Closed Sight and Sketching (Gale)

[Tsaba]

10th Summer, 513AV

Tsaba like the Wright Memorial Library. Sometimes she wondered why she even had a room, when she could just read in the library all the time -- it had books, it had tables, it had silence...

Tsaba strode into the now-familiar vast building and wandered down the row of books until she found the Auristics section, then carefully located and pulled down A Thorough Understanding of Physical Characteristics by Magrid Huffledore. Her big drawback, so far as she could see, was that she'd been trained specifically to look for certain things in living auras and ignore the rest. That was what she needed to get over.

The library was unusually crowded, and the only table within sight occupied by a sad-looking blonde boy. But the table was easily big enough for more than one person. It would be horribly rude to interrupt him, but...

"Excuse me," she said as politely and non-intrusively as she could, "would you mind if I sit here?"

[Gale Austin McCenry]

Once again with his eyes glued to a book rather than a blank page, the man kept to himself as usual. Silently reading to himself and attempting to tune out the shuffling of pages and feet and the occasional murmur, the man should really be working an a art piece to sell rather than look up other parts of the world he would never see. Gale needed all the mizas he could get if he was ever going to find his own place and not have to hassle Ricky for a place to stay.

But reading of other cities wasn't entirely pointless. Many of the descriptions of the people and places sounded so intriguing and spectacular that the imagination alone and would make wonderful pictures. At least how he pictured it in his head. Sometimes ideas and pictures are best to keep to yourself.

Turning a page over to read the never ending text, the widower's face twisted and swirled to that of what he was reading. Raising an eyebrow, forming a smirk and everything in between could have been seen coming from Gale, who was obviously too into the book for his own good. Especially for reading about a city known as Ravok. He hadn't gotten very far, and didn't particularly plan too, for he couldn't afford to buy books for leisure reading. Nevertheless, the information on the city alone was enough to sprawl his mind into an adventure.

That was until someone asked if they could take a seat.

Looking up with haste, the murderer looked almost flabbergasted as he took an unnatural long moment to process her request. One moment he was in another city, exploring a new world and the next he's back home. As strange as it sounded, Gale was caught off guard by the transition but blinked his flabbergasted look of his face and replaced it with a warm grin and an fluttering of pink on his cheeks. A chuckle was the first sound to be heard from him which was quickly followed by a baritone apology,"I apologize." What he was apologizing for exactly was a shade of gray. Perhaps just for the awkward pause,"Sure." He nodded towards the seat she wanted,"Not like I am going to stop you."

[Tsaba]

Tsaba gave a single nod and sat. "Thank you." The kid looked very entranced in his book, and Tsaba was tempted to take a look at his aura while he read. What effect would intense focus have? Did it slow the heart? Give some order to the blue waves that she would see?

She quickly set up a tiny workspace, pulled out some parchment and dutifully labelled it "Auristics -- 10th Summer, notes from Thorough Understanding, Huffledore". Then she began to read.

Tsaba herself didn't focus too tightly on the book as she read. At least, she did naturally, but she was trying to maintain an awareness of her environment, which she hoped would help her with Auristics. Her biggest problem with the discipline always seemed to be too much focus, disregarding too much. So as she wrote, she kept note of the table surface, the smell of books, and the peaceful sound of the boy next to her slowly breathing.

[Gale Austin McCenry]

Giving a nod to the lass as a simple gesture, the man returned to his book. Now that Gale was no longer in his fantasy, he better get something productive done while he researched. Reaching down beside him, the artist rummaged through his small bag and pulled out his notebook and charcoal. There weren't any pictures within the book but that didn't mean he couldn't create his own.

The sketchbook was opened to the newest page. Attempting to bring the visuals from his head to the paper, the man took several long moments just starring. But once the lines were pasted down, he picked up the charcoal and made several basic lines at the bottom of the page. Gale never knew what they were called officially, but Foundational Lines made sense. In order to have a building one needed to have a foundation, just like a drawing. At least to him. Other artists manage to get the same result out but just work on parts of the picture here and there with no exact pattern. It awfully confused him.

This pictures 'Foundational Lines' would be the water at the building's base, of course. What else would it be? The charcoal fluttered back and forth making thin lines for the calm waves. Next layer didn't have a name. It was just layer two, really. As a matter of fact, most of the layers didn't. Only three did. Those were the Foundation Lines, the Center Lines, and the Sky Lines. The Center Lines obviously being what he wanted to focus on, which was usually in the middle section of the page. The Sky lines were usually the last, being the top layer, and were just the details at the top of the page, such as the clouds or whatever happened to be there in the picture he was drawing. It was usually clouds. When you thought about it, it was like a sandwich.

Holding the piece of charcoal loosely in a fist, the artist started on the bottoms of the buildings. Where the water met the walls. That was quickly followed by the walls of the buildings. All were light lines. They were temporary lines that would be covered later by the details. Flipping the mineral to his finger tips, the man then sketched a few small circles. They would later be people.

Setting the utensil down, Gale leaned over to the book again. Rereading a paragraph on the general house structures. Or, what he figured they looked like based on what they gave him.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba's eyes kept dancing away from the page in front of her, to the image taking shape beneath the young man's charcoal. The coal produced a few indecipherable lines at first, but quickly built shapes upon them.

She pulled her attention away from his work, and back to her book.

The passivity of Auristics is a matter of some debate; it is certainly active, in that it is energy channeled to perceive, but it is also non-interfering. Auristics may be thought of as passive in the same way as sight; it requires the active use of a sensory system to absorb and process information without interfering with the subject.

The young man had outlined some walls and was marking the page with faint circles when Tsaba finished the paragraph.

Giving up on trying to focus on her studies, Tsaba turned to him. "You seem to be quite experienced at drawing."

[Gale Austin McCenry]

Common Vani Nari

He returned to the drawing quickly after, picking up the charcoal once again. His hands started to turn black already from the mineral, but Gale didn't seem to notice.

A few more lines were added that formed small boxes that would be windows. Another few that made the roofs, now making outlines in the Sky Line layer. There wasn't as much sky in this particular picture. The buildings went high enough to cover most of it. There wouldn't be any soft squishy clouds in this drawing. It would be a... freshly baked bread sandwich. A nice crunchy, clean top. Sounds like a delicious picture.

Shaking his head from the thought, the basic details of the people and and walls would be next. Holding the utensil inhis fist again, the Zeltivan started to make faint cracks and crevasses in the sides of the houses. These were made dark because they would need to show when the shading was added later. Swiftly making squiggly lines for a long haired women with luscious wavy hair. Not a ton of them, but two or three to give him an idea where the hair would lay before he worked on the face. But enough of the Meat Layer-er- the Center Layer. Though...The people and the plants in the windows would be in this layer. It would be like the lettuces and meats in a sandwich. Haha! People being apart of a sandwich. A soft chuckle rumbled in his throat subconsciously.

About to continue on the Foundation, the stranger questioned something about experience and drawing? Having not heard them completely, Gale shrugged,"I guess you could say that." Hopefully that made sense. Having heard experience, that probably meant they were asking about if he had any. If it wasn't then oh well.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba shrugged and turned back to her book. But she was still getting used to the task of 'maintaining awareness of one's surroundings', and it was all but impossible to keep the sound of charcoal in mind at the same time as reading. It was the opposite of concentrating.

Besides, he was interesting to watch.

Tsaba hadn't had much drawing experience, beyond the odd diagram in her foster father's medical journals. Even the herb diagrams were normally left to him, as his hand was rather more experienced at the task. She'd never really watched anybody draw, either; never seen an image take shape in layers of brisk strokes. It looked rather harder than writing.

She didn't even notice herself giving up all pretense of reading as she watched him work. His face was distant, focused; that look that humans got when they concentrated that made them look a bit like nuits. His hands moved with certainty in every mark; the hands of somebody very practiced at their task. And slowly, a few lines became the outline of a picture.

"How... how did you do that?" she muttered, barely noticing that she'd spoken the words out loud. "How did you see the picture before it was even there?"

[Gale Austin McCenry]

Common Vani Nari

When the stranger when back to the book they were reading, Gale returned to his picture. He started at the Foundation again. Adding more ripples in the water and bringing in some of the shading. The final touches of shading would be last, but the darker pieces were done now. Dark shading and lines. The pale hands slowly made their way up, inching towards the Mea- er- Central layer. However, he skipped it and went to the Sky layer instead, doing the shading on the roofs of the houses and buildings. Just the darker ones for now. Gale ended up having to remind himself this often, for he forgets and does most of the shading before all the details were put in. Then it didn't look as nice.

With the Central layer being the last part with the details not fully complete, he can now take the time to finish it. The charcoal was switched around to his fingertips again and the artist stooped over his work like a hunchback. Two eyes, a nose, and a small, petite mouth for the girl with the curly hair. Mmm. Maybe some more hair too. A couple of swirls and curls by flicking his wrist were soon added, giving her a full lock of hair... Was someone talking to him?

Gale looked up once again, seeing as the girl sitting across from him was looking at his unfinished work once again. How did he picture it? Boy, how does one explain that? "Um..." The pessimist blinked for a moment. How do you picture something before it's there? Now Gale was starting to wonder himself. "Well... It is not much different than reading a book I would assume." The charcoal was set down next to the picture once again. "Like when you imagine what the story is saying." The blonde shrugged. That's the best he could explain it with. There wasn't really any other way to put it. You just...imagine it. Was imagination so rare now?

[Tsaba]

Tsaba didn't read many stories, so she didn't entirely understand predicting a plot. She'd learned to predict her foster father's writings in the years she'd spent copying them; perhaps it was something like that? She watched him trace out basic shapes and flesh them out into actual images and, after observing him for awhile, decided that there was nothing like practice for understanding a skill.

She let her parchment dry before flipping it over, dipping her quill, and copying him to the best of her ability.

The quill was not an ideal sketching implement. Tsaba was not an ideal wielder of a sketching implement. What she was capable of drawing was in fact a garbled mess, and she learned this after drawing in the basic guidelines. She pressed forward long enough to develop some things that may have meant to be buildings, before giving up.

Tsaba glanced at a window. The sun was setting. Soon, she needed to get to work.

"Good to meet you, sir," she said politely as she packed away her things, not really expecting him to notice or answer.

[Gale Austin McCenry]

Common Vani Nari

Once Gale gave his explanation, he restored his consecration and returned to the final touches of the picture he had been creating. Final touches being a few more lines and the shadowing which he had intermitted until now.

At this point in the drawing, the artist's emaciated hands were coated in charcoal to the point where he risks besmirching it. But Gale always found the solution to this simple enough, for his black pants served as a clothes of sorts to wipe the grime off. Once the pigment can be seen on his hands once more, he continued the picture, almost as if he never stopped. With a soft slap against the table, the widower placed the utensil on it's side, cautiously shading in the edifices with a nimble hand. He went to go over the cracks he drew in, but then the woman once again, decided it was best to interact once more. This time, it was a farewell.

"To you as well." The murderer glanced up and offered a semi-amicable nod.

Gale wasn't entirely sure if it was a pleasure to meet her, for their interaction wasn't much of a colloquy. But as long as it wasn't horrid, then he supposed it was 'good', for the lack of a better word. He didn't want to say 'It was indifferent meeting with you', because then it wouldn't be a pleasure to meet her. But it wasn't likely that they would encounter one another again, so he supposed that her lack of loquacity didn't matter.

The Zeltivan, once again, returned to his picture, shading in the dips in the water, and created ripples in the clothes of the plebeians in the image without further disturbances. Thank the gods, because he was starving after thinking about sandwiches the whole damn time.

Once complete, the man gave it a once over, checking for anything that needed an extra line or any further detail. Once satisfied, the blonde closed the notebook, put the charcoal and the sketchbook back in his bag, and headed out of the library.

Wait! The book!

Zooming around, Gale quickly snatched the book and returned it to the shelf in which he had found it at. Then he went to go get something to eat.