Mal ran her fingers over the cover of the sketch book as she sat on her bed in her dorm. It had been only a couple of hours since Ben had given it to her but already pages had been filled with more sketches than one could shake a stick at.
Whatever entered her mind, she would draw. If Mal was being honest with herself, it was the most relaxed she had felt in months. Even her accidental dragon transformation hadn't gotten a feeling like that.
Probably because I was more focused on the rage I felt toward Uma to even notice any relaxation, Mal thought as she absentmindedly flipped open the sketchbook to a fresh page. Grabbing a nearby pencil, Mal began to sketch the rough outline of her dragon form. Or at least what she had seen in the viewing.
Dragons, or at least their outlines, were easy. You didn't grow up as Maleficent's daughter on the Isle and not know how to draw a dragon. There were multiple discarded ideas for her tags that involved dragons before she chose the Maleficent silhouette behind the words 'long live evil'.
There was a reason, though, that the saying was the devil was in the details. Even a rough sketch of the scales proved to be at least an hour's worth of work. Still, Mal was determined to get this one looking decent at least. Even if it would never see the light of day, she still took pride in her art.
Grabbing an eraser, Mal began gently removing the fine sketch lines so that only the solid outline remained. Then came the fun part—adding in the color and shading. She was so focused, she never saw Evie come in.
"Well, you look hard at work," Evie said gently, trying to not startle Mal. Evie knew what it was like to make a wrong move on a sketch. For her, it had turned a design for a skirt into a design for pants. Thankfully the client had been Mal during the early 'Lady of the Court' prep days so she loved it. Unfortunately her handler had put the kibosh on the design and had insisted it change back to a skirt.
"Huh?" Mal said, lifting her head. "Oh, it's nothing. Just a doodle."
"Mal, you usually don't put in that amount of effort for just a doodle," Evie said as she pulled her own sketchbook out. She wanted to get to work on Mal's new dress since the yellow and blue wouldn't work, clashing with Mal's purple hair. Besides, she only had two days to get it done. If push came to shove, Evie could enlist Jane and change the dress with magic but somehow that felt like cheating in someway.
Besides, this was Evie's way of apologizing too. Despite Mal's insistence that it wasn't necessary and the fact that Evie had apologized during the actual viewing, Evie still felt guilty. Yeah she had been stressed as she built her business but that was no excuse for missing the signs with Mal.
Hmm, I wonder if I could start implementing more of Mal's style into her outfits now, Evie thought. After all, Aladdin and Lord Zeus were at the viewing and they're both on the council according to Ben. Plus, if I'm going to be Ben's councilor too, I would get the same amount of input right? I mean, I'm the one designing the freaking things!
"Hey E?" Mal spoke up and turned the sketchbook toward Evie, pulling Evie out of her thoughts. "What do you think? I mean, it's just a rough sketch but..."
"M, if that's your idea of 'rough', I'd hate to see what your definition of 'complete' is," Evie said in awe, looking at the sketch of Mal's dragon form. It was only halfway colored but the detail Mal had managed to get was amazing. It truly looked like the dragon was ready to leap off the page. "It's amazing!"
Mal gave a small smile before turning the book back toward her, the purple colored pencil already at work coloring the rest of the dragon in.
"Evie?"
YOU ARE READING
Into the Depths
Fanfiction(Sequel to Crossing the Bridge) After once again experiencing a magical screening of their lives, everyone returns to their lives; eager to prevent what had been revealed in the viewing. As they work to make sure the future they saw was not their ow...
