Susan Matthews
Gryffindor
[red]5th Year Gryffindor[/red] Shadow Warrior of Earth
goddess, nymph, divine.
Posts: 505
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Post by Susan Matthews on Oct 30, 2007 18:30:08 GMT -5
(OOC: We're coming from here: www.ragedsyphers.proboards100.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=5thcorridor&thread=1193495565&page=1)Happy to be moving again, Susan lead the way back down the corridor and to the stairwells. Pausing for a second, Susan leaned over the edge of the banister, mapping out a route on the intertwining stairs. Susan moved quickly, not wanting to miss a staircase as they began to switch themselves around. Every now and then she glanced behind her to be sure that Jacques was still right behind her. She hardly doubted his ability to do so, his long legs were sure to be a huge help in keeping up. A few times Susan almost lost the balance of her things again, but managed to catch them just in time. Soon they were traipsing down the grassy slope in front of the school and toward the lake. Finding a familiar patch of soft grass, Susan plopped herself down and began unloading her art supplies. She looked up at Jacques, still standing. It was amazing, and kind of frightening, Susan realized, to look up at him from how low she sat. Holding a hand up to block the sun behind him, she said, "I hope you weren't going to the pitch," she apologized, "I'm not much for Quidditch. You can go on if you'd like, but I'm gonna stick around here." She returned to organizing her pencils in the order they were labeled, Starting with two-b and ending with the darkest, a five. She didn't bother with the colored pencils. They would be too difficult to organize in any sensible way, so she left them in the pocket of her book sack. Next, she flipped to a blank page in her sketch book and paused. She purposely didn't begin sketching as she normally would have.
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Post by jacques on Oct 30, 2007 18:38:39 GMT -5
He looked at her as she made her way down the stairs, jumping forward each time she stumbled, making sure her stuff wouldn't go cascading down the stairs and onto the floor 5 floors below them. Keeping up wasn't hard, and he gave her a small smile each time she looked back. After a while, he could see the lake come into sight, which was a relief, in a way.
Jacques, knowing that the pitch had been a feeble idea about what he was going to do, hopped up onto a low hanging branch in a nearby tree. He didn't even own a broom, and, anyway, the lakes was much more..enthralling, with the dark depths and the squid, he might even try to go for a swim in a while. It was cold, but sunny, and a warm breeze helped the air remain moderate. Curiously watching as she organized her pencils, which he found strange,(due to the fact that he left everything as unorganized as the jungle was), and laid down on the branch, elbows resting, his dark eyes looking down at her. He was positioned above, with all the grace of a cat.
"I'm fine, the lake is nice, and theirs not much else to do." He answered, shrugging slightly.
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Susan Matthews
Gryffindor
[red]5th Year Gryffindor[/red] Shadow Warrior of Earth
goddess, nymph, divine.
Posts: 505
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Post by Susan Matthews on Oct 30, 2007 18:59:46 GMT -5
Susan turned around to see that Jacques had made himself at home. In a tree. Susan laughed looking up at him, completely at ease among the branches and leaves. Completing her simple act of obsessive compulsiveness, Susan bent her knees to use as a sort of desk. Resting her sketch pad on her legs, she reached for her three-b. The three-b was a relatively light pencil and would be easy to erase but also dark enough to see in the harshly bright light coming from the sun overhead. Susan poised the pencil above the vastness of the blank page before her. So much opportunity was vested in the pencil and paper before her.
Taking a deep breath, Susan used the Gryffindor in her to summon to courage to ask what popped into her head. "Jacques," she said, as her voice shook, "do you mind, if I sketch you? I mean draw you? It's just that the way you're positioned right now, and the angle of the sun. Not to mention you have really great cheek bones, and it's alright if you want to move, I'm not too picky . . ." Susan babbled for a moment, before clamping her mouth shut. She knew she sounded like an idiot. She blamed it on her label as a Gryffindor. Maybe she hadn't wanted to ask at all? Maybe it was simply this label that compelled her to ask such a personal task of this boy she had just met. She forced herself to look up at Jacques, in his tree. She was afraid of his response.
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Post by jacques on Oct 30, 2007 19:33:44 GMT -5
Jacques listening to the birds, his eyes half shut, hadn't noticed her summoning up her courage for some unknown task. He was intently listening to the bird, and could tell, without looking, that it was a finch, female, and was currently hopping along his branch, jumping back and forwards, looking curiously at him, it's little mouth emitting a shrill whistle. Thus, he was able to tell it had a nest, and one close by.
"Jacques, do you mind, if I sketch you? I mean draw you? It's just that the way you're positioned right now, and the angle of the sun. Not to mention you have really great cheek bones, and it's alright if you want to move, I'm not too picky . . ."
Noticing her voice was shaking, he looked down, his face deepening into a reddish blush before he could control himself. His eyes snapped open, and he looked at her for a minute, trying to ignore the bird and focus on the question at hand. Taking a few, deep, calming breaths, his face was back to dark brown, though his golden eyes had a hint of embarassment at the compliment. He hadn't thought he would ever make a good..anything. He had been disowned, and it caught him off gaurd. He could see slight fear in her eyes, and he averted his own, and said in a husky voice.
"Uh..yes. I mean, no." His voice was confused before he sorted out his words, and he continued in a more sensable tone, "I mean, if you want to, you can..uh..scetch me." Then, trying to smooth out the air of embarrassent, he smiled and gave a small laugh. "I can stay perfectly still, if you want." And he frove where he lay, looking calmly at the lake, each bone a little statue, even his eyes didn't move. A smile crept on his face, and he whispered, barely opening his mouth, "This good?"
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Susan Matthews
Gryffindor
[red]5th Year Gryffindor[/red] Shadow Warrior of Earth
goddess, nymph, divine.
Posts: 505
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Post by Susan Matthews on Oct 31, 2007 14:55:29 GMT -5
Relieved at how nicely, Jacques was taking her question, Susan looked up at him in his tree. Susan let a smile escape across her face as Jacques stiffened into a pose. She noticed a new tense in his arms and legs, it was obvious that the position was posed. "Actually, it might be more realistic if you just act natural. We can talk, so you don't have to feel obligated to become a complete statue," Susan suggested. She watched, hoping the previous "casual", yet "acutely aware" air about him would return.
"So do you have any interesting hobbies?" Susan asked, hoping to distract Jacques from the unidentifiable point out on the horizon. Keeping her head up, her eyes quickly darted from the scene in front of her to the page in her lap. Moving quickly, she soon had an outline of the tree before Jacques could respond to her question. She posed her pencil over the area where Jacques' shoulders would begin. She looked up, hoping he would speak to her.
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Post by jacques on Oct 31, 2007 19:19:48 GMT -5
He gave a small smile at her suggested, and slowly eased his muscles, making sure they didn't go to fast, or they might twist, they were so so strung. Adopting his previous posture, eyes half closed, looking some where on the horizon, his ears listening intently for the bird. He was still still, barely even breathing, but this was as casual as he usaully got. He looked down at her next question, relaxing and tilting his head.
"Eh," He said, shrugging. He didn't do all that much..that he should say..Like advenntures in the woods, that was a no no. "Yeah, swimming..climbing, and..writing, now and then." He did do that, enjoyed it, and made a habbit of it. He had tried to make maps of the grounds, the school, journals of the birds and aniamls, and had begun to write a story, though he wasn't more then a page into it.
"What else do you do? Other then painting?" He asked, his eyes focused on the tree she was drawing, before looking back up at her eyes. He gave his shoulders a quick roll, easing out the tenseness. The sun was warm, and he shut his eyes, savoring it, before looking down at hers.
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Susan Matthews
Gryffindor
[red]5th Year Gryffindor[/red] Shadow Warrior of Earth
goddess, nymph, divine.
Posts: 505
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Post by Susan Matthews on Oct 31, 2007 19:41:15 GMT -5
As soon as he began to speak, Susan noticed a wave of relaxation flow over Jacques. As soon as he started talking, Susan seized the moment and pressed her pencil to the paper, capturing his shoulder in one swift stroke. She looked up interested to hear about his hobbies.
"I like to swim too!" Susan exclaimed excitedly, moving back to the rest of Jacques' body in her picture. "And writing, that's really interesting!" Susan smiled, still looking down, "I've always wished I could write." She let her eyes glance up and down as she made a quick outline of the rest of Jacques' sleek figure.
Susan looked up sharply at the mention of painting, "Oh no," she said seriously, "I don't paint. I mean, I can't paint." She held up the pencil in her hand, "I like to draw." She knew it was an honest mistake. That all artists, or at least those who attempted at art, were good with multiple mediums. Though she had tried, Susan couldn't get a good grasp on any subject other than pencil and paper. She wiggled the pencil for a while thinking, "Other hobbies?" There wasn't much she could say with out giving away a big secret. "I guess I like to read, but not to the extent of a Ravenclaw," she laughed, "I enjoy dancing, and a few muggle sports." Her sketch was almost totally outlined. Soon she would start on the details and the shading.
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Post by jacques on Oct 31, 2007 20:37:51 GMT -5
He wasn't really watching her draw, but looking at a little hole in the roots of the tree.It had little slices in the dirt around it, like tiny claws. Bits of feather and fur clung to the entrance, and a few half nibbled seeds lay rotting nearby. Hmm..mouse, or chipmunk. He thought, but was destracted when she starts telling him about drawing, not painting.
She seemed serious about it, and he looked at her curiously, his face polite, but the curiousity genuine, not the fake stuff that is plastered on the faces of those who walk down the hall. As firmly as the ground he stood on, he felt that it was as wrong as lying was to fake what one is feeling if it is just to get something from someone. He gave her a warm smile when she laughed, and gave a small one himself. Swimming, he did enjoy that, and reading. They seemed to have a lot in common, along with the fact that they both were hiding something. It was just something he had picked up, a pulse at th enext quickening, a longegated pause, but it didn't matter. He hid what he needed too, so so could she. He had thought most drawers could paint, and it came as a surpirse, but it made sence. Some could track, others hunt, others both.
"Do you do it outside then?" He asked, refering to drawing. Its where he did writing, so, why not out here?
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Susan Matthews
Gryffindor
[red]5th Year Gryffindor[/red] Shadow Warrior of Earth
goddess, nymph, divine.
Posts: 505
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Post by Susan Matthews on Nov 1, 2007 7:12:43 GMT -5
Susan was glad that Jacques understood about her anti-paint attitude. She began to relax more as they got into their conversation. Susan slipped her shoes off, letting her toes wiggle through the soft green grass beneath her. She stopped sketching for a moment to reply to Jacques' question.
"Yeah I guess I do," Susan answered coming upon a realization herself, "I like drawing nature a lot more than anything else." When some thing is drawn, it immortalizes it in a way, Susan thought to herself. Susan knew that any one could draw a candlestick or a fireplace, but it didn't matter in the end, because if something happened to the candlestick or fireplace, you could always go out and buy a new one. With nature, you couldn't exactly go out and buy a new tree, flower, butterfly, or even a new human being. All things in nature never last forever, and if you can capture it on paper, Susan decided, than in a way, it would last forever.
She didn't explain this to Jacques, but she figured he'd probably gotten the same epiphany with writing. She looked quickly from her drawing to Jacques and managed to finish the rough outline and prepared herself for the details and shading. The sun was in the perfect place, Susan realized. The way it shone through the leaves in the trees and created splotches of light in random places was beautiful. Susan chuckled to herself as she considered herself a bit of an impressionist. The way she was admiring the light was astonishing, in the fact that she usually just "had at it".
Before begin the shading, she looked to Jacques again. "Would you mind sharing what you write about?" She didn't want to pry, but she couldn't lie. She was curious. She also liked the thought that a friend of hers was writing a book. Susan's gaze remained stead on Jacques as she listened for a response.
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Post by jacques on Nov 1, 2007 20:18:42 GMT -5
Jacques looked down at the grass for a second. He loved writing, it was like telling all you knew, all the things you've done, seen, heard, smelled, to a close friend who would never leave you, or critize, or die. Words could last for an enterinty if they were created right, if they had thoughts of their own. He felt for her infinty fot the outdoors, he had made scetches, diagrams, notes, and anything you could think of, just of stuff he had seen. However, writing was as mortal as a person is, if you treated it badly, if it got burnt, it would die.
Reaching down careful, so he did not disturb her drawing, he fished a green, scuffed up, battered, leather bound book out of his bag. It had three blue lines on each edge, horizonal. They were like the scars on his face, and a red line ran through the middle of them. It was tied sucrearly shut with a golden cloth, which in itself was ripped. He flipped through it, past acutely drawn pictures of birds, of a squirrel, past an essay, until he ended on two seprate pages. One had a poem, and the other the beginning of a story. He swallowed at her questioned, tensing a bit.
He placed it gently on his backpack, below him, closed, though it wasn't bounded with the cloth. It wasn't that he didn't want to answer her question..it was just..He had wrote the story and the poem in the dark, outside, up high in a tree or at the astronemy tower, where he wouldn't hurt somebody if he lost control of his memories. They were about his rather painful past, about Africa.
In a voice barely more then a whisper, he said, "I'm writing about..My life in..Africa." He looked down at the hard, scratched leather that had become his sanctuary, his only true home other then Hogwarts. He shut down his mind, letting the sounds flow over in a cool wave of relief.
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Susan Matthews
Gryffindor
[red]5th Year Gryffindor[/red] Shadow Warrior of Earth
goddess, nymph, divine.
Posts: 505
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Post by Susan Matthews on Nov 2, 2007 6:41:03 GMT -5
The long pause before Jacques replied was an indication that this was not something he spoke of often. Susan respected his right to privacy and felt badly that his reply seemed forced. She noticed the green journal, but did not ask to see it. She simply smiled softly and returned to her sketch. She found his neck was rather difficult. In her intent on getting the correct bone structure, she almost missed his answer to her initial question.
"I'm writing about..My life in..Africa."
"Africa," Susan repeated dreamily. She remembered the greeting he had used. "Hujambo," he had said. Susan now understood the outburst of Swahili.
"That's really cool, Jacques," she said truthfully. "I often draw what I can remember from my home," Susan confirmed. She silently flipped through the first half of her sketch book. There were pictures of lighthouses and trees and the ocean. Just seeing the drawings brought images of home back to her mind. She quickly flipped back to her sketch of Jacques. Sometimes it was best not to think about things. She returned to perfecting the shading around his head, not saying much.
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Post by jacques on Nov 2, 2007 15:09:57 GMT -5
He blushed slightly when she said it was cool, slightly pleased. Silently grateful she had decided to pursue the past, he nodded, smiling slightly as he looked at her drawings. Judging by the lighthouses, the ocean, he assumed she was from the beach, or lived near it, or even had a camp by the ocean. He watched her sketching, it didn't seem to be him balancing on the tree, it was too good, to normal. She was exellant, though he had to admit he hadn't seen many artists at work, it was still looked very good.
The silence wasn't uncomfortable, well, not fur him, just like an agreement not to discuss something that might prove painful. He had made the same mistake, he had lost control of his memory, when he was talking about his past, barely mentioned it, with Caitlin. It was bitter, he had been tossed out like a runt puppy, to drown in a river. Of course, nothing was ever easy for anyone, her life might have been even harder then his.
"Your good at that.." He said in a quiet, distracted voice. "Drawing, I mean."
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Susan Matthews
Gryffindor
[red]5th Year Gryffindor[/red] Shadow Warrior of Earth
goddess, nymph, divine.
Posts: 505
|
Post by Susan Matthews on Nov 3, 2007 15:53:15 GMT -5
The short silence was broken by a compliment from Jacques. She glanced up to see that he had been looking over her as she had flipped through her drawings.
"That's sweet, Jacques," Susan replied, "Thanks." She shot him a friendly smile, before returning to what was left of her sketch. It was kind of cool out, but not yet cold enough to need a coat. Out in the sun, Susan was fine in her Tank and tattered jeans. A cool breeze swept over the lake and rustled the leaves in the trees, the grass around the castle, and displaced Susan's bangs. Positioning her lips, Susan was able to send them back the correct place with a quick blow upward. Not stopping to remover her pencil from the paper, the breeze was almost forgotten. Except for the light layer of goosebumps on her arms, the breeze had done nothing to disturb the area.
Susan had finished the upper half of Jacques' body. The bottom half would be easy. Susan wiggled her toes in anticipation as she neared finishing the drawing. Her pencil flying, she hardly realized when another breeze came through and dislodged her bangs again. She stopped. She paused for a moment, looking carefully from the paper to the actual Jacques. She let out a squeal of joy, and clutched the sketch pad to her chest, in a way that suggested that no one could see it yet.
She clumsily got to her feet, not once letting the pad of drawing paper slip. She looked up at Jacques. "It's finished," she announced. "Would you like to see it?" She asked, still holding the sketch tightly, protectively.
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Post by jacques on Nov 3, 2007 22:25:09 GMT -5
Looking at her hand flying over the page, his eyes widened inperceptively. He returned the smile, still watching as her hand skimmed across the page. From where she was sitting and he laying, he could only see her hand as it flashed up and down. A breeze ruffled his hair, and he closed his eyes. Once he had opened them, he saw that Susan had gasped, and was clutching the sketch pad to her chest, her eyes alight with..joy? Yes, difiatly joy. He was suddenly curious, and stood up as she had, and it was a graceful jump, landing from his perch on two feet, three fingers barely touching the ground. He straightened up, and looked back at her, golden eyes flashing with friednly curiousty.
"It's finished, Would you like to see it?"
She was holding it so protectively, he had to give a laugh, though it sounded more like a purr. Tilting his head and looking at her in the face, a smile on his lips, "Would bite me if I said 'yes'?" His voice, always soft, was joking, though with someone always on the alert, it was sometimes hard to tell.
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Susan Matthews
Gryffindor
[red]5th Year Gryffindor[/red] Shadow Warrior of Earth
goddess, nymph, divine.
Posts: 505
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Post by Susan Matthews on Nov 3, 2007 22:41:25 GMT -5
Susan didn't flinch as she might have for someone else as Jacques gracefully jumped from his place on the tree. After watching him sit comfortably at his perch for a little less than an hour, Susan had confidence in her friends abilities. Soon Jacques stood before her again. She was suddenly reminded of his unbelievable height. Without realizing it, in her excitement, she began bouncing on the balls of her feet again.
Taking a deep breath, and mustering up the most courage she could, she turned and stood beside Jacques. She stopped bouncing, for Jacques sake, and revealed the sketch smoothly. Though Jacques looked at the paper, Susan's eyes were on Jacques', watching him as he surveyed the art before him. Susan stood stock still, preparing herself for the critique.
She had finished the drawing quickly. It was kind of rough, but Susan wasn't one for details. Because her pencil was dull, all of the lines were thick and blended perfectly so that no single line was visible. Though there weren't many details, it could still be depicted where the eyes and clothing details were included. Susan had drawn the scenery around Jacques, but had focused mainly on the center, when Jacques was positioned. Susan considered herself even more impressionistic for this fact that the rest of the drawing appeared unfinished.
Another breeze rustled around the two, this time brushing Susan's bangs out of her face as she continued to peer into Jacques eyes, searching for some kind of a reaction.
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