"Maybe we can split it up. So it is not as obvious." River suggested, she moved her hair out from her eyes. Her hat was creating static charge and wayward hair was sticking to her face. "Like, Fonsus, maybe you are doing a project on hexes, for instance. No one would be surprised at that. I know you can cook up some questions above the cut of the average student."

"Richard, you can bring up the charms and paintings by talking about Cae. You can mention your girlfriend.. Or... Whatever... Is into doing magical paintings. Right?"

~~~

Caelum was working on her painting of Ricahrd. She brought the painting home to work on. She was in her bedroom at home, a high rise in Manhattan. She had wide windows looking out over the city. She could hear her father in the kitchen burning the turkey while on a work call.

She rolled her eyes, and turned up the music in her headphones to drown out the chatter, and closed the door so she didn't smell the burning.

Then she looked to her painting. She was not sure she was allowed to take it with her, but, she also did not ask.

Art belonged to the artist Not to muggles or wizzard. Especially not this one... This was not a school project, it was hers... and Richard's.

She gazed at the boy for long moments, then dipped her brush into the paint, and made a stroke here... A stroke there... Yet, she was having a problem with her artistic direction. She usually had a clear vision to follow for her work, a driving force that was hard to ignore. This Muse, however, was a trickster. She worked on the painting, yet, she always thought there was something she was missing, some quality she could neither capture nor define. It was frustrating. 

She turned away from the painting, frowning. Stirring her bespelled paint... She had recently [i]altered[/i] the mixture, to try and better capture her subject.

"It is like I can't really see him..." She whispered. "Not the real him anyway..." She was frustrated that her new paint did not seem to be working. "Or... Is it because I can't see... My own feelings?" She looked towards her door, beyond it, her father cursed as he touched a pan without an oven-mitt "I wonder if he would come over for Christmass... Would you like that, Richard?" She turned to the panting, smiling, as she asked him the question...

... Then she saw it. Her lips opening slightly. "Well... That's... Very very interesting." She went back to the painting, touching the wet paint of his hair with her bare fingers now, understanding dawning on her. "Very interesting, my dear..."

~~~

River was still speculating. "Maybe we can just say we wanted to look after him, and make sure he was okay." She frowned a bit. "I mean, Fonsus and I were his students anyway. That might make sense more than working on a school projet, like, he would wonder why we did not just get a book..."

"There it is!" She smiled as it came into view.