Note: I feel kinda bad for doubling up on requests, but they're for the exact same thing, so…

The original request from FCgrl: Why don't you sort of pick this one up? By that I mean, have a scenewhere Deryn actually sketches Alek, ya know?

And from SavySB823: Now I have to request an actual "Deryn-sketching-Alek moment."

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She could draw him from memory.

Deryn's known Alek less than two months, and she can see his face clear as anything when she closes her eyes. The line of his jaw, the curve of his chin. The indentation in the center of his upper lip. The slope of his nose. The dark reddish wings of his eyebrows against his pale skin. The curl of hair that never stays properly brushed back. The shape of his eyes, the sweep of his eyelashes. The perfect seashell spiral of his ears… which are not too big, no matter what he thinks.

Once in a while (oh, fine, all the barking time) she catches herself staring at him. Memorizing, without consciously trying. She supposes that, in the back of her mind, she thinks he's going to disappear on her again, and she wants to have him fixed in her brain before he does.

But it's going to get her secret discovered, so she needs to stop.

It's partly out of that desperation that she asks him if she can do a sketch. Partly. The other part is boredom and a wish to draw something other than fabricated animals and Clanker engines.

He's surprised, but he agrees after some dithering, and one morning when she's supposed to be delivering breakfast, she has him sit on a chair in his stateroom, where the light hits him clear and fair. She plunks herself on the edge of his bed and turns to a fresh page in her sketchbook.

"Don't just sit there," she says. "This isn't a royal portrait, your archdukeness – only a sketch."

"What should I do, then?"

She thinks about that. She wants him to look like himself, not stiff and princely. "Talk to Bovril," she suggests, pointing at the beastie with the end of her pencil. "Tell it about your Stormwalker."

"Stormwalker?" Bovril asks, perking up, always eager for new knowledge.

Alek's eyebrows lift. He glances at Bovril, then at Deryn. "Well. All right." Back to Bovril. "I suppose I shall begin with the engines."

He talks, Bovril listens, and Deryn sketches. She works fast, performing the small magic of turning pencil marks into something alive, trying to trap him on the page. Her awareness narrows down to lines and shapes and planes and shadows and highlights, and his voice fades to a pleasant background tune.

She draws him leaning forward in his chair, gesturing to the loris on the table beside him. His hands are measuring out the distance of some mechanical something-or-the-other, and his face is alight with confidence and joy.

He really did love that hunk of metal.

She shades in the parts that need shading, rubs out some stray lines, adds a hint of background. Then she pauses – just for a moment – to see if he's tired of being an artist's model yet.

"In battle the screen is closed as far as possible," he's saying, tracing lines in the air. He seems to have forgotten she's there at all.

Deryn holds her breath. Quickly, discreetly, flips to a new page.

This time she does a portrait. Not a royal one; just one that she'll be able to take out later, when all of this is over and she's at home with naught but memories and stories no one will believe.

She draws half of it from memory, hurried and rushed, so scared is she that he'll look up while she's staring at him and see the truth stamped right across her barking face.

This isn't a sketch of a friend. This is a drawing of a loved one. She'll have to hide it – somehow. But it'll be worth the risk, she thinks, to have a memory to hold close.

"Are you done?" he asks.

She half yelps. "Blisters! Don't startle me like that. Aye, I'm done."

He rises and takes a step in her direction. "May I see it?"

Deryn darts a panicked glance down at the portrait sketch. She could've saved herself the trouble and written Lately I've been daydreaming about you kissing me on the page instead. Barking spiders.

And yet, if she flips back to the sketch she actually meant for him to see, he'll notice and wonder why. Alek's fairly oblivious sometimes, but that'll be hard to miss.

Desperation makes her clever. "What's that Bovril's got?" she asks quickly, nodding at the beastie behind Alek.

He looks over his shoulder; she flips the page back; and when he turns to face her again, saying, "What are you talking about?" she makes a show of tearing the safe sketch out of her book.

Meanwhile, Bovril sits up a bit straighter and tilts its little head peevishly, as if it's offended to be used as a distraction.

"Never mind, then," she says, shrugging and handing the drawing over. Shuts her sketchbook and holds it behind her back. "There you are, your archdukeness. A proper masterpiece."

"Thank you," he says, automatically, politely, then stops and really looks at it. His eyes widen. "Oh."

And that's all he says for a great long nerve-wracking while, as he holds the sketch in the light and studies it carefully.

She starts to fidget. Maybe that sketch wasn't as safe as she thought? Or maybe he's thinking it looks awful. Maybe he's about to tell her to stick to drawing Huxleys and Clanker engines.

Finally he looks up. A smile touched with sadness flickers across his face.

It's that sort of look which makes her wish he knew she was a girl, because then she could push the hair (the one curl that never stays in place) back from his forehead and put a gentle kiss there, and carry some of the sadness away from him.

But maybe she's done that anyway.

"This is wonderful, Dylan," he says sincerely, holding out his hand for her to shake. His fingers are warm. "Thank you."

Deryn manages a lopsided grin. "Anytime."