Riddick had slipped out quietly and was now silently walking up behind Shaen. He'd left the room as soon as he'd heard Mercuri say that the kid was a Hybrid. Such an innocent kid. Wonder how old she really is. Riddick thought to himself. He cleared his throat and asked, "What are you drawing?"
Shaen nearly fell off the wall. She turned to Riddick, saw that it was him and handed him the picture of the lizard, instead of the one she was working on. "Gecko." She told him.
"So you can speak." Riddick mused, looking at the very skillfully drawn gecko picture. It almost looked like the real thing. "Nice job." He set the paper next to her and pulled himself up onto the wall, his back facing the street. Not that it mattered, because the streets were empty, now that night had fallen. "What are you working on now?" He asked.
Shaen smirked, covered her drawing and handed him a piece of paper and a pencil. "What are you working on?" She gathered up her drawings and Riddick got a brief glimpse of a human looking figure before she covered it up with the lizard.
"I can't draw." Riddick told her, silently wondering why he was bothering to be even slightly nice to the kid. He went to hand the pencil back to Shaen but she shook her head.
"Nope. Everyone can draw. You can too. I'll help you." She said, picking up her pencil and a clean piece of paper. She dragged Riddick toward the table and said, "First, draw a stick figure. Do it lightly because you'll erase some of the lines later." She drew a stick figure towards the center left of her paper and watched as he drew his. "No. no. no. Your arms don't come out of your neck." She erased the arms on Riddick's stick figure and redrew them so his figure had a neck. "Like that." She told him.
Riddick rolled his eyes and made another attempt to get away from having to draw. "See, kid. I can't even draw a stick figure."
"Well you'll never learn if you don't practice." She said pointedly. "Now, is your person a boy or girl?" She asked him.
The kid's smart…and very motivated. Riddick thought. He shook his head and said, "I don't know…does it matter? They're both drawn almost the same way right?"
"No." Shaen said. She sighed and drew another stick figure. The second one was taller than the first one and it was holding the first one close. "This one is a girl." She said, pointing to stick person #1. "This is a boy." She said, pointing to the taller of the two.
About half an hour later, Mercuri stuck her head out of the doorway and motioned for Jack to look as well. "They've been sitting out there for half an hour." Mercuri explained.
"I wonder what they're doing." Jack said, amazed that Riddick had tolerated Shaen for half an hour and was still sitting there, taking her criticism. "See? He's just a big softie on the inside." Jack said, going back to the kitchen and putting dinner on four plates. She carried two of them outside and set them down in front of the two empty chairs. The outside lights had come on twenty minutes ago, so the courtyard was bathed in a soft yellow glow. "What are you two doing?" Jack asked, sitting down next to Riddick.
"Drawing." Shaen responded. She covered her drawing up again with a picture of a duck and a picture of the gecko.
"Actually, Shaen's drawing. I'm massacring the skill of drawing." Riddick said, holding up his badly drawn picture of a person. "She swears that everyone can draw." Riddick muttered so that only Jack and Mercuri, who had come out with the other two plates, could hear him.
"You're not doing that bad. You should see some of the things that I drew when Shaen was teaching me." Mercuri said. She looked over at Shaen and said, "What are you working on now, Sweetie?"
Shaen grinned and handed her the picture of the Gecko. "Gecko." She said, turning her attention back to the picture of the couple. She finished shading the female and laid the drawing face down on the table. Shaen then turned her attention to the first drawing that she had been working on when Riddick had snuck up on her. She huddled over it and worked on it.
"Shaen. Put down the drawings for a little bit Dinner's on the table." Mercuri said. Shaen nodded and set the drawing in her lap, face down.
Jack looked at the finished drawing that was face down and picked it up. "Wow that's good." She said, in regards to the female figure. She looked at her counterpart and added, "In fact…that looks like…Holy shit!" Jack's eyes widened and she handed the drawing to Riddick. "Look like anyone you know?" She asked.
Riddick set his fork down and took the drawing. He looked at the picture and raised his eyebrow. He turned to Shaen, who had just finished her dinner and asked, "Where did you see this?" He was trying to keep his voice calm. Maybe she had just made it up. Just because it looked like Carolyn and Johns didn't mean anything. Lots of people kind of reminded him of Johns. They usually all died shortly after…but the point was that there were people that looked like Johns. Maybe she had just seen their pictures on the news. Riddick set the picture own and sighed.
"They were in my dream once. I think that's my daddy and his friend." Shaen said, smiling slightly at them. "What's wrong?" After a pause, she turned back to her original drawing.
"Mercuri…we need to talk to you some more." Jack said. She looked at Shaen and said, "Sweetie, we'll be right back. We need to talk to your mother. Why don't you draw some more?" She left the drawing on the table and followed Riddick and Mercuri inside.