Chapter Text
It was a rather chilly autumn day in New York. Normally you would enjoy those days with a nice warm cup of tea huddled in front of the open fire with a big blanket. But those times were long gone. You lost your family to an unknown illness that somehow didn’t affected you. Most neighbours and even your friends thought, that you somehow brought gods rage upon your family and that everyone you talked to would suffer the same way that they did. So they started to treat you in a most unhuman way.
Needless to say that you left the village with everything you had and went to New York in hope to find a better life there. With the little saving you had, you found a small apartment which you shared with 4 other women and still had some money left. The neighbours there couldn’t care less about who lived there and since nobody knew you and your past, you experienced something you never had before. Freedom. The only problem was to find a job. Selling your body was out of question, so you started to apply to as many jobs as possible, without any luck.
Money started to get tight and if you couldn’t somehow earn at least a few dollars you would soon be on the streets. The women with whom you lived weren’t much of a help. Without you, they would have more room. The only thing that was worth at least something, was the ring your mother gave you as a birthday present. It was a heirloom from her Grandmother and was made out of pure gold. Just as you wanted to go to the pawnshop, you remembered something. In the village you lived before, people used to pay you for painting pictures or their rooms.
You decided to spend your last few bucks on some canvas and colours, you already had some brushes.
After finding a nice place, with enough people who could buy something, that was also watched by the police, you settled down. On a piece of cardboard you wrote your prices and waited. It took some time until someone asked you to paint them. It was a baker, who wanted something to outlive him. You started to paint and paint for nearly an hour, until you and the baker were happy with the result. He paid more than you asked for and even offered you some special prices in his bakery, if you paint his wife tomorrow. Confused about the kindness you asked why, to which he only said that you reminded him of his daughter, who he lost some years ago.
And from that day on, you came to this very place each and every day. Painting people and sometimes just the nature, as you remembered it from you old home. You earned enough to survive, but could only save a little money for worse times. The people on the streets started to talk you, which made New York feel more like a new home to you.
The baker and his wife became good friends with you, and sometimes he gave you a piece of cake, that he couldn’t sell that day, for free. You haven’t felt this happy in a long time. Some guys even tried to court you, but you declined their offers as friendly as possible.
Until this very day. You were sitting on a stool which the carpenter down the street made for you, as an exchange for a painting, when you saw this man walking by. His clothes were dirty, but not from work. It was more likely that someone pushed him into the mud. But even all this dirt couldn’t make him any less handsome. His blond curls flattered his face in an indescribable way that you could only wish to achieve in a painting. His body was slim, but not weak at all. His legs were clearly one of an athlete. But the most striking feature of his were his eyes. They were not as blue as Soldier Kirk ones, who once protected you from a criminal and now comes to visit you from time to time.
His eyes were more of a greenish blue, like the pond in the park you like to draw sometimes. Somehow he made you feel like home in such a positive way, something that didn’t happen since your family died.
Immediately you picked up a pencil and started to draw him inside your sketch book, trying to catch his beauty, but he was gone too soon. And the picture didn’t even come close to reality. When you told your friend Nyota, a lady with smooth dark skin, she smiled.
She told you that the man you saw was one of the students at the University, but couldn’t remember his name nor his chosen subject. Knowing that he lived here made you incredibly happy, because it means that you will see him again. When you left her house, before the sunset, you strolled along the streets, thinking about what he could be learning at the university.
You were sure that it wasn’t law, for that he looked too lively, but you could also be wrong. You could only think about him and when you reached your home, you didn’t mind that your roommates hadn’t cleaned up at all. “Hopefully, I’ll see him again soon,” you thought, before making yourself ready for bed.