Absit Omen RPG
Role-Play Boards => London => Muggle London => Topic started by: Léonie Wakahisa on May 26, 2019, 10:07:21 AM
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1045 hours. Shoreditch, East London.
Léonie breathed in her first drag of gillyweed smoke, coughing on the exhale as the rush swarmed her thoughts almost immediately. That was the problem with being a squib. Muggle contraband was okay but it wasn't gillyweed. Parts of her were undeniably magical and submitted best to magical substances.
She was sitting at the window in her studio (https://i.imgur.com/fYiHQw3.png), grateful for the brief reprieve from cloud cover that allowed winter sunlight to flood the busy space. A wooden board of mixed paints, half-finished, lay in her lap. The heating was on and Léo had stripped down to gym shorts and an oversized tank top; Robyn (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBVuh-E3J_Y) was playing loudly on her record player, D'Artagnan was napping amongst the canvases above.
A large portrait, eight foot tall, leaned against the wall by the window. It was a surreal depiction of Dido§, dead centre, wearing nothing but a pair of high wasted paperbag shorts against the background of lush greenhouse. She was delicately holding a paper airplane with both hands and staring straight ahead.
Loud creaks sounded over Robyn's voice, and Léo shook some ash off her joint as she quickly hopped off the sill. Footsteps on the stairwell meant someone was visiting her - the studio was the only flat on the top floor of the three story building.
"Nemo!" she threw open the door, smiling openly at the witch she had met in Diagon - Dido's friend. "Come in," Léonie stepped aside and gestured at her general surroundings. "I have gillyweed and snacks, just in case this takes a while."
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Things had been occurring.[1] Things had happened since she first met Léonie. It was hard to walk away from that, but connecting with the intriguing older girl was the perfect distraction. It was completely unique, but totally normal. No ghosts, no werewolf hunters, no magical police force ready to swoop down on them.
She didn't know what to expect, but it didn't cross her mind to worry about it. Dido and Léo were genuine and at the very least, she'd get to be in a place at a time with a person who just seemed to implicitly understand what she was doing.
Nemo stepped into the studio and looked up and up to the double-story space with the tall dusty windows and the plain paint-spattered everything. It was the kind of mess that was meant to be that way, a mess that was history and legacy, each drop a fingerprint. Léonie looked pretty dressed down like a spring weekend.
"This is yours?" she asked about the space as she slid her large bag off her shoulder and peeled off her stocking cap. So too did she shed her olive-green army jacket. Underneath she wore her Iowa Needs Lesbian Farmers t-shirt.
"Dido..."
Still in gentle awe, Nemo approached a towering portrait of their American-Friend-in-Common. Reminded her of Hatshepsut in the British Museum, like a Queen, bare and unafraid. Nemo suddenly felt distinctly untalented. What would Léonie make of her?
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"This is yours?"
"Yes." Léonie crouched in front of a small cupboard and dug out a few bags of crisps and chocolate pretzel sticks. "Somewhere to stick the squib daughter, right?" she flashed Nemo a dry smile as she tossed the bags on to a small table by the window.
Her parents had bought her the flat. It was hard to tell exactly why - maybe they knew she couldn't always stay with them or in the wizarding worlds, the way she was. Maybe they blamed themselves for her lack of magic. Either way, she didn't question it. This studio was her haven.
"You like that?" she glanced at the other girl, who was staring at Dido's latest portrait. "I wanted to bring out her insolence, you know, without emphasising on anything sharp...." Léo joined Nemo, looking up the depiction of their mutual friend. "Just softness, growth. I don't know yet if I like it."
She was going to give it another week and if she still didn't like it, Dido would have to pose again. But for now she had a different muse.
"So." Léonie turned to her visitor, taking another drag and handing the joint over. "Welcome to my studio. You have all morning?"
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Nemo kept her little twinge of jealousy to herself. Parents just having the means and wherewithall to get their kid their own apartment, that was unattainable for almost anyone Nemo had grown up with. But Nemo could relate, at least a little bit, with feeling like there wasn't a space for her. She smiled back with a little shrug. It did feel sacred somehow and she was happy for Léo; Nemo barely knew her, but it seemed to suit her warmth.
At the portrait, Nemo shook her head. "I love it. It's perfect. She looks like a queen."
That was always Nemo's favorite part of sharing her work, was hearing what other people got from it. A song Nemo might have written to be mournful would strike someone else as hopeful. Everyone came to a work with their entire life trailing behind them, whispering in their ear, coloring their vision, attaching themselves to different elements of the piece. And some people carried a personal history where they would just never not suffer at accordion music, and there was no way to change that.
Nemo took the gillyweed. "Yeah, all day. As long as you need." She ought to be busking or practicing for Christmas Carol, but with Kurby's warning and the colder weather, she was losing steam. She'd hustled hard last year, but she'd had to.
She looked around the room with a twinkle of anticipation in her eyes. It wasn't immediately clear to her where she should be. "So where should I be? This okay?" She glanced down, indicating her outfit.
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As Nemo continued to observe the painting, Léonie observed her. There was definitely something distinctly witchy about the other girl... like she could pop up in a Terry Prachett novel and be totally at ease. Didn't even need a hat to look it, either. But then again neither did the witches of old. All they really had was their craft. All any of them had, magic or not, was their craft.
"So where should I be? This okay?"
"Just by the window is fine," she nodded her head at the sill, where there was plenty of room to sit in the morning light. "Maybe lose the jacket?" Léo rifled through a few drawers to get out her charcoals for sketching.
As a rule, she sketched her subjects to begin with. It was a good way to get a sense for how someone posed and it was much more lowkey for first time muses. She finally found her set of charcoal sticks in a cardboard cylinder, all of them of various thickness and length. Lovingly used.
"You can strip down to whatever's comfortable, to be honest." Léonie plucked one of the larger sketchbooks from her shelf before turning back to Nemo with a shrug. "It's pretty warm in here. I have the heating on full blast."
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It was warm; Nemo had assumed it was the contrast from coming in from the code. Nemo set down her coat and hefted her small frame up onto the wide sill, and drew her legs up to remove her boots and socks. She set them down as a tidy pair - always her habit to keep a small footprint wherever she was. When Léonie implied she was free to dress down like Dido's portrait, Nemo blushed but considered it. Carpe diem, and all that, do things fully or not at all. Léo felt like someone she would trust implicitly, but Nemo had to always keep a sentinel in her heart. Things had occurred lately, understand. It left her both craving a friend unconnected to it all, but on edge about trusting what seemed alluring.
She tugged at her t-shirt sleeves, tucking them up a little under her bra strap like they did in soccer so they weren't so long. "I'm good," she said. She crossed her legs up, straightened her back, and rolled her neck.
"How long have you been doing this?" she asked, her intrigue over Léo no less diminished by meeting her in this space.
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Léo dragged a stool over while Nemo was getting settled by the window. She carefully positioned herself on it, checking the angle at which she eventually wanted the portrait to be. Not a direct aspect... Nemo wasn't like Dido, she wasn't in-your-face or at least not in the same way. Dido threw everything to the forefront like a walking explosion. Nemo (as her clothes indicated) had conscious layers.
So you had to get at her from an indirect angle. Léonie took out one of the medium sized charcoal sticks and drew one leg up on to the stool so she could rest the sketchbook against her thigh.
"How long have you been doing this?"
She started sketching out the general form of her muse, head downwards. Light and quick strokes. "Since I was a little girl," Léo answered easily - her mouth ran on automatic when she started drawing. "I always liked drawing. And then my family realised I was a squib so I went into it full time."
An easy introduction to herself. She was used to giving it, especially to wizarding people and anyone outside of the muggle art scene. Léonie smiled to herself as she loosely delineated Nemo's jawline.
"It's my magic. What about you?" she glanced up momentarily, hands still moving. "What's your magic, outside of wand waving?"
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Léonie just got right into it and instead of feeling conscious Nemo felt herself relax. She liked herself. She leaned into her whole thing, her lip scar, her baby fat, her bony fingers and toned arms. She just let herself be, let this new Léo find what she was going to find, see what she was going to see.
She hoped she turned out as well as Dido T, but that was the artist in her.
There wasn't sadness in Léo's second reference to her family's reaction to her magical status, not that Nemo could detect, but there was something ... separate as if she didn't belong anywhere. She was forthcoming with the content of the story, but not the earnestness that must be there somewhere. Nemo wanted to be separate from her past and took joy in this life she claimed, but it didn't mean it was never painful to think about. She held onto things. Her Lesbian Farmer shirt. What did Léo hold on to?
"My magic is music. Even my magic magic is mostly music," Nemo said watching Léonie and her charcoal. "Since I was little. It's never boring. Hardest part is letting myself suck at it when I need to suck at it."
Harder now that her music was her product, her livelihood, but that made it all the more vital.
"Do you sell it? Your paintings?"
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Her mouth loosened into a smile while Nemo spoke about music. That helped - with her posture, her manner. It opened her up when she was talking music. And Léo was sure that she opened up beautifully when she was performing music. Musicians were like that. There were loads in east London coffee shops or pubs, and when they sang you saw them as somehow more human.
She finished the first sketch and flipped over a fresh page, starting on the second quick sketch. Her method was to speed sketch her subjects until she felt she could sketch on canvas.
"Do you sell it? Your paintings?"
"Every now and then," she used soft grazes to form Nemo's brow in charcoal. "My mother negotiates a price if someone expresses interest. It's good money, you know, to keep aside for a very rainy day."
The kind of day you had to drop everything and disappear. Léonie didn't anticipate anything like that happening but it was a precaution she took out of the vague fear that someday she might have to leave her life behind, be it the result of disasters in either the wizarding or muggle world.
"I don't sell any of these, though." Léo added with a quick, shy smile. "Not without asking my subjects."
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For a moment, Nemo itched to see what Léo was doing but with an easy little breeze in her mind she let it go. It was so easy sometimes to just choose something to not worry about. It was so freeing to be unencumbered by relationships, obligations, responsibilities, even places and things. So right now, it was just nice to sit in the sun with a new person.
"Seems legit."
Léonie looked as calm as she felt, her skin and hair lit up so nicely in the sun. She found herself imagining the two of them when Dido was posing. Nemo wanted to know everything - she'd never met anyone like Léo before. She'd never known a squib before. There was an art scene in Omaha, and there was money there, but not like London's. And there weren't very many people that looked like Léo either.
"What else do you like to do? You don't just hang here and art?" She lifted a hand and arched her back dramatically as if she should be lit by a spotlight from below. It made her giggle.
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She turned the page, on to the third sketch. Léonie was quickly forming an idea for the portrait as her charcoal strokes grew in confidence and speed. Nemo: Wayfarer at Rest. Aware of her existence in nature, of being contained by it and of containing it within herself. Girl who overflows her own cup wherever she goes.
The artist was only peripherally aware of their exchange just then - her thoughts occupied by placing Nemo in a different setting, something more bucolic or Arcadian.
"What else do you like to do... just hang here and art?"
Léo flipped the page on to the fourth sketch, now working out the vague outlines of a rock pool. "I'm a barista at Blackwood," she answered on automatic and paused in her work to look at Nemo thoughtfully.
A smile crept across her countenance, acknowledging the dramatic pose. Playful, too. It needed some playfulness.
"Otherwise I just do whatever interests me, I guess?" she gave the question some actual deliberation, a furrow in her smooth brow. "Like, I wanted to put together a collection of portraits that explored light. Thematically. So I went to exhibits and photography museums. Talked to a uni professor about what they - muggles, I mean - what they believe light to be, scientifically. Went to a few light shows..."
Awkwardly, the squib trailed off and shot Nemo an apologetic look. "Sorry, I ramble if I get started. I just move on from one thing to another, really. What about you?" Léo turned back to her sketchbook, completing the fourth sketch with firm strokes.
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"You're fine," Nemo assured her. She could listen to people talk about their loves all day. It didn't really matter the topic, usually. Most people started off with generalities and a compressed joy, worried about coming off as a geek or dominating the conversation or exposing themselves too much. But show just a little interest and you could see people light up a little. She preferred to listen, anyway, than speak about herself. Most of the time. Here in London she had Abby and Virgil. They were both kind of prophets. And that made Dido T and Léonie muses, maybe.
She'd never figured a painter doing research at a university and museums. Sketching in the park, people watching at an outdoor cafe table neglecting a paperback, but not a sit-down with a physicist. Nemo adjusted her butt on the window sill and relaxed a little more. Let the giddiness leave her shoulders, the the corners of her mouth rest.
Besides Léo had turned the conversation back to her again. Friendly turn-taking. An exchange of trust, that. Give a little, take a little.
"I play on corners, open mics a little. Open mics are kind of meh, though. Feels like a factory. 'Okay, next up...' right? There's this magic theatre in Camden and I've poked my foot in the door to maybe play in the pit. I don't know. It would pay but I'm just hoping it won't be like high school band."
Getting barked at by a very tired music teacher who was covering all the schools in a district, and playing slogging ballads or dated pop music by rote.
She tucked a bit of hair back behind her ear. "I like meeting new people. Finding new places. You know Tower Bridge? I got to the top once. It was ... it was transcendent."