Maybe they can’t use their ships while in human form? Pan suggested.
Fisher, a warm presence at Madeleine’s side, had been browsing a tablet computer, and wrote: This place is in Manila. The Philippines Spire is there.
She said they’ve come to settle primacy. They’re holding a competition and this is round one.
Pad held high, Noi frowned because everyone’s attention had shifted to the computer monitor beside her. Four people had crossed the walkway, coming from the main building. Then, just at the edge of the screen, movement in their apartment. Someone heading up the spiral stair.
They sat frozen, not daring even to scribble notes, unsure whether this was simply part of the Greens' search for bodies, or if their presence was suspected, looked for.
A creak, not a metre away, and they held their breath as a heavy step moved toward the master bedroom. Madeleine felt inexplicably invaded, even though it was not her home, not truly her room. She hunched down unhappily, and then Fisher shifted at her side, leaned a little closer. That was all, but it distracted her from the person in her room.
The steps returned, heading toward the two superhero rooms, but the pace was brisk, and after only enough time to glance in the doors the person moved for the stair, and down. It was a search for bodies then, not hidden Blues. They could relax, and wait it out.
There was no sign of anyone leaving the building, but Noi guessed that it would be easier to remove bodies via the garage level rather than take them over the walkway stairs, and so decided on a two hour delay before emerging, in hopes that would be long enough for any lingerers to make their presence obvious. Everyone had brought something to do, and once staring at the Manila Golf Course had lost its early attractions they settled to their separate entertainments. Madeleine, of course, had planned to sketch, but it was hard to drag her mind from the canvas she planned for Noi and Emily, propped against the wall beside the desk, ready for paint.
Fisher was reading the first book of The Lord of the Rings, despite the movie marathon of the trilogy and prequels they’d held yesterday in an attempt to take their minds off aliens. Madeleine liked him a great deal when he was wearing his glasses and had that absorbed expression, so she began, through sideways glances, to capture a small portrait which pleased her. She moved on to fill the page with her companions, lingering over Emily cross-legged on the filing cabinet reading the copy of The Three Musketeers she had discovered with great excitement in the apartment library.
A study of each of them finished, and nearly an hour to go, she was hesitating over what to work on next when Fisher held out his hand for her pencil. She’d been aware that he’d stopped reading to watch her draw and, warmed by his interest, she’d been working to do her absolute best. It was inordinately difficult to not react to the faint brush of his arm against hers.
In tiny, precise letters he wrote: Draw Emily as a Musketeer.
Usually she didn’t like bright suggestions about what she should draw, but this one sparked a response. She’d need a reference, though, so pointed at his abandoned tablet, using it to look up clothing, sabres, stances. But then, as a different picture crept into her thoughts, she switched the tablet to camera mode and held it above and a little before her, triggering the photo button with difficulty from the angle. After a miscalculation which captured only half her face, she managed a satisfactory shot of herself staring upward, and handed the tablet to Fisher, gesturing for him to do the same.
He photographed himself obediently, paused to look at the result and shook his head with a wry lift to the corner of his mouth. But handed the tablet over to her.
After some pantomime and a little stifled giggling, she had seven photographs, and began to outline, covering the whole of a page in her large sketchbook with faint circles and lines, roughing out proportions and angles. It was a challenging picture, a circle of seven seen from above, each with a sabre raised to a central point, some faces smiling, some grave beneath their broad-brimmed hats and curling feathers.
"That’s two hours," Noi said softly, breaking Madeleine’s concentration. "I think we can risk sending a scout now, but first I’m dying to see what the hell it is you’ve been drawing Maddie."
Madeline passed the sketchbook around, and felt oddly breathless, not at their pleased reactions, but at the implications of that picture. Blue Musketeers, united and bold.
She, too, agreed with Emily.
Chapter Twelve
"Will it bother you if I watch you paint?"
In the middle of setting out her first palette, Madeleine turned to find Fisher watching with an open interest which pleased and daunted her. Since they’d run from the beach Fisher had buried himself in one of the laptops, searching for any scrap of data he could use to fight back – pausing occasionally for meals or discussions, but usually to be found in the library window seat on a shadow-eyed quest for answers. She wasn’t sure why they all held on to the hope he’d find a way to fight back, beyond that he hadn’t given up yet.
"Not if you stay quiet." She tried to keep her tone casual. "I usually tune distractions out when I’m working."
"I noticed that yesterday." His smile was slow and warm. "I’ll set a chair over here if that’s okay with you."
Madeleine shrugged, and avoided Noi’s eye as she finished preparations, then stood before her easel entirely focused on Fisher instead of her subjects. But she was longing to finish this painting, the light was good, and Noi had agreed that the faint scent of acrylics weren’t that big a risk now that the building had been cleared. Even Fisher wasn’t enough to keep her from becoming completely absorbed.
Together on a couch set by the patio entrance, Emily and Noi were a study of contrasts. Fine blonde hair drifting beside foaming black curls. Slender height; compact curves. Shy pleasure at being painted against entertained interest in Madeleine’s awareness of Fisher. Below it all, never going entirely away: anger, hurt.
Madeleine blocked in colours, not pushing herself so frantically this time, spending more effort on consciously analysing shadow tones before beginning to detail the two figures. Emily and Noi chatted and read, and watched the television behind Madeleine, keeping roughly to their original positions but accepting Madeleine’s assurance that she did not need them to sit stiff and frozen except when she was working on specific detail. She released them a little before two, in part because the light had begun to shift, but also because the "First Challenge" was due to start at midday in Manila.
Fisher helped carry her used brushes, jars and palettes to the laundry, and had made a good start on cleaning them by the time she returned from stowing the paints and canvas in the study.
"Thanks," she said, and took one of the palettes.
"Will you have enough paint to complete the portrait?"
"I should. But not for the third canvas. When we toured the other North Building apartments this morning I saw a computer with a graphics tablet, and I was thinking of teaching myself how to properly use a digital art program. I don’t think I could talk Noi into the importance of art supplies to my continued existence."
"They are, though, aren’t they?" He was watching her face in his deliberate, considered way. "It’s so central to you. I sometimes wish I was so focused."
"You mean you can’t decide what you want to do?"
"I wanted to study astrophysics. And biochemistry. And archaeology. And words, and a great many things said with them. Year Ten was when we started seriously choosing courses, and I had to face that I couldn’t sign up for every unit, that–"