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[Shiloh Sinclair]

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Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
~Edgar Allan Poe

It was all a dream. Hadn’t he said so in the dream itself? But dreams mean something. They serve as introspection, and sometimes warning. Dreams enrapture, enfold, embolden, and empower. But for all the things dreams could do, dreams never leave scars.

Shiloh rubbed the inside of her wrist and pushed up the sleeve to reveal the angry purplish-red scar from the bend of her elbow down to the center of her palm. Painting was now a nearly impossible task, as the scar itched and burned in protest of new movements that pulled it in awkward directions.

Still, she endeavoured to finish the project at hand, as she swiftly caught the light and shadows with her brush and spread them hastily across the canvas. The girl lay curled up tightly on the rug, pale blonde hair spilled carelessly on the floor and down over her tunic. Light from the candle in the corner cast curious shadows across her features, as she lay, eyes closed, still as death in slumber.

The eyes – something about Kylee’s eyes. Mixed races had always fascinated Shiloh. The way genes blended and created a being that was parts of each, yet wholly beautiful and new. She couldn’t put he finger on Kylee’s ancestry. Human, certainly, with hints at – what? Gargoyle? Some exotic strain of elf? She’d never seen eyes like that…

Soft in the shadows, Shiloh spilled candlelight across the sleeping figure on her canvas, then stepped back, looking between the two. Quietly, she leaned the painting in the corner and folded her easel, then took a second blanket from the bed and covered the sleeping figure on the rug. Then she slipped beneath the pile of blankets on the bed and watched the figure until she fell asleep, still rubbing the scar she bore from “only a dream.”
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I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for. ~Georgia O'Keeffe