#(fun fact: that statue is O Desterrado (The Exiled) by Portuguese artist Antonio Soares dos Reis - 1872)

[needcake]

Day 4: Greek Mythology (Pygmalion AU)

@engportevents / Engport Week 2024

“We’re worried about you, Arthur,” was the first thing his brother Dylan said as he stepped into his workshop, eying his workbench and his chisels with a crease between his eyebrows. “You haven’t sold a piece in months, you barely go out. Alasdair told me you missed your own exhibition at the gallery. That’s not like you. You can’t keep holed up in here with your statues.” “They’re better company than most,” Arthur stubbornly retorted, his eyes chasing the marble statue he had hid under a sheet near the far wall, hoping his brother wouldn’t notice it. “And I’m not lonely.” Dylan looked back at him over his shoulder with worry in his eyes, but Arthur dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “I’m fine,” he lied. “I’ve just been focusing on a special project.” “What project?” Dylan insisted. His eyes searched the room and found the thing Arthur had hoped he would not find. “That?” he asked, and before Arthur could stop him he stepped around his bench, gaining ground faster than Arthur could scramble to stop him. When he pulled back the sheet revealing the marble statue of a man, Dylan gasped quietly. “It’s not finished,” Arthur weakly tried, anxiously standing behind him, following his brother’s gaze to the man carved out of stone. The perfect curve of his muscles, the casual pose as he sat on his marble pedestal, lips raised in a slight pout, the petulant pout of beautiful men, and curls of stone-carved hair framing his handsome face. “I’m still—” he stuttered. “He keeps me company, I’m not—” Arthur licked his lips, trying to think of a reasonable, sane thing to say that wouldn’t make his brother send him straight to an asylum. “He’s beautiful, Artie,” Dylan breathed out in awe, but concern was still lingering in his eyes when he turned to look at him. “But he’s not real.” Arthur twisted his hands together, feeling his own callouses, his own roughened fingertips. He knew that. But when he looked up at the statue's face, he wished, as he had wished many times alone in his workshop, working late into the night to free him from this stone prison, that he was.