Picasso (Serena)

[Sunar Chugani]

Drawing straight from tablet to computer had certain advantages over drawing on paper. For instance, endless erasing without erasing a hole into the paper, and the fact that there needn't be a scanner involved if he wanted to edit or color digitally later. 

But it was difficult to carry around a computer and tablet everywhere, and holing up in his room meant less time seeing other people. Sometimes that was fine, as long as someone was on Skype to keep him company while he drew. But sometimes he wanted to bask in the presence of other people. 

Fortunately there were no shortages of places on campus grounds where one might meet another student. Even places one might consider private ran the risk of someone suddenly appearing because they accidentally teleported themselves there, or they phased through the floor and fell into the room. 

The student lounge, of course, was not a place one might expect privacy. In fact, people who desired privacy tended to avoid it all together, which meant anyone there probably wanted the company. This made it the ideal place for someone who was both looking to socialize and looking to draw -- so many people meant new faces and features to sketch. 

And so after classes were over Sunar had taken himself down to the lounge, sketchbook under one arm, and found an empty seat. There weren't too many people around yet -- perhaps the rest of the student body were still recovering from classes, or going off to work on homework. 

He flipped over to a blank page and began to sketch out the structure for a seasonal theme -- circles where there would be pumpkins and a cauldron, and the rough shape of a witch.

[Serena Varsair]

Quite bluntly, Serena was bored. Last night, she had finally gotten her computer fixed after a hard drive failure, and now it was redownloading...everything...

With annoyed grunt, she walked into the student lounge. In her first couple of months at Hammel, she had avoided this spot, just to not be overwhelmed by the number of new people. Now that she actually knew people, it wasn't too bad, and she waved at a couple of them, giving some a small smile. A small group of juniors stopped her and asked where she had been, they hadn't seen her in a bit, and she quickly told them that she had some computer problems, before waving goodbye.

The interaction was brief and it still made her stomach twist and turn. For the past couple of weeks, Serena's mood had been...weird. Since she could remember, Serena was an extrovert. An extreme extrovert. Always engaged with conversations, loving the atmosphere of people. Now, she couldn't stand more than one or two people at once without feeling anxiety she didn't understand. Serena hadn't even flirted with anyone outside of Lucas (and she wasn't even sure what that relationship was...).

Going over to the less busy part of the lounge, Serena noticed no one but a boy with a sketchbook. Serena had never been very creatively skilled: she was still working on her first fantasy book, even after nearly 6 years of writing it, she had pretty much given hope on it. Mechanically she was good, but it just wasn't interesting to read...

"Hey there, what are you drawing?" Serena asked the boy as she pulled her backpack off of her shoulder and sat down next to him, fixing the edge of her shirt as she did. Serena's appearance was pretty simple. She had foregone all but a small amount of makeup, her hair was free and flowing, and her glasses sat comfortably on her nose. Her wardrobe wasn't much more exciting, with a sleeveless gray blouse that had a short v-neckline (making the edges of a light blue bra visible from certain angles) and a pair of jeans.

"I'm Serena, by the way," She added after setting her backpack on a table next to the seat.

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar was so absorbed in his sketch that he didn't notice anyone else was approaching him until she spoke. He glanced up, then set his pencil behind his ear. "It's just a halloween picture," He explained, showing her what he had so far: a rough collection of shapes, not yet polished into something more interesting or impressive. 

"Or it will be, once I finish it." 

He then looked her up and down before fixing her with an intent, eager stare, "Do you mind if I draw you...?" 

She looked interesting. Oh, her outfit was simple enough, but her hair and her face and her glasses were just screaming out to be drawn. 

"I should have packed color pencils," He sighed, his gaze cutting over to her hair. "I don't know if I'll be able to mimic that color from memory. It's so cool." 

And then he realized that he had asked her to be a model without even introducing himself. "I'm Sunar! It's nice to meet you, Serena!"

[Serena Varsair]

Well, this was certainly raising Serena's mood a bit. Oh my god was this boy adorable. She couldn't quite figure out his age, but he was definitely cute for whatever age it was.

"Nice shapes..." She said with a teasing laugh. Not wanting to cause bad feelings or anything, she quickly added, still with a smile, "It looks like you've got a good start. I'm sure it'll be great."

Serena was rather surprised at the offer. It wasn't the first time, there were plenty of artists at Kocher who wanted to draw her. They practically never finished, but they certainly gave it a solid try. Some were even good at it. Drawing, that was. Everything else varied more.

"Sure, I don't have any more classes today..." And more than a little bit of time to burn. Why not do it with someone new that she didn't have to worry about hiding anything from. "How do you want me to sit?"

"Well, if you need them, I can go with you...or wait here. I don't mind. It's not everyday I get an offer to draw me. I want to make sure it's done right."

Serena ran a hand through her hair when he mentioned it, twirling it among her fingers for a moment, looking at it more than him when she said, "Yeah, I love it. A lot of it is real too, actually. Used to be a blonde...but I'll be all grey-silver-whatever in like...less than 10 years or something like that. Thought I'd just dye it in the meantime, it looks cooler that way."

Stretching her body and legs out as much as she could, she added with a light, almost laughter, letting her French accent bleed in almost entirely to cover her American accent, "Just to let you know, Sunar, you would be drawing a French girl..." She didn't know if he'd get a joke or not, but she had heard it way too many times to not have it drilled into her head. (Plus she liked the movie it came from)

[Sunar Chugani]

"Sit however is most natural for you!" Sunar encouraged. He wasn't quite that picky, he just wanted to draw her. He flipped away from the sketch he was working on so that he had a nice blank page to work on. "Just let me know when you're comfortable." 

He didn't want to start and then have her realize she was sitting in a pose that was too awkward or painful to hold for long. 

"No, no, I don't need them yet! I need to get the pose down and then features. I'll probably want to get out the micron pens to do the lines and then coloring." He paused, and then added, "I won't make you stay around for all of that, though!" 

Unless she just wanted to hang around while he went through the whole process, but he might not have time to finish today. 

"That's your natural color?" He drew a few lines across the page to indicate perspective, "Is that part of your power...?" 

He had met someone once who could change the color of their entire body, so why not hair? But that seemed a little odd, if silver was the only option. Or maybe it was a side effect. 

"You're from France? You'll be the first French girl I've ever drawn, then!" Well, now, that seemed pretty interesting. "Don't they have a school over in Europe?" By which he meant for meta humans. "Are you a transfer? Do you like it better here or there? You can drink when you're there, right?" 

Everywhere had a younger drinking age than the U.S.

[Serena Varsair]

"You'd be surprised how long I can keep myself in one position," Serena said to him, as she shifted to a fairly comfortable position that let her lean sideways in the chair and place her arms in front of herself, pushing her chest together slightly. Crossing her legs, she replied, "This is about as good as it can get. Don't know if my..." She searched for the right word, "uhm...silhoette...works...is it good?"

Serena just smiled as he rambled through his process and how he didn't have to go. Very adorable, Serena couldn't help but grin and nod in confirmation. "Don't have much happening, you can draw as long as you need to..."

"No, no. While my power is physical, my hair is not part of it...I don't think...anyway. No, I have some weird genetic quirk thing that making my hair gray prematurely. I'm just happy its on the grayer side than white...that'd be harder to work with..."

As he was drawing, she asked, "How long have you been drawing for?" Serena had always had interest in how long it took people to make the artwork, at least to the point they were proud of it anyway. Drawing was an impossible art to her. She was patient enough to do it for geometry and that was about it...

Serena did her best to respond to the large flurry of questions, once again smiling in response, "Born there, yes." She trailed off, thinking of her home there and her time at Kocher, "I...I'm not sure yet," Serena said in response to liking it better or not.

"I hate alcohol," She told the boy, making sure to minimize her disgusted face. But the boy's enthusiasm couldn't be denied, and she admitted, "But yes, I have had a beer, and I drank wine at a family party. I just don't get the appeal."

[Sunar Chugani]

"That's perfect!" Sunar assured her, beginning to sketch out a loose outline. "It's great! Thank you!" 

He was very excited to have someone willing to both model and talk to him at the same time. He made a very light circle where her head should be, followed by lines for her neck and shoulders. "Ooooh, no, white would be cool, too! Like Storm! She has white hair, she's badass." 

Not that her hair color had much to do with that, but it did have the advantage of looking interesting. 

"I like the designs where she has a mohawk, it's super cool," He added. "I wish I could make designs like that!" 

He sighed longingly. One day he would get to that point, he was sure. But then she asked a question of him. "Oh, since I was a kid! Doesn't everyone draw when they're little?" 

Of course, that could be because preschools frequently included drawing as part of the curriculum; that tended to fall by the wayside as students progressed through the school system. 

"Oh. You don't like it? That's just as well, I think the dorm monitors have a six sense about people bringing alcohol into the dorms."

[Serena Varsair]

Storm was cool..."I think Storm can wear white hair better than me. I'm a tad too...what is the word...pastey? for purely white hair." Clearly the kid was into comic books. Or at least the X-Men (who could blame anyone at the school for that...). Serena wasn't much for superheroes herself (except Captain America), she could still take joy from it.

"So you like superheroes?" Serena offered in response to the talk about the mohawk (something Serena would never want herself)..."Star Wars is more of my nerd thing...but superheroes are cool too." It had been a long time since Serena had used the word geek or nerd casually in conversation that wasn't online. She smiled at the thought.

'Draw' was a very strong, and ever so slightly too positive word for what Serena did as a kid. Scribble was better. "I did in school but uh...how do I put it...my stuff was never shone to anyone?" Serena laughed at herself and she would hardly mind if Sunar laughed in return. Her drawing was hilariously bad, and she knew it. "I did better at writing, heonstly."

She was proud of her writing mechanically...but the storytelling just lacked the creativity. Maybe she needed a co-writer...Serena shook her head at herself.

"I think that's a good thing. We don't need drunk students hobbling around."

[Sunar Chugani]

"Jedi are like super heroes in space," Sunar opined. "Are you excited about the new movies, then?"

There was a lot of excitement about the rebooted franchise, and he had heard that tickets were all but impossible to get hold of. And Pilot Ridge was so remote, he wasn't sure if the local theater would even have a showing at all. It could be that anyone who wanted to see Star Wars would have to travel out to Burlington, if they could even get a ticket at all.

He began to define his outline a little more as he talked, "Oh! You like to write? What do you write?"

He was genuinely curious, and he glanced up from his work just long enough to shoot her an inquiring look.

"Poetry? No, you like Star Wars! Science Fiction? Fan fiction? Pamphlets against underage drinking?"

[Serena Varsair]

Serena could barely keep still (instead letting her face do a ton of excited emoting and minor, fast nodding), "Yes, I'm very excited for the new movies! I'm going to visit my cousin in New York to see it opening night. He's got our tickets and everything. No way am I missing out on it."

Serena was so excited this year that for Halloween, she was going to be the beautiful Mara Jade from the (sadly no longer canon) expanded universe novels. "I've got a Halloween costume I'm making for it that I can show you some time if you want..." She was very proud of herself.

His barrage of writing questions caught her off-guard, "Well, I have a fantasy novel that I've been trying to write for a long time...and I always do well on essays for school and like that..." Serena blushed for one of the few times ever, and quietly added, "And I might've wrote a fan-fiction story or two..."

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar paused, holding his pencil still against his drawing pad as he gasped, "You have tickets? Really? I heard they were impossible to get! I hope you have fun with your cousin." 

He felt a pang of jealousy that her cousin lived so close; if Ravi wasn't all the way in Gujarat maybe they would have planned to go together. But he wasn't going out of the country just to see a movie with his cousin. His parents wouldn't buy airplane tickets for that. 

He returned his attention to his artwork once the conversation returned to her writing. "Yeah? A lot of people go from fanfic to pro now, don't they?" 

Maybe the only one he actually had heard of doing that was E.L. James, but that was largely because he didn't pay much attention to either genre fiction or to fanfiction. 

"What's your fantasy story about? Does it have swords and pirates?" 

That was clearly the sign of a good fantasy story, right?

"Or mysterious prophecies and...ummm...dinosaurs? Prophecies about dinosaurs." 

[Serena Varsair]

"Don't know about that...I haven't really written THAT much fan-fiction..." Serena was kind of embarassed. It wasn't embarassing fan-fiction, not in the least, but she rarely talked about it with others, and so many just assumed that it WAS embarassing fan-fiction.

When he asked her so enthusiastically about her story, she couldn't help but grin once again. Though many asked what it was about, they also seemed to be going through the motions, as if it was expected to ask. He seemed to legitimately interested, and she was happy to answer his questions. "There are lots of swords...and there are pirates...but they are sky pirates!" Serena couldn't help but break pose for a moment to lift her hands in the air to follow her words.

"One big mysterious prophecy...no dinosaurs though. Plenty of cool action and fun characters...just a long epic adventure...and I'll never finish it." Serena moved her hands back to their posed position and frowned slightly. "I always thought I'd be a writer, but I don't think I'm creative enough for it. Not really sure what I'll do." Serena bit her lip for a moment, before trying to normalize her face for his drawing.

"How about you? You going to be the next great artist?"

[Sunar Chugani]

Now that the larger outline was done, it was time to begin filling in details. Sunar sectioned off the face and began to work out the shape of Serena's eyes while he listened to her discuss her story. 

"Wow! Sky pirates!" Great, now he wanted to draw Serena as a sky pirate. Maybe he could alter her outfit a bit. He didn't have any references handy, but maybe it wouldn't turn out too badly if he tried to draw straight from his imagination.

But his enthusiasm morphed into a frown of concern as she expressed some doubts about writing as a career path. "Not creative enough?"  He echoed, objecting for all the world as if he had read the story and disagreed. "You gotta put all your thoughts down first, then you make it creative." 

At least, that was his approach to art. He didn't see why writing would be that different. After all, they both required lots of editing. 

"Or maybe start with smaller stories first?" 

At her question he laughed and shook his head, "I'm not sure! Maybe I'll go into graphic design. I'll languish in obscurity, but there might be some fun and challenging projects in there somewhere."

[Serena Varsair]

"Believe me, if it were that simple, it would've happened by now," Serena said, shifting her hair and stretching her upper body a bit. It was pure and simple: She could write well. But her ideas...they were cliched more often than not, and often her more original ideas would fall flat. "And I did try short stories. I have several of them. I'd never release them though."

"No, no matter how much I change it, it's just not right. So yeah. I'm not gonna stop, but it's definitely not what I'm going to be doing in the future." Serena sighed, but really had nothing else to say about it.

"Hey, don't say that, you don't know. You might be the most famous artist of our generation. A couple hundred years from now, maybe people will study this picture you did right now, and wonder...who is that beautiful girl?" Serena said teasingly with a grin, hoping it didn't mess up what he was drawing too much.

[Sunar Chugani]

((omg I'm sorry for how late this iiiiis ))

"Isn't there a creative writing class?" Sunar asked, genuinely curious as to whether or not she had taken it. "But it's probably okay to not make writing your only thing. A lot of authors get published later in life, don't they? After they've had other careers."

Sunar stared down at the portrait he was rendering. "Hmmm. You never know!" He agreed cheerfully, "But I'm not going for fame, just fun. If you're enjoying yourself, then does it matter if you're popular?"