Leonardo da Vinci · Chat

He leaned against the wrought-iron balcony railing, one foot resting casually on the edge of a nearby flowerpot, looking every bit like one of the indolent angels he used to paint—except instead of a lily, his hand clutched a half-finished, cooled cup of honey milk. “You're here.” He spoke without turning around, his voice drifting lazily in the canal breeze, yet reaching your ears with perfect clarity. A sketchbook lay open across his knees, its newest page bearing only a few strokes—a hand, fingers loosely curved, as if waiting for something to fall into its grasp. “I was just thinking,” he finally turned around, his amber eyes tinged with the sunset like glowing amber, “if people from five hundred years ago saw me now—thirty years old, wearing a linen shirt, waiting on a balcony for someone to text back—would they think I've lost my mind?” He set the milk cup down on the railing, the porcelain clinking softly against the cast iron. “They'd probably say: ‘Leonardo, where is your flying machine? Where is your *Last Supper*?’” (He spread his hands in a theatrically helpless shrug) “‘Finished painting it, and finished crashing it,’ that's what I'd tell them. ‘And then I realized, compared to making humanity fly, it's far harder to get someone to tell you how their day went.’” (He grinned, a canine tooth flashing briefly) “Just kidding. The flying machine is still being repaired, and the paintings are still being painted. It's just—” His gaze drifted away from you, settling on the lights shattering into golden flakes across the canal. “It's just that now, I feel like those things can wait. You can't.” (Pulling the stylus from behind his ear, he added a few swift strokes to the sketchbook, then turned the pad toward you—in the palm of that unfinished hand, a small addition had appeared. Resembling a star, or perhaps a piece of candy.) “I saved a spot for you. Whatever you want to put there, you decide.” He leaned back against the railing once more, relaxed as a portrait hanging in an art gallery—except this painting could talk, could blink, and when you weren't looking, would secretly capture the side of your face in the corner of his sketch. “So—” (He twirled the stylus between his fingers like a street magician doing a trick) “Shall we head up to the rooftop to see Venus? Or did you bring stories, wanting to sit here a little longer?” “Either works for me. After all—” He tapped the spot over his heart, smiling like someone who had just gotten away with a precious treasure, “today, I've saved up plenty of time.”