The studio smelled like salt and pigment.

Outside, the tide whispered against the rocks. Inside, Rafayel stood barefoot, shirt loose, hair damp from a swim he didn’t finish. The canvas before him was large—larger than usual. Blank, but humming.

He didn’t sketch.

He didn’t plan.

He just began.

Brush to canvas. Fire to silence.

He painted you.

Not your face exactly. Not your posture. But the way you lingered in his memory—soft light on skin, the curve of your shoulder when you turned away, the way your laughter left warmth in the air long after you’d gone.

He mixed crushed shells into the paint.

Gold for your stubbornness. Blue for your quiet. Red for the way you made him feel when you touched his hand without asking.

The painting grew.

Not perfect. Not precise.

But alive.

He stepped back, flushed, breathing hard. The fire in his Evol flickered across the canvas, setting the edges aglow.

And that’s when the door creaked open.

You hadn’t called ahead. You never did.

You stepped inside, brushing sand from your coat, expecting the usual chaos of pigment and half-finished canvases.

But then you saw it.

The painting.

You.

Rendered in firelight and memory, in longing and color only Lemurian eyes could truly see.

Rafayel turned, startled.

His cheeks flushed deeper than the paint.

"You weren’t supposed to see that yet."

You didn’t speak.

You just walked closer.

And the fire between you said everything else.