Welcome to Gaia! ::

Once everyone is (generally) settled, the goblin stands up...on his chair, to combat his short stature, and folds his arms before addressing the class.

"All right, all riiiight! Good to see you all here. Let me just introduce myself real quick, just a minute of your time - name's Professor Zixil Braxton. I'm a really important artist, and that might be why you haven't heard of me." He hops down from his chair to pace in and out of the lines of desks, retaining his confidence despite not being much taller than most of the seated students. "You see before you-" He pause, standing completely still, and slowly moves his hand over one student's supplies. "Some very technical stuff. Now, here's all you've gotta do: show me how to use....I mean, woah! Let's back up there a minute. Show me that you know how to use 'em."

He turns his back to the students, which is definitely not to hide the fact that he's dabbing at his forehead with the end of his sleeve, because that was absolutely not a close one. Though he continues on with his instructions as he walks back to his desk, he doesn't look any of them in the eye.

"Now, it's really simple. Just use your materials and make something nice on that paper there. Something marketable to the masses, if you were...you know, selling it."

((FINE I'LL BREAK THE ICE JEEZE @ nervous convo in main thread rofl ))

Christof was still feeling out of sorts, moving in a quiet fog in his classes that day... today at least held a new one for him, something that had intrigued the Patchwork side of him- he liked crafts. He liked being told to make something. He liked the quiet fiddly work. And so he had looked forward to Arts and Crafts as a quiet vacation from his buzzing, aching brain and broken heart.

Quietly he took his seat, examining the paper on his desk as the tiny little teacher piped up their instructions. Draw? He doodled sometimes but nothing he'd consider.... sellable. Even so, a task was a task and he'd try his hardest... He got up to help himself to some paint, quietly bringing it back to his desk... he had never painted before, and he was fairly certain he was going to make a mess, but it was always good to gain new skills, right?

He stared at the blank canvas, brows furrowing as he dabbed his finger with shaking hands into a bit of purple. Not even a proper brush to use... What should he draw? Countless ideas popped in his mind, a nice mutilated corpse or a dead puppy or a maggoty bird... those were all possible, and the teacher would probably like it but... his heart wasn't in it.

Glancing around the quiet class he shifted in his seat until he could hide the paper with his uneven shoulders and arms, stitched mouth twitching into a straight line over his scarf as he set to work.

Art could be therapeutic, he had heard somewhere. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. At any rate what he ended up pouring onto the canvas made his heart ache further. The family he could have had if he wasn't such a screw up. Maybe. And they'd all live in a big castle by the hill, making horrible experiments and terrorizing the countryside together.

It could have been amazing.

But who knew what things could have been.



((DERPDERPDERPDERPDERP))

The hunchback noticed the Kelpie take his seat, shifting as he was no longer alone in the classroom. His face flushed as he tucked his chin into his scarf, pulling it up to cover his mouth. He was about ready to crumple his drawing right then and there, the previous day making his head swim, but instead he reached to snatch a blank piece of paper from an empty desk nearby, trying to think of something else to draw.

It wasn't until he heard the crinkle of paper did the hunchback notice the kelpie, immediately reeling to grab try to grab the paper back, his face flushing. That was not for people to see!! ESPECIALLY the kelpie he was supposedly angry with.

Too late. Calder pulled the paper far enough to see what it was, and despite how much Christof might be lacking in the artistic department, Calder could tell what it was and his eyes went with and sparkled at the most touching, adorable picture he had EVER SEEN! And just like that, Christof snatched it away, looking flushed. It was something the kelpie had never expected of the boil. Yes, he expected Christof to draw his master and mistress. They made up his everything, but Malodore was there, and Amrita, the weird girl he met when he popped Christof's stitches, and most importantly and notable of all, HE was there.

The keplie plopped back in his seat, looking at Christof with the biggest smile in the world. Christof really did like him! HE WANTED TO BE HIS FRIEND! Calder didn't have to ask. It was right there. Drawn in beautiful colors without anyone ordering him to.

Calder wanted to hug the lumpy boil right then and there, but instead grabbed his things and slid over to sit next to him, settling down and dumping his crayons back down. He shoved his other picture aside, turning it over, and worked on a new picture. He hunched around it, letting his hair drape over his shoulders to help hide what he was doing, but after some exciting drawing, he smiled and presented his picture. "Ta-da!"

Well, the picture looked better as a pile of ash, Jericho supposed, even if it didn't qualify as a drawing anymore. Looking up towards the others in the room for the moment, he spotted something very red on Christof's new page. The color attracted him and he found himself peeking over to get a better look at what it was.

What he saw was a picture of Christof smacking down a reddish dragon-looking thing with lots of fire around.

"WHAT THE JACK!?" he exclaimed. Was that supposed to be him? Seriously, what was this Igor's issue with him? Grumbling to himself, he faced his own desk again and brushed away the ash pile. He'll probably never really understand the Igor.

Cyrilla poked her head into the class. Good, she wasn't late. Taking a seat closer to the back, she listened as the teacher explained what they were going to do. She looked over the list of supplied, then at the paper. For a moment she was sad that she was going to have to draw. Drawing wasn't exactly her thing. She wanted to sculpt something, or sew something... more crafty than arty she supposed.

But

Some finger paints caught her attention and she grabbed them up, messing around with the paper. It wasn't much, but she decided to draw her gold pile sitting in her room. Mooshing the paint onto the paper was actually really fun and her head fins fluttered about as a grin spread across her face.

Her head suddenly snapped to attention as Jericho lit his paper on fire. The dragon's eyes went wide before narrowing. Why did EVERY CLASS SHE GO TO HAVE TO HAVE SOMETHING LIGHT ON FIRE. She eyed the red dragon warily for a moment before shrinking back a bit, reaching across her desk and yanking some blue paint. She dabbled a couple of small figures into the gold pile. Her fafnirs. Looking back over to Jericho again, she was happy to see that his paper was now simply ash and no longer on fire.

Cyrilla poked around with her painting a bit more, before settling on the fact that it wasn't going to get any better than that. She'd had fun though, that's all that mattered.