[The longer he spends in Verso's company, the more Gustave comes to realize that the other man doesn't arrive at speech as easily as he does. It's not a bad thing, of course, just...something. Brooding artist comes to mind, but Gustave doesn't want to pin him down so simply like that. He's had his own brooding moments, too. Everyone does, especially back when the Paintress' number ticked down year by year, their efforts all for naught, and the mantle of hopelessness covered their shoulders more heavily.
He doesn't know what weighs on Verso, though. Gustave won't pretend to understand this man he's just met tonight. But as he waits for an answer, it becomes all the more apparent that he's a thinker, probably weighing his own words against themselves to find the ones that work best. A perfectionist, maybe? Aren't artists usually that? Especially the ones who find success in their talents, regardless of how hard they've had to work at it. And, judging by how the recital went earlier, although Gustave's ears are untrained when it comes to music, it certainly seemed like Verso's talent has been honed into something more than a fancy.
And yet, glancing over at Verso , Gustave can't help but feel something...almost familiar. The way Verso tends to look down instead of straight ahead. Maelle had the same habit when she was still in his care. Of course. They're siblings, right? Siblings-but-not, related but separated by existences. Something Gustave, in all his logical thinking, struggles to grasp. Struggles, or refuses. If this world in which he's always lived, and died for, and has only ever known, is just a creation by someone far out of reach, then -
Maelle had a difficult childhood, he always knew that. She always saw herself as different and not worth anyone's time. But she was a teenager, too, and Gustave knew from his own experience that teenagers can be stupid. Wrapped up in their own thoughts and generational melancholy. Maybe that was unfair of him, looking back. Maybe it's just in her blood to be like that. Maybe Verso was always affected by the same familial sadness.
People are complicated, though.
But an answer does come and Gustave listens, even if the surprised laugh that follows is colored by some form of horror.]
I'm sorry, did you say they launched babies out of cannons? I can't say I met those Gestrals before.
[And probably for the best. How would he have reacted to that knowledge at the time? What's worse, Gustave finds that to be entirely believable based on the Gestrals he did meet on his travels. Their propensity for fighting and violent creativity are, to say the least, memorable.
Gustave shakes his head, letting out a sigh.]
Well. Without the end of the world just around the corner, they have time to tinker more. Instead of just helping me reach a goal with a solid deadline, they can discover the joys of inventing and creating, really get their hands dirty in how things work, you know? It's still not easy, though. We live on an island. There's still room for improvement for agriculture and manufacturing. People aren't...people aren't dying like they used to, so we have more people to care for and it really is all hands on deck to keep moving forward. We're busy, but...in a good way? There's hope. Happiness. Tomorrow comes and we can say that with certainty. It's -
[Oh. Oh, he's rambling, isn't he. A nervous little laugh rushes past his lips and Gustave rubs at the back of his neck.]
Sorry. I can get carried away. I forget not everyone has the patience for it.
[Briefly, Verso's mind supplies him with this: Of course Gustave hasn't met those Gestrals, their beach is northeast of the Stone Wave Cliffs, and, well... He frowns. The lines on his forehead deepen. Yet still, no moral compulsion to tell the truth rises. What would it accomplish, anyway? And maybe that's a selfish thought from someone so driven by a sense of personal agency born of understanding the whole truth. Isn't he's just tossing himself into the heart of another fire, bearing as much of the anguish as he can manage so everyone else can carry on without the knowledge of how it feels to have their very sense of self be consumed bit by bit, as if it's some noble act? Can he really say he isn't simply choosing the easiest course for himself, the one with the least resistance, even now that he's been stripped of all motivation to change the fate of the Canvas?
The laugh that comes is half sardonic, half on tone with Gustave's. They were talking about babies being fired from cannons. He can do this.]
Apparently, volleyball was boring without their youngest being in mortal peril.
[A pause, then a slightly more genuine smile.]
They might be on to something with the cannons, though.
[There. Nailed that, too. With his guilt already resurgent, Verso's better able to manage it as Gustave speaks of hope, repeating a line he's heard the others say, and Maelle in particular as she guided them onwards towards this fate: tomorrow comes.
That it does. That it fucking does.
Gustave clearly looks forward to it, though, and Verso can't help but wonder if maybe he'll be better able to deal with the consequences of immortality. Maybe spending his entire life with the knowledge that he would not live past 33 has softened the blow of eternity in ways that it could never do for Verso, who unexpectedly became a walking corpse at 27. Or maybe he's making shit up as he comes to terms with his own reality. Either way, there is an energy to Gustave, a vibrancy that he hasn't encountered since embarking upon the first Search & Rescue mission way back when. Verso's at once glad for it and jealous of it, another uncomfortable combination of feelings to toss onto the garbage heap that's his emotional state.
He doesn't actually realise how long the other man's been speaking until he calls himself out for rambling, and he bats the apology off with a wave of his hand.]
Hey, I asked.
[Besides, ignoring the guilt and the fact that he's supposed to be enjoying oblivion right now, he isn't having a bad time. Which is several steps up from how he'd felt on stage, and which itself would almost feel hopeful if Verso wasn't certain he knew better. At least this branch of the conversation is easier for him to grasp hold of. He does, after all, have some experience with how it feels to redefine life in Lumiere.]
That reminds me of how things were after the Fracture. We had fewer people and more resources since the storehouses were rescued, but nobody knew what the number on the Monolith meant then, so life was different. People truly believed they could turn Lumiere into a place where they could live long and fulfilling lives.
[And Verso had even bought into it once. Before Clea revealed the truth through spilt blood. Before the people of Lumiere turned on him and his family. Before he came to the realisation that he didn't want to live in service of someone else's grief or to spend decades watching someone sacrifice themselves for his counterpart's memory – a memory he was loath to live up to – in long, drawn-out ways.
Now, he shrugs and leans a little nearer to Gustave so he can speak a little softer, his tone almost conspiratorial.]
I suppose, if nothing else, we can praise the Gestrals for their, um, ingenuity.
[Endangering their children doesn't sit well with Gustave, of course, but he's had enough experience with Gestrals to know that they simply don't have the same qualms. And none of the youngsters he had met seemed to hold any concerns beyond putting up a good fight one day, so maybe it's...okay?
...Maybe?]
But they do have impressive cannons, don't they?
[Maybe if they had borrowed some of that technology as an expedition, then things might have ended a little differently for him. Or maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Or maybe he shouldn't think about any of that at all, considering he can feel his thoughts start to spiral. It's so easy for his mind to go to dark places should he let it. A flaw of his, one that has been easier to ignore with the steady flow of life they can all experience now.
How fortunate, then, that Verso picks up the lead Gustave had left dangling and actually humors him, speaking unprompted about one of the greatest mysteries of their time. Gustave feels like a child again, soaking up every story he could coax from either his parents or his mentor or any elder of his time. Any remembrance of the Fracture, if not from primary sources, then at least secondary, which still counts for something. Stories of early life in Lumiere while he spent his own time on his studies or lending a hand with the Aquafarm project. Saving every intellectual morsel in the depths of his own memory on the off-chance that it could help in some way, if not for his generation, then surely the next. To ensure that his wonderful, beloved apprentices could have a better life than he.
And then Verso interrupts Gustave's internal wonderment with something resembling...doubt? Gustave shakes his head with a little laugh, but hurries his steps so he can walk just a little ahead of Verso, his hands spread and moving excitedly as he speaks.]
I forget, you were there when it happened. But, you know, your insight would be invaluable to us. Not that I'm volunteering you for anything if you don't want, but...even if the Fracture left Lumiere with the opposite problem we have now, we could learn from any past experiences.
[It would have been one thing if Gustave was merely out to sate his curiosity. Yes, the Fracture is still a sore spot for Verso, and yes it did prove to catalyse his determination to destroy the very world that everyone else still fights hard to protect, but he could have distanced himself well enough from it if it was only to list out some facts and tell a few stories. Having it framed as a matter of helping, however, is something else entirely.
Accusatory questions plague his mind, some in Aline's voice, some in Maelle's, some in some amalgamation of every person he's ever met who's looked at him with need built upon hope and desperation and disappointment alike. Why won't you be happy? Why won't you be accepting? Why won't you help? Why won't you be Verso, pedestalled and sat upon a stage as we applaud your validation of everything we've cast upon you like paint? The problem is that he isn't Verso in the way that people need him to be, he's Verso in the ways most people don't want to accept. Sad and conflicted and struggling to define his sense of self, all while yearning for a freedom that's always, always, always existed just outside of his reach. Tired, so very tired, of existing at the epicentre of a misery that spawns from him like petals on a flower. Just wanting to be let be, to be let go, to have his chroma put to some other use and be memorialised that way instead of this one.
None of that remotely relates to Gustave's intentions in asking, Verso knows, and he feels some degree of shame over his reaction, even if he manages to keep it entirely to himself. He wishes he could be happy and helpful and accepting and Verso. He wishes he didn't have to try so damned hard.
But he does try. He always tries.
Gustave speeds up and Verso slows down without even thinking about it, really, building a different sense of distance. His pace quickens again once he realises he's starting to lag, but he never moves to close the space he's created. It's not like it's more than a few steps, anyway. And it's certainly not so much that he needs to raise his voice when he responds.]
You're in luck; I just so happen to have an abundance of past experiences. What do you want to know?
[What goes on in Verso's head is known only to Verso. Gustave has no idea, can't have any idea, but when he raises his gaze to see the other man has slowed, however slightly, he slows his own steps just enough to remain close enough. Did he say something wrong? Maybe. Gustave tries to temper his words, concerned with keeping the peach with others, but sometimes he can grow impassioned. And when it comes to uncovering the mysteries of the past or solving even the smallest problems, his thirst for those experiences isn't so easily quenched.
When the Paintress still blotted out the sun and all their answers lay locked away behind a time limit, that need to learn nearly burned a hole in his chest where his heart beats anew. But now, with all the time in the world in front of him, it's almost overwhelming that he can stretch out his arms and grasp and grasp and grasp and still not gain even a fraction of their world's truth. There is so much. He feels so small. He feels so helpless, but while it's still frightening to be left with so little, the freedom of their lives now settles with a gentleness he's never truly felt.
A heavy exhale as he gathers himself back into this moment between two simple men. Well, as simple as anyone can be.]
I just... Where to start?
[What does he ask a man who lived in the original Lumiere all those years ago? Who knew a completely different life, one that was free of the struggles and imbalances of a displaced portion that exists here and now? Gustave stops and looks around them. This city has been his entire life, aside from that brief and wondrous and tragic foray onto the Continent. It's normal, even if he's always known it shouldn't be. But as he looks at the bits of buildings that float as if trapped in time or the parts of the streets streaked with nearly-crystallized ink, Gustave can't help but wonder what their city could look like if it were...whole.]
Do you...think this can all be restored? Not that it needs to be. The city is safe enough and it isn't as if it's in any danger of falling apart. But I've been lucky enough to have seen really old sketches of Old Lumiere in the few books that survived the Fracture. How those pillars down by the harbor were connected once. They were, right?
[He looks to Verso for acknowledgment, but then looks away, almost bashful. Just moments ago he had spoken of things that actually matter, like feeding more people with less resources, and now he's concerned with aesthetics.]
I know it's not really important. No one else around here probably gives any of that a second thought. I usually don't. We should focus on storehouses and housing and education and whatever else is needed to ensure the city's success. Beauty can come after. Or maybe Maelle can -
[He cuts himself off. The knowledge that Maelle is a paintress, too, has never truly settled for Gustave. Not because he hates this about her, but because it's just so strange and out of his ability to grasp properly. But if he thinks about it, how she brought him and Sophie and everyone else back, he tends to also wonder why she doesn't do more. Is that out of her power? Admittedly, Gustave doesn't know her limits.
He shoves his hands into the pockets of his trousers and clears his throat before starting to walk again.]
Sorry. I think a lot, obviously. Sophie will tell you that I think so much that I have trouble finishing my thoughts. She's right, of course.
[It's not a question about Old Lumiere, not really. To answer it is to delve into the properties of the Canvas itself, all the things that make it real and all those that make it false, a prospect that doesn't sit too well with Verso, if only because he has to take on the mantle of painter in order to respond.
He frowns – this time in thought – as he tests each pathway he could walk the conversation down. There's a small and petty and hypocritical part of him that bucks against the notion of letting Maelle control the narrative, considering how she's refused to let him control his own fate. What if he just laid the entire story bare? What if he gave Gustave every bit of knowledge he has at his disposal? The larger part of himself, however, is still driven by the misguided urge to mask the truth with lies, to spare everyone else from making the choices he's had to make, to let them find whatever happiness they can as they prop up grief in a doomed world, so he closes off that specific avenue fairly quick.
In the meantime, he shifts gears. There's a rhythm to how Gustave keeps charging forwards only to withdraw and, whether that's simply the man's nature or it has something to do with Verso's current demeanour, it's something Verso wants to address. Maybe this isn't the kind of conversation he wants to be having; maybe there isn't any kind of conversation he'd particularly like to be having right now. He's still driven to mitigate both that impression and the impression that Gustave flitting about might be an imposition more generally speaking. Such is his own nature.
He starts by waving away the apology.]
There's a lot to think about. And... I get it. We started off wanting to rebuild, too.
[The Fracture had destroyed a great many things, but not their resolve. They believed there were people left to rescue amid the ruins; they believed there was still a future awaiting them on the other side of tomorrow. They thought that one day, they would see the tower reaching upwards towards the stars and the arc welcoming their people home from whatever journeys they'd embarked upon across the sea. Life in the Canvas has never been as kind as it was in those early years, however. These days, Verso would argue that it had lost its kindness even before then, when Aline made it her stronghold. He sighs softly at the thought. Creating life should itself be a kindness, but he supposes it never really has been with her. On his next inhale, he looks up to where the pillars rise above the sea and gestures as if they're gazing upon something spectacular and whole.]
L'Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. It's a memorial, you know, honouring people who died fighting for their home. Took thirty years to construct.
[My father was at its inauguration manifests in his thoughts as anecdotes often do when he dips into the real Verso's understanding of things. A lump forms in his throat that he swallows down and chases with a slightly laboured breath.]
It was never meant to be a part of this world, so the resources to rebuild it, they don't exist here.
[It's not like the real Verso ever intended for human society to thrive within his Canvas, after all. It's not like he thought there'd ever be anything to rebuild. And he certainly never would have anticipated dying young and witnessing the corruption of everything the Canvas had meant to him while his once-distant mother forced a closeness between herself and the shard of his soul and the portrait of his life.
So it went, though, and so it continues to go.]
It'd have to be painted over. Which you're probably thinking sounds easy enough. Maelle brought life back to Lumiere; what's a few buildings? Turns out it's everything. Only the most skilled painters can paint over someone else's creation.
[He'll stop just short of calling out Maelle's skills – or lack thereof – but the implication is clear enough, he's sure. Even if isn't so certain that's the whole reason. Maybe Maelle has the ability but not the desire. Her heart has never been as firmly in Paris as it was in her stories or as it is in Lumiere, after all.]
Sorry. I know it isn't the answer you were hoping for.
[A witless answer to all the knowledge laid at his feet. The pillars' - the Arc's - original purpose. The simple lack and wrong type of resources to put everything back as it once was. Maelle's abilities not being enough, despite the sheer power she possesses, and has apparently always possessed. But Gustave is the one who asked, his hunger for answers to their life-long mysteries very often going unsated. This isn't new, just...different. Other mysteries to add on top of their world's broken foundations.
It's kind of Verso to apologize, though. Gustave glances toward him and shrugs a shoulder, one corner of his lips quirking upward.]
No, don't be. I'm a Lumieran. We knew to brace for disappointment as soon as we crawled out of the womb.
[It's a pretty defeatist stance, considering their lives now, but for all of Gustave's hopefulness, the tendency for self-deprecation still affects him. It's still easy to become overwhelmed by...everything.
He takes a few more steps, but stops once more as he gains a better view of the pillars. L'Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, huh. A memorial for those who died for their home. How many times has he passed between those towering structures without a second thought for their existence? How many others have gathered between them for festivals or at the base of one with friends after a long day of work or study? Just another broken piece of history, too normal to be noticed, nary a page in a book dedicated to their construction.]
It's funny, isn't it? All the past Expeditions have walked between those pillars one last time, never to come home. Obviously, a structure can't remember the way we do, but...do you think it can still serve as a memorial like that? Due to exposure. All the lives that have passed by.
[Or maybe Gustave is overly sentimental. Or maybe it's late. Or maybe he wants to think that everyone's deaths, including his own, despite its reversal, meant something. They shouldn't be forgotten just because the Paintress has been defeated and they can write a new chapter in Lumiere's existence.
He inhales, then breathes out, and walks again.]
It was the Paintress who created Lumiere, right? Or Old Lumiere. The original city. However you want to call it. I suppose asking her to come back and fix things wouldn't go over very well with everyone. It's probably for the best to leave things be. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that.
[Turning around to walk backwards for a moment, comfortable with his knowledge of the streets' layouts, Gustave nods toward the other notable structure in Lumiere.]
What about the Crooked Tower? Does that have a different name? Is it a memorial, too?
[Repeated in commiseration. Aside from the various vulgarities that have certainly spilled from Verso's lips and have likely done the same from Gustave's, it's really the most relatable reaction to any of the Canvas' hidden truths. He chuckles at the self-deprecation, too, even though he probably shouldn't. The disappointment inflicting the Lumierans is not only separate from his own, but it is also built upon his very existence. And when his own dreams for a disappointing future are factored in, well, it's all very awkward.
That's nothing he isn't used to, though, so he adds:]
Good one.
[Less awkward is the talk about memorials – and what a thought that is, Verso thinks, as the memories of his own Expedition passing through those same pillars flood him in turn. He's walked between them in both directions several times since Alicia was reborn as Maelle, his eyes cast downward and away as he moved to travel streets that were at once familiar and strange, both aspects haunting in their own right for the reminders of how little allegiance he holds to the city that once uplifted him. To him, its twisted monuments are little more than scars knotted over hope and beauty and a will to live that all once were and will never be again. Not that he's remotely inclined towards sharing that, though, so he offers up something else.]
I don't see why not. The people who it was built for don't exist here, but you do and the other Expeditioners did. Better for it to mean something than nothing, right?
[But then things shift back to awkwardness when it comes time to address the whole Paintress situation. Theoretically, her return to the Canvas would bring about the most ideal outcome for Verso. Renoir would not suffer her return in the same way that he has, thus far, ignored the effect that remaining behind is having on Alicia, and that would likely bring about the Canvas' total destruction, once and for all. And there are indeed a great many things that Aline's return could potentially fix, including the human element of Lumiere, so petitioning for her return isn't theoretically impossible. Gustave has the right of it, though, and Verso knows that clear as anything. Lune and Sciel are far too aware now, for one, and Verso can't picture Maelle as having any inclination towards enlisting her mother, for another. Thus, there really is no way for him to play this hand without alerting at least one of them to his true intentions. Half-defeated and wholly lying about it, he offers a shrug and a distanced answer.]
That it was. And that it is. Let's just say the Paintress has something of a thing for creating beautiful illusions and leave it at that.
[She who plays with wonder indeed.
As Gustave turns his body, Verso turns his head over his own shoulder, letting his eyes trace the curve of the tower.]
La Tour Eiffel. Or la Dame de Fer if you're feeling fancy. It's... a celebration, mostly. Marks the centennial of a revolution and the start of an exposition.
[He certainly doesn't need Verso's permission to feel or believe something, but hearing the other man's support gives Gustave some validation. Better for it to mean something, indeed, for them to mean something. The next time he wanders near the harbor, Gustave thinks he'll take a moment to really consider all of that. Remember the last Gommage he was around to witness, even if the memory of Sophie slipping through his fingers still punches him awake in a sweat some nights. Retrace the steps he took when embarking for the Continent, so naively certain that this time, things would be different and though no one had ever returned before, with the exception of Expedition Zero, everything would soon change.
It did for him, but not in the way he had hoped.
Gustave needs to stop dwelling on that, though. It's been years, now, and he's been given this wonderful chance to live, fulfilling his dream while Sophie doesn't have to choose and sacrifice.]
Mm. Right. We can make our own meaning.
[The freedom to do so feels almost overwhelming after generations of living within the Paintress' shadow and growing used to that limitation. And even with this past decade starting fresh, some habits are harder to break, some ways of thinking aren't so simply pushed from one's mind.
The Paintress, though. A creator of illusions. How long they all thought she was the one killing them, year by year, which Gustave can't imagine she wanted, based on the knowledge he has now. But just because he's been told the truth of their existence and how the Paintress and her husband fought doesn't mean everyone else would be as calm witnessing her return. People are stubborn - he should know - and even if she were to help them, the other Lumierans all have too much internalized hatred and fear of the untouchable villain who took so much from them.]
No illusions, thanks. I think we've had plenty of living under false pretenses.
[All this information Verso gives him on these landmarks is something Gustave drinks in greedily. First imagining the pillars as an actual arch, now the Tower having more significant meaning. What a rich world they must truly belong to. How many years of history exist outside of this one? Memorials, revolutions, expositions. They are concepts Gustave understands, but has never truly experienced. He stops, still looking at the Tower - La Tour Eiffel - and, despite it, um, towering over them from such a distance and with that crookedness, it somehow makes this world feel smaller.]
I imagine she's seen better days. I hope she has, or else I have some questions for the architect.
[Gustave smiles at Verso when he can catch the other man's gaze again.]
Thank you. For indulging me. I know I can be a little insufferable with my curiosity, so I hope it isn't too much to ask all this.
[Or that it doesn't dredge up too many unwanted memories. Verso hasn't said anything to confirm that, but Gustave wouldn't if he were in his shoes. It must, though, if he thinks about it. The Fracture tore their world apart and threw Lumiere into the sea. What about that would be pleasant to recollect?]
[Verso nearly spits out a wry laugh at Gustave's mention of living under false pretenses. It's something else he can commiserate with, though obviously for much different reasons. What is his existence besides one unending instance of make-believe? But there's no descending down that thought spiral without dragging Gustave along on a similarly unending tour of existential angst – one which Verso is disinclined towards inviting anyone else on for myriad reasons – so he holds his expression and laughter firm until the other man smiles, at which point he quirks his own lips in turn.]
That she has. And she's seen worse reception, if you can believe it. The Paintress herself had some, hmm, choice words about her, let's say. Most of the art community did, until she was erected.
[Of course, the real Verso was too young then to really understand what was happening. Only that the adults were angry, and so it was important to join them in their anger else he be considered disobedient. The public support afterwards – including from Renoir and Aline – was one of his first confirmations that it wasn't only children who were prone to being fallible, but that adults, too, were finicky and wrong sometimes.
While Verso's collecting his thoughts on how to elaborate, Gustave withdraws once more. It is true that these recollections aren't exactly pleasant, but should he talk about Esquie and Monoco, the friends he still hasn't tried to catch up with, instead? Maelle, whom he's grappling with intensely complicated and painful feelings regarding? Sciel and Lune, one of whom understands him in ways few people ever have, the other of whom is fundamentally – and understandably – incapable of the same? Where he's been all these years? What he's been doing? Why he's returned to Lumiere?
Music?
Once more, he waves off Gustave's concerns with a flick of both wrists.]
Don't worry about it. All that destruction and death... it should mean something too, right?
[Now, Verso turns all the way around to view the tower in full, paying closer attention than he ever has to the way ink vines its way around her frame and how she stretches like smeared paint across a polluted sky. A rush job. An affront to Aline's talent. Yet also, he supposes, a symbol of her priorities once her chroma started being depleted. Life over beauty. Over perfection. What a shame those priorities only manifested through grief.
Fuck, he's tired of family being so fucking complicated. He masks his resurgent exhaustion with melancholy as he turns back to face Gustave.]
You know, the Fracture felt kind of how the tower looks. It happened in an instant. We barely realised we were under attack before we were being vaulted across the sea. But that moment, it can't compare to the lurching feeling we felt when we found Old Lumiere. A decent amount of people survived the Fracture, which is about what we hoped for, but what we didn't anticipate – what we couldn't have anticipated – were the Nevrons. Few of the Lumierans were fighters, so all we found were bodies. They put up a good fight, though. They deserve better than to be lost to obscurity.
[Especially when the only reason they'd be lost would be his cowardice. Verso is aware of the contradiction, though. All he wants for the Canvas is nothingness. But that nothingness doesn't exist here and now, and so long as that remains true, so too do his words.]
[Better days and worse reception, huh. Gustave pulls his hands from his pockets to cross his arms over his chest and he tilts his head slightly, as if trying to imagine what the Tower looked like originally. Was it an upright structure, symmetrical and even more imposing than it is now? Or still crooked, but cleaner, not wrapped about in ink? So many possibilities, like the countless breaths he takes in a day. Oh, how he wishes he could see it.
But as he stands there and listens to Verso speak freely of the Paintress, it strikes Gustave how...human she sounds. And, yes, of course, knowing now that the real woman is Maelle's true mother, and Verso's own in another life, it isn't as shocking as it might have once been, yet it still stops him in his tracks. She's a person. A woman. A wife. A mother. Someone who struggles, just as they all do. Someone who thought poorly of an iron tower, of all things.
Sophie had the right of it, back then. Feeling empathy and seeing something so utterly human in the being he could only ever hate and resent for taking and taking and taking. It's a little embarrassing looking back on himself and how shortsighted he had been, even if he had no reason to think otherwise at the time. How human of him, to be imperfect and mistaken. Where once there was an insurmountable distance between all of them and the Paintress, one filled with so many rocks that never made it to her, now Gustave begins to understand and feel.
Still not enough to invite her back, of course.
Verso's turn of the conversation does take him by surprise. Gustave may have brought up the Fracture earlier, but the other man hadn't seemed the most excited to add to the subject. In his talks with Lune and Sciel, Gustave had learned that they - Lune especially - had tried to get him to open up about it, but with little to no luck. And now, here they are, having just met for the first time, and Verso actually shares.
Lune would be incensed if she found out. Gustave commits the divulgence to memory with every intention on telling her later, but then hates himself a little for it. This feels like a story shared in confidence, though the details may not include Verso in any intimate way. It's still a remembrance, a confession of feeling and the trusting of the fate of so many dead to him, a descendant who will never know their names or faces or stories.
...It's heartbreaking.
What is he supposed to say to that?
Gustave tears his eyes away from the Tower and glances over to Verso, taking in the sadness that seems to etch itself into his features. He may be immortal, the years bouncing off of him like rain off a duck's feathers, but it's clear he has no way to shield himself from the experiences.]
...I can't even imagine what that...what that must have been like. Going back.
[He falls silent for a moment, his mind wandering to his own time on the Continent, though different images flood his mind than what Verso means. Still. The words fall from his lips softly, almost timidly.]
Seeing the bodies of Expeditioners was...awful, on the Continent. But at least they would have had some idea of what dangers awaited. To find civilians -
[His voice cracks and Gustave swallows the rest of his words. It doesn't need to be said. He doesn't need to remind Verso of something that may haunt him even to this day.
But...fuck, had there been children?
The thought pricks at something behind his eyes and he has to blink quickly and look away.]
Merde.
[Suddenly the thought of chasing that green fairy in Verso's apartment doesn't sound so bad.]
[This Verso never threw himself into the fire to save Alicia, but he knows how it felt. The dread and fear and panic of seeing flames lapping at her clothing, her hair, her flesh. The necessity, the absolute necessity, of charging into those same flames and feeling them doing the same things to him. The pain in his heart, the pain across his body, the grief for a life he knew he'd never get to live, the hope – fonts of hope, nearly enough to extinguish all else burning away at him – for the future Alicia would have in his stead.
A sense of rightness. Of knowingness. Of peace.
Those were the first lies that the real Verso whispered to the false one. Self-sacrifice is never that easy or that clean. And in Verso's case, he's been made to watch as it condemns thousands upon thousands more to horrific, painful, too-soon deaths that mean nothing, absolutely fucking nothing because the lives they fought and bled and died for were never theirs to begin with. Not while they all exist at the mercy – at the need – of the Dessendre family.
It was simpler to keep certain details to himself when he was determined that nothing would matter in the end. Too many people may have died before them, but the Expeditioners were alive and deep enough in their own despair that Verso naively, stupidly, selfishly wanted what he had hoped to be their final days to have more light to them than reality would otherwise permit. Now they know too much about him and not enough about everything else. He's still the one on the stage, living out the real Verso's dreams, mattering far more than he should ever matter. Forget me, he wants to shout into unhearing ears. Forget the real Verso, let them both be. Too many have died for the sake of his memory, and only through his own obscurity can this world truly begin to heal.
Not that he really believes that. Some wounds don't heal; some scars feel better borne than erased.
Gustave almost seems to study him when he looks away from the tower. Verso had studied him once, too, as he faced off against Renoir for the final time, carefully weighing the benefits of allowing him to die against those of saving him as if he was ever going to make a different choice. Another sacrifice that proved completely in vain. Hell, Verso's now left wondering if Gustave might have done a better job of convincing Alicia to live than he ever could.
He doesn't look away, even as guilt nags him to find some faraway void to stare into as if there's still some salvation for him to seek within nothingness. That resolve becomes all the more challenging when Gustave's voice fucking cracks, and his eyes flutter as if fanning their own flames, and he ends up being the one who looks away.
For the nth time tonight, Verso is left grappling with the understanding of exactly the kind of man he'd let die. A good man. A kind man. A man with so much compassion for others that he aches, deeply, at the thought of people dying 67 years earlier. And his death was for what besides naught? Every death that's happened here – every single one – is going to become doubly meaningless when Maelle dies. This Verso never regrets the other's actions, he never wishes that the real Verso would have survived in Alicia's stead, but he does wonder, sometimes, amid the deep disgust that rises at the thought, whether everything wouldn't have been better for everyone else if he had lived and his baby sister had died.
He really wishes Maelle hadn't saved him.
There's no losing himself in such thoughts, though, not when he's in someone else's company, not when that someone else is grieving, too. Finally, he closes the distance he'd created earlier to rest his hand on Gustave's shoulder before moving ahead of him. Best not to let him see the strain in his expression and the smoke in his own eyes. Best to take this all upon himself, too.]
Yeah. It was a lot to take in, and it left us with more questions than answers so we continued on to the Monolith.
[Not without burying as many people as they could first, but that doesn't need to be said, either.]
To Expedition Zero's last stand. You know what we learned after all that? The Fracture didn't mean anything. If we wanted our lives to matter, we had to decide what that meant for ourselves.
[He looks over his shoulders. Shrugs even if Gustave's back is still to him.]
[Gustave doesn't mean to retreat into himself with this sadness, but as someone who has always wished for the betterment of their society, just thinking about the utter loss and destruction overwhelms him for a moment. The memories of the Expedition haven't left him in this new life, but neither does he dwell on them as often has he might have. Not when he has his family to take care of and people to love. His experiences aren't to be forgotten, of course; he just has a new focus to add to his thoughts. Feelings of hopelessness don't trail him like a shadow like they once did, so when he does remember the horrors of the Continent, they hit with a renewed hurt, like picking off a scab just a little too soon.
It seems Verso can recognize this behavior, whether by outside knowledge or personal experience. The hand on his shoulder, though unfamiliar, does help tug Gustave back. He breathes in deeply, recognizing the salty breeze of the ocean, reminding him that he's here, in Lumiere, not surrounded by death and failure. He lifts his head to see the Crooked Tower again, so close and on this island, not clothed in a distant fog, practically a world away. Gustave turns his head in time to watch Verso walk away, the weight and warmth of the other man's hand leaving the slightest chill in its absence as he goes.
The Fracture didn't mean anything. Just...pointless destruction. Unnecessary death. Because the Paintress and her husband fought and the battlefield had been all those peoples' lives. No wonder Verso hasn't wanted to talk about it, and yet so many of them have asked and asked, curious onlookers who should have known better, but still poked at him like kids with sticks poking at insects.
Another breath in, and slowly released. Gustave turns to follow.]
Nothing that's worth it in the end is easy.
[That sounds like such a trite platitude, even if the intention remains earnest.]
Doesn't make it hurt any less in the process, though.
[An apology rests on his tongue, guilt settling in his gut, but even that sounds overplayed in his own mind, so Gustave switches tactics.]
When I lost my arm, it wasn't the end of the world, of course, but those early months left me feeling so...so off-balance. Literally, at times. It would have been simple to succumb to it, too, just...wallow and give up.
[Gustave lifts his prosthetic and balls the fingers into a fist, then flexes them.]
Obviously one arm isn't the same as our lives, but I saw another future for myself. My apprentices made the arm for me, but I chose to adapt to it and give it a chance. People are just as resilient as they are fragile, if they let themselves.
[Gustave isn't wrong about anything he says, but still Verso finds himself thinking that it would be nice if at least something worthwhile was easy. It'd be ever nicer if that if in if they let themselves wasn't so large that it loomed outside the Canvas, ever expanded by a family whose grief has made them akin to gods, but there's nothing that can be done to change that, so why mention it at all? Why drag things down even further than they already are?
Fortunately, the conversation isn't entirely about those two things.
For one, there's the matter of Gustave's arm – a very interesting piece of technology, Verso lets himself recall despite the dark circumstances under which it had been in his possession. It had tickled the part of him still fascinated by trains and the artistry of industry. But he understands better than to try to use that to add light to the conversation. Goodness knows he's heard at least you're immortal entirely too often. He'd have preferred been able to die, though, and may well have preferred to be lost with the other Zeros, or to have been killed instead of resurrecting and losing Julie's trust, just as he's sure that Gustave would rather have his real arm. So that's also out of the question.
There is the matter of resilience as well. Time after time after time after time, the people of Lumiere sent people out on death marches. Their numbers dwindled over the years as enthusiasm and hope and the population itself waned, but the same fighting spirit that had driven the survivors in Old Lumiere to fight against insurmountable odds carried forwards across the generations. There is always, always, always someone left with the resilience to carry on. And sometimes, that resilience might even be enough. Verso doesn't see how, knowing too well what they're up against, but he's familiar enough with pretending otherwise that he barely flinches at the notion as he begins his response.]
That reminds me. Someone I knew used to say that if you're very happy, it's not because you have everything you could want, it's because there's something you're missing. I asked her once, "What about if you're very sad?" She said, "It's because there's something you're missing." Didn't have a word to say about how to find out what, but... well, if she had, then I might have listened to her. And then I'd have had to tell her, "You were right," and missed out on so many opportunities for personal growth. Not that I took most of them but, hey, they were there. Waiting. Opportunely.
[Idly, he wonders what he had been missing then. What he's still missing now. He doesn't know whether to hope that there's something out there to give his life a meaning beyond death or that his friend had been wrong and that sometimes, for some people, there's nothing to miss.
It's a silly thought. The latter. It's the latter. He's too tired to humour the former. He continues anyway.]
I've always admired that about the Expeditioners. It didn't matter what it was, if they were missing something, they'd try to figure out what. A pathway. A weapon or a weakness. Some reason to smile.
[Not all of them did, of course. Some decided to wait out their Gommage among the Gestrals. Others made Nevron hunting into a sport. Then there were the ones who found somewhere beautiful to die, writing poetry and letters and journals to people who would likely never read them. He doesn't want to diminish their existences to pedestal the others, so he adds:]
Usually, anyway. They were... We are all just people.
[He nods up the sky. As Painters, part of their education involved distancing themselves from their creations not simply in terms of emotional attachment but in terms of sameness. Verso had always struggled to come to terms with that. What defines whether someone is real if not sentience and agency and happiness and sadness and laughter and tears? What justification is there to consider lives lived in Canvases any less valid than those lived outside of them, other than the kind of detachment that enables cruelty? So he offers in absolute earnest:]
[Verso's friend - something more? Maybe not - might have been right, though the thought of happiness with some emptiness attached saddens Gustave. And yet, he knows he has smiled plenty of times and tried to pass off outward contentment while hurting inside. That's just in his nature; make sure others around him are taken care of first, worry about his own unmet needs second. Maybe there was more to what Verso's friend meant. Gustave doesn't know. Gustave can't know. He isn't her.
Gustave smiles slightly.]
Like I said, nothing worth having is easy. Sounds like she was trying to push you to find your own answers. I think we all need someone like that.
[Lune had been that person for him, even before she saved him from himself in that cave, surrounded by tragedy and hopelessness. The years before the Expedition, when he could be found more and more often in the library or his studio, trying and failing to get the Lumina converter to work, she would drop by from time to time and remind him to eat or sleep and stop arguing with her about it. Or just manage to steer him other directions so he wouldn't get stuck in the same ruts when it came to his tinkering. Just offering her own brand of support, though he suspects she'd never blatantly call it that. They may not have been friends then, but they certainly existed as colleagues, working toward the same goal.
That goal, no matter how impossible it always looked. And as the Monolith counted down year by year and Expeditions left and never returned, it only felt more and more pointless. The population slowly dwindled, as did the Expedition sizes. What could a few dozen people accomplish that earlier Expedition armies could not?
To hear them spoken of with respect instead of derision or flippancy, though, makes Gustave approach Verso just a little closer, feeling some kind of camaraderie. Someone else who understands, to some extent.
Sophie understands, he knows, but from an outside perspective. She always believed in his idealism and gave him one last piece of herself to carry across the sea with them all, too. But when he wakes up in the middle of the night, screams trapped in his throat and heart hammering away at his ribcage, he can't tell her why. That he's still haunted by the memory of an old man. That the sight of his own blood painting Maelle's face flashes in his mind when lightning strikes during a storm. No, while she would be supportive, it wouldn't be the same. He can't bear to burden her with those details when relaying his death in general had already been difficult enough.]
They had very little left to lose. When there's nothing holding you back, you have so much freedom to try. And, you know, when you add up all those years of figuring out the missing key, they pile upon each other. Bit by bit. Every year you tell yourself it's closer to success. That maybe the next Expedition will finally figure it out and add that last rung to the ladder and get over the top. Making some difference for...for those who come after.
[His voice softens on those words, all too aware of the last time he uttered them. Gustave hasn't had to in so long now.]
Not that I fault anyone who didn't contribute. The Continent, for all its dangers, is beautiful. There's an allure to...escape. And...yeah. Embrace the fact that we're just people. Good, ugly, all the parts that make us.
[Verso looks to the sky and Gustave allows his eyes to follow suit, flicking between the countless stars and making out the faint shapes of clouds and swirls above them. It takes him a moment to figure out what he means by they, but looking heavenward gives him a big hint.
The sky never really frightened him, but knowing there is more outside the confines of this little universe makes him feel...small. Naked under the eyes of an unseen and unknowable god. Maelle counts, technically, but there are others, others besides the Paintress, even, others they don't know.]
...Do you think we'll ever be able to see eye-to-eye with them?
[It's true that Julie had pushed him. People tended to see in him either whatever they needed to see or whatever he needed them to see, but she was different. She'd had a talent for looking at him and noticing the marks on his face from where his masks left imprints, and Verso had been drawn to that. Or maybe he just needed to believe that someone finally understood him and liked him all the more as a result. Maybe he just loved her in ways that made him feel seen, even if he really wasn't.
Either way, the final answer that she produced amid the happiness they'd shared and the sadness he'd brought about was that he could not be trusted.
At the time, he'd been certain that she was wrong. He could be trusted. He did have everyone's best interests at heart. But he had not simply missed something, he'd missed a great many somethings. The true reason why he hid the truth from her and from everyone else who mattered had never really eluded him, but he had needed so desperately to believe that his existence and that of the Lumierans was deeper than the vanity of one woman's grief – that they all could be freed of the perpetuation of death and destruction and more fucking death – and so he refused to accept its potentiality; he ran and he hid and he played make-believe, too. Not that he doesn't understand this part of himself. So long as he lives, both the people who he loves and those who he's never met are destined to suffer. Who wouldn't want to escape that understanding through unlivable fantasies?
The nature of his thought processes doesn't change much when Gustave transitions into talking about the Expeditioners. He may as well be talking about Verso. Even the part about not contributing. How many years had Verso not bothered to try? How many years had he spent fucking around with Esquie and Monoco? How many years had he done little besides wallow in isolation, watching the Lumierans from afar as fate found them, whether at the hand of one Renoir or the other?
Again, his mind supplies him with everything he shouldn't say and little that he could. He buys himself some time by humming in contemplation. It's just enough.]
And all we can do is hope that they found some peace. Or that wherever they are, they know it wasn't all in vain. It's piss-poor consolation, but...
[He shrugs. Not out of callousness, but rather out of acceptance. They've all seen too much death; they've all grown tired of condolences. Grief has left them all famished, though, and they need to feed the new meanings that lie ahead with whatever they can scrape together. It's not like he's lying. That's... something.
Especially given the dishonesty of the rest of what he expressed. At the rate things are going, Maelle will self-destruct and the Canvas will be destroyed, and nothing will have meant anything, in the end. But what's he going to say? About that eternity you think you've earned – your days are still numbered, the only difference is that they're not being broadcast on the Monolith anymore? No. Let Gustave believe. Let whoever still has the capacity for hope believe. Sudden, universal ends bring about the least amount of suffering.
Which indirectly answers the question of whether Verso thinks they'll see eye-to-eye with the Dessendres. There's another response he can give: technically, yes. After all, he himself has seen eye-to-eye with Renoir. That isn't what Gustave is asking, though, and Verso isn't going to demean his question by taking that approach. Besides, deep down he knows he can't be certain himself.]
Anything's possible. They're just people, too.
[The more the conversation goes on, the more Verso struggles with having no sense of what Gustave does and does not know. He doesn't want to inadvertently betray the others by saying too much. Likewise, he doesn't want to give away the fact that he knows more than he's letting on by being overly reluctant to share details that have already been revealed. He looks over his shoulders. Gestures broadly as he speaks.]
So, what did they tell you? You know, about everything.
[It's one thing to have found journals and know some earlier Expeditioners had...not given up on the mission, but almost put it secondary. Things often went wrong, but they could still find some pleasure out in the world. When their time inevitably came, either from Nevron or Gommage, maybe they had come to terms. But then what of those who met their end far too quickly and without the time to prepare? People like Gustave himself. While he had, in those final moments of protecting Maelle, no matter how futile it had seemed, believed he was protecting her, there was still the fact that after he was gone, he couldn't know for sure.
It makes him shudder, and he tightens his arms across his chest. Thinking about that confrontation hasn't gotten any easier over the years and it's not about to start now. There's no need to involve Verso in his personal weaknesses, though.
But just as he can't be sure those murdered Expeditioners ever found peace, neither can he be sure that the people outside of this world can be considered trustworthy. People are capable of so much good, Gustave knows. He's seen it, seen how people can come together amid tragedy and offer time and empathy and themselves to help others. But he's also seen people retreat or lash out or lose hope. For all that people can be resilient despite their vulnerabilities, the reverse is also true. Sometimes vulnerability feels like too much.
They're just people, too.]
People are complicated. But -
[He holds up a finger.]
- it also means there is a chance they could listen. Which is better than no chance at all.
[Which, for all his hope, is a great deal of faith to put in others he's never met.
The change in subject almost comes as a relief, though Gustave could do with a little more direction.]
Everything is a broad topic. I assume you mean all of this, though.
[He gestures with that same hand in a loose manner, unsure how to encapsulate the entire life they've ever know.]
How it's all a...a Canvas. Lumiere, the Continent, all of it. Created by Painters, outside of our knowing. Maelle's actually family. Or, well, Alicia's, I guess. The Paintress was really her mother, but her father wanted to force her out of this place and that's...that's the real cause of the Fracture, right?
[The more he talks, the more Gustave begins to pace in front of Verso, his words coming a little faster the more confident he grows in relaying knowledge to a willing audience. A rarity, sometimes.]
But then you all actually succeeded in defeating the Paintress, except then the final Gommage came and...and, well you know what the Gommage does. But Maelle - Alicia - managed to save Lune and Sciel and all of you defeated her father and forced him out, too, to save the world - the Canvas - and...
[Here, the pacing stops and Gustave's words trail off. Here, he remembers the utter confusion and panic that nearly swallowed him whole when he realized he existed again, when just mere breaths before - seconds, minutes, months, time holds no meaning for the dead - he had felt that searing blade of light pierce him through, his body falling heavily against the old man.
Gustave has no recollection of hitting the ground.
[Over the years, Verso's experience with the Dessendres has been that, with the exception of Clea, they are reasonably good listeners. The problem is that they listen like artists view, layering their own interpretations atop everyone else's truths, inserting meaning where it may not belong in order to justify whatever they feel needs justifying. And he's no different. He knows that. Listening gets tiresome when the bulk of what you're hearing are the things you least want to accept. Like, you can't just decide this for everyone. Like, I don't want this life. Like, you have me. Like, I have no one left now.
No wonder he and Maelle can't see eye-to-eye.
He and Gustave don't really share the same views either, but there is some solace to find in the differences between Gustave's priorities and Maelle's. One seeks to live in embrace of life, the other to die in escape from reality. And no matter how much better Verso may relate to the latter, he's more comfortable around the former. He appreciates those little reminders that this mirror created to ever reflect his life can be capable – truly capable – of bringing about more than inevitable suffering born of futile hope. In a way, they become his own embrace of life, his own escape from reality.
Once again, Verso notices that his mind has wandered in unhelpful directions. So he thinks, of all things, about the Axons. About the odds he'd thought they'd had of defeating them. He may not have his own words to offer in response, but he does have someone else's.]
Mm, the chances aren't zero.
[Despite knowing the complete everything he's asked Gustave about, Verso still listens to him with demonstrable curiosity. Granted, much of that curiosity stems from him figuring out the extent of Gustave's knowledge, but that's besides the point. It's as interesting to see what he highlights as it is to wonder about what he leaves unsaid. Interesting how he creates distinctions between Maelle and Alicia and how he describes the Dessendres as her family as if it's separate from Verso's own. He doesn't read into any of these things, just takes note of them. They could stem from a great many things. They could mean anything.
This, too, becomes besides the point, anyway, when the conversation shifts from facts to feelings. The nature of Verso's curiosity moves in tandem with how Gustave carries himself. Interest wanes as concern rises and a feeling of knowing begins to gnaw away at the composure he's been building since rising from the piano.
He thinks of how the memories of the fire returned to him, doubly confusing for how they belonged to someone else, and how they left him scrambling in all the ways a man can scramble. Or at least, that's how it felt at the time. More than that, though, he thinks about the death that's just been stolen from him. The first breath he'd taken had felt so utterly wrong and filled him with such a pervasive sense of disgust that he immediately vomited. Oh, he remembers Maelle saying. Let me get you some water. And he'd wanted to tell her to leave him the fuck alone. He'd wanted to yell and scream and cry and flail about in despair and desperate anger. But when her expression relaxed and the lines in her face remained as he took a begrudging sip of water, he just broke instead.
That's not an option now, though, so he breathes to subdue the nausea swirling in his chest and hold down the gags railing against the back of his throat. To test his voice, he offers only one word at first:]
Yeah.
[And when it comes out perfectly fine, perfectly masking, he continues.]
Memories and all. I wish I could tell you they stop.
[He's not that kind of a liar, though, even if he does leave out the part about how the awful dreams give way to even worse voids. Part of him is still a bit... sore over how Lune had taken a scientific approach to that confession when he'd made it to her, but mostly he doesn't see the need to strip away the hope that the thoughts and dreams and flashbacks will get better, even if they don't ever fully go away.]
[He shouldn't dwell on those unpleasant memories when he's in considerably more pleasant company. And Verso is pleasant company, if subdued. That's all right. The quiet doesn't feel uncomfortable, but rather...spacious. Gustave tries not to overwhelm others with his interests or rambling, considering he can be passionate if given the chance. Too often his audience has simply humored him, saying nothing verbally yet visibly disengaging with glances elsewhere or poorly hidden yawns behind hands.
Verso does none of this. He waits patiently for Gustave to finish and asks questions of his own. Sure, they're not always deep questions and Gustave suspects there is some element of indulging, but he doesn't feel like he's trapped Verso. If the other man wanted to rescind his invitation for a drink, then Gustave would let him go.
No backtracking comes, though, even when Gustave feels his own composure shifting into something less available, something more closed-off. A bad habit, his focus on negativity, be it how he tripped over his words in front of a girl ages ago or when he held his own pistol to his head when the Expedition seemed lost. The world is a marvelous place; Gustave's eyes are just easily veiled in darkness. He lifts his gaze to Verso when the man asks after him and offers a weak smile and a little shrug of his shoulder.]
Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine.
[His lies have never quite landed.
One deep breath later and Gustave nods, more to convince himself than anything. There was something else Verso had said, something he wants to acknowledge.]
They wouldn't be memories if they didn't stick around, right? Just...fleeting reminders. Like smoke, when you blow out a candle.
[Bad memories can serve a purpose aside from misery, though, like when he burned his hand on his mother's iron when he was quite young. A painful experience, to be sure, but one that taught him caution. Gustave never did it again. What his memories of death teach him, however, he isn't sure. Stay away from Alicia's father? Seems easy enough now, though he won't speak that allowed lest he tempt fate.
Even so, Verso seems to understand something of this. Of course, he does; he's immortal. Or had been. Whatever he's experienced can't have all been sunshine, either. Maybe more than most people. That's something else that keeps Gustave drawn in. While the distance between them is predicated by the fact that they aren't friends, merely acquaintances, the potential for camaraderie almost comforts him. There are few people Gustave would want to confide in regarding his doubts and melancholy, even though Sciel managed to pull some honesty out of him all those years ago, when his resurrection was still achingly fresh.
Not Maelle, though. He can't tell Maelle more than the basics. Even if she has achieved a form of godhood and looks over him now, the compulsion to protect her still burns in his veins. Confessing his anxiety would only hurt her. And Maelle has changed. While she has always been sensitive to Gustave's feelings, it's only increased. Understandably, he knows. He did die in front of her when he promised otherwise.
He can still hear the absolute terror in her voice when she clutched desperately at his broken oath.]
It would be nice if some of them did stop. But I'm used to it.
[Equally far from being convinced and surprised by Gustave's response, Verso simply responds with a quirked smile of his own before gesturing down the street towards the boulangerie. There's truth to every lie, he knows, and while he can't say which truth this one tells, he gets the general idea: what's actually going through Gustave's mind isn't any more up for discussion than the thoughts plaguing Verso's. Which is understandable. They barely know each other, for one, and for another, he can't imagine that the ways Gustave's vulnerability is insistently making itself known are any more intentional than those through which his heart seems determined to broadcast his own.
That doesn't mean they don't deserve to be seen or acknowledged, though – a thought he immediately regrets having when the candle analogy strikes him the wrong way. Both sides of it describe him. What else is he besides a memory that won't fade? What more does he want to do than dissipate like smoke? Gustave speaks of fleetingness as if it's something worth evading, but to Verso the word is like music, bearing validation and self-expression, a beautiful lashing out against the ugliness his life has brought about for entirely too long.
Gustave isn't at fault for that, of course; even if Verso wasn't driven by the compulsion to lie, thoughts amounting to Your very existence perpetuates my existential despair should probably remain unspoken, so naturally, nobody knows they exist. Well, nobody except Maelle, and he can't imagine her ever admitting to anyone what he'd said during those final moments before everything changed.
When the conversation loops back to the memories never stopping, he briefly considers changing the subject. Memory itself is a very broad topic, one that he could take in any number of directions. Memories of Lumiere before the fracture and memories of it afterwards. Memories of skiing the slopes at Frozen Hearts and trains travelling all across the Continent. Memories of the Nevrons he's fought and won against and those who did a number on him instead. Memories of all the ridiculously stupid shit he's got into over the years and wishes he could forget, if only because the reminders never fail to leave him cringing. But things have, for the most part, been following their own course, and though they haven't been taking the gentlest path, Verso still hasn't found any of it to be too rough, either. Maybe he can't say the same for Gustave, but it isn't like he's made any moves in different directions himself. For better or for worse, this is where they are...
...with Gustave put on the spot, Verso belatedly considers. He shrugs a bit sheepishly at the thought, then shifts the nature of his smile to match. What was his exchange with the others? A story for a story. A truth for a truth. An ache for an ache.]
I'm not.
[Once again, he speaks nothing of the void and how it still keeps him from sleeping, even when that's the only thing he wants to do, sometimes, and for days on end. Instead, he plays Gustave's words over again in his mind. They wouldn't be memories if they didn't stick around, he'd said. It would be nice if some of them did stop. Such is the nature of human suffering and death and resurrection, but such is not the case for all life on the Canvas. Verso isn't sure if the shift in perspective will help matters, but he doesn't see how it could hurt. Of course, he could be mistaken but he doesn't really see that hurting, either, so he turns to look at Gustave, raising his hand as he does to point at him with his knuckles, and continues onwards.]
They ever tell you about Gestrals and the Sacred River?
[Right, the boulangerie. They were heading there. An apartment is a better place to have heavier conversations than the middle of a street, probably, not that these streets haven't seen worse. Still, Gustave tears his eyes from the stars and the pillars and the Tower and walks again. The chill of the night begins to settle into his limbs, especially where his prosthetic meets the stump of his arm, even beneath the layers of his clothing. It aches a little, mildly, but it's a familiar ache. An expected little pain that is easily soothed. When he gets back home and makes ready for bed - and sees Sophie, his wonderful, beautiful Sophie - he'll take it off, giving his arm rest before tomorrow asks more of the same from him.
It's comfortable, that routine. Having a routine at all, really. Where he can live at a leisurely pace and any discoveries he and his apprentices make can be celebrated with real joy instead of relief that their remaining days may be easier. Where he can go home and listen to stories from his son's day and tuck him into bed and run his fingers through his hair and then give his wife a lingering kiss or three and daily memorize the shape of her body against his own because they have time. They have time to enjoy and never, never take for granted.
But it's not perfect; nothing is. A sentiment that is parroted without a second thought because it's so obvious, but... While he can take his arm off and alleviate a minor inconvenience, the same cannot be said for the memories that have seeped into his soul. He cannot simply discard them on the bedside table with his pockets' loot or Sophie's jewelry to don again at a later time when he might feel more adequate. No, they will always remain and replay in his mind as they see fit, sometimes at the most inopportune times. All he can do, all anyone can do, is try to not let them be too much. Whatever that means. However that's possible.
And when it comes to Verso, Gustave has no idea what memories may plague him, but he's been around for so much longer than the rest of them. His memories must have a veritable grab-bag of options from which to choose to haunt him. It must be unbearable sometimes.]
That's okay.
[Gustave softens his voice, hoping to sound non-judgmental. It can be difficult to admit to any kind of vulnerability, but with the right people around, they often make things seem less terrible. Not that he and Verso are friends, but Gustave won't deny the man some comfort just because of that.
Before he can say anymore, though, Verso changes the subject. Which Gustave accepts without argument. He doesn't quite know what he'd add, anyway.]
Hmm. It's where the Gestrals go to reincarnate, right?
[Verso hadn't been seeking reassurance through his confession, so he's slightly taken aback when it's offered. Not that it's a strange gesture or one that's overly familiar. Not that it makes him uncomfortable, either. But rather, it has been a while since he's received any sort of comfort, and there's something about the simplicity and acceptance of that's okay that's almost validating, even if it has the opposite effect of making him feel like he's all right.
Once again, he finds himself asking what he's doing being companionable with Gustave, unwitting as he is to how much ruin Verso has brought about. Granted, his guilt over that has abated, somewhat, in the sense that his heart has adapted to its presence and grown too fatigued to continue its magnification, but it's still present. It always has been. Across his many years of existence, he's wondered whether he was being selfish by bonding with the various Expeditioners whose paths he'd crossed. Would it have been kinder to hold them at a distance? Should he have put his intentions on full display rather than cloaking himself in the uniform of the Zeros like the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing? Why does he always do this, why does he always allow himself to enjoy everyone else's companionship as if he isn't using them as the tools to dismantle the Canvas, as the stepping stones to their own extinction?
But even now, amid his multiple failures, the answers comes to him: whether it would have been kinder or not, whether he should have done what he did or not, the reason why things always turn out this way between him and them is because they're people. Real people with real hearts and real souls and real dreams and realer nightmares given life by his own life. And he knows how it feels to have his own personhood denied. He understands what it's like to look into someone else's eyes in search of light and warmth and validation only to discover their absence. The guilt of lying is simply easier to deal with than the guilt of making them feel how he's long felt.
He thinks on this a little longer than he'd like before answering, but it's not the most drawn-out pause he's held tonight. Minor victories and all that.]
Yeah. Well, not wholly. When they come back, they're... the, uh, same same, but different.
[Still, Verso's words escape him enough to leave him reliant on someone else's.
His mind wanders to Monoco. When he'd first met him, Monoco was distant to the point of being dismissive. He had wanted nothing to do with Verso, and so Verso had wanted nothing to do with him. At the time, he had figured he was just ornery like that, gruff and impersonal, more of a lone wolf than a loyal companion. But he had been hurt by the real Verso's death and resurrection in the same way that he would eventually be hurt by Noco's. Verso had returned to him a different person, a stranger and a murderer, and Monoco had lashed out because he'd been in pain. He was still grieving the ghost who'd shown up on his doorstep as a pale imitation of a better man.
This isn't the point Verso wants to make. He trips over it all the same as he navigates the minefield of his mind.]
The person who created them wanted them to have new beginnings. That's part of the everything about this Canvas, too.
[Even though Verso brought up the question, Gustave notes how much time he takes to acknowledge the answer to it. He doesn't think it's because Gustave has answered incorrectly, just...because it must be a more complicated idea than what it seems on the surface. That, or Verso just thinks a lot, or deeply, about these things. Things in general. He won't begrudge him that, either.
Same same, but different definitely doesn't sound like Verso's own conclusion, yet it sounds almost familiar to Gustave. Wracking his memories, he doesn't think it's anything anyone has told him personally. But it niggles at the back of his brain, like he should be able to pinpoint it.
Gustave gives a little shake of his head. No matter. The answer reminds him of something he told Maelle once. How death is final, be it by Gommage or Nevron or terrifyingly powerful old men. But to be reincarnated and come back different...
...Is he different?
The doubt blooms in his mind unwarranted, but he has no time to mentally tally any oddities he may have felt since the moment Maelle brought him gasping back into the world. Best to forget such things when he's fine. But though he tells himself this, an uneasy feeling settles in his gut, one that he fears will linger when he does have time to consider.
What a night this is turning out to be when all he really planned was to introduce himself to Maelle's family whom she adores so much. Or rather, this version of her family that walks beside him. This version of the person whose world they live in. Gustave had left out that detail in his truncated explanation earlier. The idea of being a painted person already feels unsettling, but to be a painted copy of another man is something he can't comprehend at all.
Now it's Gustave's turn to mull over his words, mentally debating whether or not to bring this up. Verso sounds like he might do it himself, but would it hurt to cut to the chase and take that responsibility off his shoulders?]
That person... You mean Verso.
[There's no need to specify which one he means, nor reason to dwell on it, so he moves on.]
New beginnings, huh? There's something beautiful about that. I'd say pretty fantastical, too, had I not...
[Gustave gestures vaguely toward himself. Well.]
But I guess some Gestrals have shorter lives than others. They don't always get the chance to experience much life.
[He pauses, head tilted to one side.]
Neither do we humans, though. And we don't, uh, usually get a second chance.
[So, Gustave does know about the original Verso. It's hardly shocking – learning the reverse would have taken this Verso more aback – but still, he's not used to people knowing what he is before he's had any opportunity to influence the narrative. There's something almost restrictive about losing the ability to lie about this long-held secret, and it leaves him feeling like a more literal painting, hung up in a gallery and trapped behind glass, uncomfortably aware of how anyone who takes a close enough look can see the brushstrokes of his creation.
He remembers how tired he is. Fondness swells for the fairy who awaits him – them, plural, right. Okay. He needs to stop doing this. He needs to stay present, to say something, anything. Anything is better than nothing.]
The one and... not quite only.
[Halfway through, he already regrets it. But the words are too far ahead of him to be retracted, and he's left with the awkward understanding that this was very much a nothing-is-better-than-something scenario, at least with that as his something. What was he thinking? Is he even thinking? Honestly, what is he doing?
Trying, he reminds himself. You're trying. For the girl who's killing herself, in part to be with him. For the people who won their chance at life over his for oblivion. For the new beginnings he's supposed to want but doesn't, the ones he hasn't believed possible for himself in decades, the ones Gustave speaks of now with words like beautiful and fantastical and experience and chance.
He's trying, too, to propel his thoughts past the point of there's a reason humans don't get second chances. Consequences arise and novelties wear off and existence becomes something to erase rather than embrace. And he knows he's projecting. He can't assume that the Lumierans will follow the same course as him. Renoir and Alicia certainly hadn't. One wanted to endure the present; the other wanted to dream for the future. Just as Gustave seems to. So, he cocks his head at a faux jaunty angle and dons another mask of a smile, soft this time, gentle.
At least the words are honest.]
Yeah, well, I'm glad you found yours. I have to admit, I never thought I'd see the day when you guys started taking back what was stolen from you.
[He'd never wanted to be part of it, either – not since Julie turned on him, not since he realised that for him to exist someone he loves must eventually die – but here he is, left with no choice but to become a proper Lumieran.
It's not lost on him whose words he's using this time, but Maelle wasn't wrong about that part. They've all had a great many things stolen from them, often the things they could least bear to lose. And Verso's not innocent in that, of course, he who has stolen so much more than he's had taken away, he who continues to hoard whatever truths he can keep from everyone else. How can he help himself, though? How can he change this part of himself? Maelle had also said that he isn't make-believe, and that, he thinks, she was wrong about. He doesn't know how to be real.]
[Ah. That pause hits Gustave square in the chest. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything at all, let Verso explain things if he had wanted to and at his own pace. It's too late now, of course, and even though he wants to eat his foot for fear of saying anything else hurtful, Gustave just offers a little smile and shrug of his shoulder. He could apologize, and the words dance on the tip of his tongue, but how would that end up sounding? Sorry you exist? Absolutely not his intention. He wouldn't say such a thing to anyone, even his worst enemies, and Verso has hardly gained such notoriety with him.
So, even though saying nothing feels wrong, Gustave lets that go. The knowledge is out in the open and they've both acknowledged it. Dwelling runs the risk of making it all feel worse, like poking at a bruise just to see what other colors can bloom under the skin despite the discomfort.
At least it doesn't seem like Verso lets it drag him down too long if his smile is anything to go by. And his sentiments round Gustave's own smile into something a little softer in turn. His own second chance.]
I never thought I would, either. Not because I didn't believe in the Expeditions, just...even I had to admit that the odds of success were never stacked in our favor. But there was always that chance, that tiny chance, right? And when I'd get back from the Thirty-Third, well.
[Here his smile fades slightly, though he tries to keep it present. Whatever life he might have come back to, where Sophie was still gone, isn't his reality now. That's worth smiling about, right?]
I mean, everyone else would have the freedom to live and I always wanted that, but... But now I'm a...a husband and a father and that really hadn't been an option for me before. I can hardly believe it some days.
[Thoughts of Sciel come to mind, as well, and how she's been given a similar new start as him. His bright-eyed, strong friend, able to smile again with the man she's always loved in her arms. Gustave remembers how one da, all those years ago, nothing had seemed out of the ordinary; he had run into her coming back from the market while he made his way to his workshop. Sciel had looked happy - she nearly always did - and smiled at him and he thought nothing of it. Then the next time he saw her, after that terrible accident, it was as if her sun had been veiled forever, her mooring viciously cut loose.
It had. Pierre had died before his time.
But she has him back now, too, not dissimilar to his own situation with Sophie. The ocean still gives her hesitation, Gustave has noticed, but it's not as bad as it used to be. She doesn't balance out her fear with wine nearly as often as she did. Whatever the reason for that, he can't be unhappy about it.
Not far ahead on the street, Gustave makes out the familiar storefront of the boulangerie, Mathilde's proudly painted in golden script above the door. The place brings back its own memories, as nearly every street in Lumiere does for one reason or another. Begging his parents to take him there when he had been too young to understand restraint. Taking Sophie to pick up a sweet treat on some of their earliest dates.
Avoiding the place, the entire street, when he had no more reason to spoil her.
Tentatively returning to give Maelle something to smile about in those first months as her newest family. Then, as if life knows how to chuckle at him, being dragged by Henri to take him there because he had been too young to understand restraint.
The magic of baked goods, he supposed.
He nods toward the shop up ahead.]
How is it, living above the boulangerie? Everyone always sounds jealous when they talk about it, how it must smell like heaven every day.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He doesn't know what weighs on Verso, though. Gustave won't pretend to understand this man he's just met tonight. But as he waits for an answer, it becomes all the more apparent that he's a thinker, probably weighing his own words against themselves to find the ones that work best. A perfectionist, maybe? Aren't artists usually that? Especially the ones who find success in their talents, regardless of how hard they've had to work at it. And, judging by how the recital went earlier, although Gustave's ears are untrained when it comes to music, it certainly seemed like Verso's talent has been honed into something more than a fancy.
And yet, glancing over at Verso , Gustave can't help but feel something...almost familiar. The way Verso tends to look down instead of straight ahead. Maelle had the same habit when she was still in his care. Of course. They're siblings, right? Siblings-but-not, related but separated by existences. Something Gustave, in all his logical thinking, struggles to grasp. Struggles, or refuses. If this world in which he's always lived, and died for, and has only ever known, is just a creation by someone far out of reach, then -
Maelle had a difficult childhood, he always knew that. She always saw herself as different and not worth anyone's time. But she was a teenager, too, and Gustave knew from his own experience that teenagers can be stupid. Wrapped up in their own thoughts and generational melancholy. Maybe that was unfair of him, looking back. Maybe it's just in her blood to be like that. Maybe Verso was always affected by the same familial sadness.
People are complicated, though.
But an answer does come and Gustave listens, even if the surprised laugh that follows is colored by some form of horror.]
I'm sorry, did you say they launched babies out of cannons? I can't say I met those Gestrals before.
[And probably for the best. How would he have reacted to that knowledge at the time? What's worse, Gustave finds that to be entirely believable based on the Gestrals he did meet on his travels. Their propensity for fighting and violent creativity are, to say the least, memorable.
Gustave shakes his head, letting out a sigh.]
Well. Without the end of the world just around the corner, they have time to tinker more. Instead of just helping me reach a goal with a solid deadline, they can discover the joys of inventing and creating, really get their hands dirty in how things work, you know? It's still not easy, though. We live on an island. There's still room for improvement for agriculture and manufacturing. People aren't...people aren't dying like they used to, so we have more people to care for and it really is all hands on deck to keep moving forward. We're busy, but...in a good way? There's hope. Happiness. Tomorrow comes and we can say that with certainty. It's -
[Oh. Oh, he's rambling, isn't he. A nervous little laugh rushes past his lips and Gustave rubs at the back of his neck.]
Sorry. I can get carried away. I forget not everyone has the patience for it.
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The laugh that comes is half sardonic, half on tone with Gustave's. They were talking about babies being fired from cannons. He can do this.]
Apparently, volleyball was boring without their youngest being in mortal peril.
[A pause, then a slightly more genuine smile.]
They might be on to something with the cannons, though.
[There. Nailed that, too. With his guilt already resurgent, Verso's better able to manage it as Gustave speaks of hope, repeating a line he's heard the others say, and Maelle in particular as she guided them onwards towards this fate: tomorrow comes.
That it does. That it fucking does.
Gustave clearly looks forward to it, though, and Verso can't help but wonder if maybe he'll be better able to deal with the consequences of immortality. Maybe spending his entire life with the knowledge that he would not live past 33 has softened the blow of eternity in ways that it could never do for Verso, who unexpectedly became a walking corpse at 27. Or maybe he's making shit up as he comes to terms with his own reality. Either way, there is an energy to Gustave, a vibrancy that he hasn't encountered since embarking upon the first Search & Rescue mission way back when. Verso's at once glad for it and jealous of it, another uncomfortable combination of feelings to toss onto the garbage heap that's his emotional state.
He doesn't actually realise how long the other man's been speaking until he calls himself out for rambling, and he bats the apology off with a wave of his hand.]
Hey, I asked.
[Besides, ignoring the guilt and the fact that he's supposed to be enjoying oblivion right now, he isn't having a bad time. Which is several steps up from how he'd felt on stage, and which itself would almost feel hopeful if Verso wasn't certain he knew better. At least this branch of the conversation is easier for him to grasp hold of. He does, after all, have some experience with how it feels to redefine life in Lumiere.]
That reminds me of how things were after the Fracture. We had fewer people and more resources since the storehouses were rescued, but nobody knew what the number on the Monolith meant then, so life was different. People truly believed they could turn Lumiere into a place where they could live long and fulfilling lives.
[And Verso had even bought into it once. Before Clea revealed the truth through spilt blood. Before the people of Lumiere turned on him and his family. Before he came to the realisation that he didn't want to live in service of someone else's grief or to spend decades watching someone sacrifice themselves for his counterpart's memory – a memory he was loath to live up to – in long, drawn-out ways.
Now, he shrugs and leans a little nearer to Gustave so he can speak a little softer, his tone almost conspiratorial.]
Whatever that means.
[How would either of them know, really?]
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[Endangering their children doesn't sit well with Gustave, of course, but he's had enough experience with Gestrals to know that they simply don't have the same qualms. And none of the youngsters he had met seemed to hold any concerns beyond putting up a good fight one day, so maybe it's...okay?
...Maybe?]
But they do have impressive cannons, don't they?
[Maybe if they had borrowed some of that technology as an expedition, then things might have ended a little differently for him. Or maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Or maybe he shouldn't think about any of that at all, considering he can feel his thoughts start to spiral. It's so easy for his mind to go to dark places should he let it. A flaw of his, one that has been easier to ignore with the steady flow of life they can all experience now.
How fortunate, then, that Verso picks up the lead Gustave had left dangling and actually humors him, speaking unprompted about one of the greatest mysteries of their time. Gustave feels like a child again, soaking up every story he could coax from either his parents or his mentor or any elder of his time. Any remembrance of the Fracture, if not from primary sources, then at least secondary, which still counts for something. Stories of early life in Lumiere while he spent his own time on his studies or lending a hand with the Aquafarm project. Saving every intellectual morsel in the depths of his own memory on the off-chance that it could help in some way, if not for his generation, then surely the next. To ensure that his wonderful, beloved apprentices could have a better life than he.
And then Verso interrupts Gustave's internal wonderment with something resembling...doubt? Gustave shakes his head with a little laugh, but hurries his steps so he can walk just a little ahead of Verso, his hands spread and moving excitedly as he speaks.]
I forget, you were there when it happened. But, you know, your insight would be invaluable to us. Not that I'm volunteering you for anything if you don't want, but...even if the Fracture left Lumiere with the opposite problem we have now, we could learn from any past experiences.
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Accusatory questions plague his mind, some in Aline's voice, some in Maelle's, some in some amalgamation of every person he's ever met who's looked at him with need built upon hope and desperation and disappointment alike. Why won't you be happy? Why won't you be accepting? Why won't you help? Why won't you be Verso, pedestalled and sat upon a stage as we applaud your validation of everything we've cast upon you like paint? The problem is that he isn't Verso in the way that people need him to be, he's Verso in the ways most people don't want to accept. Sad and conflicted and struggling to define his sense of self, all while yearning for a freedom that's always, always, always existed just outside of his reach. Tired, so very tired, of existing at the epicentre of a misery that spawns from him like petals on a flower. Just wanting to be let be, to be let go, to have his chroma put to some other use and be memorialised that way instead of this one.
None of that remotely relates to Gustave's intentions in asking, Verso knows, and he feels some degree of shame over his reaction, even if he manages to keep it entirely to himself. He wishes he could be happy and helpful and accepting and Verso. He wishes he didn't have to try so damned hard.
But he does try. He always tries.
Gustave speeds up and Verso slows down without even thinking about it, really, building a different sense of distance. His pace quickens again once he realises he's starting to lag, but he never moves to close the space he's created. It's not like it's more than a few steps, anyway. And it's certainly not so much that he needs to raise his voice when he responds.]
You're in luck; I just so happen to have an abundance of past experiences. What do you want to know?
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When the Paintress still blotted out the sun and all their answers lay locked away behind a time limit, that need to learn nearly burned a hole in his chest where his heart beats anew. But now, with all the time in the world in front of him, it's almost overwhelming that he can stretch out his arms and grasp and grasp and grasp and still not gain even a fraction of their world's truth. There is so much. He feels so small. He feels so helpless, but while it's still frightening to be left with so little, the freedom of their lives now settles with a gentleness he's never truly felt.
A heavy exhale as he gathers himself back into this moment between two simple men. Well, as simple as anyone can be.]
I just... Where to start?
[What does he ask a man who lived in the original Lumiere all those years ago? Who knew a completely different life, one that was free of the struggles and imbalances of a displaced portion that exists here and now? Gustave stops and looks around them. This city has been his entire life, aside from that brief and wondrous and tragic foray onto the Continent. It's normal, even if he's always known it shouldn't be. But as he looks at the bits of buildings that float as if trapped in time or the parts of the streets streaked with nearly-crystallized ink, Gustave can't help but wonder what their city could look like if it were...whole.]
Do you...think this can all be restored? Not that it needs to be. The city is safe enough and it isn't as if it's in any danger of falling apart. But I've been lucky enough to have seen really old sketches of Old Lumiere in the few books that survived the Fracture. How those pillars down by the harbor were connected once. They were, right?
[He looks to Verso for acknowledgment, but then looks away, almost bashful. Just moments ago he had spoken of things that actually matter, like feeding more people with less resources, and now he's concerned with aesthetics.]
I know it's not really important. No one else around here probably gives any of that a second thought. I usually don't. We should focus on storehouses and housing and education and whatever else is needed to ensure the city's success. Beauty can come after. Or maybe Maelle can -
[He cuts himself off. The knowledge that Maelle is a paintress, too, has never truly settled for Gustave. Not because he hates this about her, but because it's just so strange and out of his ability to grasp properly. But if he thinks about it, how she brought him and Sophie and everyone else back, he tends to also wonder why she doesn't do more. Is that out of her power? Admittedly, Gustave doesn't know her limits.
He shoves his hands into the pockets of his trousers and clears his throat before starting to walk again.]
Sorry. I think a lot, obviously. Sophie will tell you that I think so much that I have trouble finishing my thoughts. She's right, of course.
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He frowns – this time in thought – as he tests each pathway he could walk the conversation down. There's a small and petty and hypocritical part of him that bucks against the notion of letting Maelle control the narrative, considering how she's refused to let him control his own fate. What if he just laid the entire story bare? What if he gave Gustave every bit of knowledge he has at his disposal? The larger part of himself, however, is still driven by the misguided urge to mask the truth with lies, to spare everyone else from making the choices he's had to make, to let them find whatever happiness they can as they prop up grief in a doomed world, so he closes off that specific avenue fairly quick.
In the meantime, he shifts gears. There's a rhythm to how Gustave keeps charging forwards only to withdraw and, whether that's simply the man's nature or it has something to do with Verso's current demeanour, it's something Verso wants to address. Maybe this isn't the kind of conversation he wants to be having; maybe there isn't any kind of conversation he'd particularly like to be having right now. He's still driven to mitigate both that impression and the impression that Gustave flitting about might be an imposition more generally speaking. Such is his own nature.
He starts by waving away the apology.]
There's a lot to think about. And... I get it. We started off wanting to rebuild, too.
[The Fracture had destroyed a great many things, but not their resolve. They believed there were people left to rescue amid the ruins; they believed there was still a future awaiting them on the other side of tomorrow. They thought that one day, they would see the tower reaching upwards towards the stars and the arc welcoming their people home from whatever journeys they'd embarked upon across the sea. Life in the Canvas has never been as kind as it was in those early years, however. These days, Verso would argue that it had lost its kindness even before then, when Aline made it her stronghold. He sighs softly at the thought. Creating life should itself be a kindness, but he supposes it never really has been with her. On his next inhale, he looks up to where the pillars rise above the sea and gestures as if they're gazing upon something spectacular and whole.]
L'Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. It's a memorial, you know, honouring people who died fighting for their home. Took thirty years to construct.
[My father was at its inauguration manifests in his thoughts as anecdotes often do when he dips into the real Verso's understanding of things. A lump forms in his throat that he swallows down and chases with a slightly laboured breath.]
It was never meant to be a part of this world, so the resources to rebuild it, they don't exist here.
[It's not like the real Verso ever intended for human society to thrive within his Canvas, after all. It's not like he thought there'd ever be anything to rebuild. And he certainly never would have anticipated dying young and witnessing the corruption of everything the Canvas had meant to him while his once-distant mother forced a closeness between herself and the shard of his soul and the portrait of his life.
So it went, though, and so it continues to go.]
It'd have to be painted over. Which you're probably thinking sounds easy enough. Maelle brought life back to Lumiere; what's a few buildings? Turns out it's everything. Only the most skilled painters can paint over someone else's creation.
[He'll stop just short of calling out Maelle's skills – or lack thereof – but the implication is clear enough, he's sure. Even if isn't so certain that's the whole reason. Maybe Maelle has the ability but not the desire. Her heart has never been as firmly in Paris as it was in her stories or as it is in Lumiere, after all.]
Sorry. I know it isn't the answer you were hoping for.
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[A witless answer to all the knowledge laid at his feet. The pillars' - the Arc's - original purpose. The simple lack and wrong type of resources to put everything back as it once was. Maelle's abilities not being enough, despite the sheer power she possesses, and has apparently always possessed. But Gustave is the one who asked, his hunger for answers to their life-long mysteries very often going unsated. This isn't new, just...different. Other mysteries to add on top of their world's broken foundations.
It's kind of Verso to apologize, though. Gustave glances toward him and shrugs a shoulder, one corner of his lips quirking upward.]
No, don't be. I'm a Lumieran. We knew to brace for disappointment as soon as we crawled out of the womb.
[It's a pretty defeatist stance, considering their lives now, but for all of Gustave's hopefulness, the tendency for self-deprecation still affects him. It's still easy to become overwhelmed by...everything.
He takes a few more steps, but stops once more as he gains a better view of the pillars. L'Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, huh. A memorial for those who died for their home. How many times has he passed between those towering structures without a second thought for their existence? How many others have gathered between them for festivals or at the base of one with friends after a long day of work or study? Just another broken piece of history, too normal to be noticed, nary a page in a book dedicated to their construction.]
It's funny, isn't it? All the past Expeditions have walked between those pillars one last time, never to come home. Obviously, a structure can't remember the way we do, but...do you think it can still serve as a memorial like that? Due to exposure. All the lives that have passed by.
[Or maybe Gustave is overly sentimental. Or maybe it's late. Or maybe he wants to think that everyone's deaths, including his own, despite its reversal, meant something. They shouldn't be forgotten just because the Paintress has been defeated and they can write a new chapter in Lumiere's existence.
He inhales, then breathes out, and walks again.]
It was the Paintress who created Lumiere, right? Or Old Lumiere. The original city. However you want to call it. I suppose asking her to come back and fix things wouldn't go over very well with everyone. It's probably for the best to leave things be. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that.
[Turning around to walk backwards for a moment, comfortable with his knowledge of the streets' layouts, Gustave nods toward the other notable structure in Lumiere.]
What about the Crooked Tower? Does that have a different name? Is it a memorial, too?
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[Repeated in commiseration. Aside from the various vulgarities that have certainly spilled from Verso's lips and have likely done the same from Gustave's, it's really the most relatable reaction to any of the Canvas' hidden truths. He chuckles at the self-deprecation, too, even though he probably shouldn't. The disappointment inflicting the Lumierans is not only separate from his own, but it is also built upon his very existence. And when his own dreams for a disappointing future are factored in, well, it's all very awkward.
That's nothing he isn't used to, though, so he adds:]
Good one.
[Less awkward is the talk about memorials – and what a thought that is, Verso thinks, as the memories of his own Expedition passing through those same pillars flood him in turn. He's walked between them in both directions several times since Alicia was reborn as Maelle, his eyes cast downward and away as he moved to travel streets that were at once familiar and strange, both aspects haunting in their own right for the reminders of how little allegiance he holds to the city that once uplifted him. To him, its twisted monuments are little more than scars knotted over hope and beauty and a will to live that all once were and will never be again. Not that he's remotely inclined towards sharing that, though, so he offers up something else.]
I don't see why not. The people who it was built for don't exist here, but you do and the other Expeditioners did. Better for it to mean something than nothing, right?
[But then things shift back to awkwardness when it comes time to address the whole Paintress situation. Theoretically, her return to the Canvas would bring about the most ideal outcome for Verso. Renoir would not suffer her return in the same way that he has, thus far, ignored the effect that remaining behind is having on Alicia, and that would likely bring about the Canvas' total destruction, once and for all. And there are indeed a great many things that Aline's return could potentially fix, including the human element of Lumiere, so petitioning for her return isn't theoretically impossible. Gustave has the right of it, though, and Verso knows that clear as anything. Lune and Sciel are far too aware now, for one, and Verso can't picture Maelle as having any inclination towards enlisting her mother, for another. Thus, there really is no way for him to play this hand without alerting at least one of them to his true intentions. Half-defeated and wholly lying about it, he offers a shrug and a distanced answer.]
That it was. And that it is. Let's just say the Paintress has something of a thing for creating beautiful illusions and leave it at that.
[She who plays with wonder indeed.
As Gustave turns his body, Verso turns his head over his own shoulder, letting his eyes trace the curve of the tower.]
La Tour Eiffel. Or la Dame de Fer if you're feeling fancy. It's... a celebration, mostly. Marks the centennial of a revolution and the start of an exposition.
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It did for him, but not in the way he had hoped.
Gustave needs to stop dwelling on that, though. It's been years, now, and he's been given this wonderful chance to live, fulfilling his dream while Sophie doesn't have to choose and sacrifice.]
Mm. Right. We can make our own meaning.
[The freedom to do so feels almost overwhelming after generations of living within the Paintress' shadow and growing used to that limitation. And even with this past decade starting fresh, some habits are harder to break, some ways of thinking aren't so simply pushed from one's mind.
The Paintress, though. A creator of illusions. How long they all thought she was the one killing them, year by year, which Gustave can't imagine she wanted, based on the knowledge he has now. But just because he's been told the truth of their existence and how the Paintress and her husband fought doesn't mean everyone else would be as calm witnessing her return. People are stubborn - he should know - and even if she were to help them, the other Lumierans all have too much internalized hatred and fear of the untouchable villain who took so much from them.]
No illusions, thanks. I think we've had plenty of living under false pretenses.
[All this information Verso gives him on these landmarks is something Gustave drinks in greedily. First imagining the pillars as an actual arch, now the Tower having more significant meaning. What a rich world they must truly belong to. How many years of history exist outside of this one? Memorials, revolutions, expositions. They are concepts Gustave understands, but has never truly experienced. He stops, still looking at the Tower - La Tour Eiffel - and, despite it, um, towering over them from such a distance and with that crookedness, it somehow makes this world feel smaller.]
I imagine she's seen better days. I hope she has, or else I have some questions for the architect.
[Gustave smiles at Verso when he can catch the other man's gaze again.]
Thank you. For indulging me. I know I can be a little insufferable with my curiosity, so I hope it isn't too much to ask all this.
[Or that it doesn't dredge up too many unwanted memories. Verso hasn't said anything to confirm that, but Gustave wouldn't if he were in his shoes. It must, though, if he thinks about it. The Fracture tore their world apart and threw Lumiere into the sea. What about that would be pleasant to recollect?]
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That she has. And she's seen worse reception, if you can believe it. The Paintress herself had some, hmm, choice words about her, let's say. Most of the art community did, until she was erected.
[Of course, the real Verso was too young then to really understand what was happening. Only that the adults were angry, and so it was important to join them in their anger else he be considered disobedient. The public support afterwards – including from Renoir and Aline – was one of his first confirmations that it wasn't only children who were prone to being fallible, but that adults, too, were finicky and wrong sometimes.
While Verso's collecting his thoughts on how to elaborate, Gustave withdraws once more. It is true that these recollections aren't exactly pleasant, but should he talk about Esquie and Monoco, the friends he still hasn't tried to catch up with, instead? Maelle, whom he's grappling with intensely complicated and painful feelings regarding? Sciel and Lune, one of whom understands him in ways few people ever have, the other of whom is fundamentally – and understandably – incapable of the same? Where he's been all these years? What he's been doing? Why he's returned to Lumiere?
Music?
Once more, he waves off Gustave's concerns with a flick of both wrists.]
Don't worry about it. All that destruction and death... it should mean something too, right?
[Now, Verso turns all the way around to view the tower in full, paying closer attention than he ever has to the way ink vines its way around her frame and how she stretches like smeared paint across a polluted sky. A rush job. An affront to Aline's talent. Yet also, he supposes, a symbol of her priorities once her chroma started being depleted. Life over beauty. Over perfection. What a shame those priorities only manifested through grief.
Fuck, he's tired of family being so fucking complicated. He masks his resurgent exhaustion with melancholy as he turns back to face Gustave.]
You know, the Fracture felt kind of how the tower looks. It happened in an instant. We barely realised we were under attack before we were being vaulted across the sea. But that moment, it can't compare to the lurching feeling we felt when we found Old Lumiere. A decent amount of people survived the Fracture, which is about what we hoped for, but what we didn't anticipate – what we couldn't have anticipated – were the Nevrons. Few of the Lumierans were fighters, so all we found were bodies. They put up a good fight, though. They deserve better than to be lost to obscurity.
[Especially when the only reason they'd be lost would be his cowardice. Verso is aware of the contradiction, though. All he wants for the Canvas is nothingness. But that nothingness doesn't exist here and now, and so long as that remains true, so too do his words.]
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But as he stands there and listens to Verso speak freely of the Paintress, it strikes Gustave how...human she sounds. And, yes, of course, knowing now that the real woman is Maelle's true mother, and Verso's own in another life, it isn't as shocking as it might have once been, yet it still stops him in his tracks. She's a person. A woman. A wife. A mother. Someone who struggles, just as they all do. Someone who thought poorly of an iron tower, of all things.
Sophie had the right of it, back then. Feeling empathy and seeing something so utterly human in the being he could only ever hate and resent for taking and taking and taking. It's a little embarrassing looking back on himself and how shortsighted he had been, even if he had no reason to think otherwise at the time. How human of him, to be imperfect and mistaken. Where once there was an insurmountable distance between all of them and the Paintress, one filled with so many rocks that never made it to her, now Gustave begins to understand and feel.
Still not enough to invite her back, of course.
Verso's turn of the conversation does take him by surprise. Gustave may have brought up the Fracture earlier, but the other man hadn't seemed the most excited to add to the subject. In his talks with Lune and Sciel, Gustave had learned that they - Lune especially - had tried to get him to open up about it, but with little to no luck. And now, here they are, having just met for the first time, and Verso actually shares.
Lune would be incensed if she found out. Gustave commits the divulgence to memory with every intention on telling her later, but then hates himself a little for it. This feels like a story shared in confidence, though the details may not include Verso in any intimate way. It's still a remembrance, a confession of feeling and the trusting of the fate of so many dead to him, a descendant who will never know their names or faces or stories.
...It's heartbreaking.
What is he supposed to say to that?
Gustave tears his eyes away from the Tower and glances over to Verso, taking in the sadness that seems to etch itself into his features. He may be immortal, the years bouncing off of him like rain off a duck's feathers, but it's clear he has no way to shield himself from the experiences.]
...I can't even imagine what that...what that must have been like. Going back.
[He falls silent for a moment, his mind wandering to his own time on the Continent, though different images flood his mind than what Verso means. Still. The words fall from his lips softly, almost timidly.]
Seeing the bodies of Expeditioners was...awful, on the Continent. But at least they would have had some idea of what dangers awaited. To find civilians -
[His voice cracks and Gustave swallows the rest of his words. It doesn't need to be said. He doesn't need to remind Verso of something that may haunt him even to this day.
But...fuck, had there been children?
The thought pricks at something behind his eyes and he has to blink quickly and look away.]
Merde.
[Suddenly the thought of chasing that green fairy in Verso's apartment doesn't sound so bad.]
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A sense of rightness. Of knowingness. Of peace.
Those were the first lies that the real Verso whispered to the false one. Self-sacrifice is never that easy or that clean. And in Verso's case, he's been made to watch as it condemns thousands upon thousands more to horrific, painful, too-soon deaths that mean nothing, absolutely fucking nothing because the lives they fought and bled and died for were never theirs to begin with. Not while they all exist at the mercy – at the need – of the Dessendre family.
It was simpler to keep certain details to himself when he was determined that nothing would matter in the end. Too many people may have died before them, but the Expeditioners were alive and deep enough in their own despair that Verso naively, stupidly, selfishly wanted what he had hoped to be their final days to have more light to them than reality would otherwise permit. Now they know too much about him and not enough about everything else. He's still the one on the stage, living out the real Verso's dreams, mattering far more than he should ever matter. Forget me, he wants to shout into unhearing ears. Forget the real Verso, let them both be. Too many have died for the sake of his memory, and only through his own obscurity can this world truly begin to heal.
Not that he really believes that. Some wounds don't heal; some scars feel better borne than erased.
Gustave almost seems to study him when he looks away from the tower. Verso had studied him once, too, as he faced off against Renoir for the final time, carefully weighing the benefits of allowing him to die against those of saving him as if he was ever going to make a different choice. Another sacrifice that proved completely in vain. Hell, Verso's now left wondering if Gustave might have done a better job of convincing Alicia to live than he ever could.
He doesn't look away, even as guilt nags him to find some faraway void to stare into as if there's still some salvation for him to seek within nothingness. That resolve becomes all the more challenging when Gustave's voice fucking cracks, and his eyes flutter as if fanning their own flames, and he ends up being the one who looks away.
For the nth time tonight, Verso is left grappling with the understanding of exactly the kind of man he'd let die. A good man. A kind man. A man with so much compassion for others that he aches, deeply, at the thought of people dying 67 years earlier. And his death was for what besides naught? Every death that's happened here – every single one – is going to become doubly meaningless when Maelle dies. This Verso never regrets the other's actions, he never wishes that the real Verso would have survived in Alicia's stead, but he does wonder, sometimes, amid the deep disgust that rises at the thought, whether everything wouldn't have been better for everyone else if he had lived and his baby sister had died.
He really wishes Maelle hadn't saved him.
There's no losing himself in such thoughts, though, not when he's in someone else's company, not when that someone else is grieving, too. Finally, he closes the distance he'd created earlier to rest his hand on Gustave's shoulder before moving ahead of him. Best not to let him see the strain in his expression and the smoke in his own eyes. Best to take this all upon himself, too.]
Yeah. It was a lot to take in, and it left us with more questions than answers so we continued on to the Monolith.
[Not without burying as many people as they could first, but that doesn't need to be said, either.]
To Expedition Zero's last stand. You know what we learned after all that? The Fracture didn't mean anything. If we wanted our lives to matter, we had to decide what that meant for ourselves.
[He looks over his shoulders. Shrugs even if Gustave's back is still to him.]
Easier said than done, huh?
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It seems Verso can recognize this behavior, whether by outside knowledge or personal experience. The hand on his shoulder, though unfamiliar, does help tug Gustave back. He breathes in deeply, recognizing the salty breeze of the ocean, reminding him that he's here, in Lumiere, not surrounded by death and failure. He lifts his head to see the Crooked Tower again, so close and on this island, not clothed in a distant fog, practically a world away. Gustave turns his head in time to watch Verso walk away, the weight and warmth of the other man's hand leaving the slightest chill in its absence as he goes.
The Fracture didn't mean anything. Just...pointless destruction. Unnecessary death. Because the Paintress and her husband fought and the battlefield had been all those peoples' lives. No wonder Verso hasn't wanted to talk about it, and yet so many of them have asked and asked, curious onlookers who should have known better, but still poked at him like kids with sticks poking at insects.
Another breath in, and slowly released. Gustave turns to follow.]
Nothing that's worth it in the end is easy.
[That sounds like such a trite platitude, even if the intention remains earnest.]
Doesn't make it hurt any less in the process, though.
[An apology rests on his tongue, guilt settling in his gut, but even that sounds overplayed in his own mind, so Gustave switches tactics.]
When I lost my arm, it wasn't the end of the world, of course, but those early months left me feeling so...so off-balance. Literally, at times. It would have been simple to succumb to it, too, just...wallow and give up.
[Gustave lifts his prosthetic and balls the fingers into a fist, then flexes them.]
Obviously one arm isn't the same as our lives, but I saw another future for myself. My apprentices made the arm for me, but I chose to adapt to it and give it a chance. People are just as resilient as they are fragile, if they let themselves.
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Fortunately, the conversation isn't entirely about those two things.
For one, there's the matter of Gustave's arm – a very interesting piece of technology, Verso lets himself recall despite the dark circumstances under which it had been in his possession. It had tickled the part of him still fascinated by trains and the artistry of industry. But he understands better than to try to use that to add light to the conversation. Goodness knows he's heard at least you're immortal entirely too often. He'd have preferred been able to die, though, and may well have preferred to be lost with the other Zeros, or to have been killed instead of resurrecting and losing Julie's trust, just as he's sure that Gustave would rather have his real arm. So that's also out of the question.
There is the matter of resilience as well. Time after time after time after time, the people of Lumiere sent people out on death marches. Their numbers dwindled over the years as enthusiasm and hope and the population itself waned, but the same fighting spirit that had driven the survivors in Old Lumiere to fight against insurmountable odds carried forwards across the generations. There is always, always, always someone left with the resilience to carry on. And sometimes, that resilience might even be enough. Verso doesn't see how, knowing too well what they're up against, but he's familiar enough with pretending otherwise that he barely flinches at the notion as he begins his response.]
That reminds me. Someone I knew used to say that if you're very happy, it's not because you have everything you could want, it's because there's something you're missing. I asked her once, "What about if you're very sad?" She said, "It's because there's something you're missing." Didn't have a word to say about how to find out what, but... well, if she had, then I might have listened to her. And then I'd have had to tell her, "You were right," and missed out on so many opportunities for personal growth. Not that I took most of them but, hey, they were there. Waiting. Opportunely.
[Idly, he wonders what he had been missing then. What he's still missing now. He doesn't know whether to hope that there's something out there to give his life a meaning beyond death or that his friend had been wrong and that sometimes, for some people, there's nothing to miss.
It's a silly thought. The latter. It's the latter. He's too tired to humour the former. He continues anyway.]
I've always admired that about the Expeditioners. It didn't matter what it was, if they were missing something, they'd try to figure out what. A pathway. A weapon or a weakness. Some reason to smile.
[Not all of them did, of course. Some decided to wait out their Gommage among the Gestrals. Others made Nevron hunting into a sport. Then there were the ones who found somewhere beautiful to die, writing poetry and letters and journals to people who would likely never read them. He doesn't want to diminish their existences to pedestal the others, so he adds:]
Usually, anyway. They were... We are all just people.
[He nods up the sky. As Painters, part of their education involved distancing themselves from their creations not simply in terms of emotional attachment but in terms of sameness. Verso had always struggled to come to terms with that. What defines whether someone is real if not sentience and agency and happiness and sadness and laughter and tears? What justification is there to consider lives lived in Canvases any less valid than those lived outside of them, other than the kind of detachment that enables cruelty? So he offers in absolute earnest:]
No matter what they have to say about it.
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Gustave smiles slightly.]
Like I said, nothing worth having is easy. Sounds like she was trying to push you to find your own answers. I think we all need someone like that.
[Lune had been that person for him, even before she saved him from himself in that cave, surrounded by tragedy and hopelessness. The years before the Expedition, when he could be found more and more often in the library or his studio, trying and failing to get the Lumina converter to work, she would drop by from time to time and remind him to eat or sleep and stop arguing with her about it. Or just manage to steer him other directions so he wouldn't get stuck in the same ruts when it came to his tinkering. Just offering her own brand of support, though he suspects she'd never blatantly call it that. They may not have been friends then, but they certainly existed as colleagues, working toward the same goal.
That goal, no matter how impossible it always looked. And as the Monolith counted down year by year and Expeditions left and never returned, it only felt more and more pointless. The population slowly dwindled, as did the Expedition sizes. What could a few dozen people accomplish that earlier Expedition armies could not?
To hear them spoken of with respect instead of derision or flippancy, though, makes Gustave approach Verso just a little closer, feeling some kind of camaraderie. Someone else who understands, to some extent.
Sophie understands, he knows, but from an outside perspective. She always believed in his idealism and gave him one last piece of herself to carry across the sea with them all, too. But when he wakes up in the middle of the night, screams trapped in his throat and heart hammering away at his ribcage, he can't tell her why. That he's still haunted by the memory of an old man. That the sight of his own blood painting Maelle's face flashes in his mind when lightning strikes during a storm. No, while she would be supportive, it wouldn't be the same. He can't bear to burden her with those details when relaying his death in general had already been difficult enough.]
They had very little left to lose. When there's nothing holding you back, you have so much freedom to try. And, you know, when you add up all those years of figuring out the missing key, they pile upon each other. Bit by bit. Every year you tell yourself it's closer to success. That maybe the next Expedition will finally figure it out and add that last rung to the ladder and get over the top. Making some difference for...for those who come after.
[His voice softens on those words, all too aware of the last time he uttered them. Gustave hasn't had to in so long now.]
Not that I fault anyone who didn't contribute. The Continent, for all its dangers, is beautiful. There's an allure to...escape. And...yeah. Embrace the fact that we're just people. Good, ugly, all the parts that make us.
[Verso looks to the sky and Gustave allows his eyes to follow suit, flicking between the countless stars and making out the faint shapes of clouds and swirls above them. It takes him a moment to figure out what he means by they, but looking heavenward gives him a big hint.
The sky never really frightened him, but knowing there is more outside the confines of this little universe makes him feel...small. Naked under the eyes of an unseen and unknowable god. Maelle counts, technically, but there are others, others besides the Paintress, even, others they don't know.]
...Do you think we'll ever be able to see eye-to-eye with them?
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Either way, the final answer that she produced amid the happiness they'd shared and the sadness he'd brought about was that he could not be trusted.
At the time, he'd been certain that she was wrong. He could be trusted. He did have everyone's best interests at heart. But he had not simply missed something, he'd missed a great many somethings. The true reason why he hid the truth from her and from everyone else who mattered had never really eluded him, but he had needed so desperately to believe that his existence and that of the Lumierans was deeper than the vanity of one woman's grief – that they all could be freed of the perpetuation of death and destruction and more fucking death – and so he refused to accept its potentiality; he ran and he hid and he played make-believe, too. Not that he doesn't understand this part of himself. So long as he lives, both the people who he loves and those who he's never met are destined to suffer. Who wouldn't want to escape that understanding through unlivable fantasies?
The nature of his thought processes doesn't change much when Gustave transitions into talking about the Expeditioners. He may as well be talking about Verso. Even the part about not contributing. How many years had Verso not bothered to try? How many years had he spent fucking around with Esquie and Monoco? How many years had he done little besides wallow in isolation, watching the Lumierans from afar as fate found them, whether at the hand of one Renoir or the other?
Again, his mind supplies him with everything he shouldn't say and little that he could. He buys himself some time by humming in contemplation. It's just enough.]
And all we can do is hope that they found some peace. Or that wherever they are, they know it wasn't all in vain. It's piss-poor consolation, but...
[He shrugs. Not out of callousness, but rather out of acceptance. They've all seen too much death; they've all grown tired of condolences. Grief has left them all famished, though, and they need to feed the new meanings that lie ahead with whatever they can scrape together. It's not like he's lying. That's... something.
Especially given the dishonesty of the rest of what he expressed. At the rate things are going, Maelle will self-destruct and the Canvas will be destroyed, and nothing will have meant anything, in the end. But what's he going to say? About that eternity you think you've earned – your days are still numbered, the only difference is that they're not being broadcast on the Monolith anymore? No. Let Gustave believe. Let whoever still has the capacity for hope believe. Sudden, universal ends bring about the least amount of suffering.
Which indirectly answers the question of whether Verso thinks they'll see eye-to-eye with the Dessendres. There's another response he can give: technically, yes. After all, he himself has seen eye-to-eye with Renoir. That isn't what Gustave is asking, though, and Verso isn't going to demean his question by taking that approach. Besides, deep down he knows he can't be certain himself.]
Anything's possible. They're just people, too.
[The more the conversation goes on, the more Verso struggles with having no sense of what Gustave does and does not know. He doesn't want to inadvertently betray the others by saying too much. Likewise, he doesn't want to give away the fact that he knows more than he's letting on by being overly reluctant to share details that have already been revealed. He looks over his shoulders. Gestures broadly as he speaks.]
So, what did they tell you? You know, about everything.
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[It's one thing to have found journals and know some earlier Expeditioners had...not given up on the mission, but almost put it secondary. Things often went wrong, but they could still find some pleasure out in the world. When their time inevitably came, either from Nevron or Gommage, maybe they had come to terms. But then what of those who met their end far too quickly and without the time to prepare? People like Gustave himself. While he had, in those final moments of protecting Maelle, no matter how futile it had seemed, believed he was protecting her, there was still the fact that after he was gone, he couldn't know for sure.
It makes him shudder, and he tightens his arms across his chest. Thinking about that confrontation hasn't gotten any easier over the years and it's not about to start now. There's no need to involve Verso in his personal weaknesses, though.
But just as he can't be sure those murdered Expeditioners ever found peace, neither can he be sure that the people outside of this world can be considered trustworthy. People are capable of so much good, Gustave knows. He's seen it, seen how people can come together amid tragedy and offer time and empathy and themselves to help others. But he's also seen people retreat or lash out or lose hope. For all that people can be resilient despite their vulnerabilities, the reverse is also true. Sometimes vulnerability feels like too much.
They're just people, too.]
People are complicated. But -
[He holds up a finger.]
- it also means there is a chance they could listen. Which is better than no chance at all.
[Which, for all his hope, is a great deal of faith to put in others he's never met.
The change in subject almost comes as a relief, though Gustave could do with a little more direction.]
Everything is a broad topic. I assume you mean all of this, though.
[He gestures with that same hand in a loose manner, unsure how to encapsulate the entire life they've ever know.]
How it's all a...a Canvas. Lumiere, the Continent, all of it. Created by Painters, outside of our knowing. Maelle's actually family. Or, well, Alicia's, I guess. The Paintress was really her mother, but her father wanted to force her out of this place and that's...that's the real cause of the Fracture, right?
[The more he talks, the more Gustave begins to pace in front of Verso, his words coming a little faster the more confident he grows in relaying knowledge to a willing audience. A rarity, sometimes.]
But then you all actually succeeded in defeating the Paintress, except then the final Gommage came and...and, well you know what the Gommage does. But Maelle - Alicia - managed to save Lune and Sciel and all of you defeated her father and forced him out, too, to save the world - the Canvas - and...
[Here, the pacing stops and Gustave's words trail off. Here, he remembers the utter confusion and panic that nearly swallowed him whole when he realized he existed again, when just mere breaths before - seconds, minutes, months, time holds no meaning for the dead - he had felt that searing blade of light pierce him through, his body falling heavily against the old man.
Gustave has no recollection of hitting the ground.
He breathes now, here in Lumiere, and swallows.]
She...she brought us all back.
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No wonder he and Maelle can't see eye-to-eye.
He and Gustave don't really share the same views either, but there is some solace to find in the differences between Gustave's priorities and Maelle's. One seeks to live in embrace of life, the other to die in escape from reality. And no matter how much better Verso may relate to the latter, he's more comfortable around the former. He appreciates those little reminders that this mirror created to ever reflect his life can be capable – truly capable – of bringing about more than inevitable suffering born of futile hope. In a way, they become his own embrace of life, his own escape from reality.
Once again, Verso notices that his mind has wandered in unhelpful directions. So he thinks, of all things, about the Axons. About the odds he'd thought they'd had of defeating them. He may not have his own words to offer in response, but he does have someone else's.]
Mm, the chances aren't zero.
[Despite knowing the complete everything he's asked Gustave about, Verso still listens to him with demonstrable curiosity. Granted, much of that curiosity stems from him figuring out the extent of Gustave's knowledge, but that's besides the point. It's as interesting to see what he highlights as it is to wonder about what he leaves unsaid. Interesting how he creates distinctions between Maelle and Alicia and how he describes the Dessendres as her family as if it's separate from Verso's own. He doesn't read into any of these things, just takes note of them. They could stem from a great many things. They could mean anything.
This, too, becomes besides the point, anyway, when the conversation shifts from facts to feelings. The nature of Verso's curiosity moves in tandem with how Gustave carries himself. Interest wanes as concern rises and a feeling of knowing begins to gnaw away at the composure he's been building since rising from the piano.
He thinks of how the memories of the fire returned to him, doubly confusing for how they belonged to someone else, and how they left him scrambling in all the ways a man can scramble. Or at least, that's how it felt at the time. More than that, though, he thinks about the death that's just been stolen from him. The first breath he'd taken had felt so utterly wrong and filled him with such a pervasive sense of disgust that he immediately vomited. Oh, he remembers Maelle saying. Let me get you some water. And he'd wanted to tell her to leave him the fuck alone. He'd wanted to yell and scream and cry and flail about in despair and desperate anger. But when her expression relaxed and the lines in her face remained as he took a begrudging sip of water, he just broke instead.
That's not an option now, though, so he breathes to subdue the nausea swirling in his chest and hold down the gags railing against the back of his throat. To test his voice, he offers only one word at first:]
Yeah.
[And when it comes out perfectly fine, perfectly masking, he continues.]
Memories and all. I wish I could tell you they stop.
[He's not that kind of a liar, though, even if he does leave out the part about how the awful dreams give way to even worse voids. Part of him is still a bit... sore over how Lune had taken a scientific approach to that confession when he'd made it to her, but mostly he doesn't see the need to strip away the hope that the thoughts and dreams and flashbacks will get better, even if they don't ever fully go away.]
You all right?
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Verso does none of this. He waits patiently for Gustave to finish and asks questions of his own. Sure, they're not always deep questions and Gustave suspects there is some element of indulging, but he doesn't feel like he's trapped Verso. If the other man wanted to rescind his invitation for a drink, then Gustave would let him go.
No backtracking comes, though, even when Gustave feels his own composure shifting into something less available, something more closed-off. A bad habit, his focus on negativity, be it how he tripped over his words in front of a girl ages ago or when he held his own pistol to his head when the Expedition seemed lost. The world is a marvelous place; Gustave's eyes are just easily veiled in darkness. He lifts his gaze to Verso when the man asks after him and offers a weak smile and a little shrug of his shoulder.]
Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine.
[His lies have never quite landed.
One deep breath later and Gustave nods, more to convince himself than anything. There was something else Verso had said, something he wants to acknowledge.]
They wouldn't be memories if they didn't stick around, right? Just...fleeting reminders. Like smoke, when you blow out a candle.
[Bad memories can serve a purpose aside from misery, though, like when he burned his hand on his mother's iron when he was quite young. A painful experience, to be sure, but one that taught him caution. Gustave never did it again. What his memories of death teach him, however, he isn't sure. Stay away from Alicia's father? Seems easy enough now, though he won't speak that allowed lest he tempt fate.
Even so, Verso seems to understand something of this. Of course, he does; he's immortal. Or had been. Whatever he's experienced can't have all been sunshine, either. Maybe more than most people. That's something else that keeps Gustave drawn in. While the distance between them is predicated by the fact that they aren't friends, merely acquaintances, the potential for camaraderie almost comforts him. There are few people Gustave would want to confide in regarding his doubts and melancholy, even though Sciel managed to pull some honesty out of him all those years ago, when his resurrection was still achingly fresh.
Not Maelle, though. He can't tell Maelle more than the basics. Even if she has achieved a form of godhood and looks over him now, the compulsion to protect her still burns in his veins. Confessing his anxiety would only hurt her. And Maelle has changed. While she has always been sensitive to Gustave's feelings, it's only increased. Understandably, he knows. He did die in front of her when he promised otherwise.
He can still hear the absolute terror in her voice when she clutched desperately at his broken oath.]
It would be nice if some of them did stop. But I'm used to it.
[A partial lie. Repetition doesn't change anything.]
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That doesn't mean they don't deserve to be seen or acknowledged, though – a thought he immediately regrets having when the candle analogy strikes him the wrong way. Both sides of it describe him. What else is he besides a memory that won't fade? What more does he want to do than dissipate like smoke? Gustave speaks of fleetingness as if it's something worth evading, but to Verso the word is like music, bearing validation and self-expression, a beautiful lashing out against the ugliness his life has brought about for entirely too long.
Gustave isn't at fault for that, of course; even if Verso wasn't driven by the compulsion to lie, thoughts amounting to Your very existence perpetuates my existential despair should probably remain unspoken, so naturally, nobody knows they exist. Well, nobody except Maelle, and he can't imagine her ever admitting to anyone what he'd said during those final moments before everything changed.
When the conversation loops back to the memories never stopping, he briefly considers changing the subject. Memory itself is a very broad topic, one that he could take in any number of directions. Memories of Lumiere before the fracture and memories of it afterwards. Memories of skiing the slopes at Frozen Hearts and trains travelling all across the Continent. Memories of the Nevrons he's fought and won against and those who did a number on him instead. Memories of all the ridiculously stupid shit he's got into over the years and wishes he could forget, if only because the reminders never fail to leave him cringing. But things have, for the most part, been following their own course, and though they haven't been taking the gentlest path, Verso still hasn't found any of it to be too rough, either. Maybe he can't say the same for Gustave, but it isn't like he's made any moves in different directions himself. For better or for worse, this is where they are...
...with Gustave put on the spot, Verso belatedly considers. He shrugs a bit sheepishly at the thought, then shifts the nature of his smile to match. What was his exchange with the others? A story for a story. A truth for a truth. An ache for an ache.]
I'm not.
[Once again, he speaks nothing of the void and how it still keeps him from sleeping, even when that's the only thing he wants to do, sometimes, and for days on end. Instead, he plays Gustave's words over again in his mind. They wouldn't be memories if they didn't stick around, he'd said. It would be nice if some of them did stop. Such is the nature of human suffering and death and resurrection, but such is not the case for all life on the Canvas. Verso isn't sure if the shift in perspective will help matters, but he doesn't see how it could hurt. Of course, he could be mistaken but he doesn't really see that hurting, either, so he turns to look at Gustave, raising his hand as he does to point at him with his knuckles, and continues onwards.]
They ever tell you about Gestrals and the Sacred River?
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It's comfortable, that routine. Having a routine at all, really. Where he can live at a leisurely pace and any discoveries he and his apprentices make can be celebrated with real joy instead of relief that their remaining days may be easier. Where he can go home and listen to stories from his son's day and tuck him into bed and run his fingers through his hair and then give his wife a lingering kiss or three and daily memorize the shape of her body against his own because they have time. They have time to enjoy and never, never take for granted.
But it's not perfect; nothing is. A sentiment that is parroted without a second thought because it's so obvious, but... While he can take his arm off and alleviate a minor inconvenience, the same cannot be said for the memories that have seeped into his soul. He cannot simply discard them on the bedside table with his pockets' loot or Sophie's jewelry to don again at a later time when he might feel more adequate. No, they will always remain and replay in his mind as they see fit, sometimes at the most inopportune times. All he can do, all anyone can do, is try to not let them be too much. Whatever that means. However that's possible.
And when it comes to Verso, Gustave has no idea what memories may plague him, but he's been around for so much longer than the rest of them. His memories must have a veritable grab-bag of options from which to choose to haunt him. It must be unbearable sometimes.]
That's okay.
[Gustave softens his voice, hoping to sound non-judgmental. It can be difficult to admit to any kind of vulnerability, but with the right people around, they often make things seem less terrible. Not that he and Verso are friends, but Gustave won't deny the man some comfort just because of that.
Before he can say anymore, though, Verso changes the subject. Which Gustave accepts without argument. He doesn't quite know what he'd add, anyway.]
Hmm. It's where the Gestrals go to reincarnate, right?
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Once again, he finds himself asking what he's doing being companionable with Gustave, unwitting as he is to how much ruin Verso has brought about. Granted, his guilt over that has abated, somewhat, in the sense that his heart has adapted to its presence and grown too fatigued to continue its magnification, but it's still present. It always has been. Across his many years of existence, he's wondered whether he was being selfish by bonding with the various Expeditioners whose paths he'd crossed. Would it have been kinder to hold them at a distance? Should he have put his intentions on full display rather than cloaking himself in the uniform of the Zeros like the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing? Why does he always do this, why does he always allow himself to enjoy everyone else's companionship as if he isn't using them as the tools to dismantle the Canvas, as the stepping stones to their own extinction?
But even now, amid his multiple failures, the answers comes to him: whether it would have been kinder or not, whether he should have done what he did or not, the reason why things always turn out this way between him and them is because they're people. Real people with real hearts and real souls and real dreams and realer nightmares given life by his own life. And he knows how it feels to have his own personhood denied. He understands what it's like to look into someone else's eyes in search of light and warmth and validation only to discover their absence. The guilt of lying is simply easier to deal with than the guilt of making them feel how he's long felt.
He thinks on this a little longer than he'd like before answering, but it's not the most drawn-out pause he's held tonight. Minor victories and all that.]
Yeah. Well, not wholly. When they come back, they're... the, uh, same same, but different.
[Still, Verso's words escape him enough to leave him reliant on someone else's.
His mind wanders to Monoco. When he'd first met him, Monoco was distant to the point of being dismissive. He had wanted nothing to do with Verso, and so Verso had wanted nothing to do with him. At the time, he had figured he was just ornery like that, gruff and impersonal, more of a lone wolf than a loyal companion. But he had been hurt by the real Verso's death and resurrection in the same way that he would eventually be hurt by Noco's. Verso had returned to him a different person, a stranger and a murderer, and Monoco had lashed out because he'd been in pain. He was still grieving the ghost who'd shown up on his doorstep as a pale imitation of a better man.
This isn't the point Verso wants to make. He trips over it all the same as he navigates the minefield of his mind.]
The person who created them wanted them to have new beginnings. That's part of the everything about this Canvas, too.
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Same same, but different definitely doesn't sound like Verso's own conclusion, yet it sounds almost familiar to Gustave. Wracking his memories, he doesn't think it's anything anyone has told him personally. But it niggles at the back of his brain, like he should be able to pinpoint it.
Gustave gives a little shake of his head. No matter. The answer reminds him of something he told Maelle once. How death is final, be it by Gommage or Nevron or terrifyingly powerful old men. But to be reincarnated and come back different...
...Is he different?
The doubt blooms in his mind unwarranted, but he has no time to mentally tally any oddities he may have felt since the moment Maelle brought him gasping back into the world. Best to forget such things when he's fine. But though he tells himself this, an uneasy feeling settles in his gut, one that he fears will linger when he does have time to consider.
What a night this is turning out to be when all he really planned was to introduce himself to Maelle's family whom she adores so much. Or rather, this version of her family that walks beside him. This version of the person whose world they live in. Gustave had left out that detail in his truncated explanation earlier. The idea of being a painted person already feels unsettling, but to be a painted copy of another man is something he can't comprehend at all.
Now it's Gustave's turn to mull over his words, mentally debating whether or not to bring this up. Verso sounds like he might do it himself, but would it hurt to cut to the chase and take that responsibility off his shoulders?]
That person... You mean Verso.
[There's no need to specify which one he means, nor reason to dwell on it, so he moves on.]
New beginnings, huh? There's something beautiful about that. I'd say pretty fantastical, too, had I not...
[Gustave gestures vaguely toward himself. Well.]
But I guess some Gestrals have shorter lives than others. They don't always get the chance to experience much life.
[He pauses, head tilted to one side.]
Neither do we humans, though. And we don't, uh, usually get a second chance.
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He remembers how tired he is. Fondness swells for the fairy who awaits him – them, plural, right. Okay. He needs to stop doing this. He needs to stay present, to say something, anything. Anything is better than nothing.]
The one and... not quite only.
[Halfway through, he already regrets it. But the words are too far ahead of him to be retracted, and he's left with the awkward understanding that this was very much a nothing-is-better-than-something scenario, at least with that as his something. What was he thinking? Is he even thinking? Honestly, what is he doing?
Trying, he reminds himself. You're trying. For the girl who's killing herself, in part to be with him. For the people who won their chance at life over his for oblivion. For the new beginnings he's supposed to want but doesn't, the ones he hasn't believed possible for himself in decades, the ones Gustave speaks of now with words like beautiful and fantastical and experience and chance.
He's trying, too, to propel his thoughts past the point of there's a reason humans don't get second chances. Consequences arise and novelties wear off and existence becomes something to erase rather than embrace. And he knows he's projecting. He can't assume that the Lumierans will follow the same course as him. Renoir and Alicia certainly hadn't. One wanted to endure the present; the other wanted to dream for the future. Just as Gustave seems to. So, he cocks his head at a faux jaunty angle and dons another mask of a smile, soft this time, gentle.
At least the words are honest.]
Yeah, well, I'm glad you found yours. I have to admit, I never thought I'd see the day when you guys started taking back what was stolen from you.
[He'd never wanted to be part of it, either – not since Julie turned on him, not since he realised that for him to exist someone he loves must eventually die – but here he is, left with no choice but to become a proper Lumieran.
It's not lost on him whose words he's using this time, but Maelle wasn't wrong about that part. They've all had a great many things stolen from them, often the things they could least bear to lose. And Verso's not innocent in that, of course, he who has stolen so much more than he's had taken away, he who continues to hoard whatever truths he can keep from everyone else. How can he help himself, though? How can he change this part of himself? Maelle had also said that he isn't make-believe, and that, he thinks, she was wrong about. He doesn't know how to be real.]
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So, even though saying nothing feels wrong, Gustave lets that go. The knowledge is out in the open and they've both acknowledged it. Dwelling runs the risk of making it all feel worse, like poking at a bruise just to see what other colors can bloom under the skin despite the discomfort.
At least it doesn't seem like Verso lets it drag him down too long if his smile is anything to go by. And his sentiments round Gustave's own smile into something a little softer in turn. His own second chance.]
I never thought I would, either. Not because I didn't believe in the Expeditions, just...even I had to admit that the odds of success were never stacked in our favor. But there was always that chance, that tiny chance, right? And when I'd get back from the Thirty-Third, well.
[Here his smile fades slightly, though he tries to keep it present. Whatever life he might have come back to, where Sophie was still gone, isn't his reality now. That's worth smiling about, right?]
I mean, everyone else would have the freedom to live and I always wanted that, but... But now I'm a...a husband and a father and that really hadn't been an option for me before. I can hardly believe it some days.
[Thoughts of Sciel come to mind, as well, and how she's been given a similar new start as him. His bright-eyed, strong friend, able to smile again with the man she's always loved in her arms. Gustave remembers how one da, all those years ago, nothing had seemed out of the ordinary; he had run into her coming back from the market while he made his way to his workshop. Sciel had looked happy - she nearly always did - and smiled at him and he thought nothing of it. Then the next time he saw her, after that terrible accident, it was as if her sun had been veiled forever, her mooring viciously cut loose.
It had. Pierre had died before his time.
But she has him back now, too, not dissimilar to his own situation with Sophie. The ocean still gives her hesitation, Gustave has noticed, but it's not as bad as it used to be. She doesn't balance out her fear with wine nearly as often as she did. Whatever the reason for that, he can't be unhappy about it.
Not far ahead on the street, Gustave makes out the familiar storefront of the boulangerie, Mathilde's proudly painted in golden script above the door. The place brings back its own memories, as nearly every street in Lumiere does for one reason or another. Begging his parents to take him there when he had been too young to understand restraint. Taking Sophie to pick up a sweet treat on some of their earliest dates.
Avoiding the place, the entire street, when he had no more reason to spoil her.
Tentatively returning to give Maelle something to smile about in those first months as her newest family. Then, as if life knows how to chuckle at him, being dragged by Henri to take him there because he had been too young to understand restraint.
The magic of baked goods, he supposed.
He nods toward the shop up ahead.]
How is it, living above the boulangerie? Everyone always sounds jealous when they talk about it, how it must smell like heaven every day.
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