[[December] : Gift] By a Thread

Reaching down, Sasara slid a rock over the edge of the frayed knot, holding the ends of the rope down in place… it was sturdy enough for what he could manage in the low light. He let out a cold breath—it puffed out in front of him, not nearly as dazzling as the other glowing crystals in his immediate surroundings.

It was dark, damp, and frigid. Why would someone be out here in this slightly snowy weather? Well, on Sasara’s commute home he’d noticed the awkward twinkling of the luminescent crystals through the city’s hazy lights and thought it’d make a perfect scene for his art if he were to stage a piece on a lone, dead tree in the middle of the snow fields. Of course, he’d get no volunteers to come out in the cold—plus this sort of scene made it difficult for him to hoist himself up—so he’d resorted to using a mannequin instead… which worked out well with the lighting. The surrounding crystals were just bright enough to slightly illuminate the red coloration of the rope, but dim enough to hide the “identity” of the tied up subject. Was a bun there, or was it something else entirely? Sasara had to say, he’s pretty proud of himself for thinking up this concept… even if he couldn’t get a proper model and was freezing his tail off in the middle of a field.

Upon backing up, though, even the self-critical Sasara had to gasp ever so quietly at how pretty the setup was. The mannequin, lifted off the ground by a rope over a branch of that dead tree, posed carefully to make it appear as if there was a blowing breeze… The backdrop of the twinkling crystals—both near and far—throwing a feeble amount of light onto the scene… The snow retaining the lights’ brightness and reflecting it back, being one of the brightest things in the scene… And to top it all off, dribbling some cranberry sauce across the snow like a spattering of blood. It almost made Sasara want to get up there and pose himself… well, no one’d come to get him if he did that, so it’d be smart to not put himself in such a situation if he didn’t want to get pointed at later down the line.

In any case, time to stop gawking like a weirdo at the scene… it’s important to set the camera for a low exposure when taking scenes like this, you know. A steady hand, low and long exposure to accentuate the lights, and you’ll have yourself a beautiful print. The only problem is that you had to wait… quite a while for the picture to take, and Sasara was about to freeze. He couldn’t just leave all this equipment out here either… so instead of doing something smart, he walked a pace away and started a little fire to keep his hooves warm. 

It sure was an event to clear a patch for a little fire, but once he did it threw a wave of warm light into the surrounding area… thankfully he was far away enough so that it didn’t mess with the camera, but it was interesting to see the snow twinkle brighter and the fainter crystalline lights hide themselves in the presence of a brighter light. Also… it sure was interesting to feel his appendages again! Feels nice to know that his hoof-freezing efforts won’t be going to shit if he manages to pull the image off, though.

And after an adequate amount of time has passed, Sasara wandered back to check the camera… and well, looks like he got it. Now it’s time to take it home and finish editing the photo… in a dark, dark room away from all these cold lights. Sure was fun while it lasted.