[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.]
[ I don't know what they want...? Maelle stares back with that same sharp gaze set beneath a pinched brow. Verso isn't claiming to know either, is merely stating a fact, but it continues to eat away at her. ]
They wanted to live without the Gommage, and we've done that. [ To be able to go on past 33, to live full lives with the people they love. Sophie and Gustave could have the family they'd wanted, which had driven them apart because of the ticking time bomb. That child could grow up and grow old.
Maybe she doesn't know the intricacies of every person's wishes for this new world, but...isn't the most important thing knowing that she understands the foundation beneath it all?
His second question shakes her from her frustrated musings, though. Where her gaze had drifted downward in dissatisfaction, it now snaps back up in consternation.
There's a very long pause that hangs between them. Maelle swallows, aware again that this answer will be another crucial step in doing whatever repairs are possible to the ground between them. So she actually does think about it, arms crossing tighter in an unconscious self-soothing gesture as she turns fully to look at the distant Monolith.
What if? Again, she permits the image of a faceless, unknown citizen of the city to form in her mind's eye: a nervous young woman some years in the future who doesn't remember well enough the way things were before they'd forced Aline from the Canvas, who's conjured up some boogie man-like story about the only Paintress left. What if she calls for Maelle to leave Lumiére, what if others' voices trickle in and join hers?
Her friends -- her family -- would never force her from the city. And so a thousand branching pathways extend from that fact: what if the disagreement turns into a dangerous conflict that shatters the peace she'd hoped for this place? ...Maybe one or more of them could come with her to live somewhere else, where people who didn't know her didn't have to be afraid. But...they have, or would have, their own families. Their own responsibilities and lives. Maybe they wouldn't want to go with her anyway, to live away from their home just to keep her company.
And the worst piece of it all: no matter what they choose, someday they'll be gone. The idea is like ice water thrown over her, and she stiffens where she stands. Someday...all of them would be gone.
If that's what they want. Not everyone is Verso. And though she doesn't quite look back at him, her eyes flit briefly in his direction. Right. Most people probably don't want to age. And they don't have to.
Maelle releases a soft breath. None of this had been his question though, so... ]
Maybe I could...live somewhere else. [ It's annoying to have to say it, to give any weight to the unlikely hypothetical, but she does anyway. Maybe even means it, somewhat. ] Unless you think every living thing on the Continent hates me now, so I've got to live like some lonely hermit.
[ You know. In some little shack in the Ancient Sanctuary, alone and alone and alone.
They wanted that when they still thought they were real.
[Not just to each other. Not just to Verso and to Maelle. Real in a context that mattered; real in a way that didn't leave them at the mercy of the whims of humans who saw them as something less than, something easily erased. Verso still remembers rebelling against the idea that he and the Lumierans didn't deserve to exist – he still can bring to mind the desperation and the denial of those early days.
The thought itself exhausts him even more, and he makes his way back to the bench, hunching himself over his knees and watching the breeze carry a petal – yellow, nothing to do with Gommage – across the rooftop.]
You don't know what it's like to find out that you're... that you're some grieving woman's creation, completely subject to the whims of a group of people who think you have less of a right to live than they do.
[Life always feels good until it doesn't; the future always holds promise until you know better. Once again, Verso applies his truths to the situation as if they're universal inevitabilities and existential dread is destined to make its way through the Lumierans like an incurable plague.]
It has nothing to do with hate, Maelle. You're asking these people to accept that their lives are still in danger, but you refuse to consider anything that would mean you'd have to leave the Canvas for them. I need you to think about what matters most to you. Their future or your escape from your past.
[Which reminds Verso of Aline. Maybe Renoir was wrong to have tried to force her out of the Canvas so soon into her grief; certainly, he and Clea had gone too far in trying to expedite her return home. None of that justifies the choices she made that could only ever lead to the suffering of the Lumierans. At least not to Verso.
[ His judgment on the people in the Canvas draws out a scoff, her lip curling in distaste. ]
You sound like Clea. [ Like one or both of her parents too, of course, but it's her sister that comes to mind first. She has no idea how it happened -- when the eldest Dessendre entered the Canvas to shatter her painted family's understanding of the world and wreak other swaths of havoc -- but assumes it included a lot of frank 'truths' like that. ] Who decides what's real, Verso? The Canvas has life and death, it's got...joy, and pain, and love, and suffering. People who believe in God out there don't say that everyone alive "isn't real" because they believe they were created.
[ Not that she's at all religious, or that any of their family has such inclinations, but. ]
I'm not saying I know what it was like to live your life. I'm saying I know what it was like to live my life: before, and in here. And this one is more real.
[ It's never been perfect. Were someone to examine it objectively, they might argue that more of it was difficult and tragic than not. But Maelle speaks with the same, stubborn conviction, finally turning again to face Verso where he sits. ]
I'm trying to find some...middle ground with you, but it sounds like the only 'right' thing I can do is leave the Canvas. You're not being fair.
[ A childish statement, from a child. ]
If I leave, this world will end. Papa or Clea will see to it. [ Renoir would destroy it to save his family, and Clea...would do it to prevent further imagined insult to the world she'd created with their brother. ] There's no future there for anyone. I won't leave.
That's because you're not listening to what I'm saying.
[He grows more tired. More impatient. Speaking from the heart is hard enough from him when he believes the things he says won't be interpreted in their worst possible ways, or else dismissed outright for one reason or another. Now, with the knowledge that even if he begs her to hear him out she could easily ignore him, it feels damned near impossible. But Maelle is still his family – twisted and reality-crossing as that dynamic might be – and he isn't ready to give up yet.]
How real you consider this world to be doesn't change how feels to learn the truth, Maelle. It's devastating. Don't diminish that by trying to compare me to Clea. All you're doing is blinding yourself to their new realities.
[There's something he wants to circle back to, a question she'd asked like an accusation. He addresses it with a curt:]
You don't get to decide how real any of us feel either, Maelle.
[When the topic shifts to leaving the Canvas, Verso holds back from reminding her that she doesn't know what any of them will do. She can't know. She can be afraid of what will happen, too afraid to try, but she has to admit that for Verso to accept it. They've already been down that road, though, and it hasn't gone anywhere, so he tosses up his hands and embraces the frustration.]
And you don't get to accuse me of being unwilling to find middle ground when you're only open to one possibility.
[ It makes her angry. At first, at least. It feels like another person talking down to her, brushing aside the heart of what she says without acknowledgment of it. The retorts brew in her throat, ready to leap to a voice that bites back.
Try. The new, soft voice is her own, but she isn't sure if it's Alicia, or Maelle, or whatever and whoever she is now. Just try. So she sets her jaw and listens, even as the unpleasant feeling continues to bubble beneath her skin. ]
I said I would hear anyone out who's worried. [ She says finally, keeping her voice as even-keeled as she can. Trying. ] I said I could do something like rebuild Old Lumiére, or that I would consider leaving Lumiére and staying away from everyone. How is that "only open to one possibility?"
[ It feels as though they've gotten nowhere, that nothing she says gets through to him and that nothing he says in return makes sense to her. Maelle regards him with an unhappy weariness, crossing and uncrossing her arms. ]
I'm not-...trying to diminish anyone's feelings. [ "I'm just trying to stand up for my own," she wants to add, but worries he'll retort with something about how that's all she's been concerning herself with so far.
"Why should you get to speak for them when I fought for their lives and you fought against them," she also thinks, but doesn't say. ]
Verso, please. [ Comes the plea, and though surely he's tired of them, it won't change the desperate earnestness found nestled within. ] Stop...hiding what you mean in a lesson. [ Like Papa. ] Just tell me what it is you think I should be doing with myself in this "new reality," because obviously I haven't been able to figure it out.
[ What do you want from me? Besides that one, impossible thing. ]
[What does he think she should be doing? They both know. Verso feels like he's said his piece a dozen times already, only to be told he's being unfair, he's being unreasonable, he's the one who's setting the Lumierans up for death and devastation and destruction. The same kind of outward blame that fuelled how Aline fought for them; the same kind of inward lying that closes off the highest potential possibilities in favour of the stagnant, familiar ones.
He's so fucking tired, but if Maelle needs him to put it plainly one last time, with fewer gentled words and more certainty, then he can drum up the energy. He can give what he has left to fight for what he believes to be best for everyone, not just for her.]
It doesn't matter what you're trying to do, Maelle, because you're only willing to give them what they need to thrive when it means you don't have to compromise what you want.
[Yes, she's willing to leave Lumiere, but not the Canvas; yes, she says she'll hear them out, but Verso knows how well that might go. And she's already proven herself willing to lie and manipulate in order to remain here. Renoir may have wanted to believe her, but Verso can't, not when he's spent the last seven decades living out the consequences of his mother's refusal to leave.]
The only way those people will ever truly be real is if you can make everyone else agree: them and your family. But you won't even try. If they come back here for you, there's nothing you'll be able to do to stop them. You have to know this. You're choosing to give Lumiere a handful of tomorrows because you're too afraid to fight for anything more than that.
[Desperation thickens his voice. He looks up at her with wildly pleading eyes. He cannot watch another Dessendre ignore the fatal consequences of their endless presence in the Canvas, both for the Lumierans and for themselves.]
Is putting them through another Fracture – another Gommage – worth it to you? Is false hope what you think they deserve?
[ It hurts. It hurts to hear it all, and the fear and upset swell in the pit of her stomach and rise to form a lump in her throat. Maelle thinks -- knows -- she could go to Gustave or Sophie or Lune and make her case and they would agree. Accept her reasoning, work with her to the best solution, believe that her intentions are good and that she's allowed to belong here, too.
...But that knowledge feels hollow in the face of his accusations. When he turns that expression on her again as he had during their duel, it's like an icy knife to her heart, freezing her from within.
Why won't you believe that it's going to be okay? That I can make it okay? Her lower lip trembles slightly with the angst of it all, but any response is momentarily lost in the storm within her.
For a fraction of a fraction of a second, there's some consideration for giving in. But, no, she can't. She's...right, and he'll see it. She's just done an awful job of convincing him, she knows, and it's too soon after everything that happened to have tried.
Her shoulders relax, or at least sag. Maelle looks pointedly away, no longer able to meet his eyes and stand her ground at the same time. ]
Then we'll ask. [ She says simply, face now a mask of quiet resolve with as much a nonchalant air as she can muster. ] Neither one of us should make these decisions for them, right? I'll -- we -- can bring it to the Council.
[ There's a childish pang that accompanies this: And who are they going to side with? Who would choose immediate death over a life that could possibly hold more conflict in the future? After all, the whole point of the Expeditions was fighting for a chance in spite of all odds. The people of this city would never agree with Verso, and she doubts he'd accept the outcome unless it were in his favor, but... ]
It isn't false hope. [ However much she seems to believe what she says isn't clear, maybe even to Maelle herself. ] It isn't.
[What decisions? he wants to ask. The drive to circle the conversation back to where it was before and to challenger her, again, on what she would do if they unilaterally voted for her to leave the Canvas spreads through him like a wildfire, but this time he lets it consume him. One can only reach those who are open to being reached. One can only lay oneself so bare before they run out of anything else to offer.
He knows how things will go with the Council, besides; he's lived this before, these early days of stubborn hope and the kind of determination that makes nothing truly feel impossible. It's borne on the very same energy that he's been taking advantage of after all these years of Expedition after Expedition being sent off into certain death because next time, everything will be different.
Except it won't, it fucking won't, because in Verso's fear-clouded eyes, the only thing that's changed is that the daughter has taken over for her mother.
And it's his fault, he knows; there are no arguments he can make in favour of the Lumierans that won't be twisted to align with his original plans to wipe out the Canvas. He had all the time in the world to try and convince Maelle to leave prior to her decision to stand up to her father and stay, and instead he kept his damned mouth shut. He had been foolhardy. He had been arrogant. He had been a fucking coward. And now...]
Fuck.
[There's nothing else he can say.
He's already hunched over, but he curls more inward all the same, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes, hoping the pressure will keep him composed and stop him from plummeting back into the state of no, no, not again, no that kept him to his bed for so long. But he can't get through to himself any better than he can to Maelle, and so it's not long until his shoulders start shaking and his breaths start hitching, and he ignores the drive to get up and leave to go anywhere, anywhere else at all, to instead sit in place like a bird in a gilded cage.]
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tableauvivant) wrote2025-09-17 01:14 pm
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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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They wanted to live without the Gommage, and we've done that. [ To be able to go on past 33, to live full lives with the people they love. Sophie and Gustave could have the family they'd wanted, which had driven them apart because of the ticking time bomb. That child could grow up and grow old.
Maybe she doesn't know the intricacies of every person's wishes for this new world, but...isn't the most important thing knowing that she understands the foundation beneath it all?
His second question shakes her from her frustrated musings, though. Where her gaze had drifted downward in dissatisfaction, it now snaps back up in consternation.
There's a very long pause that hangs between them. Maelle swallows, aware again that this answer will be another crucial step in doing whatever repairs are possible to the ground between them. So she actually does think about it, arms crossing tighter in an unconscious self-soothing gesture as she turns fully to look at the distant Monolith.
What if? Again, she permits the image of a faceless, unknown citizen of the city to form in her mind's eye: a nervous young woman some years in the future who doesn't remember well enough the way things were before they'd forced Aline from the Canvas, who's conjured up some boogie man-like story about the only Paintress left. What if she calls for Maelle to leave Lumiére, what if others' voices trickle in and join hers?
Her friends -- her family -- would never force her from the city. And so a thousand branching pathways extend from that fact: what if the disagreement turns into a dangerous conflict that shatters the peace she'd hoped for this place? ...Maybe one or more of them could come with her to live somewhere else, where people who didn't know her didn't have to be afraid. But...they have, or would have, their own families. Their own responsibilities and lives. Maybe they wouldn't want to go with her anyway, to live away from their home just to keep her company.
And the worst piece of it all: no matter what they choose, someday they'll be gone. The idea is like ice water thrown over her, and she stiffens where she stands. Someday...all of them would be gone.
If that's what they want. Not everyone is Verso. And though she doesn't quite look back at him, her eyes flit briefly in his direction. Right. Most people probably don't want to age. And they don't have to.
Maelle releases a soft breath. None of this had been his question though, so... ]
Maybe I could...live somewhere else. [ It's annoying to have to say it, to give any weight to the unlikely hypothetical, but she does anyway. Maybe even means it, somewhat. ] Unless you think every living thing on the Continent hates me now, so I've got to live like some lonely hermit.
[ You know. In some little shack in the Ancient Sanctuary, alone and alone and alone.
No. No, that wouldn't be her. ]
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[Not just to each other. Not just to Verso and to Maelle. Real in a context that mattered; real in a way that didn't leave them at the mercy of the whims of humans who saw them as something less than, something easily erased. Verso still remembers rebelling against the idea that he and the Lumierans didn't deserve to exist – he still can bring to mind the desperation and the denial of those early days.
The thought itself exhausts him even more, and he makes his way back to the bench, hunching himself over his knees and watching the breeze carry a petal – yellow, nothing to do with Gommage – across the rooftop.]
You don't know what it's like to find out that you're... that you're some grieving woman's creation, completely subject to the whims of a group of people who think you have less of a right to live than they do.
[Life always feels good until it doesn't; the future always holds promise until you know better. Once again, Verso applies his truths to the situation as if they're universal inevitabilities and existential dread is destined to make its way through the Lumierans like an incurable plague.]
It has nothing to do with hate, Maelle. You're asking these people to accept that their lives are still in danger, but you refuse to consider anything that would mean you'd have to leave the Canvas for them. I need you to think about what matters most to you. Their future or your escape from your past.
[Which reminds Verso of Aline. Maybe Renoir was wrong to have tried to force her out of the Canvas so soon into her grief; certainly, he and Clea had gone too far in trying to expedite her return home. None of that justifies the choices she made that could only ever lead to the suffering of the Lumierans. At least not to Verso.
A pause, then:]
Maman wasn't honest with herself, either.
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You sound like Clea. [ Like one or both of her parents too, of course, but it's her sister that comes to mind first. She has no idea how it happened -- when the eldest Dessendre entered the Canvas to shatter her painted family's understanding of the world and wreak other swaths of havoc -- but assumes it included a lot of frank 'truths' like that. ] Who decides what's real, Verso? The Canvas has life and death, it's got...joy, and pain, and love, and suffering. People who believe in God out there don't say that everyone alive "isn't real" because they believe they were created.
[ Not that she's at all religious, or that any of their family has such inclinations, but. ]
I'm not saying I know what it was like to live your life. I'm saying I know what it was like to live my life: before, and in here. And this one is more real.
[ It's never been perfect. Were someone to examine it objectively, they might argue that more of it was difficult and tragic than not. But Maelle speaks with the same, stubborn conviction, finally turning again to face Verso where he sits. ]
I'm trying to find some...middle ground with you, but it sounds like the only 'right' thing I can do is leave the Canvas. You're not being fair.
[ A childish statement, from a child. ]
If I leave, this world will end. Papa or Clea will see to it. [ Renoir would destroy it to save his family, and Clea...would do it to prevent further imagined insult to the world she'd created with their brother. ] There's no future there for anyone. I won't leave.
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[He grows more tired. More impatient. Speaking from the heart is hard enough from him when he believes the things he says won't be interpreted in their worst possible ways, or else dismissed outright for one reason or another. Now, with the knowledge that even if he begs her to hear him out she could easily ignore him, it feels damned near impossible. But Maelle is still his family – twisted and reality-crossing as that dynamic might be – and he isn't ready to give up yet.]
How real you consider this world to be doesn't change how feels to learn the truth, Maelle. It's devastating. Don't diminish that by trying to compare me to Clea. All you're doing is blinding yourself to their new realities.
[There's something he wants to circle back to, a question she'd asked like an accusation. He addresses it with a curt:]
You don't get to decide how real any of us feel either, Maelle.
[When the topic shifts to leaving the Canvas, Verso holds back from reminding her that she doesn't know what any of them will do. She can't know. She can be afraid of what will happen, too afraid to try, but she has to admit that for Verso to accept it. They've already been down that road, though, and it hasn't gone anywhere, so he tosses up his hands and embraces the frustration.]
And you don't get to accuse me of being unwilling to find middle ground when you're only open to one possibility.
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Try. The new, soft voice is her own, but she isn't sure if it's Alicia, or Maelle, or whatever and whoever she is now. Just try. So she sets her jaw and listens, even as the unpleasant feeling continues to bubble beneath her skin. ]
I said I would hear anyone out who's worried. [ She says finally, keeping her voice as even-keeled as she can. Trying. ] I said I could do something like rebuild Old Lumiére, or that I would consider leaving Lumiére and staying away from everyone. How is that "only open to one possibility?"
[ It feels as though they've gotten nowhere, that nothing she says gets through to him and that nothing he says in return makes sense to her. Maelle regards him with an unhappy weariness, crossing and uncrossing her arms. ]
I'm not-...trying to diminish anyone's feelings. [ "I'm just trying to stand up for my own," she wants to add, but worries he'll retort with something about how that's all she's been concerning herself with so far.
"Why should you get to speak for them when I fought for their lives and you fought against them," she also thinks, but doesn't say. ]
Verso, please. [ Comes the plea, and though surely he's tired of them, it won't change the desperate earnestness found nestled within. ] Stop...hiding what you mean in a lesson. [ Like Papa. ] Just tell me what it is you think I should be doing with myself in this "new reality," because obviously I haven't been able to figure it out.
[ What do you want from me? Besides that one, impossible thing. ]
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He's so fucking tired, but if Maelle needs him to put it plainly one last time, with fewer gentled words and more certainty, then he can drum up the energy. He can give what he has left to fight for what he believes to be best for everyone, not just for her.]
It doesn't matter what you're trying to do, Maelle, because you're only willing to give them what they need to thrive when it means you don't have to compromise what you want.
[Yes, she's willing to leave Lumiere, but not the Canvas; yes, she says she'll hear them out, but Verso knows how well that might go. And she's already proven herself willing to lie and manipulate in order to remain here. Renoir may have wanted to believe her, but Verso can't, not when he's spent the last seven decades living out the consequences of his mother's refusal to leave.]
The only way those people will ever truly be real is if you can make everyone else agree: them and your family. But you won't even try. If they come back here for you, there's nothing you'll be able to do to stop them. You have to know this. You're choosing to give Lumiere a handful of tomorrows because you're too afraid to fight for anything more than that.
[Desperation thickens his voice. He looks up at her with wildly pleading eyes. He cannot watch another Dessendre ignore the fatal consequences of their endless presence in the Canvas, both for the Lumierans and for themselves.]
Is putting them through another Fracture – another Gommage – worth it to you? Is false hope what you think they deserve?
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...But that knowledge feels hollow in the face of his accusations. When he turns that expression on her again as he had during their duel, it's like an icy knife to her heart, freezing her from within.
Why won't you believe that it's going to be okay? That I can make it okay? Her lower lip trembles slightly with the angst of it all, but any response is momentarily lost in the storm within her.
For a fraction of a fraction of a second, there's some consideration for giving in. But, no, she can't. She's...right, and he'll see it. She's just done an awful job of convincing him, she knows, and it's too soon after everything that happened to have tried.
Her shoulders relax, or at least sag. Maelle looks pointedly away, no longer able to meet his eyes and stand her ground at the same time. ]
Then we'll ask. [ She says simply, face now a mask of quiet resolve with as much a nonchalant air as she can muster. ] Neither one of us should make these decisions for them, right? I'll -- we -- can bring it to the Council.
[ There's a childish pang that accompanies this: And who are they going to side with? Who would choose immediate death over a life that could possibly hold more conflict in the future? After all, the whole point of the Expeditions was fighting for a chance in spite of all odds. The people of this city would never agree with Verso, and she doubts he'd accept the outcome unless it were in his favor, but... ]
It isn't false hope. [ However much she seems to believe what she says isn't clear, maybe even to Maelle herself. ] It isn't.
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He knows how things will go with the Council, besides; he's lived this before, these early days of stubborn hope and the kind of determination that makes nothing truly feel impossible. It's borne on the very same energy that he's been taking advantage of after all these years of Expedition after Expedition being sent off into certain death because next time, everything will be different.
Except it won't, it fucking won't, because in Verso's fear-clouded eyes, the only thing that's changed is that the daughter has taken over for her mother.
And it's his fault, he knows; there are no arguments he can make in favour of the Lumierans that won't be twisted to align with his original plans to wipe out the Canvas. He had all the time in the world to try and convince Maelle to leave prior to her decision to stand up to her father and stay, and instead he kept his damned mouth shut. He had been foolhardy. He had been arrogant. He had been a fucking coward. And now...]
Fuck.
[There's nothing else he can say.
He's already hunched over, but he curls more inward all the same, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes, hoping the pressure will keep him composed and stop him from plummeting back into the state of no, no, not again, no that kept him to his bed for so long. But he can't get through to himself any better than he can to Maelle, and so it's not long until his shoulders start shaking and his breaths start hitching, and he ignores the drive to get up and leave to go anywhere, anywhere else at all, to instead sit in place like a bird in a gilded cage.]
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wow exCUSE YOU???
bats eyelashes
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