[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. ]
[He nods his head. Playing with life and death isn't exact but it's close enough. All it needs is a little elaboration for it to feel right.]
Burdening the world with my regrets. Doing nothing to stop the cycle of death.
[Bearing it all on my own shoulders he doesn't add, even if that's part of it, too. There's no way of knowing how everything might have turned out had he returned to the new Lumiere instead of following his father to their manor in the old one. Whether he would have been able to rally the Lumierans to a different cause. Whether they could have struck a course that wasn't an either/or between one awful outcome and another. How bright the future might have been.
A few more steps and he stops pacing, perfectly positioned to look out towards the Monolith. If he closes his eyes, he can still see the Paintress curled up beneath it, despairing and grieving and alone, so fucking alone as the world turned against her and Verso let it happen, all while seeking to save her in part because he'd wanted to save himself.
Looking up a little higher, up into the cluttered sky, he runs his hands through his hair and lets out a deep breath.]
I do, Maelle. I know what you've been through. That's why I'm afraid.
[ Yes: the regrets of the Dessendres are enough to choke the world. She knows. She's seen it, been victim of it...as has he, as has everyone. But Maelle hasn't been focusing on those regrets. Her thoughts and actions since the painted version of herself had been stripped away were largely forward-facing, focusing on what could be done rather than what had been done. Revive the lost, retake the city, restart her life.
Remain in the Canvas. She chews on her lower lip as she listens, watches him come to a stop and turn his head skyward. ]
What are you afraid of? [ She asks finally, her voice managing an even keel in spite of the now-familiar ebb and flow of her own fear. ] That I'll become as lost as Maman was?
[ Aline had been alone after her painted family had been made aware of the truth and scattered to the winds, losing the very thing she'd come into this Canvas to do. She'd painted Verso but had been unable to protect him, in the end.
Maelle wouldn't be the faceless, despairing figure on the horizon. She would be the steward of the people here who finally had their chance to live. ]
I know it hasn't been long, that I...don't exactly have a plan. [ The young Paintress sighs, fingers curling and uncurling into fists at her sides. ] I'm not saying I've got it all figured out. That's why I wanted to talk, to...
[ What? "Get your experience," "hear what you have to say?" "Convince you there's nothing to worry about?" She's unsure how best to put it and is still afraid of putting her foot in her mouth yet again, so she trails off. ]
[Renoir could come back at any time; Aline, too, once she's well enough. Maybe Clea will decide that she isn't willing to risk everything again and take matters into her own hands. Verso can't – he really fucking can't – bear witness to another deadly war over whichever Dessendre wants to claim the right to residency in the Canvas and whichever one opposes the notion, but he doesn't see any other future.
To dream in fantasies is a wonderful thing, but the power to make fantasies out of those realities is corrupting and easily abused, Verso has learned here in the Canvas. As addictive as anything in existence, and blinding, so fucking blinding, that he still doesn't know how to look out into the world and see things clearly for what they are.
He still doesn't believe that lasting life is possible in the Canvas. He doesn't expect that the next generation will live beyond their sixties if they make it that long to begin with. And if anyone's even allowed to die in this new world – he's not sure of that, either, only that his own immortality is gone. Those are matters for another time, though; Maelle mentions wanting to talk, and he lets out a sound of soft frustration.]
I don't know what to tell you. I spent sixty-seven years trying, I...
[ Naturally, Maelle can't promise that no Dessendres will reenter the Canvas: all she can do is hope. Hope that Clea will hide it to prevent their parents from returning so they can actually engage with the war that had taken their son and started this in the first place. Or hope that Renoir would continue on, respecting his youngest daughter's wishes after their confrontation, and help his remaining family to live.
They could keep their conflict with the Writers, the manor, the Dessendre name. As far as she's concerned, none of it has anything to do with her anymore. ]
I'm-... I haven't done anything yet. [ Maelle says, voice twinged with frustration. ] Since we forced them from the Canvas, I've just...
[ Honestly? Not been doing much more than hovering around the apartment, waiting with bated breath to see if Verso might ever emerge. It's an enormous step forward that he'd not only done that, but agreed to speak with her at all, considering. ]
But it isn't just me, or you, who has to figure it all out. [ Here her eyes drop to the streets where she tracks the movements of a smattering of people below as they bustle along. ] There are so many brilliant people in Lumiére. [ He'd traveled with some of them, after all. ] Now that everyone's on the same page, we can work together and make a decision. Find the best way forward.
[ If absolutely nothing else, then they have Gustave. She believes in his ability to find the best solution to any problem more than she believes in...almost anything. ]
[Exactly, he thinks. There are many brilliant people in Lumiere, resurrected souls that believe the future has been restored and nothing like the Gommage will ever happen again. Verso wishes he could have Maelle's faith, wishes he could share her confidence that it's possible to find a best way forward, but when he looks out into the city all he sees are petals and smoke and stone.
To him, it feels like they couldn't be farther from being on the same page.
Another bout of silence follows as he chews on his thoughts a little more, as well as on what she says about the people of Lumiere working together and making a decision. Where his mind travels next is profoundly hypocritical, but then again it's not like he wants Maelle to follow in his footsteps or take after the worst of his traits, so he gives himself a sliver of grace, even as he feels like an absolute asshole.
What he's about to say feels like it shouldn't be spoken at a distance, so he moves closer to Maelle, standing face to face.]
And if they decide they don't want to take the risk? If even one person asks to be unpainted? What will you do?
[ He approaches and she meets his eyes, albeit with wariness. The question shouldn't be a surprise, and it...isn't, exactly, but that doesn't make it any nicer to hear.
Someone did ask, and you know the answer. But Verso is a special case. Gingerly, she pictures someone that she knows (but who, crucially, she isn't close with) making that request. It's easier, with a distant hypothetical, to imagine herself acquiescing. After all, she'd done it for Alicia.
She does not, will not, picture certain people. After all...why would they ask? If the "risk" he mentions is the possible return of the Gommage, then...isn't it still better to have this time with their loved ones, rather than just giving up because there's a chance things won't stay this way forever? ]
I'm not a tyrant. [ She finally mutters, feeling stung in spite of what's probably a reasonable question. ] I...would want to understand where they were coming from, so I'd ask, first.
[ It isn't as if she's stamping a passport. It isn't as if they could then change their minds and let her know they'd made a mistake. It's a glorified assisted suicide, she thinks, and intends to treat it with the weight and patience it requires. ]
[There are arguments Verso had been prepared to make, questions he had thought to ask, comparisons that he already has at the ready, a whole thing about claiming the role of the arbiter of life and death that completely fucking dies when she says she'd ask first.
A lot of fucking good that's done him, though.
But the fact that he himself hadn't been asked – he'd been begged to stop his own begging, instead – isn't even what hurts the most right now, though, and the determination in his eyes collapses as despair reasserts its dominance.]
You didn't ask Alicia. You didn't hesitate with her.
[They've been over that, of course. But in light of everything else, the pain resurfaces and he can't hold it back. All his original intentions collide into a single question, a cruel question, but one that he feels across the whole of his essence.]
Why do you get to decide who stays here and who doesn't?
[It's not really an accusation, though it may well come across as one. It's more of an observation. She is making those choices. She isn't doing the things she claims to be doing unilaterally. And that worries him, too.]
[ There it is again, pressing at her throat: indignation. And again she's teetering on the precipice, having to temper her reaction, her own frustration, to avoid completely losing any shred of a chance that they see eye to eye...now, or ever.
She clenches her jaw so tight it hurts in her temples, staring back at him with a level expression, but a warning in her eyes. ]
You heard exactly what I said. What we both said. [ Fortunately, Alicia had seen fit to resume the flow of time at the end, so Verso and the others had been able to witness those last moments. ] I offered, and she accepted it. Asked me. You can't change what happened because you wish things were different.
[ Then the question. Maelle breaks contact to look down toward the harbour, drawing deep, steadying breaths. ]
...You decided first, Verso. [ The youngest Dessendre says quietly, remembering too easily the fear and chaos of that moment. The unexpected Gommage that had scrubbed away her life as Maelle alone. ] You were going to do it again.
[ Is there really never going to be a way that they can be anything but at odds? Had the Paintress' 'defeat' been the death knell for any relationship between them?
Merde. Maybe it'd be easier if she had her sister's mind. Or her brother's heart. ]
[He'll drop the Alicia thing for now; he had heard, but it still stands that Verso had clued into what was happening in one moment, and the next his little sister was nothing but petals in the wind. Maelle sees it differently, though, and he understands that. It just doesn't make it hurt any less. So, instead, he latches onto her own observations, all the emotion surrounding Alicia carrying on in sentiments that don't even involve her, not really.]
Yeah, and I fucking hated it, Maelle.
[Did he want to die before he chose his course or did he want to die in consequence? Truthfully, it's a bit of both; the realisation that his existence only perpetuated suffering made him wish that he could end it all, but the actions he had to take to save the one person in this Canvas whose life could still be spared – those are what made his desire to die less about not being able to bear witness to the sacrifices needed to keep him alive, but rather being incapable of living with himself any longer.]
All of Lumiere exists as props in your family's grief. They deserve better, they deserve...
[Freedom. Agency. To not have to justify themselves if they decide that they don't want this life, either. To never have to feel like Verso does, his own wants and needs and feelings rendered irrelevant for being contradictory to Maelle's.]
They deserve to live their own lives without interference. As long as someone is using this Canvas to escape, it will never be theirs.
[I wasn't going to do it again until you refused to leave, he refrains from saying, holding the words back before they spill out of their own volition.]
Not unless you step back and let them figure this out on their own while you worry about your family.
I'm trying to create that world for them. [ She's still avoiding his gaze, should he be looking back, as she speaks. The flush of frustration is a clear, rosy splotch against otherwise pale cheeks, beneath white hair. ] With the others gone, I can do that for them. For us. This is my home, too.
[ Just because she wasn't born here, does it negate the sixteen years that it was all she knew? Just because she's regained her memories, does it mean she's no longer able to count herself among the Lumierans? ]
I'm not leaving. [ Maelle stresses again, and there's a warning in her voice. ] So if that's your only solution, then-...
[ Then they've reached the same impasse. ...But she doesn't want that, which twists at her stomach and starts her pacing. ]
If that's really true, then there's got to be another way - a better way - I can help them. I'm not...trying to lead the Council or anything, I'm just-...
[ Trying to help. Because she's already been asked for advice from some of the others in the city beyond her years, beyond her experience. She hasn't found the words yet to tell the people who've put some hope in her that she's the least talented Painter of the Dessendres. Would they cast her out, if they knew her abilities were like...well, a child's, compare to Aline?
Maman could fix it. She could've truly fixed it, and kept it stable. But she can't be allowed back, and so Maelle is all they have. ]
They are my family. [ She says finally, and there's a little break in her voice as she shoots an arm out, indicating the people below, but referring to a select few. ] What I'm doing is worrying about them.
[ "And you," she doesn't say. She'll also consider him to be family, but knows better than to muddy the waters further....for now. ]
[It should be simple: better to be than not to be. Nothing in the Canvas is simple, though, least of all the continuation of its society, and it still makes Verso nervous that Maelle is so intent on helping. Which, again, should be a good thing, heartwarming and demonstrative of immense strength, exactly what he's long wanted to see in his little sister, both in his own memories and in the real Verso's.
But she has that classic Dessendre stubbornness, that audacity of taking everything onto one's own shoulders with the determination of a battle commander in the heat of war. The same audacity that they've all let lead themselves to ruin, including him – he knows this. But it's different when it's his little sister, and it's different when her life continues to be on the line, and it's different when he's stuck projecting his own fears and apprehensions onto the rest of the Canvas like its his own assertive stroke of paint capable of bending everything to his will if only it can overpower the others.
He really is a hypocrite. Which is how he can ask:]
What if they'd feel safer if you left? What if they decide they're not okay with having another Paintress having power over them?
[Again, the words are accusatory but the tone isn't. Instead, it's almost pleading. Tired, certainly. Desperate in similar – albeit softer – ways than it was during their fateful fight. He doesn't want another Paintress having power over him, either.]
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tableauvivant) wrote2025-09-17 01:14 pm
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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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Burdening the world with my regrets. Doing nothing to stop the cycle of death.
[Bearing it all on my own shoulders he doesn't add, even if that's part of it, too. There's no way of knowing how everything might have turned out had he returned to the new Lumiere instead of following his father to their manor in the old one. Whether he would have been able to rally the Lumierans to a different cause. Whether they could have struck a course that wasn't an either/or between one awful outcome and another. How bright the future might have been.
A few more steps and he stops pacing, perfectly positioned to look out towards the Monolith. If he closes his eyes, he can still see the Paintress curled up beneath it, despairing and grieving and alone, so fucking alone as the world turned against her and Verso let it happen, all while seeking to save her in part because he'd wanted to save himself.
Looking up a little higher, up into the cluttered sky, he runs his hands through his hair and lets out a deep breath.]
I do, Maelle. I know what you've been through. That's why I'm afraid.
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Remain in the Canvas. She chews on her lower lip as she listens, watches him come to a stop and turn his head skyward. ]
What are you afraid of? [ She asks finally, her voice managing an even keel in spite of the now-familiar ebb and flow of her own fear. ] That I'll become as lost as Maman was?
[ Aline had been alone after her painted family had been made aware of the truth and scattered to the winds, losing the very thing she'd come into this Canvas to do. She'd painted Verso but had been unable to protect him, in the end.
Maelle wouldn't be the faceless, despairing figure on the horizon. She would be the steward of the people here who finally had their chance to live. ]
I know it hasn't been long, that I...don't exactly have a plan. [ The young Paintress sighs, fingers curling and uncurling into fists at her sides. ] I'm not saying I've got it all figured out. That's why I wanted to talk, to...
[ What? "Get your experience," "hear what you have to say?" "Convince you there's nothing to worry about?" She's unsure how best to put it and is still afraid of putting her foot in her mouth yet again, so she trails off. ]
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[Renoir could come back at any time; Aline, too, once she's well enough. Maybe Clea will decide that she isn't willing to risk everything again and take matters into her own hands. Verso can't – he really fucking can't – bear witness to another deadly war over whichever Dessendre wants to claim the right to residency in the Canvas and whichever one opposes the notion, but he doesn't see any other future.
To dream in fantasies is a wonderful thing, but the power to make fantasies out of those realities is corrupting and easily abused, Verso has learned here in the Canvas. As addictive as anything in existence, and blinding, so fucking blinding, that he still doesn't know how to look out into the world and see things clearly for what they are.
He still doesn't believe that lasting life is possible in the Canvas. He doesn't expect that the next generation will live beyond their sixties if they make it that long to begin with. And if anyone's even allowed to die in this new world – he's not sure of that, either, only that his own immortality is gone. Those are matters for another time, though; Maelle mentions wanting to talk, and he lets out a sound of soft frustration.]
I don't know what to tell you. I spent sixty-seven years trying, I...
[Failed in every way that it's possible to fail.]
I have nothing to offer.
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They could keep their conflict with the Writers, the manor, the Dessendre name. As far as she's concerned, none of it has anything to do with her anymore. ]
I'm-... I haven't done anything yet. [ Maelle says, voice twinged with frustration. ] Since we forced them from the Canvas, I've just...
[ Honestly? Not been doing much more than hovering around the apartment, waiting with bated breath to see if Verso might ever emerge. It's an enormous step forward that he'd not only done that, but agreed to speak with her at all, considering. ]
But it isn't just me, or you, who has to figure it all out. [ Here her eyes drop to the streets where she tracks the movements of a smattering of people below as they bustle along. ] There are so many brilliant people in Lumiére. [ He'd traveled with some of them, after all. ] Now that everyone's on the same page, we can work together and make a decision. Find the best way forward.
[ If absolutely nothing else, then they have Gustave. She believes in his ability to find the best solution to any problem more than she believes in...almost anything. ]
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To him, it feels like they couldn't be farther from being on the same page.
Another bout of silence follows as he chews on his thoughts a little more, as well as on what she says about the people of Lumiere working together and making a decision. Where his mind travels next is profoundly hypocritical, but then again it's not like he wants Maelle to follow in his footsteps or take after the worst of his traits, so he gives himself a sliver of grace, even as he feels like an absolute asshole.
What he's about to say feels like it shouldn't be spoken at a distance, so he moves closer to Maelle, standing face to face.]
And if they decide they don't want to take the risk? If even one person asks to be unpainted? What will you do?
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Someone did ask, and you know the answer. But Verso is a special case. Gingerly, she pictures someone that she knows (but who, crucially, she isn't close with) making that request. It's easier, with a distant hypothetical, to imagine herself acquiescing. After all, she'd done it for Alicia.
She does not, will not, picture certain people. After all...why would they ask? If the "risk" he mentions is the possible return of the Gommage, then...isn't it still better to have this time with their loved ones, rather than just giving up because there's a chance things won't stay this way forever? ]
I'm not a tyrant. [ She finally mutters, feeling stung in spite of what's probably a reasonable question. ] I...would want to understand where they were coming from, so I'd ask, first.
[ It isn't as if she's stamping a passport. It isn't as if they could then change their minds and let her know they'd made a mistake. It's a glorified assisted suicide, she thinks, and intends to treat it with the weight and patience it requires. ]
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A lot of fucking good that's done him, though.
But the fact that he himself hadn't been asked – he'd been begged to stop his own begging, instead – isn't even what hurts the most right now, though, and the determination in his eyes collapses as despair reasserts its dominance.]
You didn't ask Alicia. You didn't hesitate with her.
[They've been over that, of course. But in light of everything else, the pain resurfaces and he can't hold it back. All his original intentions collide into a single question, a cruel question, but one that he feels across the whole of his essence.]
Why do you get to decide who stays here and who doesn't?
[It's not really an accusation, though it may well come across as one. It's more of an observation. She is making those choices. She isn't doing the things she claims to be doing unilaterally. And that worries him, too.]
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She clenches her jaw so tight it hurts in her temples, staring back at him with a level expression, but a warning in her eyes. ]
You heard exactly what I said. What we both said. [ Fortunately, Alicia had seen fit to resume the flow of time at the end, so Verso and the others had been able to witness those last moments. ] I offered, and she accepted it. Asked me. You can't change what happened because you wish things were different.
[ Then the question. Maelle breaks contact to look down toward the harbour, drawing deep, steadying breaths. ]
...You decided first, Verso. [ The youngest Dessendre says quietly, remembering too easily the fear and chaos of that moment. The unexpected Gommage that had scrubbed away her life as Maelle alone. ] You were going to do it again.
[ Is there really never going to be a way that they can be anything but at odds? Had the Paintress' 'defeat' been the death knell for any relationship between them?
Merde. Maybe it'd be easier if she had her sister's mind. Or her brother's heart. ]
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Yeah, and I fucking hated it, Maelle.
[Did he want to die before he chose his course or did he want to die in consequence? Truthfully, it's a bit of both; the realisation that his existence only perpetuated suffering made him wish that he could end it all, but the actions he had to take to save the one person in this Canvas whose life could still be spared – those are what made his desire to die less about not being able to bear witness to the sacrifices needed to keep him alive, but rather being incapable of living with himself any longer.]
All of Lumiere exists as props in your family's grief. They deserve better, they deserve...
[Freedom. Agency. To not have to justify themselves if they decide that they don't want this life, either. To never have to feel like Verso does, his own wants and needs and feelings rendered irrelevant for being contradictory to Maelle's.]
They deserve to live their own lives without interference. As long as someone is using this Canvas to escape, it will never be theirs.
[I wasn't going to do it again until you refused to leave, he refrains from saying, holding the words back before they spill out of their own volition.]
Not unless you step back and let them figure this out on their own while you worry about your family.
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[ Just because she wasn't born here, does it negate the sixteen years that it was all she knew? Just because she's regained her memories, does it mean she's no longer able to count herself among the Lumierans? ]
I'm not leaving. [ Maelle stresses again, and there's a warning in her voice. ] So if that's your only solution, then-...
[ Then they've reached the same impasse. ...But she doesn't want that, which twists at her stomach and starts her pacing. ]
If that's really true, then there's got to be another way - a better way - I can help them. I'm not...trying to lead the Council or anything, I'm just-...
[ Trying to help. Because she's already been asked for advice from some of the others in the city beyond her years, beyond her experience. She hasn't found the words yet to tell the people who've put some hope in her that she's the least talented Painter of the Dessendres. Would they cast her out, if they knew her abilities were like...well, a child's, compare to Aline?
Maman could fix it. She could've truly fixed it, and kept it stable. But she can't be allowed back, and so Maelle is all they have. ]
They are my family. [ She says finally, and there's a little break in her voice as she shoots an arm out, indicating the people below, but referring to a select few. ] What I'm doing is worrying about them.
[ "And you," she doesn't say. She'll also consider him to be family, but knows better than to muddy the waters further....for now. ]
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[It should be simple: better to be than not to be. Nothing in the Canvas is simple, though, least of all the continuation of its society, and it still makes Verso nervous that Maelle is so intent on helping. Which, again, should be a good thing, heartwarming and demonstrative of immense strength, exactly what he's long wanted to see in his little sister, both in his own memories and in the real Verso's.
But she has that classic Dessendre stubbornness, that audacity of taking everything onto one's own shoulders with the determination of a battle commander in the heat of war. The same audacity that they've all let lead themselves to ruin, including him – he knows this. But it's different when it's his little sister, and it's different when her life continues to be on the line, and it's different when he's stuck projecting his own fears and apprehensions onto the rest of the Canvas like its his own assertive stroke of paint capable of bending everything to his will if only it can overpower the others.
He really is a hypocrite. Which is how he can ask:]
What if they'd feel safer if you left? What if they decide they're not okay with having another Paintress having power over them?
[Again, the words are accusatory but the tone isn't. Instead, it's almost pleading. Tired, certainly. Desperate in similar – albeit softer – ways than it was during their fateful fight. He doesn't want another Paintress having power over him, either.]
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wow exCUSE YOU???
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