ArchivedLogs:Clay Dolls

Clay Dolls
Dramatis Personae Aloke, Kelly, Lia
In Absentia	2013-11-16 Lia talks about art classes, Kelly and Aloke get broke hearts. (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <XS> Art Room
Smells of paints and chalks and turpentine mingle freely in this room, well-used, well-stocked. Natural light flows in, plentiful through the large windows. The long counter-like tables are speckled with spots of color, and half finished projects often stand on easels or propped in corners. The many cupboards lining the walls are crammed full of art supplies. It's after dinner time, but Professor Suresh is up in the art room. Classes resume on Monday after all, and he has a lot of preparation to do. He moves around, unpacking things that have been put away for weeks, setting up easels, laying out sheets of paper and canvas, sorting paints and charcoal sticks, etc. Aloke is wearing cozy-looking, brown fleece pants, fuzzy slippers and a black t-shirt. Over this is a paint splattered artist's smock which helps keep him clean while he bustles about. Lia is back to exploring. Now that things have settled and the students are no longer being instructed to hide away in the dorms, she is taking the opportunity to stretch her /real/ legs. The pale, thin girl is dressed in one of her few outfits that were provided upon arrival: a royal purple hoodie and matching sweat pants over a lavender T-shirt, all bearing Xavier's logos. The smells of the art room reach her almost before she hears the sounds of movement within, her nose bringing her toward the smells of paints and other supplies. So a little ash-brown head peeks through the doorway, its body hidden behind the wall, little nose sniffing and crinkling slightly like a bunny's. Further down the hall the elevator doors open, and a dirt covered student saunters his way out of it with the grace and presentation of a well-used Tonka Toy. Kelly's shirt is stained with mud, his hands are covered in small green scabs, and his knees have thick grass stains. He's exhausted, but the bright, half drunk smile on his face is unmistakable. But his skin is absolutely paper white, ghostly so, even his freckles nothing more than faint gray specks. Seeing Lia, though, he diverts what would have been the turn for the showers and instead begins to plod barefoot towards her. Aloke smiles and waves when he sees Lia peeking around the corner of the door. "Hey there..." he says with a tired smile. He sets down the bucket of erasers and wipes his hands on the apron before walking closer to the door. "Hey," he says again. "I'm professor Suresh. C'mon in, what's your name? Someone out there with you?" At the invitation, Lia steps inside the room, eyes darting around to survey its contents. One of her arms is wrapped around a look-alike doll in what appears to be a yellowing replica First Communion dress. "There are a lot of things in this room." An index finger taps back to her chest. "Lia." Her free hand brushes gently over the doll's hair, misinterpreting the question of companions. "I brought Coppelia." Her head tilts to one side. "Are we allowed to talk? I can hand-talk if it is better. They said everyone needs to learn hand-talking, but I can already say many things." Kelly slows his pace when he sees her into the class room, and then holds up a hand behind his head to rub into his hair as his momentum doesn't quite slow itself enough to avoid framing the door himself. "Oh I'm so-" he stops himself, nods once, and then "Didn't mean to get in the way for official teacher-y stuffs. I can get going." Aloke give Lia a gentle smile, and nods. "That's right, Lia, we have /lots/ of things in here." Aloke starts some stilted sign language to list some of the things, saying them aloud at the same time. "Paints. Brushes. Canvases. Stools." He shrugs and adds, {I'm sorry,} just in sign language then. "I don't know enough to hold a conversation, so we'll just have to be careful." Aloke smiles at Kelly's entrance, nods at Kelly's self-correction, and then beckons the boy to come in. "No no, Kelly, come on in. We're just getting set up for Monday." Aloke pulls up a stool from the many standing around and perches atop it. "You can both come in and sit down, if you want. Are either of you enrolled in an art class this semester?" "It is a full room. Many smells and colours." Her own smile is a bemused thing. 'Sorry,' Lia signs back before returning to speaking aloud, "is a good thing to know how to say. Sickword." She twists slightly to regard the other boy when he speaks. "Oh, hello, Flowerboy. Kelly. Kelly Green! You are a colour." The smile on her face blossoms brighter. "No, no official teacher thing. I don't have any official teachers. Are you a teacher?" This last is directed back to Aloke. "I...don't think I have any classes. Fairyjax told me that I could come here and dance." "Lia has the signing thing down. I'm kinda jealous." Kelly laughs out, as he fumbles a Hello! I am Car to see you. in clumsy twisting fingers. "But with classes I'm kinda in the same boat as her, Mr. Suresh." Kelly admitted, nodding to Lia as she answers. He moves in, wiping a lot of the dirt on his hands on his shirt, staining it even further, and moving to one of the seats to rest, breathing heavily. "I wanted to take an art class, though. And Jax, oh I mean Mr. Holand, also talked me into a dance class. But I was supposed to get that taken care of the Monday after Halloween, but, well..." he shrugs his shoulder. "You guys have had a lot more important things to worry about. Do, you need any help here?" he motions to the obvious work to be done in the room, despite his exhaustion, eagerness to chip in and do... well, ANYTHING bleeding out his face. "Fairy-" Aloke begins, confused, and then he smiles, getting it. "Right. Well, I'm sure you'll have schedule sorted out on Monday. Obviously things have been hectic." Intermittently, Aloke throws in the signs for words he /does/ know, probably just for practice. "But you know what, Kelly? I actually could use a hand. Would you mind sorting those paint brushes and washing them in the sink? A bunch of them were put away without being cleaned, and that was weeks ago now." He smiles at Lia. "There's enough work for two, if you're not busy, Lia." Smoothing Coppelia's hair again, Lia sits the doll on a stool, tucking her up to a table as if the tiny girl means to begin a project. "You are not a car," she informs Kelly, as if he perhaps were confused about this, signing along with her speech. "Happy." Her hands move through this sign, correcting the hand position and direction of movement. "I like colours. But there are many arts I am not allowed to do. Clay is bad; it makes people." Her brows knit together for a moment. "Am I allowed to do clay now? I already have dolls now. They were not allowed before. Rules are confusing, but...should follow rules." She eyes the tools that Aloke is working with. "Am I allowed to touch?" Kelly frowns as he listens to the rules that Lia had to follow, a pained face turning to Aloke briefly before he lets an enforced smile re-fix itself to him when he turns back to Lia. "I think that the rules here are going to be a lot different than your old rules, Lia." He begins, but decides to let the authority figure handle the rest, since he barely knew the rules here yet, himself... and was likely breaking half of them. Still, he picked up the brushes and went to the sink, washing his hands before he got to the arduous task of cleaning up the brushes one at a time. "Does art always make a big mess like this?" he asked motioning to the state of the room and tools. "Or is it just when its kids doing it?" "Oh hon..." Aloke says quietly. He's still not at one hundred percent, which he does not have full control of his 'teacher mask' yet. His honest sadness, guessing at Lia's past until now, is worn plain on his face. "We /do/ have rules here, but I think they are so, /so/ different from what you're used to. You can /definitely/ play with clay in the art room, and make whatever shapes inspire you, ok?" Aloke has his 'friendly teacher' voice back for the moment. He turns to Kelly then at the sink. "And yeah, Kelly, if you're doing it right, there oughta be a big mess. This is definitely the messy-is-ok zone. And thanks for your help." Aloke stands and starts to bustle about, sorting through some different kinds of paper, in big sheets, making different stacks. Lia's features scrunch again. "How will I know which rules to do, then? I don't want to get in trouble." She sounds entirely younger than her teenaged years at that. "Is there a clay class? I would like to play." She steps toward Aloke and his pile of supplies, running her hands over the ones nearest to her on the table. "What should I do?" "Well, uhm, like, the school's rules are a good start, there. No fighting, no drugs, no alcohol..." Kelly rattles on as he starts washing up, trying ot keep his tone up-beat even as he gets a little angry on his neck at whatever place mistreated this girl. The kind of place he hoped got SMASHBANGPOWSPLODY! Cause it sounds like jerks. Big jerks. The kind that would bunch a mall Santa, jerks. "And I'm glad to help. I was helping Ms. Monroe earlier, but she made me stop and sent me to my room." Ooops... uh... Kelly goes a bit silent, his bone white skin and grey freckles not able to BLUSH any more, but he would if he could, however he does have a solid 'Shouldn't have said that' face on. "Well Lia, you don't have to worry too much. You really only get in trouble when you /know/ a rule, and break it anyway. Breaking it on accident, especially while you're new... you'll be ok. I promise." While he talks, Aloke goes to a tall cabinet and pulls out a yellow paper box of brown clay about the size of a brick. He sets it down in front of Lia on the table, and says, "This is yours to /keep/. If you seal it up when you're done playing, maybe add a drop of water from time to time, it'll last a long time. Or if you make something you want to keep forever, and put on the shelf, I'll put it in the oven for you, and bake it up right." He smiles, and ruffles Lia's hair, before raising an eyebrow to maximum elevation at Kelly's remark. "Kelly... are you supposed to be in your dorm right now? If professor Munroe..." Aloke puts his hand on his hips, studying the boy with a half smile. "Oh, I don't... I only take the medicines they give me or fight things if they tell me to. My magic is better at other things than fighting, though, so usually they don't make me do that very much." Her head tilts yet again at the assurance of no punishment for accidentally breaking rules. "I used to break rules I didn't know. It didn't matter. Bad to break rules." Her fingers wiggle in the direction of the clay as she looks at it, as if kneading it from a distance. "Now? Or...there are things you wanted me to do. And then clay?" Her head ducks slightly at the motion toward her. The teacher's smile eases her uncertainty at the touch, however, and she allows it quietly. "If a teacher sends you to a room, is that a rule?" "Well, no, I mean yes, but it was..." Kelly mumbles as he looks quickly away from Aloke and into his brushes. He washes two more before he speaks again. "She just didn't want me trying to make any more food, but I know I could make another basket if she let me... and besides, this is washing stuffs, no plants at all." He said again in a non-blush. Trying to change the subject, he looks to the clay that he gave Lia. "That looks like fun, Lia." Aloke bites his lip when Lia describes the use of her mutant ability as 'magic', but doesn't argue with her. He shakes his head at breaking rules one doesn't even know about. Instead he just asks, "You can play with it now, if you want, Lia. Out of curiosity though," Aloke gives Kelly A Look. A 'play along' sort of look. His expression is pretty clear. It also looks like he's willing to let the issue of Kelly being in trouble slide for now. "What kind of magic do you do, Lia?" "I always thought it looked like fun," Lia agrees about the clay with a nod. She sits down at the table, opening the box. "I make the dolls dance. If they are close to me, I can give them just a little of my magic and only dance them. If I take all of my magic and put it in a doll, it can go away from me. My shape is empty when I do that, though." Her eyes linger on the block of clay for several beats before she attempts to interact with it. Then she just brings her hand up, one finger extended and just poking down into it. Her eyes widen, glittering to match her delighted giggle as she watches the digit sink away into the clay. When Kelly hears that little giggle come from Lia, his own smile broadens, and he sets his brushes down, drying his hands on his pants before walking over closer to watch. "Most of the time when I meet Lia she's in one of her dolls. Though I don't think she likes it when you pick them up." Kelly explains with a slightly laugh in his own face as he looks down at the block of clay. He's more than willing to go along with things, the very last thing he could stand right now is breaking the girl's illusions. Though, Aloke gets one thankful nod when he seems to have been let off the hook. Aloke's smile is almost pained with Lia's degree of sweetness. He bites his lip and nods as she explains. "Well, I bet you could make all kinds of fun shapes, and make them dance," he says, pulling up a stool to sit across from Lia at her table. He nods at Kelly's advice and asks Lia, "What would you like to make first?" Lia drags her finger along to trace a line in the clay, segmenting off a smaller square. "I have been in other shapes a lot lately. It wasn't safe to be away from the dorms, they said. So I left Lia-shape in the dorms. I don't like for people to pick up the small dolls without telling me. They are very easy to be overpowered by normal-sized people." She pulls out the smaller square of clay, placing it on the table and returning the lid to the remaining clay to keep it damp. "I could make shapes to dance. If I am going to dance them, they have to be doll-shapes." Kelly watches the girl play and stumbles a little bit as he does. Maybe Dr. Munroe was right... And he certainly isn't the great art teacher here. "Well, Mr. Suresh, I think I should probably get to my room like I was supposed to." He says and heads towards the door drained. "It looks like you two have a lesson to get to after all."