Dragon Huskies (tags Cleo)

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar clicked his pencil against his desk in thought, staring at the pad of paper in front of him. He and Cleo were supposed to be designing a mural for the cafeteria, something that took into account the school mascot as well as the nature of the school, and that was also whimsical and fun. 

"We could have a husky breathing fire," He suggested, doodling a little dog on the corner of his paper and giving it wings and fire breath. "Dragon husky, rawr!" 

He glanced over to see if she'd managed to thumbnail any more interesting or acceptable ideas. As cool as he thought the idea of a dragon husky was he also somehow doubted that the administration would approve. 

[Cleo Warren]

She’d thought creating a mural would be easy, a piece of cake. She’d painted several murals before; it was really the best type of homework she'd ever been given. But the previous murals she’d been tasked with had some type of theme, a pre-proposed idea, guidelines that she was supposed to follow. Cleo liked it that way. She liked guidelines and direction. As a true artist, she should be able to come up with something on her own, and she would, but she’d just have to think about it a little longer than normal.

They did have some guidelines to follow, but it was a lot more broad than what she was used too. She and Sunar were really going to have to get their creative gears moving if they were going to somehow make huskies whimsical.

She guffawed loudly at Sunar’s dragon-husky suggestion. “I don’t think that’s going to go over very well.” She laughed, spinning around on her stool. She stopped in front of her sketch pad, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she thought.

“What about…just making the background seem kind of magical?” But also realistic - they didn’t actually go to Hogwarts. “Like maybe a waterfall or the lake or something?” She didn’t know how they’d incorporate the mascot into that. The thought of just tacking a husky wearing a Hammel sweater on top of it made her cringe. “Or…I don’t know…some kind of collage?”

[Sunar Chugani]

"A magical background," Sunar scribbled what was supposed to be the lake. "So we want a water theme? And maybe...flying koi. With...a husky riding on its back." 

Perhaps the art club students shouldn't have been given quite so much flexibility. 

"We could have a nixie. Or...a...person shapeshifting into a husky, werewolf style?" 

[Cleo Warren]

Cleo shrugged, “It doesn’t have to be water-themed. I’m just trying to think of something that’s realistically magical.” That was quite the oxymoron, but usually water-themed landscapes were always referred to as magical and fantastic. She was really going more for a type of beautiful magic rather than the concrete definition.

She wrinkled her nose, chuckling at the thought of a husky riding on a flying koi fish. “You’ve got quite the imagination, but I think that’ll get us laughed out of the cafeteria.” She turned to face Sunar, planting her elbow on the angled table in front of her as she blew a strand of blonde hair out of her face.

A nixie? “What the fuck is a nixie?” She laughed. Was that supposed to be some kind of fairy creature or something? Did she miss out on that lecture in mythology class?


“Sorry…I’m not really up to date on my magical creatures.” Cleo felt bad for dissing every single one of his suggestions, but the whole magical idea was just starting to get ridiculous. “Can we like…ditch the whole “whimsical” aspect? Or pick one or the other? I don’t know how a husky can be whimsical.” Maybe if their mascot was a fairy or a mermaid than this whole concept would work, but anything they could think of would just look random if they stuck a husky smack in the middle.

[Sunar Chugani]

"A nixie is a water spright! Like...a type of siren." 

Sunar paused as he realized exactly what he had suggested painting on the cafeteria walls. "Oh. I guess the administration wouldn't be too thrilled if we draw a creature that lures people to watery deaths." 

Creatures that lured people to death made up a great deal of any fantasy bestiary, though, so maybe Cleo was right. 

"So...maybe we could be more...patriotic. No. Umm. Patriotic but for school, shoot, what's the word for that?" 

[Cleo Warren]

“Oh…” Yeah, Cleo never would have guessed that. She agreed with his second point though. “I don’t think they would be too thrilled.” And from that description they sounded a bit dark, which was not what the administration was going for.

“It could focus more on school spirit. We’d be able to incorporate the husky more easily if we went that route.” She turned back to her sketch pad, snatching pencil off the table. “I think the administration would be more responsive to more of a collage-like mural, that had all the athletics involved, the academics, the arts, you know…” She’d suggested the collage theme earlier, but didn’t have a concrete idea until now.

She scribbled out some quick small drawings in typical collage-like form, sports balls, the swim team’s logo, the thesbian’s logo, etc. “It’s a little cliche, but I think we can make it a bit more original by adjusting the layout and adding aspects about just our school.” The layout would really be key to making it look different from every other school, but she was confident that her and Sunar could come up with something unique.

“And maybe we could throw in something subliminal in there, like a hidden pixie or shapeshifter?” That would probably be more appropriate and Cleo thought people would appreciate it more if it was less in your face.

[Sunar Chugani]

"Ohhh yeah a collage would be great!" Sunar agreed. Although Cleo had mentioned it earlier he'd been so intent on ridiculous magical ideas that he hadn't even remembered to address that suggestion. "I like collages, and cliche just means it's safe and the administration'll approve it." 

He leaned across the table to look at her thumbnails. "So what'll we show for powers training? A husky wearing a jetpack on a rainbow? Or...maybe just someone throwing fireballs. Or do you think throwing fireballs is too violent? It might be too violent. Maybe growing flowers, that's safe. Or do you think that would be too hard to do? It might just look like we have a gardening class. I like you how you did the logos, I'm terrible at doing logos." 

[Cleo Warren]

“Yeah, but safe is boring.” And art was not meant to be boring. It was meant to be inspiring and stir up conversation. She didn’t think their mural would be the next Mona Lisa, but as long as it livened up the cafe and people didn’t think it looked ridiculous, she would be happy with it. And they would be able to get past administration and still make it looking interesting.

Cleo turned toward Sunar again, her eyebrows raised as she watched him ramble on and on and on. She was actually pretty impressed at his imagination, and the fact that he could talk so fast. But unfortunately, she was going to have to clip his imagination just a little bit.

“Sunar.” She laughed, “I’m going to need you to dial it back just a little bit.” Someone growing flowers out of their body was definitely creative…but sadly it didn’t really apply to their predicament. Did anyone even have that power here?

“Maybe we can do like a several scape mural, that sort of blends together. You know, like a set to a play?” She didn’t know if she was explaining it well, so she start drawing a very very rough sketch. “Like have the scenes almost blend into one another. It can be a little abstract, with figures.” Not detailed figures obviously, but Cleo figured they could add subtle hints to powers through them. She drew one figure sitting at a piano - although her piano was more reminiscent of a bench because of how fast she drew it - adding pixie wings to it’s back.

“I feel like if it’s really colorful, than it will really brighten things up, you know?” She looked back up at him, pushing her sketch pad toward him in case he wanted to add anything. She didn’t want to dominate this whole project.

[Sunar Chugani]

"Oooooh, yes!" Sunar jumped up with such enthusiasm that he knocked over his chair. But instead of picking it back up again he simply leaned his entire body forward, almost laying flat on the table as he tried to get closer to Cleo's drawing. 

"So...should we do like....a student through the years? The recruitment, then arrival at Hammel, then joining a club, then turning the hallway into ice, then training, then graduating?" 

He doodled a quick figure skating through two parallel lines that were meant to indicate a hallway. 

[Cleo Warren]

“I think that’s an interesting idea.” She agreed. They might have to simplify it a little bit, since drawing out a story line like that could get incredibly complicated. She pushed her sketch pad closer to him so he didn’t have to shimmy himself across the table. Cleo stood up as well, since drawing from her current angle would have been difficult.

She chewed on the edge of her pencil, tilting her head to the side as she thought about how they could draw this out. Frowning, she realized they should probably start over on a new sheet of paper. There were a ton of drawings on this one, so it was probably best to start fresh.

She ripped off the top piece, moving it to the side for reference. “So we’re starting over here…with recruitment.” She drew a little figure on the left side of the paper. “Or maybe we should start with the arrival?” She drew a rough outline of the school, and two lines that formed a pathway for their tiny figure. The recruitment might be a little hard to draw without getting too detailed. Plus she wasn’t sure exactly how much room they were going to have when they actually painted it. They didn’t want to over complicate things.


“We can plan a drawing for recruitment though, and if we have a ton of room we can add and take away what we need.”

[Sunar Chugani]

"Well...we could paint an airplane first," Sunar suggested, slithering off the table and tripping over himself and the chair he had knocked over in an effort to move his way closer to Cleo. Once he arrived next to her he squeezed himself up beside her and sketched what was supposed to be the school looming over the figure and path she had drawn. "Should our person have some luggage to show that they've just arrived?"

He didn't want to take over the entire project, but he was overbearing enough that this was quite liable to happen.

[Cleo Warren]

She chuckled, rolling her eyes and shaking her head amusedly as Sunar practically tripped over everything to round the table. She tilted her sketch pad towards him so they’d have an easier time sharing.

A plane might be subtle enough to suggest all of the places each of them had come from. Perhaps they could place it in the sky above the school. “Like over here?” She asked, drawing an outline of a plane in the corner, just to the above and to the left of their figure.

“Luggage is probably a good idea.” She drew those too, teeny little boxes with handles just underneath their new student. “So I think the next one should be dedicated to involvement. It can be like…inside the school, you know?” She tore off another sheet of paper; their sketches were going to get cramped and messy if they kept using the same one.

“So just the front of the building could be drawn, from the side, you know? So we can see into the school in the next portion.” She drew an outline of the front of the school, with open doors. “We can try to hit all the social circles: the athletes, the artists, the nerds. We might have to combine all the arts though…” She tapped her pencil on the table as she thought, trying to picture the scene in her head. She didn’t know if they’d have enough room to incorporate studio art, music, and theatre, but they could try. It might look too busy though.

“I think we should layer this scene. We won’t have enough room if we keep moving horizontally.” She drew three lines across the the building to signify the levels, and then little sets of stairs to connect them.

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar nodded enthusiastically along with Cleo as she described her vision. 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! This all sounds good," He agreed. "So one layer for each activity?" He asked, placing his elbows on the table as he peered with interest at the scene she was laying out. "Or maybe...maybe we could just do...like...a couple of different items to represent different activities, and the person we're following can be looking at them like...maybe they're getting ready to choose? You know, then maybe we can hit all the arts and do a couple of different sports, too. A lacrosse stick, a basketball, some ummm...some dance shoes? Maybe a mic? Or a tuba or something?" 

What could they use to represent the nerds, though? 

"A...ummm...computer? Some books?" 

[Cleo Warren]

Cleo chewed on the inside of her lip, narrowing her eyes at the sketch pad in front of her. “We could do one layer for each activity…Or should we expand this scene horizontally, and have the scenes move up the layers? Like put all the activities on the first floor, and then the next floor the student can be going through their training, getting more and more advanced as he goes along, you know?” She wasn’t sure what they’d do with the third level yet.

“Hmm…I do feel like we should hit everything, but…” She trailed off as she examined the rough sketch in front of them. “Will it look too busy if we add everything?” Cleo thought that it might. Even if they didn’t hit all the circles, there might still be too much going on.

“And if it’s too detailed, it might not have the same effect.” Not to mention it was going to be a bitch to blow up and paint on the cafeteria wall. Cleo hated murals that had so much going on in every single area; it was a lot to focus on and sometimes the real message of the painting was lost with everything the artist tried to squeeze in.

Ugh…planning a mural was a lot harder than she thought it was going to be.

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar rested his head on the table in order to look at the paper from a different level. 

"Hmmm. It might be too busy," He conceded after a moment. That was unfortunate, as he didn't want any group to feel left out simply because they didn't have room. "We could....make a hybrid item?" He offered, sliding a new sheet of paper towards himself and beginning to sketch as he talked. "Part paintbrush, part lacrosse stick, part clarinet?"