[At least he still has awful jokes and a poor sense of timing. In hindsight, maybe it's not the best comment to make about someone whose hardness stems from another kind of grief, but there's no taking it back now, so he just slumps a bit against the couch. Maybe it reads as relaxation. Fuck if he knows.
The thought of Clea feeling free in the Canvas always strikes him a little oddly, a little off-centre. Of all the stories Esquie shared about the Canvas prior to Lumiere, he scarcely mentioned Clea and Francois. Which makes sense, of course, after what happened to Expedition Zero, but which also leaves Verso with no idea of the mark this world had left on her. Just the places she kept, the creations she brought to life, the violence she inflicted upon the Lumierans as if they were pantry moths, rapaciously descending upon her family's grief.
Talk of resettling the rest of the Canvas doesn't sit much better with him – all that work, all that chroma, all that hope for the Dessendres to devastate should they decide that enough's enough – so he responds to it with a handwave of a sentiment:]
We'll see what tomorrow brings.
[And he'll hope that it's a restoration of sanity, knowing that won't be the case.
That doesn't leave him with nothing more to say, though, and without much pause he circles back to skip what Maelle had said about the different lives Clea had lived here and in Paris. It reminds him of something he's always wondered but never really had the chance to ask. And while it would a bit generous to say that he still wonders about it now, all considered, it's something and that's still better than nothing. Probably.]
[ It's a terrible joke, but it's such a relief to hear him make any joke that she utters more of a laugh than a groan, reaching a foot over to kick him admonishingly. ]
No way you haven't made that joke sometime before. [ Or something very similar to it, maybe to Esquie or Monoco. It isn't something specific she recalls her brother saying, but the spirit of it is...universally Verso.
The conversation about Clea naturally tapers off, but they're both apparently reminiscing on the woman's past. Verso wonders the extent of her impact on this world -- her feelings on it, her place in it -- and Maelle is thinking about some of the times she'd joined her sister in Verso's Canvas, going on their little adventures as a duo or trio before her siblings had grown up enough to stop visiting as much. She's still treading those memories when he replies, non-committal, about the proposed exploration. That's fine: she hadn't been asking for permission, after all. But it'd be nice to have a project for him to focus on, if she could just get him interested in anything, or...even just out of the apartment.
As he says, though: they'd see what tomorrow brings. ]
Hm? [ The question, which returns them to the earlier subject, elicits a questioning tone and a tilt of the head. ] What, when I was little? ...I loved it. [ Getting to trail after her big brother and sister in an incredible world of their own creation? It hadn't been the first Canvas she'd ever entered, but it'd become her favourite. Maybe because it'd been Clea and Verso's place, and not because of anything specific within. ] I wasn't here as much as them, of course, but every time I did...it felt like I was in on a secret. And they always had something to show me that I knew they were proud of.
[ Her siblings had done so much to make her laugh, to smile, to clap her little hands in glee. It'd been...the most magical hideaway, vastly superior to any mere tree house or blanket fort. A true oasis for children to create whatever they wanted, purely for their own joy, and for each other's. ]
I was still young when they stopped visiting quite so much. I really missed it, and...I know they came back more than once just because I begged them. [ Maelle smiles softly, settling happily into yet another memory. Another moment from her past that warms, rather than burns. ] Maybe that's part of why I loved reading so much. Think it really picked up after we weren't going into the Canvas. I probably just...wanted to keep exploring new worlds. Making new friends, finding new adventures.
[That little kick is familiar across all of Alicia's iterations. Before with Maelle, it was one of the myriad little ways that she reminded him of his Alicia, in better days, flooding him with a nostalgia that he hadn't wanted to pursue, at first, but that he couldn't hold himself back from once she'd started reaching out to him more. Ever the proud over brother. Ever the man who missed his little sister terribly.
So, it lands with a force that's well beyond its gentle tap, and he pulls his leg up underneath him on the couch afterwards, pretending as if he's simply getting comfortable, no more sure now than he was before that it resonates the way he'd like. So, a shrug and a response as well.]
Maybe not, but it's been a while. That has to count for something.
[Left unsaid: he'd made it in Francois' company and got blasted out of the cave with a burst of concentrated ice chroma. That, he'll be taking to the grave. In theory. If he's ever permitted one. Maybe he isn't immortal now, but his faith in that remaining true forever is practically nonexistent.
But he's getting ahead of himself and behind the moment, so he mostly perks himself back up, trying to imagine what it might have been like to see a much smaller Alicia running about across a much cosier Canvas. Aline had given him memories of himself and his Alicia as children, but those feel different. Borrowed from an ordinary world, all the magic of this one ended up downplayed to become something less special.
Thus:]
That makes sense. I still get caught up in the adventure sometimes, too, and I've been around for a, uh, bit.
[His faux-lighthearted tone falls a little flat at the end, but he gets it all out regardless. Progress. Or something.]
Where was your favourite place to go?
[Probably one of the more natural questions he's asked her in a decent chunk of time. Seeing the people enjoy the Canvas remains one of his few joys, even if he wishes Maelle enjoyed it a hell of a lot less. There's a difference, though, between her actual reasons for staying here and the places she'd chosen during better times. The latter doesn't bother him nearly as much as the former does.]
[ Mention of all his time spent in the Canvas only earns him a knowing hum as she plucks what she needs out of the sentiment and leaves what she can't stomach. ]
There's so much here. I'm sure I didn't get to see the half of it, either before or during the Expedition. [ She's aware there's at least one place, somewhere secret, that her brother had created without ever allowing his two sisters to enter. There may be more than one, for all she knows, though Maelle assumes Clea would have found anything like that, with her clever mind and knowledge of the Canvas. ...Whether or not Clea would have shared that information with her baby sister, though, is another story. ] He loved stories and games and things around the manor, but there's a big difference in all that and in creating your own world. It's the perfect place for a kid to just...
[ Get away. Exert the ultimate creativity. Live, free of parental burdens or expectations. Of course, more than that, Verso had also created his best friends here. They'd had varying degrees of 'friends' in Paris, but...it'd always been complicated. There were too many responsibilities that Clea managed for her to become a socialite. Verso hadn't exactly been discouraged from creating companions in his Canvas, considering it meant he'd be spending more time Painting, which pleased Aline. And Alicia-...well. She'd always been a quiet, more introverted child. It'd been more difficult for her to make friends, and so she'd naturally sought refuge in her stories. Or in her siblings' time and creations, when they permitted it. ]
My favourite? [ She doesn't have to think about it but does anyway, features further softening as she revisits the place in her mind. ] ...Flying Waters. It always felt like...one of the most magical things he created. Like I was in a dream. Somehow more than most of the others.
[ What Maelle doesn't say, because she assumes she doesn't need to: while Verso had put love and care into all corners of his Canvas, he had a special touch with Flying Waters. He'd loved swimming (albeit not as much as trains and music) and it'd shown in the way he'd crafted the oceanic corner of the world. There's just...a feeling to the entire area that she finds hard to pin down, even now, but which she'd felt as a child and as Maelle alike. ]
What about you? [ She asks, after the thoughtful lull fades. Another unspoken addition: can you separate your favourite from his? ]
[The Canvas is a decent place for a man to just get away, too, though of course he doesn't say that. Life on the Continent had never been easy by any stretch of the word, but slipping away into its furthest corners and its most unexplored areas was a simple thing. Just a different kind of expression of creativity, a little more functional but just as fruitful when it came to him finding what he needed when what he needed was nothing at all.
Her choice of favourites shouldn't surprise him – as spectacular as all Verso's creations are, few places in the Canvas inspire the same sense of wonder as Flying Waters – but he is silenced by it for a moment all the same. With no memories of the real Verso's time in this world, he can't say whether it was his favourite, too, and that lack bothers him in strange ways. Like he should know – like there's a part of him inside that insists upon remembering – but there's nothing there. Just... the soft fondness of an older brother realising what he'd meant to his little sister. Except that he's not her brother, and she's not his sister, and fuck, how he wishes things were actually as simple as that.
At least that lack of knowing makes certain the fact that his favourite is purely his own. Small blessings. He shifts where he sits and hums before answering.]
Frozen Hearts. [Perhaps obviously; it had been his home once, after all.] I used to go skiing there all the time before the Fracture. And it's the first place I could think to go after everything went wrong between myself and my father. Back then, most of the trains were still where they were supposed to be, so from the right vantage points, the whole place almost looked like a time capsule.
[From other vantage points: Nevrons and flames, clusters of bodies stripped of colour and turned to stone, buildings torn up, ski hills abandoned, death upon destruction upon death.
A pursing of his lips, then he continues.]
I liked how empty it was, too. The snow made everything... simple and quiet. There aren't a lot of places like that left in the world.
[ Maelle isn't sure, can never be sure, but thinks Frozen Hearts is probably his favourite. His, and not Verso's. She nods as he reminds her of all the time he'd spent there in the life that belonged solely to a man bound to the Canvas, and it all makes sense as something that wouldn't necessarily be shared between them. ]
It's beautiful. [ She agrees, even as her own memories of skiing and snow and bundling up with her family outside the Canvas step in through the door he'd opened. ] It's definitely got its own magic.
[ "There aren't a lot of places like that left in the world" elicits a breathy chuckle. Again, it's true of both worlds; she slips back into a moment in Paris, surrounded by lights and sounds and vibrancy. There are remote places left in the world, she knows, but they seem to vanish more and more as time marches on. ]
We had a really snowy winter...two years ago? Maybe three? [ It always made the manor look its most beautiful, when that pillowy white would fall and blanket their home in stillness, forcing them all closer together to huddle around the fire. Alicia would read, maybe Verso or even Clea would play, the dogs would go stir-crazy and run up and down the length of the hall...
Eventually, they'd all get the animals' restless energy and end up outside in spite of the weather. ]
We dug tunnels on the grounds and absolutely pummeled each other with snowballs. [ Clea had joined in, in this particular memory, and accused her siblings of teaming up unfairly against her. Alicia, who'd had trouble even seeing over some of the snow-piled hedges, had been almost a non-entity in the 'fight,' but she'd laughed so hard her cheeks hurt because of it before the cold got to them. ] Then we left puddles all over the house, and Maman was so annoyed... [ There's a pause, and then a correction: ] Well, she acted like it, but it was probably bluster. I think she was trying not to laugh because Clea had a big red splotch on her forehead from a direct hit.
[Again, the compulsion rises to tell Maelle to go back to those people in her memories, to her real family, to the people who can help her remember what it means to want to live. Hypocritical when he wants help discovering oblivion, but so it's always gone. He ignores the urge all the same because hurting her more now isn't going to make things better later.
Being hurt himself, though – well, it can't make things worse.
He starts simple.]
Sounds like a good time.
[Then, he dips into the past. His own past after his rebirth and before the Fracture, when he still lived the kind of life that gave him good stories.]
We'd all go skiing together, but... I think everyone else preferred Lumiere. Maman was able to, you know, just be an artist again, and that really inspired Papa and Clea to enjoy themselves more. We'd spend a lot of nights on the town. Dinner, entertainment. Lots of hobnobbing. Maman and Papa loved to go dancing. Some nights, they'd come home still moving to the music.
[He'd liked those ones the most, especially when their dancing brought them near to his piano and he could try to recreate whatever song they might've been dancing to by how they moved. They'd never told him if he was right or wrong – and more than half the time, he hadn't been trying to get it right, anyway, just to make them laugh – but that was part of the beauty. There was no avenue for failure.
He doesn't want to talk about the piano right now, though, not when the spectre of his promise still looms. So instead:]
I missed it when I moved out. Apparently, they got even worse about it when Clea started bringing Simon by. She wasn't sure how to feel, or I guess her problem was more with what it meant, but I liked to think that they just wanted them to join in.
[ Maybe she's a little disappointed that he doesn't engage with her story, as if it's something he should take ownership of as the only remaining Verso. ...That isn't fair, though, and so she merely nibbles a few times at the inside of her lip and instead lets his own lived experience wash over her, taking in the nuggets she can from the story to see how it all strings together. ]
"Everyone else?" [ Maelle questions, but the implication must be he'd preferred that time out in the mountains to days and nights spent in the city. In the painted version of Paris, where their mother had managed to find joy again in the midst of a life so meticulously-crafted that it could have only been created by a master. Art, dinner, dancing, music. Maelle can imagine those times because she'd experienced them herself, before the war. Maybe before she'd been old enough to realize that such enchanted evenings might one day go up in smoke. ]
That sounds nice. [ She says eventually, in an answer not far from his own.
When he mentions Simon, she feels, and appears, surprised. That softens into something more somber, though, as she remembers their 'meeting' with the far-gone man in the depths of the Abyss: another result of Clea's interference, another casualty of what she'd felt she needed to do.
Verso's memories of those happy people are a time capsule full of ghosts, just the way she thinks her own life outside the Canvas is. ]
I'm sure that's it. [ Maelle muses, picturing their mother and his father trying to coerce the younger couple into getting up and dancing, spinning around the gilded rooms of the manor, surrounded by laughter and the echo of music. ] I'm sure there was a lot of pressure, though.
[ Bringing a romantic interest home to their parents. It hadn't really happened back home...much, though in hindsight she'd caught sight of an early-morning kiss goodbye at the front door between her brother and someone who'd been there late. Doubtless, anyone who was involved with any of the Dessendre children would be heavily scrutinized.
It's something that occurs to her with idle curiosity, but which is otherwise irrelevant outside of picturing his Clea and Simon interacting with Aline and Renoir. ]
Didn't you have some of that when you were on your own? Friends, dinner, dancing?
[ He'd spoken to her a little about his days in the apartment when she was only Maelle. But, like so much else of Verso, he'd offered mostly superficial insights to make her laugh or distract her and hadn't ever gone into much detail. ]
[Who had fewer pressures than the real one, but who still had a great many more than Verso, in ways that were uncomfortably obvious at times. Aline was still Aline, after all, and Renoir had been built on a hardened framework, guilt and blame making his edges rough even before he understood its source. Verso was uncomfortably important, and those scales had to be balanced.
In the end, that's part of the reason he'd moved out, too. That feeling of suffocation when he felt like he couldn't ask for space. The unease he felt when his memories of Verso's childhood conflicted with the looks he saw in his mother's eyes, or the jokes that didn't land with his father, or the frustration in Clea, the distance in Alicia.]
She pretended she didn't want approval, but...
[It would have meant a lot to her, he thinks. But to their parents, the perfect daughter didn't need her parents as much as the sensitive son and their newborn daughter. She could be left to her own devices. Which wasn't wrong, they just hadn't accounted for the costs.
Maelle centres the conversation back on him and he frowns, contemplative, before letting out a huff of a laugh.]
Oh, I had it.
[It was damned near all he had. Drinking and late nights and laughter, song and movement, the kind of freedom that helped him to start figuring himself out and determining his place in the world. The kind of freedom Maelle is claiming for herself now, which... restores his frown a bit, and he purses his lips outward before continuing his thought.]
It's just... Like your snowball fight, right? You lose that spontaneity, and you don't realise how much it meant to you until it's gone.
[Sure, he could – and did – drop by the mansion, but he missed out on a lot more than he was drawn into. Nights at the theatre because Aline was in a just-so mood, early mornings on the water because Renoir wanted to paint the city from afar. Moments spent curled up by the fire in Clea's room when she lured them all in with her harp. Helping Alicia with her writing or being helped with her own, simply because one of them passed by the other in the library.]
Plus, I was, uh, too proud back then to reach out, so...
[Big Regret. Even knowing that his family was a grieving woman's fantasy.]
[ This is yet another consideration that hadn't occurred to the youngest Dessendre: the way in which Aline favoured her son amplifying a millionfold by virtue of the fact that she'd lost him. So while the Canvas family were clearly very happy (at least for a time) and there had been less pressure on Clea, Verso, and Alicia than on their out-of-Canvas counterparts, there was an additional layer to it all.
The daughters existed to Aline in both worlds. But Verso... She had a second chance with him. One that could only exist here, in the memoriam that was his Canvas. ]
Clea pretends she doesn't want a lot of things. [ Maelle muses. Where Clea had been direct about some of it (like the obvious: that her parents be removed from the Canvas to manage the war effort), much of what her sister had probably, truly wanted for herself and her family remained buried. Even before things became dire she'd largely pursued the hobbies and talents that her parents most encouraged, with her personalized touches (like the Nevrons) remaining within those bounds.
But these memories of Clea are just that, now: memories. For both of them. So she lets the little wave of sadness pass, reminding herself that Clea's now more free than ever to pursue what she actually wants, and focuses instead on what he says of what life on his own had amounted to, and the difficulties that came with that freedom.
Having recently started living on her own, herself, Maelle nods, expression a touch far-away. Yes...she misses the easy days of company and warmth and family. Not just her time in the manor before the Canvas, surrounded by happier Dessendres, but also in the flat she shared with Gustave.
Too proud to reach out, he says, voice laced with regret. Those words, strangely, give her hope. Because...that's what she's been trying to do, right? To not waste the opportunity she has -- they have -- and to keep working to reenter the world. With him, so he can emerge from the quagmire of old bitterness and find something new and good to move forward with. ]
Good thing it's never too late to start. [ She isn't needling on purpose: merely presenting the truth as she sees it in the confident way of youth. ] Not like it's a foregone conclusion.
[ For some things, yes. For those times they'll never get back. But neither of them are blocked from building lives like that again. ]
She learned the hard way that it's easier to pretend. Less disappointment.
[Which only perpetuated the cycle of parents who so proud of their daughter that they forgot to show it, of a daughter so in need of their pride that she stopped seeking it out. Maybe that's another of the Dessendres' tragedies: that they love each other so deeply that they don't actually know how to express it well and it comes out wrong and painful and destructive. Verso casts a more direct glance Maelle's way, that thought heavy on his mind, and holds back a sigh.
A prospect that's all the more difficult when Maelle redirects towards the future Verso still doesn't fucking want. Still, he holds off on making his displeasure something she can read, aware that now isn't the time, even if time feels like something much more dwindling these days. Same goes for his desire to turn that back on her, to tell her that she can still return to her family, that she doesn't have to miss all the milestones – theirs and her own – that they'll reach over the decades of life they have available. Learn from my mistakes he wants to say in the kind of voice that's like a shake to the shoulders or a dip into frigid water. Wake up, wake up, wake up.
Not to mention that their view of what he has is starkly different. There's no starting down the path of reaching out because there's no one left to reach back. Verso's family is gone. The 33s don't count. Not when he feels like he's lost Maelle to Alicia, and Sciel to Pierre, and Lune to those final moments at the heart of the Canvas. Things are different with Esquie and Monoco and even Francois. And yes, Maelle is trying – he can see that – but she can't see him, not in the way he needs her too, and that feels more lonely than isolation would. None of which he can say in quite such specific ways, but generally...]
Maybe not. [That much, he can admit.] But it's not that easy, either, so. Not everyone's going to see it that way.
[He avoids mentioning that he doesn't. He avoids suggesting that she doesn't, either, given how she feels about reaching out to her real family and letting them help her figure out how to heal.]
[ Pretending not to care didn't save Clea from the disappointments. Disappointment in her parents for their leaving her with all the out-of-Canvas responsibilities that still existed while they fought each other through their shared grief. Disappointment in Verso, possibly, for having died to save a disappointing sister who had chosen the same Canvas rather than the remains of her own family.
But...Clea is strong. She'll be okay. It's what Maelle has to not only tell herself, but also to believe, to keep from letting the guilt chew away at her. And so she believes it, along with everything else that makes up the foundation of the house she's built around them both. ]
Sure. [ She replies, almost a laugh. ] Obviously it's not...easy, and it'll depend on the person. I'm just saying there's no reason to be pessimistic about it.
[ Not from the gloomiest man on the planet, and not from anyone else, either.
She takes a sip of her water. ]
I appreciate what's here more than I ever did. [ What she means is "in Lumiére," but it could also apply to this time spent with her 'brother.' It isn't even that she'd say she squandered her days with Verso before his death or anything, but rather than natural, human response to a life lost too soon: there's never enough time. There's so much she hadn't gotten to do with him, so much he'd never see or experience.
His Canvas lives on. His soul Paints. And his mirror... ]
I realized I'd been stupid about Lumiére right after we left. [ On the Expedition, of course. ] I took all the good we had for granted. Not anymore, though.
[ Not now that she has another chance to live here. This isn't the first time she's talked to him about how silly it seems now to have decried Lumiére before the Expedition, only to realize what a mistake it'd been.
There is no irony to be lost on her that, someday, she might reflect similarly on how she feels now about her home outside the Canvas. Because, if she has her way, that time will never come. ]
[There's a moment where he freezes. Imperceptibly, probably, given how he's been one degree of tense or the other this whole time, but something that happens all the same. No reason to be pessimistic, like he's being cranky for the sake of crankiness, sulking and moping because he didn't get his way. That's not a particularly charitable view of what she's saying, and he snaps himself out of it before it actually takes root, but... still. It is dismissive, and it's dismissive in a way that makes him feel small.
In a way that worries him about Maelle's approach to everything, too. That pushiness. That self-surety. She's a teenager, he reminds himself, but that doesn't do anything to salve the hurt. It just sets him back to an outward-facing neutral while she continues on about optimism and learning how easy it is to take things for granted.
His lips remain sealed on the matter of her own pessimism, on how she's only shifted the things she's taking for granted. Her family in Paris. The future security of the Canvas. Him, even if she's convinced herself otherwise.]
Let's talk about something else.
[A little direct, perhaps, but maybe that's what he needs. Even if that directness is still more evasive than not.]
Tell me about your favourite birthday.
[Turns out that the reminders that he's a painting of another man hurt less than the expectations that knowledge creates, so it's the only course he feels he can take without opening up on matters that are futile to discuss or else getting up and asking her to leave.]
[ It's...a little abrupt. Maelle looks visibly bemused by the sudden change, particularly since what she'd been saying had been, in her mind, encouraging and positive...but doesn't comment. Verso's still working through...everything, and she doesn't pretend to understand all that goes through his mind.
So she obliges, after a pause: ] I was...six? There was some confusion about shifts with the staff, I think, and Maman and Papa realized there wasn't anyone to make dinner. So Verso suggested we just 'take a crack at it,' and it was... [ There's a pause, then a light laugh at the memory. To call it a disaster would be overly dramatic, but it hadn't been great. ] ...I asked for crepes, but nobody could manage to get them right. They were either so thin that they tore right away, or thick enough to be cake.
[ Clea had been bossing everyone else around, which Renoir obliged and Verso (lovingly) undermined for the sake of making his baby sister laugh. Aline had been genuinely trying to make an effort throughout it all and perhaps would have fared better had her eldest not been loudly correcting her at every step. ]
I'm sure it tasted fine. Not like anyone got sick or anything. [ As far as she remembers, though the birthday is a hazy memory where the major takeaways were the fun chaos of the five of them -- and the dogs -- in the kitchen. ] And everyone did eat the-...whatever it was we ended up with. The actual cake had been made the day before, so there was a really good dessert to follow an attempt at dinner.
[ If you can call sad, misshapen 'crepes' dinner.
Maelle looks to Verso again, head tilted curiously. ]
Did you...celebrate birthdays, before?
[ Before the Fracture, when they'd believed they had, in fact, been born. ]
[Yes, there they are. Vague memories of a kitchen that had never been dirtier, a meal eaten by the Dessendres that had never been more questionable. That duality of Verso shining through – wanting to fix things but ignoring that same impulse the moment an opportunity to make someone happy arose. He tries to dig into those memories, trace the foundations of that impulse into something he can still find inside of himself, but all he ends up with is an uprooting of the sense of futility that's been choking most of what he'd stubbornly tried to keep alive over the decades.
So, he focuses on the thought of the birthday girl having fun with her unorthodox celebration, on that spontaneity he's already mentioned missing, on how he should feel if he wasn't grappling with Verso's memories and his own emptiness. Admitting he knows what she's talking about won't go well for him, he assumes, even if she could probably piece that together herself, but he had asked and he doesn't want to say nothing, so:]
Those were my favourite kinds of moment, too. When nothing was going right, but seeing everyone come together like that...
[He doesn't finish the thought. It hurts, too, remembering how things used to be before the Dessendres started taking up arms against each other. Instead, he chews on Maelle's question, once again trying to figure out how to balance the complexities of something that is supposed to be simple.]
Yeah. We did. [Said softly, almost mournfully.] The first year after the... the fire, I had to beg her not to set off fireworks. But she'd had her heart set on it, so we reached a compromise. Took a train out of Lumiere and found somewhere we could watch them.
[It was the first time he'd seen her cry. Just a glimpse, a trail of tears that caught the light above them at just the right angle to give her away, at just the moment Verso was looking to see whether she was enjoying the show.]
We had Alicia's party on a private airship. Clea was gifted a gallery, and we barely saw her until the next year because she was so busy setting everything up for the grand opening. [A pause. Then:] I wish it was still here. She had such an incredible eye for art.
[ "When nothing was going right." It's funny: in a literal sense, that'd probably happened a lot. People make mistakes, get angry or frustrated or annoyed with each other. These things happen as a matter of course, and especially to a family of their station, with their abilities. And yet...trying to remember moments that fit that description is difficult, because they're accompanied with flashes of hugs, of begrudging laughter, of picking up the pieces. The bad goes hand in hand with the good, and maybe it's the rose-coloured glasses of nostalgia, but her takeaway is really just the good.
Until the fire, of course. That's..."when nothing was going right." Every day, all day. Pain of the body and the mind, isolation, screaming guilt and despair within herself. Their parents gone, her sister a phantom in her own right as she attended to their responsibilities. The dogs were really the only relics from a time before, and the change in everything clearly confused and upset them.
Does he remember the dogs? Would they remember him?
More of what Verso says resonates, but in a way that makes the hair of her arms stand on end. "I had to beg her not to set off fireworks." It's strange to imagine Aline would even have the inclination, but...the fantasy she'd crafted for herself had clearly been an overwhelmingly effective illusion for her.
He goes on to talk about the private airship (a fact that earns a short, automatic huff through the nose as she holds it up against her own vertigo), and Clea's gallery. They're both lovely things to imagine, lovely things that no longer exist...along with their recipients. ]
I wish I could've seen it. [ Maelle finally comments, and it's a genuine one. The atelier they'd found in the Flying Manor had been the other Clea's doing, more or less. Nevrons painted endlessly to keep chroma from returning to their mother. Nothing that she'd witnessed Verso's Clea produce had probably been her own. ] What were some of your favourites, of what she made?
[ Had it been a lot of sculpture, like her counterpart? Or had Aline given her a different predilection? ]
[His favourites. It's hard to say since part of the reason why he wishes Clea's art was still around is because he's forgotten the specifics of most of her pieces. What he has are vague impressions of colour and texture on canvas. The almost impossibly smooth feeling of a finished sculpture beneath his fingers (and the scolding he'd get for touching them with his bare hands, afterward). General ideas of how it felt to look upon her work and the kinds of messages they conveyed.
So, he begins there.]
A lot of it was like Goblu. Beauty in unexpected places or overgrowing ugliness. Her art said, open your eyes, and it made you want to listen. And feel like an idiot if you couldn't figure out what it was saying.
[It was always saying something, he knows. And it was always his fault when he didn't see it. Renoir might have argued that it was because he was looking at it through masks, but Verso isn't so certain. Everyone has their own internal language and, frustratingly, it doesn't always translate.
Maybe, he thinks, Aline had found the real Clea's focus on the monstrous a bit too macabre, the wrong kind of beauty to represent the Dessendre family and carry forth their legacy. He knows from his time spent in the Curator's manor that her art had been more character-driven than contextual, which probably rankled Renoir a bit, too, given his own artistic inclinations. So, a merging when she was painted here. A way, perhaps, for her and for Renoir to experience a more personal pride in their daughter rather than the more general one that stemmed from her prowess at damned near everything she tried.
Speaking of generalities, Verso still hasn't given any specifics. So he digs deeper and manages to lift from the dust of too-aged memories one sculpture-painting set in particular. And actually smiles, barely there though it may be.]
It's been so long that it's hard for me to remember them, but... there is one. This... painting of a field of, I think it was black flowers with white blades of grass. She'd made this massive frame and sculpted a creature coming out of it, and it had its hands extended like this – [He bowls his hands and holds them out.]. Clea would fill them with all sorts of petals and greenery before opening, and visitors would pin them to the painting until it had its colour back.
[This was before Alicia had lost her own. Before any of their hair had started turning white. Before colour become something they knew better than to take for granted.]
[ Goblu. She remembers when the 33s had come upon that field of flowers, how it'd struck her. How she'd reached out to the Nevron, increasingly nostalgic in an unexplainable way, and she'd been quickly chastised for the recklessness. ]
She always had something to say. I didn't always 'hear' it, though. [ Maybe Verso had been better at sussing out those deeper meanings, given how close her brother and sister had been. So much better at reading what really lay behind each other's masks. ] Think she wanted people to be able to figure it out, but most didn't, I'm sure.
[ As a result, a lot of people were probably made to feel like idiots by a girl, then woman, who only wanted to be understood.
He describes one of his favourites, though, and Maelle brightens at its description. It isn't something she's ever seen or will ever see, but she can picture it easily after Verso's depiction. Monochrome to start, an invitation to create art and life with the artist, and then a final, stunning result that the creator and her patrons could all enjoy. ]
That sounds beautiful. [ She enthuses, further lightened by the ghost of a smile he lets slip with the recollection. ] It's...hopeful, almost. Collaborative. Like an invitation to build something with her.
[ Had it stemmed from previous insecurities, though? Had her difficulty getting people to relate to her art led to her creating something that the uncharitable might call more pedestrian? Maelle doesn't know how different Verso's Clea was from her own, so she doesn't know if Aline painted into her daughter much of the struggles the out-of-Canvas counterpart had dealt with.
(Or, had it just been Alicia who'd been afflicted with any evidence of her double's wrongdoing?) ]
[That Clea just wanted to be seen. They all did. Ever since they were little. Or, at least the Aline and Renoir in Verso's false memories had always struggled to see their children for who they are. But they had loved them – maybe not enough in some ways, maybe too fucking much in others, but... well, he doesn't know how to finish that thought. It's complicated.
The rest of what Maelle says sounds right, too, and that brings about even more ease, albeit just a little,]
Clea was usually trying to get more people involved in the arts. See, that was the downside to the world being so small: she ran out of beauty to witness, and it made her sad and a little restless. Probably didn't help that Maman and Papa were getting less productive. She had a lot less opportunity to visit with them in their ateliers and watch the process.
[He remembers-but-doesn't her curling up by one parent or another's side while they painted, waiting for a lesson to fall upon eager ears or, if she was particularly lucky, to be gestured towards an paintbrush and a palette and asked to contribute. Verso had enjoyed watching the whole scene more so than being a participant in it himself, so he'd sit farther back, playing with Esquie and his Gestral dolls to keep himself from growing bored.]
I used to figure she'd fall in love with artist. [He continues, not really sure where he's going with this, but finding himself wanting to reminisce enough to keep going regardless.] You know, engross herself in the lifestyle, start her own dynasty. Then I saw how Simon brought out a side of her I'd never seen. He was, uh, one of the carpenters who helped her with her gallery. I got him that job. And encouraged him to pursue her when he was sure she was way out of his league.
[Maybe to an outsider she was: the Dessendre name still held some weight, after all, even if it didn't bear down on Lumiere to quite the same extent as it did on Paris. To Verso, though, she was just his big sister. And Simon was a good man, and he had wanted her to be happy, and he believed that things really could be that simple. They nearly were. A soft sigh at the thought. Then:]
It didn't change her art, but... they were sweet together. He had her figured out.
[ There's a little huff of a chuckle as Verso talks about the smallness of the world within the Canvas, her head tilting just so as she adopts a curious smile. ]
...Funny. Papa said that Clea -- my Clea -- was most upset by the idea she couldn't see all of the art the world had to offer, once. That the world was too big. [ Maybe the moral is that their older sister, in any form, in any situation, would never be satisfied. In that way, at least. ] But...it sounds like her solution here was to make more art, to fill that void. Though it isn't the same.
[ Creating, versus witnessing. They scratch different itches. She can understand, lesser artist though she is, what the other Clea might have felt.
"Maman and Papa were getting less productive," though. It stills her, briefly, but she doesn't comment. Instead she, too, remembers back to moments where she would wander in and find Clea collaborating with one of their parents on a piece, sweeping brushes or inks across enormous canvases, creating something all the more beautiful for their having done it together. Sometimes the young Alicia would be alone, toddle over and plop down on the floor to stare wide-eyed at the process as it unfolded, and other times she'd find her brother already there and would immediately be distracted by whatever game he'd occupied himself with, which she'd be suddenly desperate to join. ]
Well, they do say opposites attract. [ Maelle never knew Simon, but from a combination of his appearance and Verso's information, she can imagine it easily enough. ] Plus, she's such a know-it-all... I'm sure she got a lot of joy from talking his ear off about all things art.
[ And, perhaps, he'd listened with rapt attention, falling more and more in love with her and her unbridled passion for such things.
To be loved is to be known, and all that. ]
I'm glad they had each other. [ Maelle says, earnestly. ] But...I'd be surprised if it didn't change her art a little. Something like that...how could it not?
[ She's never been in love like that, but she has her own kinds of love for the people in her life that she holds dear. Feelings that strong would be hard to keep out of other aspects of your life, especially those that are as personal as art.
Though, if anyone could manage that, it would be Clea... ]
That's just Clea's luck, isn't it? She's never found her middle ground.
[It's always either one extreme or the other, almost as if she doesn't know how to view the world in less dramatic ways. Or maybe that's a Verso problem with his dualities and false dichotomies and other black-and-white miscellanea. He frowns, wondering, then frowns deeper as he realises he doesn't like the feel of his words when applied to his own sister.
Maelle calling Clea a know-it-all probably would have earned her a laugh, otherwise; instead, a shrug and a tossing up of his hands.]
He really enjoyed it. Said it reminded him of the reasons why he decided to become a carpenter. I mean, most of the work he did was to someone else's specifications, but that was to pay the bills. What he really wanted was to be an ebeniste.
[But everything had been freshly made in Lumiere, so there weren't a lot of people clamouring for his work. A shame, truly – another small thing that the Lumierans had stolen away from them – so he keeps these thoughts to himself.]
Maybe it would've, one day. [He offers on the topic of Clea's art.] But she'd put a lot of work into refining her style and establishing her voice, and you know how stubborn she can be. I think Simon's encouragement helped keep her on the same path, too. If they'd had more time...
[She probably would have diverged. Figured out all the things she wanted to say about love and woven that into her paintings and her sculptures, her fusions and her installations, explored the language of her own devotion and, perhaps, how it contrasted that of their parents.
Verso shrugs again and leans back against the couch to better angle himself to look up at the ceiling. He has no stories about Clea's art to explore how it might have evolved. Maelle has no stories about Clea's love to envision where it might have gone. So:]
[ One Clea is beyond the chance to explore a wider world. One still has the opportunity to see all there is to see, to chase a dream that, while objectively impossible, is at least more within reach now than it ever was before. Let their parents return to the world of Painters, sit the council, fight the war. Let their oldest finally, finally get to live the kind of life she's never fully had access to, with the Dessendre name and shackles keeping her to the manor like a hound bred only to perform for its owner.
Maybe she should've convinced Clea to join her in the Canvas, back then. Leave their bodies where nobody would find them, live the rest of their lives in a world where none of those expectations or presuppositions could reach. ...But even as she imagines it, Maelle knows nothing could have convinced her sister to agree. That she hasn't yet returned to burn it all to the ground is probably a miracle.
Maelle swallows, pushing the thought aside as they continue the discussion of Simon, of his relationship with Verso's Clea. ]
Really? [ She knows next to nothing of carpentry, but of course she can summon to mind the sorts of beautiful pieces that adorn the manor, or which she's seen in magazines. ] He must have been incredibly talented. [ There's a pause followed by a soft upward twitch of her lips. ] Seems like...he was an artist in his own right.
[ "If they'd had more time." A problem as old as-...well, time. Nobody knew the pressure of that more than the Lumiérans under the Paintress' gilded clock, but even before all that, life is fleeting. This Clea and her lover had no idea what horrors awaited them and conspired to drive them apart.
Nothing like that will happen again. It's her only consolation, when images of the painted-over Clea driving her own creations' attacks through her body and the soulless eyes of the creature in the abyss flash through her mind. There will be no more unrelenting swing of the pendulum as it approaches, not for anyone who doesn't want it.
Another silence falls between them. ]
...I've had some people asking where you've gone. [ She says eventually, setting down the now-empty glass of water on a nearby table. ] Where you moved, I mean. I...didn't tell them yet, I...figured I should see if you wanted that before I say anything.
[ This isn't, strictly speaking, the truth. In fact, it'd been Monoco who'd first asked, and when she'd told him right away, the gestral had gone quiet for a bit after before suggesting she make sure he wanted to be found before giving people the means to do so. And -- a little abashed -- she'd done that the next time someone (Sciel) had inquired. ]
[A soft laugh at Maelle's comments about Simon. She's right. He was an artist. But:]
He preferred to be seen as a craftsman.
[Which, in hindsight, is a complicated notion. Aline had effectively hand-painted all the Lumierans who existed at the time; how much of an influence she had on the shape of their thoughts and the trajectories of their futures still remains an uncomfortable mystery to Verso. One that's long haunted him, and one that's been coming up a lot more ever since Renoir had called him some of Aline's finest work and Maelle had called his father a rather unflattering portrait.
The topic shifts again, and Verso's stomach churns. A well-masked Verso would shuffle aside the misery and the ways his ideation has changed the texture of him in perceivable ways, and he'd answer with a jovial and perhaps slightly embarrassed, Oh, right, I've been meaning to reach out to the others. This one purses his lips and tries to figure out how to give shape to his No, I don't want that.
Unwittingly, he starts fidgeting with a hangnail on his thumb.]
Thanks for the heads up. [He tries to joke.] I'll keep away from the windows.
[That doesn't help anything, though. It doesn't even help to dispel the impression that he's been floored by the simple mention of people wondering about him, but then he feels like nothing would at this point. He's more obvious than he's ever been and too exhausted to try to revert to old ways.
So:]
Tell them... Tell them it doesn't matter. I know where to find them.
[ It isn't a surprise, but when Maelle nods mutely in acceptance, there's an unwitting, unhappy twist to her lips anyway. ]
'Kay. [ He "knows where to find them," but if he's left the flat at all, she'd be surprised.
It makes sense that she's been having trouble getting through to him so far, but she'd hoped somebody could. Alicia might've been the only one, though...thinking of how her painted double had written that letter, and even then she'd seemingly not been able to reach her brother, maybe not.
The usual, restless anxiousness prickles at her from within, urging her toward saying something else about it. Toward pushing back. But...it's been nice, mostly avoiding all of that and just dipping back into their respective memories, talking about something that, when she has him to bounce it off, makes her feel warm and happy. Those same memories that had threatened to suffocate her this morning, when she realized what day it was, have become palatable again.
So Maelle returns to those sorts of things, unwilling to yet consider she might be treading on overstaying her welcome. Besides, there's one thing she's been wanting to ask: ]
Do you know-... Have you been to been to the...secret, no-sisters-allowed part of the Canvas? [ He must know, all things considered, so she pivot the question. What she's less sure about, though, is if this Verso has actually been there, or what he thinks of it. Considering she and Clea had been barred from entry, it's one of the few places here that Maelle has no memories of, though the idea of it seems to buoy her spirits a bit all the same. ]
[The line between making Maelle happy and feeding into all the things keeping her on this path of self-destruction (or so Verso still perceives) feels like an impossibly thin one to walk. That twist of her lips reflects in his stomach, and he doesn't know whether to wish that he was a better person or a better fighter. Or maybe he just doesn't want to admit to himself that it's the latter.
Regardless, he sits in the silence created afterwards, short though it might be, and tries to figure out a way to circle things back to better topics, or at least find some other avenue down which he can do a better job of pretending that he can see a tomorrow where he reintegrates into Lumiere and begins to eke out the normal existence Maelle still insists that he'll want to embrace one of these days. But, no. His eyes shift towards the cluttered piano. His thoughts go back to the promise he'd pinky sworn. And his heart retreats to the place in the pit of his stomach that it often occupies these days.
Fortunately, he doesn't have to do a damned thing because Maelle takes the initiative he doesn't have; less fortunately, he's not entirely sure what to do with the topic of Verso's Drafts. But she asked him a simple question that he can answer simply enough, so he stops letting his thoughts get ahead of him and leans a bit forward, pointing his finger in a display of faux presence.]
I have been to the secret, no-sisters-allowed part of the Canvas. Esquie's taken me there a couple times. And it's, uh, not that bad of a swim.
[For an immortal swim team captain, anyway. What he doesn't say is that he swam there only once, and that it was from Lumiere, and that it was on the day when he first returned to check in on a newborn baby Maelle, and that seeing her had called so much into question that he needed to retreat there in search of whatever perspective a long-gone child could provide. Things are messy enough as they stand.]
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tableauvivant) wrote2025-09-17 01:14 pm
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[At least he still has awful jokes and a poor sense of timing. In hindsight, maybe it's not the best comment to make about someone whose hardness stems from another kind of grief, but there's no taking it back now, so he just slumps a bit against the couch. Maybe it reads as relaxation. Fuck if he knows.
The thought of Clea feeling free in the Canvas always strikes him a little oddly, a little off-centre. Of all the stories Esquie shared about the Canvas prior to Lumiere, he scarcely mentioned Clea and Francois. Which makes sense, of course, after what happened to Expedition Zero, but which also leaves Verso with no idea of the mark this world had left on her. Just the places she kept, the creations she brought to life, the violence she inflicted upon the Lumierans as if they were pantry moths, rapaciously descending upon her family's grief.
Talk of resettling the rest of the Canvas doesn't sit much better with him – all that work, all that chroma, all that hope for the Dessendres to devastate should they decide that enough's enough – so he responds to it with a handwave of a sentiment:]
We'll see what tomorrow brings.
[And he'll hope that it's a restoration of sanity, knowing that won't be the case.
That doesn't leave him with nothing more to say, though, and without much pause he circles back to skip what Maelle had said about the different lives Clea had lived here and in Paris. It reminds him of something he's always wondered but never really had the chance to ask. And while it would a bit generous to say that he still wonders about it now, all considered, it's something and that's still better than nothing. Probably.]
What about you? How'd you feel, being here?
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No way you haven't made that joke sometime before. [ Or something very similar to it, maybe to Esquie or Monoco. It isn't something specific she recalls her brother saying, but the spirit of it is...universally Verso.
The conversation about Clea naturally tapers off, but they're both apparently reminiscing on the woman's past. Verso wonders the extent of her impact on this world -- her feelings on it, her place in it -- and Maelle is thinking about some of the times she'd joined her sister in Verso's Canvas, going on their little adventures as a duo or trio before her siblings had grown up enough to stop visiting as much. She's still treading those memories when he replies, non-committal, about the proposed exploration. That's fine: she hadn't been asking for permission, after all. But it'd be nice to have a project for him to focus on, if she could just get him interested in anything, or...even just out of the apartment.
As he says, though: they'd see what tomorrow brings. ]
Hm? [ The question, which returns them to the earlier subject, elicits a questioning tone and a tilt of the head. ] What, when I was little? ...I loved it. [ Getting to trail after her big brother and sister in an incredible world of their own creation? It hadn't been the first Canvas she'd ever entered, but it'd become her favourite. Maybe because it'd been Clea and Verso's place, and not because of anything specific within. ] I wasn't here as much as them, of course, but every time I did...it felt like I was in on a secret. And they always had something to show me that I knew they were proud of.
[ Her siblings had done so much to make her laugh, to smile, to clap her little hands in glee. It'd been...the most magical hideaway, vastly superior to any mere tree house or blanket fort. A true oasis for children to create whatever they wanted, purely for their own joy, and for each other's. ]
I was still young when they stopped visiting quite so much. I really missed it, and...I know they came back more than once just because I begged them. [ Maelle smiles softly, settling happily into yet another memory. Another moment from her past that warms, rather than burns. ] Maybe that's part of why I loved reading so much. Think it really picked up after we weren't going into the Canvas. I probably just...wanted to keep exploring new worlds. Making new friends, finding new adventures.
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So, it lands with a force that's well beyond its gentle tap, and he pulls his leg up underneath him on the couch afterwards, pretending as if he's simply getting comfortable, no more sure now than he was before that it resonates the way he'd like. So, a shrug and a response as well.]
Maybe not, but it's been a while. That has to count for something.
[Left unsaid: he'd made it in Francois' company and got blasted out of the cave with a burst of concentrated ice chroma. That, he'll be taking to the grave. In theory. If he's ever permitted one. Maybe he isn't immortal now, but his faith in that remaining true forever is practically nonexistent.
But he's getting ahead of himself and behind the moment, so he mostly perks himself back up, trying to imagine what it might have been like to see a much smaller Alicia running about across a much cosier Canvas. Aline had given him memories of himself and his Alicia as children, but those feel different. Borrowed from an ordinary world, all the magic of this one ended up downplayed to become something less special.
Thus:]
That makes sense. I still get caught up in the adventure sometimes, too, and I've been around for a, uh, bit.
[His faux-lighthearted tone falls a little flat at the end, but he gets it all out regardless. Progress. Or something.]
Where was your favourite place to go?
[Probably one of the more natural questions he's asked her in a decent chunk of time. Seeing the people enjoy the Canvas remains one of his few joys, even if he wishes Maelle enjoyed it a hell of a lot less. There's a difference, though, between her actual reasons for staying here and the places she'd chosen during better times. The latter doesn't bother him nearly as much as the former does.]
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There's so much here. I'm sure I didn't get to see the half of it, either before or during the Expedition. [ She's aware there's at least one place, somewhere secret, that her brother had created without ever allowing his two sisters to enter. There may be more than one, for all she knows, though Maelle assumes Clea would have found anything like that, with her clever mind and knowledge of the Canvas. ...Whether or not Clea would have shared that information with her baby sister, though, is another story. ] He loved stories and games and things around the manor, but there's a big difference in all that and in creating your own world. It's the perfect place for a kid to just...
[ Get away. Exert the ultimate creativity. Live, free of parental burdens or expectations. Of course, more than that, Verso had also created his best friends here. They'd had varying degrees of 'friends' in Paris, but...it'd always been complicated. There were too many responsibilities that Clea managed for her to become a socialite. Verso hadn't exactly been discouraged from creating companions in his Canvas, considering it meant he'd be spending more time Painting, which pleased Aline. And Alicia-...well. She'd always been a quiet, more introverted child. It'd been more difficult for her to make friends, and so she'd naturally sought refuge in her stories. Or in her siblings' time and creations, when they permitted it. ]
My favourite? [ She doesn't have to think about it but does anyway, features further softening as she revisits the place in her mind. ] ...Flying Waters. It always felt like...one of the most magical things he created. Like I was in a dream. Somehow more than most of the others.
[ What Maelle doesn't say, because she assumes she doesn't need to: while Verso had put love and care into all corners of his Canvas, he had a special touch with Flying Waters. He'd loved swimming (albeit not as much as trains and music) and it'd shown in the way he'd crafted the oceanic corner of the world. There's just...a feeling to the entire area that she finds hard to pin down, even now, but which she'd felt as a child and as Maelle alike. ]
What about you? [ She asks, after the thoughtful lull fades. Another unspoken addition: can you separate your favourite from his? ]
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Her choice of favourites shouldn't surprise him – as spectacular as all Verso's creations are, few places in the Canvas inspire the same sense of wonder as Flying Waters – but he is silenced by it for a moment all the same. With no memories of the real Verso's time in this world, he can't say whether it was his favourite, too, and that lack bothers him in strange ways. Like he should know – like there's a part of him inside that insists upon remembering – but there's nothing there. Just... the soft fondness of an older brother realising what he'd meant to his little sister. Except that he's not her brother, and she's not his sister, and fuck, how he wishes things were actually as simple as that.
At least that lack of knowing makes certain the fact that his favourite is purely his own. Small blessings. He shifts where he sits and hums before answering.]
Frozen Hearts. [Perhaps obviously; it had been his home once, after all.] I used to go skiing there all the time before the Fracture. And it's the first place I could think to go after everything went wrong between myself and my father. Back then, most of the trains were still where they were supposed to be, so from the right vantage points, the whole place almost looked like a time capsule.
[From other vantage points: Nevrons and flames, clusters of bodies stripped of colour and turned to stone, buildings torn up, ski hills abandoned, death upon destruction upon death.
A pursing of his lips, then he continues.]
I liked how empty it was, too. The snow made everything... simple and quiet. There aren't a lot of places like that left in the world.
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It's beautiful. [ She agrees, even as her own memories of skiing and snow and bundling up with her family outside the Canvas step in through the door he'd opened. ] It's definitely got its own magic.
[ "There aren't a lot of places like that left in the world" elicits a breathy chuckle. Again, it's true of both worlds; she slips back into a moment in Paris, surrounded by lights and sounds and vibrancy. There are remote places left in the world, she knows, but they seem to vanish more and more as time marches on. ]
We had a really snowy winter...two years ago? Maybe three? [ It always made the manor look its most beautiful, when that pillowy white would fall and blanket their home in stillness, forcing them all closer together to huddle around the fire. Alicia would read, maybe Verso or even Clea would play, the dogs would go stir-crazy and run up and down the length of the hall...
Eventually, they'd all get the animals' restless energy and end up outside in spite of the weather. ]
We dug tunnels on the grounds and absolutely pummeled each other with snowballs. [ Clea had joined in, in this particular memory, and accused her siblings of teaming up unfairly against her. Alicia, who'd had trouble even seeing over some of the snow-piled hedges, had been almost a non-entity in the 'fight,' but she'd laughed so hard her cheeks hurt because of it before the cold got to them. ] Then we left puddles all over the house, and Maman was so annoyed... [ There's a pause, and then a correction: ] Well, she acted like it, but it was probably bluster. I think she was trying not to laugh because Clea had a big red splotch on her forehead from a direct hit.
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Being hurt himself, though – well, it can't make things worse.
He starts simple.]
Sounds like a good time.
[Then, he dips into the past. His own past after his rebirth and before the Fracture, when he still lived the kind of life that gave him good stories.]
We'd all go skiing together, but... I think everyone else preferred Lumiere. Maman was able to, you know, just be an artist again, and that really inspired Papa and Clea to enjoy themselves more. We'd spend a lot of nights on the town. Dinner, entertainment. Lots of hobnobbing. Maman and Papa loved to go dancing. Some nights, they'd come home still moving to the music.
[He'd liked those ones the most, especially when their dancing brought them near to his piano and he could try to recreate whatever song they might've been dancing to by how they moved. They'd never told him if he was right or wrong – and more than half the time, he hadn't been trying to get it right, anyway, just to make them laugh – but that was part of the beauty. There was no avenue for failure.
He doesn't want to talk about the piano right now, though, not when the spectre of his promise still looms. So instead:]
I missed it when I moved out. Apparently, they got even worse about it when Clea started bringing Simon by. She wasn't sure how to feel, or I guess her problem was more with what it meant, but I liked to think that they just wanted them to join in.
[Julie and I did, he doesn't say, either.]
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"Everyone else?" [ Maelle questions, but the implication must be he'd preferred that time out in the mountains to days and nights spent in the city. In the painted version of Paris, where their mother had managed to find joy again in the midst of a life so meticulously-crafted that it could have only been created by a master. Art, dinner, dancing, music. Maelle can imagine those times because she'd experienced them herself, before the war. Maybe before she'd been old enough to realize that such enchanted evenings might one day go up in smoke. ]
That sounds nice. [ She says eventually, in an answer not far from his own.
When he mentions Simon, she feels, and appears, surprised. That softens into something more somber, though, as she remembers their 'meeting' with the far-gone man in the depths of the Abyss: another result of Clea's interference, another casualty of what she'd felt she needed to do.
Verso's memories of those happy people are a time capsule full of ghosts, just the way she thinks her own life outside the Canvas is. ]
I'm sure that's it. [ Maelle muses, picturing their mother and his father trying to coerce the younger couple into getting up and dancing, spinning around the gilded rooms of the manor, surrounded by laughter and the echo of music. ] I'm sure there was a lot of pressure, though.
[ Bringing a romantic interest home to their parents. It hadn't really happened back home...much, though in hindsight she'd caught sight of an early-morning kiss goodbye at the front door between her brother and someone who'd been there late. Doubtless, anyone who was involved with any of the Dessendre children would be heavily scrutinized.
It's something that occurs to her with idle curiosity, but which is otherwise irrelevant outside of picturing his Clea and Simon interacting with Aline and Renoir. ]
Didn't you have some of that when you were on your own? Friends, dinner, dancing?
[ He'd spoken to her a little about his days in the apartment when she was only Maelle. But, like so much else of Verso, he'd offered mostly superficial insights to make her laugh or distract her and hadn't ever gone into much detail. ]
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[Who had fewer pressures than the real one, but who still had a great many more than Verso, in ways that were uncomfortably obvious at times. Aline was still Aline, after all, and Renoir had been built on a hardened framework, guilt and blame making his edges rough even before he understood its source. Verso was uncomfortably important, and those scales had to be balanced.
In the end, that's part of the reason he'd moved out, too. That feeling of suffocation when he felt like he couldn't ask for space. The unease he felt when his memories of Verso's childhood conflicted with the looks he saw in his mother's eyes, or the jokes that didn't land with his father, or the frustration in Clea, the distance in Alicia.]
She pretended she didn't want approval, but...
[It would have meant a lot to her, he thinks. But to their parents, the perfect daughter didn't need her parents as much as the sensitive son and their newborn daughter. She could be left to her own devices. Which wasn't wrong, they just hadn't accounted for the costs.
Maelle centres the conversation back on him and he frowns, contemplative, before letting out a huff of a laugh.]
Oh, I had it.
[It was damned near all he had. Drinking and late nights and laughter, song and movement, the kind of freedom that helped him to start figuring himself out and determining his place in the world. The kind of freedom Maelle is claiming for herself now, which... restores his frown a bit, and he purses his lips outward before continuing his thought.]
It's just... Like your snowball fight, right? You lose that spontaneity, and you don't realise how much it meant to you until it's gone.
[Sure, he could – and did – drop by the mansion, but he missed out on a lot more than he was drawn into. Nights at the theatre because Aline was in a just-so mood, early mornings on the water because Renoir wanted to paint the city from afar. Moments spent curled up by the fire in Clea's room when she lured them all in with her harp. Helping Alicia with her writing or being helped with her own, simply because one of them passed by the other in the library.]
Plus, I was, uh, too proud back then to reach out, so...
[Big Regret. Even knowing that his family was a grieving woman's fantasy.]
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The daughters existed to Aline in both worlds. But Verso... She had a second chance with him. One that could only exist here, in the memoriam that was his Canvas. ]
Clea pretends she doesn't want a lot of things. [ Maelle muses. Where Clea had been direct about some of it (like the obvious: that her parents be removed from the Canvas to manage the war effort), much of what her sister had probably, truly wanted for herself and her family remained buried. Even before things became dire she'd largely pursued the hobbies and talents that her parents most encouraged, with her personalized touches (like the Nevrons) remaining within those bounds.
But these memories of Clea are just that, now: memories. For both of them. So she lets the little wave of sadness pass, reminding herself that Clea's now more free than ever to pursue what she actually wants, and focuses instead on what he says of what life on his own had amounted to, and the difficulties that came with that freedom.
Having recently started living on her own, herself, Maelle nods, expression a touch far-away. Yes...she misses the easy days of company and warmth and family. Not just her time in the manor before the Canvas, surrounded by happier Dessendres, but also in the flat she shared with Gustave.
Too proud to reach out, he says, voice laced with regret. Those words, strangely, give her hope. Because...that's what she's been trying to do, right? To not waste the opportunity she has -- they have -- and to keep working to reenter the world. With him, so he can emerge from the quagmire of old bitterness and find something new and good to move forward with. ]
Good thing it's never too late to start. [ She isn't needling on purpose: merely presenting the truth as she sees it in the confident way of youth. ] Not like it's a foregone conclusion.
[ For some things, yes. For those times they'll never get back. But neither of them are blocked from building lives like that again. ]
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[Which only perpetuated the cycle of parents who so proud of their daughter that they forgot to show it, of a daughter so in need of their pride that she stopped seeking it out. Maybe that's another of the Dessendres' tragedies: that they love each other so deeply that they don't actually know how to express it well and it comes out wrong and painful and destructive. Verso casts a more direct glance Maelle's way, that thought heavy on his mind, and holds back a sigh.
A prospect that's all the more difficult when Maelle redirects towards the future Verso still doesn't fucking want. Still, he holds off on making his displeasure something she can read, aware that now isn't the time, even if time feels like something much more dwindling these days. Same goes for his desire to turn that back on her, to tell her that she can still return to her family, that she doesn't have to miss all the milestones – theirs and her own – that they'll reach over the decades of life they have available. Learn from my mistakes he wants to say in the kind of voice that's like a shake to the shoulders or a dip into frigid water. Wake up, wake up, wake up.
Not to mention that their view of what he has is starkly different. There's no starting down the path of reaching out because there's no one left to reach back. Verso's family is gone. The 33s don't count. Not when he feels like he's lost Maelle to Alicia, and Sciel to Pierre, and Lune to those final moments at the heart of the Canvas. Things are different with Esquie and Monoco and even Francois. And yes, Maelle is trying – he can see that – but she can't see him, not in the way he needs her too, and that feels more lonely than isolation would. None of which he can say in quite such specific ways, but generally...]
Maybe not. [That much, he can admit.] But it's not that easy, either, so. Not everyone's going to see it that way.
[He avoids mentioning that he doesn't. He avoids suggesting that she doesn't, either, given how she feels about reaching out to her real family and letting them help her figure out how to heal.]
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But...Clea is strong. She'll be okay. It's what Maelle has to not only tell herself, but also to believe, to keep from letting the guilt chew away at her. And so she believes it, along with everything else that makes up the foundation of the house she's built around them both. ]
Sure. [ She replies, almost a laugh. ] Obviously it's not...easy, and it'll depend on the person. I'm just saying there's no reason to be pessimistic about it.
[ Not from the gloomiest man on the planet, and not from anyone else, either.
She takes a sip of her water. ]
I appreciate what's here more than I ever did. [ What she means is "in Lumiére," but it could also apply to this time spent with her 'brother.' It isn't even that she'd say she squandered her days with Verso before his death or anything, but rather than natural, human response to a life lost too soon: there's never enough time. There's so much she hadn't gotten to do with him, so much he'd never see or experience.
His Canvas lives on. His soul Paints. And his mirror... ]
I realized I'd been stupid about Lumiére right after we left. [ On the Expedition, of course. ] I took all the good we had for granted. Not anymore, though.
[ Not now that she has another chance to live here. This isn't the first time she's talked to him about how silly it seems now to have decried Lumiére before the Expedition, only to realize what a mistake it'd been.
There is no irony to be lost on her that, someday, she might reflect similarly on how she feels now about her home outside the Canvas. Because, if she has her way, that time will never come. ]
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In a way that worries him about Maelle's approach to everything, too. That pushiness. That self-surety. She's a teenager, he reminds himself, but that doesn't do anything to salve the hurt. It just sets him back to an outward-facing neutral while she continues on about optimism and learning how easy it is to take things for granted.
His lips remain sealed on the matter of her own pessimism, on how she's only shifted the things she's taking for granted. Her family in Paris. The future security of the Canvas. Him, even if she's convinced herself otherwise.]
Let's talk about something else.
[A little direct, perhaps, but maybe that's what he needs. Even if that directness is still more evasive than not.]
Tell me about your favourite birthday.
[Turns out that the reminders that he's a painting of another man hurt less than the expectations that knowledge creates, so it's the only course he feels he can take without opening up on matters that are futile to discuss or else getting up and asking her to leave.]
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So she obliges, after a pause: ] I was...six? There was some confusion about shifts with the staff, I think, and Maman and Papa realized there wasn't anyone to make dinner. So Verso suggested we just 'take a crack at it,' and it was... [ There's a pause, then a light laugh at the memory. To call it a disaster would be overly dramatic, but it hadn't been great. ] ...I asked for crepes, but nobody could manage to get them right. They were either so thin that they tore right away, or thick enough to be cake.
[ Clea had been bossing everyone else around, which Renoir obliged and Verso (lovingly) undermined for the sake of making his baby sister laugh. Aline had been genuinely trying to make an effort throughout it all and perhaps would have fared better had her eldest not been loudly correcting her at every step. ]
I'm sure it tasted fine. Not like anyone got sick or anything. [ As far as she remembers, though the birthday is a hazy memory where the major takeaways were the fun chaos of the five of them -- and the dogs -- in the kitchen. ] And everyone did eat the-...whatever it was we ended up with. The actual cake had been made the day before, so there was a really good dessert to follow an attempt at dinner.
[ If you can call sad, misshapen 'crepes' dinner.
Maelle looks to Verso again, head tilted curiously. ]
Did you...celebrate birthdays, before?
[ Before the Fracture, when they'd believed they had, in fact, been born. ]
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So, he focuses on the thought of the birthday girl having fun with her unorthodox celebration, on that spontaneity he's already mentioned missing, on how he should feel if he wasn't grappling with Verso's memories and his own emptiness. Admitting he knows what she's talking about won't go well for him, he assumes, even if she could probably piece that together herself, but he had asked and he doesn't want to say nothing, so:]
Those were my favourite kinds of moment, too. When nothing was going right, but seeing everyone come together like that...
[He doesn't finish the thought. It hurts, too, remembering how things used to be before the Dessendres started taking up arms against each other. Instead, he chews on Maelle's question, once again trying to figure out how to balance the complexities of something that is supposed to be simple.]
Yeah. We did. [Said softly, almost mournfully.] The first year after the... the fire, I had to beg her not to set off fireworks. But she'd had her heart set on it, so we reached a compromise. Took a train out of Lumiere and found somewhere we could watch them.
[It was the first time he'd seen her cry. Just a glimpse, a trail of tears that caught the light above them at just the right angle to give her away, at just the moment Verso was looking to see whether she was enjoying the show.]
We had Alicia's party on a private airship. Clea was gifted a gallery, and we barely saw her until the next year because she was so busy setting everything up for the grand opening. [A pause. Then:] I wish it was still here. She had such an incredible eye for art.
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Until the fire, of course. That's..."when nothing was going right." Every day, all day. Pain of the body and the mind, isolation, screaming guilt and despair within herself. Their parents gone, her sister a phantom in her own right as she attended to their responsibilities. The dogs were really the only relics from a time before, and the change in everything clearly confused and upset them.
Does he remember the dogs? Would they remember him?
More of what Verso says resonates, but in a way that makes the hair of her arms stand on end. "I had to beg her not to set off fireworks." It's strange to imagine Aline would even have the inclination, but...the fantasy she'd crafted for herself had clearly been an overwhelmingly effective illusion for her.
He goes on to talk about the private airship (a fact that earns a short, automatic huff through the nose as she holds it up against her own vertigo), and Clea's gallery. They're both lovely things to imagine, lovely things that no longer exist...along with their recipients. ]
I wish I could've seen it. [ Maelle finally comments, and it's a genuine one. The atelier they'd found in the Flying Manor had been the other Clea's doing, more or less. Nevrons painted endlessly to keep chroma from returning to their mother. Nothing that she'd witnessed Verso's Clea produce had probably been her own. ] What were some of your favourites, of what she made?
[ Had it been a lot of sculpture, like her counterpart? Or had Aline given her a different predilection? ]
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So, he begins there.]
A lot of it was like Goblu. Beauty in unexpected places or overgrowing ugliness. Her art said, open your eyes, and it made you want to listen. And feel like an idiot if you couldn't figure out what it was saying.
[It was always saying something, he knows. And it was always his fault when he didn't see it. Renoir might have argued that it was because he was looking at it through masks, but Verso isn't so certain. Everyone has their own internal language and, frustratingly, it doesn't always translate.
Maybe, he thinks, Aline had found the real Clea's focus on the monstrous a bit too macabre, the wrong kind of beauty to represent the Dessendre family and carry forth their legacy. He knows from his time spent in the Curator's manor that her art had been more character-driven than contextual, which probably rankled Renoir a bit, too, given his own artistic inclinations. So, a merging when she was painted here. A way, perhaps, for her and for Renoir to experience a more personal pride in their daughter rather than the more general one that stemmed from her prowess at damned near everything she tried.
Speaking of generalities, Verso still hasn't given any specifics. So he digs deeper and manages to lift from the dust of too-aged memories one sculpture-painting set in particular. And actually smiles, barely there though it may be.]
It's been so long that it's hard for me to remember them, but... there is one. This... painting of a field of, I think it was black flowers with white blades of grass. She'd made this massive frame and sculpted a creature coming out of it, and it had its hands extended like this – [He bowls his hands and holds them out.]. Clea would fill them with all sorts of petals and greenery before opening, and visitors would pin them to the painting until it had its colour back.
[This was before Alicia had lost her own. Before any of their hair had started turning white. Before colour become something they knew better than to take for granted.]
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She always had something to say. I didn't always 'hear' it, though. [ Maybe Verso had been better at sussing out those deeper meanings, given how close her brother and sister had been. So much better at reading what really lay behind each other's masks. ] Think she wanted people to be able to figure it out, but most didn't, I'm sure.
[ As a result, a lot of people were probably made to feel like idiots by a girl, then woman, who only wanted to be understood.
He describes one of his favourites, though, and Maelle brightens at its description. It isn't something she's ever seen or will ever see, but she can picture it easily after Verso's depiction. Monochrome to start, an invitation to create art and life with the artist, and then a final, stunning result that the creator and her patrons could all enjoy. ]
That sounds beautiful. [ She enthuses, further lightened by the ghost of a smile he lets slip with the recollection. ] It's...hopeful, almost. Collaborative. Like an invitation to build something with her.
[ Had it stemmed from previous insecurities, though? Had her difficulty getting people to relate to her art led to her creating something that the uncharitable might call more pedestrian? Maelle doesn't know how different Verso's Clea was from her own, so she doesn't know if Aline painted into her daughter much of the struggles the out-of-Canvas counterpart had dealt with.
(Or, had it just been Alicia who'd been afflicted with any evidence of her double's wrongdoing?) ]
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[That Clea just wanted to be seen. They all did. Ever since they were little. Or, at least the Aline and Renoir in Verso's false memories had always struggled to see their children for who they are. But they had loved them – maybe not enough in some ways, maybe too fucking much in others, but... well, he doesn't know how to finish that thought. It's complicated.
The rest of what Maelle says sounds right, too, and that brings about even more ease, albeit just a little,]
Clea was usually trying to get more people involved in the arts. See, that was the downside to the world being so small: she ran out of beauty to witness, and it made her sad and a little restless. Probably didn't help that Maman and Papa were getting less productive. She had a lot less opportunity to visit with them in their ateliers and watch the process.
[He remembers-but-doesn't her curling up by one parent or another's side while they painted, waiting for a lesson to fall upon eager ears or, if she was particularly lucky, to be gestured towards an paintbrush and a palette and asked to contribute. Verso had enjoyed watching the whole scene more so than being a participant in it himself, so he'd sit farther back, playing with Esquie and his Gestral dolls to keep himself from growing bored.]
I used to figure she'd fall in love with artist. [He continues, not really sure where he's going with this, but finding himself wanting to reminisce enough to keep going regardless.] You know, engross herself in the lifestyle, start her own dynasty. Then I saw how Simon brought out a side of her I'd never seen. He was, uh, one of the carpenters who helped her with her gallery. I got him that job. And encouraged him to pursue her when he was sure she was way out of his league.
[Maybe to an outsider she was: the Dessendre name still held some weight, after all, even if it didn't bear down on Lumiere to quite the same extent as it did on Paris. To Verso, though, she was just his big sister. And Simon was a good man, and he had wanted her to be happy, and he believed that things really could be that simple. They nearly were. A soft sigh at the thought. Then:]
It didn't change her art, but... they were sweet together. He had her figured out.
[Oh. There's the point.]
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...Funny. Papa said that Clea -- my Clea -- was most upset by the idea she couldn't see all of the art the world had to offer, once. That the world was too big. [ Maybe the moral is that their older sister, in any form, in any situation, would never be satisfied. In that way, at least. ] But...it sounds like her solution here was to make more art, to fill that void. Though it isn't the same.
[ Creating, versus witnessing. They scratch different itches. She can understand, lesser artist though she is, what the other Clea might have felt.
"Maman and Papa were getting less productive," though. It stills her, briefly, but she doesn't comment. Instead she, too, remembers back to moments where she would wander in and find Clea collaborating with one of their parents on a piece, sweeping brushes or inks across enormous canvases, creating something all the more beautiful for their having done it together. Sometimes the young Alicia would be alone, toddle over and plop down on the floor to stare wide-eyed at the process as it unfolded, and other times she'd find her brother already there and would immediately be distracted by whatever game he'd occupied himself with, which she'd be suddenly desperate to join. ]
Well, they do say opposites attract. [ Maelle never knew Simon, but from a combination of his appearance and Verso's information, she can imagine it easily enough. ] Plus, she's such a know-it-all... I'm sure she got a lot of joy from talking his ear off about all things art.
[ And, perhaps, he'd listened with rapt attention, falling more and more in love with her and her unbridled passion for such things.
To be loved is to be known, and all that. ]
I'm glad they had each other. [ Maelle says, earnestly. ] But...I'd be surprised if it didn't change her art a little. Something like that...how could it not?
[ She's never been in love like that, but she has her own kinds of love for the people in her life that she holds dear. Feelings that strong would be hard to keep out of other aspects of your life, especially those that are as personal as art.
Though, if anyone could manage that, it would be Clea... ]
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[It's always either one extreme or the other, almost as if she doesn't know how to view the world in less dramatic ways. Or maybe that's a Verso problem with his dualities and false dichotomies and other black-and-white miscellanea. He frowns, wondering, then frowns deeper as he realises he doesn't like the feel of his words when applied to his own sister.
Maelle calling Clea a know-it-all probably would have earned her a laugh, otherwise; instead, a shrug and a tossing up of his hands.]
He really enjoyed it. Said it reminded him of the reasons why he decided to become a carpenter. I mean, most of the work he did was to someone else's specifications, but that was to pay the bills. What he really wanted was to be an ebeniste.
[But everything had been freshly made in Lumiere, so there weren't a lot of people clamouring for his work. A shame, truly – another small thing that the Lumierans had stolen away from them – so he keeps these thoughts to himself.]
Maybe it would've, one day. [He offers on the topic of Clea's art.] But she'd put a lot of work into refining her style and establishing her voice, and you know how stubborn she can be. I think Simon's encouragement helped keep her on the same path, too. If they'd had more time...
[She probably would have diverged. Figured out all the things she wanted to say about love and woven that into her paintings and her sculptures, her fusions and her installations, explored the language of her own devotion and, perhaps, how it contrasted that of their parents.
Verso shrugs again and leans back against the couch to better angle himself to look up at the ceiling. He has no stories about Clea's art to explore how it might have evolved. Maelle has no stories about Clea's love to envision where it might have gone. So:]
Who knows.
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Maybe she should've convinced Clea to join her in the Canvas, back then. Leave their bodies where nobody would find them, live the rest of their lives in a world where none of those expectations or presuppositions could reach. ...But even as she imagines it, Maelle knows nothing could have convinced her sister to agree. That she hasn't yet returned to burn it all to the ground is probably a miracle.
Maelle swallows, pushing the thought aside as they continue the discussion of Simon, of his relationship with Verso's Clea. ]
Really? [ She knows next to nothing of carpentry, but of course she can summon to mind the sorts of beautiful pieces that adorn the manor, or which she's seen in magazines. ] He must have been incredibly talented. [ There's a pause followed by a soft upward twitch of her lips. ] Seems like...he was an artist in his own right.
[ "If they'd had more time." A problem as old as-...well, time. Nobody knew the pressure of that more than the Lumiérans under the Paintress' gilded clock, but even before all that, life is fleeting. This Clea and her lover had no idea what horrors awaited them and conspired to drive them apart.
Nothing like that will happen again. It's her only consolation, when images of the painted-over Clea driving her own creations' attacks through her body and the soulless eyes of the creature in the abyss flash through her mind. There will be no more unrelenting swing of the pendulum as it approaches, not for anyone who doesn't want it.
Another silence falls between them. ]
...I've had some people asking where you've gone. [ She says eventually, setting down the now-empty glass of water on a nearby table. ] Where you moved, I mean. I...didn't tell them yet, I...figured I should see if you wanted that before I say anything.
[ This isn't, strictly speaking, the truth. In fact, it'd been Monoco who'd first asked, and when she'd told him right away, the gestral had gone quiet for a bit after before suggesting she make sure he wanted to be found before giving people the means to do so. And -- a little abashed -- she'd done that the next time someone (Sciel) had inquired. ]
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He preferred to be seen as a craftsman.
[Which, in hindsight, is a complicated notion. Aline had effectively hand-painted all the Lumierans who existed at the time; how much of an influence she had on the shape of their thoughts and the trajectories of their futures still remains an uncomfortable mystery to Verso. One that's long haunted him, and one that's been coming up a lot more ever since Renoir had called him some of Aline's finest work and Maelle had called his father a rather unflattering portrait.
The topic shifts again, and Verso's stomach churns. A well-masked Verso would shuffle aside the misery and the ways his ideation has changed the texture of him in perceivable ways, and he'd answer with a jovial and perhaps slightly embarrassed, Oh, right, I've been meaning to reach out to the others. This one purses his lips and tries to figure out how to give shape to his No, I don't want that.
Unwittingly, he starts fidgeting with a hangnail on his thumb.]
Thanks for the heads up. [He tries to joke.] I'll keep away from the windows.
[That doesn't help anything, though. It doesn't even help to dispel the impression that he's been floored by the simple mention of people wondering about him, but then he feels like nothing would at this point. He's more obvious than he's ever been and too exhausted to try to revert to old ways.
So:]
Tell them... Tell them it doesn't matter. I know where to find them.
[It doesn't have to go both ways.]
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'Kay. [ He "knows where to find them," but if he's left the flat at all, she'd be surprised.
It makes sense that she's been having trouble getting through to him so far, but she'd hoped somebody could. Alicia might've been the only one, though...thinking of how her painted double had written that letter, and even then she'd seemingly not been able to reach her brother, maybe not.
The usual, restless anxiousness prickles at her from within, urging her toward saying something else about it. Toward pushing back. But...it's been nice, mostly avoiding all of that and just dipping back into their respective memories, talking about something that, when she has him to bounce it off, makes her feel warm and happy. Those same memories that had threatened to suffocate her this morning, when she realized what day it was, have become palatable again.
So Maelle returns to those sorts of things, unwilling to yet consider she might be treading on overstaying her welcome. Besides, there's one thing she's been wanting to ask: ]
Do you know-... Have you been to been to the...secret, no-sisters-allowed part of the Canvas? [ He must know, all things considered, so she pivot the question. What she's less sure about, though, is if this Verso has actually been there, or what he thinks of it. Considering she and Clea had been barred from entry, it's one of the few places here that Maelle has no memories of, though the idea of it seems to buoy her spirits a bit all the same. ]
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Regardless, he sits in the silence created afterwards, short though it might be, and tries to figure out a way to circle things back to better topics, or at least find some other avenue down which he can do a better job of pretending that he can see a tomorrow where he reintegrates into Lumiere and begins to eke out the normal existence Maelle still insists that he'll want to embrace one of these days. But, no. His eyes shift towards the cluttered piano. His thoughts go back to the promise he'd pinky sworn. And his heart retreats to the place in the pit of his stomach that it often occupies these days.
Fortunately, he doesn't have to do a damned thing because Maelle takes the initiative he doesn't have; less fortunately, he's not entirely sure what to do with the topic of Verso's Drafts. But she asked him a simple question that he can answer simply enough, so he stops letting his thoughts get ahead of him and leans a bit forward, pointing his finger in a display of faux presence.]
I have been to the secret, no-sisters-allowed part of the Canvas. Esquie's taken me there a couple times. And it's, uh, not that bad of a swim.
[For an immortal swim team captain, anyway. What he doesn't say is that he swam there only once, and that it was from Lumiere, and that it was on the day when he first returned to check in on a newborn baby Maelle, and that seeing her had called so much into question that he needed to retreat there in search of whatever perspective a long-gone child could provide. Things are messy enough as they stand.]
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