Art

Cameron

"So what will you do now that tourney is over?" Cameron asked Jamison as the two walked from their dorms to the mess hall for lunch. "Are you going to try out another sport? You picked up on tourney pretty quickly."

Jamison's breath clouded the air in front of him as he tilted his head. "Maybe. They've got things like fencing and boxing which I might be good at. I mean, I used to fight for a living."

Camerin nodded. It seemed so long ago. They'd only been here for a semester now. It seemed like home. "Do you miss anything on the island?" Cameron asked, throwing his arms out to balance himself as he stepped on a patch of ice.

Jamison grabbed his arm to steady him. "I miss my brother a little. He was a punk, but I know he will be fine. Besides, maybe the prince will bring more kids here someday. I could probably convince them to bring him over."

"I meant things." Cameron continued. The sky began to drop little flurries of snow. "Sometimes I miss the gang's hideout. We were so important back on the island. Without Gisa's gang there would have been so much more crime in our territory. Of course I don't want to go back, but it was nice to be important, you know? Here I'm just another student among a thousand just at this school. I'm okay at sports and have passing grades, but I'm nobody special."

Jamsion looked pensive for a moment. "True. There's just so much more of everything here. It's overwhelming sometimes. Maybe you just need to find what you're good at and go for it. Neither of us are geniuses, but luckily, there are so many other things we can be good at. For example, Michael and Sean recommended I try to get a scholarship for playing tourney. Apparently, I can play for a university and get free school if I'm good enough. And— and you! I've seen some of your art. You were the artist of some of the murals on the island, right? Those were amazing? How about trying art?"

Cameron considered it for a moment. Back on the island it was rare that he had time to paint, or enough coin for supplies. Paint was a rare commodity, and therefore hard to come by. He was usually too focused on trying not to starve or freeze to death. Or be killed by someone. But, well the Royal School of the United Continent had to have art classes, didn't it? "Why don't I change my classes around and find some art classes during lunch?"

Jamison smiled. "There you go!"

Cameron opened the door of the cafeteria, the cold metal biting into his palm. "So how'd the meeting with Jules go? Last time I heard she was pretty angry with you."

Jamsion broke into a grin, "We're okay now. I'm actually going to meet her parents. She was nervous because they're, well, let's just say my dad tried to kill hers."

Ron's eyes widened before he chuckled, "You really know how to pick a girl Jamison. What's she doing all the way in the United Continent?"

Jamison shrugged. "Her parents are trying to reconfigure some of the nation's laws and build better schools and such. But the nation isn't so accepting. They hired some scholars to teach her, but it was difficult because the Eastern Kingdom used to have a law against women getting an education and doing… well anything really. So they sent her here."

Cameron nodded. "The island sucked, but at least girls and boys were sent to school. There wasn't really a law there, but anything men could do, it was just assumed women could too." He grabbed a plate by one of the stations in the cafeteria and scooped a heaping spoonful of macaroni and cheese onto it. He skipped the steaming tray of collard greens beside the macaroni. "I don't understand why people eat those."

"Because they're good for you," Jamsion answered, slopping a pile of them on his plate next to the pasta. "I want to build muscle so I eat stuff even when it tastes gross. I'm even taking a class about different foods and what they do for your body and stuff."

"Sounds boring." Cameron mused as he wandered over to another station serving fried pieces of chicken. He got two drumsticks.

"Easy for you to say. You have such a fast metabolism that you could eat a whole cow and not gain a pound." Jamsion shook his head. "I'm heading to the salad bar to get grilled chicken."

Cameron found a booth near the entrance of the dining hall and opened his laptop, searching the art course code. So many courses popped up that he couldn't believe his eyes. There was everything from introduction to mediums to things as specific as charcoal portraits and abstract photography.

He clicked on introductions to mediums and registered. He could take two more. Painting I. Art history I. He didn't know that you could take classes like that!

Jamison sat down, and Cameron turned the laptop around to show him. "I get to take a class on painting!"