[ The last time he'd stood hand in hand with anybody, it was with Sophie, there at the end of the pier, his heart in his throat as he looked out to the horizon and the Monolith beyond. This, thank god, is nothing like that terrible day, but he still feels grateful for Verso's hand in his, for the grounding warmth and strength of it. ]
It's not that I don't trust you, I just...
[ He frowns again at the door, bewildered. If Verso knows about this door — if it should be obvious that Verso knows about it, the way he implies, because he's been here for so long — then he must know about the door in Flying Waters too, surely?
(And something else, a little niggling thought worming its way into the back of his mind: a note left on the Indigo Tree. Verso telling him by the time I reached the beach, there was no one to save. A mysterious door in the middle of nowhere, behind which he'd finally found Maelle safe and whole and alive.)
But this door doesn't open into the wide empty hall he remembers. Instead, Verso backs up and Gustave follows him, steps slow and uncertain, into a polished, empty kitchen. Just like the room they'd found Maelle in, it looks perfectly kept up, as clean as if it had just been wiped down for the night. But there are no pots or pans out, no stocks simmering on the stove. The air is scented with bunches of dried herbs, but there's no... life to the place at all.
The door swings quietly shut behind him as he lets Verso coax him further into the strange room, his steps sounding strangely against the clean, polished floor. ]
...We found Maelle in a place like this.
[ Or is it the same place, and just a different room? They hadn't been able to open any of the other doors, before. The manor, enormous, empty, had seemed to simply be... waiting for something. Or someone. ]
With the Curator. Is it the same place? That strange, empty manor?
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Date: 2025-06-19 03:51 am (UTC)It's not that I don't trust you, I just...
[ He frowns again at the door, bewildered. If Verso knows about this door — if it should be obvious that Verso knows about it, the way he implies, because he's been here for so long — then he must know about the door in Flying Waters too, surely?
(And something else, a little niggling thought worming its way into the back of his mind: a note left on the Indigo Tree. Verso telling him by the time I reached the beach, there was no one to save. A mysterious door in the middle of nowhere, behind which he'd finally found Maelle safe and whole and alive.)
But this door doesn't open into the wide empty hall he remembers. Instead, Verso backs up and Gustave follows him, steps slow and uncertain, into a polished, empty kitchen. Just like the room they'd found Maelle in, it looks perfectly kept up, as clean as if it had just been wiped down for the night. But there are no pots or pans out, no stocks simmering on the stove. The air is scented with bunches of dried herbs, but there's no... life to the place at all.
The door swings quietly shut behind him as he lets Verso coax him further into the strange room, his steps sounding strangely against the clean, polished floor. ]
...We found Maelle in a place like this.
[ Or is it the same place, and just a different room? They hadn't been able to open any of the other doors, before. The manor, enormous, empty, had seemed to simply be... waiting for something. Or someone. ]
With the Curator. Is it the same place? That strange, empty manor?