Sarah smiled to herself as she set up her easel in the back of the old church. The brunette made a deal with the church to help raise attendance; she created an advertisement and they let her paint inside. The deal was perfect for the artist. The interior of the church was amazing to the non-religious woman.

'Whoa! Stay on task there, child,' Sarah chastised herself.

With her mind back on track, the dark skinned girl set to work on finding the perfect colors for the stain-glass window presented in the back balcony. The colors were old and faded slightly, but that was what attracted her interest. She had already finished the outlines and the base color of the walls. Once Sarah had found the perfect shades for each of the stain-glass pieces, she set to work.

As she worked, Sarah barely noticed the on-goings of the church. She knew that the doors opened and closed and that people spoke and prayed, but she wasn't paying true attention to her surroundings. When she finished with the easy panes. When she got to the faces and other far more important pieces, she stood back from her easel for a brief break.

"Hmm," Sarah hummed as she looked around at the different people in the building.

The idea of praying for almost foreign to her, but she understood that people needed quiet and privacy. Her eyes swept over the people, but didn't take them in. She was trying to give them as much privacy as she could. With one last look at the people, Sarah decided to fill another spot of the painting with the pews and people. She wondered briefly if she could get the pastor to pose for her later.

"Wonder if I should get a few pictures for later," Sarah wondered out loud.

Blake had, for some time, had a very well developed world inside his head. More than one, in fact, but one in particular--designated the ‘devil religion’ world--he had spent a lot of time illustrating recently. Scenes, landscapes, details of statues and the remains of rituals. Unfortunately, however well detailed the world might be in his mind, that didn’t mean it transferred very well to paper. The vision in his mind would shift angles, slightly, or lighting, or just change, or a new one would shove its way in and the one he’d been trying to draw was shoved aside. It was incredibly frustrating; his own brain was conspiring against him.

It had been true for a while, though, so Blake had been forced to find a way around it, mainly by finding something that resembled some part of his world, drawing that and then adapting it to suit his world. Which, since the world was built around an evil, corrupted religion, meant finding a lot of religious things, drawing them, and then corrupting them. That much, at least, was fun, even if he had to tell his parents that the drawings were all his ideas of what a mutant church would look like.

This particular day he felt like working on details, so he’d snuck inside an ornate church relatively nearby, and begun drawing whatever small, interesting bits he could find. The bases of pillars, carvings in the wall or benches, tile work in the floor, and every other interesting detail he could find (or find a base for) were all drawn, and then had edits drawn over them to save the general outlines of his idea for what to corrupt them into. He wanted to get as many details drawn as possible, so fully changing the sketches wasn’t possible--or at least not wise--so Blake only added the minimum amount necessary for him to be sure he’d remember.

He also sketched while walking from one detail to another, which wasn’t too horrible of an idea. Most of the time he only had to navigate around stationary pillars and benches, with the occasional equally-stationary person adding complication, and a glance up before he started walking, combined with the edge of his vision as he walked, was enough warning for him to move around everything in his way, even if he occasionally ended up a bit to the side of where he’d intended to be. The easel that appeared in his way was unexpected, but easy enough to step around. The solid thing that he immediately ran into, only to fall down, was also unexpected, and Blake’s expression as he looked up was a mix of annoyance and confusion.

Oh. That was a person there. Alright then. Now where had she come from?

After taking three photos with her digital camera, flash off, Sarah pulled out her sketch pad. With a few quick strokes of a pencil, the brunette had a rough sketch of the front of the pews, for reference. As she was finishing the last pencil stroke, something hit her.

She looked down to find a long haired teen flat on the ground. She figured her stance had caused the teen to fall. After blinking a few times to understand exactly what happened, Sarah spoke.

"You okay?" she asked. "Sorry about that. Guess I should have let people know I was here."

The brunette laughed lightly as she set her sketch pad on her art supplies bag. After making sure the pad wasn't going to get hurt, she turned back to the teen. Before she continued talking, she reached out her hand, wanting to help the teen to his feet.

"You here for art reasons?" she asked after taking in the sketch pad lying with the black haired teen.

'I wonder what he was drawing,' Sarah questioned in her mind. She had the urge to look at the teen's drawings, but kept it in.

Blake looked up with an expression that he hoped was closer to a scowl and suspected looked more like a pout. The girl’s tone was entirely too casual, like she wasn’t at all surprised she’d knocked someone over, and was just repeating the necessary words so he couldn’t say anything. Well, he figured it out anyway. “I’m fine.” No thanks to you, was unstated, but should be quite understandable.

…And she laughed at him! She knocked him over and then laughed at him! Blake ignored the hand she held out; she’d probably just push him back over again, anyway, and climbed back to his feet with only a bit of awkwardness. And that was purely due to having to hold onto his sketchbook and pencils while standing up; it made balancing awkward.

“Yes.” That should have been obvious. He had a sketchbook, didn’t he? Why would he have a sketchbook if he wasn’t there for art?

He was not going to ask why she was there. Even if he kind of wondered why she was painting this place in particular. Most art with churches was pretty old fashioned; his didn’t count because it was about fictional, fantasy churches. Anyway he didn’t want to make her think he cared; way too many girls got away with being rude just because some people thought they were pretty. He wasn’t going to put up with it.

When the teen ignored her hand, Sarah felt a little upset. She hadn't meant for him to walk into her. He seemed upset with her, though she wasn't sure why.

'Maybe he's having a bad day,' Sarah thought to herself.

>>"Yes."

Sarah noticed the teen's tone wasn't too kind. She also knew her question was kind of silly because it had an obvious answer. She had only asked because she wondered what he had been doing.

"Can I see some of it? I'd like to know how you see the church," Sarah commented. "I'm doing something for the church and I'd like to know what you think of the church itself. If you don't mind telling me that is."

There was a slight chance he would answer her. The possibility of him just ignoring her was high, but she wanted to risk it. He might be able to give her some advice from another point of view. She didn't know any artists in the area and having another point of view would be nice.

Blake stared. And then continued staring. “Uh….” He really had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. It was an entire level of arrogance beyond what he’d ever encountered before. Or ignorance. Or… something. He had absolutely no idea. “Okay?”

He held his sketchbook out so she could see it; a page of detailed pencil drawing of the base of a column, pen marks added over it to indicate his ideas of how to change the figures and shapes to more ominous ones. “I’m not trying to draw this church.”

Sarah was shocked he was okay with it, though she may have just shocked him. She could see his shock, but he still handed her the sketchpad. With a soft smile she took the pad in her hands.

>>“I’m not trying to draw this church.”

She nodded as she looked at the picture. It looked like the base of one of the columns. There were other markings on top of the base. It took a moment for her to realize what he had been doing.

"You're using this church as a base, aren't you?" she looked up at him from the sketchpad. "This is helping you put your ideas down, right?"

She could remember doing something similar when she was starting out. However, she had used her brother as her base and then created what her mind had pictured as one of her tribe's gods. She had edited the picture a lot, but back then she couldn't draw a humanoid to save her life.

Looking back at the drawing she found there was an almost sinister quality to what would be done. However, she pulled her mind from the angelic things her mind saw in the church she had been working in. She then looked at the picture with a new light. There were some things she questioned, but she figured the teen was still working on the final project.

"This looks really good to me. I like how you've been able to turn it into something dark. Seems you have a very good imagination," she told him as she handed the pad back to him.

...That was a condescending smile. Most smiles were, but still. That was a condescending smile.

“...Yes.” The response was forced, reluctant, and altogether scowly. As was Blake’s expression. Scowling, after all, was much more mature and dignified than sulking, and Blake was a very mature and dignified person. In behavior, if not yet in height.

And at that point, Blake was back to having no idea. Was the woman being sarcastic? Or genuine? Either option seemed ridiculous, and Persi accepted his sketchbook back with more confusion than anything else. Adults didn’t like his artwork, especially when it was dark. But adults also weren’t sarcastic. And… seriously, was this woman a robot or something? Or was there some third, not genuine or sarcastic method of conversing that Blake had somehow never been aware of?

“...What are you… painting?” was Blake’s distinctly feeble attempt to change the subject. Hopefully not to one where the woman would just confuse him more.

Sarah was even more shocked that he asked her what she was doing. It seemed forced, but she would answer anyway. 'What to tell him.'

"I'm painting an ad from the church. They're in need of more attendants and asked me to do something for them. I'm trying to make it a collage of pictures, highlighting the church's best qualities. It's almost done actually. I just need to finish the stain-glass window and add a bit with people in the pews.

"I've already gotten a painting of the confession boxes; the wood was a pain to detail by the way. I did a quick bit of the doors opening; it was off a picture but it looked cool to me. I also did a some of the sculptures in the courtyard in the back; it's not open to the public but they let me paint it since members of the church can go in there."[/color] Sarah paused to take a breath. She realized she was rambling, but she couldn't help herself.

"Sorry. I guess I got excited. Do you wanna see it?" She waited for his answer with only a little patience.

“Statues?” That caught Blake’s attention. He hadn’t been able to do much with statues, though he wanted to. Most statues he could find were just too… sappy, or else too standardized, to work. There were only so many variants of ‘man on a horse’ that you could make before it just got dull. Church statues might be more interesting. The woman didn’t seem to hear him, though, probably because he’d spoken automatically and not very loudly as a result. Just as well; one word questions weren’t very eloquent.

Persi nodded at her invitation, stepping around to look at the painting without hesitating. A quick glance let his eyes rest on the statues. Not quite what he’d hoped for, but definitely better than he could find most places. He wanted to copy the images of the statues in his sketchbook, but that would be more than a bit rude, and not nearly as good as drawing from the real things anyway. “Do you have pictures? Of the statues?”

Sarah waited with a semi-baited breath. She wasn't too sure why this teen's opinion seemed to matter so much. 'Because he's a teen and "teens need to go to church",'[/color] her mind recited. It was something the priest had told her a few times.

The statues? Sarah thought back. Did she have pictures? She had taken one of the doors opening, the pews, the wood detail on the confession boxes, and a few other things she had thought about. No statues though. With a quick shake of her head she looked around the church.

"I didn't sorry," she told him. A quick thought made her smirk. "Wanna be my assistant?"

If he said yes, she could take him to the statues. They said she could go back if she needed to. She wasn't going to lie to a priest, but if he agreed, it wouldn't be lying. If he said no, then that was it. She wouldn't be able to take him. She hoped he'd say yes.

Blake’s nose wrinkled in automatic distaste at the woman’s suggestion, but he hid the expression as soon as he could. It wasn’t dignified. Even if it was accurate. Blake didn’t want to be anyone’s assistant. Or anything, really. He already knew he was going to have to get a job next summer; he was perfectly entitled to do nothing this summer. At least, nothing that he didn’t want to do.

But he did want to see those statues…. Blake’s eyes drifted down to frown at the floor as he thought. He might be able to get something by remembering the woman’s painting and drawing from that, but memories of a painting weren’t nearly as good as actually seeing the real thing. And she probably didn’t paint all the statues, and certainly hadn’t painted them from every possible angle, anyway. So even if seeing the painting was as good, he was still lacking opportunities.

Of course, that was assuming that being her assistant would actually let him see the statues, and asking at that moment wasn’t just a way to trick him. It wasn’t like people hadn’t tried to trick him that way before. They’d never succeeded, of course, except maybe once or twice when he was really young, but that didn’t count. Anyway, they wouldn’t trick him again.

Blake looked back up, trying to learn the woman’s thoughts from her face. “...What d’you need an assistant for?”

Sarah waited as patiently as she could. The kid seemed to need some time to think. He must have had someone use him before. The thought made Sarah feel bad for the kid.

>>“What d’you need an assistant for?”

Sarah smiled softly. He was cautious. Not that she could blame him.

"I'm thinking a new look at some of the features of the church might be a good idea. The wood details of the confession box were kinda hard, so maybe another set of eyes would see something mine didn't. Maybe there was some important detail on the statues that I didn't see." Sarah paused, letting her words sink in. "Stuff like that. I'd pay you, of course. I wouldn't ask you without the intent of paying you."

Sarah wasn't sure what she wanted to do now. She thought the teen would like to see the statues, but maybe he was just curious. He obviously wasn't from the church so he hadn't known about the statues. She was trying to be nice, but now, she wasn't sure if being nice was what the teen needed.

It didn't matter though. She had already asked. She would follow through if he said yes. Besides, she wanted to see what his dark vision could do with the angel statues in the sunny courtyard.

Blake wasn’t really sure why the woman wanted new perspectives on a painting she’d already nearly finished, but that was her problem. If she thought she needed it, he didn’t particularly care why; he got to see statues.

Also, the money. That was a pretty good lure, too. Blake’s parents kept threatening not to buy him hair dye anymore; hair dye wasn’t unnatural enough to be evil, but it was unnatural, and therefore under suspicion. Which was, of course, why Blake dyed his hair to begin with, but they didn’t have to know that. And even if they didn’t act on that threat there was plenty of music that he wanted and knew they wouldn’t approve of.

Yes, money was definitely a good lure. “What d’you need me to do? And when?”

>>“What d’you need me to do? And when?”

Sarah felt like she could leap for joy. Then she wondered what she had gotten herself into. The kid didn't seem to really be into the job. It almost made Sarah want to smack him upside the head, but she refrained.

"I'd just need you to go to some of the areas I'm curious about. Since I'm almost done, I'd rather you did this today. You know the areas: the confession box, doors, maybe the statues." She was baiting and she knew it.

She wanted the kid to work for the money and to see the statues. It wouldn't be much work, but she would make him work a little. She tried to figure out where she'd start him off. When she figured it out she smiled.

"Why don't you go outside and look at the doors? See if there's anything you think I missed," she waved to her painting, "Look at what I've done first so you know what you've got to work with. Then get to work."