Shio and Stahl: C Support.

I want to draw, but I'm not sure what. I keep thinking of a comic, you know, one of those little crappy comics I draw a lot.

You know, me, Shio. Gods this first-person thing is weird.

You know, I'll just draw something with the Shepherds in it. Shanzira doesn't have her copy of Knights of Iris here, so I can't ask her... But at least I can get the actual Shepherds to be a reference! Well, as we recruit them, I mean, it's not like I could draw Gangrel right now.

... Didn't Shanz say her iPhone still works? I should ask her about that.

Oh hey, there's Stahl. Yeah, I want to draw him. I hold up my sketchbook, you know, bracing it against my chest, and trot up to him. Gods this robe is so easy to trip over. I calmly ask him, "hey Stahl, can I ask you a favor?" Well, okay, I guess I'm asking two favors, to see if he'll do that favor... You know what forget this.

He answers, "sure. What is it?"

... Um. How do I ask him to do this? Hmmm... "I want you to make as many silly faces as you can." Yeah, that works! I just hope he'll do it. It's a weird request...

And because it's so weird, he looks confused. "Er... Sure, but why?" He asks.

OkayShioyoucandothisjustdowhatShanzirasaysandbelti tout! "So I can draw them!" I lower back to a squeak. "You've seen me draw before, right?"

Okay, the thing with my voice is that it's naturally really loud. Back when Shanzira and I lived close to each other, her dad always complained that I was really loud and I hurt his ears. So I started talking more quietly, and... I'm also an awkward person, so... yeah. I talk quietly now.

Stahl shakes his head at me. "Um, no. I didn't even know that you were an artist. Is that why Shanzira's your best friend?" Hey, he's doing that thing where he's scratching his nose. I think he was about to ask me to draw him and then realized I was already asking him to help me with that. I dunno.

"Part of it, I guess." I could ramble about the day I met Shanzira. or, sorry, that was a really long time ago. I could ramble about the day we became friends. It was at our middle school orientation, she was the kid standing to the side with a Zapdos hat (she's really into Pokemon, especially at that time). She just looked kinda lonely so I went up and talked to her. Apparently she doesn't really remember this. I need to get back on topic. "But here, let me show you–" I open up my sketchbook and pick a few good pages, revealing a doodle of Gaius and Frederick. "I draw little funny comics. They're kind of stupid, and they mostly revolve around original characters of mine–" one gets possessed by a demonic cat!– "but some of the Shepherds are in here and–"

Stahl flips a page agh no what are you doing?! Um! Uh– "Is that Chrom? And Shanzira? And Frederick, and Lissa, and there's me, too!" AW NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING DON'T TAKE THE BOOK Um oh ok oh well... I'll just hold my hands at my chest where the book was, then.

"Uh, yeah..." How do I explain these oh my gods this is so embarrassing... "Those are, um..." I mean, I drew these before I MET these guys in reality. Or, well, not in reality, in this dream-type thing and you know what let's just drop it.

He gives me back the sketchbook oh thank gods. "There are great! They're really cute and well done!" Well, I just... I mean, I'm not the best.

I point this out to him. "Oh, um, thank you." Because it'd be rude not to be grateful. "I just kind of doodle them, Shanzira's way better at this than me." Oh, gods, she is. Her drawings are AMAZING.

Stahl puts his finger on his chin and thinks. "So you do caricatures."

Huh? I think I've heard that word before, but I don't remember where. "Caricatures?" My head tilts sideways.

He leans forward and moves his hands around to better explain. "You take a person's features and distort them to look silly." Oh my gods look what he's doing with his face he's pulled his cheeks out and squinted his eyes and this is too funny.

I laugh a little. "Well, I guess I do." It's more of a mix between anime and American cartoons, like Garfield and Baby Blues and that stuff. That's quite a mutt, huh? Especially since– according to Shanzira– anime is based off of Disney cartoons. Crazy, huh?

Stahl's scratching his nose again. "So you want to do a caricature of me? For free?"

He hit the nail on the head! "Yes!" He just looks so cute and fun to draw! I can see what Shanzira's talking about, at least when she rambles about him instead of some other guy in the Shepherds. (She didn't use to ramble about ALL the guys, but now she does. It's kind of funny.)

Stahl grins wide. "Okay, then! What kind of face should I make?"

For a moment, I think that the face he's making right now is good. So I open my sketchbook, grab my quill and inkwell, and sketch this really quickly. Ugh, it really is a QUICK sketch, it's not that good. Okay, new doodle. "Just make the dumbest-looking face you can think of!"

He screws up his nose, mouth, and eyes perfectly. "Okay!"

I laugh for a whole minute before I start drawing.

This support happened– but was not fully explored– in chapter Fourteen, Matters of the Heart. I hope I did well with the Point of View change? I need to show this to Shio to see if I got her right. I just imagined her talking in my head as I wrote this. After doing this, it struck me that she and I speak in similar ways, it's weird. OH WELL THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU'RE BEST FRIENDS FOR SIX OR SEVEN YEARS.