Outside Work We... •[TNN One-shots]•

Finger Painting •|| CLORSHA ||•

Prompt: Sorcha and Clodagh finger painting with Quinn.

The late afternoon sunlight spilled through the curtains of Sorcha and Clodagh’s cozy living room, casting a warm glow over the small table now covered with newspaper. A set of finger paints sat in the center, each pot brimming with bright colors. Little Quinn perched in her chair, her chubby hands already smeared with streaks of green and blue as she giggled at the mess she was making.

“Alright, Quinn,” Sorcha said, tying an apron around herself with exaggerated flair, “prepare to witness true artistic greatness.”

Quinn tilted her head, wide-eyed. “What’s ‘greatness’?”

“It’s what your mama thinks she has,” Clodagh teased, sitting cross-legged on the floor nearby, rolling up her sleeves. “But we’ll see about that, won’t we, Quinn?”

Quinn’s eyes sparkled with delight as she dipped her fingers into the yellow paint, slapping her hands onto a blank sheet of paper with gleeful abandon. “Look, Mama!” she exclaimed, holding up a dripping mess of color. “It’s the sun!”

“Beautiful!” Clodagh said warmly, grabbing a fresh sheet to join her. “But let’s see what happens if we add some clouds. How about some white, hmm?”

Sorcha smirked and leaned over Quinn’s shoulder, scooping up a dollop of red paint. “Clouds? Pfft. Who needs clouds when you can have dragons?” She swirled her fingers on a sheet, creating chaotic, looping shapes.

Quinn gasped, her hands freezing mid-dip. “A dragon?!”

“Yep,” Sorcha replied with a grin, pointing to her creation. “See the wings? The tail?”

Quinn’s mouth formed a perfect "O" of awe, and she immediately started painting her own version, her tiny hands flying across the page.

Clodagh laughed as she added soft gray streaks to her own paper. “Great, now she’s going to want dragons in every picture.”

“Is that a problem?” Sorcha asked, mock-offended. “Dragons make everything better.”

As Quinn babbled excitedly about her new masterpiece, her hands painting more of the table than the paper, Clodagh reached over to wipe some paint from her daughter’s cheek. Her heart swelled at the sight of Quinn’s happy focus, her little face alight with joy.

“Okay, okay,” Clodagh said, holding up her paint-covered hands in surrender. “How about we all work on one big picture? A family project.”

“Fine,” Sorcha said with mock reluctance, sitting next to Clodagh. “But only if I get to add a dragon.”

“Of course you do,” Clodagh replied with a laugh, kissing Sorcha’s cheek, leaving a faint paint smudge in her wake.

Together, the three of them crowded around the largest sheet of paper they had, their laughter and splashes of color filling the room as they painted. By the end, their masterpiece was a chaotic mess of suns, dragons, and rainbow streaks, with Quinn proudly declaring it “the best painting ever.”

It was a perfectly messy, colorful, and utterly heartwarming afternoon.