Astrid Magnussen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
white_oleander) wrote2018-07-21 06:12 am
white_oleander) wrote2018-07-21 06:12 am
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Room 210: Saturday Afternoon. [07/21].
And so it would seem that Astrid had herself a new pet bird. She couldn't seem to shake the little expressive wren (pure coincidence, and nothing more). She tried letting it out on Thursday, only to have it right back into the dorms, chirping up a storm, and yesterday evening, Astrid had managed to escape it for a little while when it went flying, only then to have it somehow find her window, knock on it with its beak until she let it back in, where it then curled up on Sabine's bed. It seemed to pick derisively at her offerings of birdseed and it complained quite a bit, seeming generally cranky with its current state of affairs and yet completely unwilling to change them whenever Astrid tried to let it go.
The thought that it might actually be Sabine, she'd completely booted out of her head, because that was impossible. The conversation between the two of them before the bird arrived was obviously just a result of too many paint fumes in a poorly ventilated room. It didn't even seem implausible that Sabine had gone off for most of the week, probably staying in that warehouse she was always talking about, painting it up, and managing to step out at just the moment when Astrid went to go check.
But still, she had a faintly crazy idea and nothing better to do, so Astrid went to the store to get a few things, and when she got back to the room, she laid out the roll of art paper she'd bought until it covered most of the floor. She'd definitely gotten the bird's attention, grinning faintly over at it as she also set out a few paper plates, dumping a different colored paint in each one. She nodded at the bird, picked it up, and set it into the first one, the bright, bright pink one.
The bird knew exactly what Astrid was doing, let out an approving chirp, and then the rest of the afternoon was Astrid and the bird painting the paper on the floor, Astrid with her brushes, the bird by hopping around in the colors and then hopping along the paper in a variety of ways that almost seemed intentional in their efforts to make something bright and colorful and beautiful.
Man. She couldn't wait to show off their new artistic little friend to Sabine when she got back from...wherever she'd gone off to.
[[door and post are open!]]
The thought that it might actually be Sabine, she'd completely booted out of her head, because that was impossible. The conversation between the two of them before the bird arrived was obviously just a result of too many paint fumes in a poorly ventilated room. It didn't even seem implausible that Sabine had gone off for most of the week, probably staying in that warehouse she was always talking about, painting it up, and managing to step out at just the moment when Astrid went to go check.
But still, she had a faintly crazy idea and nothing better to do, so Astrid went to the store to get a few things, and when she got back to the room, she laid out the roll of art paper she'd bought until it covered most of the floor. She'd definitely gotten the bird's attention, grinning faintly over at it as she also set out a few paper plates, dumping a different colored paint in each one. She nodded at the bird, picked it up, and set it into the first one, the bright, bright pink one.
The bird knew exactly what Astrid was doing, let out an approving chirp, and then the rest of the afternoon was Astrid and the bird painting the paper on the floor, Astrid with her brushes, the bird by hopping around in the colors and then hopping along the paper in a variety of ways that almost seemed intentional in their efforts to make something bright and colorful and beautiful.
Man. She couldn't wait to show off their new artistic little friend to Sabine when she got back from...wherever she'd gone off to.
[[door and post are open!]]
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"I brought pizza," Breq announced, face blank until she remembered to smile.
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"...for me?" she finally asked.
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She entered the room, noted the bird and nodded towards it. "Your roommate?"
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Now, where her actual roommate was, Astrid still wasn't sure.
If you looked close enough, it almost seemed like the bird rolled its eyes, before its attention shifted toward Breq and the something to eat that wasn't birdseed that she had brought with her.
"Have a seat," Astrid added, shifting a little to make more space in an area that wasn't covered in paint already. "You've got good timing, I was actually getting a little hungry..."
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"All possible toppings."
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She smiled a little at the toppings, though. "Can't go wrong with everything, right? I mean, I guess if someone's allergic." She wasn't, though, so she shrugged, watching the bird shake a little paint off its wings before hopping closer with the clear intent of being near the pizza boxes.
"You alright with everything, too?" she asked the bird, who gave a little twitter in response, and, really, she was just glad it seemed interested in eating something since the seed hadn't gone over very well.
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"I assumed you weren't," she said, tearing off a smaller piece for the bird. "Who's your roommate?"
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For now, though, yes, pizza, and watching with faint amusement as the bird took the offered piece and flapped its wings in slight frustration at not being able to just get a big bite of it without setting it (carefully, avoiding any of the wet paint) down and pecking at it.
"Sabine," she answered. "Have you met her? Short hair, she's always changing it different colors? She wears this armored suit, too, and changes the colors on that. She's very...colorful. That side of the room," Astrid gestured the painted walls, the bright pink desk-in-progress, "is hers. That one," and Astrid pointed to the other, darker, moodier side, "is mine. We spend a lot of time changing it up, too."
She tried not to seem too excited about that, really, always trying to keep her cards close, but it was hard to diminish the light in her eyes as she talked about it.
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Breq looked from the colourful side of the room to the dark one. "You don't like colours much?" she asked, reaching for a pizza slice.
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But Astrid stopped, cutting herself off, blinking a little. No. That wasn't right. Sabine and her hadn't talked. She thought they had, but that was when the bird showed up. That was just paint fumes.
She shook her head slightly, taking a bite, chewing a little before continuing. "We were just talking about colors. When I first got here, all I painted were sunsets, oranges and red and pink, but lately, it's just all been blue..."
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"I just don't like it here," she said. "I don't to be here, but the longer I'm here, the more it sort of sets in that I don't really have anywhere else to go. Or, if I did, I wouldn't like those places, either, but at least I might have been able to stay in California. That's where all the other colors are. The reds, the pinks, the purple. Mexico is yellow and orange, Amsterdam is gray, Paris....Paris was green, I think. But here, it's blue, everything's blue."
She didn't even know if that made sense, but she kept at it.
"It's not like blue is completely bad, either. It's not just sad. Blue can be warm, it can be pretty, it can be bright and obnoxious. But, mostly, it's just melancholy."
She wrinkled her nose, picked at a piece of pepper. "Does that make any sense?"
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She had had enough homesick young lieutenants cry on her shoulder to be able to deal with Astrid bursting into tears, but she didn't seem like the kind of person who was comfortable doing something like that.
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