Time passes, then, while Leander stands alongside the work in progress. His attention moves from canvas to hands, to the woman who wields them, and back again. Companionable silence, save the swipes she deals, each of them the thump of a heart in distress. Turning herself inside out and smearing the viscera into a likeness of unrest. The tension of the room. The tangle of the woman who commands it. It's all very beautiful.

The shape of him changes in her peripheral vision—if she sees him at all—as he turns. Footfalls carry him to somewhere close by, to sit, and to cradle his jaw in his palm, and to witness quietly her immersion until she chooses to rise for a breath.