Microstory 146: Arthur Layshen

This is an experimental Bellevue Profile microstory. The introduction can be found in Microstory 101. More to follow.

Arthur Layshen was born with multiple abilities that could be used in conjunction with each other, but which were not inherently connected. His ability to create extremely detailed paintings by summoning paint remotely was the result of coming from the same family as Hugh Normanson. They, in fact, knew of each other prior to Bellevue’s founding, but this did not explain Arthur’s primary ability. It was thought that Valary Sela’s heightened vision could explain it. Hell, even a Cambrio Yates connection sounded plausible. But they both turned out to be unrelated. Bree Nolan had the ability to recognize genetic relatives, and informed them that he was actually related to Peyton Resin, which made sense in hindsight since she could see without eyes. Until Reactivation, Arthur could not see without eyes, but he did have a literal photographic memory. His eyes were physiologically different than that of most people. Each time a normal person focuses on an object within their field of view, they lose focus on other objects, but not Arthur. He was capable of seeing everything in his sights with equal clarity, including anything in his peripheral vision, and of retaining the images of everything he’s ever seen indefinitely. He was a very early member of Bellevue, and was instrumental in laying the foundation for its membership so that later leadership would have something to stand on. And though he died before seeing his goals reached, his legacy lived on for many decades.