Lets Play Pictionary

Kaliyan was never huge into art. The art of the massage maybe. That was what he was good at. But with some practice he probably would be ok at something simple, he'd just never really tried to too much.

Between Dane and Aso Kaliyan had pretty much been told that he needed to find a way to do something artistic for his challenges. Aso just liked competition and Dane was really into art and the kid had insisted that in order to use the power he could share with Kal he needed at least a little practice with some sort of art.

So Kaliyan had agreed to a pictionary challenge. Simple but competitive and artistic. He strode into the little park with his little band. A 10 year old boy with short black hair, dressed in all black except for the bone jewelry he was wearing, was walking along beside him but mostly focused on the sketchpad he was drawing in. On the other side was a teenager, probably a junior in highschool, with curly black hair and tan complexion. Around his neck hung a necklace of what looked like carefully rolled and folded pieces of paper with unusual lines on them. Both were much, much shorter than Kal.

For his part Kal was in simple slacks and a polo shirt from the Spa where he worked. He had a few hours before his shift but he wanted to have plenty of time to hang out with the two regalia after the challenge.

Kal was holding a space sketchpad borrowed from Dane as he looked around and finally spotted the duo waiting. It had to be the ones they were meeting. "Hey, you're here for the challenge right?" He called out in a friendly tone as he approached Jude.

Aso immediately stuck out a hand to shake with Wolfgang and then Jude if they wanted. "Yeah, I'm Aso and that's Dane. Can't wait to see how this turns out." For his part, Dane finally stopped drawing what looked like a mostly decapitated man and looked up with a vaguely creepy grin and slow nod.

Kaliyan chuckled nervously and patted Dane on the shoulder. "Don't mind him, he's actually really nice. I'm Kaliyan, nice to meet you." That drew another, maybe slightly less creepy, smile and a thumbs up from Aso. They were a team, if a bit of a weird one.

"Sounds good to me. I don't know how good my drawings will be but we'll at least get a laugh out of it," Kal grinned. "I'm not going to pick who officiates though, I don't know that I want to tell anyone they can't play." He looked between Aso and Dane, truly unsure who he would have picked to not play on his "team." Dane was super competitive and probably could be trusted to be impartial but he really didn't like to be a judge. Dane flat out just loved art and might be a good judge but he was working on being friendly to him and didn't want to force him to judge.

Fortunately Dane spoke up for himself. "I can judge if you want, I don't mind. I just want to see what you end up drawing." Aso looked like he was going to protest but then stopped and shrugged, looking at the others.

Dane stared Wolfgang right in the eyes and then gave a little wave of his fingers. Truth be told he got a lot of weird looks and he was mostly used to that. It was nice though when it was just him and Kal or the other regalia he had pacted with, since they were all really friendly to him.

Kaliyan nodded at Jude but held up a hand to pass on the pencil and paper he offered. Instead he held up the blank, spare sketchpad and pencils Dan had let him borrow. "Thanks, but I think these will work. Let me know if you need me to rip out a couple pages for you."

He sat down with Aso, a little bit away from Jude and Wolfgang so they wouldn't interfere with each other but still be close enough to talk if they needed to. "Oh we're ready too. May the best team win," Aso grinned in anticipation. Competition of any type was his thing and he looked so pumped.

Kaliyan nodded at Dane, "Maybe you should write the topics down on paper and hand them to each of the people drawing to unfold at the same time?"

"Ok, I can do that," replied Dane as he scribbled some words on pieces of paper from his own sketchbook. He then carefully folded them and gave one to Kaliyan and the other to Jude. "Ok, on the count of three you can look but don't show the people guessing. One.... two.... Three!"

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The topic is: "Drowning"
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Kaliyan read the topic and glanced over at Dane. Why was he not surprised? Of course the topic was about a way people died.

But there was a game going on and he wasn't going to get distracted by Dane's quirks. He folded up the paper so Aso wouldn't see it and began drawing on the paper. First wavy lines across the top and then he drew a stick figure below.

Aso started throwing out wild guesses as soon as Kal began drawing. Thinks like 'wind' and 'water' and then 'scuba diving' and 'mermaid' when Kal added the stick figure. Kal was a little concerned that the teen was going to keep getting more and more outlandish with his guesses.

But then Kal added two little tiny x's for the figure's eyes. A stick figure with x's for eyes below a wavy line that looked like, well, waves. "A body, death, no wait- drowned? A drowning person!"

It was all said so rapidly, Aso had hardly taken a breath during the last bit. Dane clapped and pointed to Aso. "I think I should count that as a win for the first round." He did look over at Jude though to make sure he agreed. He was trying hard to be impartial.

"Hey we should show each other what we drew," Kaliyan said to Jude as he raised his sketchpad. "Maybe we can both learn how to do it better next time?" Kal was really not in the tournament to win. He'd already made an awesome friend in Skye, his first regalis, and he was hoping to make sure his other regalia at least had a fun time. Why not extend that to his opponents too?

Kaliyan looked over towards Wolfgang as he sounded a little annoyed at Jude's drawing. "Hey man, it's just a game. For what it's worth his drawing probably looks a lot nicer than mine."

When Jude quickly hid his drawing, Kal just gave a small sympathetic smile and shrugged. "At the end is fine. I'm not here to make you uncomfortable." The sound of the reassurance from Wolfgang made Kal less concerned about Jude. He didn't know how Wolfgang was before but he sounded at least somewhat supportive then.

Aso quietly gave Kal a high-five, trying not to be super obvious about it. He couldn't help it though, even a small win deserved praise. "I'm not sure where some of those wilder guesses were coming from Aso, but good job," said Kal as he clasped the teen on the shoulder. "Just as much about you guessing as it is my drawing. Good thing too." They shared a grin.

Kal gave a thumbs up to Dane, who had been craning his neck to try to see the two drawings after they were done. His disappointment was tempered only a little bit when Kal showed him what he had drawn. It wasn't as nice as the boy's own drawings but it had gotten the message across.

"Ok..... I guess it's time for the next one... um....," Dane seemed deep in thought for a moment before writing the next topic down on the pieces of paper. Once finished he skipped on over to Jude and then Kal to deliver the folded papers.

"Same as before, on the count of three. One-two-three-go!," he said very rapidly. And then he grinned and watched the two teams scramble.

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The topic is: "Disease"
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