How ironic this place was proving to be. Amid the metal abominations that littered the ground, the mortals had decided to erect a building completely dedicated to the past, yet contained nothing of notable value inside. Perhaps that was the mortals’ excuses for not coming to view what was on display. They did not believe it was worth their time. Well, he did not believe that their mechanical monstrosities were worth his time either.
It did not even occur to the ancient being that perhaps the reason there were no mortals was because it was nearly midnight. His steps seemed loud in the pressing silence of the empty building. The soft clothes he was wearing that mainly consisted of leather, and those products made of all natural clothing made soft swishing sounds, that although were loud to him, could barely be heard over the rush of traffic outside.
Of the few things that were on display in this museum, he only recognized half, as he had been asleep for the better half of the millennium. Those few things that did date before that, he recognized instantly, but they brought little nostalgia to him, and even if they had, it would not have appeared on his stoic face, or his surprisingly blank golden eyes. He had come here to view them, nothing more, nothing less.
He came to a stop in front of a tapestry that had been made depicting the trials of a god-king… the very same god-king he himself was: Gilgamesh. It was much younger than him, and many of the facts had been mistaken from what he could see, but the general aspect of it was the same. He felt the tiniest smirk lift the corner of his mouth as he realized that there were still awed by his legend.
And so they should be.
“Ah, Gilgamesh. You have survived the test of time,” he said, his oddly deep voice rumbling through the empty spaces.
Lily had grown tired of her current activities. The hub-bub of her casino had infiltrated her ears and refused to leave. Her daughter had not called from Italy yet, leaving Lily to care for a cat who didn't seem capable of leaving her dogs alone. Eric and Colton had not returned that evening, they were most likely drinking in some tavern of broken dreams. And Boethius, the man who has sworn he loved her to the ends of the earth, had not called to see her since they made the joint decision to bring Hannah home.
All these factors compounded and forced Lily to flee for the evening. She had left in style, as she always did. She wore a dark purple suit; tailored to fit her curvy body perfectly. A bit of black lace showed in the plunging neckline of the jacket, and a golden ring on a chain drew the eye downwards, towards it. She had waved off the goons which followed her on her own property, rejected a car and driver in favour of driving herself.
The piece of red-painted metal quickly deposited Lily at the DCSGM. She knew her purpose; a selection of art her daughter had glimpsed on an earlier visit, but did not have the time to examine. It sounded so familiar it induced in Lily a flicker of hope; that the artist was one dear to her and was still alive.
Adia had not remembered exactly where the painting was displayed, as the hustle of her recent months had driven it from her mind. Lily was then driven to wander quickly through the near empty rooms, her black stilettos doing little to conceal her presence. She entered a room with tapestries on display, and smiled to herself. She knew where she was now, the painting she sought was in the next room. She walked through the tapestry room with a restrained haste. The only reason she did not run was that there was a man admiring a tapestry on the left of the room, and through her excitement she sensed a vampiric nature.
The room she was drawn to was home to an exhibition of the Renaissance. There were works from various masters in each stage of that period, but the crown jewel was the visiting display of lesser pieces by Michelangelo and Da Vinci. Lily was at home here; though she had died long before these men came about, she had only entered into the personality she now was during their time.
She walked slowly, circling around the room until she came to the piece she sought. It was an untitled, unaccredited work thought to be by Da Vinci. In it, two young women, each a mirror of the other, sat on a stone bench in a court yard. They wore simple dresses, common of aristocrats during that time. The arm of the first woman, the one to the left, was around the waist of the woman on the right. Her head turned, she gazed with a warm smile at her sister. This sister's head was turned towards the viewer, a tiny smile of equal contentment upon her pink lips. In her lap the second woman held a small doll.
It was a pretty picture, but unremarkable amongst the rest of Da Vinci's works. What made the painting special to Lily, was that she bore a resemblance to the two women that could not possibly be a coincidence. She smiled, her suspicions now confirmed.
"Caitlin," She said with a laugh, suddenly happy instead of sad as she thought she would feel. She raised her hand as if to touch the picture, but stopped it several inches away from the canvas, over the face of the woman on the left.
