Times had changed. She had changed.
Everyone had those moments in life they could later describe as points which marked how then became now. To captain Winters it was this moment or the last month that had lead to this moment to be more precise.
Laura had been promoted, though the road to it had been quite eventful, and she now worked for someone else than the navy. Her new employers were unknown to most and the fact that she was serving their cause was classified information. With the new employers and the promotion came certain benefits such as her own ship, crew and contacts.
Those contacts were what brought her here. Captain Winters stood in an unfamiliar apartment waiting for her host who was running late. The rented apartment was mostly empty as it was cleared out to serve as a workshop and an art gallery for the artist who lived elsewhere. It’s windowed wall offered a view over the edge of the city and the countryside in the horizon. The portier let her into the complex and having the artist seemingly forget to lock the door to gave access to the gallery. Her best guess was that the host had left to buy additional art supplies in a hurry.
The navy had a tradition to have portraits made of their high ranking officers but this was mostly reserved and paid only for the personnel who had the rank of an admiral. Therefore Laura did this in private and paid for it too. Winters family tradition had it so that once you gained the rank of a captain you would make a portrait so it could be hung on the wall which displayed most of their family. Luckily the ORNI personnel were more favorable for breaking the navy tradition and had gone as far as giving recommendations for possible artists for the job. Laura had skimmed through the files of at least an hundred artists before choosing this one. The girl she was waiting for was an aspiring artist and still at the start of her career.
Hearing the noices from the corridor the captain fixed her uniform and turned around to face the door as the young blonde stepped in. Holding her cap in her hand she rest the other on her side. “Aria, I presume?”
“Captain Laura Winters.” She introduced herself though the girl already knew whose portrait she was going to paint. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.”
@cinnabartist