The audience, in every tier, leaned forward.
The motion was not coordinated, as they were not a single thing, despite being grafted to the Painter's flesh.
They were individuals, each with their own appetites, their own histories, their own preferred textures of suffering.
Some of them had been watching the Painter's work for so long they had forgotten they were watching; they had become the watching, and the watching had become them.
But when Eos turned to face them and spoke to them instead of the Painter, they moved as if they had a single mind.
Eos had never addressed the audience directly. In the first age, he had been the cultivator of the meal, and the meal had been his Existence, and the audience had eaten it without ever seeing the cook.
In the second age, he had been the bearer of the Taste, and the audience had watched him bear it, and the bearing had been a flavor they had not known they wanted.
Now he stood, faced them, and he spoke.
