The Master's Gallery for Fine Art was celebrating on this fine evening, with a party fit for a king, several kings in fact. The gallery was having an open viewing of all the art pieces inside for the public but upstairs, the gallery's high end people watched as the middle class and the like intermingled. It was a warm balmy night so it was a wonderful night to stay inside and enjoy the beauty that is art.

There were many paintings to choose from, the modern art, the portraits, the classical pieces and perhaps more importantly the pieces done by the gallery's premier artist, Sapphire Lupin. It had been a long time since they had heard from their mysterious artist, the one that no doubt made them more money than they were used to. She had come into high demand since her mysterious disappearance and now that she had returned, art lovers from all around the city wanted to see her pieces.

Sapphire herself was happy to be back in New York, a place where she felt that she truly belonged. The lights, the glitz, the glamor, nothing could compare to it, nothing in the world. Not only that, but the people here bought all of her pieces, even if they were complete garbage in her opinion. No matter what she painted, these people seemed to eat it up. Most of them knew of her mutation, but they didn't particularly care, she was a great artist and as long as she didn't start bringing them bad publicity, she was good in their book.

Sapphire stood near her latest paintings at the bottom floor, mingling with the public before she planned on going upstairs to talk to her real buyers. Normally, what she would do is that she would allow them to auction off most of her pieces,

Today, her artwork consisted of traditional pieces, mainly nighttime landscapes with various animals running across them. There was one that seemed to catch a lot of people's attention of a Lion protecting a small rabbit against what it seemed to be an otherworldly specter, all painted in dark hues. Intrestingly enough, the lion's mane was a vibrant shade of red, highly contrasting the rest of the painting. This was all while the rabbit's fur was a light brown with a white spot over it's heart.

Sapphire's fan base, the people who were all dressed in black and had blue contacts in an attempt to look like her, flocked to this painting and called it one of her best yet.

The Artist, wasn't cruel to her "fans" however, in fact she was really quite pleasant and charming, giving them advice, helping them and being surprisingly nice. The mistress of darkness, did have a good repore with fellow artists, most of them were kind to her and a bit in awe. She stood in a strapped white dress, that flowed down to her legs easily. It accentuated every part of her body just right in order to make her look elegant but not anything else.

Sapphire made her way to her own paintings as people began to leave her alone, touching the canvas lightly and smiled. This is why she painted, in order to keep her memories of things alive and it appeared that each of these paintings meant something to her in their own way.

Alma was still in that awkward transitional phase—that phase of going from transient to a homeless girl in a glorified shelter, in which you hadn’t gotten a job or made enough friends to hang out with, and therefore didn’t have much to do.

Part of her was inclined to stay indoors—the streets were unfamiliar and therefore unsafe, and there was this simmering fear that at any moment, her former friends would turn-up. And yet, Alma couldn’t stay inside a moment longer. She needed to find something to do.

This evening, she’d opted to go to an art gallery—it was a higher-end affair that mandated finer attire, so she left the Sanctuary in her heels and a little black dress, one of the few formal pieces of clothing that she’d brought with her. A woman by the name of Sapphire Lupin was the featured artist, and admittedly, Alma hadn’t heard of her. She’d more of just went to dress-up and get out of the Sanctuary.

The little guys meandered about her in a lull, seemingly put to sleep by the low-key atmosphere of the gallery—the big guys had been lost somewhere between the entrance and the current room, too slow to keep up with the young woman that they followed.

Alma paused to look at a painting, while the bodachs distracted themselves with an impressive (and rather shiny) metal sculpture. They were neither visible nor tangible at the moment, thankfully, but Alma still chastised them under her breath. She might have earned a glance or two from passerby's, to which Alma withdrew a Bluetooth device from her pocket and wedged it into her ear.

"Cut it out!" she hissed. The bodachs looked at her in confusion, and then stumbled over themselves to go find something else to do. Alma redirected her attention to the painting before her once again, folding her arms.

Sapphire herself was aimlessly associating with her fellows, trying her best to talk to all of them and attempt to “get to know” These various groups of people. It was always “entertaining” to do this, giving her some sort of reason to stick around here. While Sapphire did enjoy associating with others, there were times that she slightly wished that she could get the hell out of dodge and spend some time alone. Being treated like a practical god of art was nice and all but a lot of these people were only there because her art was edgy or the like, not because they felt any true emotion from it.

Art was meant to be felt, meant to be breathed, meant to be lived and it killed her inside to know that some people just liked it because it made them popular. While she didn’t mind the money she made or the prestige it gave her she really did wished they understood the true meaning of art more. Then again maybe she was just fooling herself into thinking that there were people that truly carred for art as more than just a hobby The closest were her fans that admired her so but she really didn’t think that they kew the true meaning behind may of the things she painted. Alas, things could’t always work out the way she planned it and artists couldn’t always have their purest expressions expressed to the full understanding of others.

The mistress of darkness meandered her way away from the groups trying her best to think a little more positively for a time. The young darkness manipulator approached a woman who was gazing at a painting and decided to attempt to strike up a friendly conversation.

“Do you feel anything from this piece?” Sapphire asked.

Alma held her thumb to her lips, nibbling at its edge pensively. A woman edged up beside her, voicing an inquiry.

Alma glanced at the woman beside her momentarily, before glancing at the piece. How much did the young lady want to bet that this was the artist? While it would be more beneficial to lie to the woman’s face and say that she was having a profound experience with the piece, that would have been an outright lie.

“I haven’t had a profound experience with this piece,” Alma confessed, her expression adopting an air of apology, “I was actually studying the technique utilized in the piece.”

That sounded a lot better than, “I stopped to chastise invisible nuisances, and opted to situate myself in front of this random painting when doing so.”

Rather than explain what techniques she liked or didn’t like, Alma trailed towards another piece that she’d been to earlier, with the explanation of, “There was another piece that I rather liked by the same artist, however.”

Sapphire should have known that not everyone would feel such a profound experience with this piece. Not everyone felt the same things when they looked at art, it was one of those, to each his own sort of situations. The darkness manipulator flipped her hair once, allowing it to fall to her shoulder.

"Not everyone can love every piece of artwork, it is just a fact of life," Sapphire answered, really feeling no ill will to this woman. Not everyone could be as intelligent and talented as she was. "Would you care to show me? It is always good to get a better idea of what the people want."

While Sapphire would much rather do work that only she liked to do, that wasn't a good business practice. She could paint all she wanted, but if she didn't make pieces that would sell, she would be living on the streets.

Alas, what she did for her art.