multiversallogs | » she saw the pictures and painted them

Who: Angela and You. YES, YOU!
What: Come be drawn like one of her French girls.
Where: A street corner a few blocks away from the inn.
When: Early Misdi afternoon
Warnings: The warning is... it's Angela.

On this chilly, yet sunny afternoon, Angela Montenegro can be seen walking down on of Baedal’s many streets, dragging behind her is a little red wagon filled to the brim with art supplies. Where she got the wagon isn't important; what is important, however, is what Angela's planning on doing with the equipment.

Setting up is done quickly and easily with the finesse of a pro (this isn't her first rodeo, kids.) One sketchpad is placed on an easel and flipped to a clean page where Angela scribbles in thick black marker:

ART DONE BY PARIS TRAINED ARTIST – 6 SHEKELS EACH PORTRAIT

She stands back and eyes her handiwork before an almost evil grin spreads across her face. And in smaller, but not too small, letters, Angela writes the words:

NUDES ARE WELCOME. 1 MARK.

And in even smaller letters:

PLEASE HELP ME NOT STARVE. SUPPORT THE ARTS!

And in almost illegible letters towards the bottom right corner of the page:

Please? I don't want to do death masks anymore. ):

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Angela shakes her head and leans over to stop Jules' hand. "Don't hide it. It's a part of you." Whoever doesn't like that scar, that's on them, not Jules.

She goes back to drawing only to freeze at Jules' description of Paris. Sounds more like Hell, really. "That's a little more than heavy, don't you think?" Like more into the depressing and horrifying departments?

She stiffens a bit at the touch to her hand, but stops regardless, silently easing her grip on her shirt.

"It's all most people have known," Jules offers by way of explanation, but as her hand drops away from the scar, she starts to fiddle her hands together. They know it's more than heavy - she knows very well. "When life gives you lemons, I suppose! Or something along those lines."

A smile, because sometimes trying to gloss and glide over everything really is the only way to cope with that reality, whether it's the danger at every turn, or knowing you're one of the things parents tell their children goes bump in the night.

"Most people are idiots." Blunt and easily said, that's how Angela does it. "And when life gives you lemons, throw them back at life and ask for limes to go with your tequila."

Things that go bump in the night may bump, but in some cases, they don't bite. They're just misunderstood. Angela's learned this lesson hard.

Jules can't hold back a laugh, an actual genuine one, not a smile that she just holds onto like some desperate facade. "I might try that, in the future. It could make things more interesting." Shaking her head, she grins. "There's absolutely no reason to force ourselves into sobriety now, is there?"

The thing was, Jules did bite; a biological requirement, a need to maintain her humanity and keep her from hurting more people, ironically enough. Whether having a conscience and trying to use that monstrous need for good could work, or whether it just made it all the more repugnant, she wasn't sure. Even in good moments - and she'd call this one of those, because there was something relaxing about it, something fun - that doubt as to whether she could ever really be good was a constant weight to drag her under. She shakes her head, a habit to try and dismiss thoughts (with mixed success) and hums for a short moment. "How long have you been in Baedal?"

"Not if it's necessary." At one point it was necessary for Angela, but she's past that point--hopefully--and can now drink without going off the deep end so she can sleep without interruption from sounds or thoughts.

"About a month, give or take a few days? I haven't been keeping track, honestly." She tries not to because the next thing she knows, it'll be another three years and still no hint of home. "You?"

"A month?" She's surprised, but then, she wouldn't even imagine this has happened to Angela before. "You seem much more settled in and organised than I can even think of." Despite feeling like she should be still during this whole drawing adventure, Jules is feeling quite unbelievably fidgety, and actually thinking about the need to completely overhaul, start fresh wasn't entirely helping; largely because she had been glossing over things here and there to make herself feel better.

Making herself just put her hands in her lap, and leave them there, Jules rolls her eyes at herself. "A week or two. I'm not being terrible diligent about keeping track, either. That's far too scary."

"I've had time to get used to the notion of alternate dimensions." More than enough time. Too much, even. Three years plus however long she'll be stuck in Baedal, and Angela has no other choice but to deal.

"You'll get used to it. As scary as that may seem, it gets easier. Not simple, but easier." And even then, it's sometimes the hardest thing one will ever have to deal with.

That sounds a bit ominous, but her curiousity is piqued nonetheless. "Would you mind horribly if I asked what that meant, or is it one of those comments you'd rather was simply left alone? I won't be offended, if that's the case, really."

Her smile turns a little wry. "Things don't really tend to be simple, I've found." And she wasn't too sure about easy being a real concept, but then that was the entire basis for all that optimism and cheer; it made coping easier. It made just being easier. In theory, at least. "It's very nice to pretend, though."

A bit more honest then she has been in general, over the last few years. Having your world taken apart, the comfortable spaces you created suddenly disappearing and proving false, can rather throw you off.

"It's nothing horrible. I just came from a place like this where I spent almost three years in. I didn't have a choice but to get used to it since I couldn't actually leave."

Sounds simple enough, but what Angela leaves out are the hard times, the long nights, the depression, the drinking, the physical pains. Getting acclimated to the situation was a survival mechanism. The list of options of how to deal was a short one and she went through all of them at least twice.

"Pretending can only take you but so far, though," she muses as she adds some red to the quickly developing portrait. "Sooner or later, reality catches up with you."

Three years. She didn't know how to react, how to... even begin to absorb that. Three years. And yet, if you were restarting your life, if this was something she should take as an opportunity...

Well. It didn't feel much like an opportunity. Angela's second statement, that is another thing to take the wind out of Jules' sails, even if she keeps smiling. There's a brief tenseness to her expression, the fleeting struggle to control something and shove it down where it can't be acknowledged, and she gives herself a few seconds before she looks back up. "I suppose you're right."

She doesn't like it, but she has to admit it. Reality had caught up to her a few times over, by now, but some things she hadn't even realised were pretend.

"Maybe it's kinder not to make any pretenses. They don't really protect anyone, ultimately."

Angela's the one who tells the truth to everybody, even if there are times when she really needs to listen to her own words and take her own advice. Those times happen few and far in between, by the way. That how she ends up in the situations that she does.

"No, not really," Angela muses, slowing down in her sketching to think for a moment, "I mean, it helps, but it hurts at the same time. There's no padding from the truth."

"It's not good having false padding there and then having the truth hurt more when it finally does hit you. You might think you're prepared, but you're not."

And there's not much padding from Jules' weariness and bitterness mixing together, her inability to find some bright, shiny way to dress it up and make it look better from this or that angle. It's just there, and she's not all too pleased with the result. "Sorry," she muttered, rubbing her forehead and offering a worn-out smile. "It's been a long few weeks."

Eagerly, trying to force herself to a cheerier state, she sits up a bit more. "How's it looking?"

» she saw the pictures and painted them

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