ART [Class is in Session]

[Lawrence Grimmel]

The floor had been dusty the first day Lawrence Grimmel had walked into the space allotted to the art department. The smell of old oil paint assaulted his sense of smell in a pleasant way, tickling his senses and bringing him back in to the real world once again. Perhaps the simple scent of the medium he most preferred to work with had jolted the endorphins in his body and for some reason, every day after that the sight of the room made him happy and almost nostalgic. It had been two years since that summer he’d first laid eyes on the classroom he now proudly called his own and looking around the room, he could honestly say he was still proud of it.


There had been changes to the empty room he had walked in on. The space was the combination of two large lecture halls that had originally been there but before he had arrived the wall between the two had been removed. In some places the floor still slanted downward and a raised square in the middle of it was often used as a modeling stand for his first year painting class.


Around the classroom, all types of artistic mediums could be found and though Lawrence insisted upon having up-to-date technology for his students, the original machines could be found. There was something about the feel of a pedal operated pottery wheel that couldn’t be matched by the electric variety. Of course, there was a matter of less consistency in the speed of the machine, but it was almost as if the sculpture became one with the pottery he or she was making if he or she was actually controlling the speed rather than an electronic pedal.


Artists’ easels of all types stood around the room, a clutter of different pieces from different time periods. Lawrence himself had painted the windows with an opaque white paint in order to soften the light that came from the large windows across one side of the classroom. The floor of the classroom was somewhat of an enigma, a hardwood floor missing most of the varnish from the many harsh scrubbings it had received. The wood was soft to the touch, however, and Lawrence had never gotten a splinter from it in his two years of walking around on it barefoot. His one rule about cleaning up the classroom stemmed for his love for the wooden floor, he asked that even if his students made a mess, they cleaned it up entirely. It wasn’t that he disliked artistic clutter; he just liked the floor beneath his feet a lot more.


Large ceiling to floor shelves covered the wall opposite the windows and there, anything a student could find anything he or she was looking for in terms of art supplies. Plaster for sculpting, any type of paint or glitter, and even some things no one had ever caught sight of existed on those shelves. Just looking at the mass of supplies he could see a glass bottle cutter, a tray with hundreds of pottery tools on it, and large cans of ink in various colors and that was only the beginning. A tall ladder was stationed on the side of the shelves and had wheels on the bottom of it so that it could move to many access points. In his two years of teaching, many students had effectively “ridden” the ladder from one end of the shelves to the other only to fall off at the end.


Machines were spaced out around the classroom for printmaking, wood sculpting, and any format a student wanted to use to create their own artwork. The printmaking machine was one of his least favorites but he didn’t object to the creations others could make using it. It sat there in the corner, a hulking machine with two wheels atop each other and a great wooden handle to turn. He’d never gotten the hang of using it and had a lingering irrational fear that his fingers would get stuck in between the wheels. Lawrence Grimmel was a man who required full use of all of his artist’s fingers and for his soul’s sake, he simply couldn’t lose any of them.


The teacher took a stroll around the room, making sure that all newsprint and velum had been picked up after the last class had blown through. As he made a stop by the set of drawers that held all of the charcoal and graphite pencils used for drawing, he traced a finger over them and pulled back a fingertip that had been dyed black by the sticks. He loved the look of charcoal against his own skin, it was a feeling unlike any other, one that made him feel like a true artist.


Small classrooms that contained photo processing labs, the beloved darkroom, a small computer lab for digital art with a few computers and digital tablets, and several other specifically oriented classrooms could be found behind doors against the left and right sides of the room. A lab existed for those who were interested in drafting and architecture, another for fashion design was filled with bolts of fabric, a sewing machine, and several dress mannequins. A few more tiny classrooms were spread throughout the room behind similar looking doors and made one wonder if the room was expanding all the time and where exactly all the room for this one classroom had been found. One of the smallest rooms contained his personal office. The decorations inside were stark and utilitarian, a confusing choice for an artistically centered person.


A cloud passed over the sun outside the windows and the lighting in the room changed as he returned to the middle of the room where a single chair was stationed on the risers. He dealt with a number of students who walked through the doors, so every day in his class was something different. Lawrence tried his best to work with every student on a one-on-one basis, for some it was as if they still needed the basic rules of working with shadow and color and for others it was as if they had been painting from the day they were born. His students mystified him sometimes in their widespread differences and opinions.


No two of his students’ works were exactly the same, nor did he give assignments that ordered them to paint the same thing. Lawrence pursed his lips slightly while thinking of what today’s assignment would be. Perhaps he would write something abstract on the board like “PRIDE” or “INDIFFERENCE” or maybe he would let everyone continue working on their previous assignments. He would make his decision when they filed in and he could see their faces.

[Aries Neo Calisto Sumpters]

Day one at school--Day three in England. Aries had come across the sea in a plane, first class, with his mother and step-father and they had both made absolutely sure that he would be comfortable here. A boarding program, which Aries wasn't quite sure the details of, had allowed his step father to set him up in a one-bedroom dorm, without a roommate as far as he knew so far. He was within easy walking distance of any necessity he might have, and they had stayed the first day with many instructions on how to defend himself and take care of himself. Gregory had taken painstaking effort in showing Aries various methods of defensive martial arts that he had picked up from his childhood, all-in-all only succeeding at worrying Aries' mother and making the boy confused at the man's utter belief that Aries could, actually, throw a man three times his size over his shoulder. Eventually, Gregory gave up in favor of pepper spray and a notion that the cell-phone had a GPS unit inside it and some good, old fashioned "don't go for free candy" tips. Terry was more hugs and kisses and less advice, though she talked about decor a lot, and for a week beforehand had used up exactly 2,342 dollars of Gregory's money--Aries had counted each dollar as it disappeared--on clothing Aries would probably ignore in favor of his mother's warm double-breasted trench coat.

He had been allotted a gracious $500 a month allowance for living expenses, and considering Gregory was supplying money for the apartment and the food they delivered here, it seemed like Aries had died and been reincarnated as a prince since the man had wandered into his life. His mother was no exception to the showering of gifts, either, but Aries suspected Gregory would shower him with less if it didn't make Terry light up like a bright, shining bulb each time she saw Aries get things she had always wanted to give him. It was the reason he had come wearing the new clothes, even though he wanted so much to go back to the norm... but he survived in the turtleneck sweater and jeans for the trip, wearing a fedora he had actually chosen for himself. But, they had left early yesterday morning, and Aries had actually not returned to his normal fashion.

For today, he decided the hooded sweatshirt and jeans were okay, but only because he was making some vague effort to look good. He had a vague idea of what colors went with what, and a white hoodie with grey bluejeans left him lots of opportunity to accessorize. This was where Aries was lost. He ended up with a purple collar that said his name and white U-top, which, had Aries known anything about the word "fag" before he arrived here, he might have chosen a different outlet, because he heard it about four times today and school hadn't started yet. Unfortunately, he didn't have the insight to take the collar off, and even if he did... well, Aries was used to being harassed for his palor complexion and hauntingly purple eyes, so what difference did it make if they first noticed a silly collar his mother had decided to get him? It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and Aries liked purple--which was the main problem, one must suppose, since a black collar seemed perfectly okay for the kids that fell into the 'scene' crowd.

Arriving early, Aries had already plotted a course for his first class. He didn't want to be late... and after the first glints of activity had sparked around him, bringing with them their glares of condescension and fresh tongue whips, he had decided perhaps that he would take his bag and head inside the classroom early. He'd requested his first period specifically--it seemed like it would leave the most time for Aries to possibly catch Rency alone. Of course, he couldn't call him that... it had just been Jean's name for him, and Aries had picked up on it. Of course, it was far too condescending for Lawrence, but maybe.. if they became close... Aries' cheeks flooded with color at the notion and whatever hardships he was experiencing were lost in his little world of thoughts as he stood, staring at the ground and monologing softly to himself, brief utterances of a conversation that didn't actually exist until he was bumped and sent sprawling to the ground.

An off-hand sorry was tossed back at him from the offender, but Aries was pretty thoroughly covered in the mud left from the fresh Autumn rain of the previous night. His white sweatshirt, hair, and cheeks were black with dirt, even as he swept it off himself, wishing he could teleport himself to the bathroom so that nobody else would walk by and giggle incessantly at his misfortune. His fingers brushed the mud off, and he finally conceded that the lack of the glaring sunlight by merit of the cloud cover was a blessing; the world telling him it was okay to strip off the blasted hoodie. He set his practically empty bag down and unzipped the thing, revealing the ghost-white appendages and awkwardly thin body hidden beneath. He had the time to rush the backside of the white cloth over his dirt-smudged face before fate played its second unwarrented prank--Aries heard the bell toning his need to go to class. He dragged the cloth through his hair and rushed off, stopping ten feet from where he ran from to turn right back around and grab his bag. Again he was making it perfectly clear that he was odd--while others walked leisurely about to their classrooms, he was making a dash as if the very world might dissipate if he was late.

It was a few months into the school year, and as far as everyone else knew, nobody was nearly that excited about school.

Two stumbles up a flight of stairs, a bush, and three bruises to his arm from taking various corners too sharply brought him to the door he was aiming for, and nobody was around here. The 6'7" doorframe loomed over the 5'4" boy, but what wonders were inside it..! His first day of school since before he could remember, his first real meeting with Lawrence... minus the various times Jean had attempted to call him over and Aries had hid for fear of looking like an idiot... his excitement boiled over, standing at the crux of his life in a doorway that would seemingly drag him through to another world. He took a deep breath to calm himself, reached out his hand for the handle to the door, and stared in horror at his arm. Deep welts had begun to turn a bad shade of purple, the lack of pigment in his skin making every bruise stand out like a goth kid in a southern baptist church. He yanked the muddied hoodie out of the backpack's single pouch where he had stuffed it while running and shook it violently. Mud sprayed over the nearby railing and Aries yanked the hoodie on, trying to brush himself off but only succeeding in smeering the damn mud everywhere.

"... Awwww, man!"

Aries voice whined out shrilly his dissidence for the situation, but after a few minutes, he finally opened the door with a heaving sigh and slid through its crack as if he thought he might sneak himself in like a letter through a crevice. How he expected that, when he had strangely watched nobody coming down the halls yet for the classroom, was anyone's guess. The clouds spared the room from bright lighting, which in turn saved Aries' eyes from the stereotypical squint they tended toward. His body pivoted and he observed the empty room, and at first, Lawrence escaped his gaze. The teacher seemed so natural in this environment, Aries had mistaken him for a simple centerpiece of the design, but his second take was not without enlightenment to this mistake. A sharp intake of air caused him to hiccup out a squeaky, "Oh." and then he self consciously tried to brush his hair out of his face.. except it was sticky and dried with mud.

"... I... uh..." Caught in the headlights, as the proverb goes, Aries merely stared forward and idiotically tried to comb the mud out of his hair.

[Lawrence Grimmel]

The chair Lawrence sat in was something more akin to a bar stool with arms, a tall, awkward looking thing that had he not been tall would have left his feet dangling off of the ground. The art professor, however, was a slender six foot two and his long legs did indeed reach to the floor. One leg was folded up awkwardly, resting on a lower rung of the chair while his other leg brushed back and forth against the smooth floor absently. His shoes, honking worn leather boots had been discarded the moment he’d entered the class, leaving his large but well taken care of feet exposed, like he preferred them to be when he was indoors.


Leaning against one of his elbows, Lawrence had fallen deep into thought, lost somewhere within the labyrinth of his own mind. Unconsciously he had assumed a loose reincarnation of The Thinker, a fitting persona for an art teacher, as his chin sunk into the meat of his palm. His hazel eyes were clouded as he thought about various things, letting his thoughts flow freely from one subject to another. His shoulders slumped with relaxation and for a moment, his eyes closed and his dark eyelashes kissed his cheeks.


Perhaps Lawrence was tired, though he hadn’t felt that way, but something prevented him from opening his eyes as he heard the noises scratching outside the door and even when he heard it open. It took him a few delayed seconds when he heard the student speak, halfway wondering if it was that one girl who read during his class every day, though he couldn’t honestly remember her name. Lawrence opened his eyes slowly and pinned the direct, albeit a bit drowsy, stare on the student who had entered the classroom.


Realizing he didn’t recognize the student, he admitted that the stare could have been a little too intense to be comfortable for a second. The teacher, thinking as an artist first, was trying to absorb everything about the boy who stood in front of him in a single moment. His brilliantly hazel eyes glimmered like jewels before he blinked and shook his head, almost as if he had snapped himself out of some form of meditation. Lawrence made a small sound of confusion in the back of his throat as he watched the boy, knowing that he recognized him in a way, though he couldn’t place him for certain.


Rising from his seat Lawrence smiled warmly as he finally figured what seemed to be making the boy so uncomfortable. It seemed that he’d had a bit of a mishap involving a mud puddle and was suffering the disastrous results. “Has it been one of those kind of days already?” The man’s voice was soft, comforting, he sounded as if had been a father for a long time, though he’d never been married and had no children to speak of. The boy seemed vulnerable, but Lawrence didn’t know him well enough to determine if he was or not, so he figured his treatment toward him should start off gentle. The cuffs of the teacher’s jeans drug along the floor as he approached him and held out a hand for the boy to shake, giving him a firm grip – something his father always demanded from his sons. It seemed that old habits could simply not die as easily as he preferred.


“Lawrence Grimmel,” his Italian accent bled through slightly as he spoke his name, his voice low and rich. After shaking the boy’s hand, he went to a large metal sink that was mounted against one of the walls and began to run the hot water. As soon as the water began to steam in the basin, he added a little cold water and fetched a towel from one of the back classrooms. Messes and stains were always happening in the art classroom and Lawrence was pleased to note that he had actually found a clean towel. He wet it slightly, just enough to get it warm and damp and returned to where he had left the boy standing.


After handing the dampened towel to his student, Lawrence crossed his long arms over his chest and shook his hair back from his face. Something was nagging him in the back of his mind about this student, almost inciting a bit of frustration within him. Lawrence soon brushed it off as a bit of delirium from the night of not-so-great sleep he’d had and tried to push it from his thoughts. Things that were neither here nor there should not taint a first impression.


“You’re here very early, I must admit that most students come dragging into my classroom two minutes before I begin lessons. This wouldn’t happen to be your first day, would it?” Lawrence realized that he was talking a bit more than he usually did. Oftentimes his conversations only got long when he talked about a student’s artwork and tried to convince them to push it even further than they already had. Lawrence stretched his arms over his head and yawned, feeling the muscles in his back and torso stretch pleasantly before he returned to a normal pose. “I suppose it is time for me to wake up, eh?” Lawrence asked the boy with a wink, as the sounds of students in the hallway grew louder.

[Aries Neo Calisto Sumpters]

Aries felt his heart stop. He must have stood in limbo while the blood crawled to his feet and he became more palour than porcelain for an eternity as Lawrence stared at him. A thousand things ran through his mind at that moment--how to stand, how to smile, if he should lounge or cross his legs where he stood.. but in spite of how fast his mind was running, he didn't move an inch. Like he was nailed to the ground with railspikes, he stood and stared at the approaching figure as it covered the shady light pouring in from the window centered behind his frame. Cast in his shadow, Aries could only stare at the hand extended to him as he processed the rumbling voice he had heard only through closed doors when he had hidden from meeting this man in his juvenile lack of self-esteem. When he finally retained the muscle control to lift his hand, the shake was not returned with strength but as if Lawrence had caught a butterfly very strongly and released it to the air. Aries' fingers burned as they swept back over that palm and he brought them to his face without any inkling of what he was doing, holding them as if he could bring the touch back to him.

"It's been... okay.." The words were whispered. Aries didn't know what he was saying and wasn't sure how he was responding, like watching a home movie and screaming at the character to do something NOT stupid for once. He wasn't processing the words that he should be saying until an eternity after when he should have said them. Lawrence had already introduced himself--Why did he feel he needed to introduce himself? Wait. It would be unreasonable for you to expect him to remember you--you hid!--and Aries had just responded to his first statement. He watched the tall Italian saunter away, barefoot, 'Are you allowed to be barefoot in class?' across the floor. He licked his lips and gulped down the excess of saliva that had settled in his mouth.

"Aries. Aries Neo Calisto Sumpters!" He almost barked the name. It fell quickly from his mouth like a faucet tap that had been plugged turned all the way on to dislodge the offending piece. Standing with his hands at his sides, he had to will them up to catch the cloth as Lawrence handed it to him, but somehow, the boy didn't grasp what the damn cloth was for. He knew, he just didn't... know. He nodded his head vigorously at the question at hand while he let Lawrence finish talking respectfully. He wanted a hat to hide behind, but instead he used his bangs, tilting his head forward to stare at Rence's toes and finely corded feet as they stook out from the hem of his pants, comparing them to his own, much smaller feet, clasped in sneakers with some popular designs on them.

"It is my first day. I came over from America. I am year eleven, and I just didn't want to be late. The mud was an accident--I got bumped into and I don't pay much attention and my balance is kind of bad so I fall a lot and I would take off the hoodie but I ran into some stuff on the way here and my skin shows bruises like black cars show dirt and I thought that the mud would look less startling than the purple.." Aries didn't breathe. At first, the sentences were short, concise, as if he was answering a drill instructor, then they started to run together like an alluminum train that had abruptly stopped on the tracks, turning into an accordian and only releasing when he finally ran out of air and took a deep breath at the far end.

Dirtied, Aries white skin almost looked to have color. His bright, purple eyes kept looking up through his eyelashes to catch a glimpse of the teacher's reaction as he spoke, frightened and intrigued all at once. The open hoodie displayed his U-top, and although it hid exactly how thin Aries was, it made it perfectly clear that he was not at all large, and not really all that toned, either. The jeans, just baggy enough that they didn't cling around the legs, kept his form a little bulkier, overall aesthetically pleasing in some artistic fashion. His eyes glanced back at the door again and listened, but it didn't seem like anyone was yet stopping at it. Odd, since he would have expected people to be barging in by now.

[Anasi Visatta]

Anasi felt as if there was wind beneath her feet, whisking her this way and that. It was that time again. The time she so cherished ever time it came. It gave her butterflies in her stomach and made her mind go mushy like apple sauce. Looking forward to it, could not describe the way the girl skipped about that morning. A grateful prance all through out her room as she readied herself for the usual meeting. She had brushed her thick violet tresses in hopes of turning heads today (one specific one of course). Anasi hummed and whistled the whole time, a smile ever present upon her face.

She adorned herself in quite the unusual (for her) outfit. A light gray shirt was pulled over her head a picture of white doves flying across her chest. The girl even pulled out a jean skirt (which she never worse) to show of her long, slender legs, cute silver thong sandals adding to the intrigue. The thought of wearing jewelry came to mind, but left just as quickly. It would only get in the way while she worked on her project. However, she eventually settled on earing and a white choker, letting her hair cascade over her shoulders like a sea of waves. Looking at herself in the mirror, she didn't feel over dressed or under dressed, but she did feel very confident. maybe she would be able to talk to him today, instead of mumbling the whole time. Leaving the room, she promised herself to speak correctly. She grabbed her book bag and glided into the hall, as if she was in the middle of a musical.

The journey to the art room seemed to take forever today, or maybe she was just excited as she thought about her prince charming. Today of all days she had art class and that is what brought her beautiful smile to such fruition. And in that class there was a man, a gorgeous one who made her body turn into the consistency of some of the paints she worked with. It was as if his voice was the key to her soul, his presence the bane of her existence and his eyes the piercing dagger through her heart.

Lawrence Grimmel had been teaching at the school for 2 years now. From day one, Anasi has been left dumb struck by him. He just seemed so...casual with art. He didn't force it down peoples throats, but nor did he left it drive him mad like most of Anasi's past art teachers who were the left end of crazy. She had never received the honor of speaking with him alone, but today she would. She didn't feel that he had gotten to know who he was. Though, after today there would be no excuses. Anasi had him all to herself...even if it was for a little while.

Her thoughts were broken as she nearly slipped in some mudd within the confines of the school. With some grace, she was able to elude the accident and make her way to just outside the door. There were students walking in the halls now, but not too many. A few recognized her and Anasi felt the need to turn the high beam of a smile down a little before entering the class. Just as she touched the door nob, a river of doubt ran through her.

"What if he isn't here...?"
"What if he doesn't want to talk?"
"What if he doesn't like me?"
"What if he thinks my art stinks?"
"What if I say the wrong thing?"
"What if..."

Mentally smacking herself, she quickly brushes away the smokey comments from her thoughts. This was no time to be negative. Gosh...her friends were right. She just needed to relax and all would be well. With one last breath and a squeeze of her shoulder strap, she turned the nob and entered the room, not really taking notice of the thin, muddy trail that lead inside...

Her entrance was met with silence, but not with the absence of people. Near the door stood a ghostly pale boy with faded hair. It didn't take long for Anasi to realize that he also was the cause of the mud from outside, but how he gathered so much upon himself, she probably would never know. Her special time with Lawrence was definitely foiled, but class was due to start eventually either way...so it was a thought that she should stick around. The door snapped shut as she closed it behind her.

Lawry, as she called him in her mind, looked as amazing as ever, but the girl could only assume that he would look good covered in paint if it came to it. [insert dirty image] It was as if he was some Greek god. She could just see him now, upon some unnamed cliff. The wind blowing through his mane, his gaze going out to a setting sun and his pose as if he were some great hero that is residing in his glory. Now...this wasn't the actual scene, but that is what Anasi would have liked to picture in her head every time she went to bed...that and him rescuing her and carrying her away bridal style...

"Hello Professor Grimmel," said Anasi softly, her hands fidgeting as she began heading to her seat. "Its kind of muddy out..." she started...glancing at the other student. "I am guessing we won't be painting outside today....?" Believe it or not...she had practiced those words all morning...just to make sure she knew what to say. She hoped she wasn't intruding upon any conversation. The boy near the door bared no resemblance to anyone she knew...so maybe he was new...or maybe she didn't pay enough attention in this class.

The latter was believeable since the professor sometimes made her swoon.

[Lawrence Grimmel]

“Welcome to Somnium Acadmey, Mr. Sumpters.” Lawrence pronounced his name thickly for some reason, unable to comprehend all of the sounds correctly in English. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been brought up speaking the language of his mother’s homeland, it was just that being immersed in Italian culture made one much more apt to pick up the language. There were still certain words Lawrence would never be able to say correctly, but he strove to eliminate the barriers between he and his students.

“You came from America, you said? The only place I consider home is in Florida. Mia mamma lives there and she’s the only family I have left. She is a bit of a loudmouth, but I doubt you’ve heard of Jean Grimmel?” Lawrence laughed at the thought, speaking to the boy while he arranged his own workspace for the day, picking out a few bottles of oil paint, a large wooden pallette and his favorite set of brushes. He couldn’t help but feel a little homesick, even at his age when he talked about his mother because he would always feel a great bit of affection for her. With her spunky attitude and way of doing things, Jean was infectious in so many ways and as Lawrence thought about her, he got the strangest desire to have a warm blueberry muffin.

When he turned back to the boy, he was still holding the towel in one hand, as if it was a dead snake, or another object one would never need to be holding. Lawrence took the rag from him again and spread it out, then promptly plopped it on top of the boy’s head gently. With one hand, he squished the towel around as if he was giving the boy a noogie, then pulled it off a few seconds later to find the majority of the mud from Aries’ hair inside the towel.

He swept the towel over his arm and examined the student again, feeling something twinge along his heart strings. The same vulnerability he had seen earlier was still there, lingering in the kid’s violet eyes. Perhaps in a past life, he had been the one to protect this fragile child? Lawrence laughed inwardly at the idea, shutting out the possibility quickly in order to not get a headache. Thinking of things of such magnitude often made the artist’s head hurt, so he preferred merely to paint about them.

Lawrence pulled down the edges of his button-up shirt, a long white number that always seemed to scrunch up and get stuck on his belt before he addressed the boy again. “Give it some time Mr. Sumpters, I’m sure tomorrow will be much better than your very first day of school. Or, we may all hope that it is a little less muddy.” The man stooped to the ground and with the same towel he had cleaned the young man with and wiped up the speckles of mud on the floor. The art teacher looked up at Aries in an awkward parallel and smiled widely, an action that caused previously unseen dimples to form in his cheeks and his face to brighten up considerably, making him look ages younger.

As Lawrence stood up fully, the sound of the heavy door shutting startled him slightly and he whipped around rather abruptly to see who had entered. A student he had seen quite a few times entered his classroom and he smiled warmly in her direction. “Good morning, Ms. Visatta.” Was she wearing decisively more feminine clothing than usual? The art teacher’s head tilted slightly and he finally decided that today, the world was simply a little off kilter. Things, such as a new student’s arrival, or the way a young girl dressed up for her boyfriend weren’t things that usually made him look twice. He sought the reason of why these things seemed to be different today while pouring through his thoughts. What exactly was so special about today?

“Mmm. No, Miss, we won’t be outside today. It seems as if the ground would be too soggy to hold the easels correctly any way. I’m afraid it might rain as well, so, let’s be safe rather than apologetic?” Lawrence had gotten the colloquialism wrong and it sounded off as he said it, but he couldn’t figure out why, but didn’t bother with it for too long. His eyes bounced back and forth between the two until he found the missing piece of the puzzle. There was an awful lot of violet in this room at the moment. Between Anasi’s amethyst locks and Aries’ dark lavender eyes, it seemed as if the color had simply yelled at him to appreciate it, not in whispers, but in muted screams.

Lawrence’s actions were quick now, fired by the fuel of inspiration, as he grabbed a piece of chalk and approached the green chalkboard he had set up. What would he write? How could he communicate exactly what he was feeling to the classroom? The sound of other students entering the room distracted him slightly but he stayed turned around, his back to the chairs in front of the podium. It was almost time for class to begin, though he could guarantee that some would straggle in late and even others would simply not show up for the day. He crossed his arms once again, resting his chin on his left fist before he wrote in elegant block lettering that seemed as if it had been manufactured during the days of Gutenberg.

V i o l e t.

Separated in his own handwriting, the letters seemed not to embody all he wanted them to, seemingly matching themselves up in different combinations than the word he truly wanted the students to express. He wanted them to reach deeply into their various modes of art and pull out all of the vibrance of the color that was formed when blue and red intertwined. Lawrence wanted to see the regality of the color, the spontaneity, the way it was formed from two of the most prominent colors found in nature mixing.

He knew some of his students wouldn’t understand what he was looking for, but he would help those that honestly tried. Lawrence didn’t grade based off of talent, but effort, when he even graded assignments at all. He wanted his students to learn what they wanted to pull out of themselves, whether the end result was beautiful or even aesthetically pleasing.


“Now that mostly everyone is here, I’d like everyone to create a new piece of work based off of the word on the board. It can be in any medium and there are no size restrictions.” Lawrence clapped his hands together, and it seemed as if the bleary eyed students in the back shook the stardust from their eyes and began to report to their stations. Taking his seat in the center of the room, he watched them begin their projects, taking more interest in some as compared to others, but equally spreading out his gaze among all of them. He figured his newest lamb would soon find his way into the herd and would find the medium that suited his taste. “Mr. Sumpter,” Lawrence called out to Aries, his voice more gleeful than he intended it to be “What’s your poison?”

The teacher stood to take his first walk around the room, beginning behind a student who was mushing together clay and purple buttons. He furrowed one eyebrow, but kept walking, examining pieces from different angles. He found himself standing behind Anasi’s workstation and leaned in toward her, not quite conscious of his proximity to the girl, but more trying to get a look at what she was doing. “So, Ms. Visatta, how are we doing today?”

[Aries Neo Calisto Sumpters]

Mr... Sumpters... what a terrible thing to be called by someone you imagined so close. Those violet eyes blinked back the skull-shattering thoughts of his world until they were drowned in the pit of his stomach, leaving nothing but his blank stare. The world closed in around him and gripped him with its claws until he lurched in his mind. "I know her..." It was barely a whisper, Aries thought that by now, somehow, he would have remembered. Lawrence had seen his mother--though, Aries supposed he bore little resemblance to his mother's tanned complexion and confident smile of radiance and hope. Aries fell into old habbits, he tried to hide again--behind his hair, behind his eyelids, behind the wall in his brain that screamed he wasn't good enough. The man walked away from him a moment, occupying himself with other things and giving Aries a brief moment to shake his head violently to toss the edging tears away. This time, you've got to be here. You can't pretend to talk to him--you have to ... actually talk to him! But the words weren't coming. No matter how much Aries pushed at his gut, he didn't move his jaw, though it shook nonetheless.

When Lawrence turned back around, Aries snapped his jaw shut tight, clipping the inside of his lip painfully but ceasing the tell-tale movement. He opened his eyes wide, as if the action would clear his mind, but instead just made him look bewildered as Lawrence came up and dropped the towel upon his head, as if he could imply what to do. Instead, the boy just stood there with a towel on his head and his hands still in front of him until lawrence roughed the straightened hair into curls beneath the towel affectionately, and the movement itself set Aries back at ease, making him feel safe again for a moment, as if once again he had been embraced by a guardian angel and lifted far above the clouds. This man was meant to be his hero--there was nobody else it could be.

His hands reached up to touch Lawrence's for a moment, almost feather light a touch before the man drew his hands away and leaned down in front of Aries to clean the mud off the floor. From behind, the situation looked compromising for a few brief seconds, the teacher knelt in front of the white-haired boy and Aries staring down at him, entranced, trying to not hear that damn name every time the man opened his mouth. He grasped the edges of his hoodie and opened his mouth to speak when the door slammed, starting Aries straight up causing him to gasp, the shiver running from his toes to the top of his head visibly.

He turned those bright purple eyes on the woman behind him--and she was just that: a woman. She wasn't a child, like himself, and those distressed feelings of self-conscience started up again. The teacher addressed her, a student, like himself, but nothing less formal than what he had been given. He feels no different for her on the surface, then? Aries head was light, as if the blood had refused to find its way back there, and he stepped a few feet to the side as the two of them spoke, moving himself out from betwixt them as if he might save himself from some gunfire that was going on.

Aries was again startled--such an easy thing to do--when Lawrence suddenly moved abruptly, as if something had caught his brain after staring at the two of them, comparing them, and he stepped away quickly. Aries was both drawn in and driven away as he wrote the color upon the board, dragging his immediate thoughts to the girl's hair and somehow forgetting--perhaps because he couldn't see it--that his eye color shared the same color. The silence stretched between them, and his lips sat just a slight bit apart as his eyes scrutinized her from top to bottom. She was everything he wished he could be... beautiful, agile, noticeable.. and normal. What on earth could he offer to compare? And.. could he actually fight for this?

... He's mine. Aries bit his lower lip and his eyes finally narrowed. His glare was interrupted immediately by the rambunctions bursting of other kids into the room as the second bell tolled its 'you're already late' ring across the schoolyard. Kids poured in, speaking to each other. Voices muddled together and people brushed by. He drew stares for being new, odd, and covered in mud all at once. He heard whispers and giggles and he watched as people who didn't notice him were informed of his presence by their friends, and he turned himself away entirely. His head in the corner, he looked like a small schoolchild set to punishment. Lawrence's voice poured out over the crowd, hushing the boys and girls as they shuffled each into their respected area of residence in the classroom.

Mr. Sumpters, again, and Aries glanced up with an upset look on his face, but he turned out so as not to be conspicuously hidden in the corner and cleared his throat, forcing himself to speak up for the first time since he had entered the room. "I.. I take photographs, 'Renc... Mr. Grim... Professor, Sir!" He had flushed to the point of no return. He had almost called him Rency. Like his mother called him. It was the name he knew him by. The embarassment couldn't be contained, Aries suddenly felt very, very sick. He clutched his stomache and hiccuped once.

"I'm really, really sorry..." His voice was small, barely above a whisper again, "I.. I gotta.. I should go.. before I..." Aries was already moving toward the door while he spoke, and when he got there, he opened it up and dashed out of it, catching his hoodie in the damn thing with a hideous tearing noise as it shut and gripped and he tried to run. The jacket wasn't about to let him go both ways, though, and he ended up with a torn sweater and a nasty goose egg on the back of his head as he slid back and slammed into the handle outside the door. The thud must have resounded clearly through the classroom because he could hear the laughter from outside.

... First days suck.

[Anasi Visatta]

Tunnel vision was definitely what she had. Their teacher at the end. It was as if nothing else mattered...that no one else existed. However, the notion would have to be ended...seeing as how rude it could be to ignore the other person in the room. Unfortunately it looked as if they would be stuck within the stuffy room. No Lawry hero sequences today and she really did look disappointed, no act here. Well, she would be able to admire him from close up today. Her sad note was interrupted by the teachers silly mix up. Foreigners tended to do that alot, but he wasn't so much a foreigner as he was someone who hadn't heard the saying enough.

"...Safe than Sorry Sir..." she whispered in correction, smiling again. Her feet went autopilot to her desk by one of the soft tinted windows. The curious gaze that the teacher gave both her and the new student as she passed didn't go unnoticed, but she wasn't sure what it was till students began filing in and V i o l e t was written upon the board. Apparently, her choice of hair color had sprouted inspiration within the boisterous gaze of her "hero." Cheeks flushed with heat, she felt as if she was actually special today and not just another young go getter in his class. That is...till she looked back to the younger boy behind her as if to speak.

His eyes were of a similar violet, if not the same color of her voluptuous locks. Her heart suck just a little, for she was a little unsure of herself now. Unsure if she was as important as she thought she was...There was little to no time to react as class was starting and students were slouching to their seats. Anasi's table mate seemed to here today, even though he didn't seem very awake. The violet haired girl was met with a drowsy yet attentive gaze from the boy. He started for a minute as if something was on his mind, but he said nothing. Must have been the fact that she actually looked kinda female today.

The next few minutes were a blur as students began to choose their medium and gather their tools. From clay to...buttons it seemed, the sky was always the limit with this class. Though, Anasi had decided on a much more...traditional medium: oil paint. A horizon of colors found their way to her desk, an emphasis on green and purple. Upon the spread of the assignment, Anasi had already began planning out the center piece of her painting. An easel was stood upright beside her table and a large fully stapled canvas laid atop it.

The color violet to this girl meant many things, but only one really mattered. She had learned long ago about the strength of violet, most notably that it was quite regal in its history. Her mind wasn't chained to the idea of just drawing a kind or a queen however, but a scene that express violet not only as its center...but its ruler and before she knew it, brush was to canvas. It all started with a lavender color, that was quickly changed to a richer violet. A blob was transformed to the outline of an animal, it presence unavoidable upon the stark white board.

After falling so deeply within the prepping of such a piece, her mind made it very apparent that she was no longer aware of the original pull of her attention: Lawrence. Giving a brief glance around, said professor had been miraculously lost in thin air. That is...until she heard a silky voice from behind. Almost an instant shock, her body seemed to go catatonic for a moment. Vocal cords snatched from her use she could only gasp. Motion only found her again when her brush slipped from her fingers and she narrowly caught it before it took the art into its own hands and spit purple from the palette she was using.

"...I...I-I am quite alright Mr. Lawry-Grimmel," she self edited. "I decided to paint today..."

'As if that wasn't obvious,' Anasi mentally smacked herself.

"I'm going the regal route," the words came more assuredly as she focused on the art more than herself. "A painting of a regal tiger amongst her subordinates within the remains of columns overcome by forest. And I..."

Her next words seemed to topple off her palate as she turned her head to meet his scrutiny inches from her own face. Anasi began to slide off her chair and for a moment thought she might faint, but quickly move onto her feet, as if it were planned. A slender paint covered hand came up to wipe her hair from her face, managing to add a blush of purple to her face, unknown to her.

"I think I need more gold for the columns though!" she exclaimed loudly, before just short of fleeing the scene to rouse the paint cabinets for this gold she wasn't sure existed.

[Lawrence Grimmel]

His arm brushed hers unconsciously as he examined the series of brushes she was using, then added a fan brush from his own collection that he dug out of his pocket. In the back of his mind, somewhere, it registered that she smelled nice, a mixture of shampoo and generally feminine perfume. As the Visatta girl rushed away from her work Lawrence nodded slightly, appreciating the power behind the imagery. There certainly was something regal about the tigress in her dominated kingdom, but knowing Anasi, it wasn’t done yet and she would surely amaze him. “Keep up the work, Ms. Visatta. I’d like to see more definition on the columns as well.” The gold would be a wonderful touch, he decided as he looked at work. He sounded gruff as he spoke, commanding as he asked for the adjustments. Did she call me Mr. Lawry Grimmel? Lawrence walked away, smirking just a little, but he didn’t know exactly why.


It wasn’t that he didn’t like the painting, it wasn’t that he wasn’t impressed with her skill, it was that he knew she could push it to the extremities her talent contained. He often attempted to be stern when speaking to his students, but there was a bit of waver in his voice that might have let on that he wasn’t entirely strict in his statements.


She was sweet, her work always showing that hint of sugar and regality that Lawrence appreciated so keenly in artwork. Most people could not sustain a regular income by using their artwork, but, for some reason, Lawrence assumed that Ms. Visatta would, despite not ever having talked to her about her plans for the future. Perhaps that was a discussion for after class today? Lawrence marked it down in his mental planner to stop her before she headed out and ask, she was, after all, only a few years away from leaving Somnium.


Grimmel effectively sauntered around the classroom, correcting the way one boy held his drawing pencil, and emphasizing the natural curve one needed to express when drawing an image with water in it. He had determined that for some reason, the children were acting jumpy today, just a bit skittish when he spoke to them. Was it the early morning class? Had they missed breakfast this morning? Was it something he was doing? Shoving a soft hand roughly through his chestnut locks, he brushed them away from his face and shook his head to settle them once again. The soft strands of his hair had a tendency to frame his face beautifully, but always seemed to find their way into his eyes.


The man was oblivious to his own actions most of the time, a side effect of not having enough friends when he was a boy. He often didn’t understand the feelings of others and hardly ever picked up on the true feelings of people unless they told him bluntly what they felt. Not one to ever understand subtlety, Lawrence had to have emotional mumbo-jumbo hammered into his head, not because he didn’t want to see it, but only because he seemed to be missing a key element that allowed him to. Lawrence stooped, picked up a few piece of vellum from the floor and sat them on a granite-topped metal work table.


“Photographs?” The teacher paused for a moment, not hearing the soft-spoken boy clearly, “Fence photographs?” Well, that had been a subject Lawrence had never found exactly interesting, but to each his own, he supposed. “Are you mainly digital or old-school--?” The man’s words trailed off absently as the boy ran from the classroom as if either he had been branded or was going to vomit. His hazel eyes immediately filled with concern as he entertained the idea of grabbing another towel to dampen and slowly stretched out one hand as if to stop Aries. The boy exited the room with a slam, then a knock, then a few separated bangs, and finally silence. The class tittered around him, giggles sounding from the few absent-minded students who weren’t absorbed in their assignment.


A vicious gleam came into his eyes, a protective glare as he faced the classroom and spat out words toward the few offenders. “Art class is not an easy ‘A‘. Get back to work.” He hated to see someone singled out, especially if they were nervous or new. The first day of school was difficult for anyone and he was certain that all of the students could remember their own. This tendency to protect the wounded fawn stemmed from his inability to do anything in the past when people were in pain. His guilt ridden subconscious tried to convince him that making a difference now would somehow make up for when his idle hands had not been able to help.


Lawrence gingerly opened the door to the classroom inwardly and stepped outside, sliding down against the wall next to Aries. “You know you can’t leave class early, Aries. I haven’t even showed you the darkroom or all of the camera lenses we have for students to use.” The teacher leaned his head back against the wooden wall behind him, his legs splayed and comfortable in front of him. He hoped to get on the level of his obviously nervous student and get him talking.


Usually when he started a conversation with someone, he was able to keep it going and ease them into a comfortable place with just the two of them in it. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a roll of Rollos, a strange candy his mother often shipped over to him from America. Popping the chocolate into his mouth, he spoke again, his teeth stuck together slightly with caramel. “Row-row?” He offered the roll to the boy with one hand, breaking that never taking candy from strangers rule quite quickly. “So, you like fences?”

[Aries Neo Calisto Sumpters]

Aries caressed the goose egg on his head carefully, the swelling bump invisible beneath his hair but still just as painful. His eyes squinted, but he kept pressing against it. Why did people always do that? Some slight form of bred-in masochism to touch the places that hurt when you do. His fingers protected his already sensitive head when the door swung open unexpectedly, leaving Aries to fall backwards with it and knock against the door frame--not hard, but just enough to hurt. Confused, he looked up only to find Lawrence standing over him. He immediately started in on an apology at full-throttle, "I'm sorry I called you that, Mr. Grimmel, Sir. I didn't mean to, it's just what she always ..." He shook his head quickly and shut his trap immediately upon Lawrence beginning to talk. The door slid shut behind the teacher and left them alone outside.

Aries sweatshirt was torn all across the right seam, his shoulder was exposed as it hung, destroyed, from his slender body. His knees pulled up as the taller man stepped around him, giving the teacher plenty of room to move as he watched his bare feet slide across the dirty walkway. Aries lamented the sorrow of forcing him outside now, but he had honestly felt very sick right then. He had thought he'd make it further away, not to a seated position right outside the door. "I'm sure the dark room and the lenses are all very nice--" He smiled around his words, trying to give some semblance of comfort to the obviously worried professor. Here he was, being the same idiot he always was--running away, like he said he wouldn't.

And you came to my rescue. Aries suddenly turned red, the realization of just a small portion of his dreams flooding through his mind and filling him with euphoria. Suddenly, his tension seemed to roll off of him like a heavy blanket, the violet eyes becoming bright and the smile spreading up to them like a speed-grown plant. He reached forward and took a piece of candy, popping it into his mouth and chewing with a giggle. The sugar rushed through him and caused him an equally odd feeling. His mother had kept most candy away from him, favoring deserts to be more along the lines of dairy or baked treats. While chocolate wasn't foreign, it was rare, and Aries started to giggle, a bit uncontrollably.

"Tha's.. a lot of sugar." He spoke around the candy, trying not to bite it and rather to roll it around. He laced his arms beneath his thighs and pulled them close, basking in the situation and enjoying himself quite thoroughly. It was just so .. intimate, almost. And then Lawrence asked a question about fences. Aries blinked. He wondered if fences were his way of changing the subject. Aries' confusion washed over his face as his brows knit, staring at Lawrence with a look like he might read what that meant in his eyes.

"... I guess. I mean, I don't dislike fences. There was one around my duplex, a black one with cross-rods.. and next door was a simple chain-link one. Why would you ask?"

Aries fidgeted a moment, while trying to figure out what the hell a fence had to do with anything. Searching his mind, he couldn't figure out a single thing it pertained to. He pulled his bag around and searched through it, opening the special zipper pouch he kept his album in. The camera was carefully tucked into a wad of cloth to keep it safe, and he wondered why he hadn't asked his mother to buy him a camera bag while she was out shopping with him for clothing. He pulled the album out and was careful to open it to a certain page, keeping it uptilt so Lawrence couldn't see. He pulled a picture of his mother's hand wresting on their gate, the focus of the picture a small animal searching through the trash across the way, in front of the house across the street.

"... See?"

[Lawrence Grimmel]

“Is that .. Bunny?” Lawrence carefully extracted the picture from the boy’s hand and peered closely at the small animal rooting around in the result of a turned over trash can. It looked just like the neighbor’s rat terrier that often chased after the cab Lawrence rode to and from the air port in while visiting his mother’s home in Florida. The neighborhood was small, well manicured, and unmistakable - the only place other than Somnium Academy that Lawrence considered even close to home. The house across the way belonged to a war veteran named Johan and his wife, the self proclaimed “mother” of Bunny and was positioned directly across the street from Lawrence’s mother’s house.


Based on the trajectory, the picture had to have been taken from either the right side of the house’s lawn or the yard right next to it. He seemed to remember a chain-link fence surrounding the yard next to it, though he hadn’t been there in quite some time. Frowning delicately, his forehead furrowing he tried to remember the name of the lady he had been introduced to by Jean herself. Terry! That had been the well dressed, vivacious woman next door and just remembering the animated conversation between her and himself made him smile. He couldn’t see so much resemblance in the boy who was sitting there to the lady, but he supposed stranger things had happened when the differences between parents and children were chosen.


Could this boy be her son, the one he’d heard mention of but seemed to always miss when his mother spoke of him? He seemed to remember the child’s name starting with an A and being unusual, a little hard to pronounce. The idea made him smile a little as he handed the picture back but he didn’t know quite how to raise the subject with the quiet student without making him feel awkward and singled out. “This picture looks a lot like a view I’m familiar with. Do you think it’s just artistic Remembrance?” Lawrence smiled at the boy and pushed himself up off the floor a bit lazily. He supposed that the boy would answer his playful question in a way that either confirmed or further suspended his suspicions.


Pulling down the edges of his shirt that had ridden up yet again, showing off the slim hip bones that his jeans didn’t cover, Lawrence then turned to the tiny boy still on the ground. He extended a hand to help him up and opened up the classroom door by backing into it, his broad shoulders pressing against the heavy wood. “Are you ready to go back to class or should I send you to the nurse to get the bump on your head looked at?” Lawrence had noticed the boy rubbing the back of his head and figured the loud crunching outside had been him slamming against something in the hallway. “Otherwise, I can get you set up in the darkroom and you won’t have homework to do tonight.” The teacher walked into the classroom, holding the door open with one hand for a few seconds, halfway expecting the boy to head for the nurse’s office instead of continuing class. Lawrence, however, had a classroom full of students that he would rather not neglect if it was at all avoidable.


Scanning the room, he monitored the button and clay gloppy mess one student had created and wondered if the girl who read through his class every day would be able to get away on a technicality if he sent her to the headmaster’s office for doing so. Could she honestly say that her reading through class was an expression of her artistic talent and was a performance piece? Lawrence laughed at the idea, but made a few more rounds around the classroom before settling back into the chair in the middle of the room. He pulled out a sketch book that was tucked into a pocket on the side of his chair and rattled around in his jean pocket until he pulled out his favorite HB graphite pencil.

He began to sketch thumbnails of what would become a series of paintings on the day’s theme. The art teacher had already prepared three square panels for the project today and from his fingers flowed abstract shapes that mimicked the movement and shape of wings. The paintings would soon be done in a monochromatic series but Lawrence preferred to work after class was over and leave himself unoccupied for questions from his students while class was still in session. For a while, the teacher simply relaxed and left his students to do what they wished, knowing that the class still had two and a half hours until it was over. Some days the time seemed to fly by and others, it slowed down to a trickle. He wasn’t quite sure what kind of day it would be yet but by listening to the soft whispers of working students and pencils against paper, he was sure he would know soon.

[Anasi Visatta]

Anasi had retreated to the paint supply cabinets for a while, to be sure that the teacher was away from her painting. Her heart was off racing the hummingbirds wings and her mind was just thicker than mush. She almost wanted to demand people use personal space, but she knew that the teacher could burst her bubble any time. Just the thought made her giggle. Did she just giggle? Gosh that Lawrence could make a girls head light and airy for a moment. She did actually grab the gold color for the columns and was met by the pleasant surprise of an extra paint brush when she returned. It was Lawry's alright. Now that she thought about it, it probably would have been easier to make the multitude of leaves within the painting with a fan brush...

He's amazing...<3

She slowly became more entranced with her project however, getting her mind of the slender body of the her teacher, looming around the classroom. The picture demanded vibrancy in her mind...but she had to fight from letting the green from over taking the violet that would be the vocal point of the masterpiece. The eyes of the tiger had to be demanding, their golden hues ever present in the soul. The stone columns had to reflect a setting sun against the cool tones of the jungle. The foliage had to look wild and hungry for attention. It was all there, in her head and it was beyond a chore to show such things, but that didn't stop her from trying.

After a while of vigorous detail work (god did she hate that) she noticed the teacher entering the classroom. It made her wonder exactly when he had left. Then...she realized that he was probably going after that other kid...the one with the strange violet eyes. How very peculiar they were. Besides that, it was good to be able to pause and look at him for a while. And yes...there was a lot to look at. Anasi had to keep herself from staring when he finally went to taking a perch at his usual seat. When her eyes lingered too long, she lowered her head, violet tresses falling in her vision--cause that was what long hair was for.

She put a few touches on a few of the other white tigers in the picture and found herself looking at the teacher again. Maybe she could get his opinion on the painting thus far. It was nearly finished, the queen tiger the carbon copy, if not better, than the one she imagined.

"...Um...Mr. Grimmel..." asked the girl coyly as she carried the painting carefully over to him., she leaned it against her knee, the frame only as tall as that portion of her leg. "Should I keep the tigers white...or do you think a bengel orange is..." She trailed off as she noticed he was sketching something. She loved to watch people sketch...sometimes you couldn't figure out what they were drawing till the very end. She leaned in a little closer to see what he was doing.

(NOTE: in real life, no picture made from oil would be done so fast...but...alas...I wants it to be so NAH!)

[Aries Neo Calisto Sumpters]

Aries sighed a bit of relief, and smiled, "Yeah. It's Bunny." his almost inaudible words were full of some sense of satisfaction, but at the same time, he was a bit lost in the topic of breathing and understanding everything around him. Lawrence was a man, and Aries was a boy, and that girl inside, she was a woman. He was a joke. Aries rubbed his nose back and forth with his index finger for a minute and then sighed again as he pushed himself up, using the wall as leverage rather than the outstretched hand. Aries, Aries, what will you do? Tonight he would call his parents and ask to come home--tell them that his decision was rash, perhaps. He wanted to run away like a faun from a meadow after a hunter's gun sounded off. He shrugged his shoulders at the tall man and looked up through bangs as they fell to tickle his nose.

"It's not artistic, Sir. I lived next door to your mother." Aries picked up his things, this time his statement was matter-of-fact and well-enunciated. He took the picture and sidled it back into the album, along with the other photographs he had taken. If Lawrence was observant, he might have noticed the minute print on the back, rows of it, like a story had been scrawled there. He packed the album into the backpack and looked up again through the dirty hair that clung to his face in clumps with the mud that had dotted it, "I'm not having a very good first day, Sir, so.. if you'd excuse me to the nurses office, I promise I'll come back later to see the dark room. I'm very sorry." He bowed his head in shame, but at least he was talking out loud now. One on one, speaking of nothing, Aries could cope. As long as he didn't try to talk about things that were important--and as long as there was nobody else witness, the albino boy could manage. Aries pulled up his bag onto his shoulders and took one, last, longing look at Lawrence as he started into the classroom, blushing after he realized he had been staring at the exposed bit of hip that had come into view before Lawrence had adjusted his shirt.

"So.. Thank you." He began to walk down the hall, rubbing his aching head and sighing at his own incompetence.

I.. hate.. first ... days.

[Lawrence Grimmel]

Lawrence had promised himself that he wouldn’t be found caught up in his own work and yet, his hand was now scratching across the page in complete absorption. Self doubt plagued him after he realized that the boy hadn’t in fact followed him into the classroom, but had headed away from his offers. His belief in himself as a teacher had diminished slightly, leaving him focusing more on his artistic tendencies. Had he done something to make the boy turn away from both him and the class he taught? Understanding now that Aries was a neighbor of his mother’s made him want to ask if Jean herself was doing well in Florida or if any unsavory people had been lurking around the neighborhood. He dropped the subject in his own mind, figuring that the boy simply didn’t like him. After all, how many high school students actually liked their teachers? Lawrence had always had the habit of trying to become more of a friend than a teacher to his students, a characteristic that often left him in strange situations. He sighed, chalked up another failure, and lost himself in his artwork as he absorbed as much as he could from the encounter. It was indeed quite strange that someone so close to home would arrive here at Somnium, a fact that both scared and relieved him.

The shape of wings moved from the tiny thumbnails he had created and he had moved on to using full sheets of paper in his worn leather covered sketchbook. He began with soft graphite on the cotton paper, shading in certain areas with a quick hand. Soon, his ideas had formed into something abstract with a decidedly floating texture, like individual feathers drifting through the air. From the same pocket in the chair he had found his sketchbook in, he pulled a few colored pencils and began shading the bulk of his feathers lightly, leaving the majority of the shapes pure white with hints of blue violet along the edges. His breathing slowed as he became completely entranced with the contrast of his lights and darks, the difference between sunlight and shadows in his work.

He didn’t notice the student next to him, her voice muffled as he was sketching feverishly, trying to dump all of his feelings out onto the paper before they flew away or evaporated into thin air. Lawrence could feel the warmth of another body next to his but it took him a few seconds to break free from the spell of his own creations. Turning toward the girl next to him, he noticed her eyes and knew that she was watching him sketch, perhaps to see where his own inspiration came from as well as the way he went about developing a piece. He wasn’t so cocky as to think his artwork was the best in the world, but he had several buyers who payed a great deal of money for some of his pieces. He, himself, always found it interesting to watch the artistic process of others, but unlike other people, he didn’t get nervous or mind too much if people watched him. Lawrence enjoyed sharing every aspect of his work with other people, from the beginning to the end, the good and the bad. His eyes made contact with hers, the light hazel still cloudy from the thoughts spinning around in his head. He smiled, a boyish grin as he tilted the pad toward her slightly and said, “I like wings.” The phrase was said quietly, his voice hushed and a bit breathless, his accent ever present. His eyes broke contact as he leaned down and peered closely at the painting, ignoring the bare skin of the girl’s legs as best he could.

“It depends on what you want to express, Ms. Visatta.” He wasn’t going to give her his answer, because that would take more away from the artwork than it would give to it. Lawrence would have preferred to see a piece of artwork that was wholly Anasi’s, every aspect of it completely in tune with what her soul was yearning to say. “Do you want them to be pure, whole, loyal? Or, do you want their animalistic instincts to be raw and show with every breath they take, threatening to take over the entire piece?”