Two for Joy
Jeremy Gilbert stepped back into the recessed center of the drawing studio in his morning section of Figure Drawing. He'd been observing them during their last extended pose for the class that day with the curious apprehension he usually approached freshman classes. While Jeremy was a part of the Sequential Art department and most of the classes he taught were Junior and Senior level line art classes, he was obligated on rotation to take sections of freshman studio and lecture classes. It was always a mixed bag when it came to freshman, but so far the cross section of this class seemed fairly normal. There were a few students that the wisdom of experience had shown him probably wouldn't survive their undergrad, a wisdom that made him dislike freshman studio classes most of all. There were talents as well however, and there were those who had been the talents of their peers that would quickly learn they were now in the middle of the pack.
One student that intrigued Jeremy above the others, he now observed from below her easel on the first raised step in the small amphitheater as the last few minutes of the pose passed on. While the room had started out hesitant as the last couple of hours had passed the room had started to buzz with the amused din of young and bold personalities. She remained silent and focused however, separated in her own space somehow from the rest of the room. She had a beautiful sense of form and while he had offered some instruction to most of the other students, he had merely observed her quietly when he came to her easel on his rounds around the studio. He glanced up at her now from the other side of the easel and took in her appearance for the first time. She was small in stature with fair skin and a shock of red hair. He realized vaguely now that she was possibly much older than the rest of the class. She could have been almost thirty, but her small size and full figure gave her the softness of youth. Jeremy pulled away and glanced at the screen on his watch.
"Okay," he announced clapping his large and weathered hands together, "That's it for today. Thank you, Cara," Jeremy addressed the model as she broke her pose and reached for her robe.
"While we didn't get into the syllabus today, you'll probably notice that it becomes a theme throughout the rest of your day's classes. That's because as much as I loathe it, it is required by the college. I've sent yours to your school email, so if you'll read it over before Wednesday we'll spend some time briefly going over it. Also, you'll hopefully have noticed that your supply lists included a sketchbook. One of the many ways you will be graded this semester is on maintaining a sketchbook. If you don't have yours, get one. For now, just draw from observation. You'll have more specific assignments as we go on, and we'll go over them on Fridays."
Most of the room nodded in acknowledgement as they started to pack up there things.
"Alright," he waved a hand towards the exit, "Get out of here," he said with a smile. He turned back towards the desk where his things resided, but paused briefly as the other occupants of the room happily and obliviously departed. A chill ran up the back of his neck, igniting a long dead instinct that made the muscles in his arms tense and his hands ball into fists. He remained still as the room emptied and then swung around in time to see a flash of red before the door closed on an empty studio. A shadow flew across the row of windows on the far wall, the silhouette of a large dark bird making him swing around once more and like that the feeling was gone.
Jeremy released his fists and let out a breath, silently cursing the tricks he knew his mind was playing on him.
Florence carefully extracted herself from the rows of easels with better success than when having entered, waiting until everyone else filed out first so there were fewer obstacles. She glanced back for a moment at the too still back of her teacher, and a strange feeling crept inside her. Her gaze shifted to one of the windows where a large dark bird was perched. It tilted its head and something about its beady gaze made her stomach lurch. A need to flee from its piercing stare erupted in her. She swung around, fumbling to pull the door back open and stumbled through it out into the hall with a frenzied flash of red hair.
When Florence reached the thick hot air of the late Georgian summer her heart was racing and her stomach churning, and she didn't understand why. She stood with her back against the brick wall of the building trying to lengthen her hysterical breaths to a normal rate. As they slowed, a series of strangled laughs bubbled out of her chest and into the air around her.
She was being silly. The laughs became more normal as she convinced herself that believing a bird had been staring at her was laughable.
Florence took a deep breath.
She had made it through the first class of the first day of her new beginning.
Florence bent and picked up the portfolio and supplies that she had dropped in her nonsensical panic.
This was not the first time that panic and dread had followed her on her journey to Savannah; she just had to keep moving forward. As she stepped off back towards the Student Center, Florence thought of Gus and with her free left hand absentmindedly twisted the ring he had given her around her finger.
The sun beat down and the beads of sweat reappeared on her brow as Florence walked across part of the campus. She had meant to leave the ring behind, that would have been the right thing to do, but somehow every time that she imagined parting with it the breath would leave her lungs. It was a beautiful blue stone in an antique silver art deco setting and had been passed down to Gus through family. She knew holding onto his family heirloom after leaving the man that had promised her a family of their own was despicable. She knew it, and yet . . .
Florence paused at the fountain that punctuated her journey to the Student Center and stopped to sit beside it. Her next class wasn't for more than an hour, and the soft mist of the gurgling fountain cooled the back of her neck. She leaned her portfolio against the stone wall she was perched on before unzipping it to retrieve a flexible leather bound sketchbook, clipped together by a felt-tipped drawing pen.
Florence unhooked the pen and folded the cover back on the sketchbook to a crisp and unblemished page. She put the pen to the page and slowly out of oil slick feathers, a glistening eye, and dark menacing talons the image of the black Corvid reappeared before her. The ink and paper doppelganger did not incite the panic that its flesh and feather inspiration had. Florence tried to take comfort in that, but even its two dimensional gaze unsettled her.
"Not quite a murder is it?" Florence started and pulled an errant streak across her page with the pen. She looked up into the face of her Figure Drawing professor.
"Sorry," he chuckled softly. "You know some say the appearance of a solitary crow is a bad omen. I would draw him a companion if I were you."
"Jeremy Gilbert," Florence acknowledged as she closed the binding of her sketchbook and hid the bird's ominous gaze. "That's not a good sign in my case," she sighed.
"Has a lone feathered friend visited you recently?" Florence paused in response and a soft and sympathetic smile crinkled the eyes of her teacher as she left his inquiry unanswered. "I meant to ask you your name in class this morning. You did well." She blushed at the praise and she knew her complexion declared her embarrassment to him.
"Florence." Jeremy folded his blazer over his briefcase and took a seat beside her. "Hawthorne," she added in her tinkling voice.
"You have a beautiful namesake," he commented, "Italy is beautiful, and Florence is by far its jewel. Especially for an artist."
"I've never been out of the states," Florence replied with a sad smile.
"You're young," he smiled again crinkling his eyes with kindness, "You have time to see a lot more."
"I hope so," Florence replied with a look down at the ring that belonged to a different life and a different future.
"Have you thought about a Major specialty yet?"
"I was accepted on my drawing portfolio. I was hoping to enroll in an Illustration major at the end of the year." He smiled with a nod and stood.
"You're suited to it," and his favorable compliments made blood pool in her cheeks again, "That's Beatrice Cornwall's department. Some of my classes overlap with that curriculum. I look forward to observing your progress, Florence," he said as he extended his hand.
"Thank you," she replied with a shy smile, leaving his hand in the air between them.
He smiled and dropped it to his side, "See you on Wednesday," and with that Jeremy Gilbert crossed the square and disappeared behind the doors of the Student Center.
Still sticking to season 6 canon and gonna try and keep all of the season canon. As the last 4 episodes come out, I'll let you know if I decide to deviate. :) Thanks for the reviews. Keep letting me know what you think TVD characters would be doing 40 years from now.
