LITTLE LEAGUE — sculpture

[alaric g.]

    Alaric was not artistic whatsoever. Fine arts such as drawing and sculpting were not his forte whatsoever, and never in his life did he find himself interested in the development of his thoroughly nonexistent creative talents. He believed it to be a frivolous and superfluous pursuit, and hadn't given it a thought even once in his relatively short life.

    Nevertheless, his weekly task had been to create a modern sculpture. He had met Selby's words with a look of irritation, and had resigned himself to not doing it. He wanted to be amused by whatever the sawbone assigned for him, not disgusted. He had even put it off, deciding when Selby had issued him the task that he was not going to be creating a sculpture of any sort. Eventually boredom overtook him, and he set off for the junkyard, hoping he'd be able to find enough pieces of junk and scrap metal that he'd be able to make something that vaguely resembled what he was trying to imagine in his mind's eye.

    Finding the junk had been easy enough, he supposed. He'd found a bunch of scrap metal, nails, screws, and a few more interesting-looking doohickeys that he couldn't quite put a name to hidden amongst the piles of scrap within the junkyard proper. It had taken a while to drag it all back to his home where he would be comfortable building it in private.

    Making the sculpture was not as easy as he had hoped it was going to be. On several occasions it had turned out looking like a malformed lump of nothing, and each time he had disassembled his creation and rebuilt it until it resembled the image of a roaring lion. Out of sheer lack of materials (and unwillingness to go gather more), he was unable to construct it into the same size as Aurum, but it was large enough to convey the point.

    After hours of work, Alaric stepped back to admire his fourth reconstruction of the image. He thought it was excellent, especially given his utter lack of artistic ability, but truly it still looked a little lumpish. Deciding he was proud of it enough to display it, he dragged it out onto his porch and sat beside it with a sort of triumphant look gracing his features.

♔ don't do love, don't do friends

[Ivan]

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— Бра́тья Карама́зовы

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Ivan did not have a good track record of completing his weekly tasks. He trotted up to receive them like everyone else because the last thing he wanted was to be a leech off of society. However, he was quickly realizing that most of these tasks were not at all very society-building. They seemed to be oriented to a certain character building, and the weekly task givers usually liked to give things that seemed to go out of the giver's comfort zone.

The young cat had been amused when he heard Alaric's task. If given the choice between making a sculpture and training the bird, Ivan would choose the bird over the artistry any day. His creativeness only extended through his thoughts. He could think of so many things but had difficulty putting them into action. Needless to say, his training with the dual-headed golden eagle was not going so well, and she was growing fast too. Her beak was curving and tapered into a sharp point, her claws as well. But she was so gentle with them around Ivan. His father probably wanted him to spend more time with the bird. Hmph.

He was walking with her now when he passed Alaric's house. A few weeks before, he hadn't known where Alaric lived, but he certainly did now. Ivan's lip ticked up ever so slightly. Triumph was a new feature that Ivan saw on Alaric. He decided to humor him.

"I didn't think you'd do it." The four month old purred, eyeing the sculpture. It was better than anything he could do. Ivan held out a paw to distract his eagle from tearing apart the work by virtue of her curiosity and love for shiny objects.

[wormwood.]

☆ HUNG PICTURES OF PATRON SAINTS UP ON MY WALL TO REMIND ME THAT I AM A FOOL. TELL ME WHERE I CAME FROM, WHAT I WILL ALWAYS BE: JUST A SPOILED LITTLE KID WHO WENT TO CATHOLIC SCHOOL —

In all honesty, Aurum found the weekly tasks that Selby had given out to be rather amusing. Rather than focusing on combat or the more practical, solid things, Selby had opted to give out tasks that were related to emotion, and growing. The proxy had rather enjoyed his own task of making a scrapbook, even if his book had ended up a little bit messy looking thanks to his clumsy paws. At least it would provide him memories for the future. Especially members of his former friends and family, who mostly seemed to be dropping like flies, much to his own horror. He shook that thought from his mind, however, not wanting to give himself in to the toxic little part that was constantly wailing in anguish thanks to recent events. He needed to remain strong, and one of the best ways to do that was to enjoy art, right? When Aurum had heard the task that had been given to Alaric, he had been... skeptical, to say the least. Alaric, although intelligent, had never really struck him as the particularly artistic type. As a result of this, the angel had half expected nothing to come of it. Not that he really would've blamed Alaric for shirking his task. The proxy truly wasn't sure that he would've been able to put together anything decent looking if he had been the one told to construct a sculpture.

Coming up beside Ivan when he spotted his darkly colored nephew, Aurum found himself letting out a low whistle as he inspected Alaric's sculpture. Sure, it may have been a little lumpy, and it may not have been as large a lion as he, but it was certainly still impressive. Far better than anything that he could've done, anyways. Tilting his head to one side, the angel thoroughly inspected it before speaking, tail flicking behind him, "Very nice work, Alaric. I wasn't sure you'd do it either, but it came out pretty well... I like the visage of it. Very familiar." He didn't really think that Alaric had taken inspiration from he in particular, but it was nice to be able to joke around and form a friendship with someone new. Overall, Alaric seemed to be very pleasant – at least from Aurum's experiences – and had always been fairly friendly to the winged lion, so he didn't feel uncomfortable making the joking remark.

[div style="text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px #1B1B2F; font-size: 24px;"][color=#44437F]— AURUM

#psychosocial.

[alaric g.]

    Since bringing the sculpture outside, a few passersby had stopped to examine the Alaric's construction. None had lingered long, and the tabby didn't really care that much if they did; he found that trying to learn the name of each and every Tangler wasn't worth his time or the effort that it took him to memorize names and faces. As such, he didn't really pay them any mind, instead choosing to regard them with the same uninterested stare that he looked upon most people with.

    Ivan was the first Tangler of any relevance to stop by. He was with his eagle, who must have been somewhat mischievous given the fact that the child had to entertain the eagle with a paw of his. The tyke remarked on how he did not think that Alaric would go through with it, which the tabby figured was a fair assumption. He, like the child, wasn't exactly the most artistic creature out there, as evidenced by the lumpish form of the statue by his side. He only just began to speak when Tanglewood's resident proxy arrived, also commenting on his admittedly founded assumption that Alaric would not follow through with the task he was assigned. He even added a joke, and although he supposed it was somewhat amusing, Alaric did not laugh.

    "I almost didn't do it," stated the male flatly. He looked back to the scrap metal form of the lion as he wondered what exactly had overcome him that made him actually go through with this. His gaze lingered on it for a bit as he turned two face the two once more. "Quite. I kept you in mind the entire time," he says to Aurum, the light sarcasm apparent in his tone.

♔ don't do love, don't do friends