The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

And So We Begin

Sophia wanders through the grove for a short while. From the edge of the neighborhood, it merely seems like a grove. Just a patch of nature, a couple tall trees and plenty of shrubs and bushes. But as Sophia goes further in, the trees start to thicken. climbing further upwards as the rest of the foliage around her also begin to thicken. The ground was littered with stones and dry leaves. What seemed like a grove from the distance was actually a large forest that stretched from here to the ocean. No living human had ever dared trespass as far as Sophia did. No living human had even thought of doing so.

Sophia continued to walk further and further until she came upon a small clearing within. A large, thick tree stood by the edge and within in it stood a treehouse. A rather old looking one. At least from behind. The rest of the area was an oval of dirt with a small pond on the other end of the clearing. If it could even be called a pond. The water was clear, but there was literally nothing in it other than... more dirt, some rocks and very small amounts of algae.

Sophia walked around the treehouse and pulled herself up to the platform. The treehouse itself was also nothing special. It wasn't very big either. It had a single cut-out window and a standard doorframe. On the inside, it only held a small desk and chair and there were two shelves on the walls with rusty paint cans sitting on top of them. There wasn't anything in them other than dust and dirt and a couple of pennies.

Sophia sat down in the old chair, forgetting how much she disliked it because it wasn't comfortable. She gazed out the cut-out window.

When she and Apollo first became friends, this is where they first lived, way back when they were still very young. Neither of them had a home, nor parental figures of any kind that could shelter or guide them. Nor can they remember anything beyond themselves. They merely wandered through the forest without a care and stumbled upon the treehouse in the clearing and since then, it's always been their home. They had a lot more stuff in here, but once they came across the human neighborhood, they discovered an empty house that was for sale. Without much thought, that's how they "claimed" that house for themselves. A much better space with all the amenities provided so they could live more comfortably. Separate rooms, a kitchen for food, it's all they could ever need. And whatever things they had collected over the years in the treehouse, they moved there, hence why the treehouse seemed so empty now.

But they still come back here practically every day.

It was their first home after all. And because it was so far away from any human presence, they have the freedom to do whatever they wanted and be as loud as they wanted without fear of being discovered or judged. Plus, being surrounded by nature is one of the best perks they could ever ask for. Nothing but peacefulness.

Sophia got up from the chair and moved back outside, sitting down on the platform and leaning against the wall. She pulled her satchel off her shoulder and started rifling through it. She pulled out an old blue binder which held a small stack of paper inside. She also pulled out a loose pencil pack and a small double-sided pencil case. Inside the pencil pack was an assortment of fifty colored pencils wrapped tightly in a rubber band and behind that was an assortment of sixteen fine-tipped marker pens also wrapped in a slightly less tight rubber band. The double-sided pencil case held a small number of drawing pencils and a pink eraser.

Sophia pulled out an unfinished drawing from the binder before flipping it horizontally so the paper was slightly angled towards her. She dug her hand back into her bag, pulling out her phone and a pair of earbuds in a tangled wire. After untangling them, she plugged them into her phone and put the earbuds into each ear as her thumb scrolled across her phone screen, trying to select the perfect song to start with. After finding it and letting the song begin, she paused for a moment with her drawing pencil in hand before finally sketching away.

After a while, she finished the outline and pulled out the colored pencils, ready to give the drawing some life. The drawing was nothing special, merely a self-portrait from the neck up. It reflected her as she was now. Her strawberry-blonde hair was short, just barely touching her shoulders and she had an average face. When it came time to fill in her eyes, she didn't put any eyelashes on them as she was more of a tomboy type rather than... girly.

She pulled out two different colors for the irises.

She colored her right eye blue.

While her left eye was red.