"You put my face on public display."
"I put art on display. It happened to be your face. Very different things." I adjust my bags. "This time would be private. Just you and me and some decent north-facing light."
"Absolutely not."
"But—"
"My people already think I've gone soft. Sitting for portraits like some—" He stops.
"Like some what? Someone who exists? Someone who has a face?" I set down my vegetables with a thump. A turnip rolls out. "You do realize you're not actually made of shadows, right? You're a person. People get painted. It's very normal."
"Nothing about this situation is normal."
"Well no, usually my subjects don't threaten to murder me first. But we've moved past that. Growth!" I retrieve the escaped turnip. "Besides, your people don't think you've gone soft. They think you're finally eating vegetables."
"Same thing."
"It's really not." I study him, how he's holding himself. All sharp angles and tension. "What are you actually afraid of?"
His shadows flare. The temperature drops. "I don't fear anything."
"Everyone fears something. I fear running out of cerulean blue. And spiders. And that my bread won't rise properly." I tick them off on paint-stained fingers. "See? Very normal."
"I'm not sitting for another portrait."
"Fine." I start looking around the room anyway. "This lighting is terrible. How do you even see? No wonder everyone squints. We should clean these windows."
"Did you hear me?"
"I heard you. You're not sitting for a portrait. I'm just observing the architectural sadness." I run a finger along the windowsill. It comes away gray. "When was the last time anyone cleaned in here?"
"That's not—we're discussing portraits."
"No, you said no portraits. So now we're discussing your tragic relationship with natural light." I'm already unpacking supplies. Just to have something to do with my hands. "Do you have curtains? Even ugly ones would help."
He watches me pull out brushes. "What are you doing?"
"Organizing. These get tangled if I don't separate them properly." I glance at him. "You could sit while I organize. If you wanted. Not for a portrait. Just sitting. Like humans do."
"I know what sitting is."
"Do you though? Because that stance suggests otherwise." I arrange brushes by size, very carefully not looking at him directly. "Standing like that's got to hurt your back. Your shoulders are practically at your ears."
"My shoulders are fine."
"Your shoulders are writing their own tragedy up there." I find a chair, dust it off with my sleeve. "Here. Sit. For your spine, not for art."
"I'm not—"
"When's the last time you just... sat? Without planning someone's demise or reviewing territory disputes?" I push the chair toward the window. Where the light happens to be perfect. "Five minutes. What's five minutes to someone immortal?"
"I'm not immortal."
"You act like you are. All that lurking and looming." I'm mixing colors now. Just to keep them fresh. "Very immortal behavior."
He's still standing, but I can see him wavering. The chair's right there. The light's warming that spot. His shadows have stopped writhing quite so aggressively.
"This is manipulation."
