An Artist's Inspiration

It was a free day for the students, meaning Jin finally had some time to take a stroll around the Academy for the first time. Of course, he had gotten a tour when he first arrived not too long ago, but many of the areas were quickly glazed over and he had always been more of a slow and steady type of guy. It was nice for him to finally get the chance to move at his own pace for the first time in a while.. things had been going by so fast.

At last, he had reached the auditorium, currently not in use and completely free of others. It was one of the places he was more eager to experience up close, especially without any decorations up. The main reason: inspiration. From the sounds of his footsteps against the tile, the echo traveled far in all directions. As he walked towards the center of the room, he let a soft hum escape his closed lips which eventually turned into an impromptu tune. The room was open, light, and spacious, as far as he could tell. There were a few things out of the question, like colors, but those wouldn't be important for now. The room just gave him a good feeling.. he could tell he would be spending a good amount of his free time in here.

He quietly stood in the center of the ballroom, his hands behind his back as he admired the room and lingered in the still silence. A gentle smile had crept onto his face as thoughts raced through his head. He was lost in thought, quiet and unmoving, the only sound being his gentle hums...

A free day? Esha barely knew the meaning of the word. If she wasn’t in classes or doing assignments for classes, she was either attending some social events or seeing to the needs of her dorm. She very rarely had moments to herself, though sometimes she preferred it that way. Always keeping busy, always making herself useful to others, doing her duties as dorm leader and setting an example for the younger kids. That said, it also meant she very rarely had time for herself, even less time for her to practice her mandolin. In terms of acoustics, there was no better place than the ballroom. Well, that was a lie, there were plenty of places with high ceilings and wide-open spaces, but few could boast the solidarity that came with the ballroom.

Esha walked down the hall with purpose, back straight and with a level head. The scarf of her ocean-coloured sari was swaying in the backdraft of her movements. With her mandolin strapped to her back, she made her intentions in seeking out the ballroom clear, though she kept her emerald eyes open and warry about whether other students were heading in the same direction as her. As much as she liked company, she wanted to be certain that she was the only one headed to the ballroom, a bit of privacy was not always easy to come by at this school.

As she approached the door, Esha looked both ways before grabbing the handle. When she was assured that the coast was clear, she turned the knob and silently entered the premises. Upon slipping inside, she carefully and swiftly closed the door behind her, resting her back against it with a sigh. Instinctively, she unwrapped her headscarf in a moment of relief, revealing the fluttering gills at the sides of her neck, moving as if they were breathing in fresh air. The quills at the top of her head raised upwards, forming a bit of a fauxhawk.

The man was standing so silently, so still that Esha hadn’t even realized that there was anyone else present until she looked up once more. Just seeing the figure of another person in front of her caused her to quickly panic, slicking the quills on her head back and throwing her headscarf back on in a hasty fashion. It was loosely on, but it concealed all that it needed to.

Stepping forward and still readjusting her scarf, Esha released an apologetic “oh- so sorry, I didn’t realize someone else was here.” She politely bowed her head. “Nam- er- hello” she greeted.

Upon further inspection of the strange man in the middle of the room, she quickly realized that he wasn’t a student, a bit too old to be, nor did he look like any teacher that she was aware of. It was kind of her job to know who most of the teachers were, if not all, so unless he was new, Esha wasn’t sure who the man was. Foresta was certainly no stranger to mysterious people showing up out of nowhere to do shady things, so it put Esha a bit on edge, a healthy amount of caution. “You… uh, new here?” she asked, her voice wavering from uncertainty to confidence.

As the stranger approached the ballroom, his head slightly shifted at the sound of shoes hitting against the hard floors. Yet, he stayed turned away until she spoke, his body following his head to turn in her direction. It was a younger person's voice, not one he had heard yet. It was unlikely they were another teacher, her tone was more juvenile and nervous.

His lips gently curled into a smile as the jewel on his blindfold gleamed with the sunlight pouring into the ballroom. "No worries.." He nodded at the girl. "Don't let me stop you, I'm not doing anything important."

"I am new, actually. I'm the Dance teacher," he responded, "I'm assuming you're a student?" His head cocked to the side, Jin started walking closer to the entrance. It did seem a little weird to just be standing in the center of the room like he was.. he didn't want to make a bad impression.

While still a bit cautious, Esha’s mind was put at ease by the gentle way the man moved and spoke. There was still a strange air of mystery that surrounded his person, probably due to his choice of attire and the blindfold adorn his face. Far be it from Esha to question one’s choice in dress, she was the only person she knew at this school that wore a sari every day, but it was still a curious thing.

The man spoke as if what he was doing wasn’t important, but Esha had an itching feeling that he was saying that to be polite. The humming and standing in the middle of the room seemed like some sort of meditation ritual or something of the like. Not to mention that the way he was dressed seemed somewhat religious, or, at least, culturally significant. She offered a smile back, even if it fell on blind eyes. “Oh, okay” she responded gently. With that, she swung her mandolin from around her back and to her front, her hands slapping against the hollow surface of the instrument. “It might get a- uh, a bit noisy.”

Before she could go off and play though, the man reaffirmed her suspicions. He was a teacher, a new arrival. She had heard about some of the new arrivals through Mr. Makara, but didn’t have names or faces to associate with them. “Oh, dance teacher” she uttered as her eyes glanced around the ballroom. “This must be a” she paused for a moment, trying to think of the appropriate phrase in English. “good room for you” she added hastily when the words came to her.

“And, yes! I’m the Pyxis dorm leader, Esha Mullur” she introduced, bowing her head once more. “Good to meet you.”

Jin eventually reached the wall, his hand brushing it as he stopped before following the student's voice once again. He looked over at Esha as he heard the instrument begin to play. "Hm.. you'll be playing an instrument?" he questioned, leaning back against the wall, "What do you play?"

One of the dorm leaders.. she was the first one he had met so far. He let out a gentle chuckle, "Yes, I suppose it is.. it's quite spacious and open." As he adjusted the blindfold on his face, his leg crossed over the other. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Esha."

The pauses in her speech seemed to get him thinking. Maybe she spoke many languages.. in a place like this, it seemed like the most probable answer. He was in no place to judge, he still had quite the strong accent himself.

Esha continued to absently watch the teacher feel his way toward the wall. She looked down to her instrument as he inquired about it. “Well, practicing, yes” she answered as she placed her fingers on the strings, mentally noting where they were supposed to go. “I play the mandolin. It’s, uh, kind of a family instrument. Both my parents played. This one is actually my mum’s old mandolin” she added, holding it out a bit more as if to display it. While this probably wasn’t helpful to the blind man, she took a bit of time to admire it herself. There was still a bit of a dent in it from when she had to smack Chase over the head with it to prevent him from changing into his werecat form. It was an unsightly blemish on an otherwise rustic looking instrument, not to mention that the associated memories were not all that great.

Curiously, she returned her gaze to the man, caught up in the question of what he was doing here. He was the dance teacher, he was in the ballroom, so naturally he was here to dance, right? Well, he was also new, so perhaps he just wanted to get a feeling for the room, but the latter didn’t exclude the former. “… Did you come here to dance?” she asked as her eyes scanned across the room. It seemed pretty empty, about the way she left it after Braedyn and her took down the decorations from the Open Mic Night. There wasn’t any kind of music player or radio laying around, unless he had one hidden somewhere. “You dance without music?”

It wasn’t that she was necessarily judging, it was just that the concept seemed foreign to her. At the very least, she couldn’t picture herself dancing without some form of music guiding her movements. Most times when she danced, it was more a matter of letting the rhythm move your body for you, so doing that without a rhythm or beat seemed… odd. Perhaps that had more to do with Esha’s limited perspective on dance as an artform, rather than as the thing she instinctively did at parties and balls.

Jin tilted his head to the side as the girl explained the instrument. He nodded, his hand against his own cheek. "A mandolin, interesting.." he spoke, possibly to himself, "They do make a nice sound, I'm just a sucker for.. really any string instruments." He chuckled.

He lifted his head at the questions and let out a soft chuckle. "Well, I didn't really come here with the intention of dancing. It would be nice though.." he spoke as he lifted his arms in a stretch, "I haven't had much of a chance since moving here." He then leaned back against the wall with a deep exhale. "I mostly came just to get a better feel of the place. Not surprising that I'm naturally drawn to the ballroom."

"I do normally dance with music though. I can't imagine it without," he smiled, "Are you a dancer yourself? Or just a musician?"

Esha chuckled in tandem with the man. “Oh yes, it’s a very nice sound” she agreed as she performed a slight strum of the strings, illustrating the light hymns of the instrument. “Warmer than guitar, I think. Gives me a good feeling of home. I guess if my parents played any other instrument it would, uh, be the same. Even if they didn’t, I would still like it though.”

Esha nodded. “Oh, I see” she answered simply as she spanned her eyes across the ballroom. She supposed that made sense, given the fact that he was standing in the direct center of the room when she showed up. Just taking in the room. “You should see it during one of the, um, school dances.” Upon making that comment, she looked back upon the man, more notably his blindfold. While his choice in eyewear didn’t necessarily mean that he was physically blind, she had known a student who was that also wore blindfolds by choice and made the supposition that he was perhaps also blind. She winced a little, noticing the ill-fitting terminology of the last thing she spoke. “Or, uh, so to speak.”

Esha let out a small airy laugh at the teacher’s suggestion that she was a musician. “I’m, uh, I’m really neither” she answered in good humour. She wandered to a spot on the wall near where the teacher stood and leaned against it. “You could say I’m, um, more open to dancing. Not shy about letting my body move to the rhythm of music. Other people, at parties, they hear music, but they don’t want to dance, even if you ask them. Not me” she added with a sort of confident streak to her expression.

“But no, I wouldn’t say I’m a dancer. I’m Pyxis, my focus is my studies” she stated plainly, ignoring the fact that her time at Foresta was better described as a break from her normal studious life back at home. In fact, the whole extra year of school she was taking was completely superfluous to her post-secondary roadmap.