Kaiser felt something almost alien in his chest as he held the canvas aloft. It was discomfort, faint but undeniable, settling along his spine like a creeping chill. The longer he stared, the more the brushstrokes seemed to breathe.

Aria shifted beside him, her posture tightening. The false blue of her eyes dulled, the vibrant hue washing into something pale, almost grey. Her fingers flexed around the grip of her bow, not raising it, but holding it as if she might.

Masamia's expression did not shift, not even by a flicker.

Bosch, however, smiled. A soft, almost wistful smile. "Beautiful, isn't it" he murmured.

The painting was a thing of motion despite being still, a towering, inky beast reared up on four clawed limbs, its body coiled with sinew and shadow. Its head was fox-like but grotesquely elongated, the ears jagged at the tips as though torn by storms. Its many eyes glowed faintly through the smoke that bled from its form, and each paw left black pools in its wake. A faint drizzle of ink fell from one claw, rippling the darkness beneath it. The background was an abstract ruin—splintered silhouettes of trees, a bleeding sky blurred into grey. The brushstrokes were wild and crazed all at once, each one cut with a precision that spoke of a hand that had painted this creature many times before.

Aria's gaze didn't leave Bosch now. She looked at him as if the man himself were the monster on the canvas, the warmth in her face stripped away and replaced with wary disgust.

Bosch's eyes stayed fixed on the image, his smile softening into something almost paternal. "Utterly beautiful," he said again, as though to himself. "As always. I hope… it will be good enough."

Kaiser's attention sharpened at the phrasing. "Good enough for what?"

Bosch leaned back slightly, folding his hands over his lap. "There are many reasons to paint, boy. As many as there are colors. But now… now I paint to keep the love of my life alive."

Kaiser's brow furrowed.

"My Rosaline," Bosch said quietly, and even the air seemed to still. "She survives on emotion, on joy and on beauty. She has always been that way. But now, her home is gone... Without the sky, without the place she knew… she would wither. So I paint. I paint to keep her mind from fraying into despair."

He reached down to stroke the two fox-like cats on the bed, their fur pure and soft, their tails fanning out like plumes. They leaned into his touch with a familiarity that spoke of years. "She always loved cats," Bosch continued, "So I paint them, every day. Three pieces, without fail. The first, always cats. The second, a sunset, so that my debt is paid. The third, a sea as blue as the first she ever saw, to hold back the rot those bastards left behind."

Kaiser's eyes narrowed, the weight of his gaze almost tangible. "Rot? What bastards?"

"The corruption," Bosch said, his voice soft but certain. "Those who stole her home and steeped it in poison. If I do not give her the sea, one that is pure, endless and blue... Then the poison creeps back into her, thread by thread, until it takes her whole."

Kaiser's tone cooled. "Every painting I've seen here has been a sunset."

At that, Bosch's expression tightened, and he glanced at Masamia. "Take me there."

Masamia stepped forward without question, her hands slipping under her master's arms to lift him as though he weighed nothing. "Follow us, if you will." she said softly, already moving.

They crossed the far side of the room to an unremarkable corner, where an empty canvas stood on a carved stand. Without a word, Masamia reached forward and pressed a single pearl embedded in the ornate frame's edge. Then, something clicked. The canvas shivered, its surface warping like water disturbed. Then it slid aside soundlessly, revealing a narrow doorway.

The air beyond was different... cooler and heavier mostly. They stepped through.

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The passage descended sharply, its walls narrowing. The further they went, the more the white perfection above gave way to stone blackened by time and streaked with damp. Dust and the faint scent of mold replaced the perfumed air of Bosch's chamber.

Aria's steps slowed slightly. She glanced back once toward the light they'd left behind, her jaw tightening before she forced herself onward. She did not speak, but every movement radiated the silent thought: This place should not exist.

The stairs ended in a narrow archway, and as they stepped through, Kaiser's eyes adjusted to a light entirely different from the world above.

It was blue.

The hallway stretched ahead in impossible length, so long that the far end dissolved into haze. Along both walls, framed in gold and perfectly spaced, hung paintings of the ocean. Each canvas depicted a different moment: gentle waves under pale morning light, storms where black clouds clashed with violent crests, sunsets over shimmering tides, moonlit beaches. Yet all shared one thing—the sea in every image was impossibly vivid. Not just blue, but alive with depth, as if the brush had captured a piece of the ocean itself and pressed it flat.

Their reflections shimmered faintly across the lacquered floor, fractured and remade with every step they took. The air was cooler here, touched faintly with the scent of salt that shouldn't have been able to exist underground.

Aria's eyes darted from one side to the other, her face unreadable at first. But the longer they walked, the more a frown took shape. "This is…" she murmured, not finishing the thought, though her tone carried equal parts awe and unease.

Bosch, still supported by Masamia, turned his head enough to glance back at them. "My wife is a Grounded," he said, voice low but steady, the words meant to be remembered. "Her place of Origin was destroyed. For those like her, the land and sky they were born to are not just home… they are the tether that keeps them whole. Without them, they unravel, and then they lose themselves."

His eyes swept down the hall, toward the endless blue. "I learned long ago that my gift, this curse some call art, could do more than give a creature form. It could give a place form. I could paint a world..."

Kaiser said nothing, though the narrowing of his eyes spoke for him.

"It is not without cost," Bosch continued. "A change lasts forty-eight hours. No more. So I was forced to paint, again and again, without pause. A cat for her joy, the sea for her strength, a sunset to pay debts owed." He exhaled softly, a sound that carried both exhaustion and iron resolve. "My Rosaline survives yet. That is all that matters."

Masamia adjusted her grip on him gently as they walked. "He has never failed her," she said, her voice soft but laced with something protective.

Aria's gaze lingered on the nearest painting, a stretch of deep ocean under a calm sky. Her reflection rippled in the painted water as though it were real, and she found herself looking away quickly, unwilling to stare too long.

Kaiser's pace slowed, his boots clicking against the lacquered floor in a rhythm. "You're not being honest," he said flatly.

Bosch glanced back at him, brows knitting faintly, though there was no outrage in the gesture, only a tired patience, as if he'd been accused of worse.

"It's been less than a month," Kaiser continued. "Reports say those monstrous cats only started appearing recently. And the fact this whole village is caught in perpetual sunset… that's even newer. No, elder, this is fresh."

For a moment, the only sound was the faint rustle of Masamia's steps and the soft hum of unseen light. Then Bosch let out a long, slow breath. "Greedy," he said simply, his voice as level as if he were admitting to keeping too much sugar in his tea. "I hoped people would understand. I have kept Logshare safe for decades, ever since I hung up my title as a Liberator. I thought…" His eyes softened faintly, almost wistfully. "…that this village might allow me this one indulgence."

Kaiser's gaze sharpened. "And what exactly does that mean?"

Bosch didn't answer immediately. Instead, he adjusted the glasses on his face, the golden rims catching the hall's painted light. "I owed a debt," he said at last, "To a man who came to me not long ago, perhaps a month. Young. Purple hair. He arrived at the perfect time… the precise moment when my body was weakest."

Aria shifted slightly, the subtle tightening of her fingers around her bowstring betraying her discomfort.

"He was an expert in Sol artifacts," Bosch continued, "And had crafted one for me alone. These glasses." He touched them gently, almost reverently. "They don't spare me the cost of painting, as my Sol still bleeds away with every stroke, but they remove the other burden. Fatigue. I no longer lose my days to sleep."

Kaiser said nothing, but his expression was carved from stone.

"With eight extra hours each day," Bosch went on, "I could take on the work he asked of me. One more painting alongside my own: a village at sunset. He asked for it every day, for little over a month. Forty paintings in total. And when they were complete, he promised, I could keep them forever."

His tone didn't rise or fall, but something in it, the strange mix of resignation and conviction made Aria glance at him as though unsure whether she was listening to devotion or confession.

The thing Bosch was painting, thinking it was a cute, little kitty!

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