And I'll blend up that rainbow above you

[pythianjudgment]

Who| Terezi Pyrope, OPEN!
What| Terezi is making it her job to "redecorate" the training area. After that arena, everyone could use a little more color. So she's putting it everywhere.
Where| Training area
When| About a week after the arena ended, timing can vary.
Warnings/Notes| Nothing yet!


Another arena has come and gone, leaving dozens of emotionally-troubled tributes back from the dead--and one no-less-emotionally-troubled Victor, she's sure. Pretty soon, people will start lining up to work on their skills for the next round. It's relatively quiet right now, though, as she stands in the middle of the training area. She's been here for three arenas now--not even the longest running member, and it's not any surprise to her that she's starting to feel run down. It's tiring, throwing so much energy into those death matches, only to be rewarded with yet another and another and another.

What she really needs, and what some of these other tributes need... is color. She remembers smelling the colors that the Initiate had painted on the wall the first time she came in here and how touching that had been. That was what they needed. Something to make them feel like people again, not animals. Primed with the paints from the painting station, pastel chalk from her personal collection, and the best of intentions; Terezi Pyrope gets to work.

At first, she just paints swirling colors, mixing paints and pastels and smelling how they work together. She trails across the wall, stopping by the knot-tying station to spill onto the floor with deep greens and browns. Once the paint dries, she scratches whimsical bits of flora overtop, things she's found on her own forest floor. On the other side of the station, she scribbles a forest of tall blue-trunked trees crested with fuchsia canopies. She stops on that wall and restarts again across the room by a rack of weights, reaching up on her tip-toes to scribble mountains and clouds and fearsome beasts flying across the sky--dragons of every shape and hue, big and small. After spending no small amount of time on that, she stops and moves to a new place. This time, she's not working off of personal memory, but she tries anyway. She haphazardly spreads blue paints across the wall, dripping onto the floor. Overtop, she scribbles every manner of sealife she can think of. There's a lot of empty space when she's done--places for other people to fill in what they want.

Near the center of the area, she leaves some paints and chalk and a scrawled note on the floor in big bright letters.

It reads: "Help yourself."

[OOC note: There's one closed thread in the comments, but the post itself is open to anyone who wants to reply!]

Comments

[Closed for the Initiate and the Disciple]

[pythianjudgment]

There are two people in particular that she leaves notes for, invitations to join her for a bit of art fun. One to the Disciple. One to the Initiate.

She knows this is a risky affair, but after that mix up in the arena... She wants to get them to talk again. She has to try. Just once. Maybe having them meet on common ground might give them the push they need. Either way, she's not letting them leave until they spend some time with her. Together.

Re: [Closed for the Initiate and the Disciple]

[carnagecarnival]

He gets the note and he doesn't think anything all of it except that its strange he got a note at all. By now its just a thing what all they do. Meet up, paint the walls, chalk the floor.

And so down to the Training Center he goes. He notes the way her canvas has made to expand more than usual, color all over and not just held to one place. When he finds her, it's with a curious look on his face, wondering what all it is she's up to that's different than the usual.

"Pyrope," He greets.

[Closed for the Initiate and the Disciple]

[disciplewhomsignlessloves]

She's curious, mostly because they run into each other, or seek each other out in person. This note business is cryptic and strange and she takes her time making her way down there. Maybe it's a trick or something.

And when she arrives, it sort of is. She stops herself from calling hello when she sees him and she gives Terezi a hard look. For all she knows there's no quadrant here, she can't help but feel suspicious. Very ashen like and all.

[pythianjudgment]

They show up almost simultaneously. Terezi isn't sure if she relieved of not. Mostly, she just feel unprepared to be tackling this, but she's glad that she doesn't have to separate them at the doorway. Now she just has to get Fraysong to stay, and Meulin to come closer.

She takes the Initiate's hand in hers, holding it tightly to keep him from leaving. Then she motions to Meulin for her to come closer. "I wanted to talk to you. Both of you. I didn't think you'd agree to meet me here if you knew the other was present... So. Sorry for that bit of deception."

She does seem genuinely sorry at least. She didn't like the idea of tricking them, but she couldn't think of any other way to get them to exist in the same room again. And she just had to try.

[carnagecarnival]

When the Disciple shows up, he has the perfect look of deer-in-headlights. He remembers what all happened in the arena. He remembers dying.

He's all just about to snap, to ask Terezi 'why the motherfuck is she here?' when she grabs his hand. He gets to tugging automatic, looking betrayed and maybe feeling it a bit too.

"WHAT. Is there to up and talk about? THERE AIN'T NOTHING," He says quick. He mutters low, "Messiahs dammit Pyrope you know at I ain't all to be..." he jerks his head at the Disciple without making eye contact. "...near." Anywhere near. Not even remotely close. If all they had no choice they were on a strict motherfucking policy of zero interaction, surely she knew this. He won't plead but the message of 'let me go' is clear in his eyes. Or it should be.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Yeah, fine. After checking over his shoulder to make sure nobody's watching, Karkat grabs a cherryred piece of chalk and starts doodling a picture of a frog in the corner.

Or, well, it might be a frog. He's pretty much the opposite of a competent artist.

[pythianjudgment]

There is no way that Karkat is getting away with drawing something and not having Terezi leaning over his shoulder to sniff at what he's drawing. She half expects to find him scribbling dicks in the corner just to spite her at this point.

She's pleasantly surprised that he's not. But she's still not sure what it is.

"Are you drawing an amoeba?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

Jegus, Terezi, those weird human bulges were an accident.

"No. Of course not. It's a frog, dumbass."

[pythianjudgment]

"Your frog should go see a doctor. It smells sickly. And I am pretty sure that it's leg shouldn't be bending that way."

Everyone's a critic. But especially her.

[deafscythe]

What Terezi's trees need is a proper moon hanging above them. Not the pale silvery disk of the Capitol, but the yellow crescent of Justin's world. So that is what Justin adds to the wall.

[pythianjudgment]

This is not someone that she expected to find picking up her drawing supplies and joining in. She remembers him vaguely from the arena before last... Justin Law, he had said his name was. He was also the tribute who had killed all three Vantas trolls. Karkat included.

She's not sure how she feels about that. Rationally speaking, she knows it's inevitable. Someone was going to kill them. She knew that. Irrationally speaking? She wants to sucker punch him, at the very least.

Instead, she decides to take a middle ground of sorts.

"...Why is the moon bleeding from the mouth?" she asks, frowning at him and his weird grinning moon. "Why does it have a mouth at all?"

[deafscythe]

"Because," he says, adding the final touches onto the eye of the moon, "That is how it should look. The Capitol's moon and sun are both wrong."

[pythianjudgment]

"True! But that doesn't make your weird bleeding moon any less wrong, either."

Terezi's still not sure what this guy's deal is, but she starts scribbling next to Justin's moon: a large green moon and a smaller pink one. Neither one have faces, but the ridiculously bright colors make up for that.

"There. That's how the moons should smell."

[dragoon_pride]

Kain has just finished a couple of warm-up rounds with his regular spear, and is going to find something new to try when he notices the painting.

Dragons. The sight of them makes him think so much of home, of his place as a dragoon. He's met a dragon here, so far, but it seems that they're not really a common sight in general. What he wouldn't give to be back on a mountainside like the ones depicted, with the wind in his hair, dragons soaring by overhead...

He stands staring at the painting for a long time, as transfixed by it as if really was an image from his world. He hadn't realized until now just how much he misses home.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi pauses in one of her other drawings when she notices someone standing in front of the other one. She tosses her chalk into the pile she has next to her and dusts her hands off on her pants, creating a new set of dusty print to accompany the old ones and the paint splatters.

"Do you like it?" she asks, coming up to stand next to the strange man and just slightly behind him. "You've been standing here a while, so I'm going to assume that you do."

[dragoon_pride]

Staring at a good landscape from a high vantage point was one of the things Kain could do for long stretches of time. Even though this wasn't real, it put him in the same state of mind anyway, very lost in thought. So he was a bit surprised that someone had approached by the time she spoke up.

With a glance over, he notices those colorful splatters on her. "Yes... it reminds me of my home world. Did you create it?"

[pythianjudgment]

"Yeah! There were a lot of dragons on my world. I collected their colorful scales and put them on my walls. It is a sign of a shitty and terrible civilization that they don't exist at all here."

Seriously, whoever created this world obviously wasn't paying attention to the bare necessities. Colorful dragons? Should have been priority number one.

[dividedgirlofmine]

When Susannah sees the wall, her face lights up in the smile. Here--here in the Capitol, in the stronghold of their real enemy--someone's muralled up their training room for no other reason than make something nice for everyone.

Patrick would have loved this.

He would have, too, though she's not sure if giving him the power of chalk and paint would have been completely wise. But if Patrick isn't here, she ought to draw for him, even if she's nothing compared to what he was.

She finds a white and a black piece of chalk before wheeling herself over to a clear spot where she starts drawing a very simple, but still recognizable for someone who'd been where she'd been, billy-bumbler.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi recognizes Susannah first by her wheelchair, and then by the rest of her. She feels a little awkward in approaching her, especially since she was part of the group that she abandoned during the arena. But Karkat was okay with it, so... maybe she will be, too.

She lingers nearby, sniffing at the drawing before remarking: "Is that some kind of raccoon... thing?" Is that the right word? She's not sure, but whatever it is smells kinda weird.

[dividedgirlofmine]

Given that Susannah did practically the same thing to Roland and Patrick all those months ago? No. She's not mad.

"Not quite, honey," she says. "It's a critter from Bert's world. They're called billy-bumblers. Or throcken, I think, is the old word Roland used occasionally but to most people they're just bumblers. They're a little like racoon and a little like dogs but mostly they're just themselves. And they talk, a little. I used to travel with one named Oy."

[pythianjudgment]

"A billy bumbler." Terezi lifts a single brow in her direction, like that might just be the weirdest and silliest name for animal that she ever heard of. Throcken isn't much better.

"That sounds made-up. And not even in a good way." After inputting her two cents on naming conventions, Terezi continues: "Who is Roland?"

[iflipmyhair]

There was one person staring at the pictures, then at the colors, then at the floor. Homura doesn't go for the colors; she simply stares at them.

"Help yourself," she murmurs to herself. "Is that so."

[pythianjudgment]

"Naturally." Terezi picks up a piece of chalk, having wandered back to her collection of supplies for a new color that she forgot to grab.

"Who else is going to help you if you don't help yourself?"

[iflipmyhair]

"No one." At this, Homura flipped her hair. "That much I know. But I wonder, what inspired you to do this?"

[pythianjudgment]

"Who knows. Maybe I just felt like giving people the incentive to be a little creative. It wouldn't hurt to get some people thinking on their own around here. Something outside the box." Not that she needs to tell Miss Dig Up The Explosives that.

"Or maybe I just like the colors," she continues with a shrug. "Even if we're each only drawing for ourselves, in the end we're still contributing to something more worthwhile than the small doodle we did. If everyone drew a little bit, we could turn this whole room into a mural."