"Most of the time, yes, parents mean a lot to ther children and children to their parents," She replied, tapping out a soft tune on the steering wheel as she talked, "There are plenty of exceptions though..not all families have children, not all parents care about their children, sometimes they leave or hurt them, and sometimes this causes their children not to care about their parents."
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"I see." Oscar thought about that, then glanced up again. "….What about your parents? Do you love each other?"
Honor nodded, smiling gently, "I love my parents, even if they're not the one's I was born to." She glanced over at Oscar for a brief moment, trying to decipher what he would discover from her statement before quickly going back to paying attnetion to the road.
Oscar blinked and tilted his head. "How did they end up being your parents, then? Did they find you, like you found me?"
"I was adopted," She said, starting to explain the situation easily. Normally she didn't mention it, since she could pass as her parent's biological child, but she didn't mind Oscar wanting to know. "My biological mother surrendered me to the state when I was born, or the state forced her to, one of the two. My biological father was in prison, and she couldn't afford to raise me. My mother and father adopted me when I was two, and I've lived with them ever since."
"Oh." Oscar nodded, pretty sure he understood. He wondered if he would have been similarly adopted if he'd come to Earth trapped in a child's body instead. "Do you think they're wondering where you are now? You didn't ever tell them about me. What if they think you've been kidnapped or something?"
"I told them I was going on a road trip to visit friends with a friend, I've done it before," Honor replied, shrugging and shaking her head, "They shouldn't worry too much…unless goldenrod somehow connects me to you and then me to my parents."
Oscar returned to his painting, trying to hide a frown. So far, Goldenrod had proven to be a difficult enemy to get rid of, and they seemed to have eyes everywhere. He didn't want Honor's family to be put in danger because of them. "Goldenrod is….good to humans, right? They only try to hurt you or take you away if you're like me?"
(Dang…now I wanna do instant karma and have Honor being captured by them be part of the story, or even if it was Oscar that was captured.)
She didn't respond right away, thinking before finally saying, "I'm not sure..it depends on how involved they are. I think I would be in danger, mostly because I'm helping you and keeping you safe." Honor shrugged, then glanced at him, "Don't worry about me being involved though, I'll be fine. Goldenrod won't connect me to you."
(lol how about they both get caught? It might be more fun that way anyway, and it would make sense because Goldenrod would consider her a "threat to the peace" XD)
"I hope you're right." Oscar stared at his painting for another minute, then held it up to the light. "Hmm….I don't think this one's going to look like home either."
The painting was mostly deep blue this time, with little flecks and threads of color glittering throughout. It looked like a night sky or maybe a cityscape, and there were oddly dark parts that might have been trees or animals depending how you looked. It was completely different from the first painting–the only similarity was the way the paint seemed to shift around when it thought no one was looking.
(Ooooo yessss)
"What does 'home' look like?" Honor questioned gently, glancing over at the new painting. In her opinion this picture was even better than the first, and it reminded her of when she first met Oscar. It looked like the night sky, dark and speckled with light but calming and comforting. She knew without a doubt that if she had to choose a favorite, that one was it. "Is it a feeling you're trying to paint? Or a memory?"
Oscar frowned and rested his forehead against the end of the paintbrush, not seeming to realize he was getting blue paint on his face. "I wish it was a memory, but yeah, it's just a feeling. I think's it's a feeling that only gets foggier the more I try to pin it down." He huffed and put the second painting next to the first. "I guess I'll try to paint something else now." Oscar glance out the car window, then did a double-take. "Wow…..it's so flat and empty out there. There are no towns anywhere." He paused, then grabbed his brush. "I'll paint that next. I like it."
She chuckled lighlty and nodded, looking out her own window, "The joys of the midwest, it's flat almost everywhere." Honor smiled, turning up the raido a fraction and humming along to the song that was playing, "I'm glad that someone is using it for inspiration though." Normally the emptiness was boring, and to her it still very much was, but if Oscar could paint from it, then she wasn't going to interfere. His painting was sure to turn out incredible.
"I like the flatness because it's not so…..noisy," Oscar explained. "It helps me calm down and focus. And my first real memory after coming here is of the sky above me, all darkish blue with the orange clouds and some stars. The sky is beautiful because it's just….pure color, you know? It's all soft and chaotic. In that way, it maybe reminds me of home too." He smiled, mixing some grey paint. "What's your favorite way for the sky to look?"
"I like the night sky, and sunrises and sunsets," She replied, smiling, "If I could stay up all night and look at the stars I would." Honor shrugged, focusing her attention back on the road, "I don't like the flatness though. It's too..quiet almost. That's not the right word, but that's all I can think of." She glanced at him, her smile softening, "If I was ever able to visit your world, I'm sure I would love it. You make it sound beautiful."
"That's how I remember it," Oscar said cheerfully—then he stopped short and his face fell. "Except I can't remember anything. It all just went out of my head." He would have tried out some of the swear words he'd learned from his books, but to him, the were still just words and he didn't understand why humans used them to vent their frustrations. He only knew that some humans didn't approve of them, and he didn't want to accidentally make Honor angry. So instead, he took some black paint and forcefully smudged it across his prairie painting, ruining his progress. "Honor, I think this body's brain is too small. It can only fit so much knowledge before it has to kick something out."
Honor couldn't help but chuckle, nodding as she drove, "I believe that. It's said that we only use about ten percent of our brains though, maybe if you unlock the other nintey percent you can remember everything you want?" She glanced over again, pausing and taking a doubletake as she saw the black smudge against the prarie painting, "Why did you do that?"
Oscar sighed. "I got angry." He added more black to the painting, making random lines as he tried to salvage it somehow. "Maybe I could unlock the other ninety percent, if I found out how. But even if I did, I'd still have to unlock my memories too. Hmm…..what if I added some black animals to this painting? Do you think anyone would mind?"
"If you unlock it, then you'll have plenty of room for your memories when you find them," She said, tapping out the tune of the music on her steering wheel, "If you want animals added, then add as many as you want, it's your artwork." She smiled at him, shrugging, "Anything you want to add, you put in there."
Oscar nodded. "Right then. I'll draw animals that I've never seen before."
After a while of working in silence, he added, "By the way, when should we stop next? I think the sun will start to set soon."
Honor shrugged, glancing outside and then at the small digital clock in the truck, "In about an hour we can stop, or in the next city. Whenever you want to get out and stretch your legs." She was antsy enough to want to just stop right where they were, but driving lots had gotten her used to the feeling, and she was almost confident that she could drive all night if she ignored the need to get out and walk around.
"The next city's fine," Oscar replied, sitting back to study his painting. "Where are we going to spend the night? In a hotel? I read a book where there was a murder in a big hotel and everyone got trapped there until the killer could pick them all off."
“Probably a hotel, I’m dying to sleep in a bed again,” She said with a soft laugh, “That book was a fiction book, nothing like that will happen.” Honor glanced over at his painting hoping that he had disguised the black into animals.
The painting was certainly more eye-catching now. Instead of a greyish prairie landscape with some black smudges on it, it was now a misty, otherworldly landscape dotted with creepy four-legged shadow monsters. Some of them almost looked like earthly animals, but several were so warped and amorphous that it was hard to tell their front from their back.
"I sort of thought that even the fiction books had to be based on some kind of truth," Oscar admitted, putting the caps back on his paints. "But you're probably right. And I'd like to see what a real hotel is like anyway. Do they have food there too?"
The painting was a mix of creepy and stunning, and for a minute, Honor couldn't stop studying it. She blinked several times before she was able to tear her gaze away, a soft smile on her face, "That's an amazing picture Oscar. And it's true that fiction almost always has a basis in reality, but getting killed in a hotel isn't going to happen to us." She drummed her fingers across the steering wheel, nodding her head towards a sign advertising a nearby town, "We'll stop there."