[ 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.
[ Somehow, this isn't something she's ever thought about. Clea would say (had said) that their parents' changes to the Canvas had been blemishes upon Verso's work. ...Of course, she'd left her own marks upon it long after his death, though Maelle knows her sister wouldn't admit to any hypocrisy. But the only 'contribution' she herself had made had been accidental -- existing within it at Maelle -- and even that doesn't really exist anymore. Not really, not completely.
She seems to actually consider what he says, brows furrowed. The world has some hopes for her -- Reacher being its most notable example. And even the shades that Verso mentions: "The only thing you owe them is to lead a life you like." But...
Do I want to become a Paintress? Or is she merely a Paintress, albeit a formerly-reluctant one? Where she'd once been so resistant to the craft (and unskilled in it, really), she now finds herself the sole arbiter of a Canvas. By her choice, of course, but perhaps without the full implications of its stewardship on her mind.
Carefully, and after a stretch of silence, she says: ] ...I want to paint life. I want this [ Here she gestures vaguely, so perhaps her meaning of the world at large, and not just the city isn't clear. ] to exist with everyone able to go on without the shadow of the Gommage.
[ But what else? What specifically? Maelle sighs. ]
...It's a good question. [ She admits. ] I've...never really thought about changing the Canvas.
[ Only keeping it exactly as it is, forever. But even her own suggestion of rebuilding Old Lumiére would be a change, even if her intention had been to put things back as Verso had created them.
She wants to ask the man next to her what he'd Paint, if he could. She wants to ask her brother what he'd want. But she doesn't do either. She knows already, or thinks as much. ]
...That wasn't too bad. [ Maelle adds, glancing sideways at him, her tone as light as she's able to make it, given the circumstances, and the conversation. ]
[A gentle tease, lethargic in its humour as he contemplates the rest of her response.
What will you paint? one Alicia had asked the other, and Verso looks up to the sky and wonders whether his little sister is listening to the answer alongside him. He wonders, too, if that's what she would have wanted or if there's a third option that he still can't see, that he still can't grasp because he never fucking asked her what she wanted in the first place.
It almost makes him feel guilty over asking Maelle these questions now. The one thing that will always haunt him in regards to his little sister is whether she feels like he tossed her aside for the real Alicia. Whether she questions if he ever cared. Whether she understands how much he wishes that he could have prioritised her and gave her the future she tried to push for in the end.
He almost, almost asks Maelle to bring her back. But she is gone by her own choice – by the only real choice she's been able to make for herself since she was painted here – and he can't take that away from her just to salve his regrets. She deserves so much better than to have him as a brother. The real Alicia deserves the real Verso, too, and for a moment he sits there in the silence of those thoughts. Then, softly:]
Do you remember what your mother and father taught you about creating life in Canvases?
[Verso doesn't actually know how her lessons might have differed from the ones he carries in his memories, whether her parents looked at their son's approach to painting life as something good to impart upon their youngest, or whether they gave her the same lessons as they had given to Verso: that lives in the Canvas are inherently lesser than those outside of them, soulless and meaningless in the grand scheme of things, expendable means to frivolous ends. They hadn't used those words, of course, but that's how they resonated across the real Verso's memories, and so that's how this Verso thinks about them now.
And, admittedly, given the context of his own return to life, he does have his concerns, though his mind is clouded enough with bitterness that he knows better than to assume they're valid.]
[ She's your mother, too, Maelle wants to say. Instead she just sighs, eyes drifting upward as if she might see Aline and Renoir in the vast blue expanse above them. ]
They tried to teach me a lot of things. [ She replies evasively. Truthfully, she's hesitant to say anything that might prove the points he's made, consider she's been warring against those very points.
"Creating life in a Canvas." It by definition isn't the same as their own lives. Her parents, her sister, had never thought of those who'd been painted as the real, vibrant souls that they were. Not the way she'd come to think of them, having lived with, and loved, them.
If he's looking for that answer, she won't give it voice. Especially considering the end he'd fought her for would have meant the end of all of those lives that she cherishes.
(Never mind that nearly all of them had already been Gommaged.) ]
Maman and Papa have incredible talent. Decades of experience. [ Their mother leads the Council, for God's sake. ] ...But that doesn't mean they're always right.
[ To say the least. Anyone who knows the truth of the Fracture and the resulting decades of death knew that.
Maelle crosses her arms again, pointedly not looking at Verso. ]
[It's an evasive response; it's a Dessendre response. Verso can hardly fault her approach when it's one that he's refined into a craft over the decades, though that doesn't put him any more at peace with it, all things considered.]
No, it doesn't. But some of their lessons have stuck with me when I wasn't even part of them, so.
[Once, he'd have vehemently denied that. In figuring out what it means to be his own unique Verso, a man with the same name but not the same existence, he'd cast aside a great deal of the essence of what it means to be a Painter, adamant in his refusal to claim those things as his own. But in the end, he has taken similar approaches to those of his family, and he's come to understand that. Asserting his will, choosing for everyone. Even how he weighs the value of life inside versus outside of the Canvas has been influenced by the Dessendres' perspectives. Which is part of the reason why he digs in, now. In the end, whatever he chooses will be dictated by what feels like it'll cause the least amount of damage. And a large part of that is contingent on him figuring out how to fill in the blanks he's still grappling with.
Starting with that feels like the wrong move, though; it relies on too many presumptions about what drives Maelle. So, Verso lets out a sigh and shifts his focus back to where the butterflies still feed on the flowers as he makes an offering instead of casting a judgment.]
[ But he was part of them of them, surely. He lived with Aline and her painted family for years...until the real Clea saw fit to bring the truth down on their heads. Was he as averse to painting as her brother? Was their mother even more doting on her favorite child, given the second chance to be with him? ]
"Used to." [ She repeats, but manages to keep any sting from it. Her automatic reaction is to bristle, assuming she knows what's coming, and she nearly does. ...But Maelle manages to push the feeling back down. It's a bad faith take, and she's trying to listen. To actually listen this time. Which may involve hearing things she doesn't like or agree with, as he'd warned.
So she does listen, setting her mouth into a neutral line. ]
...What changed? [ Is what the youngest Dessendre settles on, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Maybe she could guess, if she tried, making several assumptions based on what she knows of his experience. ...But that's counterintuitive to what she's trying to do, too.
Again, Maelle has to remind herself of how they'd left things last they'd spoken. She sits with the discomfort that comes with that memory, making sure she's keeping things in perspective as much as possible to avoid going back to that place again. ]
[He had music more than painting. Aline was a bit disappointed but encouraged him to study at the conservatory. When he was present at the gallery, she'd sometimes comment on the pieces on display in the way of a teacher pointing out the methods and flaws of the artistry, but her lessons didn't tend to go any deeper than that; she'd rather hear about his music, see the way his eyes lit up, alive, so fucking alive. Renoir continued seeing fit to lecture him on the meaning and impression of art, only applied in the context of how his fingers should move across the keys and not how his brushstrokes should reveal the parts of himself that he would prefer to keep unseen.
But neither of them had taught him about Canvases and Painters; Aline to maintain her fantasy, he suspects, and Renoir because he didn't know any better, either. If not for Clea, Verso likely never would have discovered who and what he is and was.
Back then, once the shock of the loss of Expedition Zero and everything that Clea had revealed wore off, the knowledge about the nature of the world had almost felt empowering. Brimming with the promise of salvation, it had revealed to him a world greater than the one that he'd dared dreamed possible when he'd first ventured out onto the Continent. Everyone who died could be brought back. Julie. Simon. His Clea. The rest of Search & Rescue. Nothing he did had to mean anything because in the end, it would all be undone with a flick of a wrist. Death was manipulatable, and that was enticing.
Too enticing.]
I realised I was turning into Maman. And into both of our fathers.
[Fleeing from grief and reality and morality alike. Verso gets up from the bench and begins pacing around a bit, not overly focused on the way he wanders but still cautious enough to keep away from the ledges.]
People started dying and I convinced myself that it was okay. You know, I'd grieve for a bit and then tell myself that I'd see them again soon. I just needed to keep going.
[And go and go and go he did, making absolutely no progress as an increasing number of bodies kept getting added to the queue each year until the list of humans to be resurrected threatened to rival that of the Gestrals. And he knew how that was going to turn out. He understood what that meant.
Those are much different circumstances than Maelle faces, of course – she had a much smaller contingent of dead to bring back – but Verso still needs to add that context to his own experiences, and so he continues.]
Then one day, I took a step back and started thinking about why I was doing it and what I actually thought would happen. And I knew... I knew it was because I didn't want to accept that the life I used to live was over.
[ It'd be...nice, to know Aline had embraced Verso's interests more completely when given a second chance. It's tragic it had taken his death to create the opportunity. Maelle doubts that the painted Clea was given any more attention or affection than her counterpart outside the Canvas (before that very counterpart made things infinitely more awful). ...Of course, then there was Alicia: painted with blame scarred into her skin for mistakes she had never made.
It seizes at her heart with a sudden indignation, though not for the first time. ]
"Playing with life and death?" [ She guesses, taking care to keep her voice as light as possible. But there's some hardness to her face when her eyes flit briefly to watch his wandering form. Verso, you did that anyway when you let us all be Gommaged to force Maman from the Canvas, to try and escape it yourself. You would have done it again if you'd won our duel.
Round and round and round and round - ]
...You know I've had to face that, too. A harsh new reality.
[ He'll assert again that what she's doing here is the opposite: stubbornly living in a past that is, in reality, gone. But she's shaking her head to preempt the contradiction, turning more fully to watch as he paces. ]
I'm trying to build something new. [ Whereas, from her perspective, what he'd intended...had been to abandon life entirely. Not to pick up and start again. ]
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tableauvivant) wrote2025-09-17 01:14 pm
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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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She seems to actually consider what he says, brows furrowed. The world has some hopes for her -- Reacher being its most notable example. And even the shades that Verso mentions: "The only thing you owe them is to lead a life you like." But...
Do I want to become a Paintress? Or is she merely a Paintress, albeit a formerly-reluctant one? Where she'd once been so resistant to the craft (and unskilled in it, really), she now finds herself the sole arbiter of a Canvas. By her choice, of course, but perhaps without the full implications of its stewardship on her mind.
Carefully, and after a stretch of silence, she says: ] ...I want to paint life. I want this [ Here she gestures vaguely, so perhaps her meaning of the world at large, and not just the city isn't clear. ] to exist with everyone able to go on without the shadow of the Gommage.
[ But what else? What specifically? Maelle sighs. ]
...It's a good question. [ She admits. ] I've...never really thought about changing the Canvas.
[ Only keeping it exactly as it is, forever. But even her own suggestion of rebuilding Old Lumiére would be a change, even if her intention had been to put things back as Verso had created them.
She wants to ask the man next to her what he'd Paint, if he could. She wants to ask her brother what he'd want. But she doesn't do either. She knows already, or thinks as much. ]
...That wasn't too bad. [ Maelle adds, glancing sideways at him, her tone as light as she's able to make it, given the circumstances, and the conversation. ]
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[A gentle tease, lethargic in its humour as he contemplates the rest of her response.
What will you paint? one Alicia had asked the other, and Verso looks up to the sky and wonders whether his little sister is listening to the answer alongside him. He wonders, too, if that's what she would have wanted or if there's a third option that he still can't see, that he still can't grasp because he never fucking asked her what she wanted in the first place.
It almost makes him feel guilty over asking Maelle these questions now. The one thing that will always haunt him in regards to his little sister is whether she feels like he tossed her aside for the real Alicia. Whether she questions if he ever cared. Whether she understands how much he wishes that he could have prioritised her and gave her the future she tried to push for in the end.
He almost, almost asks Maelle to bring her back. But she is gone by her own choice – by the only real choice she's been able to make for herself since she was painted here – and he can't take that away from her just to salve his regrets. She deserves so much better than to have him as a brother. The real Alicia deserves the real Verso, too, and for a moment he sits there in the silence of those thoughts. Then, softly:]
Do you remember what your mother and father taught you about creating life in Canvases?
[Verso doesn't actually know how her lessons might have differed from the ones he carries in his memories, whether her parents looked at their son's approach to painting life as something good to impart upon their youngest, or whether they gave her the same lessons as they had given to Verso: that lives in the Canvas are inherently lesser than those outside of them, soulless and meaningless in the grand scheme of things, expendable means to frivolous ends. They hadn't used those words, of course, but that's how they resonated across the real Verso's memories, and so that's how this Verso thinks about them now.
And, admittedly, given the context of his own return to life, he does have his concerns, though his mind is clouded enough with bitterness that he knows better than to assume they're valid.]
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They tried to teach me a lot of things. [ She replies evasively. Truthfully, she's hesitant to say anything that might prove the points he's made, consider she's been warring against those very points.
"Creating life in a Canvas." It by definition isn't the same as their own lives. Her parents, her sister, had never thought of those who'd been painted as the real, vibrant souls that they were. Not the way she'd come to think of them, having lived with, and loved, them.
If he's looking for that answer, she won't give it voice. Especially considering the end he'd fought her for would have meant the end of all of those lives that she cherishes.
(Never mind that nearly all of them had already been Gommaged.) ]
Maman and Papa have incredible talent. Decades of experience. [ Their mother leads the Council, for God's sake. ] ...But that doesn't mean they're always right.
[ To say the least. Anyone who knows the truth of the Fracture and the resulting decades of death knew that.
Maelle crosses her arms again, pointedly not looking at Verso. ]
Why?
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No, it doesn't. But some of their lessons have stuck with me when I wasn't even part of them, so.
[Once, he'd have vehemently denied that. In figuring out what it means to be his own unique Verso, a man with the same name but not the same existence, he'd cast aside a great deal of the essence of what it means to be a Painter, adamant in his refusal to claim those things as his own. But in the end, he has taken similar approaches to those of his family, and he's come to understand that. Asserting his will, choosing for everyone. Even how he weighs the value of life inside versus outside of the Canvas has been influenced by the Dessendres' perspectives. Which is part of the reason why he digs in, now. In the end, whatever he chooses will be dictated by what feels like it'll cause the least amount of damage. And a large part of that is contingent on him figuring out how to fill in the blanks he's still grappling with.
Starting with that feels like the wrong move, though; it relies on too many presumptions about what drives Maelle. So, Verso lets out a sigh and shifts his focus back to where the butterflies still feed on the flowers as he makes an offering instead of casting a judgment.]
I used to want to bring everyone back, too.
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"Used to." [ She repeats, but manages to keep any sting from it. Her automatic reaction is to bristle, assuming she knows what's coming, and she nearly does. ...But Maelle manages to push the feeling back down. It's a bad faith take, and she's trying to listen. To actually listen this time. Which may involve hearing things she doesn't like or agree with, as he'd warned.
So she does listen, setting her mouth into a neutral line. ]
...What changed? [ Is what the youngest Dessendre settles on, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Maybe she could guess, if she tried, making several assumptions based on what she knows of his experience. ...But that's counterintuitive to what she's trying to do, too.
Again, Maelle has to remind herself of how they'd left things last they'd spoken. She sits with the discomfort that comes with that memory, making sure she's keeping things in perspective as much as possible to avoid going back to that place again. ]
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But neither of them had taught him about Canvases and Painters; Aline to maintain her fantasy, he suspects, and Renoir because he didn't know any better, either. If not for Clea, Verso likely never would have discovered who and what he is and was.
Back then, once the shock of the loss of Expedition Zero and everything that Clea had revealed wore off, the knowledge about the nature of the world had almost felt empowering. Brimming with the promise of salvation, it had revealed to him a world greater than the one that he'd dared dreamed possible when he'd first ventured out onto the Continent. Everyone who died could be brought back. Julie. Simon. His Clea. The rest of Search & Rescue. Nothing he did had to mean anything because in the end, it would all be undone with a flick of a wrist. Death was manipulatable, and that was enticing.
Too enticing.]
I realised I was turning into Maman. And into both of our fathers.
[Fleeing from grief and reality and morality alike. Verso gets up from the bench and begins pacing around a bit, not overly focused on the way he wanders but still cautious enough to keep away from the ledges.]
People started dying and I convinced myself that it was okay. You know, I'd grieve for a bit and then tell myself that I'd see them again soon. I just needed to keep going.
[And go and go and go he did, making absolutely no progress as an increasing number of bodies kept getting added to the queue each year until the list of humans to be resurrected threatened to rival that of the Gestrals. And he knew how that was going to turn out. He understood what that meant.
Those are much different circumstances than Maelle faces, of course – she had a much smaller contingent of dead to bring back – but Verso still needs to add that context to his own experiences, and so he continues.]
Then one day, I took a step back and started thinking about why I was doing it and what I actually thought would happen. And I knew... I knew it was because I didn't want to accept that the life I used to live was over.
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It seizes at her heart with a sudden indignation, though not for the first time. ]
"Playing with life and death?" [ She guesses, taking care to keep her voice as light as possible. But there's some hardness to her face when her eyes flit briefly to watch his wandering form. Verso, you did that anyway when you let us all be Gommaged to force Maman from the Canvas, to try and escape it yourself. You would have done it again if you'd won our duel.
Round and round and round and round - ]
...You know I've had to face that, too. A harsh new reality.
[ He'll assert again that what she's doing here is the opposite: stubbornly living in a past that is, in reality, gone. But she's shaking her head to preempt the contradiction, turning more fully to watch as he paces. ]
I'm trying to build something new. [ Whereas, from her perspective, what he'd intended...had been to abandon life entirely. Not to pick up and start again. ]
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wow exCUSE YOU???
bats eyelashes
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