[OPEN] Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival
Who: OPEN to the public!
When: Daylight hours on Monday, 26th of July
Where: Orchard Street Elementary School, Sector 5
Summary: A fundraiser for the 5th school district's art program. Advertised here in the news!
Warnings: Abominable Cuteness.
( I see trees of green, red roses too )
When: Daylight hours on Monday, 26th of July
Where: Orchard Street Elementary School, Sector 5
Summary: A fundraiser for the 5th school district's art program. Advertised here in the news!
Warnings: Abominable Cuteness.
( I see trees of green, red roses too )
Sometimes, he found himself wishing that all of his fake and illusionary past had been real. Sometimes, he still allowed himself to pretend for a little while that it was.
When he saw Namine there, bending over their square with chalk uncertainly in hand, he smiled and thought of the shy small girl that liked to sit in shady places and draw. He'd hoped that an activity like this would make her happy, so he could see her smiling- especially for all the good it would do, for these school kids who had yet to make memories and save them in colored pencils and folded paper with scissors and glue.
"Here's one for you-" He set her ice-cold lemonade carefully on the curbside, just outside of their sidewalk boundaries. Joe stood around uncertainly, watching her with a hopeful expression, sipping on his own. "I'll just put it here, to make sure it doesn't get anything wet, okay?"
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When she did catch his voice, she sat straight up on her heels and nodded a thanks. Her eyes trailed from the sidewalk square to him, and back again. Maybe it wasn't his intention, but Naminé felt like he was waiting for her, and with not knowing what to exactly, it wasn't going to help her come up with something special for him.
Unless maybe...
She turned back to him with a shy smile, "Do you... want to draw with me?"
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Her voice, soft and uncertain, made him smile reflexively, and down he went obligingly onto his knees, careful not to smudge the first few lines she'd made.
She seemed so much shyer now, than she had grown to be over the past year. Was it because the memory of Marluxia, Larxene, was still fresh in her mind? Or that man Riku told him so little about...
She almost looked afraid to have fun.
He reached for the chalk bucket, and rummaged around for a fat piece that fit comfortably into his fingers, pale blue.
"What kind of picture do you want to make?"
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"Normally, I do make pictures of the others, Sora and them, but... I think I want to make something different this time." She looked over to him, feeling her cheeks going a little pink. Naminé did love to draw, but maybe a different muse is what she needs.
"...I just don't know what yet."
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Staring across the expanse of sidewalk, which seemed so much more room to cover from here on the ground- he really didn't know. Something easy?
Absently, he traced the outline of a star in once corner, then shaded it in.
"Why don't we draw..." It was cheating a little, to trying a figure out just a little bit more about all she didn't say about herself, but while this was a golden opportunity- "Something you really like?"
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But she watched him, only to get confused with his words. Well, she did like drawing, but she hardly thought that that was what he was getting at. But... a star? Like the ones from that false memory?
Or maybe he meant something different. Not everything had to be related or about the lies she wove.
With a bit more confidence, Namine took the opportunity to have some of her own lemonade and settled down beside him, drawing a star of her own beside his.
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It was something he hadn't felt at all, in the almost-month she'd been away.
Scooting over a bit more to give her room, adding a curvy line of a crescent moon, he wasn't paying attention to the way his weight shifted, on his knees, the way his leg bumped his pocket, the heavy stone inside.
And so when his Soul Gem clattered out, spinning like a skipping stone on the pavement, seeming like the same Dragon's Eye he carried in his Soul Eater (though slightly mottled with black, with darkness, with corruption) ...
His eyes went wide with a startled fear, a hissing wince, and he hurriedly clamped his hand over the gem, snatching it back up and hurriedly polishing it clean on his shirt.
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Spotting him making a curve at what she guessed was a moon, Naminé started to make an outline of another star nearby. But her concentration was broken when she heard the gem fall, rising up from her palms and sitting on the back of her heels.
He had been here for a long while, she knew that, so it was understandable that he would have things that were meaningful to him. But there was something in his reaction that told her it was very important, though she had a sinking feeling just by looking at the Gem that something did feel right.
"Joe? What is that?"
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So he just slides it deeper into his pocket with a nervous frown, reaching for the chalk again to scratch some white forms of clouds across a forming sky.
"It's nothing. Just a rock."
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Naminé gripped the piece of chalk in her hands. He dismissed her question, so it wouldn't be very productive to ask again or for any details. But she still felt uneasy by its appearance.
She bent her head and nodded wordlessly before thinking about what to do next. Clouds, stars and a moon and sky above on the upper half of the square, but nothing below...
Picking herself up, she moved closer to the bottom of the square and picked out a sandy coloured piece so that she could make long strides the width of the square. Maybe Joe needed a distraction as much as she did right now, and perhaps when he was more relaxed, she could ask about the rock another time.
As for what to distract him with, well she had an idea about that...
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He'd made a contract to be stronger, because he didn't trust he was strong enough on his own, to defeat Vanitas or Xehanort, to save his friends. And he was ashamed of anyone knowing he'd made a wish- which was why he hadn't told Roxas, even though he told Roxas almost everything.
He finished filling in the 'sky' starting with darker blue and purpled shades up top and working his way down to yellows, oranges and pinks closer to the forming 'horizon'. Dawn or Twilight? He wasn't really decided on that, but he kept his attention on what Namine was drawing, contemplatively quiet, focused just on the way her hand moved gracefully with the chalk.
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But it all came down to his reaction when she thought about it.
Looking up to see what he had done already, she smiled faintly, deciding to add some shades of her own to the sand. She hadn't really used too many shades before, so trying to use them and determine what colour went where for what effect made her stop and think. But in the end, she was satisfied. Somewhat. She made a mental note to try more shading later.
"It's... looking really nice already," she spoke quietly, not wanting the awkward silence to linger any longer than it needed. Reaching for the brown chalk again, she made some outlines of trees, thinking about whether to make them the palms of the islands or some other sort of tree.
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You couldn't miss a home that wasn't real- no, no, the islands were real, they had just never really been his. Siren's Port was his island, and his home. Big and exciting, and darker than darkness at night, and never too peaceful.
"Do you think you'll go back to the art school, when it's fall?" He questioned, cocking his head, "I'll still walk you over in the morning, if you want to go."
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"I... I'm still not sure." If she got to do things like this, and work on art in a relaxing nature. But school was still something that normal kids did and to go from something like the Old Mansion of Twilight Town or her situation in Castle Oblivion was such a change. All of her experiences told her that she wasn't worth normalcy like others were.
"If I get to do things like this, I won't mind it but... I just want to make sure that the decision I make is the right one."
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Maybe she didn't actually even like art as much as he'd always thought. Maybe it was just something to pass the time away. He gazed down doubtfully at the chalk pictures, and sighed.
"You do... you like stuff like this, right? It's what I've always figured-"
What he remembered. What he'd assumed. He didn't really do a whole lot of listening to Namine, even within the past year...because he'd always felt that he'd been pushing her a little to say something, anything.
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She focused on his question though, trying to bring herself back into the conversation. She... liked drawing. At first it was something like a conduit or a catalyst for her powers; it helped in figuring out what to change and how to sort things around. And in that year of piecing together Sora's memories, it was one of the only things she really had to herself that she was free to do.
"I do like it." Namine had surprised herself at the confidence in her voice, and the little smile that came easily to her face. "I do like to draw. I've never thought about it as practicing a talent before, or even that it was a talent." Because wasn't that the whole point and idea of art school? To hone that talent to perfection?
"I like stuff like this."
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