And yet, I've already seen that moment in a fair more intimate way than any painting. [ The words don't come with the solemn respect that the subject perhaps deserves, but of course, Lucius doesn't mean anything by it. Eridanus is right to say that the memory means nothing to Lucius—and that makes him content to move past it without lingering on the negativity bound up in the topic. ] What need is there for either of us to dwell over a facsimile of what we've seen in the flesh?

[ Just ignore it. That is, unfortunately, Lucius' advice for most things of this nature—but it has worked where his own insecurities are concerned, for millennia longer than Eridanus has been alive, so he doesn't see why it wouldn't work for him as well. ]

I want you to see me. [ The words slip from Lucius without thought, and there is an urgency that coils in his chest that doesn't quite reach those easy words. ] There is a portrait of me there, painted by the hand of Serena d'Angelus. A woman among the most skilled of her art and era. It's one of her last works, too.