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[hismajestysbox]

As with any normal person on the planet, I highly enjoyed time off, sitting around, doing nothing but just...being. Thinking. Musing on the important things in life. Though I highly doubt that anything of great note ever came from an idle person's mind, because my thoughts had swiftly drifted towards either senseless things or otherwise, very

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[inariver]

"Hullo there."

Ophelia is alone, but solitude has always been kind to her. Eugene has scampered off for the afternoon and she is certain that the little dog will be found before the sun set.

Resting her hand on the top of her head to keep her hat from blowing away, she smiles and waves with her other hand at the man. "Does thou see anything good?"

[hismajestysbox]

Oh. A little girl. There were quite a few of those on the island, of course, but I had not ever been particularly good with little children. In fact, I was never a very good child myself, and Pandora had spent far too much time trying to do my hair for my memories of little girls to be overly fond.

I had to admit, however, that this one was rather cute. And the old language was something familiar. I smiled. "Not particularly," I said after a moment's consideration. "The view doesn't change very much from day to day." I gestured at the pad. "Would you like to see?"

[inariver]

Childlike as she may be, Ophelia has been not been one for a very long time. Lowering her hands back to her side, she nods and takes step closer to give the pad a peek.

"Aye, that would be an awfully nice thing, if it would not intrude."

[hismajestysbox]

"No, no, please," I gestured for her to come closer, shifting the pad so she can have a look. No, really, I'm not ver y good at entertaining children at all and avoid it at all costs, but the girl didn't seem to be the type to try to plait his hair. Instead, he smiled. The picture was a relatively okay rendering of the landscape in front of me. I'd been working on the shading ofr a particular tree when she'd come by. "I am much better at portraits."

[inariver]

Her eye for art had never been much. It had been a subject that had made her weary, full of tapestries and paintings of saints long dead. The look had been wrong in all of them.

"Hmm. Thou art still not terrible. I have no gifts in this area at all."

[hismajestysbox]

My smile widened. "Aw, thank you," I said, more than a little pleased that the girl had decided his art was actually good. "This isn't even my best work." Something occurred to me - a venture that had ended with Miss Pok despite the fact that it was supposed to be something much more. Perhaps... "It is not hard to learn," I said after another moment.

[inariver]

"Then your better work must be astounding."

It is an easy enough conclusion to make, given that if poor was good then good must be better. If it isn't then Ophelia knows to call a liar how she sees one.

"Is it not? I am rubbish such simple tasks like embroidery. I was only ever allowed to do the greenery."

[hismajestysbox]

"There is, of course, the advantage of there being no wrong when you are an artist," I pointed out, chuckling. I did not dispute how astounding my great works were because, really, they were. Not half as fun as my other job, but it was one that provided a fantastic cover. Teaching art. I hoped this girl wasn't anywhere near as crazy as Miss Bella Pok, though I was certainly not in danger of doing something so utterly stupid as falling for her. I was not very good at dealing with women (or men) I could not fall for thus, children remained a mystery to me.

"No, it is not too difficult," I said. "How good are your observation skills?"

[inariver]

The idea of such freedom in wrongs and rights is a new idea to her at least in the context of art. Art has rules, it is governed by those whose patronage the artists held. Freedom and creativity do not have much to do with art.

"Quite good. I could spot a coming horse half a mile away when others missed it."

[hismajestysbox]

"Ah, then you will, at least, make a half-decent artist if not a completely fine one," I said. "Some people have the observation skills of a blind snail trying to cross a road." It was true. Why would you draw or otherwise attempt to commit some scene to paper when you did not know what you were looking at? Bad artists were always a mystery to me. I imagined they rather thought themselves good, however, and that just went to show how terrible their observation skills really were.

[inariver]

The metaphor causes Ophelia to laugh. She can only imagine how poorly those results would be even if she knows that a good sight can go much further. Just as blind men can tell the most descriptive of tales, those who can see are more likely to miss them.

Sitting down, she took off her sun hat and shook her hair out until it looked a bit wild and free. It is an illusion, of course, meant to keep her distracted slightly from the task at hand.

"Then I hope that I shall be totally ruined by what I see."

[hismajestysbox]

I chuckled. I gestured at the tree I had been drawing earlier. Half-drawing. I still thought it was rather half-arsed, but what could one do? There was not much passion for the subject at hand. "See that tree there?" I said. "If you are too focused on the fact that it is a tree, you will attempt to see what your mind associates with the word tree."