A tall, wirey man, apearing to be in his late 20s sat in the corner of the subway cart. It was late, around 1 in the morning, and the cart almost empty. His feet were up on the seat next to him, and a sketch pad propped on his knees. Headphones were attatched to his ears, and if you listened closely enough you could hear the soft tunes of the Dresden Dolls floating out from the tiny speakers.

"Let her crash and burn, she'll learn. The attention just encourages her . . ."

The song played on acomanied by an angry piano and smashing drums. His ink pen scratched arcoss the page restlessly as he sketched the surounding scene. He was on his way home from work, a half hour ride, usually alone and the only passanger.

"I don't nessicarily believe there is a cure for this . . "

The voice emited from his headphones. He thumped the end of his pen on his sketch pad in rythem with the drum set, closing his eyes tierdly as the subway stopped to let on more passangers.

The train creeped to a stop infront of the platform, allowing a moment of silence to pass before it's doors slid open with a resonating 'ding'. With his headphones on and music playing, Navene would most assuredly miss the petal soft footsteps signaling Aerona's presence, or the sound of rough cloth against cloth of a second presence.. Clothed in black velvet of perhaps a Parisian style, she stepped into the car with an air of cool carelessness.

Now the blank expression on the gentlemen's hands she currently held hands with surely could have been forgiven, but her odd, even slightly elaborate appearance would surely raise more than one brow.

She wore a conservative dress with a Peter Pan collar with long sleeves puffed slightly at the shoulders, and hints of a petticoat peeking out from underneath the knee-length skirt; Her small legs sporting white, lace-trimmed knee stockings with black patent Mary Janes. A mane of flaxen hair fell gently past her shoulders in soft curls, a black velvet headpiece pinned just behind her ears to keep her face clear from obstruction. Under the bright train car light, her skin appeared to be a pink tinted ivory, free from any blemishes common among young children. But the most eye capturing feature about her, ironically, would be her eyes; One a light crystal green, the other a sapphire blue.

She happened to share none of these features with the man now seated beside her, who could be described as literally 'Tall, dark, and handsome'.

Navene continued sketching and looked up when the train started moving again. Startled by the appearance of two new people on the train, Navene jumped slightly in his seat. What was also startling to him was the high extravange of the girl's appearance. Though most of the people here weren't horribly poor, there were very few who appeared so rich. He shook his head slightly, continuing to sketch. After a few moments he took off his head phones and turned his face towards the girl.

"Would you mind if I sketch you?"

He asked, his voice soft, shy, and low. He doubted he could capture the essance of how this girl appeared to him, but he did wish to try.

"I'm not going to sell it or anything . . . just practice."

He said to her, thinking that it was possible the older man, possibly her father, might refuse. Navene could always sketch her without saying anything, but he felt it was the right thing to do, asking her permision.

"Me??"

To say she had been expecting as much would sound most arrogant indeed, but it really came as no surprise to Aerona. Over the centuries, she had been the inspiration, even played the muse for dozens of artists throughout the world. The fact that she had captured the eye of some novice artist was no surprise.

"..'kay"

Her voice was soft with feigned shyness, belying none of the frustration she held whenever she was forced to dim her vocabulary. It was probably one of the reasons she held a bit of resentment towards having company.

Her clothes rustled as she moved into a simple position, practice evident in her smooth movements. The man beside her gave no move to protest, rather moved aside with a flick of her wrist, hidden behind her skirt.

Navene placed his head phones back on his head, and skipped the Ipod to a different song by the Dresden Dolls, one he felt fit the mood of the young girl. It was slower, and less angry. More melodic and soft, Navene looked up at the girl and began to sketch, his eyes moving constantly from the girl to the sketch pad. The sound from his earphones contniued to flow into the subway cart.

"It's a late april day and it's sunny outside, there's a little red girl at the top of a slide. An old orange man at the bottom, wants to take her, for a ride . . ."

The soft sound of his pen scratching over the paper filled the room, and his eyes intensified as he attempted to replicate the clear, mysterious look in the childs bicoloured eyes.

Don't worry, I've got you. Don't worry, I've got you. Don't worry, I've got you. Don't worry, I've got you. . . The orange man's got you!"

The song became louder and more dramatic, the drums crashing. The sound came from his ear phones quietly, though loud enough for all in the car to hear. Navene continued to sketch, oblivious to the girl's control over the man beside her.

Had she been younger, perhaps, a smile would have found itself on her face. She made a point to stay away from what most considered 'art' in this day and age:

She had seen it all before, nothing could possibly be new.

But as she listened to the song that floated from his headphones, filling the car with the only other sound besides the occasional screech from the subwaytracks, that smile began curling her thin, pale lips upwards.

'How ironic! How fitting!'

She felt her posture straighten the slightest of bits, smile now in place as she waited patiently for him to finish. It seemed she took pleasure from the most random of things.

Navene noticed her straightened posture, but didn't think much of it. The eyes on his sketch pad had finnally reached as close as he thought they were likely to get. He moved on to her light cloured hair, something harder to capture with simple black ink and white paper. As he continued to sketch the drawing evolved into a dramatic looking romantic type piece of art. The shadows were darker than they acctually were, the highlights brighter. The efect made the picture look even more dramatic than intended, almost fightening.

"Damn it."

Navene muttered under his breath as his pen ran out of ink. He set down his sketch pad on the seat infront of him for a moment to search for another pen in the bottem of his back pack. The headphones continued onto the next song.

"Half accidental. Half pain full instrumental . . ."

The woman's voice sang out over a low, minor key song.

"It's really good.." A simple phrase, a dozen ways to say it.

Her voice came from beside him, light as ever as she assesed the picture. She now held the pad in her slender hands, seated where it had once been with no indication she had been anywhere else but there..

"It looks exactly like me."

Ofcourse, she wasn't referring to the half finished figure of herself, rather, the small details in the lighting and shading most would have overlooked. She traced over the paper with a critical eye, a small smile on her face, hidden by a curtain of gold that fell over her shoulders.

Navene was slightly startled at how she has moved to sitting in the chair without him hearing or seeing her move at all. He pulled his headphones down off his ears and around his neck, having seen her lips move but not heard the acctual words. He looked at her questioningly, ever more intrigued by her eyes.

"Er, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."

He said looking over her shoulder at the sketch. It had a few minor mistakes in the background, but the figure itself was almost flawless in technical errors. It was as if her image had been etched into his mind. The background looked awfully dull compared to the extravagently dressed girl in the center of the page. He drummed his pen against the side of the train lightly, in rythem of the song that still played from the speakers around his neck. Although it did not fill his hearing now, he could still pick out some of the lyrics from the song.

"It's half biology and half corrective surgery gone wrong. You'll notice something funny if you stay around here for too long . . ."

"I said it came out really good. It looks just like me."

She turned in her seat, careful that no contact came between herself and Navene. It wouldn't do to frighten him off via lack of body heat.

The fact that he had painstakenly concentrated on her figure alone rather than the whole picture was of no consquence, but, it really lowered the quality of the drawing.

"You messed up a little on the background. Right there..."

Pointing a dainty finger to some random spot on the paper, she handed the pad back to him, watching him expectantly.

"Oh, thanks."

He said, looking down at the sketch pad as she handed it to him. Navene was slightly suprized at how well this young girl was as an art critic, but thought nothing of it. Perhaps one of her parents or relatives was an acclaimed artist? This would infact explain her rich dress. He took the sketch pad lightly in his hands and looked at the spot she pointed out. He could not erase with this ink, but adding new lines and reshaping the area did help to improve the area, even if he could not perfect it. Looking over to the acctual spot in the train, he studied it for a moment with his eyes before returning to fix other errors in the rest of the page. He didn't bother to return the headphone's to his ears, and they continued to play the song.

"I see my mother in my face, but only when I travel. I run as fast as I can run but Jack comes tumbeling after . . ."

The recorded voice sang on as he increased the highlights and shadows on one of the window's of the subway. Streaks he added in the windows added a look of motion to it. After all, this was not the first time Navene was to draw a subway in motion. He did have a half hour to waste both on the way to work, and the way back in this exact cart.

"I suppose you've done this before?"

She asked, now seated quaintly in the train seat she had occupied when she first entered the car. Her body was once again positioned in the pose she had begun with, chin held high with an blank expression that, eerily enough, made her seem like an inanimate object..

"You seem really accustomed to drawing the environment. Late nights got you, huh?"

Navene shrugged.

"Same cart, same ride home from work every night. It's not so bad, but it's nice to have a change of subject such as yourself everyonce in a while."

He explained, before continuing to draw the rest of the surounding area, this time paying attention in particular to the shadows being cast around the car by the girl and her stranger friend.

"I majored in art in collage. Though most of the jobs I get in this city don't really require or use any of that, I try to keep up the habbit, you know?"