Work Text:
How does one capture the wind?
A gentle breeze can’t just be swept up and plastered to paper. The rush of a tempest can hardly be contained between brush bristles, the force of it too much to control in any single stroke.
Nathanaël wasn’t sure how he would go about this piece if he couldn’t possibly do any justice to the magnanimity of the air itself.
The school’s art class was hosting an art show at a small, local gallery within the next week. Its theme was to be “Movement.”
His classmates had, for the most part, decided on the subjects of their works. One girl was doing a chalk piece on birds mid-flight. Another had thought to focus on the hustle-and-bustle of students between classes from behind a camera. One boy started to construct a three-dimensional sculpture using car parts from an old scrapyard.
Nathanaël had nothing.
The teacher had requested that he use a medium outside of his comfort zone; he typically only worked digitally or, when necessary, a basic graphite.
His mind had been racing through the possibilities. Pastels? If that was his decision, he’d also have to pick between oil and chalk. Ink? Charcoal? Colored pencil? He could do a number of other things, or make it multi-dimensional…
Picking a mode of transcription was hard enough, but he couldn’t even imagine a subject to begin with. Nathanaël spent the majority of his free time (and a large part of physics class, too) turning ideas around in his head. He had a few things that might work out. Maybe he’d do a series of figure drawings, dancers and athletes and the like. Or he could do something with bird feathers - but wait, Claire is already doing something with birds, right?
He could always sit outside and literally just watch leaves fall.
Nathanaël, the poor creative soul he was, could not simply settle for an idea. He had to be in love with it. The problem with that lies in the disconnect between concept and construction - many of his ideas were impossible to create, or the final product did not always live up to expectation in his eyes. They always looked pretty nice, but that’s all they were. Pretty nice.
Nathanaël wanted to paint the wind.
What could be more unobtainable than that?
When Alix knocked the breath out of him, he made up his mind.
It was the end of the school day, and Nathanaël had gotten out a bit late to pack up the miscellaneous art supplies strewn across his desk. By the time he got outside, everyone was rushing about on their way home.
He hadn’t taken three steps from the bottom of the stairs when he was slammed to the ground with the force of a collision. Hs pencils, papers, and other books were scattered chaotically about as he found himself flattened to the pavement, positively breathless.
Alix had skidded somewhere to Nathanaël’s left, her hip pressing his arm into the sidewalk.
“Ow,” she grumbled, looking over to her classmate. “Oh! Nath, sorry! I didn’t see you coming.”
He rubbed his head, pulling himself up. “It’s fine. I must’ve stepped out in front of you. My bad.”
“Ah, well,” Alix says, now standing on her own two blades. “It happens. As long as no one was seriously hurt!” she chided. She reached a hand down and helped him stand and Nathanaël has no idea how she could have that much balance and strength while on roller blades, my god.
He nodded, pulling himself up with Alix’s assistance.
She bid him farewell and rolls off.
Nathanaël made the observation that he was completely winded.
He spends the next few hours making plans.
Dinner with family and, to some extent, the necessity for sleep, were the only things that punctuated his train of thought.
At school the next day, Nathanaël asked for her help.
“Alix,” he started quietly outside of class. “I want to ask you something…”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Would you...maybe...helpmeoutwithmyartproject?”
Without missing a beat, Alix responded, “Help with your project? Sure! What do you need?”
Nathanaël heaved a sigh of relief; this was the one idea that he was dead set on, that he believed would portray the theme exactly right. He needed Alix’s help. She was the only one who could really make his piece perfect, and it had all been riding on her answer.
In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have been so worried she’d reject his proposition.
Nevertheless, he felt the tangle of nerves pitted in his stomach uncoil, and he could breathe freely.
“Okay, so I need you to meet me after school sometime if you’re free?”
After gaining Alix’s consent, he continued explaining what the job would entail.
That afternoon, Alix showed up to Nathanaël’s home dressed in baggy sweats. Her shirt was ripped in a few places, and the pants themselves were covered in paint blotches (victims of a bedroom repaint earlier in the year). They were torn at the knees and dull, discolored - likely from years of outdoor activity.
Nathanaël greeted her in his own conglomeration of old clothing, splotched up the sleeves and across the knees - anywhere that paint would drip from the tip of a paintbrush.
He brought her up to the roof of the apartment, upon which a large white canvas was spread. It sat atop a few overused dropcloths and newspapers. Around that sat a few tubs of paint - cheap acrylic, he’d explained. The good stuff should never be used for a project so messy, and on such a large scale.
Alix held up her skates, saying “These are the old ones, like you asked. I don’t use them anymore, so we can use them however you’d like.”
Nathanaël clapped his hands together. “Alright. Uh, just...just put on the skates, I guess? Outwardly, there’s not much to this.”
“Okay then,” she responded, discarding her sneakers and pulling on the skates.
“You really don’t mind these getting stained?”
“Nah, these skates are so old and worn, I’d figure a bit of a paint job’d actually do ‘em well, y’know?” Alix laughed heartily as she latched on the left boot.
“Okay, just making sure!” he chuckled in response.
Once she was standing and raring to go, Nathanaël launched into another brief explanation about how it was to be done: he’d lay down a puddle of paint on the edge of the canvas, and she’d roll through it a bit.
Seeming simple enough, Alix wasted no time rushing through the blue acrylic once it was dropped.
She made a few circles across the canvas, speeding this way and that and trying her best to stay within the confines of the sheet so as not to stain the roof.
Nathanaël looked on in puzzlement. On one hand, he was amazed at her confidence - swift, easy movements and controlled displacement. These things were beautiful and completely necessary for this kind of project.
On the other hand, she seemed restricted. Not by the size of the canvas - that was something that she seemed able to work with - but because she was being extremely measured. He’d seen her skate before; she tended to race home on them, or speed around the park like a bullet. But he’d never seen her quite so restrained.
“Hey, Alix?” Nathanaël called, hovering over the puddle of paint he was trying to mix into a deep purple.
“Hm?” she responded as she rolled to a stop by his side.
He glanced at the canvas, splotchy and streaked with a dark blue. “It looks good,” he smiled up at her, and she offered a grin and return. “But...I was wondering. Well, aren’t you going a bit, I don’t know, slow?”
Seeing her face drop, Nathanaël knew he hadn’t phrased that right.
“Er, what I mean to say is...uh…” he smacks his head with his palm, immediately recoiling at the splash of paint that was sent across his brow. Frustrated with himself, he sighed. “What I mean to say is that you don’t seem like yourself.”
When he made eye contact with her once again, she looked away.
“Well yeah,” Alix said. “I’m not exactly good at art, and this is your project. I don’t wanna mess this up for you. I know it’s important.”
At that, he scrunched his nose in thought. He hadn’t considered that. Was she really that nervous that she’d ruin his piece?
Nathanaël brought an easy smile back to his face and stood to meet her at (almost) eye level.
“Alix, you wouldn’t do anything to screw up this painting, trust me. The point of it is to study the way things work and the way things move, and I figured you’d be perfect for the job,” he shook his head, his ears turning red. “Look. I decided that you, in your own perfect rhythm, would suit this painting completely. Especially when you knocked me over on the pavement. So be reckless, be wild, do whatever - because honestly, there’s no way you’d mess up in being yourself.”
Alix was silent for a few moments, trying to find the words to respond. She could only squeak out a small “Thanks” by the time Nathanaël had bend back down to finish mixing the paint color.
Once he’d finished and set a glob of the stuff on one corner of the canvas, Alix had worked up her self-assurance with little room to spare. She immediately sped through the dark acrylic, sending it flying across the sheet. Specks landed here and there until the direction of it couldn’t be tracked any longer, and the artist was enraptured.
They moved on to a murky green and a dark navy, Alix’s radiant confidence growing progressively with each color. Soon, her pant legs were covered with cool colors up to the knees, the navy actually reaching all the way up to her waist.
With the lighter violet, she asked a question.
“Yo Nath, if you’re the artist, why am I doing all the work?” she’d had a wicked grin on her face, something that usually accompanied one of her infamous challenges.
He looked over hesitantly. “What are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is-” she stopped briefly, as if struck with an idea. “What I’m asking is, can I have this dance?” She held out a hand to him.
He looked at her questioningly, but conceded and put his paint-stained palm in hers. She dragged him to the middle of the canvas (Nathanaël had thanked his own foresight for wearing old tennis shoes) and put her hand on his hip, obviously intending to take the lead.
They started slow. Nathanaël was a bit awkward and clumsy on his feet at a normal walking pace, but put him in the middle of a painting and ask him to twirl? He wasn’t sure that he could do it. Alix gripped him firmly. She was steadier even on skates than he was without them, and although she was still shorter with the extra height from the wheels, she could maintain a more steady authority.
“Hey, don’t keep looking down,” she said.
Nathanaël looked up nervously, and Alix laughed. “We’re not doing anything super fancy or formal here. We’re on a rooftop and covered in paint, for heaven’s sake! Just relax,” she told him as she spun them in a steady circle.
It took some time, three incidents of a foot on top of a skate, a couple of awkward turns, and a full fall on the butt, but eventually they had reached an even momentum. Nathanaël switched to the lead, and their movements became more amateurish and blundering. But they were carefree. Fun. Easy.
He’d reached the conclusion that a lighter color was needed, so he crouched down to mix a baby blue and a pale yellow. Once they were set in opposite corners, he began stomping the soles of his shoes into the blue. Alix followed in rolling her skates in the yellow, and the two ran at each other and picked up a new dance.
There was no music, but they were so caught up in themselves that they’d hardly noticed the need for any. The passage of time was vague and unimportant, and they found themselves content in their spinning and laughing, rolling and stomping, until the sun had begun to cast an orange glow across the picture.
“Ah, well,” Alix sighed in melancholy, pulling her hand away from Nathanaël’s and wiping her forehead with it. It left a purple streak across her brow. “Guess I’d better get going. Dinner with family, and all that.”
Nathanaël nodded in understanding, backing off the canvas and sitting on the ground. “D’you want to come down and wash up before leaving?” He asked, pulling off his now tie-dyed sneaker.
“Nah, I kinda want to go home looking like this. I’d like to see what looks I’d get from people in the street,” she grinned devilishly and gestured to her clothes, unevenly covered in fresh acrylics. There was even some yellow streaked in her hair.
Nathanaël laughed. “Alright then. Guess I’ll show you out.”
“Hey, would you want to come to the art exhibit with me?” he asked at the front door.
“I’d love to.”
Subsequently, Alix made him promise that they’d do this again, even if it wasn’t for a project.
Nathanaël wholeheartedly agreed.
At the gallery, Nathanaël was bombarded with inquiries.
“It looks so nebulous!” visitors would exclaim.
“It’s so unique! So abstract!”
“But how did you get it to look like that?”
He looked over to Alix, her arms crossed and eyebrow raised.
“A good friend taught me how to see the wind.”