A Moment of Listless Piece

Life had been quiet for the family. Little word had come to them from their kin to the north, and business as usual kept them far too busy far too often.

Catrysa sat on her sofa, and peered out of the window into the grasslands of her home. Overhead, she could just make out the rhythmic slaps of course linen banners and pennants that flapped in the winds, clutching their poles that extended from the tops of the turrets and guard posts of the manor's stone wall. A sigh excaped her lips, and she looked back down at the flat board on her knees. The thick white vellum was still blank. She knew the sooner she got the pictures done, the sooner all her plans would be seen to, for the financers need their pretty little colored pictures, and yet each time she began to start on it, her mind would blank - filled with too many thoughts for it to settle on just one.

For the upteenth time, Catrysa slid the drawing pad away, up onto a shelf near by, and scooped up her journal. She flipped through its many pages, words and drawings penned long ago on its yellowing pages. She smiled as she ran a finger down the image of a tunic, the scralled name of her knight-trainer at the bottom of the page. She paused her musings, eyes trailing to her long, artfully kept nails, only to have her gaze drift up and away, to her viola and violin, each perched lovingly on shelves amid the various tomes she had collected over the years. Only the daily cleaning from the house's maids kept them from showing the dust that forms from lack of use. Catry's smile faded.

"You've been away from it all for too long, Catry," she chided herself softly, eyes returning to the still empty board. "But there are things that must be done first. If it works..." Her voice trailed off, her thoughts still too precious to be spoken aloud, even in the sanctity of her private rooms.

'At times like this, I wish I could capture all my memories before they flutter away on an arrant breeze.'