Kiva sat cross-legged at the base of a tree, leaning back against the trunk. On the ground next to her were two sketchbooks, and the third one was in her clawed hands. She flipped through the pages, running her eyes over the array of drawing of various plants. Many of them were of trees, or at least clusters of branches, while others were flowers or vines. Scattered amongst them were the occasional non-plant image, like a few pictures of articles of clothing, and one very rough sketch of her cat, Clover.

Some would say it was still pretty cold out, with it still being March. Kiva, being from a land of ice and snow, was not bothered in the slightest, especially with her jacket on. Though...speaking of which...

She placed the book down on top of the others and stood up before shrugging off her leather jacket and letting it join the pile. Her little wings, poking through specially-tailored holes in her shirt, opened wide and then relaxed. She needed to stretch those every once and a while or she regretted it.

She sat back down and pulled a different sketchbook from the pile to flip through. This one was full of practice sketches of humanoid traits, ranging from varying hand positions to very rough running, jumping, and other action poses that looked like they were being acted out by something more akin to crash test dummies in appearance than the extremely-detailed images in the other book. There was more than that, though; just like in the other book, there were exceptions to her theme, that came in the form of different kinds of wings, different kinds of animal ears, and different kinds of tails.

She put that one down, sighed, and shut her eyes. She'd been hunting for some inspiration for her painting of forest sprites she'd promised to give Paige on completion, but she was hitting a brick wall. Everything she roughed out regarding the sprites for the scene other than the one she'd based on Paige just didn't seem alive enough, and an unfortunate trait of hers was that when she was sure someone wanted what she was creating, she was not going to settle for anything but her own best effort.

This was encouraged by the fact that, somewhere between finding Paige as a miserable talking spork in the middle of the sidewalk, Paige breaking that anti-mutant jerk's nose in her defense, and Paige posing for that forest sprite sketch in the first place, something in Kiva's dragon nature had practically adopted the little California girl. Something about the girl was just plain endearing for some reason, and Kiva really wanted to give her something special to make New York a little less awful for her.

Kiva opened her eyes again and picked up the last sketchbook, the one that wasn't completely filled. She flipped to the first empty page and tapped her pencil against it, trying not to let her frustration get to her. What she needed right now was another model, but it was a quiet day and she hadn't seen anyone walk past here in a while...

It was another day in the park for Butterfly, another day of self-training. By now Butterfly was getting to be quite good with shifting and unshifting, thanks to the tips that Tses had given her after rescuing her from the snow and cold. She had decided to go to the park and just got and fly for a while. She hadn't stretched her wings out in a while and she found that she tended to get fidgety if she didn't go out and fly for a bit pretty often. She had found a quiet and pretty deserted place and was about to change form when she found someone sitting, back against a tree and a sketchbook open, pencil in hand as she tapped it on the page. She always had found art very interesting and had done quite a few drawings when she used to live in Macon. Sadly, she had none of it with her now. So she stopped by the tree and smiled as she said, "Hey, you look like I did when I used to draw and would be thinking about what I should draw next. Would you mind if I sat next to you and watched or maybe we could just talk? Maybe I could help? That is if you don't mind."

Suddenly there was a complete stranger right there talking to her. Kiva didn't outright jump, despite the fact that she hadn't heard the person walking up to her due to being focused on the page of her sketchbook, but her head snapped up part-way through the first sentence and she found herself blinking at the young woman as her mind tripped over itself to register what she was saying.

She wanted to watch? Or help? Kiva looked at the girl. She was small, human-looking, and young. Teenager young. And she wanted to sit next to the random muscular scaly woman. Oh wait, she said she used to draw too. Okay, fellow artist. That made more sense, at least. Maybe a fellow mutant, too? That'd also make a little more sense. Still, she was mentally knocked off balance by being suddenly thrust into social interaction.

"...Hi," she said, as her mind switched gears to coming up with some sort of reply. "Uh, no, I don't mind," she added as she willed herself to be coherent. "I'm just working on something, for someone. A friend of mine. Hitting artist's block, is all..."

"Are you a mutant, too, or just friendly?" she blurted a second after she trailed off the previous sentence, instantly mentally flinching afterward. That was both very awkward and possibly potentially insulting. Still, she was covered in bronze scales, had claws on her hands, had little spikes on her lower jaw, and had wings. There was no mistaking Kiva for anything but a mutant, and non-mutants did not tend to just stroll up to her for a chat.

Confused awkwardness aside, though, she did appreciate the company. In fact, she found herself considering the offer of help, imagining for a moment how this girl would look like with a pair of wings as one of her forest sprites.

Butterfly sat down next to her new acquaintance and nodded her head in agreement. "Yeah I understand completely. I used to have that happen all the time..." Before Butterfly could say anymore, she was startled with the outright question of being a mutant or just friendly. She giggled a little and then responded, "Both, I guess you could say. I am a mutant and I am friendly. My name's Chloe, but I go by Butterfly. That's part of my mutation. I can shift into my butterfly form. What's your name?"

Kiva was somewhat grateful for the fact that she didn't visually blush due to her scaly skin, as her new acquaintance giggled at her painfully awkward question. Embarrassment of self, achieved. One of her wings twitched slightly and she looked at her blank sketchbook page. "Sorry. I don't normally just flat-out ask like that. I just..."

She sighed and shook her head, deciding to abandon the sentence fragment in favour of introducing herself. "Name's Kiva. A lot of folks call me Drake, though...for, uh, obvious reasons." She flapped her scaly wings once from emphasis. "Guy's name, I know, but I'm about as feminine as a tank anyway so..." Wait, what in the world was she babbling about now? Was she going for the self-embarrassment high score here? She clicked her jaw shut and fell silent.

Yeah, this kid had officially knocked her completely off balance. Hopefully she'd get back some semblance of social competency soon. Well, maybe 'kid' was the wrong word. She was little, but was probably closer to Paige's age. The thought brought her back to why she was out here in the first place and reminded her that Butterfly here had been wanting to help.

She sighed a little, putting the sketchbook in her hands down for a moment and picking up one of the others. She flipped through a few pages until she found the image she'd drawn of Paige, and she turned the book to show it to Butterfly. "Basically, I'm making a painting of a bunch of these. Forest sprites. Sorta fairy things. My friend modeled for this one, but I can't get any of the others to look right."

She was still pretty proud of this one. The body shape and facial features were completely unmistakable as belonging to the woman who had posed for her, but all the details came together to make her into something otherworldly. Her hair, left very lightly shaded to suggest the real person's blonde shade, flowed to her waist, and slender elven-like ears were visible poking through it. Her outfit looked properly medieval fantasy; even if the trousers and boots may have seemed a little boyish, her feminine figure still easily showed through despite the ensemble. And, of course, there were the wings, slender 'stalks' at her upper, mid, and lower back and the transparent membrane that attached them.

Sprite-Paige was half-looking at the viewer, half-looking at the branch of the tree behind her that she'd reached out to touch, and magic vines were winding around her bare hand. It was a perfect pose to take centre-stage for her painting, but Kiva had always intended for there to be more than one sprite in the picture.

Butterfly could see that she was embarrassing her scaly friend in the awkwardness that ensued afterwards. So she tried to alleviate it by just keeping quiet and just listening. She learned that her friend's name was Kiva and that she also went by Drake. "I like the name Kiva. It sounds really pretty." She watched as Kiva went and closed the sketchbook that she held in her hand and place it down on the ground before picking up another one that was laying beside her. Butterfly watched as she flipped through the pages and then when she showed her the picture the forest sprite that she was working on completing and the resemblance of the forest sprite struck a light in her mind. "She looks so familiar, but I can't place exactly who she is just yet. Why do I feel like I know her? And maybe I can be a model for you? Do you think that would help you some? I'd be more than happy to help a fellow artist in any manner that I can."

Kiva's mouth twitched a little in a smile at the compliment on her birth name. The fact that it was pretty was the main reason why she preferred to go by Drake. Pretty names should belong to pretty things. Kiva even meant 'kind and beautiful' or something like that. Still, she managed to enjoy the compliment all the same, though the fact that she could comment on her own liking of the name 'Chloe' in reply only occurred to her after it seemed a bit too late to suddenly blurt out.

Oh well. The stream of questions in response to her sketch of sprite-Paige was a decent distraction and she blinked a little when Butterfly said the drawing looked familiar. The offer to model made her tilt her head for a second in thought, and she put the book down in her lap to raise her hands and make a little frame with her pointer fingers and thumbs.

She smiled. "You do look a lot like how I wanted one of them to look..." Butterfly was, quite honestly, very cute. And Kiva was largely going for cute and feminine with these sprites. There was also the whole butterfly shapeshifting thing to consider, since being able to get a good sketch of wings as different angles could possibly help with her the sprites' own wings. She'd hold off asking about that, however.

She looked down at her sketch again. "And...Well, you might know her. I don't actually know any other friends she might have around here. I met her when she'd just moved to New York so..." Kiva shrugged. "Her name's Paige. She's a mutant, too." She didn't bother describing the mutation, since she was sure that would be enough if Butterfly did know her.

Butterfly smiled as Kiva said that she thought Butterfly could be of some help in her drawing of the sprites. She was happy that she had met someone that she could help. And to her Kiva was just another lovely lady to spend time with, a friendship in the making. Butterfly saw nothing at all wrong with Kiva's appearance. To be honest, she quite liked how she looked and felt that Kiva had nothing to be ashamed of. Beauty is found in many ways, shapes, and fashions and penetrates through to the soul. True beauty is woven throughout the body to the inner being of the person, not to the level of just skin deep that society likes to pack into the media we're exposed to.

Upon Kiva mentioning Paige's name, Butterfly's face lit up and she squealed. Kiva's drawing of her girlfriend was gorgeous. "I thought I recognized that beautiful face. Paige is my girlfriend. You drew her absolutely beautifully. I'd be honored to have you draw me along side her. Please...just show me how you'd like for me to pose or if you need me to shift. I'll help you in any way possible." Butterfly was on her knees in front of Kiva with pleading eyes.

She was Paige's what?

Kiva gave Butterfly a blank stare similar to that of a deer caught in headlights, blinking slowly at the pair of pleading puppy dog eyes in front of her. She had had no idea that Paige was even interested in women, let alone had found a girlfriend. She was very happy for her friend, and Butterfly certainly seemed like a nice girl, but this sudden information did take a minute to process.

She gave a tiny cough. "You're...really animated, you know that?" she said, the words just tumbling out of her mouth. It was the only word she could use to describe her by this point. She was like a puppy or something. "That's not a bad thing," she added hastily, and it really wasn't, not to Kiva. It would take some getting used to, though.

"So, um..." She looked at the sketch of sprite-Paige, and one of her wings twitched, followed by the other. All the various poses she'd come up with hadn't involved directly interacting with the current sprite. She was the centrepeice that had everything going on around her. Looked like that was going out the window, though.

Then it hit her, smashing straight into the artistic part of her brain like thrown bricks. Her eyes scanned the branch and the magic vines, and she wondered how she hadn't considered doing something similar before now. If she nudged the tree slightly to the one side instead of having it directly in the centre like she'd been planning...

Kiva suddenly smiled. In fact, she downright grinned. "I know what would look great. What if--" She turned the sketch around so that Butterfly could see exactly what she indicating as she ran the blunt edge of her claw along the tree branch. "--You were laying on your stomach along the branch? And the vines coiling around her arm? Instead of just being attached to the tree, you could have your hand at the other end, like you're weaving them with your magic together..."

Then, the next idea hitting her, she added, "And instead of the style of wings I gave her, I could give you your shapeshifted form's wings if you want."

Kiva was excited now. Very excited. Her artists' block had officially been bludgeoned into submission. Paige was going to be so surprised and it was going to be awesome!

Butterfly kind of got scared as she saw the look on Kiva's face when she told her Paige was her girlfriend. Maybe she shouldn't have told her that, but realized that the news just took her back for a moment and that it was okay. She smiled a bit when Kiva called her animated. This was true, especially when she got really excited about something.

Then Kiva slid the sketchbook over toward her and Butterfly imagined the picture filling out and drawing itself as she described her plan for adding her as another sprite. Butterfly face lit up as the movie played through her mind and when Kiva finished her depiction, Butterfly said, "Kiva, that's wonderful. It'll look great. And you can so use my butterfly wings if you want. I'll shift for you whenever you need it. So do you want me to like climb the tree and lay on a branch or just lay on the ground or what?"

Oh, good, she liked the idea. Kiva considered the question, looking at Butterfly and then around at the nearby trees, including the one she was sitting in the shade of. "If you want to climb a tree, sure. It'd help with getting the hand placement just right with the vines, since the sprite would be sort of reaching down from her resting spot. I could get a good result with you on the ground too, though, so don't feel like you have to or anything..."

Kiva did imagine that Butterfly was fine with climbing, what with having suggested it in the first place and it being highly unlikely that someone who shape-shifted into a winged creature would be a afraid of heights. Still, she was pretty much hardwired to say such things due to her day job at the tattoo parlor.

"You can shift after we get the main pose done," Kiva added, "So we'll know exactly what angle I need to sketch your wings from for it to fit right."

Butterfly nodded as Kiva told her that either way would work for her, but since Butterfly knew that as an artist, it was much easier to draw a person in an actual setting than it is to imagine it in your head and then try to draw it from memory, she climbed up the tree and laid down on her tummy with her legs stretched out and crossed, with one hand under her head and her elbow hanging down and the other stretched out and down as if she were trying to reach out to touch Paige's hand, like Kiva has it in the drawing. She looked down at Kiva and then asked, "How's this Kiva? Is this sorta how you envisioned it?"

Kiva watched Butterfly climb the tree--while well aware that this was a grown woman, who she had no reason to believe couldn't climb a tree safely, and could turn into something that could fly, part of her couldn't help but step closer just in case some kind of freak accident sent her tumbling out of the tree before she'd properly settled herself on the branch--and hummed a little in thought as she saw the pose, before nodding.

"That looks great!" she said with a grin. "Just make sure to keep your gaze focused on the hand you've got reaching down."

Kiva then stepped back away from the tree, and moved so that she was at the right angle to sketch from. She flipped to a clean page of the sketchbook and started roughing out shape of the branch, the bit of the trunk Butterfly was touching, and of Butterfly herself. Then came the details, with her, just like with Paige, adding her own fantasy parts to translate her new friend into a forest sprite.

She extended Butterfly's hair with sweeping lines that made it cascade over her shoulder and past the branch, and gave her the same slender, pointed ears that the Paige-inspired sprite did. For her clothing, Kiva gave her long, modest dress with a belt, the skirt portion slightly spilling over the side of the branch and revealing a pair of simple leather boots on her feet. Her hands were bare, and Kiva roughed out of the tangled vines that were crawling up her arm.

Then, she stopped and looked at this. Something was missing. The wings were, obviously, but something else was as well, and she pondered it.

All of the other sprites were going to be on the ground--she'd decided that a while ago, even if she'd been at a loss as to what they'd actually be doing--including the one modeled after Paige. But this one, she liked to climb trees, and had a connection to the magic vines. She was more whimsical, and possibly more mystical, than the others.

An idea striking her, Kiva turned her attention to the sprite's face, and started sketching more markings on it. With said face being in profile, she started with a single, thicker line curving down from the sprite's forehead to her temple. From there, the line split off into a curved line that ran to her cheekbone and ended in a point, and another than continued from her temple down her cheek to end in another point at her jawline. She didn't shade it in darkly, already thinking that the markings would be a light colour when she did the painting.

Satisfied with this, she put down her pencil and grinned up at Butterfly again. "Okay, you can come down. We can do the wing stuff on the ground." Of course, she'd be fine with showing Butterfly what she had so far if requested, even if she considered it to still be pretty rough.

Butterfly held her pose and watched as Kiva began to sketch and draw. She wondered how it would turn out, but knew that she would just wait for Kiva to finish her painting before asking to see. It's always better to see an artwork when it's finished and not mid-way through the process. Any comment made about an artwork when not finished would alter the artist's perception and change the finished artwork. You'd never be able to know what the artist would have made before you made the comment and Butterfly understood this completely and wouldn't do that to Kiva. She'd wait and see that spectacular work when Kiva was finished. When Kiva was finished and asked Butterfly to come down for wing stuff, Butterfly smiled and shifted right on the branch and fluttered down to where Kiva was and landed on her hand. "It feels good to shift and stretch my wings. I hope this is okay. I know you needed my wing design for the picture. And we can still talk like this even though I'm shifted. Is it okay that I'm on your hand?"