"It is interesting, that your audience always experienced it with you. For me, it was to say, 'I saw this, I understood it, I captured it.' A moment frozen in time, to be revisited later." he muses. "Ah, that's what I need."

He quickly fetches a glass bead, and then crushes it with the pommel of his dagger, mixing it into the paint. He looks between his easel and the wall several times, and then takes a breath and makes one smooth, looping movement.

An abstract line suggests a glittering blue dove in flight, launching itself from the horn of the unicorn.

"Oooooooh..."

He sets down the paints, satisfied. "Well, Songbird? How did you fare with your paper?"

She shows him a blobby blue flower with a red stem protruding what might be either flowers or leaves. "I wouldn't call it striking."

He wouldn't either. She probably knows you can combine blue and yellow paint to make green, and it would be insulting to point that out to her? But she didn't mix either of those paints, and so maybe she doesn't.

But get a reputation as an artist and counts are always showing you their trash; he knows how to redirect. Just pretend it's poetry. "It reminds me of my story," he says quickly, "the blue petals of beauty growing out of a blood-soaked stem. Might I keep it, as a memento?"

"You're welcome to it."

Then he will take it, thank her, and leave, his piece finished and no longer able to shield him from looking directly at his emotions or his history.

That wasn't very spiritually counsely but maybe he will come back another time.

The next person to arrive at Laia's office is a middle-aged man with his hands stuffed firmly into his pockets.

"Good evening! What's on your mind?"

How does he even explain this.

"I've been having a very stupid problem, and I guess I was hoping you'd have some advice."

"Oh, stupid problems are sometimes the best kind. Have a seat, tell me all about it."

He sits down.

"So I keep having this issue where — there's something I don't want to do, and most of the time I know I don't want to do it, and I keep deciding I'm not going to do anymore. Only then something'll happen, and even though I know I'll regret it later I end up doing it again. And I'd like to stop but it's not... working."

"Hmm. Do you want to tell me what the thing is or should I make up an example and pretend it's that?"

"...Why don't you make up an example." If he explains it probably she'll, like, kick him out or something. That would suck.

"We could pretend you're trying to quit drinking, does that work or is it too different for any of the same advice to make sense?"

"That's probably close enough. Except assume I'm living above a tavern or something, so I can't just avoid them completely."

"Well, maybe you should stop living above a tavern! Maybe you have a friend you could swap apartments with, or move in with. And if you can't do that, you could ask the bartender not to give you any more. And if they won't, you could see if they'd water it down for you, so you'd at least slow down and have more chances to catch yourself before you were blacked out. And if that didn't work you could make sure everyone you hang out with knows you're trying to stop and tell them to all make fun of you and steal your beer if you order one."

"...I think maybe I was wrong about whether drinking would work as an example here."

"Should I try again or do you want to tell me?"

"Sometimes when I get mad at my — well, we're not married, but we've been living together for years now — I end up hurting her, or our kids if it's the kids I'm mad at, or sometimes both. And I guess if I walked out on them I wouldn't do that anymore, but I don't think it'd be right to do that either."

"Oh no, that sounds awful in a completely different way. What tends to get you mad?"

"It's not always the same sort of thing. Last night it was — I got home from work, and the toddler had gotten into the pantry and spilled flour all over the floor, and then—" He cuts himself off.

"What would happen if... you just saw that and then turned around and left. Not forever, just a few minutes. Went for a walk."

"...That would work if I actually did it but I don't know if I'd do it."