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Yasha is absolutely done with today. First, the test she took last week in one of her tougher classes did not result in as good a grade as she hoped. Second, she heard from Veth that she might be dating Fjord Stone, or at least had possibly expressed a crush on the handsome half-orc. Third, her big, clumsy body had knocked into one of the racks at the shop and broke a dozen pots. And lastly, that call from her mother about her father’s cancer returning.
She shakes her head as tears start to well within her again. She just needs to get away. Mrs. Braven must sense it, in the air swirling around Yasha and the slumped shoulders bringing her a few inches short of her full height.
“Yasha, dear, why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” Mrs. Braven suggests, her smaller hand reaching out to rest on Yasha’s forearm, concerned eyes looking over the saddened pale face before her. Yasha starts to protest and Mrs. Braven’s hand squeezes once, tight enough to stop the words from leaving her, so she nods and hangs up her apron. Her feet drag on the way up the stairs to her apartment above the shop, suddenly exhausted beyond belief, but she decides to call Mollymauk, certain that her friend will know how to help her feel better. She opens the door, kicks off her shoes haphazardly and treks to her room as she patiently waits for the lavender tiefling to answer their phone. They never answer. She finds herself briefly glad that Molly won’t be teasing her about her crush on Jester Lavorre again, since she’d be forced to tell them everything about why she was upset. And Veth’s latest Jester news is part of it.
“Well, guess I’m going out then.” She mutters to herself, going to her wardrobe and finding a change of clothes.
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Drawing is an escape from the stress of costuming, Jester’s always thought this to be fact for her. She went to Kiri Park to sketch and doodle to her heart’s content, leaning back against a tree that’s isolated from the trails that weave through the park. The tree is halfway up a hill that settles against the treeline, looking down on one of the lesser traveled paths that pedestrians can wander through the park on. Jester is just gathering her things, having been here for about two hours, when a woman rounds the bend, jogging down the trail. Jester can’t see her too well, but what she can see she’s immediately intrigued by. The pale woman must be at least six feet, well as far as Jester can tell, and she’s worked up quite a sweat, her skin glistening even at this distance.
“Hi!” She greets the runner, walking down towards the path. Jester just means it as a friendly greeting to a fellow park-goer, but as she nears the woman, she realizes there is a navy blue tattoo bisecting her lower lip and down her chin. Talk about being mysterious and attractive... But that’s as much as she catches before the woman runs by, Jester noticing that she’s listening to music and thus never heard her. A pout forms on the tiefling’s lips and her hand grips the straps of her pink pleather purse that hands from her shoulder. Before she realizes what she’s doing, she is following after the tall woman, her speed much slower as she tries to catch up to her with her bag slapping soundly against her side.
“Ball eater! She’s fast,” Jester’s out of breath already, trying to chase after this person. But her artist’s eyes are roaming over the taller woman’s body ahead of her, her hands itching to sketch the lean and muscular form that’s running away from her. She’s lost in the thought of what her drawings of this mysterious runner will look like when she rounds the next corner and the woman is gone from in front of her, no longer visible on the path. Jester skids to a stop, her head snapping to and fro to find the woman. “Surely, she’s not that fast,” Jester mutters, before a sound to her right catches her ears, and that’s when she sees her runner again. Her eyes never leaving the form in front of her, she carefully sets down her bag and digs out her sketchbook and pencil, putting the tip to paper and drawing.
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Yasha regrets running that hard, her body is protesting even as she lies sprawled amongst the grass and flowers like this, but she feels a bit better. Literally running from her problems and frustrations was surprisingly helpful for her. Her eyes are closed and the music is playing in her ears before she fumbles, reaching for her phone to turn off the music. She sits up and her fingers press to the screen and silence. Yasha lets out a sigh and pulls the earbuds from her ears, running a hand through her hair before she flops back onto the ground. Spread-eagle as she is, she turns her face to the side and plucks a small white flower, its black center staring at her as her other hand’s fingers delicately trace the soft purple outline on the top of the white petals.
“Huh, makes me think of her.” Her voice is soft, bringing the flower to her nose and breathing in its scent. Resting the petals against her lips, she presses a kiss to them, flush spreading across her face as she imagines it’s Jester she’s kissing. Flustered, she pulls the bloom from her face, holding the plucked flower to her chest as she closes her eyes again. Her tank top is cut low enough that she can feel the gentle brush of the flower’s petals against the skin of her chest, it’s calming somehow. Feeling the wind blow through the grass and flowers around her, ghosting across her sweaty skin, she finally lets herself cry. Her brain is swarmed with flashes of reality: Seeing her dad struggle through chemo again, seeing herself getting kicked out of school, watching Fjord and Jester kiss and hold hands walking down some hallway, Mrs. Braven asking her to leave the apartment and her job. The tears start slow, then she’s sobbing and gasping for breath, forcing her to sit up to help get air into her lungs.
After some time, the sobs fade away, the tears slow down, the shaky breaths return to normal, Yasha bends her leg and props her elbow upon her knee. Her fingers spin the flower in her hands, eyes unfocused as the bloom spins in her grasp. She lets out another sigh before she nods her head, resting the flower on her thigh and reaching back to pull her hair free from the lazy ponytail she’d wrangled it up into before her run. Shaking her hair loose, she combs her fingers through her hair and spends some time weaving the strands together in a thick French braid. Towards the end of her braiding, she sneaks the flower into her hair and ties it off, smiling at the bloom peeking from the black and silver ombre hair. She forces herself to stand and she stretches her arms overhead, her body leaning to the left and right, working herself through some exercises for her aching, burning muscles. When she finishes, she turns around and runs back the way she came, going to head home and call her mother to talk about her dad and Molly to talk about everything (even though they will tease her about Jester, for sure), after she hugs Mrs. Braven of course.
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Jester had sat and sketched the mystery woman for too long, definitely intruding on whatever moment the runner had been struggling through. She feels bad but the woman was so beautiful, calling to her artistic side, that it was hard to ignore her muse. Watching her smile at the flower in her hand, then sob so powerfully, she was gorgeous in her emotions and Jester knows she’ll be drawing this moment, this woman, for months. When the taller woman had gotten up to stand, Jester had to wipe away her drool as she had started stretching. Jester was remiss to leave, hoping for a peek at whatever musculature was beneath that tight tank top, but she knew she had to go before she was caught.
“That was so insane. Beau will never believe me even if I show her how amazing this woman is,” Jester mumbles to herself as she stares down at the page she is most proud of from today. The runner is sitting in the field of the flowers she’s woven into her braid, Jester taking some liberty by adding more blooms into the woman’s hair, and she’s bent one leg, resting her elbow upon it and bringing a single flower to her lips, eyes closed and her face pensive. Jester cannot wait to color it, to really bring it to life, she might even paint it. She tells herself that she must know more about this powerfully emotional woman that would delightfully tower over her, Jester would be all too happy about it, of course. Pulling her pencil from her pocket, she draws a small sketch of herself with hearts in her eyes, looking up at the woman in the field. As she walks out of the park, she is resolved, “I will follow this new muse and hopefully figure out who she is.” Jester’s tail is swishing happily behind her as she skips past the park’s exit, clutching her sketchbook tight to her chest.