Sittin Here Thinkin |[tags Alex]

[Therru Simmons]

The bottle of blue soda had made a ring on the coaster the girl had set it on. One of her thin fingered hands was nearby, curled around but not touching the wet glass. Her other hand was balled into a fist supporting her head. Green eyes gazed out at the late afternoon sun as it lighted on the sidewalk. She didn’t really spend much or anyt time in town because of the crowds, but this day had somehow seemed okay to try and make the venture into humanity. There were so many people she didn’t know and it made her extremely nervous, even slightly jumpy. She wasn't noticeable in her outfit really. Just a girl. But it was later in the afternoon and hot, so everything seemed quiet, almost tamed down by the fire of the sun. Which, since she was an outdoorsy person and didn’t affect her really, worked pefect.

She turned her face from the glass window to stare at the inside of the bar/café. It was a really nice place, quiet and calm. She had seemed to have chosen a time that was sort of a lull in the afternoon traffic. Therru had only seen two people so far but she suppose they worked here. Past paying for her pop she didn’t really have any interaction. Really though, she was enjoying herself as long as things were quiet. No one there to bother her. Honestly, the shy mountain girl preferred the quiet of the lake or the little stream she had found in the woods. Someone thought had told her she needed to make more friends, and she sort of agreed. Therru had been at Hammel for at least two and a half years now and didn’t know anyone very well. She tended to think to deeply and confound people when she spoke. She needed friends that were older than her, people who she could hold an intelligient conversation with.

Not only that, but in the past year she had been dealing with a lot of conflicting emotions about people. The concept of a boy dating a girl was rigid in her head, but she had been noticing both in a different light, and it scared her to the core. She didn’t know how to deal with those feelings, or any feelings really. She just kept them all bottled up.

She sighed and pulled out a worn journal. The cover was a faded leather that had signs of lots of use. It was quite thick, with creme colored paper. She opened it to a new page, ready to scribble some little drawings and write poetry, the two things she loved doing. Feather started to take shape across the paper and she carefully sketched each one with painful detail. She could see colors for painting it in her mind and decided it would make a good thing to paint. A smile brushed her lips.

It came with great surprise to the girl when someone sat down across from her, someone she didn’t recognize. Therru turned her glassed over eyes clearing as she tried to identify who it was without success. Her ruminations cut short, she stored them away for dissection at a later time when she was alone in her mind and in personal space, where she could think and not have to worry about people.

[Alexander McKenzie]

Alex had spent the vast majority of his shift drying to alternately do his job, avoid Kali, and study. During lulls, it was easy to accomplish studying, but difficult to avoid Kali. And it was near impossible to do all three at the same time. Kali had been pestering him lately about Ann, and his relationship was something he did not enjoy discussing with his boss. Granted, Kali was more like a sister and a friend than a boss, but it still didn’t make it entirely enjoyable. … Then again, what conversation with a sibling regarding a relationship was pleasant?

Conversations with Conrad didn’t count. He liked talking about Ann with his housemate.

With the lull, he was able to actually entertain the idea of taking a break. After motoring through the Kafe and taking up the used dishes and heading back to the kitchen, he leaned into Kali. “I’m going to take my break now, all right? Just let me know if you need me.” With that, he dropped the dishes in the back sink for the dishwasher to look after, grabbed a cup of water and a chicken sandwich, and headed out to the floor again.

Tucked under his arm was his sketchpad and a handful of hand written notes for an upcoming exam. He was going to settle in a booth on his own for a quiet break, but something caught his attention. A girl, one who had been quiet every time he’d been on the floor.

She had a notebook too. And it looked like it was more of a sketchpad than a notebook. He glanced over, making an executive decision, and headed over to the booth. He slid in quietly, pushing his notes to the side and flipped his own sketchpad open.

“Hello,” he offered quietly. “I hope you don’t mind I joined you.” He reached out to tap the paper in front of her. “You’re quite good.” He liked seeing young talent. … And that made him feel old.

[Therru Simmons]

She was completely surprised to see him just slide in like that. For a moment her brain refused to work before and she just sort of sat there stunned. He had a notebook that he flipped open, with quite a few interesting picture across it. He tapped the pages of her book, commenting that he liked the art. She sort of liked this too. If she put the feathers in gold and red, falling against a black backdrop with some of that 3-d paste she had saved up for and gotten from the mall, then it would turn out to be a lovely piece. [Someone had told her that it would be less expensive to order supplies from online, but she could barely get music players to run on a computer much less shop there.]

The canvas would have to be smaller, maybe even square. Seven inch by seven inch sounded right in her head, and about an inch deep for a real effect. Maybe in the background she could even script in a few lines of poetry... He spoke you know a voice nagged at her.

Which actually made her blush when she realized how long she had been silent ruminating over the piece. For a moment her mouth worked and no sound came out, then a small voice.
" Thank you. I normally paint, so my work in drawing isn't quite as good." At least not in her terms, not when she had seen her mothers artwork. She had bundles of the stuff in her dorm, all tied carefully together. Therru looked him over. Dark hair, wide eyes that said 'I'm paying attention'. He seemed like a nice sort of person. If she was any judge of age he was three or four years older, butting him somewhere around 19 or twenty or so. She let her head tilt down slightly, trying to not be shy. It was ingrained into who she was though. She was a woodsman. The people here were strange cityfolk.

But as she looked down his own drawings caught her eye. Wonderful creations full of imagination. She was fascinated by them, and wanted to pull the book closer to examine the detail put into all the wonderful sketches she saw there.
" Do you draw often?" She asked, trying to create a semblance of conversation. She couldn't just dive into a conversation like with her father or Oba. No, there was a trick she had yet to get the hang of that made some smooth transition from "weather talk," to "serious topic-of-interest" talk. I really hope I'm doing this right. Elsewise I'll look twice the fool for it.

[Alexander McKenzie]

Under normal circumstances, Alex wouldn’t have been so bold. He didn’t like interrupting patrons, even if it was just to steal away their used dishes. But the Kafe was quiet, and she was doing artistic things. It just made sense to him to slip over. He liked making connections with other artists, something he’d missed since graduating from Hammel. No more art club. All his work was done at home now, in between classes, homework, work, and seeing friends.

He waited for her to respond before smiling in an easy way. He didn’t quite believe her. She drew in a lovely way, and he could only imagine her paintwork. “If that’s not quite as good, you really must be talented. Have you always had an affinity for art?” Not everyone was like him, drawing from the time they were in diapers.

He let her appraise him on her own terms, sitting quietly and adjusting the dark plastic frames of his glasses. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was afraid of him. Tattoos, piercings, he didn’t look like the most friendly guy. Too bad. He was, by his standards, a pretty nice guy.

Once she was done, he lowered his gaze to his own sketchpad. He loved drawing, and the proof was on his body. Her question made him smile. “I do,” he admitted. “Since I was a child.” It had started with simple stick figures, and evolved from there. He’d spent a good sixteen years of his life drawing and creating. “And you?”

He was also curious about her mediums of choice. Apparently painting was one of them. He personally liked working with charcoal pencils. Following that, he liked color. Markers, he could do some nice work with, and pencil crayons if he felt like it.

“So you prefer painting?” He smiled at her and flipped back a few pages, past graffitied words and scribbled cartoons, to a few more serious drawings. Some of them had already been transferred from paper to skin. “I design tattoos. Well, sort of.” To demonstrate, he pointed out a small dove and pulled up his shirt sleeve, touching it with his finger. “See?”[/juistyf]

[Therru Simmons]

She had a feeling that he was a pretty nice person, so she relaxed a bit. Besides, art was usually a pretty easy subject to talk about. There were a few people she knew who liked art. She had never joined the art club at Hammel mostly because she really didn't want to show others her artwork. It just went away for her to look at once and a while when she felt she needed a boost in feeling artistic. She sort of shrugged as she replied.

" I think I got it from my mother. She did some exceptionally wonderfully work in inking. Her medium was a calligraphy pen, or and kind of pen really. I started drawing when I was very young and had found one of her sketchbooks." Therru didn't mention her mother wasn't living at the time. It didn't seem to be necessary to say to her. She told very few people about that anyway. Her past was hers.

She smiled when he asked if she preferred painting. Yes, painting was preferred to her. She saw it as something more challenging, and she loved the flexibility of the medium in itself.
" Yes, I do prefer painting. There are so many wonderful things to paint that I never really seem to run out of ideas. And with all the different things to add for texture there is an infinite amount of possibilities." She had at one point thought of selling a few of her drawings and paintings to the shops in town to hang sort of like galleries. She had a few she could sell here and there.

He showed her the tattoo and she was impressed. Although Therru would never get a tattoo she loved looking at them. At least, the ones that weren't plastered all over trashy people. Some people just weren't meant to have inked skin. Therru noticed that there were many more splotches of ink on him and was interested. They were so pretty, so interesting. Her fingers itched to just.... poke his skin sort of, to see if it was real or if he was made of paper and would crumble away.

" They're wonderful. I don't think I could ever get a tattoo...." She was going to call him by his name when she realized she didn't know it. She was talking to a complete stranger..sort of.

" I'm Therru by the way." she said, introducing herself. It was a first, because usually someone else introduced themselves first. But maybe that's what branching out was for, right?

[Alexander McKenzie]

Alex tried to be a nice person. Mostly because he’d had his fair share of teasing during his first few years of school. It was so much more fulfilling to be a nice person, and easier too. At Hammel, it had been all too easy to be himself, because everyone there was ‘different.’

“That’s interesting,” Alex said with a little smile. “Neither of my parents are particularly artistic, so I honestly don’t know where my interests were first sparked.” All he knew what was that he’d been busted many a time for using the walls as easels, and he’d spent a good chunk of his childhood filling notebooks and pads of paper with drawings.

The fact that the girl spoke about her mother in the past tense didn’t slip by unnoticed. Alex was just polite enough not to pry.

“Painting was fun,” he admitted. He’d done many paintings during art class, when the focus had been that particular medium. Despite the fact they made a massive mess, and took forever and a day to dry, he’d enjoyed oil paints over watercolor and acrylic. But he still preferred his pencils. “But I always preferred pencils.” Sometimes he’d smear a bit of water over his colored creations to give a better blend, but that was as far as he went there.

Alex’s tattoos dated back to when he was still a teenager. His parents had allowed it because, well, at that point, they’d let him get away with a lot. Considering he’d sought their permission, and had even offered up the vast majority of allowance he’d saved, there hadn’t been much of a reason not to let him go. He ran his fingers over his other arm, where his orange ribbon twisted around his wrist. “This was my first one. It’s the one that I can’t really take credit for designing.” Honestly, he’d told the artist all he wanted was a long orange ribbon, starting at his upper arm and twisting around until it reached his wrist. But he still loved it, even after all these years.

Oh. Right. Introductions. He blushed at his lapse of manners. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I’m Alex.”

[Therru Simmons]

The orange ribbin wrapped around his wrist, and she gazed at it with wonder. Questions bubbled inside her mind, but she kept them inside. She wasn't really sure if she should be asking questions. She let them go and gazed back at her drawing. The feathers were spread all over, and again she let the image of what she imagined the finished piece to be flash through her mind.

" It's really wonderful. I don't think I could ever get a tattoo, but I admire the people who do, for the most part. They're showing thier art, thier emotions on thier skin for everyone to see." She didn't say anything for a moment.

" I'm sorry. That was rude. I'm Alex." She looked back up, a shy smile crossing her lips. She nodded and looked outside again for just a split second.
" It's nice to meet you Alex. I don't normally talk to many people." Therru didn't want to make herself seem elitist or anti-social, she just didn't talk to many people. It was her own fault since she didn't always know how to interact.

" Do you come into town often?" She asked, not knowing that he worked here.

ooc: sorry for the icky post.....

[Alexander McKenzie]

Alex never minded answering questions about his tattoos. Most of them had little stories behind them, the biggest being the ribbon. And some were just things he’d doodled, which had turned into drawings he’d perfected, which had turned into ink on his skin. He didn’t have as much time now, being that University was surprisingly demanding, not to mention his shifts at the Kali’s, and his time with Ann. But when lectures got a little boring, he still found himself drifting off into doodle land.

“I was afraid of needles as a kid, but I got over it.” He shrugged, starting to play with one of his rings. “I actually like the process. And as most of the drawings are my own, it’s a nice way to preserve them, in a way.” Honestly, the last time he’d gone to get ink done, he’d nearly fallen asleep in the chair. It was that relaxing.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Therru. And I don’t either, to be honest. Especially here.” His usual human contact involved ducking Kali’s playful insults and talking to the others that worked in the back. At University, it wasn’t as bad, but he was still shy at times.

“Yes. I live in town, actually. Not far from here.” He shrugged. “It’s a bit of a commute to get to school now, but I like it. At the very least, it’s close to work.” Speaking of which, he glanced at the clock. Good. He still had some time before Kali came out and hauled him back to work.

[Therru Simmons]

]justify] It was actually very relaxing. The sun was at just the right angle now so that it shined on her skin but not on her face. The rays were very warm, and wonderful. Therru rather liked listening to Alex talk, which for her was strange. She didn't understand it. Then again she had never understood quite a few things. She honestly couldn't think of needles as something she'd get used to. She was very uncomfortable around them, so she tried to stay away. She found it interesting that she wasn't the only one who didn't interact much. At least Therru felt better knowing she wasn't the only loner out there.

"Well it's wonderful you can be close to work. Having a long commute would be unpleasant. At least for me. I have a strong dislike of cars for the most part." She shrugged slightly. The only vehicle she had ever liked was her fathers old rusty red truck. She knew that whenever she was in it she was safe. That was the one really big difference from all other cars. Therru smiled shyly and looked down at the book on the table. She really wanted to pick it up again and continue drawing, maybe even draw her fathers truck this time. She noticed Alex was looking at his watch and for a moment felt embarrassed.

" I'm sorry. Am I keeping you from your work?" She asked him softly.[/justify]