"What are you drawing sunshine?"
Elise was drawing something on one of the walls of her home. She got the idea from some of the kids who drew for her, but she couldn't use the little color sticks like they could, so she settled for carving the walls with her sharpest claw.
It made a lot of noise, though... so they just gave her these big containers that had the colors themselves. She used her claws to draw on the wall, and they liked to call it 'finger painting'. Honestly, she really wanted to put the colors on her scales, but she knew it was hard to get the colors, so she didn't.
The drawing right now was something Owen could actually recognize. Usually her art was...abstract, to put it lightly.
It was a crude drawing of some stick figures, with what could be a house in the back, and a little yellow sun on the left. She kept staring at it, sometimes touching up little details. She made the taller figure blue, since that was the boy color. The smaller one pink, the girl color, but not her color.
Owen pointed to the blue figure, and asked "Who's that?"
Elise opened her mouth to speak, something Bridges had been teaching her, somehow. Her voice was as raspy and - to be entirely honest, terrifying - as it used to be. Short words were all she could say, and it clearly took a lot of effort.
"Yyou."
Owen felt a shiver run up his spine. He wouldn't ever get used to her speaking.
He pointed at the other figure, asking "And this one?"
"C...Ca.."
"Claire?"
She nodded.
This was a family portrait. And not one she just copied from a kid, it was of them. Of their family...
"Who's uh..." Owen pointed again, this time at the smallest figure, "...that one?"
Elise wiped off her shaky claw on the grass before dipping it back into the white paint, coloring over the previously black stick figure, making it almost blend into the beige colored wall. She even added a little triangle to its lower half, almost like a skirt. A little girl.
"Mmee."
She smiled. She felt so warm looking at the picture. She giggled and fiddled with her painted hands.
So, she kept drawing. Every day a new piece of art - a new scene of them as a family. Playing, talking, being tucked into a nest. Little moments in her head of what a 'normal' family looked like. All taken from what the kids told her, and a little bit from the human part of her brain.
Her ugly, gross claws became little sharp brushes, and the little suns she drew on the wall watched over her as she slept. She couldn't cuddle with her parents, but she could always feel like they were keeping her safe when she had them on the wall.
She made herself a little, perfect family.
...
The rain poured over the island.
Elise kept her body over the last drawing - the only drawing she could save, and used her body to block the incoming rain.
"They ran out of paint" they said, but she could tell they were lying. Why? Why wouldn't they let her just be happy?
She huffed, she was so angry. But she didn't want to hurt anyone ever again. Even if that meant that anger would need to shrivel up and die with her.
She looked at the drawing and felt a little better. A little portrait of her family. Even her sister was there.
A perfect little family...