Where had these books been all her life?

Thumbing through one of the thirty paper back guides she'd just purchased, Andrea gobbled up as much information as she could, while also minding where she was walking. The book currently in her gloved grip, who's title screamed in caps 'FRIENDSHIP FOR IDIOTS', had thus far been pretty helpful... and she was only on the fist chapter!

"Step one, spend time around people. Well.. that seems easy enough." She mumbled, while flipping pages absently. Being at the mall, she kind of figured that she'd inadvertently fulfilled that step already. After having read up on the For Idiots series, and being unable to purchase all of the ones she wanted online (not having a bank account will do that to ya), she'd been forced to abandon her plans for the day in order to take a swift trip to the closest mall with a book store.

Glancing up from her book, the Greek took a look around her. She was on the second floor, with the food court up ahead of her a ways. It was rather crowded-- malls always seemed to be-- and nearly everyone was partnered up with someone else. Pursing her lips, she turned back to find step two.

"Step two... Make eye contact and smile?" Hm... seemed pretty easy as well. Andrea lifted her head, noticing two middle aged women who were about to pass her, and grinned at them. Both women jumped in response when they caught sight of the mutant girl flashing sharp tusks at them, took two great steps away from her, then sped right past without so much as a hello.

Andrea blinked, flushed brown and quickly hid her face in her book. Smiling was off the table, then. Or.. at least a toothy smile was.

"... Step three, talk to people."

... oooh boy, that was going to be a tough one.

Blake had mixed feelings toward malls. They were useful; lots of… well, everything, was available, and it was a stereotypical enough hangout for his parents to let him go with no questions. On the other hand, it was stereotypical, and Blake hated doing anything typical. Plus, there were always other people around, and they were almost universally annoying. Blake could never quite decide whether the positives outweighed the negatives or not.

He kept going back to the mall, though, so they at least must come pretty close. This trip he’d already been to the art store, and was carrying a bag full of new supplies, which he kept shifting from one arm to the other as the handle dug into his wrist.

Art supplies acquired, and plenty of time left, Blake had wandered back in the direction of the food court, since people were much more likely to stay still long enough to be drawn there, and stopped along the way at the book store. He rarely bought anything from there, but he didn’t visit often enough for the employees to realize that and start shooing him away, and they often had a number of interesting art books that he enjoyed looking through for ideas, and probably would have bought if the damn things weren’t a hundred dollars each. Regardless, they were interesting, and interesting was good inspiration.

…And, occasionally, there were inspirational non-books in the bookstore, too. Blake stopped in his tracks when he saw a girl with snakes growing out of her head, blinked a few times, and unsubtly looked around to make sure no one who’d recognize him was there. Secrecy from parents confirmed, Blake reangled and finished his walk to stop behind the girl. “Hi. Can I draw you?”

“Hi. Can I draw you?”

The Greek jumped, dropping her book in surprise. The book-bag slid right off her shoulder, scattering her newly purchased reading material all over the floor at her feet. With a quick little spin, she faced the questioner and blinked. "P-pardon...?"

Her shielded gaze dropped to the mess around her shoes, landing on the upturned cover of one of her self help books. The title 'COURTING FOR IDIOTS' glared up at her among a pile of other embarrassing books. The Greek's cheeks darkened instantly, and she quickly attempted to kick the gigantic self-help book behind her and out of view.

"...Draw me?.. I.. um... I do not think-- um, why?"

What an absolutely bizarre request! Never in her life had she ever had someone request to draw her for any reason. Andrea blinked at him, looking him up and down warily. He didn't necessarily look suspicious or sinister... so perhaps he didn't have any nefarious plans for doodling random mutants out on the town. Maybe he was simply an artist, then? She supposed this was as good an answer as any, though she still wasn't sure exactly why he would choose her out of a crowd of other normal people.

Thinking about artists, and possible reasons why he'd approached her, she reflected back to a movie she'd once seen. One in which a young male artists had requested to draw a young woman, and it had ended with a serious lack of clothing and a risque pose on a couch.

Her face heated back up instantly, and before she could talk some sense into herself she already came to a terrible conclusion. (Surely the self-help books she'd just purchased didn't help either, mainly the one at her feet.)

'Oh dear lord he was hitting on her!'

"I-i-i'm married! I'm too old for you! I--...I have to read!" As fast as she could, she bent and started shoving books back into her bag haphazardly, intent on fleeing as fast as humanly possible once she had all of her things.

Blake blinked at the girl. That... was not a reaction he'd gotten to asking to draw someone before. Or to anything, really. Maybe she was just really jumpy? Being a mutant seemed like it could cause her to be jumpy. "Uh... because you look cool?"

Or maybe she was just awkward and embarrassed. A lot of people had blushed when they'd drawn each other for a class, and she was blushing n--what did she just say? Blake's jaw dropped, and he blushed at least as much as she had. "What? No! Ew! I'm not old enough for that! You look cool and I'm an artist and snakes are cool but I can't normally draw live ones and those--well, I think they can't bite me or crawl away--and--no! Ew!" Going by Blake's expression, she might as well have suggested he cut slices out of his palm to eat; he'd have been equally freaked out.

"What? No! Ew! I'm not old enough for that! You look cool and I'm an artist and snakes are cool but I can't normally draw live ones and those--well, I think they can't bite me or crawl away--and--no! Ew!"

The Greek paused while stuffing the last of her books back into her bag, and blinked. He... he really just wanted to draw her? Nothing else? After sending a swift, rueful glare at her book bag and the guilty guide to relationships inside, she cleared her throat and attempted to save face. It was not going to be an easy task, seeing as she was sure that the blush she currently wore had moved in with no plans on ever leaving.

"...Oh.. oh, how dreadfully embarrassing..." She muttered, righting herself and slung the bag back over her shoulder.

"I.. um.. I am so, so sorry! I, um.. tend to have misunderstandings like this quite often... I'm still learning social cues and such." She drummed her fingers on her bag nervously, and shifted on her feet.

"Um.. so... you draw? That is a wonderful talent... I.. um, I am sure they wouldn't mind you drawing them at all. Right, Sloth?"

The largest snake stretched, angling one eye lazily at the boy from within Andrea's curtain of dark hair, and yawned. The Greek smiled, patted him, and nodded. "I did not think you would. He does not look it now, but Sloth can be a huge attention hog." The other serpents woke gradually, shifting in her hair, and Andrea shifted again.

"I.. I am Andrea. It is very nice to meet you."

Yes. Yes, thoroughly embarrassing for Blake, too; his face wasn't going to lose its blush any time soon, either. The disturbed expression was still lingering, too, though it wasn't as strong; it seemed more inclined to wonder (and fear) what conclusions this woman might jump to next than to run away immediately.

And she was still learning social cues. Blake was pretty sure there were classes for that that she could (should) have taken. Though he also knew some schools kicked mutants out entirely, so maybe she hadn't been able to. "I can tell."

"Yeah." Yes, Blake drew. And painted and sculpted, but he wasn't sure that mentioning those skills wouldn't cause another horrible misconclusion. Instead he eyed the snake; a bit larger than he'd noticed any of them were, but the disjointed jaw yawn was cool. Hopefully the snake would do that again; he didn't think he could draw it from one glimpse.

"I'm Blake." Nice was the standard comment, but she'd already used it... and Blake wasn't entirely sure that this wasn't going to end up too traumatizing to be nice, anyway. "You're... interesting."

Well. It was true.

The smile on her lips faltered briefly. Interesting? Was that a positive thing, or was it the kind of 'interesting' that people tended to mean in a negative light? Keeping her smile on, though it was far more uncertain than it had previously been, she fumbled for something to say.

"..Interesting?" She supposed just the visual differences between herself and most others could be considered as such, but... well, she had certainly never thought of them as interesting before. Annoying, frustrating, shameful, and dangerous... yes. Anything even remotely worthy of praise or attention?... no, not at all.

... Great, now she was feeling self conscious. "I... I do not know how something like this is supposed to work. Am I to sit somewhere? Or.. would you just like to draw sloth?" The Lust, having now awoken fully, began his usual wriggly attempt at crossing the length gap between Andrea and this new male, Blake. She swatted him gently out of the way as best she could, while the dark snake stretched eagerly toward Blake.

Blake nodded, oblivious to and not particularly caring about the woman's thoughts. "Yeah. Like... no one else has snakes in their hair, right? They're special." Maybe not as admired as special tended to imply, but still special. At least, she was to Persi; he wasn't going to get any other chance to practice drawing someone with snakes growing out of their head.

"Um...." Blake didn't really care whether she sat or stood or did handstands, frankly, as long as he got to draw. He did eye the snake for a moment; being bitten was something he was distinctly not inclined to appreciate. "...He really won't bite me, right?" As long as he wouldn't, though.... "Um... you might want to sit, either way, and..." Blake eyed the snake again, "I can draw him first, and then you?" Hopefully by then she'd have relaxed a bit, and not be determined to pose like most people did when they were first drawn.

With an unsure nod, she glanced around for somewhere to sit herself. A bench off to her right would do, with the added bonus of a large leafed potted plant beside it. Shuffling over to it, she dropped her bag beside her and arranged Sloth in a more comfortable position around her shoulders.

"Sloth will not bite you, even if he wanted too he is wrapped around my neck too securely to reach." She patted the others, who were much shorter than the large while snake in comparison. "I can keep them in line, too." .... unless you happen to be a pigeon, then all the curse words and slaps on the snout in the world couldn't stop them from trying to eat you.

With what she hoped was an encouraging smile on her lips, she turned herself a little bit sideways, so that Sloth was facing Blake, and folded her hands in her lap. "Is this alright?"

That worked. Quite convenient, really, except for lacking somewhere for Persi to sit. That was easily solved, though; there was a table only a bit too far away, so he just dragged a chair over from it. The sketchbook went on his knee.

"And he won't strangle you?" Probably not, if he hadn't yet, but it was a logical concern. And most people were less self conscious when distracted by talking than when sitting there silently. Unless they were a reader, and posing while reading, in which case they tended to start scowling when they weren't allowed to turn the page.

"Yeah, that's good." Persi didn't care too much which way she was sitting, really, because snakes growing out of her head, but there was nothing wrong with that pose either, so he gave her a somewhat distracted smile as he began drawing.

She was about to shake her head, but then reminded herself that she was probably supposed to sit still. "He does squeeze a little tight sometimes, but only when he thinks I am in danger." Or... that he was in danger. She hadn't really been able to figure out yet if the serpents regarded her in any friendly nature.

"If he tried, though, I am sure he would regret it. We would both pass out, I believe."

Fiddling with her fingers in her lap, she attempted to blow some of her bangs out from behind her glasses. How long did drawings last? She supposed it depended on the speed of the artist... Though, she very much hoped it wasn't going to take a very long time. She wasn't blessed with the ability to sit still for long periods of time without fidgeting like she had ants on the inside of her clothes.

"That's helpful." Permanent, automatic insurance against strangling was a good thing to have, really. Passing out would suck, sure, but once you woke up that'd be it, as far as Persi knew.

And she was fidgeting. Which was mildly annoying; Persi preferred to be able to draw someone who stayed still. He was technically drawing the snake right now though, and fidgeting was still less moving than a lot of the people that Persi drew (without their knowledge, but he was only practicing and they were rarely recognizable based on the sketches he did, so whatever), so it wasn't actually a problem. "I'm drawing the snake now, so you can move if you want to." And hopefully not move so much once he did start drawing her.

Another distraction might help with that. If he could think of something to distract her with. That took a minute to think of. "What books were you looking for?"

He basically gave her permission to move, which resulted in her waggling her knees side to side while tapping her fingers on them. It lasted only as long as the silence that stretched between him giving her permission and him asking about her books, though.

The brown that crept into her cheeks was probably a dead giveaway to how the subject made her feel, but she was too busy trying to think up something to say to notice. How did one explain self help relationship guides? Seriously.

"I...um... They are-" crapcrapcrap "-- research..." She finished lamely. "I am only recently engaged... so I thought I would look up how to handle such a thing." Sloth's tongue flicked out lazily at Blake, managing to not move a single muscle as if he knew he was being drawn.

In reality, he was in predator mode and simply waiting for his prey to kindly move close enough that he could eat it.

The wiggling was... kind of adorable. Also kind of weird, since Persi was fairly sure (though beginning to have doubts) that this girl was an adult. But, well, some people were odd, and there were far worse ways to be odd than by being more adorable than you were supposed to.

"Oh." Yeah, okay, Persi definitely did not want to hear about those books. Even less than she seemed to want to talk about them. Definitely time for a topic change. "Do you like reading?"

And the snake was a perfect model. If Persi could get him to keep his tongue out so he could draw it more easily, that might be better, but otherwise he couldn't think of anything. And he wasn't sure snakes were able to keep their tongues out, anyway. It was awkward enough to do as a human. Either way, he didn't know how to get the snake to do that, so he took advantage of the woman being still to sketch her head, where the snakes attached to it, so that he could fill in the details of the snakes next.

"Yes, I do." She thought about the book she had been reading recently, with the girl and her sword who fought goblins and dragons. "I am a very big fan of fiction... Dragons and knights and such."

Sloth tried to look back at her, and she forced him to turn back around and face the artist. "It is amazing what people can come up with when they put their minds to it, is it not?"

The other stories she read weren't nearly as exciting. They were geared more towards romance and the never ending pursuit of love. Not...eh... not exactly something she told people about in casual conversation. Not even Saphirus knew about her addiction to romance novels.

"My fascination probably comes from when I was little. I used to clothe myself in sheets and pretend to be a Greek Goddess."