smash_logs | Dorm Log: Scorching Summer Edition

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Dorm Log: Scorching Summer Edition

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Eirika was still trying to acquaint herself. There was a lot more to see than a single look around could give and without classes to occupy her time, she was prone to a more curious outlook. As long as she wasn't endangering herself, she had the free reign of the academy grounds.

The art room had been one that she found entirely by accident. She'd not even really known what she'd walked into until she paused and took a long look. But then even as she was piecing it together, the wonderfully fascinating environment it was, her attention was drawn onto Mary, who she'd never forgotten.

"Little Mary," she greeted with pleasant surprise and a warm smile as she'd ever held for the darling blonde.

"Eirika!" She beamed and looked up from the canvas her little butt was parked right in front of, her dress completely covered in paint. Oh... oils, too. That was never going to wash out. What even was that work in progress? It was abstract and full of bright colours, but lack of technical skill aside, it seemed somehow grotesque. Unsettling.

She set her brush down and wiped her hands off on the apron she wore (but completely failed to keep her clean).

"Look!"

Admittedly, her hands lifted. Just in case Mary had plans of putting paint somehow all over the princess. Not that Eirika had genuinely thought any such thing would happen.

... Okay. She thought it a little.

Her attention was drawn onto Mary's painting, which from an initial glance, she didn't seem to quite get. But there was always a unique beauty in abstract art. Back in Magvel, she was more accustomed to portraits, so there was something refreshing in not seeing something so direct or concrete.

"What does it mean?" she finally asked as she eyed the painting a little further away, as though it might help her better grasp the concept. "What were you thinking - feeling - when you did it?"

"Huh? What was I thinking?"

Mostly, she'd been thinking that she felt like painting a pretty picture with a whole lot of her favourite colours. That was usually her primary reason for undertaking any artistic endeavour. It never struck her that all the great artists must have had some kind of reason for their work. Something they wanted to convey to the world, or some way to leave behind their legacy when they were gone. Mary was just in it for fun.

Eirika always asked the tough questions about art, didn't she.

Mary frowned at the canvas, trying to remember if she was feeling anything in particular when she started.

"...My Dad does a lot of paintings like these. I wanted to make one, too!"

For the world of answers that Mary could have given her, Eirika had not expected the subject of father's to come up. For more than a few moments, she thought of her own, remembered him fondly, and felt that homesick feeling creep up into her again. But she understood it, to a degree. And she could get a vague understanding for what it must have been like to have such inspiration.

Keeping her hardened stare on it a few moments longer, she eventually took her gaze off to the younger girl with interest. And admiration. For Eirika imagined she didn't have much of a creative bone in her body. Something that had proven - as of recent - to be a rather unfortunate lack of talent on her part.

"I think that is a wonderful reason," she admitted with a nod. Slipping her hands behind her back, she was back to looking at Mary's painting. "I've never done anything like that. But I was thinking about making something. I'm not sure what I'd do, though, and I don't think I could do something like this."

"It's not very hard! All you need is some paint, a brush, and a canvas!"

She slid off the comically oversized stool and made a beeline for all the blank canvases propped against the wall. The paint on her hands came off and stained the first one she touched, so she moved on to a second, slightly smaller one that she held with her palms squeezing the sides instead.

"See! You can use this one! And I have leftover paints, anyway..."

Eirika eyed the canvas with some thought before she looked to her own hands. What kinds of things could she make? She'd never been particular artistic. Not in the way of visual pleasantries, anyway. That wasn't something that could be taught to her either, right? Art was supposed to be about heart, she thought.

So what was in hers...?

"I don't really have the experience," she confessed. "You shouldn't give me something when I don't really have the hands for just such a thing." It was like giving an axe to someone who'd only ever used a polearm.

"Huh? Your hands look fine to me..."

Only a child could take things so literally. She held the canvas out insistently. "Yours are even cleaner than mine right now, so it's a good start!"

No, that isn't what I...

It seemed like protesting wasn't going to get her anywhere, however. So with a degree of uncertainty, she accepted the canvas from Mary. Looking it over once more, her head tipped and she tried to formulate how to begin.

"I don't know what I would paint," Eirika confessed. "How did you begin, Little Mary?"

"First I put it on one of those!" She gestured excitedly toward an empty easel, looking like she was trying too hard to put on a professional air as she explained but ultimately failing to come across as anything but a somewhat smug and completely overeager kid.

"Then I put paint on the palette... All of my favourite colours! Blue and pink and red and yellow! I put purple in, too, see?" She took the wooden palette she'd loaded her paints on, and while there was an excessive amount left over, they had been kept surprisingly neat and separate from one another. "Then I put the brush in the paint and then put the paint on the canvas and just... kept going! It's pretty easy once you start."

She did see. A pure... plethora of colours. From an objective perspective, it seemed so confusing. How would she know where to begin? Looking at the blank white canvas in front of her, she tried to imagine what it would be like if she filled up each space.

"While I don't know what I want to do yet, I do know that I don't want to see any white."

And at least a direction was a direction. She looked over to Mary, "What's your favourite colour?"

"Covering the whole canvas? I read that all the best painters do that, so you're already doing well!"

Never mind all the white that peeked through her own little masterpiece...

"So cover it innn... blue!"

Did they, really? The only really fantastic artist she knew of was Forde, and even that seemed a little hush-hush. She tried to remember anything he'd done that was really spectacular in his eyes, and she couldn't vividly conjure up any images. Maybe he covered all of his canvas as well.

"Blue, hm?" she asked curiously. "A dark blue or a light blue, do you think? I would like to do something that is heartwarming."

"Heartwarming?"

The nature of Guertena's work had always been unsettling at best, and as an extension of his artistic soul, Mary's own idea of heartwarming was incredibly skewed. Oblivious to all the little things that made her so off, she looked down at the palette and held a finger over the second-darkest hue.

"This one makes me happy!"

Blue, in any form, was something of a sentimental color, Eirika would have supposed. Both dark and light had its appeal. Although she supposed 'royal' would have been more appropriate as a description.

"Blue is a colour of nobility," she explained as she looked at the colour Mary had chosen. "You have a good eye." After a moment, she nodded as she tried to form a way to begin her painting. "I think that very well may be the best way to start, after all."

Starting at the source - herself - seemed good. It was to be an expression of her sentiments at the end of things. There was nothing better to begin with than herself.

"Nobility?"

She echoed the word slowly, trying to remember where she'd heard it before. She seated herself back up on the stool in front of her own painting and kicked her legs back and forth, heels inches off the ground at their closest.

"That's like royalty, right? Like princesses?"

If she didn't want to be a painter, she certainly wanted to be a princess.

Eirika looked over to Mary and she offered a nod. "Yes. That is correct. They say the blood of a noble runs blue, and I suppose that's where the term 'royal blue' originated. Or I could be wrong on that side of things."

Giving a smile, her features brightened, "You sound as if you're a bit enamoured with the idea of princes and princesses. It must seem like something of a glamourous lifestyle."

"Blue blood, huh..."

The whole concept of bleeding at all was still pretty new to Mary. She hadn't cut herself even once back at the gallery, and mysterious red liquid dripping down the windows and pooling on the floor were always paint. She had thought that was what leaked out of people too, but she'd been wrong. What trickled out of a wound here wasn't paint, but it had always been thick and red. Never blue.

She made a note to ask around.

But for now, she decided to latch onto the thing that interested her a lot more. Princesses!

"It is! Princesses get to live in big fancy castles and wear really pretty dresses! They have servants that do whatever they want, and then they can ride on unicorns, too. I want to be one when I grow up, even if it means my blood will turn blue!"

Eirika listened attentively, wondering if she hadn't been born into royalty if she might have thought the same thing. For the most part, she could understand where people got their ideas from. It was easy to romanticise crowns, elegant soirees, fancy balls, and other gatherings. But there was so much more that people didn't seem to be aware of.

Royalty was no simple life. Luxuries came with a price, often implying the lesser value of personal gain and more for the benefit of the masses. At least for women of royalty. There was a certain kind of charm that came from courtship rituals, or so Eirika had assumed, but beyond the 'romantic' glory, there was still obligation.

Social hierarchy, too.

Reaching over, she settled a hand to Mary's shoulder, "You must read often. You should remember that the life of a princess is not all rainbows and glittering things. A princess has a lot of responsibility. One day, a princess will be a queen, and aspire to inspire her people and her kingdom. How a princess talks, acts, and moves are all things she has to be very careful about. The life of nobility is less free than that of a commoner."

And she felt very noble when she said all of that. But perhaps it was just the accent.

Nearly all of Mary's ideas of the outside world had been shaped by everything she'd read in books. The only thing she had been able to experience for herself was the activity called 'school,' and while it was certainly a lot different from what she was expecting, she'd adapted well enough. She'd never even considered that anything else would defy the pretty little pictures she'd painted in her mind. To her, princesses didn't have any responsibilities. They lived in a big castle with her parents who were adored by all the people in the land, and then princes on white horses would marry them and they would live happily ever. There would be big dinners and horseback riding and singing songs for the rest of their lives, and that was that.

To hear Eirika's take on nobility jarred her right out of her idealized fantasy world. Responsibilities and a lack of freedom... That was the exact opposite of everything Mary dreamed of. Sure, she could still pretend that the life of a princess was just like a fairy tale, but now the seeds of those ideas had been planted, and they would grow whether she wanted them to or not.

Her mouth twisted into a pout, but there was curiosity evident in her shining blue eyes.

"Huhhh? Nobody ever writes about that part!"

Eirika almost laughed, but thinking it an inappropriate motion on her part, she refrained. Instead, she shook her head slowly and straightened her posture. "A fairytale would lose its charm if it spoke of noble hardships," she explained to Mary kindly. "It seems cruel to take from young girls their right to dream about fancy galas, immense banquet halls, played music, and princes."

It was hard to discuss objectively when she had been born into that life. She wasn't sure if she should be honest over her background. "I imagine that perhaps not all princesses live a life of hardship." Looking around for a place to sit, she motioned for Mary to join her. "Not all lands are filled with war. Even those that are, the war will not last forever. After war comes peace, and with peace comes marriage, children, and happy lives."

At least for a time, though perhaps not in an ideal world.

Edited 2013-07-21 17:53 (UTC)

Mary knew about war - vaguely. She knew it happened when a bunch of people didn't agree with each other, but those kinds of stories failed to hold her interest because they didn't sound very happy. It definitely wasn't something she'd ever associated with her picturesque fantasies of kingdoms and castles.

She rubbed her thumb and index finger together, smearing the paint between them. The cogs were turning in her mind.

"You know a lot about being a princess, huh?"

She, in earnest, thought about not addressing that observation in the least. But while she had stopped wearing her title so proudly, Eirika realised that she could still be herself, and have a different relationship based on who she allied herself with. Well, at least with anyone who didn't perplex her in ways she wasn't entirely comfortable with.

Fortunately there would be no talks of courting with Mary. At least from Eirika's perspective.

"...It is my greatest honour and joy to be the crowned princess of Renais," she admitted with a nod. "I take the life of a noble seriously, though I can't claim to be so open about it here." Implying she had not introduced herself so formally since she'd first arrived those months prior.

"I knew it!" Her face lit up proudly, though the excitement at meeting a real life princess was quickly stamped out as she realized that it meant that everything Eirika said about the royal life probably came from experience after all.

"Oh, wait... so everything you said was the real truth, huh..."

Eirika didn't reply immediately. Not because she didn't have the intention to, but mostly because she was trying to figure out how she wanted to say things.

"Every princess is different, Mary," she began with a kinder look. "It is true that I have my obligations I must see to. It is also true that I would agree the prosperity of my people comes before mine. And yes, sometimes I must put my feelings aside for the sake of others."

She smiled a little, mostly as she thought of Innes. "Yet the same holds for banquets and soirees. Princes compliment and ride their steeds. Jousting matches occur. Courtships ensue. The stories are not particularly inaccurate, just more romanticised than what they may actually be."

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paletteknife - 2013-07-27 02:00 (UTC) - Expand

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Dorm Log: Scorching Summer Edition

GIVE ME AN ART ROOM

AN ART ROOM YOU SHALL RECEIVE

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