A skilled Sculptor has created a beauteous statue of a woman. It is so beauteous that the sculptor has fallen in love with her. And so the Sculptor implores the Gods to bring her to life so that she might become the Sculptor’s wife. Boons from the Gods always come with a price, especially ones reflecting love. And it may be that the Beauteous woman will wish to sculpt the Sculptor into her vision of an ideally aesthetic form… -- Deathshead419
Long has the story been told of an artist who made the perfect woman from marble...
Hogdudika could see her before he put chisel to marble. A vision of beauty that could plausibly make the gods envious. Perfect proportions, perfect grace, and perfect white skin. All he had to do was knock away all the marble that wasn't her.
Avery artist puts a piece of themselves in their work, and this was no different.
Hogdudika put in hours of devotion to the ideal female form. Every strand of hair. Every curve of her body, the way gravity could have worked on it if she were flesh instead of stone. He put her hair into a perfect style. He made her breasts the perfect shape and size. He formed her body to portray the perfect amount of body fat and muscle.
He devoted weeks to her wrists. Dedicated hours of daylight to each fingernail. Put months into the finest details of buttock, thigh, and pubis.
When he was done, she looked ready to take a breath and step off the plinth on which she stood. Alas, she was still stone. Cold, hard, silent, and unmoving.
His work was finished. She was perfect. Yet he was not done. He had spent so much of himself on her, he could not let her go. He gave her a name - Madara, and set her into the main chamber of his house. He spoke to her. Clothed her. Ate and drank while he could see her.
Like many creators, he had fallen in love with his creation.
He began to shun his bed, setting his pillow by her feet. When he woke up with neighbourhood street dogs licking his face and nibbling his extremities, that was when he knew something had to be done.
Those who had magic could turn flesh to stone or skin to bark, but could not do the reverse. They could not place life into lifeless stone.
"It has no one soul as we understand it," they said. "We cannot bring the statue life. Not the true life you desire."
So Hogdudika turned to the gods. He took Madara carefully to the temple of Meridia, the mother moon goddess of love. "Please," he begged. "I need a resolution to this love with no answer. Ease the pain in my heart, gift me someone as good as Madara, or let your daughter take me. I cannot stand the pain any more."
He prayed in that manner until the Mother Moon rose high to shine down on the both of them.
A whisper came to Hogdudika's ears. There will be a price to pay.
"I'll pay anything," he said. "Willingly."
Done and done, said the voice. A soft cracking noise heralded the emergence of a milk-pale woman from a thin shell of marble. Madara stepped down from her plinth, her pallor growing the blush of life.
Hogdudika was so happy that he didn't notice that the goddess had turned his body into clay.
"As you shaped me into your ideal," she said. Her voice, of course, was perfect. "I shall shape you."
Her shaping touch hurt, but doesn't all love?
[Photo by Rachel Kelli on Unsplash]
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