(Untitled)

[phoinikothrix]

Despite his hypochondriac's respect for them, Francis has never liked doctors, not really--the way they poke, and prod, and ask absurd questions before ushering him out the door with an ineffectual prescription written in a careless hand, only to roll their eyes at him when he returned a few days later complaining of some new malady.

Three days

Comments

[phoinikothrix]

Worried as he was, Francis couldn't help but grin at the girl's absurd (though impressive) antics. "Not a project so much as a dilemma," he admitted. "I'm trying to find a get-well gift for a friend, but now I think I have far too many options." He moved a stack of brightly colored travel books from the chair beside him, offering her the chance to sit. "What are you up to?"

[phoinikothrix]

"A juggler and a tightrope walker? You are a girl of many talents, Helena." He made space on the table for her notebooks, before shaking his head at her question. "I'm not a terribly good artist, I'm afraid. Stick figures are about the range of my talents."

[phoinikothrix]

"That would be wonderful, but only if it's not too much trouble," Francis replied, faintly amused at the way the young woman settled in to work.

[phoinikothrix]

"He was?" Francis replied with some surprise, watching as the images took shape on the paper. "Not to sound shocked--you're obviously talented, it's just that if I'd told my grandfather that I wanted to do anything like that...well, it was bad enough that I became a classics major." He laughed ruefully, recalling the tense dinners he'd endured at home on vacations home from Hampden.

[phoinikothrix]

"I suppose you can't," Francis said, a little enviously. "You're very lucky, in that regard."

He watched her draw for a few minutes more before speaking again. "Do you wish you were still able to go? Not that you couldn't put together your own art school here, of a sort, but I don't think it'd be the same."