💚 Friends / family members
|| 🌷Make my muse talk about one of their...🌷||
Steph only hesitantly allowed the witch to rifle through one of her many sketchbooks. Of course, she handed her one of the older ones, it was safer that way. She may have taken a shot or two at sketching Zinnya from memory and she really didn't need her to see that right now.
The sketchbook was page after page of mostly out of this world wild flower designs and the occasional drawing of her sister Ember, who Steph has already talked about in the past, but suddenly, the other woman lingered over a piece in the middle of the sketchbook. A drawing that wasn't far from completion, but had been left unfinished. It was a portrait of a young tan man, wild white curls framing his face, silver freckles dotting the very top of his cheeks, one corner of his lips raised higher than the other in his smile, purple eyes looking confidently ahead. Someone Steph had never mentioned before.
Steph poked her head over to see what Zinnya was looking at. The drawing did stand out from the rest considering she couldn't get anyone other than Ember to pose for her and the rest of the pages being filled with floral designs. " O-Oh! I kind of forgot about this one! " she gently took the sketchbook from Zinnya into her own hands to have a closer look, her hand gently tracing over the page for just a moment.
" That's Ash. " Steph said with a smile, " He was a friend of mine- Well... " she paused, taking a second to look at the drawing again, " He was more like the brother I never had. "
A wave of fond memories flooded her head, a big smile forming on her lips. Her gaze softened looking at the depiction, her expression projecting a kind of peace she hasn't shown before. " You know... " words came from her lips all on their own. Zinnya was getting a bit of her past, whether she wanted to hear about it or not.
" For most of my life it's only been me and my sisters. They are lovely, they really are, b-but I never truly felt like they understood me? A-And that my... " she considered her choice of words carefully. After all, there were things she didn't need to know about yet. " - My particular flavour of magic has been nothing but a burden to them. "
" But when Ash showed up, I finally got to meet someone else like me, s-someone who actually liked being like this. For the first time, I didn't feel like a burden. I felt understood and seen. A-and unlike me he experienced so much and had been so many places, he had so many stories to share. And not just stories! Knowledge, theories about magic, dreams of what it could be used for... It was such a wonder to listen to him speak about it. H-he's actually the only reason why I know any magic at all. I-if he didn't teach me the basics, I never could've figured out the rest. There's a lot I'm thankful to him for. "
Steph chuckled, pulling the book close to her chest, " I think you would've gotten along. He was confident, smart. talented, adventurous... He was also, um... " the universal scratched the back of her head nervously.
" Very... Openly flirty with people. O-obviously, I never experienced that side of him myself, but I have heard stories! Like the time he- " the woman stopped. Her brain had finally caught up with the fact that she was talking this entire time without even being asked... " O-oh... I've been holding onto this and talking for too long, haven't I? S-sorry..."
With that she returned the sketchbook back to Zinnya to keep going through if she pleased.
" Don't think this one is ever getting finished though, unfortunately. " Steph commented quietly, the soft smile on her face quickly fading.
