Closed Lend Me Your Ear

[Revali]

32nd of Fall, 515 AV

Revali tilted his head back to look at the sun.

Even though it was well into the Fall, and there was a slight chill to the wind, it was still sunny out, and it warmed the city well. As it was such a beautiful day, there were many people out and about. They lined the streets to browse the shops, to listen to the handful of buskers that sat on the corners, and to simply enjoy the weather. They talked amongst themselves, laughing and smiling in gaiety.

Although Revali envied their happiness, he knew that he would be nothing but stressed if he had someone he was forced to entertain. Instead, he clutched his journal tight in one hand, and his colored charcoal in the other, both tools pressed up against his chest as he walked. Yes, Revali would be spending this gorgeous day outdoors, alone with his art. And that was the way he liked it.

It was only a matter of chimes before Revali found a nice place to sit. He sat directly outside Traveler's Row, where he lived. He settled himself in a spot near the street but out of the way of passerby, and lay his charcoal out beside him as he opened his journal.

He flipped to a blank page and, slowly, picked up his black charcoal. He drew the charcoal across the paper in a straight line, leaving a long, dark, satisfying trail from corner to corner. Then, he sketched out a circle in the middle, with half of it on one side of the line and half on the other. Picking up his blue color, Revali began to mix the black and blue on the top half of the paper, creating a background the color of the night sky. He tried to smear it with his fingertips for texture, but it ended up blending the colors into a dull grey, so he quickly abandoned that technique.

Next, Revali used his black once again to fill in the top half of the circle, ever so lightly. This, he did smear with his finger, relishing the grey color it gave him. He now had a half-moon rising in his night sky background. Even though there were discolored smudges in spots from his failed attempt at texture, and the line wasn't perfectly straight, he still felt proud as he held the paper out at arm's length to examine it.

Today, he decided, would definitely be a good day.

Many thanks to Lisana for the beautiful boxcode!

[Lora]

Lora took a small step out of her apartment. The sun was shining and the air felt warm, although there was a crispness layered within it, just below the surface. It was a sort of cold that was waiting to happen but until it did, Lora planned to enjoy the niceness of the days. Her arms wrapped around her painting supplied, Lora took a single step so she was just to the side of her doorway. She had been doing a lot of painting recently. Since she had arrived, she would quite often feel homesick for Mura. When that happened, she would paint. Back in Mura she had painted all the s and so there was something about the action that reminded her of her previous home. When her mother died, she had done the same thing. This particular morning, Lora had begun to miss Mura and, since she had planned to spend the day painting anyway, she had immediately grabbed her painting supplies and head for her spot next to the door. Plopping down on the dirty ground, Lora spread her things out in front of her. She pulled out the small sized canvas from the mess and picked up a medium sized brush. Moving to begin painting, she was immediately struck with the fact she had left her palette inside because of the wet paint on it, she had worried it would be difficult to carry without getting it on anything. Feeling slightly foolish for forgetting to go and retrieve the is before beginning to paint, Lora set down her supplies and pulled herself to her feet. She walked quickly back into the house and grabbed her palette from where it sat on her table near the front door. Palette in hand, Lora returned to where her supplies sat outside. Falling down into a crossed legged position, Lora picked up her canvas and paint brush. She set the canvas in her lap and began by dipping the paintbrush into the gray paint. Lora gave no thought to what she wanted to paint before placing the brush on the canvas. Every time she came out here to paint, she had painted the builds directly in front of her. It had become a sort of habit and today was no exception. Normally, Lora would find painting the same thing over and over dull. But now, there was something about the familiarity of the entire thing that reassured her. Using, swift, flicking motions Lora began to add the light gray color to the canvas where the lightest spots were on the stones. Because it was a sunny day, there were a considerable amount of light areas. Lora had to continue to dip her paint brush into the paint a number of times as she painted. She continuously glanced up and down at the buildings. Suddenly, something caught her eye. Lora glanced over. There was a person sitting a ways down from her. He appeared to be doing the same thing as her; sitting in front of his house and doing art of some kind. Lora couldn't quite make out what he was doing but it interested her. Ordinarily, Lora might have said something to him but recently she had found some people in this city to be a little less than friendly toward people who talked to them randomly. So, going against her first reaction, she continued to paint.

[Revali]

It wasn't long before Revali was engrossed in his work. He pulled a red and a yellow charcoal from his side, beginning to fill in the bottom half of the paper with a rouge blend. Then came the sun, shining bright with pure yellow, smeared for a gentle oily texture.

He was just getting ready to add in the details of stars in the night and clouds in the day when he noticed movement from the corner of his eye.

A woman, thin and small in height, who looked as though she may blow away with the wind sat just feet away from him. Her skin was pale, and her hair quite fair as well. She looked young; not just in her size, but in her manner. She stayed small, hunkered down over her art, and focused on it without looking anyone else in the eye.

Revali's heart sank to see the woman so secluded. Especially to leave a fellow artist hanging alone would leave him feeling guilty for weeks. So, after only a tick's hesitation, Revali scooped up his tools and moved over to her. He stood beside her canvas, not looking at her work in case she was sensitive about such things.

He tilted his head and tugged on his puffy black hair. These were nervous habits, manifesting now as he realized he knew nothing of her, much less what to say.

"H-hello." He began cautiously and softly. "I c-couldn't help but notice how engrossed you w-were in your...in your art. You seem l-like someone who knows w-what they're doing. It's very inspiring."

Now what would he do? He couldn't exactly leave her alone, but of course he couldn't say much after a compliment either. Left without anything else, Revali shifted on his feet. As he did so, a single stick of charcoal skittered to the ground, snapping in two upon contact with the road and releasing a puff of yellow. Though unfortunate in the loss of the charcoal, it was fortunate in that it did remind Revali there was more to talk about. He still had his own artwork.

Ignoring the fallen tool for the moment, the boy shifted his supplies around to produce his drawing. "D-do you think you c-could...critique this for me? Just m-maybe? Or n-not. I understand if you're...you're busy."

Many thanks to Lisana for the beautiful boxcode!

[Lora]

As she began to delve into creating the more detailed areas of her painting, Lora instinctively leaned in toward the canvas. It wasn’t that she needed to lean closer to see; she had always had good eyesight. She just felt like it was something she needed to do and thus did it almost subconsciously. She had another habit of not looking at the actual scene in front of her when painting in the details. Even with her good eye sight, it was difficult to see details on the world around her and instead worked from how she knew the world to be. It was a bad habit because it made her pictures just slightly less accurate. It was one of the many things she was working to change about how she did art. At the moment she wasn’t thinking about changing and was instead completely engrossed in her work so much so that she wasn’t paying any attention to the world around her. When a voice from someone she didn’t know was standing right next to her said hello, she jumped slightly and her head shot up as she was suddenly pulled back into acknowledging her surroundings. Before her stood a young man. He didn’t look as though he was overly tall but from where Lora was sitting on the ground, he was considerably higher up than her and she had to tilt her head back to look at him. He had a long nose and an abundance of freckles under a plume messy black hair. Lora thought his appearance looked almost animalistic. Although she wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. His hands were clutching a journal of some kind but Lora couldn’t see what was on it. A number of colored charcoals were resting in his arms as well. The man spoke again only this time he complemented Lora. He called her inspiring. She could feel herself blushing. “Thank you! Thats so sweet of you!” She paused for a second. “I mean it's really nice. Its really… um… thank you... ” Her voice trailed off. Lora shifted her eyes down to her canvas, embarrassed by her beflusterment. They paused in a few moments of silence before Lora saw one of the man’s charcoal sticks, a yellow one, fall down on the ground beside her. It snapped in two in a puff of yellow smoke. “Oh no!” She cried. Moving to pick up the fallen stick. “I’m so sorry.” She glanced up at the man but he had ignored the broken art tool. He quickly held out his drawing and asked Lora if she would critique it. Lora blinked and slowly returned the charcoal to the ground. He wanted her to critique his art? She couldn’t understand why. She was far from a master and there were a lot of improvements she needed herself. Why did he want her to critique his art? “Yes, I’d love too!” She replied, putting her confusion aside and focusing on what an exciting new opportunity this was. She shifted her own art supplies on to the ground in front of her and carefully took the journal from him. Sitting the drawing down on her lap, Lora glanced up at the man once more before pouring over his art. It was an image of the night sky and the day sky, contrasted by a line in the center. The drawing was clearly done by a novice, there was nothing spectacular about it. It was fairly nice though. It reminded Lora of the drawing she used to do as a child. Looking at the drawing, Lora noticed a number of things that might have been done better but, being far more involved in painting than in drawing, she didn’t see too much that she could have done better. Holding the drawing back up to him she said, “It's lovely!” She didn’t want to say anything bad about it after he had just given her such a large complement. “It's beautiful! You are very talented.” She paused for a second looking down at her own painting. Grabbing it, she stood up and held it out to the man in front of her. “Would you critique this for me?” She asked bluntly. “I mean, only if you want too. I know it's not finished yet. Sorry, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, that's fine. ” She stopped rambling and looked up carefully avoiding making eye contact and waited for his reply.