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Post by Minxie on Oct 19, 2009 22:36:36 GMT
This class is taught by Ms Rosamond Shell. The room is on the first floor, roughly twelve foot square, and with huge bay windows looking over the rear gardens. Each wall is covered in various different forms of artwork, and the centre of the room has a marble-esque statue in today, surrounded by easels.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Oct 29, 2009 0:28:39 GMT
Dante's head was pounding. Light peered around the edges of his curtains, but the room was still dark.
He had awoken in a leather chair, still fully dressed from the night before.
Well that's never a good sign.
The room stank of sweat and alcohol. He reached over toward the ashtray, his foot finding the floor the steady himself. Plastic crinkled beneath his feet, plastic wet enough the soak through to his feet.
Lighting a cigarette he attempted to take a long toke to start the day. For his efforts he got a sucking, gargling sound from a long jagged cut across his throat.
And that explains a lot.
Head swimming he carefully navigated an obstacle course of historical memorabilia, photographs and notebooks strewn across the floor. Snatching one from a bureau drawer he opened it to the latest page.
Hanging Hit by car Drowning Gunshot Slit Throat
Crossing off the last entry he held a hand to his neck. That would take time to heal.
God damn it all.
Finally making it to the art room he still looked worse for wear, not helped by scruffy clothing, dark glasses and trace remnants of fags, booze and despair that seemed to exude from his pores.
Not the first time he had been late he adopted the blitzkrieg tactic of excuse and he burst through the door.
"Hiya, my names Dante Tiresias, sorry I'm late, I overslept, No need to stop, I'll just find somewhere to sit and carry on quietly."
While his voice was calm and confident, this tactic would fall rapidly on it's face unless he could find someone to sit next to.
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Post by Hobz on Oct 29, 2009 19:39:07 GMT
[Alexia Matthews ~ It's literally starting with a bang]
Due to her practically sprint walking she arrived at her art classroom plenty early enough to manage to grab practically any seat of choice. This was definitely a good thing as it meant she was able to choose a seat that would allow her a good view while still enable her to be quietly there in the background. The one she did choose meant that she was invisible to anyone looking in through the doors.
However this meant that when, after class had been going for about ten minutes, the door burst open from a late arrival, Alexia had to crane her neck around to see just who exactly it was. The sight of him was slightly alarming, and it didn't take her long to hide herself behind her work. For some reason she felt really intimated... and her natural reaction to that feeling was to hide. Her eyes quickly flitted around the room to see the reactions of her classmates.
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Post by Minxie on Oct 29, 2009 22:53:20 GMT
"Good morning Dante, your tardiness notwithstanding." If she was perturbed by Dante's wild appearance - or his wild entrance - Ms Shell did not show it. "Please find a seat, and begin sketching today's piece." [[ Isolde Avira - Eep! ]]It had certainly been the first time she had been alarmed in class. Sat between the teacher and the girl she had seen at breakfast (Alexia? Alexis? Damn her memory...) she was glad not to be put through sitting next to the whirlwind that had just entered the room. Her eyes had widened perceptibly as the door flew open, and had not returned to their usual width at his appearance. He was...he was...well...mildly terrifying. From the way his hair seemed to be sticking up all directions North to South, to the way his eyes seemed able to see right through her soul... No. Isolde did not approve of him. She did not want to be sat near him, and she pitied the girl beside her, whom it was almost certain he would sit beside.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Oct 30, 2009 19:59:13 GMT
Yeesh that woman's steely, better pick a seat
He had little choice, but paused anyway. It had never occurred to him that he was capable of inspiring this kind of horror. Her eyes wide and expression frozen Dante had to wonder if he had permanently broken her brain.
Actually do look as rough as I feel. Ah. No glasses. That would do it.
Fumbling with his sunglasses his hand brushed again his face and he felt the bags of his eyes fold in.
Jesus.
Dropping into the seat next to the less mortified young lady. He crossed one leg over the other and began sketching in quick staccato strokes.
Looking over both girls he added the most profound thing he could think of.
"Hey there. I'm sorry if I startled you"
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Post by Minxie on Nov 11, 2009 15:00:36 GMT
[[ Isolde Avira --- How do I respond to that?! ]]
Isolde glanced over at the man again, after she had spent a good thirty seconds preparing herself. He alarmed her in a way she could not quite begin to comprehend. Perhaps it was the wildness she had seen in his eyes, the way they looked like they had seen more than they should have. She saw that look in her own eyes sometimes.
There was something deeper, though, something that truly unsettled Isolde. She was damned if she could understand it, but something about her made her both want to avoid him, and speak to him. He emanated sadness, a sadness far deeper than an emotion had any right to be. It was like he had seen the worst of the world, again and again and again. She shivered without meaning to, the mere idea making her feel mildly ill.
"No harm was done." She said after a little while of silently letting her pencil skim across the paper. Her voice was soft, not quite hesitant but close. She was fighting an inner battle as to whether she truly wanted to speak to this person or not.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 12, 2009 21:40:43 GMT
Dante continued to draw in his usual frantic manner and as his pencil struck the page in wide slashing motions the lines that filled the page slowly started to make up a logical form.
His heart wasn't really in it. For a start his whole body felt leaden and unresponsive, which made sense. While his throat had healed, he was still running at a pint or so of blood below minimum and that would take while to come back.
At least i put a tarp down this time
The greater distraction was the girl nearby. She seemed to be free from the grip of terror, but he couldn't help but feel her gaze fall intermittently upon him.
The subject was a flower, bright vibrant and alive. However the one on his page looked wilted and morose, as it would some day be.
Great, now I look like a total emo.
Out of the corner of his eye she shivered and spoke, her tone subdued. Dante's hand slid down the page but continued to work.
Dante studied her as she worked, she was familiar to him. Trying the best to hide it he continued to stare, unable to look away. Something stirred within him coming closer to the surface with every passing second.
"Are you sure you're OK?"
I cannot know her. Maybe her mother? Her grandmother? I just don't know.
He cast his eyes over the page, specifically down to the bottom right corner. In his reverie he had abandoned the flower entirely and separate from the rest his lines had taken a new form.
Ornately framed, holding an orb and crowned with stars, sat a maiden on a throne. Above it was simply marked.
III
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Post by Minxie on Nov 12, 2009 23:26:03 GMT
She knew it was impolite to continue staring on-and-off the way she was, but there was something about the man that Isolde could not place. She hated being on an uneven footing; it made her more edgy than usual. The teenager reasoned it was the look in his eyes, the one she recognised so well from her own. It was emotion that she could not put into words, that she did not think anyone could put into words. It was too deep, too raw, and it hurt to even think about.
Automatically Isolde shut her eyes a moment, turning her head to catch some of the rays of the sun. She was not particularly interested in the likes of sunbathing, but the warmth of the rays reminded her of hope, and the fact that not everything in the world was dark and grey, the way her mind sometimes perceived it.
His words caught her off-guard, "Are you sure you're OK?", and her eyes snapped open, gaze falling on him once more. Usually trained in hiding everything deep inside, for a fleeting second everything she felt was on display in the blue orbs; in that moment they seemed deeper than ever, an endless ocean of emotion. Then she blinked, and the moment was lost.
"I - yes, I am..." She said slowly. "It was just...a bad night." She decided upon. Why was she telling him this? Isolde could honestly not explain. It was like her lips and vocal cords had taken on a life of their own.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 14, 2009 17:32:45 GMT
In that moments the windows to this girls opened up and Dante almost plummeted through. The blue changed from placid pools, to wild seas, strength, sadness, resolve and pity crashed like waves upon the surface.
When it was gone he continued to stare and felt slightly exhausted from just witnessing it.
He sighed, his hand slowed to a halt, giving brief respite to the hitherto abused page. Running his fingers through the knotted wilderness of his hair he raised his pen to his lips, let it rest a moment between them and drew it back down.
"I've heard a lot of people say it was a strange one."
Something about her affected him, drawing him closer in a way he had spent centuries learning to avoid.
"Well... A penny for your thoughts. Whats troublin' you?"
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Post by Minxie on Nov 17, 2009 21:32:07 GMT
The faintest of blushes ran underneath Isolde's skin; she knew she had let her defences down. One look at the exhaustion on the young man's face said it all. She had shown too much, again. It did not happen often, for which the blonde was relieved, but the fact it had happened at all that day concerned her. She did not like others to see what she was thinking, what she was feeling. It unnerved and concerned her.
"I've heard a lot of people say it was a strange one."
So it was not just her who noticed the odd occurrences in the school at night? Isolde was not sure whether she should be pleased or not. If whatever-it-was was affecting others as well as herself, that was a bad thing. She did not like the idea of others suffering.
"Well... A penny for your thoughts. Whats troublin' you?"
Dante's voice broke her from her thoughts, and Isolde blinked, bringing herself back to the present. She could not afford to let her mind wander away again; there was something about this man that made it harder for her to keep her barriers up.
"I just had trouble sleeping." She said after a long pause, in which her hand did not stop moving across the paper. Isolde barely needed to see what she was drawing; she had long since tired of the sculpture and turned the page over to let her hand do as it wished. A beautiful girl was coming to life on the paper, her hair long and braided with flowers, a tiny smile on slightly pouty lips. Her dress was long, in a style akin to medieval noblewear, but with subtle differences. It seemed too full, too rich, to be of the quality made in medievil times.
The folds in the skirts told of heavy-weight fabric, and much of it, the curve of neckline across the swell of her breasts told of a society in which women were not expected to be modest.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 18, 2009 0:13:38 GMT
"Believe me you aren't alone in that."
Dante looked past her at the page she was tending to and his heart skipped a beat.
The girl in the drawing looked painfully familiar. When combined with the sketch his own hand had made, it only staggered him further.
His jaw fell slightly agape.
III
The Empress
The orb
The girl
Isolde
His mind swam with possibilities, decades he had waited, hundreds of years before that, it was impossible not to wonder if he wanted this too much, if his mind was playing tricks.
If I'm wrong then I'll look a hundred kinds of crazy. I must be sure.
"That lady... The one in the picture... Thats pretty detailed for a one off. Does she have a name?"
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Post by Minxie on Nov 18, 2009 1:08:08 GMT
"A name?" Isolde blinked, and looked from Dante back to the drawing. She could barely remember drawing her, if she was honest. She loved the folds of the fabric most; she could almost feel the heavy velvet beneath her fingers when she rested the tips against the paper.
A name? I've never given her a name...
Isolde had drawn this woman countless times over; her sketchpad was filled with numerous variations. Others had been drawn too, people in similar clothing, but this woman was the one Isolde went back to time and time again.
"I have never named her." She said quietly, glancing sideways at Dante. "She is not a one-off; I like to draw her."
Why she was telling him that was beyond Isolde. It just seemed to make sense to offer him an explanation.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 19, 2009 22:34:00 GMT
"Yeah I can see why. She is beautiful."
The more they talked, the greater feeling of surreality gripped him. It was like a conversation in a dream, most likely his own and one he had often as the decades passed.
It was a shock to see so familiar an image so vividly, It was so long ago that mere fragments of the memory remained.
Such is my curse.
"Like something from a dream, Tis a shame that anything would keep you from sleeping. Anything you wanna talk about? I may be a stranger but I've been around"
Now there's the mother of all understatements
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Post by Minxie on Nov 20, 2009 3:21:07 GMT
Isolde gave a small shrug, a surprisingly elegant movement, causing her hair to shift slightly, platinum-blonde waves like a waterfall. Sleep was always difficult for her, for many different reasons. The dreams (nightmares), the voices, the things that were so close to memories but not...
"I'm used to it." She murmured, giving Dante an almost-smile that didn't reach her eyes. "But thank you..." She looked back to her drawing and idly sketched in a few more details. There was a definite light in the woman's eyes, nothing like the cool emptiness of Isolde's own. She hid her emotions for a good reason. This woman...she didn't need to.
"She...is Rasui." The blonde barely realised she was speaking, still staring at the drawing. "It means 'dream'. It suits her...somehow..."
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 23, 2009 20:18:27 GMT
The surreality that had hung in the air like a mist slowly enveloped him. He inhaled it with every breath, it clung to his skin seeping through his pores.
"Rasui...I think it suits fine."
Dante felt it fill him entirely, entwining with every fiber of his being and fill him with an energy indescribable.
He smiled, a rare and genuine smile.
"Ras... I... Ah... Isolde. You should draw her more, she seems like she has a story to tell."
He set down he pencil and admired his artwork. The second one of course. With a sudden burst of tore it away from the page, folded it neatly in four and handed it to her.
"Don't look. Not yet. Tell me would you meet me after classes?"
He paused.
"Not as a councelor, I'm not saying you are mental, just I would like to get to know you better."
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