Third little lie ♰ You dream you've heard a lovely song; all night you're haunted by its theme

[beingdifferent]

[Open spam]

[Today, Esther is inside the art room. It’s quickly become her favorite area on board, a place where she really gets to create and experiment and play. Drawing and painting are small pleasures, and after experiencing a snippet of her earlier captivity she found herself almost grateful. Almost. Not grateful enough to forgive having to relive that time, but that realization is tucked away in her mind as soon as it’s made. There will be time for all that later; for now, she has artwork to make.

And she’s singing:
“When you wake up the notes are wrong,
The song has vanished with a dream.
Well that‘s the story of my life.”

Facing an easel Jesse helped set up, she dips her paintbrush into the light brown paint and adds it to the canvas with broad controlled strokes. A few more lines sung and a little dark brown paint later the color takes recognizable shape: it’s a bear, out of place in an urban environment with tiny simple people around him. As she adds a pair of large eyes to her picture, Esther narrows her own in concentration. The bear’s muzzle takes on a small frown.

All her pictures tell stories.]

Comments

[halftheman]

[ So do Harv's. ]

[ He spends a great deal of his free time here, though these days it's divided between work in his cabin on ASL and his art. He arrives, rolling his shoulders and getting out of his suit -- like a lot of Gotham rogues, Harv rarely understands the idea of 'dressing down'. ]

[ But he stops when he hears Esther's thin, piping over, and come over. Interesting. ]

Bear doesn't look too happy in the city.

[beingdifferent]

[They're well matched in those regards. Esther is positively Edwardian today, from her patent leather shoes to her pinafore (which is remarkably free of paint). When Harvey draws closer she stops her song and turns to look at him, nodding in answer.]

It's not where he wants to be. [As she speaks she washes the brush and dips it in gray paint, adding a currently-floating roof to the bear's platform.] He was brought to the city long ago, but he always remembers the forest.

[halftheman]

So is he waiting on a train to get back?

[ He stands behind her, watching with half-interest; he doesn't really know how to talk to children. He was never a father. ]

[beingdifferent]

[She chuckles, shaking her head, and adds a series of gray bars in front of the bear, effectively turning the platform into a cage.] No. He doesn't know how to get out.

[halftheman]

Most people don't.

[ A comment on life in general, really. But he steps back to let her work; there's a draft table that works well for his art -- from old pulp novels, memories. Stark black and white lines. ]

[beingdifferent]

You're right, I think.

[Once she's finished with the bars she washes the bristles again and adds a small person near the side of the cage, wearing blue and a matching hat.] What are you making?

[halftheman]

Just drawing. Don't-- really think to hard on it.

[ He doesn't look up; he can talk and work at the same time. ]

[fire_punk]

[Kevin's been taking a break from his own project to watch her paint. Finally, he speaks up.]

He doesn't belong there.

[beingdifferent]

[She turns to look at Kevin, nodding solemnly.]

He misses his family.

[fire_punk]

What happened to them?

[beingdifferent]

He wandered away one day and got lost. He never found his mother again, instead he found a person.

[fire_punk]

Guess he should've stayed home....

[beingdifferent]

He couldn't help getting lost. Sometimes that just happens.

[lastrat]

[There's something off about her, he knows that much. She aged up instead of down - and into something truly monstrous, something that doesn't fit the face - or facade - shes presented to the Barge at all. He knows something isn't right - being stabbed made it abundantly clear - and he intends to find out what.

Unfortunately, his usual methods aren't ones he'd turn on a little girl.

When he hears the singing, he pauses, and turns toward the art room door. For a moment, he stands outside staring in, out of sight, thinking. Then he changes his direction, and heads in. He walks quietly, and things his younger self had a good point he hadn't known how to follow: you catch more flies with honey.

Coming around her, but not behind, making sure she sees and hears him before he pulls a chair up beside her, Bond tilts his head a little to look at the painting, and offers a small smile.]

You're quite good.

[beingdifferent]

[Esther stops singing when Bond takes his seat, looks over at him with thoughtful eyes. He's doubly dangerous, his suspicions expected, and she has to turn on all the innocent charm and naivete a small child can muster.

She looks from the painting to him and back, then smiles shyly in return.]

I've had time to practice.

[lastrat]

[How much time, he has to wonder, but he nods and looks back to her work.]

What's a bear doing in a city? [He's keeping things light - not overly friendly, or he'd be suspicious, but the rule here is calm and polite.]

[beingdifferent]

[Esther looks at Bond as if the answer is painfully obvious and he should have known it already.] So people can look at him. Everyone wants to see bears, but only in zoos.

[lastrat]

[He smiles, points to the canvas.]

Zoos usually mimic the animal's habitat. Has this one escaped?

[Truthfully, he doesn't care, about her painting or it's story: he's just trying to put her at ease so he can get a look under those ribbons.]

[beingdifferent]

[That's a good question and she considers it seriously for awhile before shaking her head.]

No, this one is just not a very good zoo.

[surrenders]

[She's started making this a real part of her world, when Jesse's there a lot of the day and she has an inmate who she doesn't need to follow. Lua's work gets more and more complex as the weeks go on, and she usually is concentrating hard enough - when she isn't distracted by Jesse - to let the kid do what she wants and not say anything to her. She's been looking harder at Kevin, anyway, like how she thinks Jesse's been looking hard at Anya.

Today, though, she gets a real good look at the picture and has a real hard listen to the kids' conversation, so she's starting to wonder. She knows a kid can start young after the stories Ladd told her, so Esther might belong, but that doesn't mean she isn't still a kid. She takes a look at the bear in the city while she's cleaning up a mess of paint and slivers, almost like she's just passing it by.]

You come from a place like that?

[beingdifferent]

[The question seems to surprise Esther, and she turns away from the bear (who is now looking longingly at some children running in front of his cage), then begins to add lines of gray in the background.]

No. I've only been to the city a few times. [The gray lines soon thicken to become skyscrapers, dwarfing the bear like so many metal mountains.]

[surrenders]

[Kids draw what they know or what they see inside their heads, she's heard. Get her talking, like kids usually do, and Lua's set to just pop in a question or two as she drops her paper into the trash and tries to make up a reason to stick around.]

Where is it, for you? The city.

[beingdifferent]

A long way from my house. But once we went to the zoo there and saw the bears. Mostly they were just sleeping, but one looked at me.

[surrenders]

How'd it feel?

[Were you scared? is the first question she thinks, and almost asks it, but that assumes too much. If Esther's here, she can't have been too sheltered a kid: at least smart enough to know it can't hurt her.]

When was it for you, anyway? When you showed up here.

[beingdifferent]

Exciting! That was the first time I ever met a bear. [For a child's fantastical, liberal definition of "met" anyway.]

I'm sorry? I don't understand. I've been here only a few weeks.