[A light laugh at Sciel's joke, followed by a slightly put-upon sigh. Not towards Sciel, it's just...]
Why do I get the feeling Lune would expect me to answer at least a dozen questions first?
[It's probably because she would.
One more story, though. Verso lifts himself up to get a better view of the landscape, scanning the faraway wreckage of buildings and the nearby clutter of scattered amusement park booths and lampposts and cobblestones.
Immediately, his mind goes to the regrets that are wrapped up in this landscape. All the promise the people had for expansion – talk of rollercoasters and skating rinks, of setting up a second city where the sun shone the brightest and the warmth from the sea sometimes carried through the valley. There's the memories he didn't get to make, too. All the rides he'd wanted to take Alicia on once she started feeling better, the ones that were more exciting than the carousel. Just before the fracture, he'd started harbouring thoughts of spending a weekend with Julie in the little resort carved into a now caved-in mountain, the ring he kept looking at in the joaillerie by the gardens tucked into his pocket as he waited for the just-right moment. Big things. Small things. Incessant reminders that time is often stolen and never returned.
He wants to end the night on a better note than that, though, so he digs a little deeper until he unearths something on the other end of the sadness.]
There was a tree, right over there. [He points to a nondescript patch of white.] A glorious pine, centuries old. Every year, we'd have a big holiday party around it. And we'd go all out. I mean, they'd fly in the airships so people could rappel down and decorate the thing. There were booths everywhere selling cocoa and pastries. People would dress up in costumes. All the train cars were decorated with colourful lights and these flowers that smelled like berries, and you could duck inside to warm up or grab a bite to eat. Oh, and I can't forget the carolers. They'd come out around midnight and everything would go quiet until they started to sing and...
[Verso himself falls silent for a moment, as if he can hear their ghosts still singing, voices carrying so differently in the snow than in concert halls and brasseries and on the streets of Lumiere. Eventually, the silence grates, a little, and so he sings part of one of the songs – a lilting melody about snow crunching beneath dancers' feet – in a voice that's raw but practised. Only a few lines, not wanting to get carried away.]
It was mostly for the kids, but I never missed a year.
[ "She expects that even without asking a favour," Sciel thinks, but doesn't say. Instead, she merely offers a little smile and another half-shrug, assuming Verso already knows as much without her needing to voice it. Besides, this moment -- this trip -- isn't for ruminating on any unpleasantness that might await them either back in camp or further down the road. It's about the kind of stories he's shared so far, and the one he offers up now.
It is, again, easy to imagine. Sciel pulls herself up into a seated position to cast her gaze out over the lip of the roof, following the direction he indicates. A glorious pine, centuries old. Tall and proud, dusted with snow, bowing in the occasional winds and dropping sheets of white onto the already-blanketed ground below. ...Or onto the festivities below, as people gather close for warmth and celebration amid the cold and dark. There are lights, of course: not just from the carousel, but from lanterns and candles and sparklers. There is a joyful cacophony, of course: not just from the carousel, but from barking laughing and children's delighted shrieks and well-practiced carolers. Surrounding the tree are the booths, each tempting passers-by with the mouth-watering smells that drifted out from within. And the people...people everywhere, just happy to be together and alive, giving themselves over fully to simple pleasures and good company.
The ghosts of the scene linger, and they're all so vivid that she can nearly see them gathered. Sciel closes her eyes and the illusion strengthens as the sounds of the memory that isn't really there almost seem to increase in volume when the visual aspect is removed.
And Verso sings. It's another surprise that almost has her open her eyes right away, but she resists it. Instead, Sciel smiles gently in an almost quiet reverence, unwilling to do anything that could cause him to stop. His voice joins those from the past, carrying them through to the present, keeping them alive in those scant lines and warm notes. When he stops singing to caveat the event itself, she finally opens her eyes again, lips pressed together in a grateful smile. ]
...Keep telling those stories. To us, to those who come after... [ She turns outward again, briefly searching for something, before returning her attention to him. ] ...or just to yourself. They're all still here, in a way, if you keep their memories alive.
[ It's another rare feat that only he can accomplish. Maybe someday he'd tell someone about the 33s, too.
Delicately, Sciel stows the telescope in her pack, taking care to do so in a way that'll keep it safe during travel. She draws a deep inhale before getting to her feet, though before she does anything else, she's distracted by a light prickle of cold on her face, nudging her into looking up.
[It is a nice thought, carrying the lost into tomorrow on stories that would be forgotten otherwise. Giving shape and colour and texture to a world that has been set in its own ways for so long that the old ones don't exist anymore. Finding more ways to refuse the erasure that Renoir has long sought to bring about and that Verso, too, fights for on different terms, begrudgingly accepted and stubbornly held onto. And certainly, that's part of it for him. He wants the lost to linger; he wants their lives to have meant fucking something, even if it's a distant thing, faceless and nameless but indelibly part of this world all the same.
But the canvas can't sustain many more of those who come after, so there's an ache to it too, one that he pretends to work out of his system with a roll of his shoulders and a preemptive stretch.
It only ends up burying itself deeper.]
I will. [Tell the stories to himself, he means, and to the 33s as well. He doesn't want to humour anything beyond that.] It's like they say, yeah? We all have two deaths.
[We will be ignoring that Hemingway was six when Verso died.
As Sciel starts preparing to get up, Verso starts preparing to be prepared, looking out one last time into the sky, letting his gaze fall one last time onto the crystalline snow, wondering if this'll be his last time seeing it, too. Breathing the burn away from the backs of his eyes, he looks over to Sciel's offered hand with a smile, taking it and pulling himself up to his feet. No, his heart beats in its stubbornly persistent rhythm. But as he makes his way back to the ladder, he of course says differently.]
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tableauvivant) wrote2025-09-17 01:14 pm
no subject
Why do I get the feeling Lune would expect me to answer at least a dozen questions first?
[It's probably because she would.
One more story, though. Verso lifts himself up to get a better view of the landscape, scanning the faraway wreckage of buildings and the nearby clutter of scattered amusement park booths and lampposts and cobblestones.
Immediately, his mind goes to the regrets that are wrapped up in this landscape. All the promise the people had for expansion – talk of rollercoasters and skating rinks, of setting up a second city where the sun shone the brightest and the warmth from the sea sometimes carried through the valley. There's the memories he didn't get to make, too. All the rides he'd wanted to take Alicia on once she started feeling better, the ones that were more exciting than the carousel. Just before the fracture, he'd started harbouring thoughts of spending a weekend with Julie in the little resort carved into a now caved-in mountain, the ring he kept looking at in the joaillerie by the gardens tucked into his pocket as he waited for the just-right moment. Big things. Small things. Incessant reminders that time is often stolen and never returned.
He wants to end the night on a better note than that, though, so he digs a little deeper until he unearths something on the other end of the sadness.]
There was a tree, right over there. [He points to a nondescript patch of white.] A glorious pine, centuries old. Every year, we'd have a big holiday party around it. And we'd go all out. I mean, they'd fly in the airships so people could rappel down and decorate the thing. There were booths everywhere selling cocoa and pastries. People would dress up in costumes. All the train cars were decorated with colourful lights and these flowers that smelled like berries, and you could duck inside to warm up or grab a bite to eat. Oh, and I can't forget the carolers. They'd come out around midnight and everything would go quiet until they started to sing and...
[Verso himself falls silent for a moment, as if he can hear their ghosts still singing, voices carrying so differently in the snow than in concert halls and brasseries and on the streets of Lumiere. Eventually, the silence grates, a little, and so he sings part of one of the songs – a lilting melody about snow crunching beneath dancers' feet – in a voice that's raw but practised. Only a few lines, not wanting to get carried away.]
It was mostly for the kids, but I never missed a year.
no subject
It is, again, easy to imagine. Sciel pulls herself up into a seated position to cast her gaze out over the lip of the roof, following the direction he indicates. A glorious pine, centuries old. Tall and proud, dusted with snow, bowing in the occasional winds and dropping sheets of white onto the already-blanketed ground below. ...Or onto the festivities below, as people gather close for warmth and celebration amid the cold and dark. There are lights, of course: not just from the carousel, but from lanterns and candles and sparklers. There is a joyful cacophony, of course: not just from the carousel, but from barking laughing and children's delighted shrieks and well-practiced carolers. Surrounding the tree are the booths, each tempting passers-by with the mouth-watering smells that drifted out from within. And the people...people everywhere, just happy to be together and alive, giving themselves over fully to simple pleasures and good company.
The ghosts of the scene linger, and they're all so vivid that she can nearly see them gathered. Sciel closes her eyes and the illusion strengthens as the sounds of the memory that isn't really there almost seem to increase in volume when the visual aspect is removed.
And Verso sings. It's another surprise that almost has her open her eyes right away, but she resists it. Instead, Sciel smiles gently in an almost quiet reverence, unwilling to do anything that could cause him to stop. His voice joins those from the past, carrying them through to the present, keeping them alive in those scant lines and warm notes. When he stops singing to caveat the event itself, she finally opens her eyes again, lips pressed together in a grateful smile. ]
...Keep telling those stories. To us, to those who come after... [ She turns outward again, briefly searching for something, before returning her attention to him. ] ...or just to yourself. They're all still here, in a way, if you keep their memories alive.
[ It's another rare feat that only he can accomplish. Maybe someday he'd tell someone about the 33s, too.
Delicately, Sciel stows the telescope in her pack, taking care to do so in a way that'll keep it safe during travel. She draws a deep inhale before getting to her feet, though before she does anything else, she's distracted by a light prickle of cold on her face, nudging her into looking up.
It's started flurrying. ]
...Ready? [ There's a smile, an extended hand, and another tomorrow ahead of them. ]
excuse me that song is RUDE
But the canvas can't sustain many more of those who come after, so there's an ache to it too, one that he pretends to work out of his system with a roll of his shoulders and a preemptive stretch.
It only ends up burying itself deeper.]
I will. [Tell the stories to himself, he means, and to the 33s as well. He doesn't want to humour anything beyond that.] It's like they say, yeah? We all have two deaths.
[
We will be ignoring that Hemingway was six when Verso died.As Sciel starts preparing to get up, Verso starts preparing to be prepared, looking out one last time into the sky, letting his gaze fall one last time onto the crystalline snow, wondering if this'll be his last time seeing it, too. Breathing the burn away from the backs of his eyes, he looks over to Sciel's offered hand with a smile, taking it and pulling himself up to his feet. No, his heart beats in its stubbornly persistent rhythm. But as he makes his way back to the ladder, he of course says differently.]
Yeah. Let's go.