You know I wrestled with my bruised hours
*Sometimes a shaking hand may only be calmed by a decision for the precise and the delicate, just as sometimes a worried mind can only find reprieve from it's rampageous throes by honing in on a single simple thought and not allowing any others to follow. A routine is established, a purposeful calming of the mind and the body to give them something non-threatening to focus their attentions on, and let the rest rest. Regulus' escape begins as a sketch. Not for any need for grand artistic expression, but because unlike with everything else that's happened Regulus knows where to go from there.
Returning home the previous night, Regulus had suffered from the nightmarishly childish resistance to climbing the stairs in the dark that even some adults experience at particularly fragile moments in their lives. Narrowly bypassing a soulless fate worse than death is fair grounds to be fragile, so he stayed downstairs all night, locked in a ground floor drawing room to burn his map of Rothbury in the fireplace - both so no one would ever see it and so he would not have to look at it any longer. He stayed there until dawn when his nerves allowed him access to his own bedroom. Then, with sleep not an option, he had turned to pencils and paints and tidy drawing books filled with equally tidy concepts.
Time passes more easily when there are angles to work out and dimensions and shadows to map. Still, once he finally begins to paint, Regulus is still unable to ignore his second recent brush with death, unable to get the words of his own memories out of his mind. He needs a shower to rinse the dirt from his hands and the dust from his hair, and just a glimpse of his face makes it clear he needs a good amount of sleep as well, but he continues to work. Even with his chest tight with exhausted anxiety and his entire body feeling strange like after a long cry, he forces his hand to stay still and just tries to think in terms of light and colour.*
Returning home the previous night, Regulus had suffered from the nightmarishly childish resistance to climbing the stairs in the dark that even some adults experience at particularly fragile moments in their lives. Narrowly bypassing a soulless fate worse than death is fair grounds to be fragile, so he stayed downstairs all night, locked in a ground floor drawing room to burn his map of Rothbury in the fireplace - both so no one would ever see it and so he would not have to look at it any longer. He stayed there until dawn when his nerves allowed him access to his own bedroom. Then, with sleep not an option, he had turned to pencils and paints and tidy drawing books filled with equally tidy concepts.
Time passes more easily when there are angles to work out and dimensions and shadows to map. Still, once he finally begins to paint, Regulus is still unable to ignore his second recent brush with death, unable to get the words of his own memories out of his mind. He needs a shower to rinse the dirt from his hands and the dust from his hair, and just a glimpse of his face makes it clear he needs a good amount of sleep as well, but he continues to work. Even with his chest tight with exhausted anxiety and his entire body feeling strange like after a long cry, he forces his hand to stay still and just tries to think in terms of light and colour.*