Chapter Text
Prologue
There’s a saying that goes; the pen is mightier than the sword. And conveniently—or not, depending on which side you’re on—it keeps proving itself true.
Words are a thing that can be beautified on paper. They have this sort of…delicacy to them that can deeply touch one’s soul. There were many a times when a written piece would make a stranger laugh out loud, or leave them staring into nothingness until the lamps of their bedchambers burnt low. Sometimes, even a single line is enough to comfort an ache in someone’s chest. A thought that used to belong to one mind becomes something that lives in a thousand different heads at once. Writers learn how to shape these things with purpose; whole ideas, entire worlds that exist only between the covers of a book.
All created without a single stroke of paint.
And, like anything with that much reach, words don’t only move people gently. For the very same skill that can soften a heart, can just as easily make it lock up; like poison buried beneath the sweet taste of honey. That is the Gift of Writing, as it’s taught in certain households, powerful, and precise, and far more dangerous than any blade.
A story doesn’t need to be true to be believed, it only needs to be repeated. One newspaper becomes ten, ten becomes a few hundreds. An article clipped and shown to a neighbor, a line from an opinion piece repeated over coffee. And just like that, the rumors are whispered everywhere. A domino effect.
“A Painter’s hand holds unchecked power.”
“A Painter’s Gift is the sort of thing that shouldn’t belong to any person.”
“The Painters are dangerous and they must be stopped.”
The clever thing about it is if the headlines look like they come from everywhere, people stop asking who started them.
And when enough people feel unsettled, leaving things as they are stops being an option. Sooner or later, someone will stand up in a crowded room and say that a solution has to be brought forward in the name of public safety.