Synth

TO had no idea what to expect with drawing lessons. The Overseers didn’t encourage artistic endeavors back in training, and they doubted that there was even any kind of resource for a synth who wanted to do something like draw or paint or sing. Such hobbies simply weren’t what synths did, and pursing any of them would have been viewed as an utter waste of time. That meant that TO’s experience in this area was limited once more to what they had seen in shows, and even in most of the shows they had watched, there was never a ‘training montage’ of artistic development. A character would be told to draw or paint something, and suddenly the artist watching them would realize that the person had this magical, wonderful thing called ‘talent’ and the rest would be more about the person in question learning how to ‘dig deep’ and draw something ‘from the heart.’

Well, TO had learned their lesson about civilian media when they were trying to ‘flirt’ with DH. They couldn’t trust that the media showed them the truth of the matter. The real irritation was in how sometimes the media could be shockingly close to reality, and then, without warning, be entirely contrary to it! Some of what they had seen might be correct, and others might not. Maybe they would work on something for all of five minutes before Lendulin said that TO wasn’t talented. Perhaps Lendulin would set up a still life and see how quickly or accurately TO could copy it, or just tell them to draw something - anything- and then she’d see something from that.

This wasn’t the case at all. On Constance’s tablet, Lendulin set up an image with a grid over it, and a matching grid right next to it without the picture. She was told to copy the picture to the blank grid. TO, on the other hand, was just told to draw lines.

“Lines?” TO asked, their ear quirking forward as though they hadn’t understood what Lendulin told them. “You mean just straight lines?”

“*Just* straight lines.” Lendulin said, chuckling. “You can’t draw anything unless you can draw a good line. Now, watch.” She organized herself next to TO, her own tablet in hand. “Here’s how to draw a line-“

“I know how to draw a line.” TO said as their ears flattened. “It’s a line.”

“Oh? Is that so?” Lendulin grinned at TO as though she knew something that TO didn’t. “Go ahead then.” She leaned over and put two dots on the screen. “Draw me a nice straight line from one dot to the other.”

TO rolled their eyes, their ears flattening as they carefully drew the line, resting their hand on the screen and moving forward with careful percussion from one side of the screen to the other. When they were done, they leaned back and smirked, “See, a line.”

“I said a straight line.” Lendulin said, leaning forward with her own stylus and marking things on it in red, “Look, you got bits coming off the line here and here and anywhere you stopped to move your hand to draw this thing. The line wobbles here, here, and here.” She made more circles. “And look, it curves here to hit the dot I drew!” The final eighth of the line she circled in red. “I thought you said you could draw a line!”

Constance, who was sitting and happily working on her own grin picture looked up and giggled. “Yeah, it’s a furry worm!”

“... A what now?” TO asked, more confused than ever.

“Furry worms. When you draw a line like that, the line is squiggly, and it looks like it has hairs coming off of it. A furry worm.”

“Ok, it’s not perfect.” TO huffed as their ears warmed up. “But it is a line. If I practice it more-“

“Or if you learn how to draw a good line.” Lendulin said, “Now… can I show you how to draw a line?”

It felt silly to TO at first, that they had to be taught to draw a line… It was a line! But even so, the more Lendulin talked, the more TO realized there was actually a technique to making lines look good. Draw from the shoulder, draw quickly, and be confidant. TO didn’t know how one drew ‘confidently’ nor how they were supposed to draw an accurate line if they were being quick with it. Still, Lendulin said she had exercises they could do.

First, they had to draw line after line on the same spot, trying to make all their lines go over one another. It was awful, and while TO’s lines all started in the same spot, they all fanned out in the end.

“Good.” Lendulin said, despite the first that TO wasn’t getting any of the lines where they were supposed to be. “They’re straight and smooth. They’re not even curving at the end!” She looked to TO, “Most people curve the line at the end to correct themselves.”

“It’s not good,” TO said, frowning “I’m not getting it where it needs to be!” They didn’t think this would be frustrating, but it was frankly embarrassing that they couldn’t even draw a proper line! And now they had the feeling that Lendulin was simply pitying them for their ineptitude!

“Accuracy will come with practice. The more important thing is that you’re making decent lines now.” She gestured to the screen before TO, “Now… fill the page with these lines.”

They spent the entire afternoon drawing these lines while Constance happily finished her grid drawing and moved on to drawing strange looking fish. After an hour or so, TO’s shoulder ached, and they had to stop. “Am I doing it wrong?” They asked as they rubbed their shoulder. “I’m doing it as you said, but I hurt myself.”

“No, no,” Lendulin said as she looked at the lines TO had finished. “Your just using muscles you’ve not used before, so-“

“I use my shoulder muscles all the time!” TO protested, letting their wing rise slightly. “And they’re a lot stronger than an average civilians’ shoulders, I promise you that!”

“Maybe. But You’ve never used them in this way. There are smaller muscles that you’ve never needed to use before, so they’re the ones that are hurting.” She smiled, saved the screen, and closed the program. “Still, maybe rest it for the rest of the day.”

Groaning, TO rubbed their shoulder. “I didn’t think that drawing would put me in more pain.” They grumbled.

“I know, but it won’t last long.” Lendulin said, “You’ll be fine tomorrow, and I can show you more.” She looked up at Petra, who was sitting in the corner and watching something on her communicator. “You’ll come down again too?”

“Sure.” She said, “I Don’t care about learning to draw, but I’m happy to be in a less crowded spot.”

“Can you show me more stuff?” Constance said as she pulled herself forward towards Lendulin, “I wanna draw more too. Can you teach me how to draw Cocopods? I want to draw a bunch of them!”

TO shuddered and tried not to let the image of one of those awful creatures slip into their brain. “How about we see about tomorrow?” TO said as they rubbed their shoulder again. “This really hurts now.” Their ears flicked down. “One thing I miss about the training center: the showers. Massive showers, with a seemingly limitless amount of hot water. They even had a hot soaking tub to help with hurt muscles. That’d be useful now.”

“What? Why? What happened?”

DH exited the elevator, clearly having only heard the last bit of what TO said, “Are you in pain? Did you hurt yourself? Is it your knee?” They carelessly dropped the med-bag into their chair and hurried towards TO, their ears flicking back with concern. “Or is it another muscle? Do you hurt somewhere else?” They suddenly slipped into a more practiced way to speaking, “When an injury impedes your movement, your other muscles can overcompensate and that can cause new muscle strain! So, if you’re in pain, I need to know. I can help! I can-“

“TO is fine.” Lendulin said, trying not to laugh, “I was teaching them how to draw, and now their shoulder is a little sore.”

DH fell silent, their ears twitching as they considering this. “… How do you hurt yourself drawing?” DH finally said, “It’s… it’s drawing! It’s not the kind of thing you hurt yourself doing!”

“Oh, if you do it right, you can hurt yourself by doing almost anything.” Petra said.

“You know.” Vik said from where they had been working in relative silence, having overheard some of the conversation while adjusting their headset, “I got a bad back from all the programming I do. You wouldn’t think you could hurt yourself sitting down in front of a computer for hours, but-“

“Doesn’t matter.” DH said as they dug into the bag on TO’s chair, “Do you have any more of your painkillers? They should help you. Do you need a refill?”

“I’m fine.” TO said as their ears warmed. They were used to DH fussing over them, especially after their injury, but they weren’t used to DH fussing over them like this when there were other people so close.

“Ok...” DH said, pulling away slightly. They considered TO for another moment before their ears perked up. “You seem better, though! Did you talk to GiDi?”

As soon as DH said that, TO’s ears flicked down once more, and they looked away. There was an awkward beat of silence until Petra got up from her seat, putting her communicator in her pocket. “Hey, Lendulin,” she said, “Isn’t tonight movie night?”

“Movie night?” DH asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Lendulin said, “We try to have different things on different days of the week, to keep time from getting too slippery, you know?” She looked down at Constance. “Wanna go up and see what movie they have for tonight?”

Constance nodded and neatly picked up all her papers before looking up at TO. “Are you going to come with us?”

“I think TO has work to do.” Petra said quickly, “But maybe they can come up later.” She smiled down at Constance, “But, let’s go up and get some good seats so we can see, ok?”

Constance nodded, her fins drooping slightly as she followed Petra to the elevator. As they entered, Vik suddenly grabbed their tiny tablet and jumped over so they rested on Petra’s shoulder. “Maybe I’ll go and at least see what movie it is.” He said, “DH, I’m guessing you’ll be busy too?”

“Yeah...” They said, their ears twitching slightly, “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll get a chance to watch this time.”

Vik nodded, and a moment later the door slid closed, leaving DH and TO alone.