...Oh. Well, that made things a bit harder. What would Blake do if he couldn’t find something the woman had missed? He would not give her just what she’d already gotten. He eyed the painting again, studying all areas of it now, instead of just the statues. He… couldn’t think of anything obvious she’d missed, from his memory of the doors, but he hadn’t really looked at them, anyway.

Well then. He’d just have to find something. Blake nodded, mostly to himself, and started toward the doors.

It was still fairly early in the day. He should have time to draw every foot individually, if he had to, before the sun set.

Blake might not be talented at much, like Ace was, or at popular things, like Irri was, but the things he was good at, he was good at, and he’d prove it. No matter what. Even if that meant spending two hours ignoring weird looks as he drew every part of both doors from every angle. And even if he had to run a few blocks away halfway through for binoculars, because really, those doors were tall, or a block in a different direction for new pencils and a sharpener because the ones he’d brought wore out, well, there was nothing wrong with that. He was getting practice, and details, and he would impress the woman, and get to see the statues, and get money so he could keep dying his hair.

…What was the woman’s name, anyway? Blake paused, then shrugged and went back to drawing. He’d recognize her, anyway, and he was recognizable; he could figure out her name later.

The brunette watched the teen walk off with a smile on her face. He seemed determined. When she was sure he wasn't skipping out on her, she nodded firmly. She turned back to her painting, wondering where she had left off.

'That's right: the window,'[/color] she remembered. With a smile on her face she started back on the stain-glass portion of her painting.

As she finished the next area of the stain-glass, the priest walked up to her. She stopped painting and turned to him.

"Do you know who the young man outside is?" he asked her quietly. He was trying not to disturb the people in the church.

She nodded her head. "He's my assistant. I asked him to look around and see if he found something I missed," she waved her hand in the air. "He's completely harmless."

"You are paying him?" the priest asked her.

"Yes, sir," she answered. "Seven-fifty for each hour."

The priest nodded and turned away from her. She noticed he was heading towards the doors, and her 'assistant'. She sighed and followed behind. It wouldn't do well for the teen to get himself into trouble because of her.

Binoculars, it turned out, were about as helpful as magnifying glasses. That being slightly, but not much. They allowed Blake a closer look at the top of the doors, even though it was annoying to have to look between them and his sketchbook constantly, but they didn’t give him any kind of a different angle to look at anything. So, he climbed a tree.

Blake was soon perched quite comfortably fifteen feet off the ground, letting his feet dangle as he sketched, occasionally peering through the binoculars that otherwise hung off his neck in order to be sure he’d gotten some detail or other right. The binoculars were quite necessary, and quickly redeeming themselves in his mind; there just wasn’t anywhere high enough to see the doors from a good angle that was close enough to them to also see enough detail. Which made sense; they wouldn’t look very impressive if they were hidden behind something.

That the particular tree Blake had chosen to climb was still on church grounds, and thus probably not meant to be climbed on, did not bother Blake at all. It wasn’t going to hurt the tree, at all, and it wasn’t like he was climbing just to have fun. His climbing the tree was going to benefit the church, quite directly. So there wasn’t really anything wrong with it.

Still, the approaching priest wasn’t entirely unexpected, either. Blake ignored him. Just because he’d kind of figured someone might disapprove didn’t mean that their disapproval was justified, or that he necessarily had to admit that he’d expected it.

Blake finally paid attention to the priest once he’d stopped under the tree, looking up and surveying Blake with an expression that wasn’t approving at all, but wasn’t angry either. Blake stared back with an expression that resembled either innocence or a pout, depending on whether you asked him or anyone else.

The priest’s first question was much more unexpected than the priest himself. “Hello, child. Have you dyed your hair?”

“Uh.” Blake was too surprised to even protest being called a child. “Yeah.”

Sarah walked outside of the church with the priest. She suddenly hoped that the kid wasn't doing something to disgrace the church. It would not do well for either of them if he was.

When they exited the church building, Sarah searched the area for the boy. When she saw him she gulped. He was in a tree. The priest did not seem happy. There wasn't anger but nothing positive.

"“Hello, child. Have you dyed your hair?”

'Please don't do anything stupid.'

>>"Uh. Yeah."

She saw the priest nod. Sarah held her breath as she watched the ongoings.

"You will buy more hair dye with the money Miss Jackson is paying you?" the priest asked.

The brunette woman wondered if she should make the teen get down but ignored it. He wasn't likely to listen to her.

Blake stared at the priest as he nodded. What did his hair have to do with anything? He was pretty sure that no church ever had objected to hair dye. Except maybe as a tool of vanity, or something, but that sounded really old fashioned. Of course, the priest was old….

“What hair dye do you use?”

“Uh.” Blake stared at the priest for a second in utter bewilderment, before listing the brands and colors he’d used. That was easy enough; he’d figured out which ones he liked a few years ago, and been using the same ones since. “…Why?” It was probably a bit rude to ask something like that, at least when talking to a priest, but Blake was far too confused to care.

The priest smiled. “If you were lying about dying your hair, you probably wouldn’t have been able to answer. I wished to be sure that you were telling the truth.” He looked over Blake again, making Blake want to squirm. The look wasn’t even analytical this time, but he still felt like he was being evaluated. “If you could, please wear a hat and keep your hair hidden while you are here, after today. While I believe you, most people will not think to ask if you are a mutant or not before reacting.” He paused for a second before adding, “And, please do be careful of the tree.”

…Oh. Blake managed, mostly, not to cringe. “Sure.”

It was kind of tempting to ask why he couldn’t look like he might possibly be a mutant… but he already knew that answer. Not many people would go to a church that mutants were allowed near.

Sarah listened to the conversation between the two males. She was quiet and silently prayed the teen wouldn't get in trouble.

>>“What hair dye do you use?”

The brunette resisted rolling her eyes. That would have been rude, but the question was silly to her. If the kid was buying his own dye, probably against his parents rule, why wouldn't he know which brand he used? Or at least the color's name? 'The priest was really old fashioned,'[/i] she reminded herself. 'He wouldn't even consider scanning the final painting and creating an online ad. The man is worse than my uncle.' Her thoughts ran the course of the teen's list, which she was thankful for.

>>"Why?"

Sarah listened closely on that one. Why did the priest want to know?

>>“If you were lying about dying your hair, you probably wouldn’t have been able to answer. I wished to be sure that you were telling the truth.”

Insert creepy look from the priest. Not strange in the slightest.

>>“If you could, please wear a hat and keep your hair hidden while you are here, after today. While I believe you, most people will not think to ask if you are a mutant or not before reacting.”

The twenty-three year old did roll her eyes at that. The idea that her 'assistant' could see her didn't register until the act was done. The church would get more teens going if it was known that the church supported mutants. Teens wanting to rebel against their parents would flock to the church. Her father admitted to doing something similar when he was a teen. 'Respectible' church goers would avoid the church, but rebellious teens would go. The lose outweighed the gain.

There were a few more words said between the priest and teen before the elder turned to her. Sarah straightened a little to show more respect than she felt for the elder. "You chose well, Miss Jackson. He's a fine young man," the priest stated before he left.

"More like a 'fine young human'," Sarah mumbled out. Then she looked up to the teen. "You good up there?" It wouldn't be good if he was stuck or something. She didn't want to deal with anything of that sort.

Blake did not, in fact, see the woman rolling her eyes at the priest; he was too busy trying not to look like he was cringing. Giving the priest any hint that he was a mutant, regardless of his hair, was not something he wanted to risk. Even if the priest would probably never meet his parents, he might know Blake’s family’s church’s priest, and tell him. Or tell anyone, really. Blake’s mutation was far too dangerous a secret for him to risk letting anyone ever know.

Fortunately, the priest seemed not to have noticed anything, and left to go… do whatever priests did on summer afternoons. Praying or something, Blake guessed. He blinked and peered down out of the tree as he noticed the woman. Whose name he still didn’t know. “I’m fine. I like trees.” They liked him, too, as far as he could tell, or at least they didn’t not like him, which made them better than humans. “What’s your name, anyway?”

>>“I’m fine. I like trees.”

Sarah nodded. It was simple enough. "I like them too."

>>“What’s your name, anyway?”

That caused the woman to laugh. He was rather blunt about it. She was happy he hadn't asked when the priest was there. That wouldn't have gone well.

"It's common curteousy to give your name before asking for someone else's, you know," she teased. She wasn't sure he'd get it, but she hoped it would loosen him up to her.

She gave him a chance to state his name before answering him. It wouldn't be right if she knew his name and he didn't know hers. "I'm Sarah, though I suggest you call me Miss Jackson when around the clergy."

Blake responded to the woman’s lecture with approximately the expression he would have used in response to being asked to eat worms; somewhere between disbelief and distaste. Whether the woman saw his expression or not, he didn’t particularly care. “Common courtesy is stupid. Most of the time it just means lying to make sensitive people feel better.” Blake, of course, was not one of those sensitive people. Only certain people offended him most of the time, not all people all of the time, so he wasn’t sensitive; the people who offended him were just jerks.

He did not, however, have any particular objection to giving his name, even if she ought to have just asked instead of lecturing and demanding. “I’m Blake.”

Sarah saw his face just fine. She was expecting something like it to appear. She bit back a laugh at how discusted he looked. It would be rude and he probably would take it the wrong way.

>>"I'm Blake"

At least he told her his name. With a wide smile, the older artist nodded. "How far have you gotten?" she asked. After dealing with the priest, she wondered if he'd like to see the statues. It would be a kind reward. THough she'd only give it to him if he had actually done some work.

“Um.” Blake glanced down at the sketchbook, flipping through a few pages before looking back down at Miss Jackson. “Maybe like… two thirds?” He had a couple sketches of the whole doors from ground level on different sides, and detailed sketches of nearly all different areas of the door. Including, even, two pages of detailed study of the texture of the wood. He had a complete sketch of the doors from the higher perspective, too, and some sketches of details, but he hadn’t yet gotten down everything that looked different or interesting enough from the higher perspective to be worth studying, and the higher sketches were going much more slowly since he had to keep using the binoculars. Plus he wanted to get a couple sketches with the doors open.

So, really, he probably wasn’t quite two thirds of the way done yet, but he was close enough, and ‘about two thirds’ always sounded better than ‘less than two thirds,’ even if they meant the same thing.

“…Two thirds done with all the sketches,” he clarified after a moment. It wouldn’t be at all unlike an adult to assume he only meant one sketch, either because he was lazy or because he didn’t understand the concept of ‘sketch.’ Or both. It was quite gratifying to correct people like that, but Miss Jackson probably wouldn’t give him the opportunity to correct her, anyway.

…Plus, he’d better listen to the priest, too. “I, um, should go get a hat.”

Sarah nodded at the amount the teen had done. It seemed a good amount for the time he had spent working. When he commented on a hat she smiled.

"I might have that covered," she stated.

The brunette pulled her cap out of her pocket and flicked her wrist and let the black baseball get its shape back. She knew it wouldn't be a permanint fix, but it would work for the day. If he didn't want to use it, then she hoped he had another option.

"You can use this unless you have one yourself. I honestly don't think it should matter if you cover your hair, but shall we humor the priest?"

...Did this woman just carry hats around with her at all times, in case someone needed to hide dyed hair? Blake didn’t know many women who were willing to wear hats at all, much less without planning it, because female hair was fragile or something.

However weird it was, though, she had a hat, and not a particularly obnoxious one either; Blake approved of black. So he balanced the sketchbook carefully on a pair of branches, slid pencils and charcoal into his pockets, and climbed down the tree to get the hat. “It’s not good to disobey priests.”

>>“It’s not good to disobey priests.”

Sarah smiled and laughed. 'No it wasn't a good idea.' She had been wearing the hat earlier, but the priest had asked her to take it off. He had told her something about 'proper atire'. She had actually been annoyed by him since she started working. The priest had a problem with trying to run her life.

"So, once you finish, why don't you come inside and we'll go into the courtyard. The statues are next," she stated.

The teen deserved a reward for dealing with the priest. Then she'd probably call it a day for them both. Maybe she'd ask him to come back another day, but she was pretty close to being done as it was.

Blake shrugged, focused mainly on staring at the hat and trying to figure out how to get his hair to stay under it. Or get under it in the first place, for that matter. He generally made a point of not hiding it, since hiding it wouldn’t do very much to annoy conservative old bigots. “Okay.” Five minutes ago, that ‘okay’ would have been barely concealing eagerness; as it was, the half-interested distraction was genuine.

Blake pulled the hat over his head, then ran a hand through his hair before trying to lift the hat up just enough to poke his hair under it, one piece at a time. It wasn’t working very well.