'Looks good, Butch! You're use of colours on the unicorn is absolutely gorgeous!' Malcolm remarked, while walking past. Butch grinned widely. 'Thanks!' He said, and he went further with his painting of a unicorn dancing on a Rainbow, with cotton candy clouds in the background (What did you expect? He is a son of Iris).
Malcolm had decided that he had to keep the reputation of the Athena cabin high. People had started to forget that Athena was also the goddess of the arts, and Malcolm had made it his personal mission to put that right. So, he started to give people painting lessons. He noticed that the Apollo and Iris kids were the best painters, behind the people of his own cabin (I mean, duh). The Dionysus kids (Or Pollux. Sheila didn't really do a lot of painting, obviously) made very… psychedelic paintings. Malcolm decided that Pollux probably just watched to much Yellow Submarine, or something. He truly couldn't tell what was being done on the canvas.
Because of an incident we don't speak of, Chiron had decided that a few Ares kids should have a go at trying to paint. Sherman yang and Mark were cursing the centaur the entire time they had a paintbrush in their hands. When Malcolm walked past and looked at their paintings, he almost put a step back. 'Ehm, Sherman, I don't think Chiron wants you to paint something that looks like somebody just... spilled blood on a canvas...' Sherman shrugged. 'Than Chiron should have specified that when he told me to paint.'
Marks' painting was not much better, not just because of the extremely unsettling picture and because it was just absolutely terrible. Malcolm quickly walked further to Clarisse's painting, expecting to see something similar there.
The painting had the same theme. It was fighting animals in the forest. Malcolm was pretty sure he saw the trees fighting too. Yet, he could séé that that was going on in the picture. Very good, even. Malcolm turned to Clarisse. 'Where did you learn to paint like that?' He asked. 'It is really good.' Clarisse shrugged. 'Silena thought it would be fun to learn how to paint together. you know, when she was still alive...' Clarisse went silent. 'Do you really think it is good?'
Malcolm nodded. 'Yes. Unlike the paintings of your brothers. Just, I thought Chiron wanted you three to paint more peaceful pictures...' Clarisse shot him a look like he had gone crazy. 'Peaceful? I am a daughter of Ares! Does he want me to paint like... Butch?' She pointed to Butch's Rainbow-unicorn-candy cotton mess. Butch turned around. 'My unicorn is better than your horror forest any day, Clara!'
'Nobody calls me Clara!' Clarisse yelled, before charging to Butch's painting. She threw the canvas on the floor, breaking it in half. Instead of panicking, Butch grabbed his palette and paintbrush. While Clarisse was busy destroying the unicorn, Butch smeared Rainbow paint all over her horror forest. He painting smiles on the fighting squirrels, and huge Manga-eyes on the trees.
When both paintings were thoroughly destroyed, Malcolm unfroze, and decided to step in. 'Hey, um, let's just keep… or, start painting, I guess.' Clarisse and Butch looked at each other like they still wanted to push each other into a lake, or some more violent activities. Yet, to everyone's surprise, they both got another version of their painting seemingly out of nowhere and calmly continued painting.
Malcolm blinked with his eyes and took a deep breath. Let's just act like that didn't happen, he thought to himself. He walked further to the spot were Will and Nico were painting. It was very clear who forced who to go and do this. Will was happily making a painting of a few puppies, while Nico was angrily looking at his canvas. It was almost entirely painted dark blue. Malcolm looked at the paintings. 'Nice, Will. But this ear is too big.' Will smiled at him. 'Thanks! He started working on the left ear on one of the puppies. Malcolm looked at Nico's canvas. 'What's that?' he asked.
Nico turned his head towards him. 'It is a blue canvas.' Malcolm was a little confused by that. 'yeah, I see that, but what are you going to make of it?' Nico shot him a dark look. 'It's just a blue canvas.' Malcolm looked at Will, who rolled his eyes. 'Neeks, it isn't so bad. It's three entire hours out of your life.'
'That's three hours I can't spend on becoming the best Mario karter in the world!' Nico said, while grabbing a tube of dark paint. 'But fine, I'll paint something that isn't just a blue canvas!' Nico smeared black paint all over the canvas, and reached for Will's orange paint. Malcolm quickly walked away, mumbling something about needing to check on Pollux.
His painting had gotten even crazier. Malcolm looked at it. 'Er, what is it supposed to be?' he asked. Pollux turned to him. 'I just painted what came into my head. I try put something everywhere.' Malcolm nodded, half-understanding it. 'It is... crazy...' Pollux nodded enthusiastically. 'I know, right?' Malcolm decided that that was a good moment to leave.
Malcolm stared at Rachel's painting for some time. It was depressingly good. He walked closer. 'Say, Rachel, did you dream about this or did you just imagine it?' He asked as he looked at the pegasi flying up to mount Olympus, and everything else that was happening. Rachel smiled. 'I imagined it. Nice, don't you think? But it isn't very good, I think.' Malcolm nodded and shook his head at the same time. You should give this class, he thought. You would be calmer than I am.
He took another round past everyone he had already visited, and decided that that was the point where he had to check in on Nico and Will again. Will's painting still looked the same. The son of Apollo was staring at his boyfriends' canvas. Malcolm realised why. 'Ehm, Nico, that looks kind of wild.' Nico shot him an angry look. 'My painting is less wild than Pollux' painting. Quit whining.' Malcolm disagreed with that. Nico's painting looked absolutely idiotic. He couldn't even describe what was going on.
So, instead of trying to do that, he just patted Nico on the shoulder, shot Will a look that said a hundred things (Mostly: Maybe don't do this with your boyfriend anymore). He decided that maybe it had been enough for today, but that was the moment Mark and Sherman started throwing their canvases and pallets at each other. Malcolm sighed deeply. He guessed that art-class had actually just begun.