He hoped that would sustain him for however long it took to find his next taste.
A week later, Yumi watched the most shocking thing she’d ever seen. Two people kissing. In front of her. In front of everyone, on the viewer. A man made from the blue hion lines, and a woman from the magenta.
Locking lips, intimate. Right there.
She gasped and pulled her blankets closer, up to her chin. “Can they show that?” she asked.
Painter just chuckled.
She threw a pillow at him in response—it didn’t even disrupt his spirit, but it made her feel better. Then she leaned forward, eyes wide.
It had become her habit, after practicing her painting for several hours, to stop and watch a drama. It felt like a frivolous waste of time, but Painter said that it was important to relax now and then—and it was his world. His rules. She was basically forced to do this.
Besides, the story continued each night—and she needed to see what happened. She followed three separate dramas, but Seasons of Regret was the best. And the most scandalous. She cocked her head as the kiss continued. And continued. And…
“How do they breathe?” she asked.
“In a kiss like that,” he said, “you share breath. You send the air back and forth, exhaling into each other’s lungs. It can keep you going for a good fifteen minutes.”
She believed it for the briefest moment, then saw his smirk. That earned him another pillow, this one straight through the head.
On the viewer, Sir Ashinata and Lady Hinobi broke apart. This was a “historical” drama, according to Painter. Which meant they were pretending to be from another time, before things like showers. Yumi sighed at how the two stared at each other, with the viewer showing their faces up close, tiny hion lines reproducing even their eyelashes.
That look. Could they really be faking? Painter must be wrong—these two actors must actually be in love. Because of that look. She had been waiting to see them look at each other like that for a week now.
Sir Ashinata was some kind of wandering warrior, and their pairing was forbidden. But they had finally admitted their love. It was wonderful.
“Now,” Sir Ashinata said, “I must go away. Forever.”
“What?” Yumi cried. “What?”
He spun and walked off, one hand on his hion blade. Lady Hinobi turned from him to hide the tears in her eyes.
“No,” Yumi said, leaping to her feet. “No!”
But the ending music started playing. The hour was over. He was leaving?
“That’s terrible!” she said, pointing. “We waited all this time, and now he’s just going away?”
“He’s ronin,” Painter said. “That is the way of his kind.”
Yumi glared at him, but…well, he turned away, wiping a tear from his eye. He didn’t like it any more than she did. And Painter wasn’t to blame for what the people who made the drama had done.
She collapsed into a heap of blankets and pillows on the futon. She’d discovered at last that it wasn’t an altar. Painter had chuckled for a day after she’d finally thought to ask.
“But…” she said. “But why?”
“Some stories end this way.” Painter stood up and stretched. “Depends on what the writer wants. It’s good that they’re all a little different. You don’t want them all to be happy.”
“Yes. I. Do.” Her voice grew softer. “They could create anything. Make anything. Why would they make something sad?”
“I’ve heard people find it more realistic.”
“Is it?” Yumi asked, pulling her blankets tighter. “Is sadness realistic?” That felt more depressing than the ending itself.
“I used to think so,” Painter said. “And Yumi, many things in life are sad. So it’s realistic at least to some experiences. It’s good that some stories are happy, some are sad. That part is realistic.”
She shook her head and dried her tears in the blanket.
“Sometimes,” Painter said, “the more you think about it, the better an ending like this seems. It can be right, even if it’s painful.”
“There’s still hope,” Yumi said, fierce. “The program isn’t finished. Something might happen tomorrow.”
“I don’t know,” Painter said. “That was the end of the arc—you can see it in the extra-long credits. Tomorrow they’ll switch to a different set of characters.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not over. You’ll see…”
She said it with more confidence than she felt. Ten hours awake in each body made for an odd schedule in some ways, but at least she could catch a drama each day. This one could turn out to be happy.
Couldn’t it?
Painter walked to the viewer to turn it off—he liked experimenting with what he could accomplish while a spirit. Yumi trailed over to the window to look out at the pure black sky. With its single point of light, distant as last night’s dreams.
（Unfortunately, you’re not going to get an answer for why “the star” could pierce the shroud when the sun and stars could not. I don’t yet know. I have some answers about the shroud itself, and the nature of what was happening to Yumi’s and Painter’s lands. I’ll give you those when it’s appropriate.
But the way that one planet could filter through the darkness and reach longing eyes in Kilahito? No idea what was going on. I’m sorry to leave you with this mystery, but think of it as—instead of a hole—a promise for future stories yet undiscovered.）
“Want to get back to training?” Painter said, gesturing to the stacks of paper.
“No,” she said, turning away from the window and putting aside silly thoughts about a silly drama, even if her eyes were still wet. “I think it’s time for me to go out. Hunting nightmares.”
“You’re not ready.”
“You’ve said this is all I need to learn,” she said, waving to the stacks of painted bamboo. “You said I mastered it a week ago, Painter. You’ve been having me do nothing more than bamboo for days and days and days now!”
“Knowing how to paint,” he said, “is different from being able to do it in a stressful situation. That requires reflex and instinct. Like hitting a ball.”
“A ball?” she asked, picking up the small bowl of soup she’d forgotten as the ending of the drama arrived. She frowned as she sat down on the futon. “What ball?”
“You know,” he said, making a motion with his hand—as if that explained it. “Hitting a ball? With a snap-racket? You…don’t have that on your world.”
“Obviously,” she said, tasting her noodles.
Hey! They almost weren’t terrible.
“Try this,” she said, eager, holding the bowl toward him, pinching the spoon between two fingers and proffering it. He plucked the spirit of the spoon and was able to get a taste of the soul of the soup.
He looked up at her.
“It’s only my second week cooking,” she said.
“There is more salt in this soup than there is soup, Yumi,” he said.
“It said to salt liberally,” she said. “I didn’t know what that meant.”