Loneliness is the human condition.

Apparently, the last few weeks (and at least the week to come) would be filled with a lot of changes for Astrid. New hair color, new tattoo, new criminal record, new job. In three days, she'd be turning fifteen, too, a new age. Add that to feeling incredibly inspired by her science class earlier, she figured it only stood to reason that it would be time for some new art on her wall, too.

So she spent some time pulling up her hair, pulling out all the tarps to put over the furniture, pushing her bed away from the wall and started painting over the current art, those dark and moody trees that barely seemed to bother her anymore, to cover it all with a wash of white, a fresh start, a new vision, and while she waited for it to dry, she picked out her colors. So many colors, but mostly greens and reds, and a blue so pale it was almost white. Warm yellows and oranges, alluring colors, colors that drew the eye and brought you closer with the promise of fragrance, and then that's how they got you, the venus fly traps, the pitcher plants, the lily of the valley and the oleander.

Plenty of oleander, all gathered around the head of her bed. The reason she was here to begin with, the reason she would remain, and perhaps the reason, deep down, she was starting not to mind so much that she would.


[[ apparently, scorpios who don't tell anyone about their birthdays is a new type for me. Open door, open post! ]]

Astrid had originally planned to spend today in the library, trying to figure out this YouTube thing Mr. Stark had mentioned, but then there was a surprise waiting for her on her desk when she came back to the room last night. Surprise honestly didn't seem to cover how she felt about it. She definitely hadn't done anything to warrent it, it wasn't her birthday for another couple months...She thought of when her mom started seeing someone new, they'd treat her to little things to win Ingrid's favor, she thought of Starr taking her shopping for new clothes, that pink dress and the matching heels that were still tucked into the corner of her suitcase as if she'd never expected to stay here longer than a week, the hiking boots that she still wore nearly every day.

She never knew what to do with all those things, either, but she also knew not to look a gift card in the mouth. She had a big project in mind, and now she had the resources to make it happen with only the slightest reservation that she really didn't deserve it.

And so the bed and the desk were pulled away from the wall on her side of the room, the tarps were out and spread, she pulled her hair back and threw on some old clothes, and got to work with her carefully chosen materials. Small tubs of paints, black and grey and white, large brushes, and, to her surprise, quite a bit of green, which she planned to worked around the inside of the big black tree in the corner that would be the centerpiece for her new work of art, glowing like life, with veins of darker green worked subtly into the trunk like vines.

The Blue Period, it would seem, had passed. But what exactly would Green entail?

[[ door and post are open, with work related slowness. Three day weekend, wtf is that??]]

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!]]