foreverandtheswan:

^{Odette nodded in reply to Naminé’s initial comment, noting the thoughtfulness on the words as if the girl was trying to back up her statement. Truthfully, the princess minded very little – she seemed a lot like her in that regard. Whatever kept Odette from painting was the same thing that kept her from her art; a disappointing thing, if nothing else.}

^{“Ah, but sketching is close enough, is it not?” The woman asked, a smile fluttering onto full lips as she responded to her. Sketching was merely the building block to art before it was fully fleshed and coloured, and it was one of those skills that could not be so easily neglected. The princess could not deny her curiosity as to what the other sketched. Would it be people, buildings… animals? Odette was taught never to have an expectation of a person, as more often than not she found such were incorrect. Men who looked of honour turned out to be thieves – the man with the blackened teeth and hunched back saved a woman from a burning building. It was something King William had done his best to leave with her.}

^{“What did I paint?” her thoughts were interrupted once again, forcing them to change tangent. A hand went up to Odette’s lips thoughtfully, as if that helped her think. “I did a lot of still life in my youth – but that was mostly under tutoring. When I was very young I tried to mimic a painting of my mother and father in their coronation robes, but I lacked the skill to pull it off.” Thinking on it reminded Odette she must have been around eight or nine – back when she obsessed over her mother as all little girls seemed to do. She laughed softly. “I suppose you could say I’m a jack of all trades when it comes to art. I don’t seem to settle on a particular style.”}

^{A pause was given then as the woman reflected on her words, though it did not last long. She followed it up with her own question. “And what of you, Namine? What do you sketch?”}

         _{With a slight hum she nodded once, conceding. Sketching may be her preferred medium though it really just tended to lead to further works. After all, it was incredibly rare when an artist would paint without a sketch, would color in without a sketch, and she supposed that she did less sketching and more flat out drawing. Yet she never really felt as if the things that she drew were anything more than sketches, in spite of what she may attempt at. Then again, she found that when it came to art it never seemed quite complete…}

         _{Yet still she tried to imagine this woman standing in front of her with a paint brush in hand and a canvas in front of her, and then tried to imagine her younger and probably stumbling a little bit more through her work. It was not hard to imagine this woman as an artist—anyone could be an artist, after all—and for a moment Naminé wondered when the last time she had gotten to paint was. From her words it sounded as if it was long ago, as she had supposedly been much younger, and was now a fully grown woman as far as the Nobody could tell, but it wasn’t truly her business to ask.}

         _{Upon being asked what she sketched she had to pause and think about it for a moment, because she could feel her sketchbook pressing against her hip in her bag, and there wasn’t really a finite answer. ”When I can, I sketch many things… settings, people.” That was the best answer that she could give honestly, because she had drawn clocks and oceans and faces of people that she was familiar with and unfamiliar with in turn. Drawings that she did on a whim and drawings of which she had to do no matter what—it was a spectrum of things that she had done.}

                                             _{”—Whatever inspires me, I guess.”}