distracted.
While the streets were dark, leading into the town centre, it was peaceful a walk that Meraki often enjoyed. The trees swayed with a rustle. The birds were making sleepy chirps as they settled on branches. The moon was slowly rising in the sky, and Meraki finally felt like she'd had a good day.
What she didn't expect to find though, was 'Erin', wandering around in one of the gated farmland areas, smelling the flowers with a concerned look on her face. The taller woman startled enough to stab her hand on the roses she had been about to smell when Meraki walked over to tap her shoulder.
"Ghach- shit- Hey, hi, hello Meraki!" 'Erin' fumbled over herself to stand, hiding her hand behind her back as she did. Her robes were a little messy, with dirt on her knees and some on her chin, and pollen on her sleeves.
Meraki wanted to laugh, but she was a little concerned by the gash on 'Erin's hand.
"Evening, Ms. Erin. What exactly are you… doing?"
'Erin' sighed and rubbed under her nose with her injured hand before she realised and attempted to hide it again. Meraki caught it, her gaze falling to the cut between the joint of 'Erin's forefinger and thumb. It wasn't big, but the woman didn't pull back, nor did she say much else. Instead she just watched as Meraki searched her clothes for her emergency bandages.
She wrapped it, and 'Erin' finally spoke when she had finished, "You carry those with you?"
"Mhm. Scrapes and bangs are usual in my profession," Meraki responded, dropping the hand and finishing with slightly surprised amusement at the fact that 'Erin' barely seemed to register it for a few seconds. When she did, she raised it to her eyeline for a moment, running her thumb over the seam between wraps.
"I was just smelling the flowers. Had a lingering… vile stuck in my nose for a few days," 'Erin' said, slipping her hand into her pocket.
"Lingering vile doesn't sound pleasant at all," responded Meraki. She took in the fact the tall woman looked tired, and had clearly been outside all day. She looked more like the dream now then she had in the cleansed cathedral.