Six had no idea what to draw.
Back then, he was flooded with mental images of the talisman; the source. He had to draw them. They were important and he had to draw them. He had to show them.
But now he didn't have to.
Everything was (relatively) peaceful now and he didn't have to draw the source obsessively, in a hope to make the others understand. He could sit back and draw whatever he liked. He could imitate the paintings in the library or go out and draw the scenery.
But it was hard. He couldn't do it right and when he couldn't do it right, he didn't WANT to do it.
Right now, he just felt like doodling something. Random shapes, random creatures; anything. He wasn't in the mood to make a masterpiece or anything. On days like this, he just lay around and did nothing. It wasn't particularly productive.
The twins weren't having any of it.
That's why they were teaching him to write.
Six was a little embarrassed to be honest but was reassured by the fact that only numbers 1 to 5 could actually write (although Five couldn't spell to save his life and even Two couldn't read his own handwriting after about a week or two). Drawing was his thing. He was a visionary. It's what he did.
Recently, the twins were thinking of teaching the rest to write and Six seemed to be a good start. He was already set with his pen-nibbed fingers and paper. What else did he need?
So the twins sat him down, and began to teach him.
They borrowed one of his fingers to write the alphabet out, upper and lower cases, and asked him to copy them below. In the beginning, his strokes were slightly crooked and shaky, as he was copying the slowly, but after a first couple of copies, he'd become a bit more fluid with writing his letters. After successfully writing out the whole alphabet, and neatly as well, the twins gave a silent cheer, incredibly proud of their new students. Six could feel a tingling sense of pride, something he hadn't felt before. It was rare to see someone so proud of his work.
So next they set him with the task of picking a word from the dictionary and writing it out. After explaing their task, they temporarily left to do something else. Six was left alone and felt rather overwhelmed by the huge dusty book before him. What words did he know already? Surely it'd be better to start from there and work his way up.
Source.
That was a word he knew fairly well.
He looked through his copies of the alphabet for the letter that made the 'ssss' noise. Ah, there it was. Next was the challenging task of figuring out what letter came next. He hadn't mastered reading yet but that was his next goal. He opened the thick book and flicked to the 'S' section. He reckoned he could take a guess.
Oh, this word looked promising.
Judging by the vowel sounds, it sounded like it fitted the bill. He let his hands flow fluidly across the page and it was relaxing. He felt a feeling of satisfaction after her finished. He hadn't realised how deep in thought he was when he noticed someone sit down opposite him.
Wait, no, it was two people.
"Afternoon, Six. What are you doing?" Two's cheerful voice called. Six looked up, a little embarrassed at being caught off guard. One and Two sat down opposite from him, both eyeing the huge dictionary beside him. "I didn't know you could read." One commented. He didn't say it to be mean. He just didn't know. Six shrugged lamely. "I can't read good yet but the twins have been teaching me how to write. I did the alphabet already." He said, proudly pushing the piece of paper towards the two elders. Two scanned the paper and lookd rather impressed. "Well done, Six. Writing's a very valuable skill, you know." He said with a smile, handing him back the paper. One snorted. "It's only valuable if you can actually read what you write." He sneered. Two blushed very lightly, clearly embarrassed. "It's only because I scribble it down so quickly. Not everyone has perfect penmanship like you." He retorted. The two stared at each other with raised eyebrows and slight smirks.
"Well, nonetheless," One began, changing the subject, "you've done quite well Six." Six didn't know what to say. It was one thing being complimented by the twins, or Two, but it was an entirely different matter when it was One. He was always hard to impress.
He was too busy daydreaming to notice Two looking over the desk at his word. "What's that you've written there, Six?" He asked, curiously. Six didn't shift his blank stare from one of the books nearby and mumbled, "Source."
He was surprised to hear a muffled chuckle. He looked up to see Two with his hand clamped over his mouth, trying not to laugh. One raised an eyebrow, leant over to glance at the paper before shaking his head. The two were clearly stifling their laughs. "Six, you've made just a tiny mistake. That's the wrong kind of word."
"Hmm? What do you mean?"
"You wrote 'Sauce' not 'Source'." One pointed out, hiding his smirk beneath his hand.
"...huh?"
One rolled his optics, letting out a dry chuckle and handed it over to Two. Two quickly looked through the dictionary before finding the correct word and pointing it out to him. "Source and Sauce sound exactly the same but mean something else. Source, as you know, is the origin of something. Sauce is a condiment humans ate with food. They're...ahem, they're completely different." He was laughing under his breath and he felt a little bad when met with Six's dismayed expression.
The expression turned into a shrug. "I didn't know that. So I would spell it differently?" He seemed more eager to learn the correct spelling than upset about his mistake. "Yes, instead of 'au' you'd replace that with 'our' and it makes the exact same sound."
After Six had written it out, he stared at the word. It looked a lot more familiar now.
'Source'
It looked a lot better. He smiled proudly.
This was inspired by a piece of shit I made in college. I recommend you check it out at my tumblr 'unavoidablekoishi' it's some funny shit