[It's in moments like this when Verso feels the most like himself. Not in the sense that he's prone to busts of despair, though he can be, but rather in how his masks fall by the wayside and he exists in a state of rare clarity, able to be perceived by anyone who casts him even the briefest glimpse. Honesty to extents he rarely experiences; honest in ways that the real Verso struggled with, stifled as he was by the expectations of his family. In a sense, some of this Verso's greatest victories over the Dessendres are all the ways he breaks their moulds, even if the breaking often happens when his losses are the most profound.
And the people who loved the other Verso look at him differently when his eyes are red and his face is streaked with tears and he struggles to face them. They speak to him differently, treat him differently for however long it takes for him to gather himself together enough to resemble which ever Verso it is who they see in him again.
So, even as Maelle rests her weight again him so similarly to before, he doesn't feel a reflexive urge to pull away. They can, for this moment, go back to all those times before she regained her memories when the bond they shared did feel like a familial one, at least to Verso, even as Gustave's ghost hung over them and the painted Alicia lingered in the background. They can do this because as mad and frustrated and hurt and betrayed as he feels to be here, he has always had a soft spot for all versions of his little sister. Wrapping his arm around her shoulder comes naturally; so does resting his chin on the crown of her head, as if he could possibly shelter her from the pains they each keep causing the other.
True to that, the first words he manages on the tail end of a soft and shuddered breath are:]
I don't know that I can stay here.
[In Lumiere, he means, though he's not clear-headed enough to see the potential need to clarify.]
[ When he leans in, the relief is enough that her breath hitches, eyes prickling with the threat of tears of her own. She'd been so terrified of how he might react to the little gesture, so having him not only not pull away, but put his arm around her?
Her shoulders relax a little as she allows a little more of her weight to rest against his side, letting her head settle against his shoulder (or what she can reach of it, anyway). It's one of the most encouraging moments between them in recent history.
What he says next is akin to a bucket of icy water thrown over it all.
Her heart seizes with his words and she stiffens again, chilled to the bone. Because of course her assumption is that this is what he'd asked of her back in that place-between-places and not that he merely wants to leave the city. There's a rough swallow as she tries to grapple with the fear it instills in her, the rising tide of panic, all while trying not to absolutely decimate the iota of progress they've made so far.
If it can be called that. ]
..."Here?" [ It's all she says. She can't bear to voice the thought more completely, doesn't want to give it life at all. I thought there might be a chance-... Unseen, she pinches her lower lip between her teeth, tasting blood.
Maybe...it's possible the wording had been different for a reason. That they might still manage some middle ground, in spite of everything. ]
you can't just unionize the sad out of the sad game!!!
[There's a moment after Verso feels Maelle tense beside him that his own heart sinks to churn in his stomach, and he, too, takes her reaction the wrong way. Immediately, his mind sends him off wondering about how beholden he'll be expected to be to her vision of a perfect escape. Worst-case scenarios plague him, like being all but chained to the Crooked Tower and never setting foot on the Continent again, and he struggles to find a set of circumstances wherein he might find a sense of happiness and place and comfort as a permanent fixture of Lumieran society.
Especially now that he's lost control over most of his secrets.
Her question causes him to curse out a breath, barely interpretable as a word. Of course, he's confused her. He's confusing himself. Going into this conversation, he knew he wasn't in the right headspace for it; now, everything that happens to corroborate that only feeds into his restless frustration and drives the sense of futility that keeps him half buried under the weight of his existence. Still, he knows that he doesn't have any choice besides powering through. It's not always possible to be in the right headspace, and he can't say that he'd be any more willing to discuss these things days or weeks or months down the line, so.]
Lumiere. It's not my home.
[While the Continent isn't either – not in enough ways that count, anyway – it's still all that he's known for nearly seven decades. He's carved out more pockets for himself there than he can imagine being possible in Lumiere, where everyone has their own closed-off boxes, and paths are blocked by strings of paint, and the spaces around them threaten to get smaller and smaller with each passing year as new life is brought to the city.]
oh don't worry, the union is to make things MORE sad
[ Inadvertently, she releases a breath she'd been holding at his answer. Right, that...is reasonable. Like the child that she is, Maelle indulges in a vision in what their lives could be like if everything was completely different: meals, laughter, music. Sciel and her family and Lune and Gustave and Emma and Sophie and everyone she's ever cared about in one place, making the most of paradise. In this fantasy, Verso is there, and he's happy too, and he feels, finally, at home.
Delicately, she packages that image up. Folds it like a handkerchief, slips it into the drawers of her mind. ]
...I...know. [ He seems to be working with her. Giving some ground. She ought to at least try and do the same, right? ...Though she still feels some reticence born of her anxiety that he's somehow trying to trick her. After all, it'd be far from the first time he's lied... ]
If you left -- [ She doesn't say "when," even though that may be a fast-approaching inevitability, because it somehow still feels like a line that she has to work up to crossing. ] Could we...still see you?
[ Yes: knowing that her brother-...that Verso is still alive somewhere in the Canvas is infinitely better than the alternative he'd asked for. She's hopeful, too, that if he truly feels unable to make a life here, that returning to the more-familiar wilds of the Continent will provide an acceptable middle ground.
Maelle doesn't yet voice the budding fear with this idea: that he'll get as far as he can from Lumiére and never want to speak to her again, or...that he'll take advantage of his newfound mortality...
She feels so attuned to all of their chroma, now, and she wonders with a little chill how far away she'd still be able to sense a disruption, if that were to happen. There is no fear spared on herself: on the fact that the reason she is so inextricably linked to the lives of the Canvas now is because she is the engine that will keep the fires going until there is nothing within her left to burn. ]
[How does he tell her that he doesn't know; how does he express that he's always been a bit like this, that he can and has easily gone years without even seeing Esquie and Monoco, two people who have always supported his wishes despite openly disagreeing with them? To put it simply, he can't, not without creating implications that he doesn't want to make.
He worries about her trying to find him, too, and not entirely because he's loath to be found. The Continent is still dangerous, even for her, and she needs to avoid overusing her powers else she start to fade too quickly.
The alternative is to carve more of himself away so that he might better suit the shape of someone who hasn't lived in a long time; this, he's more accustomed to and inclined towards even now, but it also begs the question of how much he has left to give. What happens if he is never able to be more present than he is now, if he only gets worse and worse and worse? That might not drain Maelle's lifeforce but it will take something from her all the same.
Once, he felt like he had all the answers; now, he realises how foolish he had been. In truth, he had a single solution to a multifaceted problem, and now that a different solution has been applied, he is discovering that he doesn't know anything, anything at all. Except that he's tired and wants to slink away and die alone like an ornery old stray.
And that's not fucking helpful. So, he takes another indirect approach.]
I don't want to hurt you.
[It's really just another form of I don't know in the end. But, he at least tries to ground it.]
[ She's already shaking her head: a gentle, defiant motion against his side. She wants to say "you didn't hurt me," but he'd lied to her and let Gustave die and used her as bait and stood by as they sealed their own fates and tried to force her back into her life out of the Canvas. She wants to say "Verso's choice is why all this happened," but she can't bear to criticize the man who'd burned for her, even if she wished things had gone differently.
Maelle also isn't sure what to say. How to ease the hurt either of them felt, feels, will feel. So there's another stretch of silence after she stills again and when she next speaks. ]
You don't have to stay. [ She may be his jailer in this life, but it isn't out of malice. Maybe she can bear to let up the leash a bit. ] ...Will you, though -- today? I could-... We could have dinner.
[ Maelle hasn't cooked dinner once in her life. The Dessendres had people for that, and otherwise she'd lived with parents who perhaps didn't trust the spitfire child with a hot pan. But it's what her mind, her tongue, jumps to, and though it's ridiculous, it's...something. Something families do. And if not that, then...something people could do. Together.
She swallows, feeling the deep sadness of it all still a pressure in her throat. ]
I made this choice. [ Comes the admittance, after another pause. ] If I'm hurt, then it's my own fault.
[ "If." As though there might be a chance otherwise. ]
[Dinner. The word still turns Verso's stomach. Not as much as her admission of blame, though, even if it validates so much of what he's been saying. No part of him wants to absolve himself of anything. Lashing out and hurting Maelle because she's hurt him isn't in his nature, even if it has been reflected in his actions thus far. He still feels like the only way to fix this is to end it, but they've been over that, and it isn't his decision, and Maelle isn't asking him to fix anything, anyway, she's asking him to stay for a single moment in time, so he thinks back to the very reason he's here in this hallway, freshly bathed and fully dressed. A walk to stretch his muscles. Fresh air to clear his head. Freedom from the parts of himself that kept him shackled to the bed. And he gets an idea.
With his free hand, he wipes away what remains of his tears, and he releases his hold on Maelle, lifting his chin all the way so that he's looking at some distant spot on the ceiling as he wills the fragments of his heart to stitch themselves together again, at least until he's back in the privacy of his room and he can't hurt anyone by being hurt.]
Not dinner. I still need that walk, so. Take me somewhere that means something to you.
[In the end, he doesn't really know her either. He has Verso's memories of the real Alicia and he knows what he knows about Maelle, but he has no sense of where these things might collide, or how they might shape the person who houses them both, or which parts of one sister will overpower the same parts of the other. This feels like something that needs to be fixed, too, even if he isn't sure what it'll mean for either of them in the end.]
[ Silently, she reaches over to return the unused (but rumpled) handkerchief, pressing it into his hand.
Somewhere that means something to you. Even with the chimera of a person she's become, the answer comes easily, and it feels like the knot in her chest lessens a little as a result. ]
'Kay. [ Maelle gets to her feet again, sniffling and wiping clean the old trails of her own tears as she glances toward the front door, drawing a deep breath that helps a bit in clearing the muck from within. ] ...Just so you know, it's not the easiest place to get to.
[ But she doesn't ask if that's okay because this is what he'd requested, so she merely gathers herself up and tries to keep from staring at him, giving him a moment to do whatever he needs to do to be a person who can walk across the threshold and into the world he didn't want to be in.
Standing in that room, lacing her fingers together at her front, Maelle can't help but feel the tiny candle of relief ignite somewhere. It's quiet and feeble, liable to be blown out at any moment, but...she cups her hands around it and holds it close, remembering what it means to feel a little hope. Because in spite of their victories, and even though she's otherwise existing in something akin to a living heaven, it hasn't felt that way. Hasn't felt carefree or uncomplicated, not knowing the state of the man in the room one over.
Maybe this can be easy, though. A walk. A place she's spent loads of time (as Maelle, at least). ...One step a time, however wobbly. ]
[A small huff of a breath when he feels the handkerchief in his hand. Under other circumstances it might have been a slightly abashed laugh over letting himself reach the point of obvious tears. Now, he's not sure enough of what he's feeling to understand its source, only that he's tired and his mind is full of cotton and clouds. The idea of a place that's hard to get to sounds good, though, for the promise of a journey that will demand he focus away from himself and towards something ordinary and rational. Rising to his feet, he nods towards the washroom door.]
Okay. Give me a minute.
[Once inside, he gets the rest of the tears out of his system, bending over the sink, grasping onto it until his knuckles match the white of the porcelain. Both he and his heart remain at odds for a bit, one seeking release and the other in need of restoration, neither one willing to oblige the other, but Verso's stubbornness prevails in the end, and with a few deep, heaving breaths he's able to calm both his tears and the resurgent nausea that rises at the thought of having to step out into the world again, even if it was his idea, even knowing that it's what they both need.
Another short stretch of time spent collecting himself; then, he washes his face, dries it off with the handkerchief, and spends a couple more moments in front of the mirror, schooling his expression into something softer, more neutral, less readably devastated.
He returns without really looking or feeling much like himself, but his eyes are dry and the tear tracks are gone, and he's able to look Maelle in the eye as he summons forth the energy to direct her towards the door in a passable facsimile of his exaggerated, two-armed style.]
[ Verso disappears into the washroom and she waits, hovering near the exit like the ghost she used to be. It isn't a terribly long time, but in that period the little doubts and insecurities resurface: pressing their faces to her windows, rapping on the glass, knocking insistently at her door.
This is what's best for everyone. Almost everyone, the voices say. It's what I had to do. For yourself. I couldn't let him -- let them -- destroy this Canvas. Almost everyone was already gone, they wouldn't have known any better. Gustave and Lune and Sciel and everyone else -- they all deserve to live. What about the person you claim is so important who doesn't want any of this? What about me? Don't I deserve to live, too? You've got a life out there already.
He reappears and she fixes her face, straightening up. ]
Ready. [ And with that, Maelle exits, pushing her back to the door and holding it until he passes.
It's a beautiful day, of course. Brilliant blue, comfortable temperature, and no painted number looming over them all. Once Verso exits she assumes he'll need a moment to...readjust, and so she steps off a few feet in the direction they're headed, arms again behind her back.
She won't prompt or hurry him, but she does watch his face in a way she thinks is surreptitious. ]
[Over the past few days, Verso has felt the breeze on his face but never all around him; he's seen the city streets from a birds-eye view but hasn't felt them beneath his feet, haphazard cobblestone rising like bad memories, yet familiar enough not to trip him. Small blessings, he supposes. He's sure he's already enough of a spectacle as it stands, though at least the Lumierans out and about don't seem inclined towards staring.
He looks up at the sky, farther away here than in the apartment, and wonders what's happening on the other side. Is Aline recovering well? Is Renoir haunting his own atelier, checking in on Alicia while he weighs the pros and cons of intervening? Does Clea feel supported now that her parents are home and she's no longer waging wars by herself, or is her father still so engrossed in her mother that she's been cast to the wayside yet again?
And when he finally looks towards Maelle, he catches the way she watches him and sighs, tossing on a mask that mostly hides how he's half thinking about ascending the Crooked Tower and throwing himself into the unforgiving sea.]
So.
[So. He falls into step beside her, taking note of the way she holds her hands behind her back and trying not to think about the next-to-last moment he'd spent with Alicia, her by his side, copying him as he took on the very same stance and they stared out at the Monolith together. Oh, how he wishes he'd have placed a greater value on her dreams then; oh, how he wishes he hadn't brought Maelle to see her afterward.
That thought trips him up. There is no follow-up to his so.]
[ She won't do him the disservice of trying to strike up vapid conversation on the way. There's no reason to point out all of the things she finds wonderful about the city, how she'd never really appreciated it when she'd lived here as Maelle alone, how it all has a shine to it now that she'll never take for granted again. She doesn't mention the shops and cafes she favors, the people in the market whose lives she hears about, the way that sunsets over the horizon look like a painting more beautiful than anyone's capable of producing.
She doesn't even mention the work wrapping up on the Opera House.
Maelle leads him along but takes side streets when possible, pointedly avoiding crowded areas and conversations. The few who manage to catch her in passing are met with a polite, but curtailed chat as she keeps them moving along, occasionally casting her eyes over her shoulder to account for Verso's presence.
Were she in a myth, she would have success similar to Orpheus.
It isn't too long before they reach a ladder at which she pauses only briefly before ascending, the underside of her boots clacking steadily against the rungs as she goes. Once above, they stand on one of Lumiére's many rooftops: one still acting as storage for the building below. As a result, there are several items pilled up nearby: large wooden crates, stretches of canvas fabric, the odd carousel horse. Even a piano, lying upturned and forgotten. ]
Just a little more. [ It'll be a few grapples and walks across rooftops. The route is so familiar, so well-tread, that it never occurs to her that she could just fly across. ]
[Back in the day, before the Dome kept Lumiere safe and while everyone was still trying to figure out what life was going to be like after the Fracture, Verso spent a fair bit of time walking the side streets Maelle guides him down, directing hope deep into the cracks and crevices he'd find along the way. But he'd only walked them when he had specific reasons to be there; whenever he was out in Lumiere for his own purposes, he would usually take the main paths, letting himself get distracted by the company and the stories of his fellow wanderers.
Now, though, whenever the side streets end he wishes he could disappear into Maelle's shadow, or else dissipate into the air as another ghost of released chroma, another memory people would sooner forget as they face however many tomorrows lie ahead. Every time someone stops to speak with Maelle, he tries to make it as clear as possible that he's not interested in conversation. Which usually just means that he curls in on himself, turning away. At least everybody seems to leave him alone. The lone upside, he thinks, to everyone knowing his story is that they understand how little he wants to share anything with anyone, right now.
Up the ladder he goes, trying not to let the intrusive thoughts filter through as he gets higher and higher up. It doesn't quite work – it would be a simple thing, he thinks, to hide a surrender behind a slip, weakened as he is by hunger and apathy – but there still isn't a single part of him that would ever act upon such impulses where Maelle could see him, so he doesn't so much as look down, even once his feet are on the roof and the plummet reaches out to him from all angles.
He focuses on the upturned piano instead and almost laughs. How fucking fitting.]
I figured as much. [An attempt at humour. He's not feeling it at all, but he doesn't know what else he's supposed to do.] We're almost running out of Lumiere.
[Maybe the walk hasn't been too long, but time is still stretched out for him, too slow when he needs it to reach its end.]
[ Is she worried he'll be tempted by the siren's song of the drop available around them? It'd be a lie to deny it. Though she hopes he isn't so desperate as to do anything like that right now -- hell, or even just that he isn't willing to do anything right next to her -- there is a fear that is stuck snug in her heart like a thorn. Those bright, clear eyes train on him as he reaches the top of the ladder, his own gaze lingering on the piano.
Behind her measured, if a little worried, expression, Maelle knows: she wouldn't let it stand. Couldn't. Just as she'd brought back Gustave and Pierre who'd both been taken too soon, so too would she disallow the taking of Verso's life. Regardless of who it might be taking it.
She swallows, turning. ]
Keep up, then. [ Her voice is lighter now, almost as if she's still the young courier who leapt from roof to roof not long ago. She moves quickly to the edge and (resisting the overwhelming urge to make him go first) extends her arm to utilize the grapples, zipping gracefully across the gap and landing on the roof nearby.
It'll be much the same until they finally land on a more expansive stretch of roof: one covered in mossy green and red blooms, flanked by vine-laden trellises and old red and white banners. She lands on this one and looks out across it toward her goal on the other side, waiting to make sure he safely joins her before walking onward. ]
[The zipping carries him even higher upwards, and he wonders if the chroma connecting him to the grapples could fray and break beneath the force of his exhaustion, or at the very least show him mercy in a way that the fabric of this world has yet to prove willing to offer to him. And briefly, too, he wonders if Maelle would let that happen, though he knows it's a stupid thought – the answer can only be an emphatic no – so he shifts his mind's sights out into the Continent and wonders, instead, if there are corners she cannot reach with her powers, spaces where she would not be able to sense his death from afar, places or forces that might absorb his chroma so that she cannot reclaim it for her own purposes.
Would she still stay, then, thinking that her choices in this world have killed him just as surely as they had the real Verso? It's a dark thought. He feels sick for having it at all. And yet...
No, he shakes it off, centring himself in the beauty of the trellises and the gentleness of how the banners flow in the wind. At least he can still appreciate these things, he thinks; at least there's something for him to grasp onto while he comes to terms with this new form of immortality that's been inflicted upon him, one that forces his choice through guilt rather than denying him one outright. A thought that does darken his tone about when he speaks in response.]
I'm not that old.
[Yet, he thinks, and that thought sits as poorly with him as his continued existence does. To live beyond his strength to continue is one thing; to have to slowly fade away in the process feels like an added blow, not the blessing it had been intended to be.]
Hmm. [ Her mouth twists as if preparing to grin, and she only barely manages to stop herself from the automatic reply of "not yet." In fact, she almost literally has to bite her tongue to prevent it, and the result is something like a minute flinch as the quip recedes.
So there is no reply. Instead, Maelle turns again and starts moving over the rooftop, crossing the wooden bridge that connects it to their destination.
Not for the first time since her 'rebirth,' the youngest Dessendre passes the faded, peeling posters advertising Sirene. The first time she'd noticed them, she'd spent a long time staring, mouth agape in wonder, trying to decide how often she'd passed the image of her mother's Axon without knowing what it meant. This time, too, she pays them no mind and continues on, walking until she's standing in a little section of the rooftop: one with a bench or two, a lot of flowers, and an unobstructed view of what used to be the numbers that ruled all their lives.
Her body acts on muscle memory as she bends down to scoop up a stone, pressing it into her palm as she stares out across the sea. Eventually she rears back and throws it as far as she can, watching it sail through the air and below.
Also in view are the statues they'd discussed so recently, but she's learned her lesson. ]
I spent a lot of time here. [ Alone, and with Gustave. ] ...I was so angry, so...lost. I wanted to escape Lumiére so badly... [ Maelle scoffs, dropping her head, adopting a small, strained smile. ] Talk about ironic.
[ She'd never felt at home here, she'd claimed once. And yet, after she'd left, she'd wanted nothing more than to be able to return and live a regular life with the people she loved. And now...the home she's fled is the one above, which she's sworn up and down isn't the place she belongs.
Her feelings have only been shunted, not sloughed off or learned from. And she knows this, but that fact doesn't change anything. Because...she's back in Lumiére, with her friends and family, just as she'd wanted. She won't take it for granted again.
Maelle glances toward Verso, looking just a tiny bit more tired than usual. Up here, she can see the extent to which the city had needed to be rebuilt after their confrontation with Renoir. She feels the exertion it had taken to restore it all like the sore limbs of someone after some particularly strenuous exercises.
It's worth it. It'll always be worth it. ]
This. [ She gestures out over the railing, indicating the spot she'd brought them to. ] ...Means something to me.
[The Continent stretches out before them, broad and familiar, so wide open that Verso feels a bit more constrained here on the rooftops, even if this is the freest he's been since waking up alive and still painted. He thinks about calling out to Esquie until he shows up to the edge of the roof and takes him away from here, up an away into the sky and into space, so far beyond the borders of the known Canvas that it isn't possible for him to look back and remind himself of all the things he's leaving behind.
An urge strikes him to move to the very edge of the roof and sit down there, angling his focus so that he can't see the city at all, just the world without its people, exactly as it always should have been. And he would follow that urge in a heartbeat were it not for the implications it would create. So, he takes a seat on one of the benches instead, watching a butterfly flit between the flowers, trying to use the peace and the beauty of its movements to soften what Maelle is saying.
It doesn't really help. He looks at the city and sees a graveyard in progress; he looks at it and sees it as the poison in his not-little-sister's veins. The words Papa, va t'en still light up the Monolith, and he thinks reviens, Papa, come back and get your daughter, come back and save this Canvas from your family's grief, come back and unpaint me like you alone had been willing to do.
I wish it didn't, he wants to say in response to Maelle saying that the city means something to her. He wishes she was more like Clea than Aline, wishes she was more like her father than like her brother. All of that just feels like it'd be needlessly hurtful, though, a lashing out that she doesn't deserve, even if she is keeping him alive against his will.
Taking a deep breath, he meets her eyes. And though he's supposed to be getting to know Maelle-as-Alicia, what he ends up asking is all about Maelle.]
What brought you here when it didn't mean much of anything?
[He won't be able to relate to the meaning she finds here now, but maybe there's some connection to establish, some way for them to stand on more equal ground, if he can only understand what else there is to feel.]
[ The question feels important. Loaded, somehow. Maelle watches him with intensely light eyes that match his own, but her mind is on the question, and deep into her own past.
Alicia before the Canvas and Maelle before the Gommage are like...outfits in her closet. Unique, still fitting well, but perhaps a little outgrown. Still, she can pick through them and remember what it was like to wear them, though there's a slight detachment.
She has their thoughts, their feelings, even if she doesn't think or feel them the same way anymore. These are the things she's having to figure out for herself. ]
...If I looked out a certain way, the city disappeared. [ She finally answers, turning her eyes across the sea again. ] It...made it feel possible that I'd leave someday. That there was still somewhere out there I could belong, even if I couldn't see it.
[ Relevant to their conversation, she thinks, though she'd answered honestly from her experience alone. Standing up here in a place she didn't want to be -- where she thought she didn't belong -- she could imagine that there was another life just outside her grasp...for the moment. It'd given her hope.
It'd be naive to think that Verso might have an epiphany, but she still tries to hold out a new hope that...maybe someday, there'd be a chance it'd get easier. That he could find a life he found tolerable out on the Continent, if not in the city.
She lets her hands fall to her side, glancing briefly sideways. ]
It felt like there was a clarity up here. Back then, anyway.
[For a moment, Verso regards Maelle with almost studious intensity. He's never really questioned Alicia's disconnection from Lumiere, knowing that she lurked beneath Maelle's surface, but he also never considered the implications of her wanting to head off into the great unknown of the Continent when it would all but guarantee death within a year. It should suggest a readiness to die, a desire to simply end an existence rather than seeking ways to open doors to a new one. Yet Maelle had never seemed inclined towards death, even when it was the only thing all around them. She fought and she laughed and she lived with the belief that she could avenge Gustave, that she could see his mission through. The tears in her eyes never extinguished the fire behind them.
He has always looked at her and seen a girl who's driven to embrace what it means to be alive and not to simply live. It is everything he had wanted for her when he visited Lumiere and saw how sad and lonely and lost she seemed; it's all that he wanted for his Alicia, too, whose pains were so easy to blame on their mother that he didn't realise how much he was hurting her until she couldn't bear to look him in the eye anymore. He doesn't want that for this Alicia. He doesn't know how to stop it except to disappear.
Closing his eyes, he tries to seek out his own clarity but finds that everything feels more muddled than before. He wants his little sister back, wants Maelle to still be her own person, wants this Alicia to be able to figure out who she is and what she wants without being haunted by the ghosts of her brother and her other selves. Telling her that won't accomplish anything, though, so he views the element of belonging from the angle of whether she feels like she belongs here unconditionally, or if it's rather that she basing it on how much she feels like she doesn't belong in Paris. He wonders, too, what the world would look like if it was of her own creation. So, he asks:]
You couldn't see it, but could you picture it? That... somewhere out there where you belonged.
[ No: she'd never wanted to die. Not as Maelle, anyway. The ease with which she brushed aside the Expedition's dangers was one of many reasons she'd been so dissuaded from joining, though they'd obviously never managed to get any of those things to sink in. Maelle had decided she'd needed to get away, and with the stubborn short-sightedness of a teenager, she'd done exactly that in the deadliest way possible.
Death, death, and more death. The Continent had made quick work of her naivety, tearing it to ribbons on the beach and beyond. ...But the Maelle who'd said those words is as gone as his painted sister: similarly scattered to the winds as a flurry of petals and memories.
This Maelle -- this Alicia -- considers the question a moment while keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon. ]
...No. [ She admits. ] It wasn't ever anything concrete. All I could see was what was around me: what I didn't want. Maybe-... [ Hesitation. It's a childish thought, but she pushes on in an effort to further the conversation, face softening. ] ...Maybe I was just picturing the kinds of things you read about in stories. Cities bigger and busier than Lumiére, old ruins, different kinds of people... [ There's a light scoff and she shakes her head. ] Some of what we did find out there, you know? Mythical creatures, impossible landscapes.
[ Adventure. Like the fantastical tales from the novels she'd loved back home. Brought to stunning, vivid life within her brother's Canvas. When she tries to remember back to what she'd thought as Maelle alone, it's...difficult to know how completely those opinions are cut and dry from the others. ]
[It's hardly a surprise to hear her speak about storybook fantasies; in fact, it warms his heart to know that even after all these years and everything that occurred during them, she still has her books to bring her hope and happiness and a vision worth reaching for. Despite how, again, he wishes those dreams had been focused anywhere other than here in the Canvas.
He can't really relate, though; he likes to read, of course, and to write, likes letting his imagination take him to places unknown when he seeks escape from the realities that have long kept him chained to an unlivable life. But when his mind took him to other places, even before he knew the truths of the world, those places were more real than Lumiere's ever been.]
I used to dream about Paris. Back when the Crooked Tower was still the Eiffel, I'd look at it and be able to picture the city.
[Buildings with personality unlike the lined-up sameness of the apartments of Lumiere, uniqueness expressed only through what sits on the balconies and behind the windows. Crowded streets with horse-drawn carts. A river cutting through the city, ships travelling its waters. He thinks about l'Arc de Triomphe standing at the centre of a sunburst, about blue banners joining the red and white ones as they waved in the breeze, about colours other than the black and gold that dominates this world.]
It made the world feel small and it made me homesick, not that I knew what the feeling was, but...
[He acted on it. Where the real Verso never really left the nest of his parents' expectations, this Verso began to spread his wings and seek that missing sense of expansiveness elsewhere. He dedicated himself wholly to music, became a night owl, earned himself a reputation as the charismatic yet mysterious man who was always good for a drink and a story, moved into his own apartment and redefined what being a Dessendre meant to him.]
Looking back, I think it's what inspired me to choose my own path.
[And so he somehow finds himself circling back to their original conversation about what belongs to him and what belongs to Verso. Funny how that works.]
[ Paris. Maelle crosses her arms defensively, keeping her eyes on the water, the city, and trying not to let her feelings on the subject show too much in her face. Verso is trying, and she's not about to stomp on what he's literally described as a dream in order to force her own dislike of reality onto it.
La Ville Lumière. When she was very young, it'd seemed like a dream to her, too. Dazzling at all hours and in all seasons: a jewel of a place that everyone envied. It was a magical kingdom of its own, to a child, with gorgeous architecture and people like no other. ...But as time passed, the Dessendres went less into its cosmopolitan streets and kept more to the manor and its grounds. Particularly with the war, of course. And then, after Verso...
Well, it isn't a new thought. Paris is too beautiful for someone so badly damanged. The idea fills her with enough embarrassment and anxiety that the heat rises into her cheeks and she turns fully away, drawing deep, steadying breaths.
I don't have to go back. I don't have to go back. It's okay. ]
...It's a singular place. [ Maelle says finally. ] I think you'd have fit in perfectly there.
[ "In another life," right?
She's able to look his way again now, expression measured, but soft. "It made the world feel small and it made me homesick, not that I knew what the feeling was." That sums up so well the feelings she'd had before the Expedition, wanting to leave the very place she's anchored herself to now.
The grass is always greener. ]
I'm glad it helped. [ Her brother's memories filtered through their mother's creation. The city he had painted, and the one she had painted. Whatever combination of things existed to allow Verso to live the life he wanted -- however briefly -- is something she's grateful for.
How, then, to do that again? Maelle hesitates, choosing her words carefully. ]
...Maybe you could...help me rebuild Old Lumière. I obviously don't know it well, so I'd need someone who did. Just for a while.
[Rebuilding Old Lumiere. What a dream that would have been once, to see its buildings standing straight and tall again, its streets unbroken, its craters gone, Hauler and the swords sent away, the trains back and running to and from everywhere. There was a time when he fought for that dream, when he killed for that dream, when he justified every awful thing he did as being a necessarily cruel means to bring about a miraculous end.
Now, though, he's not so sure. If the Canvas is going to continue indefinitely, then the Lumierans deserve to be able to reclaim the Continent, which may very well mean that they want to rebuild Old Lumiere. That decision-making process doesn't involve him except, perhaps, in the more advisory context Maelle is suggesting.
But Maelle's ability to move forwards does involve him. So, what he's actually thinking about is loss and the hold it's had on this world since he was brought back to life in Lumiere. What he's hung up on is how the future has always been so tied to the past that it's only ever been stagnant. Even now, it threatens a repetition of the same cycles of grief that brought about its first and second destructions. Which makes it hard for him to meet her where she stands on this one, even if he understands where she's coming from.
He doesn't know whether his worries are valid, though; he can't say whether he's latching onto these kinds of thoughts for his sake or for her own. All he can do is share where he's coming from and see which position she takes. If she's willing to hear him out, anyway.]
May I make an observation? [And just to make it clear what she'd be getting into by saying yes, he adds:] You might not like what I have to say, but...
[He shrugs his hands, half tired, half apologetic. They can only reach common ground by making each other uncomfortable.]
[ One step forward, two steps back. That's how she feels, trying to navigate the conversation today with Verso. Maybe she should've expected it, all things considered, but each miss is a little gut punch of its own. Right now she swallows, searching his face for any clue as to what he might be about to say before he tells her. ]
...What is it? [ Maelle asks finally, bracing herself. It may be there's no 'winning' to be found here: that the best possible outcome is he agrees to live on the Continent and she never sees him again. ...It'd be hard to argue with that, to call it unfair, since it's maybe the least she can do. But the idea that he might never again see her as more than his jailer twists up her insides as if she's powerless to change the situation as he wishes.
For now, though, she waits. Tries to keep her insecurities from spiraling too badly, reminding herself of all the reasons she'd made the choices that brought them to this rooftop. In that effort, the young Paintress looks away from him again to the words she'd scrawled across the Monolith.
...The whole thing should be brought down, probably. It's still a reminder of all they'd lost, both for the citizens of Lumiére and for the Dessendres. ]
Every member of your family who's come here has left a mark on this world. Your brother painted it and your sister helped. Your mother created Lumiere and your father the Axons. We met the fragments of their souls on our journey.
[Nameless, faceless spectres with regrets to share and lessons to impart and confusions and fears to be given breath. Familiar only to Verso in ways that made him profoundly uncomfortable whenever the team gestured for him to initiate the conversations, like he'd be able to extract more information from them, like he'd be able to offer more insight into what they were saying. He would have, of course, but he never did.
He wonders what those fragments would have to say now, assuming they're still out there.
But through all the years he's been here, there's always been something particularly notable about who did and did not linger in the Canvas.]
But there's nothing here that's Alicia's. Yours. Not even a fragment of a fragment of who you are. If you want to restore this Canvas – if you want to become a Paintress – you need to let go of the past and figure out what you want to paint. And if you can't, you need to ask yourself why you're really here and what good it does.
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tableauvivant) wrote2025-09-17 01:14 pm
here's another shipment to unpack
And the people who loved the other Verso look at him differently when his eyes are red and his face is streaked with tears and he struggles to face them. They speak to him differently, treat him differently for however long it takes for him to gather himself together enough to resemble which ever Verso it is who they see in him again.
So, even as Maelle rests her weight again him so similarly to before, he doesn't feel a reflexive urge to pull away. They can, for this moment, go back to all those times before she regained her memories when the bond they shared did feel like a familial one, at least to Verso, even as Gustave's ghost hung over them and the painted Alicia lingered in the background. They can do this because as mad and frustrated and hurt and betrayed as he feels to be here, he has always had a soft spot for all versions of his little sister. Wrapping his arm around her shoulder comes naturally; so does resting his chin on the crown of her head, as if he could possibly shelter her from the pains they each keep causing the other.
True to that, the first words he manages on the tail end of a soft and shuddered breath are:]
I don't know that I can stay here.
[In Lumiere, he means, though he's not clear-headed enough to see the potential need to clarify.]
just wait until i unionize :l
Her shoulders relax a little as she allows a little more of her weight to rest against his side, letting her head settle against his shoulder (or what she can reach of it, anyway). It's one of the most encouraging moments between them in recent history.
What he says next is akin to a bucket of icy water thrown over it all.
Her heart seizes with his words and she stiffens again, chilled to the bone. Because of course her assumption is that this is what he'd asked of her back in that place-between-places and not that he merely wants to leave the city. There's a rough swallow as she tries to grapple with the fear it instills in her, the rising tide of panic, all while trying not to absolutely decimate the iota of progress they've made so far.
If it can be called that. ]
..."Here?" [ It's all she says. She can't bear to voice the thought more completely, doesn't want to give it life at all. I thought there might be a chance-... Unseen, she pinches her lower lip between her teeth, tasting blood.
Maybe...it's possible the wording had been different for a reason. That they might still manage some middle ground, in spite of everything. ]
you can't just unionize the sad out of the sad game!!!
Especially now that he's lost control over most of his secrets.
Her question causes him to curse out a breath, barely interpretable as a word. Of course, he's confused her. He's confusing himself. Going into this conversation, he knew he wasn't in the right headspace for it; now, everything that happens to corroborate that only feeds into his restless frustration and drives the sense of futility that keeps him half buried under the weight of his existence. Still, he knows that he doesn't have any choice besides powering through. It's not always possible to be in the right headspace, and he can't say that he'd be any more willing to discuss these things days or weeks or months down the line, so.]
Lumiere. It's not my home.
[While the Continent isn't either – not in enough ways that count, anyway – it's still all that he's known for nearly seven decades. He's carved out more pockets for himself there than he can imagine being possible in Lumiere, where everyone has their own closed-off boxes, and paths are blocked by strings of paint, and the spaces around them threaten to get smaller and smaller with each passing year as new life is brought to the city.]
oh don't worry, the union is to make things MORE sad
Delicately, she packages that image up. Folds it like a handkerchief, slips it into the drawers of her mind. ]
...I...know. [ He seems to be working with her. Giving some ground. She ought to at least try and do the same, right? ...Though she still feels some reticence born of her anxiety that he's somehow trying to trick her. After all, it'd be far from the first time he's lied... ]
If you left -- [ She doesn't say "when," even though that may be a fast-approaching inevitability, because it somehow still feels like a line that she has to work up to crossing. ] Could we...still see you?
[ Yes: knowing that her brother-...that Verso is still alive somewhere in the Canvas is infinitely better than the alternative he'd asked for. She's hopeful, too, that if he truly feels unable to make a life here, that returning to the more-familiar wilds of the Continent will provide an acceptable middle ground.
Maelle doesn't yet voice the budding fear with this idea: that he'll get as far as he can from Lumiére and never want to speak to her again, or...that he'll take advantage of his newfound mortality...
She feels so attuned to all of their chroma, now, and she wonders with a little chill how far away she'd still be able to sense a disruption, if that were to happen. There is no fear spared on herself: on the fact that the reason she is so inextricably linked to the lives of the Canvas now is because she is the engine that will keep the fires going until there is nothing within her left to burn. ]
rubs hands together AND kicks legs
He worries about her trying to find him, too, and not entirely because he's loath to be found. The Continent is still dangerous, even for her, and she needs to avoid overusing her powers else she start to fade too quickly.
The alternative is to carve more of himself away so that he might better suit the shape of someone who hasn't lived in a long time; this, he's more accustomed to and inclined towards even now, but it also begs the question of how much he has left to give. What happens if he is never able to be more present than he is now, if he only gets worse and worse and worse? That might not drain Maelle's lifeforce but it will take something from her all the same.
Once, he felt like he had all the answers; now, he realises how foolish he had been. In truth, he had a single solution to a multifaceted problem, and now that a different solution has been applied, he is discovering that he doesn't know anything, anything at all. Except that he's tired and wants to slink away and die alone like an ornery old stray.
And that's not fucking helpful. So, he takes another indirect approach.]
I don't want to hurt you.
[It's really just another form of I don't know in the end. But, he at least tries to ground it.]
And I will either way.
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Maelle also isn't sure what to say. How to ease the hurt either of them felt, feels, will feel. So there's another stretch of silence after she stills again and when she next speaks. ]
You don't have to stay. [ She may be his jailer in this life, but it isn't out of malice. Maybe she can bear to let up the leash a bit. ] ...Will you, though -- today? I could-... We could have dinner.
[ Maelle hasn't cooked dinner once in her life. The Dessendres had people for that, and otherwise she'd lived with parents who perhaps didn't trust the spitfire child with a hot pan. But it's what her mind, her tongue, jumps to, and though it's ridiculous, it's...something. Something families do. And if not that, then...something people could do. Together.
She swallows, feeling the deep sadness of it all still a pressure in her throat. ]
I made this choice. [ Comes the admittance, after another pause. ] If I'm hurt, then it's my own fault.
[ "If." As though there might be a chance otherwise. ]
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With his free hand, he wipes away what remains of his tears, and he releases his hold on Maelle, lifting his chin all the way so that he's looking at some distant spot on the ceiling as he wills the fragments of his heart to stitch themselves together again, at least until he's back in the privacy of his room and he can't hurt anyone by being hurt.]
Not dinner. I still need that walk, so. Take me somewhere that means something to you.
[In the end, he doesn't really know her either. He has Verso's memories of the real Alicia and he knows what he knows about Maelle, but he has no sense of where these things might collide, or how they might shape the person who houses them both, or which parts of one sister will overpower the same parts of the other. This feels like something that needs to be fixed, too, even if he isn't sure what it'll mean for either of them in the end.]
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Somewhere that means something to you. Even with the chimera of a person she's become, the answer comes easily, and it feels like the knot in her chest lessens a little as a result. ]
'Kay. [ Maelle gets to her feet again, sniffling and wiping clean the old trails of her own tears as she glances toward the front door, drawing a deep breath that helps a bit in clearing the muck from within. ] ...Just so you know, it's not the easiest place to get to.
[ But she doesn't ask if that's okay because this is what he'd requested, so she merely gathers herself up and tries to keep from staring at him, giving him a moment to do whatever he needs to do to be a person who can walk across the threshold and into the world he didn't want to be in.
Standing in that room, lacing her fingers together at her front, Maelle can't help but feel the tiny candle of relief ignite somewhere. It's quiet and feeble, liable to be blown out at any moment, but...she cups her hands around it and holds it close, remembering what it means to feel a little hope. Because in spite of their victories, and even though she's otherwise existing in something akin to a living heaven, it hasn't felt that way. Hasn't felt carefree or uncomplicated, not knowing the state of the man in the room one over.
Maybe this can be easy, though. A walk. A place she's spent loads of time (as Maelle, at least). ...One step a time, however wobbly. ]
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Okay. Give me a minute.
[Once inside, he gets the rest of the tears out of his system, bending over the sink, grasping onto it until his knuckles match the white of the porcelain. Both he and his heart remain at odds for a bit, one seeking release and the other in need of restoration, neither one willing to oblige the other, but Verso's stubbornness prevails in the end, and with a few deep, heaving breaths he's able to calm both his tears and the resurgent nausea that rises at the thought of having to step out into the world again, even if it was his idea, even knowing that it's what they both need.
Another short stretch of time spent collecting himself; then, he washes his face, dries it off with the handkerchief, and spends a couple more moments in front of the mirror, schooling his expression into something softer, more neutral, less readably devastated.
He returns without really looking or feeling much like himself, but his eyes are dry and the tear tracks are gone, and he's able to look Maelle in the eye as he summons forth the energy to direct her towards the door in a passable facsimile of his exaggerated, two-armed style.]
Ready?
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This is what's best for everyone. Almost everyone, the voices say. It's what I had to do. For yourself. I couldn't let him -- let them -- destroy this Canvas. Almost everyone was already gone, they wouldn't have known any better. Gustave and Lune and Sciel and everyone else -- they all deserve to live. What about the person you claim is so important who doesn't want any of this? What about me? Don't I deserve to live, too? You've got a life out there already.
He reappears and she fixes her face, straightening up. ]
Ready. [ And with that, Maelle exits, pushing her back to the door and holding it until he passes.
It's a beautiful day, of course. Brilliant blue, comfortable temperature, and no painted number looming over them all. Once Verso exits she assumes he'll need a moment to...readjust, and so she steps off a few feet in the direction they're headed, arms again behind her back.
She won't prompt or hurry him, but she does watch his face in a way she thinks is surreptitious. ]
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He looks up at the sky, farther away here than in the apartment, and wonders what's happening on the other side. Is Aline recovering well? Is Renoir haunting his own atelier, checking in on Alicia while he weighs the pros and cons of intervening? Does Clea feel supported now that her parents are home and she's no longer waging wars by herself, or is her father still so engrossed in her mother that she's been cast to the wayside yet again?
And when he finally looks towards Maelle, he catches the way she watches him and sighs, tossing on a mask that mostly hides how he's half thinking about ascending the Crooked Tower and throwing himself into the unforgiving sea.]
So.
[So. He falls into step beside her, taking note of the way she holds her hands behind her back and trying not to think about the next-to-last moment he'd spent with Alicia, her by his side, copying him as he took on the very same stance and they stared out at the Monolith together. Oh, how he wishes he'd have placed a greater value on her dreams then; oh, how he wishes he hadn't brought Maelle to see her afterward.
That thought trips him up. There is no follow-up to his so.]
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[ She won't do him the disservice of trying to strike up vapid conversation on the way. There's no reason to point out all of the things she finds wonderful about the city, how she'd never really appreciated it when she'd lived here as Maelle alone, how it all has a shine to it now that she'll never take for granted again. She doesn't mention the shops and cafes she favors, the people in the market whose lives she hears about, the way that sunsets over the horizon look like a painting more beautiful than anyone's capable of producing.
She doesn't even mention the work wrapping up on the Opera House.
Maelle leads him along but takes side streets when possible, pointedly avoiding crowded areas and conversations. The few who manage to catch her in passing are met with a polite, but curtailed chat as she keeps them moving along, occasionally casting her eyes over her shoulder to account for Verso's presence.
Were she in a myth, she would have success similar to Orpheus.
It isn't too long before they reach a ladder at which she pauses only briefly before ascending, the underside of her boots clacking steadily against the rungs as she goes. Once above, they stand on one of Lumiére's many rooftops: one still acting as storage for the building below. As a result, there are several items pilled up nearby: large wooden crates, stretches of canvas fabric, the odd carousel horse. Even a piano, lying upturned and forgotten. ]
Just a little more. [ It'll be a few grapples and walks across rooftops. The route is so familiar, so well-tread, that it never occurs to her that she could just fly across. ]
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Now, though, whenever the side streets end he wishes he could disappear into Maelle's shadow, or else dissipate into the air as another ghost of released chroma, another memory people would sooner forget as they face however many tomorrows lie ahead. Every time someone stops to speak with Maelle, he tries to make it as clear as possible that he's not interested in conversation. Which usually just means that he curls in on himself, turning away. At least everybody seems to leave him alone. The lone upside, he thinks, to everyone knowing his story is that they understand how little he wants to share anything with anyone, right now.
Up the ladder he goes, trying not to let the intrusive thoughts filter through as he gets higher and higher up. It doesn't quite work – it would be a simple thing, he thinks, to hide a surrender behind a slip, weakened as he is by hunger and apathy – but there still isn't a single part of him that would ever act upon such impulses where Maelle could see him, so he doesn't so much as look down, even once his feet are on the roof and the plummet reaches out to him from all angles.
He focuses on the upturned piano instead and almost laughs. How fucking fitting.]
I figured as much. [An attempt at humour. He's not feeling it at all, but he doesn't know what else he's supposed to do.] We're almost running out of Lumiere.
[Maybe the walk hasn't been too long, but time is still stretched out for him, too slow when he needs it to reach its end.]
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Behind her measured, if a little worried, expression, Maelle knows: she wouldn't let it stand. Couldn't. Just as she'd brought back Gustave and Pierre who'd both been taken too soon, so too would she disallow the taking of Verso's life. Regardless of who it might be taking it.
She swallows, turning. ]
Keep up, then. [ Her voice is lighter now, almost as if she's still the young courier who leapt from roof to roof not long ago. She moves quickly to the edge and (resisting the overwhelming urge to make him go first) extends her arm to utilize the grapples, zipping gracefully across the gap and landing on the roof nearby.
It'll be much the same until they finally land on a more expansive stretch of roof: one covered in mossy green and red blooms, flanked by vine-laden trellises and old red and white banners. She lands on this one and looks out across it toward her goal on the other side, waiting to make sure he safely joins her before walking onward. ]
Not too winded, I hope?
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Would she still stay, then, thinking that her choices in this world have killed him just as surely as they had the real Verso? It's a dark thought. He feels sick for having it at all. And yet...
No, he shakes it off, centring himself in the beauty of the trellises and the gentleness of how the banners flow in the wind. At least he can still appreciate these things, he thinks; at least there's something for him to grasp onto while he comes to terms with this new form of immortality that's been inflicted upon him, one that forces his choice through guilt rather than denying him one outright. A thought that does darken his tone about when he speaks in response.]
I'm not that old.
[Yet, he thinks, and that thought sits as poorly with him as his continued existence does. To live beyond his strength to continue is one thing; to have to slowly fade away in the process feels like an added blow, not the blessing it had been intended to be.]
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So there is no reply. Instead, Maelle turns again and starts moving over the rooftop, crossing the wooden bridge that connects it to their destination.
Not for the first time since her 'rebirth,' the youngest Dessendre passes the faded, peeling posters advertising Sirene. The first time she'd noticed them, she'd spent a long time staring, mouth agape in wonder, trying to decide how often she'd passed the image of her mother's Axon without knowing what it meant. This time, too, she pays them no mind and continues on, walking until she's standing in a little section of the rooftop: one with a bench or two, a lot of flowers, and an unobstructed view of what used to be the numbers that ruled all their lives.
Her body acts on muscle memory as she bends down to scoop up a stone, pressing it into her palm as she stares out across the sea. Eventually she rears back and throws it as far as she can, watching it sail through the air and below.
Also in view are the statues they'd discussed so recently, but she's learned her lesson. ]
I spent a lot of time here. [ Alone, and with Gustave. ] ...I was so angry, so...lost. I wanted to escape Lumiére so badly... [ Maelle scoffs, dropping her head, adopting a small, strained smile. ] Talk about ironic.
[ She'd never felt at home here, she'd claimed once. And yet, after she'd left, she'd wanted nothing more than to be able to return and live a regular life with the people she loved. And now...the home she's fled is the one above, which she's sworn up and down isn't the place she belongs.
Her feelings have only been shunted, not sloughed off or learned from. And she knows this, but that fact doesn't change anything. Because...she's back in Lumiére, with her friends and family, just as she'd wanted. She won't take it for granted again.
Maelle glances toward Verso, looking just a tiny bit more tired than usual. Up here, she can see the extent to which the city had needed to be rebuilt after their confrontation with Renoir. She feels the exertion it had taken to restore it all like the sore limbs of someone after some particularly strenuous exercises.
It's worth it. It'll always be worth it. ]
This. [ She gestures out over the railing, indicating the spot she'd brought them to. ] ...Means something to me.
[ All of it. ]
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An urge strikes him to move to the very edge of the roof and sit down there, angling his focus so that he can't see the city at all, just the world without its people, exactly as it always should have been. And he would follow that urge in a heartbeat were it not for the implications it would create. So, he takes a seat on one of the benches instead, watching a butterfly flit between the flowers, trying to use the peace and the beauty of its movements to soften what Maelle is saying.
It doesn't really help. He looks at the city and sees a graveyard in progress; he looks at it and sees it as the poison in his not-little-sister's veins. The words Papa, va t'en still light up the Monolith, and he thinks reviens, Papa, come back and get your daughter, come back and save this Canvas from your family's grief, come back and unpaint me like you alone had been willing to do.
I wish it didn't, he wants to say in response to Maelle saying that the city means something to her. He wishes she was more like Clea than Aline, wishes she was more like her father than like her brother. All of that just feels like it'd be needlessly hurtful, though, a lashing out that she doesn't deserve, even if she is keeping him alive against his will.
Taking a deep breath, he meets her eyes. And though he's supposed to be getting to know Maelle-as-Alicia, what he ends up asking is all about Maelle.]
What brought you here when it didn't mean much of anything?
[He won't be able to relate to the meaning she finds here now, but maybe there's some connection to establish, some way for them to stand on more equal ground, if he can only understand what else there is to feel.]
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Alicia before the Canvas and Maelle before the Gommage are like...outfits in her closet. Unique, still fitting well, but perhaps a little outgrown. Still, she can pick through them and remember what it was like to wear them, though there's a slight detachment.
She has their thoughts, their feelings, even if she doesn't think or feel them the same way anymore. These are the things she's having to figure out for herself. ]
...If I looked out a certain way, the city disappeared. [ She finally answers, turning her eyes across the sea again. ] It...made it feel possible that I'd leave someday. That there was still somewhere out there I could belong, even if I couldn't see it.
[ Relevant to their conversation, she thinks, though she'd answered honestly from her experience alone. Standing up here in a place she didn't want to be -- where she thought she didn't belong -- she could imagine that there was another life just outside her grasp...for the moment. It'd given her hope.
It'd be naive to think that Verso might have an epiphany, but she still tries to hold out a new hope that...maybe someday, there'd be a chance it'd get easier. That he could find a life he found tolerable out on the Continent, if not in the city.
She lets her hands fall to her side, glancing briefly sideways. ]
It felt like there was a clarity up here. Back then, anyway.
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He has always looked at her and seen a girl who's driven to embrace what it means to be alive and not to simply live. It is everything he had wanted for her when he visited Lumiere and saw how sad and lonely and lost she seemed; it's all that he wanted for his Alicia, too, whose pains were so easy to blame on their mother that he didn't realise how much he was hurting her until she couldn't bear to look him in the eye anymore. He doesn't want that for this Alicia. He doesn't know how to stop it except to disappear.
Closing his eyes, he tries to seek out his own clarity but finds that everything feels more muddled than before. He wants his little sister back, wants Maelle to still be her own person, wants this Alicia to be able to figure out who she is and what she wants without being haunted by the ghosts of her brother and her other selves. Telling her that won't accomplish anything, though, so he views the element of belonging from the angle of whether she feels like she belongs here unconditionally, or if it's rather that she basing it on how much she feels like she doesn't belong in Paris. He wonders, too, what the world would look like if it was of her own creation. So, he asks:]
You couldn't see it, but could you picture it? That... somewhere out there where you belonged.
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Death, death, and more death. The Continent had made quick work of her naivety, tearing it to ribbons on the beach and beyond. ...But the Maelle who'd said those words is as gone as his painted sister: similarly scattered to the winds as a flurry of petals and memories.
This Maelle -- this Alicia -- considers the question a moment while keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon. ]
...No. [ She admits. ] It wasn't ever anything concrete. All I could see was what was around me: what I didn't want. Maybe-... [ Hesitation. It's a childish thought, but she pushes on in an effort to further the conversation, face softening. ] ...Maybe I was just picturing the kinds of things you read about in stories. Cities bigger and busier than Lumiére, old ruins, different kinds of people... [ There's a light scoff and she shakes her head. ] Some of what we did find out there, you know? Mythical creatures, impossible landscapes.
[ Adventure. Like the fantastical tales from the novels she'd loved back home. Brought to stunning, vivid life within her brother's Canvas. When she tries to remember back to what she'd thought as Maelle alone, it's...difficult to know how completely those opinions are cut and dry from the others. ]
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He can't really relate, though; he likes to read, of course, and to write, likes letting his imagination take him to places unknown when he seeks escape from the realities that have long kept him chained to an unlivable life. But when his mind took him to other places, even before he knew the truths of the world, those places were more real than Lumiere's ever been.]
I used to dream about Paris. Back when the Crooked Tower was still the Eiffel, I'd look at it and be able to picture the city.
[Buildings with personality unlike the lined-up sameness of the apartments of Lumiere, uniqueness expressed only through what sits on the balconies and behind the windows. Crowded streets with horse-drawn carts. A river cutting through the city, ships travelling its waters. He thinks about l'Arc de Triomphe standing at the centre of a sunburst, about blue banners joining the red and white ones as they waved in the breeze, about colours other than the black and gold that dominates this world.]
It made the world feel small and it made me homesick, not that I knew what the feeling was, but...
[He acted on it. Where the real Verso never really left the nest of his parents' expectations, this Verso began to spread his wings and seek that missing sense of expansiveness elsewhere. He dedicated himself wholly to music, became a night owl, earned himself a reputation as the charismatic yet mysterious man who was always good for a drink and a story, moved into his own apartment and redefined what being a Dessendre meant to him.]
Looking back, I think it's what inspired me to choose my own path.
[And so he somehow finds himself circling back to their original conversation about what belongs to him and what belongs to Verso. Funny how that works.]
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La Ville Lumière. When she was very young, it'd seemed like a dream to her, too. Dazzling at all hours and in all seasons: a jewel of a place that everyone envied. It was a magical kingdom of its own, to a child, with gorgeous architecture and people like no other. ...But as time passed, the Dessendres went less into its cosmopolitan streets and kept more to the manor and its grounds. Particularly with the war, of course. And then, after Verso...
Well, it isn't a new thought. Paris is too beautiful for someone so badly damanged. The idea fills her with enough embarrassment and anxiety that the heat rises into her cheeks and she turns fully away, drawing deep, steadying breaths.
I don't have to go back. I don't have to go back. It's okay. ]
...It's a singular place. [ Maelle says finally. ] I think you'd have fit in perfectly there.
[ "In another life," right?
She's able to look his way again now, expression measured, but soft. "It made the world feel small and it made me homesick, not that I knew what the feeling was." That sums up so well the feelings she'd had before the Expedition, wanting to leave the very place she's anchored herself to now.
The grass is always greener. ]
I'm glad it helped. [ Her brother's memories filtered through their mother's creation. The city he had painted, and the one she had painted. Whatever combination of things existed to allow Verso to live the life he wanted -- however briefly -- is something she's grateful for.
How, then, to do that again? Maelle hesitates, choosing her words carefully. ]
...Maybe you could...help me rebuild Old Lumière. I obviously don't know it well, so I'd need someone who did. Just for a while.
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Now, though, he's not so sure. If the Canvas is going to continue indefinitely, then the Lumierans deserve to be able to reclaim the Continent, which may very well mean that they want to rebuild Old Lumiere. That decision-making process doesn't involve him except, perhaps, in the more advisory context Maelle is suggesting.
But Maelle's ability to move forwards does involve him. So, what he's actually thinking about is loss and the hold it's had on this world since he was brought back to life in Lumiere. What he's hung up on is how the future has always been so tied to the past that it's only ever been stagnant. Even now, it threatens a repetition of the same cycles of grief that brought about its first and second destructions. Which makes it hard for him to meet her where she stands on this one, even if he understands where she's coming from.
He doesn't know whether his worries are valid, though; he can't say whether he's latching onto these kinds of thoughts for his sake or for her own. All he can do is share where he's coming from and see which position she takes. If she's willing to hear him out, anyway.]
May I make an observation? [And just to make it clear what she'd be getting into by saying yes, he adds:] You might not like what I have to say, but...
[He shrugs his hands, half tired, half apologetic. They can only reach common ground by making each other uncomfortable.]
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...What is it? [ Maelle asks finally, bracing herself. It may be there's no 'winning' to be found here: that the best possible outcome is he agrees to live on the Continent and she never sees him again. ...It'd be hard to argue with that, to call it unfair, since it's maybe the least she can do. But the idea that he might never again see her as more than his jailer twists up her insides as if she's powerless to change the situation as he wishes.
For now, though, she waits. Tries to keep her insecurities from spiraling too badly, reminding herself of all the reasons she'd made the choices that brought them to this rooftop. In that effort, the young Paintress looks away from him again to the words she'd scrawled across the Monolith.
...The whole thing should be brought down, probably. It's still a reminder of all they'd lost, both for the citizens of Lumiére and for the Dessendres. ]
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[Nameless, faceless spectres with regrets to share and lessons to impart and confusions and fears to be given breath. Familiar only to Verso in ways that made him profoundly uncomfortable whenever the team gestured for him to initiate the conversations, like he'd be able to extract more information from them, like he'd be able to offer more insight into what they were saying. He would have, of course, but he never did.
He wonders what those fragments would have to say now, assuming they're still out there.
But through all the years he's been here, there's always been something particularly notable about who did and did not linger in the Canvas.]
But there's nothing here that's Alicia's. Yours. Not even a fragment of a fragment of who you are. If you want to restore this Canvas – if you want to become a Paintress – you need to let go of the past and figure out what you want to paint. And if you can't, you need to ask yourself why you're really here and what good it does.
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wow exCUSE YOU???
bats eyelashes
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