Snippet #1217514

(Ophelia Evans, First District, Melody's Residence)

Ophelia stepped back, trying to take in the pencil lines from a wider angle. It was nicely proportioned, she thought, the figures laid out in such a way as to retain the impression of distinct individualities whilst simultaneously forming some kind of coherent whole. It worked, but not in the sort of way she'd been taught to expect. there were still a few things to work out before she set paint to it, of course, but it looked like it might be getting somewhere. This was major progress; most of the time, she scrapped at least three of four canvases before they got this far, reusing them, of course.

It was then that she felt one of the people in the other room simply disappear. From this distance, she could not pin down which emotional signatures belonged to whom or what they were, only that a certain number of people were present. A useful skill with human beings, but not so much with Levani droids, as it turned out. Still, it wasn't as though whoever it was had simply moved out of her range (which was no more than two hundred feet or so, regardless of walls or physical objects in the way), but rather that they had simply vanished.

For a moment, she was worried that either their mysterious guest had done something to one of the others or that Mr. Crawford had lost control somehow, and so she dashed from the room she was occupying to the one where the three remaining people could be felt. The door was open, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the missing one was the newest addition. The worry resurfaced, though, because she wasn't sure if the woman had left under her own power or not. Concerned, she glanced back and forth between the expressions worn by the others, but couldn't discern anything terribly useful. Whatever had happened, she hoped nobody was injured. Despite being rather wary and unsociable generally, Ophelia was not the sort to take pleasure in suffering, nor did she find the excuse of necessity particularly compelling.

Still, there was little use in speculating; the others were possessed of poker faces much too good for that. "What happened?" she asked, trying not to let the the slight twinge of worry color her tone.