What would a paint fight hurt anyway?

The attack had been a success by all accounts. Orion had executed his plan correctly and surprised Faye with a painterly tackle from her unguarded flank from behind the desk. He had made sure to get as much contact as possible in order to maximize pain application, and gave her a bit of a squeezing hug before letting her go. Her laughter was enough to let him know that she was appreciating his antics as much as he was enjoying this new experience.

As Faye made her escape to the other side of the room, he rolled over and caught his breath for a second. Painting was quickly becoming an intense, exercise-heavy activity.

"Okay! For real, when do we start paint--"

Just as he stood up, Orion was hit square in the chest with a bolt of purple paint, quickly followed by a paint gun of some kind. The battle was on once more.

"I'm get you ALL messy now!"

Orion took a running leap for some cover while firing. Like an action hero for a child friendly age, he flew threw air nearly horizontally as he fired a volley of green paint at Faye. Landing with a thud, Orion scrambled behind cover and grabbed a sponge. Soaking it in green paint, he lobbed it over the desk.

"Incoming!"

"Gotchya--Oh."

So much adrenaline and excitement had been flowing through Orion's veins that, when Faye approached him peacefully, he nearly shot her square in the face with his paint blaster. He had even jumped up to his feet, took aim, and put just the tiniest amount of pressure on the trigger before he realized that Faye was calling a cease fire. In fact, she had taken a few steps away before it finally clicked with him, and he lowered his weapon.

The true extent of their battle came into clear focus as he came down from his high. The room was a colorful mess. Beautiful in its own right, there was still going to be a hell of a lot of clean up for... someone.

"Um. Good fight?"

The shift from frantic paint fight to actual canvas painting was less smooth for him than it was for Faye, apparently. He looked at the canvases and the tubes of paint like they were wholly foreign objects. How was he supposed to make art without a paint gun?

"Well, you're the lead on this, honey. I've done the art before. So..."

He brought his gun again, pressed it lightly against the canvas, and squirted a dollop of paint onto it.

"Did I do it? Am doing the art?"

"From the heart. Hm."

He was in a weird position after Faye's explanation. Orion easily comprehended and understood her explanation of art as it was a fairly simply concept on the surface. Below that surface, however, was a more complex semantic problem that he was having some trouble coming to terms with. The expression on his face matched the thoughts in his head, like he was a having a silent debate with himself.

The brain was central to all emotion, or at least he thought that way. So was he supposed to just turn off his head and go with his heart? But anything he felt would be inherently full of thought, right? So how was he supposed to go with JUST his heart?

"But..."

Orion momentarily came out of his own head to tilt his head at Faye.

"... I don't know what I want it to be in said end. I'd have to think about it, which is something I shouldn't do(?) I'm confused."

Once more, Orion listened quietly to Faye's advice. He nodded along slowly and turned to look at his own canvas, which held only a single dripping streak of green paint on it from his paint gun. Said paint gun was also set down in favor of an actual brush, which he held up in front of him like he expected it turn on and start painting by itself.

He internalized Faye's newest explanation and tried to figure out Art for a second time. From the way she explained it, art could be just about anything as long as someone called it art, or thought it was art while in the creation process. It sounded so non-committal to him.

"Make it into what you want to see. I think..."

That was phrase that rung the loudest in Orion's head after everything else she said. It was quick and clear, but had just enough fudge room to be anything he wanted it to be. It was direction go without indicating a clear destination, and he thought he might have just grasped it.

The next thing he knew, his paint brush was being dipped in paint and he was making more streaks on his canvas, following roughly along with the streak he already made. His creation did not seem to be anything in particular. It was an abstract piece that quickly began to resemble something that could be called alien circuitry. There were clear patterns and shapes in an ordered fashion, but they were unfamiliar to most.

"I think I'm gettin' it! It's like I'm putting my mind onto the canvas."

For once, while Faye continued to explain the intricacies of creating art, Orion nodded along enthusiastically. He had grasped enough of it to finally start to see where she was coming from when she spoke about painting from the heart or from his feelings. His alien circuitry was a product of his arm moving before his brain could tell it what to do. His feelings and his heart knew what he wanted on the canvas and did the thinking for his head.

Letting the painting make itself without thought showed how different the two of them were in their art. Faye had a beautiful, recognizable landscape. It was a moment of beauty and nature captured on canvas even though they were both in a messy room. His painting was chaos constrained into order, with no obvious analog in the real world.

"Y'know. Looking at this thing now, it's almost like I didn't make it. But it still... speaks to me.

NOW he was starting to sound like an art person.

"The shapes and the lines all appeal to me for some reason.

Not that your painting doesn't appeal to me! I mean, it's beautiful and made with care. Kinda like you."