Serenity Sides: A Fine Winter Portrait (Patreon)

Hey folks!

The heat has returned! Not as bad over here as it was towards the end of June, but it's early days yet. Don't worry about me, I'll be keeping to the shade like the creature of darkness I am, but I certainly hope you're all taking care of yourselves out there!

The warmth is certainly making it easy to slack off work and play 20 year old MMOs, but I shall do my best to stay strong!

In the meantime, you can cool off by enjoying this tale focusing on Serenity Winter, as she gets a proper lesson on how to chill out and hang around for a while. Enjoy! (And afterwards, check out the art of today's tale Here!)

“I don’t get it.” Serenity Summer stared out at the walls of the art gallery like she’d found herself in an alien zoo. The walls were long, and made of marble. The carpets looked way too expensive to walk on. And the paintings on the wall all looked like weird non-geometric shapes that hurt her brain when she looked at them for too long. This world was strange and foreign to her, and she clearly wanted to leave as fast as possible. “You said that the Desire was beaten.”

“They are.” At her side, the blue haired Serenity Winter nodded, looking much more at home as she walked down the carpeted aisle. “The Arts sealed her about two hours ago. I believe her name was FrannieFrames? Style said she really liked paintings. And she also said that Dancer wanted you to know that she kicked its ass.”

The brunette snorted. “Sure she did. But yeah, cool that sounds exactly like the kind of Desire you’d get in Ruby Canyon. They’re so weird over here.”

“They’re not weird, they’re just…” Winter paused, fumbling for the word.

“Creative?” The last member of their little team, the ever bright Serenity Spring, supplied.

“Creative! That’s it. They’re creative.”

“Yeah, sure.” Summer rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying, you don’t get nearly so many weirdos over in Sapphire.”

Winter paused, clearly torn between her instinct to be nice to their sister city, and by extension, the Serenity Artists… And her driving urge to agree that obviously Sapphire City was the best and everywhere else sucked. She was rather attached to her home, and to the legacy that her mentors, the Serenity Saviours, had left.

Fortunately, the brunette continued talking before she needed to make a difficult choice. “Anyway, if she’s sealed, why are we here? The place is clear.”

The blunette happily hurled herself onto the change in topic. “This is part of a Serenity’s duties too. If an area has been occupied by a Desire for long enough, the Foundation requires that a team comes in to handle cleaning up.”

She could tell instantly that she’d chosen the wrong words. Summer’s face screwed up as she realised she’d been drafted into doing chores. “Cleaning up? Seriously?”

The team leader wince. Whoops. “I mean, we call it cleaning up, but it’s just due diligence, you know? We’re not here to dust or anything, we’re just making sure that all of the victims were freed, and the Desire didn’t leave anything behind. Stuff that it’s dangerous for civilians to do.”

Spring, who had been poking at some magazines left on a bench, suddenly withdrew her hand. “Wait, dangerous? How dangerous? What stuff?”

“Sometimes objects absorb enough of a Desire’s magic that they keep their power even after the Desire herself is defeated.” Winter happily explained. This was what she was supposed to be doing as the team leader – teaching her friends how being a Serenity worked! Honestly, sometimes she felt like she was letting them down on that front… “That’s how we get Resonant objects – items with powers of their own. The kind of stuff we have to send back to the Foundation for analysis, just to make sure it doesn’t do anything nasty.”

“Uh.” Now the short blonde was backing up. “How can we tell if they’re, uh, Resonant? Exactly?” She glanced around nervously.

Winter giggled, reaching past her friend to close the magazine and straighten it up on the bench. “Well, usually they’ll be doing their thing. And it’ll be based on the Desire that created them, so I guess any Resonant objects here would be activated by looking at them. But don’t worry, they’re usually harmless! I mean, they can be dangerous, but not to a full team of Serenities, so we’re here to do a preliminary scan of the place and to make sure it’s safe, before actual cleanup teams can move in.”

“Okay, but I’ve got to go in like, half an hour…” Summer was looking at her communicator, a frown growing on her face. “I’ve had to skip way too much Volleyball training lately, and I’m not letting the girls down again this week. Can we hurry this up?”

The others nodded understandingly. “Yeah, of course,” the blunette said with a smile. It was good to know that the brunette was making effort to meet up with her friends outside the team. Now if only she could get Spring to do the same. “That’s fine. This place can’t be that big, we’ll be done before you need to go.”

“Oh, great!” Actually, the blonde was perking up as well. Maybe she was being social too? “They’re doing an announcement for the next Stab the Cone game in twenty minutes, and I really want to catch it live…”

… Well it was nice to dream. “Can’t you watch that on your communicator?”

Spring blinked at her. “C-can I? I thought that was for official business only?”

Winter chuckled awkwardly. “Well, this is pretty official…” Sorta.

“Oh, and I’d have to log in with my account…”

“Ah. No. No, don’t do that.” The blunette shook her head. “No civilian details on Serenity tech, way too much of a risk. Can’t you sign up with a fake name or something?”

The blonde didn’t look confident. “I’d have to verify it – Oh, can I use my official Serenity email?”

“… Probably not.” Yeah, no, that’d be a step too far. They didn’t need to clog up their work accounts with spam mail. “Do you really have to see it live?”

“Well…” Spring coughed nervously. “If I don’t Flip’s going to hit me with so many spoilers…”

Ah. Serenity Flipflop, Winter’s sister, was a notorious slacker who only ever seemed to have energy when it came to trolling people – especially Winter and her friends. So really, there was only one thing she could say here. “You can leave early as long as you promise to spoil her first.”

“Deal!” The trio shared a high-five, morale at an all-time high. They were going to clean this gallery out in no time flat!

-

It ended up taking longer than they thought. Who knew that art galleries were so big? Why did so many of these paintings need their own rooms? Who had decided to make an entire separate wing for sculptures? And far too much space had been given to the space exhibit.

So, even going as fast as they did, there was still a lot left to do by the time Spring and Summer had to leave. And though they’d been hesitant – despite their commitments, they didn’t want to leave all the work to their leader – Winter had insisted. She could handle a routine inspection on her own just fine, thank you.

It wasn’t as though there was that much left, anyway. This just meant that she got to take on the last few galleries herself. The ‘Modern Technology’ gallery, which as near as she could tell was full of phones and selfies, the ‘Around the World’ exhibit, which looked like it was mostly art from Leydina that they had on loan, and the ‘Serenity’ gallery, filled with art based on Serenities!

To the surprise of absolutely no one in the history of ever, it was the ‘Serenity’ gallery that Winter found herself drawn to. She’d seen art based around Serenities before – and, uh, occasionally been Serenity art before, though that probably didn’t count – but she’d never seen a gallery based around the stuff before, and she couldn’t deny that she was curious.

And also, if a Desire was going to leave a trap anywhere in here, it’d be in the place that celebrated their eternal enemy, wouldn’t it?

So she wandered in, paying close attention to all of the exhibits – to look for potential Resonant or leftover victims, that was the only reason! And if she just so happened to spend a little time examining the cooler pieces of art to make sure they were totally safe, then that was just a coincidence.

She definitely wasn’t disappointed when she didn’t see anything about the Seasons or the Saviours in there. Nope. That would be silly.

Frowning, she paused in front of a painting of… What was that? It was one of those weird flat styles, where everything was painted at weird angles and the colours were all wrong. The plaque underneath it read ‘Starfall’, which could mean any number of things when it came to Serenities, but… Ugh.

Honestly, she’d always struggled with this kind of stuff. For some reason she’d never really understood ‘art’. Like, she got that artists were trying to communicate deeper themes and messages or whatever through their works, but she’d always been a fairly practical girl, and being told that the specific shade of red used in the painting was meant to evoke the horror of war, while the yellow was the faltering shield of serenity just made no sense to her.

And also? Serenity Seals weren’t that colour. She knew that first hand. So, y’know, automatic fail there. Hmph.

Grumbling, the blunette moved on, her eyes scanning over the other displays with ever dwindling interest. This was an area she knew she should try to be better at, but at the same time, didn’t she have enough on her plate? Training to be a Serenity at the same time as teaching two rookies, and then all of her studies in her civilian life? If her grades started slipping she’d be in serious trouble…

She shook her head. Okay, but right now, here she was. This was a chance to educate herself! To learn more about the world and the people in it. And you never knew when this sort of information could come in handy. Desires came in all shapes and forms, someday she might really have to know that Simon Smackle painted ‘Sealing of Dream’ and… And…

Okay, that picture looked nothing like how historians thought the sealing of Dream had gone down. Records said there had been at least three full squads of Serenities up there, and while no one was sure how many members a ‘squad’ had back in those days, there had definitely been more than two Serenities. Ugh, if this picture was any more inaccurate it wouldn’t even be on the moon.

The more she looked around, the more she found the details bothering her. Inaccuracies mounted up. Serenities who records said had green hair were depicted as blondes, famous battles had completely absurd geography, historical events had the wrong people at them. It was all very pretty, but…

Maybe art really wasn’t for her. There was something she just wasn’t getting here, and the fact that it was Serenity based made it all feel oddly personal. Hmph. Winter was not… great at not being good at things, she was aware of that particular weakness - though it was totally a strength if you thought about it! Maybe it was best to just move on and get out of here.

Sighing, she continued through to the next room. More Serenity arts. These ones she liked more, at least – they were portraits, for the most part, some incredibly old, and she didn’t know any details that spoiled their accuracy. They were nice! Nothing especially interesting, though.

Then the next room made her pause at the door.

It was different from the previous two. This one was smaller, and only seemed to house one piece of art – a painting on the far wall, covered by a drape. Maybe this display wasn’t quite ready for the public when the Desire outbreak happened?

That wasn’t what got her attention, though. The thing that drew Winter up short was the title of the piece, written on a sign over the door.

‘The Fallen Serenity’

… What? Hey, wait a second, what? The fallen what?!

The blunette squinted at the sign in disbelief, double checking to make sure it said what she thought it said. And it did! What kind of- She’d never heard of a painting called ‘The Fallen Serenity’ and she definitely didn’t like the implications. What kind of nonsense were they hosting in this art gallery?

She stormed into the room, her face already twisting in fury. If the art in the first room had felt personal, then whatever they had in this one felt personally insulting. If she found something awful in here, she was going to- Going to…

…

Well she’d find someone to complain to. Didn’t these people know what Serenities did for them? She wasn’t even thinking of herself as a Serenity as her anger built – she was just king of a Serenity fangirl.

Of all the ungrateful… Nnn. No. No, she wouldn’t. She would not let herself think like this. People were allowed to have their opinions, even if they were cruel. If she let herself think about it any other way, then her argument with Autumn…

Nope! No, she wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, she was going to rip this stupid drape down and see what these people thought they were hiding-!

… An empty frame?

Winter’s frown faded briefly into confusion, and then into an exasperated eyeroll. No wonder this had been covered up. They didn’t even have a picture to put in it. Definitely an unfinished display.

And there she’d been getting all worked up. Man, what an anti-climax. She turned around to walk out, still shaking her head. Maybe she could have a quiet word with the staff, check what they were actually planning on putting in here, and, uh, pass word back on up to the Foundation if it was anything uncomfortable. She was all for artistic expression – even if she didn’t understand it – but they didn’t need to be jerks about it.

The Serenity sighed… And then frowned again. A question had just shoved itself into the forefront of her mind, propelled almost violently by the rational part of her brain after it had been blocked off by her indignant fury. A very important question which would have been really useful to recall five seconds earlier.

What was the name of the Desire she was cleaning up after again?

Oh shi-

Winter tried to spin around, her hand reaching out to summon her sword as her sense for danger kicked in, but it was far too late. Even as she turned, she felt an incredibly powerful suction latch on to her, hoisting her unprepared form up into the air and towards the empty frame. She scrambled, her arms and legs flailing to try to latch on to something that would anchor her, but there was nothing to grab. All she could do was yelp in shock as she was sucked straight into the empty wall where the painting should have been.

But she never made it to the wall. Instead, as her right hand passed through the frame ahead of her, her fingers spread to try and brace for impact, the air around it rippled, glowing with unearthly light, and she felt the strangest sensation shoot up her arm. It was a pleasant feeling, like she was giving a muscle a really good stretch, only multiplied by a thousand. Delightful warmth filled her hand, as though she’d just dipped it into a massaging jacuzzi. Her yelp became a gasp – one that grew louder the rest of her arm was drawn in after her hand, the warm feeling spreading nearly up to her shoulder.

It was so startling that she nearly forgot to keep fighting. Nearly. But then her left hand managed to grab the frame, finally finding a purchase to hold on to. Her left leg hooked around it a moment it a moment later, giving her just enough leverage to try to pull herself back, to keep herself hovering above the glowing threshold.

Caught as she was, there was little she could do, of course, besides put all of her considerable strength into breaking free. But her arm refused to budge, locked down firmly. She couldn’t feel any pressure on it – she couldn’t feel anything except a really nice buzz – but it still wouldn’t move.

And looking ‘down’ at it, she had a dreadful suspicion of why that was.

The frame wasn’t empty anymore. Once her arm had been sucked in, it had filled itself out with purple, the entire square area now painted in with a simple backdrop. Which, sure, was weird, but not what she was paying attention to. She was far more concerned with the fact that her arm no longer looked like… well, her arm, but rather, it looked like a painting of her arm. It had been flattened out along the canvas, turned from a three-dimensional limb to a two-dimensional caricature.

In fact, even as she watched, her arm was starting to change. It was extending itself, moving without her permission, her hand stretching out, palm open. Mere paint on a canvas, trying to take on an attractive pose. And around it, her uniform was shifting too, the bright blue colouring of her gloves starting to fade into a plainer, less noticeable shade of off-white.

The Serenity bit her lip, trying to resist the pleasurable sparks said arm was still shooting up into her brain. This was bad. She wasn’t going to be able to get out of this alone. And the others had already left! How could she… Ah! Of course! Her communicator!

Gritting her teeth, she leaned back as much as possible, putting all of her strength into the grip of her arm and leg. If she could just reach down to her communicator, then she could send an emergency signal. The others were sure to rush back over then! She felt bad about potentially interrupting the events they were looking forward to, but…

… Look, she was getting eaten by a painting, that came first, okay? Even she could admit that.

So, carefully… carefully… She couldn’t risk losing her balance or weakening her grip as she slid her hand down the frame. It was still trying to pull her in, and only her boosted strength as a Serenity was keeping her free. But she was nearly there. A little further… Yes, got it! Now she just had to-

Schlorp!

Huh-? No! Winter’s eyes widened as she realised her mistake. Leaning down had nudged her right leg out too far, brushing her heel against the canvas. And even that light contact had been enough for the painting to firmly yank the rest of her leg under, sending another wave of warm pleasure shooting straight up into the blunette’s brain.

“Nn!” She grunted, wobbling, the pull growing even stronger now. But she had her communicator in hand, she just had to… had to…!

Schloop!

“Hua-!” The angle of her leg twisted under her, firmly unseating her balance. Her body slid to the side and made firm contact with the canvas, immediately sinking in. A spasm rolled through her free limbs, sending her communicator clattering across the floor, utterly destroying any chance she had of regaining her grip, and drawing her head half under as well for good measure. “-Oooohhh…~”

That was when Winter’s doom was well and truly complete. One eye froze open, gazing out from the painting with a cool calm. The other rolled up in her unconsumed head, her cheeks burning red as incredible pleasure surged through her. Her lips curled into a dizzy smile, a heated moan spilling from her lips as she was steadily drawn deeper.

There was nothing she could do to resist. Too much of her was already spreading out over the canvas. Her thoughts were flattening, simplifying. All of the complexities of life were being pushed out of the crevices of her brain as it was smoothed out into an easy splash of paint.

And the changes in her body were becoming clearer by the second. Already, the half of her chest that was inside the painting was starting to inflate, her white Serenity uniform swirling and unwinding around her expanding breast, already twice the size of the other. The same was happening with her ass, the painted side fattening up, her skirt thinning into a much lacier parody of itself. All of her uniform was melting around her, the colours twisting and blending into new shapes and tones, becoming something much more suitable for display.

It all felt so good. Like she was being bathed in pure pleasure itself. And of course, the very first thoughts that were flattened out of her brain were the ones of resistance. Soon enough, all the blunette could manage was a sigh of delight as the rest of her body was finally drawn fully into the painting with one last ‘Schlip’.

The surface of the canvas rippled one last time, before fully solidifying, truly trapping the Serenity within itself. And now that she was completely contained, she was fully at the mercy of the forces reshaping both her body and her mind. What was left of her normal proportions quickly swelled to match their artistic counterparts, the blunette’s bust soon growing big enough to dominate her picture. Her uniform, too, completed its dissolution, its structure dissolving and then repainting itself into a revealing set of lacy green-blue lingerie. Her breasts were only barely contained, her nethers almost equally contained, and her legs clad in long, smooth stockings.

Then, at long last, all fell silent and still. The new painting was allowed to rest, to settle. Its wet paint, allowed to start to dry.

But inside the flattened world, the blue haired girl’s brow lightly furrowed, the weakest of frowns marring her beautifully captured face. Her thoughts were slow and simple, but her paint was still wet enough to allow her a few. And though it was a struggle, those few were starting to make themselves heard.

But wasn’t this… bad? She had the faintest notion that something had gone wrong – it was just that she couldn’t possibly remember what. Just like she couldn’t remember her name, or where she was. The information simply didn’t exist in her mind – as though it had all been painted over and erased at some point. Hm. Did that have something to do with whatever had gone wrong…?

A warm tingle ran through her brain, as if a spot of paint had just been added to her addled mind, and memories dripped into her head, filling in the blank spots with simple strokes.

She was… a Serenity…? That sounded right…

Another warm tingle, delightfully filling her mind with everything it needed to know. Oh!

Yes. She remembered now. Relief seeped through her as her dazed, simplified mind relaxed. Her frown faded, and if she could have, she would have sighed contentedly.

She was the Fallen Serenity, a painting created to entice and inspire. That was her name. That was why she was here. And she knew just how to fulfil her purpose.

A smile tweaked the edge of her mouth as she bit her lip, her eyes locked forwards on the place where her audience would hopefully one day stand. They were the ones she had been created for. She needed to offer herself to them, present her form for their pleasure.

So the Fallen Serenity lay back, the purple background ripping around her as it took the form of silken bedsheets, and used the last moments before her paint dried completely to take on a come-hither pose, putting her body on full display. Her legs stretched down to the bottom of the frame, one kicked out, thighs lightly pressed together, hinting at how easily they’d open. A hand brushed against her side, fingers squeezing into the meat of her ass, showing off just how much she had to offer there, while her thumb lay ready to pull her thin underwear aside with just a brush.

Then, for the killer blow, her other hand reached up and pulled down the lip of her bustier, exposing her breast. The rest of her arm propped up her shelf of cleavage, putting it all up, putting everything she had on show, all for her audience to peruse and enjoy.

She was the embodiment of temptation.

She was the Fallen Serenity.

And with that, the last of her paint finally dried, freezing her in place. Her body on eternal display. Her thoughts, simple and small, locked in permanently – sultry and proud offerings of her inner self.

The gallery was quiet and still, but soon enough, visitors would swarm through this wing – and its newest exhibit was destined to become its most popular attraction.

She couldn’t wait. Finally, she understood the appeal of art – and she was going to make sure that everyone who saw her did too~