Veronica worked from the couch, papers spread around her like fallen leaves while the Murchara drifted behind her, adjusting pigments with murmurs of soft static. His shadow-body thinned whenever he leaned close, becoming sheer enough for her to see her faint reflection through him as he worked. It made the whole process oddly peaceful—like watching an artist sketch her face with transparency and intention. She nudged him lightly with her foot, teasing, "I'm lucky you're made of shadows. It's like having x-ray vision for makeup." Static flickered around him in a bashful ripple. "If it keeps you calm," he whispered, "then look as much as you like." Still, whenever she moved toward the conjured mirror, a darker veil folded into place. "Not yet," he insisted. "Patience."
When the last document was finally pushed aside, Veronica rose from the couch and stretched, letting the tension slide from her shoulders. She crossed the room toward the mirrored wall he had summoned earlier. He followed with soft, attentive silence, shadows curling under each step like brushstrokes anticipating the canvas. As she reached the mirror, a cool hand cupped her cheek—gentle, steady, reverent. "Now," he murmured, static wrapping around his voice like silk. "Look." Veronica lifted her gaze and gasped. Copper-blue shimmered across her lips like forged metal meeting midnight water, mint strokes radiated from her eyes in a quiet money-fan motif, and above her brows, a constellation of gold circles formed a coin-crown that caught the light in different shimmering patterns. It was a coronet, minted directly onto her skin.
Her breath trembled—not from vanity, but from understanding. He had painted her not as the world saw her, but as she truly was. The Murchara's hands slipped lightly to her waist, shadows calming into soft pools around them both. "Do you like it?" he whispered. "I saved those pigments for you." She turned, cupping his shadowed jaw with a warm smile before giving him a quick kiss—light, friendly, and startling only for the spark of static that cracked between them. Their shared laugh floated gently through the room as he stepped back, pupils flickering with digital light. Around him, shadows reassembled the room into a studio—stands, panels, floating mirrors, and pigment trays forming natural gravity around him like planets orbiting their painter.
When he finally spoke again, the words carried ceremonial softness. "May I paint you? Properly. Canvas and body." Not a demand, not a presumption—an artist's petition. Veronica's eyes sparkled. She darted to her desk, rummaging through drawers until she pulled out a sleek runic-glass box: the newest Dryads of Sloth digital art tablet, months-long waitlist, eternal storage, self-updating, unhackable. "For you!" she nearly sang. "It keeps every stroke, every pigment—look, the seal isn't even broken!" The Murchara froze, shadows rising around him in a halo of awe. A tendril slid quietly to the door, curling into the frame and branching outward, forming a protective lattice of shadow—ensuring no one could enter or glimpse her in any vulnerable state without her voice of permission, nor interrupt their shared moment.
Two canvases formed—one traditional, one digital—and then Veronica stepped into the center of the room, aware of and comfortable with what would come next. The coin-crown gleamed softly against her skin, the copper-blue glow warming the air around her. The transparency of his form made the room feel safe, gentle, intimate only in the artistic sense. She stood as muses have through centuries—not for seduction, not for possession, but for interpretation. For becoming. For the quiet holiness of creation. And the Murchara, her own living urban myth, lifted his brush with the reverence of a man preparing to paint a legend.