Zero squinted at the small girl sitting a few feet away from him, resisting the urge to flip the hair out of his eyes or squirm into a more comfortable position. As it was Iris frowned at him and shook her head.

"No, please don't move yet," she said, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. "I'm not quite done."

"How... much... longer?" The phrase was spoken slowly because he was trying not to move his lips too much.

"Just a little bit more..." There was a pause as she dabbled something on the canvas before her. "There. Finished." He jumped up in half a second and stretched, feeling imaginary kinks work out of his back--why did reploids even bother? he wondered--and half hopped next to her to examine her work.

"Damn, you're good," he said, scratching the back of his head. The likeness was beyond perfect into the realm of exaggeration. "Too good. I think you took about five years off my face."

She smiled. "An artist's duty is to portray the truth of what people want to see, not what they actually look like. In this case, it was a lot of work." He pinched her nose and she laughed.

He watched her as she gathered up her materials and cleaned her brushes off. He loved Iris, that was for sure. He'd loved other women, as well, but this was the shy, clumsy love of a young man, not the smooth seduction he gave other women. Iris merited more than a quick tumble, anyway--unlike other women she didn't love him for his position or power, but for him. Things like title and rank meant nothing to Iris. She treated everyone, young and old, like an erring nephew--all except Zero, her lover.

He'd given everything for her, dropped everything and flung himself at her whole-heartedly. He treated her with a mix of comraderie and loving, which she enjoyed, and they were as close as any man and woman could get to one another. She was sweet, a charming naivete that was quite his opposite--his most common nickname was the red devil, and if he were a devil, she must be something else. Not an angel--she was fallable, almost human. But she was as close to heaven as he'd ever get.

She smiled at him through her bangs, brushing hair out of her eyes.

"I'm not joking, though," he said, suddenly. "You really are good. I don't know why you never show anybody these paintings. You could make a lot of money."

She gave him a small smile--the one that drove him crazy, because in her face there was something he couldn't see, some deep-rooted secret about her that he could never quite catch.

"Why?" he asked. "You're a good artist, a good singer, good with plants and brats. So why don't you let anyone know?"

"Because," she said simply, "I don't think that they'd understand."