[OTA] Casual Sketches

[cipherspeak]

Elisha isn't in his office. He's not in his rooms, either, or his studio for that matter. If someone was looking for the King of Clubs, they'd have to go through all the usual suspects and some of the more unusual ones - the training rooms, the kitchens, the offices of the other Club Faces - before they came across him in a secluded corner of Club

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[elani_songbird]

By the time she actually finds him, Elani might be looking a bit frazzled. Because there's All These People who Need Things Done Right Now and the King is nowhere to be found in his usual spots so they've all come to her and she's trying to keep everything on an even keel but you know.

It isn't easy. Particularly not when you have a half-dozen people all trying to talk to you at once.

So when she finds him, it might sound a little more desperate than it necessarily needs to be, "there you are!"

[cipherspeak]

There are people, she means, who are using the fact that they have an accommadating, friendly Jack as an excuse to throw all the panic attacks at her, and Elisha looks up with a raised brow.

"Here I am," he says. "Has anything crumbled down to the ground in the last hour?"

Probably not, really.

[elani_songbird]

That would be about the size of it, if one were being directly honest.

"Y-...well. No. Not as such. Just. Well. There's a lot of people rather upset about things appearing and a couple have had problems leaving and not ending up where they meant to and..."

She drops a pile of papers in front of him. "I don't even know what to tell people."

[cipherspeak]

"That we know it's worrisome, but we're working on a solution." He picks up his charcoal again and shades in a wave in Hadyn's hair. "And I generally add something about knowing that it's difficult, but the one thing I don't worry about is the Clubs' ability to handle the adversity."

Which was usually enough to stop them in their tracks. Clubs weren't the most proud Suit, but they had their pride.

"Why don't you sit down, Elani?"

[maskofhearts]

"Did you know that a house has wedged itself between Cafe De'mond and Quintin's Gadgets." Hadyn said as he finally found Elisha. Curiously he leaned in to see what Elisha was sketching, before smirking a little settling down next time him.

"They were a bit stumped as to when and how it happened."

[cipherspeak]

"Mm. Elani's boyfriend's neighbors now have a cottage in their backyard." He'd heard all about it. "Has anyone gone in?" He's hoping not, but he doesn't have a whole lot of faith.

Humans were human that way.

[maskofhearts]

"I don't know, actually. Unlike everyone else, I decided gawking was not very useful." He smirked a little, resting his head against Elisha's shoulder as he sighed a bit.

"I spoke to my Uncle a bit ago."

[cipherspeak]

Elisha smoothed his fingers over Hadyn's hair and set down his pencil before flipping the sketchbook shut.

"Davin?" He asked. It wasn't as though Davin Bernard was Hadyn's only uncle, after all, though he often seemed to be the only one who much involved himself. "What about?"

[take2andcallme]

He's been meaning to talk to Elisha about this trip, really. Stuff just seemed to keep getting in the way all afternoon. There's no putting it off any longer, though, and after an hour of searching and asking around, he finally manages to find the King tucked away in a back corner, pencil skating over the paper in front of him.

"Sorry for interrupting. Mind if I sit?"

[cipherspeak]

He's done a pretty good job of hiding, really, though soon he'll have to relieve Carmella on the Keep Calm and Carry On front. Still, it's been a good break, and so he doesn't mind pausing in the character sketch he's considering modifying into a wedding gift for later that spring.

"Go ahead," he says easily. "What's on your mind, Caleb?"

[take2andcallme]

Considering how long it's taken to find him, Elisha should really keep this spot in mind for future escapes from nagging and paperwork. Not that he'd take advantage, really. But everyone needed to get away now and then. Sliding into a chair across from him, Caleb laces his fingers together, tapping at his lips.

"I have to leave. Two weeks, maybe less. Be in New York on Monday, hopefully back here on the twenty-fifth."

There. Start with the basics. Explain from there just why he's leaving, when things are going a little sideways, without giving the King half his life story.

[cipherspeak]

Why would be a good place to go next. And while Elisha's not pulling his hair out over this - he can't, because he needs to be calm in a crisis - his expression does shutter as he sets down his pencil and closes his eyes.

"I see," he says. "Why?"

[bitchwithabite]

Amy doesn't usually have reason to approach Elisha even during work hours. But on her days off, she definitely has no excuse for that. She can pass being here off on looking for Caleb, since she has been checking in with him semi-regularly. It's just...habit, she guesses. Even if the library isn't a usual place to expect to find the good doctor.

Still, she's not expecting to find Elisha with a sketched portrait of Hadyn in his lap. So she kind of gives it a look, which could so easily be misconstrued as her actually staring at the King of Clubs' lap. Yeah, no, wrong black Suit. "That's. ...Different."

[cipherspeak]

He only glances up, raising an eyebrow at her before he bends his head again to add some shading to Hadyn's jacket in the portrait. "I was the court artist, you know," he points out a little dryly. "That means that I actually spent a lot of years doing this kind of thing for the other Faces." Upper Numbers too. In return, they all left him the hell alone, mostly, when he felt a little more like throwing paint at a canvas.

[bitchwithabite]

She shrugs, raising an eyebrow of her own. "Yeah well. It's still weird. I don't exactly see your fancy shit often, y'know." It's true, if nothing else. She doesn't see him much at all, and his art even less, so it's probably fair to say. Shrugging one shoulder, she sits herself down uninvited.

"What's the occasion? Most people don't do stuff like that unprompted." Right? Pretty things require reasons and justifications.

[cipherspeak]

"We should just get a museum set up." In one of the randomly popped up houses. The first exhibit could be 'Eileen Eicheln Through the Ages.'

"Most people might not," he said after a moment, moving his pencil to work on the rendition of his own couch. "But I happen to like drawing. Don't you have hobbies, Miss Sinclair?"

[mightbedrunk]

"That...looks exactly how I imagined Abraham Lincoln if he was a girl." She means the picture of Hadyn. However, for once, there wasn't any malice in her tone when she teased.

"Hiding are we?"

[cipherspeak]

"Don't be silly. Abe would look like Mary Todd, except with a thing for hats." He smiled at her, though, as he flipped the notebook closed. He was mostly working on Hadyn because, well, it was easier than trying to get his half-cocked plan to paint a portrait of the Happy Couple to work just now.

Sadly, he would never be getting Victor to sit for a portrait.

"I think someone tripped the panic button."

[mightbedrunk]

No. But if he were lucky, perhaps he could snap a picture and paint from that. Perhaps. But Leona would imagine that even getting a picture of Victor Fox would be rather difficult.

He didn't seem like a camera sort of guy.

"Oh yeah? Is it a silent alarm?" She snerked as she flopped down next to him and produced a chocolate orange ball. "Can't really blame'm, though. Mean, there are boulders and...just...trees. All that sort of tomfoolery just appearing and such. Sort of makes one think it is the end times."

[cipherspeak]

It might be a good way to destroy a camera. Ah well, time to rely on his memory. And awkwardly scrutinize his friend during dinners.

That wouldn't make for weird dinner table conversation in the least.

"And houses," Elisha pointed out with a sigh. "The world is probably not ending, though." Probably. "We're working on figuring out what might be causing it." And there was always contacting the Arcana if that didn't work. He could do that, too.

But first, he wasn't going to say no to chocolate.