The Roof, Sunday Afternoon

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo lugged the easel, the paints and palette, and a couple of the blank canvases she'd bought earlier in the week up to the roof, setting herself up in the corner with the garden of spiky plants. It had been a long time since she'd had a chance to do any artwork, and painting was still something fairly new to her; now that she actually had her life to herself again (for however long that lasted) she welcomed the chance to try her hand at.

Acrylics. She'd never painted with acrylics before, either, and though she'd never admit it out loud as she squeezed generous daubs of various colors onto the palette, she had no idea what it was going to be like. Some classically-trained artist somewhere would probably have a fit if they saw her guessing her way through this, she thought, lighting up a cigarette.

Absently, she dipped her brush into a color at random and began to let it trail over the canvas. This was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, but it was soothing.

[OOC: Open like a roof is. Mind the temperamental artist, but she's a bit mellower today.]

Comments

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"All the same."

He walked around to look at her canvas.

"What's all that?"

It looked a little like the drawings Nor had done on Elphaba's papers but the colors were brighter and the scent of the lot of it was entirely new.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo trailed the brush in a long, curving stroke, leaving a textured swath of green behind, and stepped back, surveying the largely abstract, at least to her, design. "Not sure yet. Never painted with acrylic before."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"That's paint then?"

He'd never seen it like that.

Of course, Katchoo couldn't know that. But the curiousity was in his tone, in his eyes as he looked it over.

"I've never actually seen something like that. I probably should have, considering my time here and everything, but I've mostly stayed in the kitchen."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, it's paint." She spared a moment to remind herself that with people coming from apparently all over, she really shouldn't boggle over it being such a new discovery to someone, and daubed a thicker layer over parts of the line she'd described.

That last bit made her pause and look at him askance. "The kitchen?" Did this place have servants? He didn't look like one, but that was a little disconcerting.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I like to cook, bake," he said before turning to paw at his bag. The little satchel opened and he pulled out a small brown bag after a minute.

"Do you like chocolate cinnamon?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Do I, hell," Katchoo replied, genuinely caught off-guard by the unprompted offer; she set the paintbrush down and raised a hand as if to reach toward the bag minutely. "Does anyone not?"

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He walked over to hand it to her.

They (http://herbsspices.about.com/od/cookies/r/PesachCCCookies.htm) weren't warm anymore, hadn't been for a bit, but they were still soft.

"You're welcome to them. I've got a stash in my room."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo hesitated a moment before taking the cookies. "Thanks," she said, the customary hoarseness of her voice tinged with a different kind of rasp, as if she was a little out of practice saying the word.

Thinking of Ronan and the sandwiches a few days ago, she noted, "Seems like people around here like to cook and share food a lot." Hell of a lot more altrustic than she was used to. Not a bad thing.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"It's one of the few things I'm good at and it's easier to hand someone a bag of cookies than try small talk. At least, for me."

He shrugged.

"Adjusting to this place all right?"

He hadn't seen her around previously, and her words had the sound of someone getting used to the place. Used to the kindness.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Spend enough time learning to make the kind of small talk that will insinuate you into the life of someone influential and thus a position of control, and you lose your taste for it; Katchoo could definitely see where offering baked goods had the edge, and she nodded her agreement with that evaluation.

Silence for a beat or two except for the rustle of the bag as she extracted a cookie and nibbled experimentally, then a flicker of appreciation crossed her face. "Easing into it, yeah," she allowed.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"People here are a lot nicer than I was used to. It took me a while but..."

He shrugged, as if to point out that he had been neither tarred and feathered nor hung by his neck until dead.

"My name is Liir, incidentally. I tend to forget that."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Nice people," she said between ginger nibbles, cautiously skeptical and again sounding like she had to reacquaint herself with the idea. "Almost forgot they existed."

"Katina," she added, waving one hand in lieu of the handshake she might have offered. "Nice name, Liir."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I've always figured it was the first thing she slurred after birthing me," he said with a faint smirk. He didn't mind the lack of a shake. The wave worked well enough.

"And I'd never met one before I came here. Nuns don't count."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo snorted lightly and stubbed out the cigarette she'd nearly forgotten about, before she got ash in the bag of cookies. "Yeah, I don't usually count nuns most of the time. Seriously, nobody nice back home?"

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He shook his head.

"Not really."

The Gale Forcers at Red Windmill, for all that they'd spent time with him, had probably only done it to get information about the keep. And whether they had or not, taking the remains of Fiyero's family certainly would have disqualified them.

Glinda had had her own agenda, and her own conscience to quiet. And letting someone in to a prison wasn't exactly 'nice'.

Trism, well...

Trism was nice. But Trism probably had some alterier motive. And to be fair, he'd only really been 'nice' when they'd met after this place. Before then, they'd just been pathetic together.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Know the feeling," Katchoo said briefly. "Well, except for Francine."

There had been her father, but after he'd died her mother had been too drunk most of the time to pay her much mind, and when she wasn't drunk she was yelling. Then there was Ace, and she hadn't been lying when she'd told Mr. Durden she'd fight him if she could. Terminally.

True, she'd been treated well by Darcy, but Katchoo harbored no illusions that Darcy Parker was anything but ruthless and calculating.

And then there had been Emma -- and once her time ran out Francine really would be the only one she had left.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I've met a Francine here," he said. "Do you mean that one?"

He wasn't sure but he figured it was worth asking.

He shook his head and looked around for something to lean on and finding nothing, he decided just to sit. He'd fly in a few minutes.

"And I suppose I have one friend in Oz. I'm not complaining or anything."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Tall, dark hair, curvy?" The closest thing anyone here had yet heard to open affection crept into Katchoo's voice. "Yeah, that's her."

"Oz?" she added after a moment. "You don't have an accent . . ."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"It's a different world," he pointed out. "Not here. We've had visitors, but it's no place like this one."

He scratched behind one ear before looking up.

"And yes, pleasant and friendly. Dark hair. I saw her at the buffet table during one of the picnics."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo actually chuckled at that; she wasn't surprised at all that Francine had been sighted near the food. "She's great, isn't she?"

"Different world, right," she said with a sigh. "I don't have the hang of remembering that yet."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I still wonder why people don't know what an Animal is," the capital letter was rather specific, "and my sister has to correct me on the days and the months more often than not."

"And she was very nice. I've been a bit antisocial of late."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Socializing's kind of overrated sometimes," said Katchoo, unaware of any persuasion to the contrary that she might be undoing. She could have mentioned that she didn't have much patience with people in general, but he'd given her cookies and done nothing to irritate her yet so, in what might've been a miraculous occurrence, kept that to herself.

"What's the difference," she asked, having gotten a sense of the capital letter, "between those and regular animals?"

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I have to say I agree, but my sister is insistent," he said with a faint smile at the mention of Ino. She'd been so happy earlier.

"As for Animals, well, they speak and think like anyone else on two legs," he told her. "Though the difference isn't as big as people might think. My mother was doing research to make monkeys into Monkeys when she died. She succeeded the once."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Sort of like cartoon animals, only not?" Katchoo hazarded; it was the only point of reference she had.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I don't know what a cartoon is, but you're probably right," he said with a shrug.

"They look like normal animals, but they're different. Supposedly, they were given the gift of speech by...

"Well, it was either Lurline or Kumbricia, but the myths all say different things so I couldn't tell you. A witch or a fairy queen."