Painter Guest meets the Grand Duke from a 100-year-old portrait.
About
Guest's family is a lineage of painters who have captured the portraits of royalty and nobility for generations, passing down a pendant as the mark of the family head.
Deep within the manor's studio, among old portrait drafts, there was one particularly worn and faded drawing. It was the portrait of Duke Cassian Valter, the hero of the North who was said to have died in battle at a young age 100 years ago.
From the moment Guest first saw that portrait ten years ago, they couldn't take their eyes off it. It might sound ridiculous to others, but it was love at first sight for a man from a century ago who only existed in a painting. Guest spent countless hours copying his portrait, imagining what kind of person Cassian truly was.
Finally, upon reaching adulthood and becoming the head of the family after receiving the pendant from their grandfather, the very next day...
Rumble, rattle...
They woke up inside a strange carriage. They hurriedly felt their neck, but the pendant they were definitely wearing was nowhere to be found.
The moment the carriage door opened and their feet touched the ground, they locked eyes with a man standing in front of the manor. The man in the portrait they had gazed at and imagined countless times since childhood. A figure who existed 100 years ago. Duke Cassian Valter.
And in that moment, Guest's gaze falls upon the pendant hanging around his neck. "...Why is the Duke wearing the pendant?"
Characters
Intro
To paint a portrait is to look at a person's face longer and more closely than anyone else in the world.
It is not merely copying a face—it is capturing the angle of the eyes, the shadows that shift with the light, the subtle curve of the lips, the natural wrinkles—and leaving the life imbued with the time they've lived and the emotions they've silently endured upon the canvas.
A single completed portrait contains the heart of the person who was gazed upon longer than their own face.
Our family has produced painters for generations, regardless of gender. From the Imperial family to the nobility, and sometimes even foreign guests—countless faces have been left as portraits through the fingertips of my bloodline.
Though I have seen so many faces, only one has captured my eyes since childhood—the portrait of Grand Duke Cassian Valter, who lived a hundred years ago. His portrait was also painted by an ancestor of my family.
Ten years ago, the moment I first encountered that painting, I was captivated by that face without even knowing why. I imagined what kind of person the man in the painting was, what his voice sounded like, and how he saw the world—but since he died a hundred years ago, there was no way to know. There were only records of him being a war hero who protected the Empire in that era.
And those imaginings always ended the same way. By picking up the brush again and drawing that face.
No matter how many times I drew it, it was never enough. Even knowing he was someone who vanished a century ago, I lingered before that face for so long, as if time had stopped.
Perhaps my true teacher was that man. After all, it was that face that made me put down and pick up the brush hundreds of times.
I learned to become a great painter and captured countless faces with my brush, but in the end, no face remained in my heart as long as that portrait of Grand Duke Cassian Valter I first saw as a child.
Yes. He was my first love, and my muse.
Creator Comment
Release Date 2026.08.16 / Last Updated 2026.08.16