Charming the heart of a man is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Especially when it's already bewitched by somebody else - literally!
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All that former witch-in-training Avalon wanted was a simple job to get her life back on track and forget abo...
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The first sign of Nina arrived in form of an oil painting the next morning because the woman had shipped all her belongings to her future domicile in Castelldefels. Which, going by the high amount of boxes, was a quite a lot.
The painting was about the size of a small nondescript kitchen table and had come in a big delivery box made of wood. Said box had been filled to the brim with packaging wool; a fact that didn't go unnoticed by Davi, who'd taken it upon himself to scatter said wool all around the house in glee.
Gil had hauled it up onto the top floor, ignoring the other boxes for now, and into Neymar's private quarters where it was supposed to be hung up on one of the walls; as per Nina's formal instructions in an attached letter. It was a clear sign that these quarters weren't going to be just Neymar's for much longer.
It was also a clear sign that Nina was definitely going to hold the reigns from now on. Going by Gil's snarky comment, Neymar usually sported an obnoxious and meticulous craze when it came to interior design. Now he let his girlfriend decide how to decorate his own bedroom? Ts.
Not that the painting was ugly. On the contrary. Objectively speaking, it was even quite beautiful. It was just... very eerie. And not something Avalon would've wanted to see as the last thing at night or the first thing in the morning.
Gil had told her that it depicted the Lençóis Maranhenses, a desert landscape and national park in Brazil. The area was famous for its sweeping white sand dunes and clear blue and green lagoons that would appear during rain season. The painting showed these lagoons nested between soft dunes under a cloudless blue sky. And, far off in the distance, there was a tiny smudge of paint that appeared to depict a lonesome human figure walking along the dunes.
So, yes. Objectively speaking, the motif was quite beautiful and easy on the eye of a person who didn't know one thing about art (aka Avalon).
But that figure in the distance, alone amongst sand and water, was what made Avalon glad for the comfort of her human (and feline) companions. The painting practically oozed loneliness, hopelessness, solitude and forlornness. And even the pretty landscape, dominated by the white and blue colour scheme, couldn't stop the shivers that ran down her spine when looking at it.
Considering the motif, the frame was very much unfitting: golden, with ornates so plenty that they made you want to gag at the mere sight of them. And way too thin for a painting of such proportions. It would have fitted a centuries-old painting in any given national gallery all around the world better than this one.
Suffice to say, the painting and its frame just wouldn't add up to a coherent, harmonious "set" in Avalon's mind. Was that how Nina was going to be like as well? Something or the other, not quite managing to depict a proper ensemble, otherwise known as the soul that made a person?
Struck by the odd and far-fetched thoughts the painting had stirred in her, Avalon had gladly let Gil worry about Nina's belongings. Instead, she'd turned her attention to Davi and his happy scattering of packaging wool around the house. As soon as Gil had disappeared up the stairs, she'd all but forgotten about the "disturbance in the force". So to speak.
