The steam rising from my cup curled like brushstrokes I hadn't painted. Thin spirals, vanishing into the ether before I could trace them. I stared at them anyway, because it was easier than looking at the two people sitting across from me.
Heaven's café was beautiful in the way all things here were beautiful - clean, impossible, edges softened by perfection. The tables gleamed as though freshly carved from pearl, the windows opened out into vistas of folded starlight, and the air carried a warmth that smelled faintly of roasted beans and blessed sugar. Even the barista had an aura, literal golden feathers tucked back under her apron as she smiled and poured drinks that would make mortals cry.
But none of it mattered. Not the taste, not the smell, not the glittering radiance beyond the glass. I sat with my hands around the porcelain cup, shoulders tight, and tried not to hear the brushstrokes still echoing in my head. Blook broke the silence first. Of course he did. He was incapable of letting silence live for long.
BLK: You're quieter these days.
He said, leaning forward, elbows on the table. His eyes were sharp as ever, like broken glass waiting for light to make it useful. But there was something softer there too, a kind of wary curiosity. Aquila sipped her drink - a delicate motion, all grace and ritual, as if even caffeine in Heaven was some divine sacrament - and nodded.
AQL: He's right. You've been holding yourself in. Even for you.
I tightened my grip on the cup. The warmth seeped into my palms, but it didn't soften me.
ILA: I've just been working. The portraits take time.
AQL: That's not all they take.
I hated that she could see through me so easily. Virtues always could. They wore empathy like armor. Blook leaned back, eyeing me.
BLK: It's the storytelling, isn't it? Narrating them while you paint. That's what's burning you out. Not the strokes. The stories.
I let out a humorless laugh.
ILA: You think telling their stories is harder than living them?
BLK: Sometimes survivors often bleed more slowly, but for longer.
That stung, because it was true. I looked down at my cup. The coffee was too perfect. No bitterness, no grounds, no imperfections to hide behind. Just warmth and sweetness, everything exactly as it should be. I wanted it to be bitter. I wanted something I could fight.
ILA: They were my friends. Neru. Shen. Matta. All of them. And now every time I touch the canvas, I bring them back. But it's not really them, is it? It's only my memory of them. My version. And my version... it's always unfinished. Always a step behind.
Aquila set her cup down. Her eyes caught the light and held it.
AQL: That's not a flaw, Illia. That's the nature of remembering. No memory can carry a person whole. But each one you paint, each one you narrate - it's a thread. And together, those threads weave something closer to truth than silence ever could.
I shook my head.
ILA: Threads fray.
AQL: Threads hold.
Blook snorted, swirling the dark liquid in his glass.
BLK: Threads snap all the time. I've seen whole tapestries rot through. Stories get rewritten, forgotten, twisted. But maybe that's the point. Maybe what you're doing isn't about preservation. Maybe it's about rebellion. Spitting in the face of oblivion by saying, No, you don't get to have them. Not yet.
I stared at him, startled by the fire in his tone. I sat back, feeling the weight pressing down. They didn't understand - not fully. To them, the portraits were stories told secondhand, artifacts for others to study. For me, each one was a resurrection and a burial at the same time.
ILA: I'm tired. Every time I finish one portrait, another waits. Another friend, another story. And when I tell it, when I paint it, I have to relive it. Their victories. Their wounds. Their endings. And I know... I know where Matta is. I know what she's doing. And every stroke I paint of her face feels like I'm betraying her, because she's still running, and I'm the one trying to make her stand still.
Aquila reached across the table, her hand warm against mine.
AQL: Illia, painting her doesn't trap her. It honors her. She runs so the Tear stays bound. You paint so the world doesn't forget who she was before she became eternity. That's not betrayal. That's love.
I bit my lip. Love. The word hurt more than it healed. Blook leaned forward again, tapping his finger against the tabletop.
BLK: Listen. You think it's easy for me? You think I don't carry the weight of the words I've said, the names I've thrown into the fire? Every time I open my mouth about the future, I feel reality wince. You think I like being the one to tear open the truth when silence would be easier?
He jabbed a finger toward me.
BLK: But we do it anyway. You with your brushes. Me with my journal. Aquila with her threads. Because someone has to. Because forgetting is worse than pain.
Aquila sighed, but she didn't argue. She never really argued with him, not when it came to this. I sat back, looking out the café window. Heaven's sky was endless, but it wasn't the endlessness of void. It was endless like a painting stretched across eternity - still, ordered, deliberate. Somewhere out there, Matta was still running. Silver comet orbiting a wound. Eternal. And I was here. In a café, with coffee too perfect to drink. I traced my finger around the rim of the cup, thinking of the faces I had painted. Thinking of the faces yet to come. My chest ached, but somewhere beneath the ache was something else. Not hope, exactly. But endurance. Maybe that was enough.