5 Minute Freewrite - Prompt: Paint

"I'm so happy that you're participating today," the nurse praised, "though I believe 'silver and gold' is the theme."

Julia bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from snapping at the stout woman. She would paint what she loved and she loved her children, not some worthless metals.

"It's fine," said the art instructor. "She's still coping with the loss of her grounds privileges."

"Oh! You mean the fuss last week?"

Julia dug her nails into the handle of her paintbrush and gritted her teeth. Fuss? Fuss?! They had cut down her children. Killed them! Called them invasive weeds! Her precious, beautiful children.

"Yes. It seems she had a bit of an episode after some flowers were removed."

Julia took a calming breath and did her best to ignore the vile women, instead focusing on her painting. It was a beautiful portrait of her only surviving child. Its delicate petals were a velvety, cobalt blue and its stem and leaves a vibrant, healthy green. She could feel her child growing, thriving, in the botanist's care. Had she known her children's ultimate fate, she would have insisted he take them all for his so-called testing. At least then they would have lived.

She smiled at her child's portrait. One more week. Two, at most. Her child had recovered and was once again growing ever closer to maturity. Then these murderers would pay for harming her children.

---

Note: This is a continuation of a previous freewrite. For some reason, this was all I could think of when I saw the paint prompt. :-)

This prompt was provided by @mariannewest and can be found here.

---

Image sourced from Pixabay.