Welcome to Gaia! ::

Though the hour steadily grew later, the lone figure in the art room paid very little attention to the goings-on of the outside world. In a corner of the room reserved mostly for boxes stuffed with empty tubes of paint or stacks of smocks spattered into a stiffness too cumbersome to be of any use, Drossel had set up his own small easel, and was putting every ounce of concentration he had on the piece before him. He had deliberately chosen a later hour to ensure that other students would be more likely to be at dinner or clubs; the only witness he had was his top hat, perched cheerfully on a stack of smocks, beside a small wooden box where he kept his 'special paints.' One could look at the paints and then at the artwork itself and assume that the goblin was just fond of red, or even shake their heads at the seemingly unnecessary trouble of having so many containers of the same color, but Drossel knew better. He could tell the difference even if the others couldn't, and he quite preferred it that way.

He leaned in closer, inhaling the subtle scent that now clung to the picture via his careful brush strokes. Without even taking his eyes from the piece, he dipped his brush in water and then into another container, waving the brush under his nose for a split second before beginning to add minute details with the new color. Unbeknownst to himself, he was losing himself in the art, and as a result was paying far less attention than he should have to anything else around him.

Drossel had been so caught up in making the details in the red paint just right that he had no idea that someone else had entered the art room and was watching him from afar. He might have stood a better chance other times, since artwork didn't tend to affect his large, furry ears, but the fact that his watcher was a quiet geist didn't exactly work in his favor. He was lost in the moment, striving to make his painting every bit as good as he had envisioned it.

The sudden voice right at his elbow startled him so much that his face, already close to the painting to observe the details, jerked forward, and he felt the soft squish as a dab of red came away on the end of his nose. The smell of the paint, so subtle before, was now attacking his entire sense of smell, and he knew it was a matter of time before it would start to smart. Turning to the speaker with a comical blob of red on his nose, he blinked in surprise at the small Freshling standing there. One usually didn't see them not in the presence of a caretaker, but with their childlike penchant for wandering about, he supposed they couldn't ALL be looked after ALL the time.

Putting on his most foolish 'silly goblin' smile, he regarded the little one before crossing his eyes to peer down at his nose. "Oh my; I seem to have painted my nose. How silly of me."