Private Finished A Little Company

Claudia Winchester stretched her legs out in front of her, leaning back against the bench she was sitting on. She yawned, brought her legs back in to cross at the ankles, and flipped the page of the book in her hands. It was just one of those days, she thought, one of those days to spend among nature with a good book. Except, she was almost done with the book.

The thought brought her eyes flickering up from one of the last few pages to the park around her and the scant few people populating it. It was still the holidays, so she figured she'd be seeing more people out than this. A couple of the people lingering about left the park, leaving it feeling even more empty than before. Perhaps it was simply too early in the day? Too cold out?

She decided to study the small number of people left. Mostly just people on their phones or reading books like she was, but then her eyes fell on someone she hadn't seen before. . .

@Javi D'Arcana

A person painting in the park--when it was this cold? He was dedicated, Claudia thought, and she admired that a little. She tilted her head in an attempt to see what it was he was painting, but she realized how dumb that was because she was actually kind of far away from him. Instead, she got up from the bench, tucked her book in her black jacket pocket, and began to move closer to the young man. Old boy? Or was that actually a girl? She really couldn't tell from this distance.

Claudia was very careful not to alert the purple-haired person to her approach, stepping in other people's footprints, and she was lucky that she hadn't worn very noisy clothes today. Were she actually visible, she'd probably be the most obvious sneak ever.

As she grew closer, she was able to see him and the canvas a bit more properly. She lingered a couple feet back, standing on her booted tip-toes to see what the painting was looking like so far.

Claudia Winchester was dumbfounded. The person began talking to absolutely nothing, and she wondered if perhaps he was crazy until something appeared out of literally nothing and sat on him. What in the world was that? A crane?

She briefly considered just walking away now, feeling a bit frightened when she thought about what a person who could conjure things out of seemingly thin air could do. However, against what was surely her better judgement, she decided to stay a little longer. She tucked her scarf over her nose and mouth and moved just a bit closer, now wondering if he was going to make anything else appear out of the blue--white? It was winter after all.

In the process of closing some of the distance between them, her foot accidentally connected with a rock that had been buried beneath the snow and sent it rolling over to the purple-haired painting person.

Claudia bit her tongue, silently swearing at her mistake. She stared at the crane as it stared at her, non-magically willing it with her mind to just turn back around and ignore her and not make the guy any more suspicious than he was. Thankfully, both he and the spirit didn't seem to press any further. Relief washed over her, and she regained her confidence.

This time as she continued moving closer, she was very careful not to go kicking anything or tripping over anything else. She peered over his unoccupied shoulder at the canvas, still lingering a foot or two back to avoid making any physical contact. His words didn't really register with her; she'd tuned them out as more spirit talk after she heard him mentioning them. Ghosts were definitely not her thing, no way. They might both be invisible to the human eye, but that was as far as she was willing to connect herself with them.

She prayed that the spirit wouldn't give her away.

This bird! How was she supposed to observe this guy when there was some weird spirit thing flapping its wings at her and staring at her like that? If that thing could talk, her cover probably would've been blown long ago. Wait. . .Could he have a conversation with spirits? She really hoped not. Maybe if she just ignored it and didn't make any sudden moves, it'd get bored and start ignoring her too.

Solid plan.

Claudia looked over the painting and wondered too if it would look better painted in snow like he was asking. She thought painting snow would be too hard and not worth the time, but that was probably because she wasn't really a painter in the first place. Good art required a lot of effort and skill. Still, it was kind of interesting to see this person paint as if the snow wasn't there--painting straight from the mind. It was difficult, she thought, to translate your imagination to paper or canvas and have it turn out even half as good as what you pictured.