[Stone Garden] Vision and Execution [Lucas]

[Hadrian]

55th Spring, 511 A.V. Hadrian had set up shop on a bench, his satchel resting beside him and his knees drawn up, cross-legged with a pad of parchment and the scratching of his quill. The young enchanter had big plans, and some of them even made it to paper, but few of them ever came real. There was only so much time, so many resources, and magic came at a price. He was always tired, pouring his soul into work that didn't always reap him benefit other than increased knowledge and skill. Just now he was finishing up the blueprints of a simple Animating ritual, something he hadn't truly practiced since meeting Jilitse seasons previous. It was another curiosity until Kendall came into his life, and he felt the need to learn more and more about the discipline, even practice it more himself so that one day he might know how to give her back her body. It made little difference to him whether she was in her original, lovely body, or in the current male one. Eventually, if they wanted to express their growing feelings for each other, the expression might be more awkward, but it would be awkward with a woman as well. He was sure of it. Blinking, he tried to keep his mind on the task at hand, sketching circular sigils for the soul whose pattern would be copied and for the nascent automaton. The focus would go there, and a chain of interlocking glyphs to focus the djed within. If he added smaller foci along the chain like beads on a bracelet, he could tweak them just so and then fill them with primordial Shield energy, but no... He nixed that. His shields were only really effective at blocking djed. There wasn't exactly a lot of wasted energy emanating from these things. Now... he sighed and flipped the page. But he didn't feel like starting over. Hadrian glanced at a small bird foraging for seeds between the stones. At first, he considered taking a walk to clear his mind as he normally did, but instead he began to sketch the bird. He was no great artist, but he found that drawing something forced one to really look at it -- at least, if one wanted to draw it with any degree of accuracy. He had spoken with Ethan about wanting one day to fly himself. Well, he would have to learn how to morph feathers, lighter bones, and he wasn't sure if it would be easier to just grow wings and alter his bone and muscle structure in order to compensate for them, or if he should seek to take the form of a bird entire. He really should have taken some anatomy lessons from the embalmers of Sahova, but he had been busy not dying.

This time Lucas wasn’t quite as exhausted as he usually was. His knight had let him read up on the history of the Syliran Knights for most of the day. In his opinion it wasn’t only important to be able to handle a weapon, you should know about the people you were going to join as well. Unlike the countless training sessions where he made a fool of himself with his shield or fell off the horse, Lucas had thoroughly enjoyed the history lesson. It must have been exciting to be there when Syliras had been founded! Although Lucas wanted to be a knight (at least sometimes) many of the aspects of knighthood got on his nerves. His colleagues were so noble and honorable and nice that they bored him to death sometimes. Of course being honorable was important – that was what being a knight was all about – but it didn’t mean that you had to lose your personality and become an exact copy of all the other knights! Knights were allowed to be different. They were allowed to have hobbies as well! They were even allowed to have fun sometimes and go on adventures! Having fun was what Lucas was about to do. Since he’d just gotten into an argument with his dorm mates over a prank gone wrong, he wasn’t in the mood to spend his spare time in the dorm. Armed with pencils, papers and a small bag of golden mizas he walked through the city. As far as he was concerned there were two options for him at the moment: He could visit a tavern and get drunk or draw. Maybe he’d sit down somewhere and offer to draw the people that passed him buy in exchange for money so that his bag of mizas got even heavier! Or he could draw caricatures of them. But that would probably lead to another argument. Maybe he’d just go to the Stone Gardens, draw and let the money and all those angry people be, he decided. It wasn’t quite as much fun as the other things, but at least he would probably return to the dorm in one piece. With that thought in mind he approached one of the benches (he wasn’t in the mood to climb onto the stone in the middle of the fountain at the moment) – only to discover that somebody was already sitting there, drawing just as he had intended to do. The squire stopped and looked at him for a few moments, and then he quietly approached Hadrian and looked over his shoulder. „That’s a good drawing“, he remarked as he looked at the sketch of the bird. It wasn’t perfect – Hadrian had gotten a few things wrong - but it was passable, and Lucas didn’t feel like criticizing a person he’d just met. And thus Hadrian would find himself facing a smiling boy with a head full of bright ginger hair if he decided to turn around and find out where the voice he had just heard come from.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian blinked dumbly up at the squire for a moment, like a dreamer arising from his reverie. Sometimes he got so focused on what he was doing that the rest of the world seemed surreal when it intruded upon his thoughts. He looked back at his drawing before responding, noting its inconsistencies and inaccuracies. Looking back, he smiled ruefully. "Work in progress," he promised, "but thanks." He indicated the bench with a nod of his head. "Have a seat?" He wasn't the most social of creatures, but he had been trying more of late. But putting himself out there that much was about all he could handle in one dose. His eyes fell back to his work and he began to draw corrections over what had already been drawn. It blurred the lines a bit, but at least the better ones were there somewhere, a truer form of the bird rising out of the juxtaposed mistakes. "I always end up looking at things in a new way when I try to draw them," he offered. "I'm Hadrian."

[Lucas Arias]

As Hadrian turned around and blinked dumbly up at him, Lucas grinned and shrugged his shoulders. It seemed as if the man had either been so deep in thought that Lucas‘ appearance hadn’t registered properly in his brain or the brain in question was a little damaged. Considering that Hadrian had produced a decent drawing, the squire (who wasn’t in squire mode at the moment) decided to settle for the first possibility and walked to the other side of the bench so that he was standing in front of Hadrian now. Hadrian could see that the boy had a couple of papers tucked under his arm. „Thank you“, he replied as Hadrian offered him a seat and cast another glance at the drawing. „It’s not bad for a work in progress“, he remarked. „I occasionally draw myself, although my art doesn’t always tend to be realistic.“ With that he fell silent for a while and simply watched as Hadrian made corrections to his drawing. „It’s getting better“, he remarked. „It’s beginning to look almost like a real bird.“ He glanced at the bird that was still there, looking for seeds between the stones and nodded. Yes, there were some similarities between the real thing and Hadrian’s drawing. „I tend to do the same“, he said as Hadrian told him that he always ended up looking at things in a new way when he tried to draw them and thought of one of his recent masterpieces that depicted two popular bullies locked in a passionate embrace. Yes, he definitely tended to look at things in new ways. „Drawing makes you take a closer look at the world around you“, he remarked. „I’m Lucas by the way.“ Another grin. Unlike Hadrian the redhead was an extremely social creature (of course that didn’t mean he got along with everybody and was always good in social situations).

[Hadrian]

"Pure art?" Hadrian asked, glancing sidelong at Lucas. Abstractions and art for art's sake, those were things with which he was familiar. In studying pre-Valterrian culture, there were schools of artists who made livings creating things that other people didn't necessarily understand. An ink blot that was a bird. That sort of thing. He looked back at his bird, made a few more corrections, took a few more glances at the live bird before them. Then he looked back at the squire. "Pleased to meet you, Lucas. I'd like to see some of your non-realistic art sometime." With his latest glance, he found that Lucas had an interesting face. If only Lucas were otherwise occupied, perhaps with drawing of his own, he might keep the young man distracted long enough to study his profile and all. Faces were supposed to be difficult, but it never hurt to try.

[Lucas Arias]

„I’m not sure what pure art is“, Lucas admitted. He was unfamiliar with many of the terms that other artists used. „I’ve never studied this kind of stuff. I’m mostly self taught and tend to draw whatever I like, regardless of the rules more successful artists than me have established.“ He shrugged his shoulders, and then he furrowed his brow, looking mildly confused. „If there is a thing called pure art, does that mean there is impure art as well?“ he wondered, more to himself than to Hadrian. „And what does impure art look like?“ „I can show you some of my non-realistic art right now“, he offered and grinned, and then he came to the realization that the only piece of non-realistic art he had with himself right now was his portrayal of the two bullies as a pair of lovers. He couldn’t very well show that to a stranger (although Hadrian’s reaction to it could possibly be interesting), not if he wanted to continue the conversation with the stranger in question for a bit. „Petch“, he murmurred. „I forgot that I don’t have anything with me right now. I came here to practice drawing realistic things, like the Stone Garden. How about I make a quick sketch so that you can see what my non-realistic art usually looks like?“ He took a piece of paper, placed the rest of the paper on the bench next to him and produced a pen. Having that done, he looked at Hadrian questioningly. If Hadrian decided that, yes, he wanted a demonstration of Lucas‘ art, Lucas would start drawing, and Hadrian would thus have the opportunity to study his profile and take a closer look at his interesting face.

[Hadrian]

"Pure art might mean different things to different people," he said, "but most often it describes abstract or nonfigurative art, though sometimes something drawn to a high degree of verisimilitude will still be abstract because even with replication... well, an artist takes liberties. Impure art, well, that probably means pornography." He grinned. "You can if you like," he said. "I'd be interested to see your work. I haven't paid much attention to art since I left Zeltiva, and what I'm aiming for is skill. I don't know that I have the artistic temperament, myself. But if I'm skillful, I'll be happy. It will help me to make visual models, draft blueprints, and the like."

[Lucas Arias]

„Abstract art is pure?“ Lucas asked, made a face and shook his head. That didn’t make a lot of sense to him. As far as he was concerned, it would make much more sense if the term „pure art“ were used to describe an exact replication of the real thing and not something that didn’t exist. But what did he know about art? Those that had invented the term might have had a good reason for it. „And impure art is pornography?“ „Impure art is really popular then.“ He grinned a little as he said this, and then he wondered if some of his works of art had impure tendencies. He really enjoyed portraying people as lovers that would never even get close to each other in reality. „Watch!“ he simply said as Hadrian stated that he would be interested in seeing his work. With that he turned away from Hadrian and started drawing. Hadrian could see how the head of a bird was slowly taking shape on the piece of paper in Lucas‘ lap, complete with a beak, feathers and everything. It looked a lot like the bird that Hadrian had tried to draw earlier. But instead of continuing with the bird’s body, the redhead proceeded to attach a human torso to the bird head, with human arms and legs. Then he hesitated a bit and added wings to the strange creature. „That’s my kind of non realistic art“, he explained somewhat dryly when he was done. „It’s a rather quick sketch, so it’s not perfect. I might work some more on it when I come home – or not. I haven’t decided yet. Either way, let’s pretend that this is a morphed human or a kelvic that got stuck in between – or just the product of somebody’s overactive imagination.“

[Hadrian]

They seemed to be having a bit of a miscommunication, but the joke was funny all the same, and Hadrian chuckled at it. But he watched intently as Lucas began to sketch, observing his technique and trying to take mental notes, although a lot of what he did moved to fast for Hadrian to truly comprehend it visually. From time to time, he looked back at his own sketch and added a few lines here, deepened the shading there, but his eyes always erred back to the squire's work. He almost wanted to laugh at the juxtaposition of avian and human parts, but suddenly a thought struck him. A Kelvic bird of prey was slowly bonding to him, and would be the perfect model from which to learn to Morph into a raptor, but until he could manage an entire change of species, perhaps he could practice and learn a bit about flying and Morphing, by magically growing himself a pair of wings. The bird head could wait. He didn't want to know what would happen to his brainpower after his physical brain was forcibly shrunk down to a fraction of its true size. Grabbing Lucas' hand despite his normal aversion to touching strangers, he pulled the drawing closer to examine it with greater ease. "Brilliant," he breathed. "Of course."

[Lucas Arias]

As Hadrian chuckled, Lucas looked at him questioningly, and then he decided that the chuckle probably meant that the man agreed as far as the popularity of pornography was concerned. So he shrugged his shoulders and concentrated on his artistic masterpiece. He noticed that Hadrian watched him every once in a while and grinned a little, but he didn’t stop drawing or say anything until he was finished. And he wasn’t particularly worried that Hadrian might misunderstood what he was doing either. Lucas thoroughly enjoyed drawing weird things, and as far as he was concerned that was all that mattered. As Hadrian grabbed his hand and pulled the drawing closer, the boy made a face for a moment, because he considered the gesture slightly rude – Hadrian should have asked - but then he let him inspect his work. „Yes, it’s brilliant“, he agreed as Hadrian called it brilliant, in the same dry tone as before. „I know. Do you think such creatures could ever exist in real life?“ His eyes were wide with curiousity as he asked this, and then he proceeded to inspect Hadrian’s drawing which wasn’t as creative as his own drawing of course but still acceptable, everything considered.