𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏.

[demainvient]

𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 ⊹ 𝒆𝒑𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒚 ⊹ 𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒖𝒂𝒍
 

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𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒍𝒔

[demainvient]

open forever!

— training
— nursed back to health
— affectionate physical contact
— behind a glass wall
— stargazing
— comfort after nightmares
— duo dynamics
— amnesia
— word association

MAELLE'S DREAM

[maellum]

[When Maelle opens her eyes, the golden warmth of the morning sun nearly blinds her. Her lashes flutter as she focuses on her window, the sheer curtains doing little to filter the light. Sitting up, it's better, but it's not until her feet touch the floor that she remembers.

Her room.

Her room. Her room, not the cold dark of the camp. Her bed is made, soft and plush, so different from her thin bedroll. Her wardrobe is ajar, uniform peering out at her from the dark. It's clean. She's clean, when she looks down at her hands, and she can smell coffee and bread rather than sweat and blood and dirt.

She can hear movement. The familiar creak of the floorboards. She's not alone.

For a terrible moment the hope in her heart is so much it hurts like a knife. Like her heart might break. It's a fire.

Maelle hops to her feet and throws open her door, frantic as she rushes out.

Please, please.]

[demainvient]

[ The kitchen and little dining area that leads off it are suffused in golden light, rich as melted butter. It glows through the sheer curtains at the windows, lending a hazy, soft-edged air to the cupboards and shelves, the blue-and-white vase filled with flowers that sits on a white, lace-edged cloth on the sideboard.

And there, at the little table with a book open before him and a cup of coffee held, forgotten and steaming, in his hand, her brother sits with one leg crossed easily over the other. The clatter she makes rouses him from the text he'd been poring over, and he turns to look over at her, eyes crinkling with his smile. ]

You're up early.

[ And, because he'll never miss an opportunity to tease her, he adds: ]

Some special occasion I'm not aware of?

[maellum]

[She comes to a halt. Like there's an invisible wall (not paint, separating her from him, making her so helpless and useless), and she can only stare at him. He looks perfect. This is the memory she tries to hold onto. This is the brother, father, family she wants to remember. Not his blood, everywhere, skin pale and eyes dull because the life had left him.

The tears roll down her cheeks, unbidden.]

Gustave?

[She's missed him. Terribly.]

—𝒅𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆

[demainvient]

[ from here ]

[ The effect those words, from this man, has on him is abrupt and alarming. Heat flushes through him like sheets of fire; his heart pounds. It's an insult— it's mockery. ]

And who do you imagine will come after, when you're killing those who would give them a chance to live? To exist in a world free of the Gommage, free to have families of their own and to live to see their children grow?

awww yeah time to lock in

[betenoir]

[And the more this man speaks, the greater the fire of his own anger; his rage boils and bubbles but he has lived enough lifetimes to bring his emotions under control. Or at stop them appearing on the surface. How many of those people had shown his children kindness? Who had made the choice not to betray their trust? Who had not tortured Clea, Verso or Alicia for the gifts they had been given? Who would not choose revenge?]

Imagination cannot protect our children. You cannot speak of the future when you know nothing about the world. You cannot understand why I do what I do. But for all my word is worth, those who come after are those I am protecting at all costs.

[Does this man not think he has a family of his own? Because if saving his loved ones means others must lose their own, then so be it.]

hell yeah love this for us

[demainvient]

Your word is ash.

[ The word of a murderer, one who claims to be working for the greater good, means nothing to him. He can't comprehend a world in which Alan, Lucien, Catherine, all the others living, thriving, releasing themselves from the Paintress' yoke is somehow an evil. To live with a heart this cold, this man has become as implacable as winter.

He will never let his own heart wither this way. ]

How can you blame me, any of us, for not understanding the world when you slaughter us just as we begin to see it? Is it you keeping us in the dark as much as the Paintress?

RENOIR —𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒊𝒓

[demainvient]

[ This place, the continent — it's so much more beautiful than he'd ever imagined. Parts of it are lush and green, filled with trees reaching high toward the cracked sky, and then there's Falling Waters: impossible, magical.

Also an incredible headache to try and navigate.

He and Lune had gotten lost more times than he'd ever care to admit those first days in Spring Meadows, finding themselves going down the same winding valleys over and over again, finding the same remnants of Nevrons and expeditions past, so turned around he'd been starting to despair of ever finding their way out. Stubbornly sticking to north hadn't helped: a wall of stone with no handholds would rise up abruptly before them, or a ravine with no way across, and they'd have to start moving east or west instead, and then inevitably south once more. Late nights at the campfire grew tense with frustration.

The man changes everything.

He moves through this place like a native, sure in every step, the sharp and humming brain beneath the white hair that Gustave hasn't seen in so long an instrument of incredible power. Even with his cane, he manages the path as well as or better than either him or Lune, and he offers a wealth of knowledge neither of them would ever have found in a lifetime's worth of research. For the first time since the beach, Gustave begins to feel that maybe, maybe, a little bit of fortune is finally smiling on them.

(He wasn't the one who left the message, he claims; he wasn't the one who brought Maelle to safety. But he can help them find her.)

He sits now, near the fire, the warm light and soft shadows sinking into the lines of his face as Gustave watches him from under his brows, his head still bent as he carefully scribes the happenings of the day into his journal. We have met someone, he writes to his apprentices. A man who lived through the Gommage. His name is Renoir... ]

We know so little about Expedition Zero, [ he says, finally, voice quiet so as to keep from disturbing Lune. He glances at her, a quiet figure on her side, and looks back to the older man as he closes his journal. ]

Lune worked out where you landed, but so much information from that time was lost long ago.

[betenoir]

[Lost? That is not the word one would use were they aware of the truth. Burned. Destroyed. Massacred. People know little about Expedition Zero beyond word of mouth because, together with his son, he had wiped them from existence. But as much as it had been to hide the awful truth of their existence, he had done so to protect those he holds dear. Had done so because he had been driven by anger to ignore his own suffering.

Renoir bows his head rather than study the younger man, having studied him enough already to catch glimpses of his character. Intelligent. Dedicated to family. Dedicated to his community.

It is a community he has little desire to walk amongst these days.]

It's not good to worry about what happened during that time. It is better for your team that you focus on your mission.

[Says the man who has to be at least a century. His head turns to watch Lune, sleeing peacefully and unawares on the floor, ad he regards her with a thoughtful expression. He really cannot have her discovering too much.]

[trebuchim]

[ The crackling fire doesn't seem to be warming Lune any. It's cold, cold all over. It's the shock, she knows, and yet knowing it makes it no easier to manage. Nothing is as it should. Their expedition was slaughtered nearly to the last man, their hopes, dreams and fearless determination shattered into pieces upon that beach. It was a small miracle she'd found Gustave before it was too late.

Death seemed to haunt every stretch of the continent; Nevrons prowling around each corner, petrified expeditioners lying forgotten where they'd been struck down years ago. Bewildered and traumatized, the two of them forged their way through the glittering meadows and blue trees, awe of discovery dampened by crippling loss and impotent anger held at bay only by primal need to focus on surviving. The Indigo Tree had yielded no survivors nor answers, only a cryptic, concerning message about Maelle.

Once they'd made camp for the night, they'd had time to take a breath and think and feel— and argue, the levies breaking as their fears and the trauma of seeing their friends die at the hands of an unknown assailant rushed to the surface. That had been a while ago. The fight's been punched out of her for now, leaving behind only grief and worry.

Lune shifts now, huddling closer to Gustave by the fire, seeking his warmth and the comfort of his presence. They only have each other to lean on, now. Though some part of her hates being this needy and shaky, her hand finds his organic one regardless and clutches it firmly, as if reassuring herself he's actually here with her and not some figment. A tiny tremble moves over her cool skin, but no words come. Nothing useful, anyway.

What's left to say that either of them didn't already, earlier? ]

[demainvient]

[ He's staring into the fire, mind blank, every thought evaporated into mist when a small shift beside him has him blinking back into reality. Lune is here next to him, and it takes much too long for him to realize she's trembling — shivering, really — and that the fingers she slips into his limp human hand are cold. ]

Merde—

[ Lurching into awareness is uncomfortable, but he's afforded some small distraction from the horrors that lurk in his mind and memory by the very real problem now before him. ]

Lune, you're freezing—! Come here, come—

[ He slips his hand out of hers to put his warm right arm around her, drawing her close to his side as he holds his left hand out to the fire, the metal glinting in the light. When it's warm from the flames, without being burning hot, he curls towards her to set his hand on her forearm, rubbing up and down along her bare arm to try and warm her up. ]

I should find you a blanket, I wasn't... I wasn't thinking.

lumiere meeting things

[versorecto]

[ Verso really shouldn't be here.

With every passing year, Lumiere only grows emptier, more and more of a shell of what it used to be -- and the less people there are, the harder it is to get away with being just one strange face in a crowd. He's already come close to being caught before, lingering a bit too long as he watched Maelle pick herself up from a fall as she ran through the streets, almost reflexively thinking he should go to her, and then. He knew better, at least, managed to slip away.

But now, he's taking risks again. Fingers running over a piano, tracing through a slight gathering of dust. Sometimes he can tell himself that Lumiere doesn't feel much like home anymore, with everything he's left behind and had to cut away from himself, with how long he's been away, with how he's learned to live out on the Continent -- but then this. Lingering memories, echoing of a place he once thought he belonged, and a pull deep in his chest to the feel of the keys under his fingers as he plays to a waiting crowd. He can still play, away from here, but its just not -- the same. A different sound, a different feel. A different time. A life he used to have.

He really, really can't be here. But since he is, since no one's here, since the air in the concert hall is still and quiet in a way that almost, almost makes him think of the way a crowd would as one hold their breaths in anticipation for the first note . . .

He sits down, straightens, lifts a hand above the keys. A single sound, clear and high, ringing through the space -- almost involuntarily his eyes fall shut, breath caught a little in his throat. One single note and the echoes of memories are in his mind, and before he can even think to stop himself his fingers are already moving, just one phrase of a gentle, familiar melody. Papa and maman are watching in the crowd, Clea with them, but Alicia is beside him, a familiar weight on the bench, leaning in and eager to watch him play -- and.

His eyes snap open, a tension immediately winding through his body. The moment disappears. Someone -- is here. And its a little too late to try to shrink into a shadow and pretend he was never there. ]

[demainvient]

[ Maelle is still petite at thirteen, but lately Gustave has noticed her coming a little further towards his shoulder, eating more at meals, sleeping longer. She's hitting a growth spurt, he thinks, and his suspicions are only confirmed when his light-footed little sister stumbles and falls on the uneven cobblestones of the marketplace, skinning a knee and flushing with embarrassment in the process.

He'd been there in the next moment, kneeling to examine the poor scraped knee and telling her silly jokes until she could blink away the surprised dampness in her eyes and laugh, but there had been a moment, just before he moved to her assistance, when he thought he saw a shifting, abortive motion in the shadows of a nearby building. A man...?

Maelle's distress had taken precedence, though, and when he'd looked again, the figure in the shadows had gone, if indeed he had ever been there at all. For a moment he thinks he sees someone — an expedition uniform, dark hair — but then there's nothing but the shift of the usual marketplace crowd, flowing into place like schools of fish. Gustave shakes it out of his head and turns his focus back to Maelle, fondly scolding her for rushing about and hurting herself while she smiles at his lack of sternness. A pain au chocolat later, he watches her already back to running full-tilt through the crowd, ponytail swaying, on her way home to Emma with a bag of fresh viennoiseries.

The evening is too fine for him to rush along with her, though, and he takes his time, wandering along a few of Lumiere's quieter streets, up towards the garden and the cracked tower.

It's as he's passing the opera house — closed for the season and with that strange, almost expectant feeling of an unused building — that he hears it: a clear, ringing note, chasing through the air like a bird in flight.

Others follow: lingering chords and triplets that flow into one another like water bubbling around rocks in a stream, and he's heading to the opera house before he can stop himself. The door is cracked open, the building cool and quiet and dim inside. It feels strange to be here on an evening with no performance and no crowd of chattering people, but he knows the way in, quietly pushing open one of the heavy, intricately carved doors to the theatre itself, following the lilting notes as if each one were a breadcrumb scattered along a path.

There's a man on the stage, sitting at the piano like he's been there all along, a gleam of white tracing through dark waves of hair. Gustave watches for a moment, listening. The song is lovely, it's—

The man stops abruptly, stiffens, all the relaxed ease draining out of him, and Gustave grimaces at himself before lifting a hand in an awkward greeting as he steps out from the shadow of the balcony above. ]

Sorry— sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.

[maellum]

[It's easy to lose track of the hours, here. Their camp is quiet and dark and tucked away with the perfect viewpoint of their purpose: the Paintress and her glowing number. It's a constant reminder of their purpose. Maelle counts herself fortunate to be here--especially given the start to their expedition--and her hand brushes over her armband and the embroidered 33 as she approaches Gustave where he sits. She's given him enough time to write in his journal, she thinks, but still walks on the toes of her boots until she's certain she's not interrupting a thought.]

I'm surprised you haven't used all the pages yet.

[Maelle doesn't wait for an invitation before she sits beside him, feet dangling over the edge of the cliffside. She leans over into his space, purposely obnoxious and very aware of how her ponytail must be going right up his nose, as if she's trying to peep at the pages.]

Your apprentices are going to eat each other alive to be the first to read this.

[If he makes it back. If they defeat the Paintress. If any of them make it back. If any of those boys grow up, come here on their own expedition, and find a thoughtfully penned journal by their mentor. But Maelle keeps the if at bay. Gustave has such hope for the future, and here, in this place, she can't bring herself to be contrary.]

[demainvient]

[ He reaches up to bat her ponytail out of her face, nose crinkling as the fine hairs cling to him with static electricity. ]

I have small handwriting. Tiny.

[ He illustrates with a hand held up and a finger and thumb pressed so close together they might as well be touching. ]

And there's a lot of pages. They were pretty optimistic that I'd have a lot to say. Well—

[ A moue as he tips his head and glances up at her. ]

And that I wouldn't die right away to some Nevron or other. So really it's a vote of confidence, this journal.

𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒 —𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒐

[demainvient]

[ The days after the Gommage, after the next expedition has left, are always strange and somber in Lumiere. The most fortunate of the orphans find themselves living with family; others with strangers. The least lucky are left to the care of the orphanage while they grieve their losses. The little island, the city, feel bruised. Another year ticked away, all of them another year closer to their own imminent demise.

Gustave chooses to funnel his grief into work. The lumina tech is coming along, and there are other expeditions to supply and prepare for, and even without either of those, Lumiere is a shattered city with a limping infrastructure. It isn't hard to find projects and repairs enough to keep him busy and focused for days at a time, his grief a quiet, constant background hum, a reminder to do the best work he can, to expend every ounce of his creativity and expertise in pursuit of a way to break the cycle.

(Two years until Sophie's Gommage, and the expedition he already plans to join. It's not enough time.)

His work today sends him high above the city, fixing one of the emitters they'd rigged up to bolster the Shield Dome. It's too high for his apprentices and he'd forbidden Maelle from joining him, so he's alone as he finishes the climb to the roof of what must have once been a grand building. There are handholds, at least, and grapple points, and he doesn't mind being up so high, really. The wind tousles his hair and the collar of hist shirt — no suit today, he's wearing workaday clothes of a loose white shirt and comfortable trousers — and he feels as though it's washing him clean, in a way.

He's less fond of the heights when he goes to make his way back, and the grapple point crumbles and breaks off just as he's about to land on the next building down. Gravity swoops in, instant, and before he can do more than reach for the edge of the roof with his metal left hand hand, he's falling.

The only sound that leaves his lips is a sharp gasp of surprise. ]

[versorecto]

[ Verso has only been in Lumiere for the Gommage once or twice, in all these years, out of some strange sense of feeling like he at least -- owes that much, to them. But somehow, even after the countless friends he's buried, the Expeditioners he's seen throw themselves to their deaths over and over again -- the Gommage is still worse. The waiting. The anticipation. The flowers. The way everyone knows, and waits. How the Expeditions dwindle, year by year.

This time, he's here after, when the city is still in a mix of quiet mourning and vain hope for the Expedition just gone. Most of the petals have been swept from the streets, but they still linger in the corners, on less-walked paths. He needs to be careful, he always does, but its the awful, sentimental man in him that can't help but want to spend a passing moment at some of the lonelier looking makeshift memorials, scattered around street corners still stacked with unclaimed furniture, across the rooftops. Like he hasn't seen so many deaths, like he hasn't just stood by and watched so many die, and die, and die.

He means this to be a quick visit. He'd told Esquie to hold him to it, after the -- unexpected detour, last time. Maelle is getting harder for him to find each time, moves quick and fleet-footed through the city she knows so well, but when he catches sight of her moving past, this time, she's alone. He doesn't know how old the man was -- is. Is he -- gone? Has he left with the new Expedition? Is he just now arriving on whatever shores this crew had chosen to land on? Dead, gone, or about to die, and for the instinctive twisting feeling that moves through his gut, Verso just shoves it down. What right does he to feel that way? Besides, Maelle seems fine, so maybe, maybe. He's just elsewhere.

Verso doesn't mean to go looking for him. But he often likes to take a look at what the locals are doing to the dome that he and Renoir helped build with their own hands, and keeping to the rooftops seems a good way to keep a lower profile, for this visit. And somehow it doesn't take long at all for him to see a figure climbing across the rooftops, to notice the gleam of light coming off a metallic arm.

Alive after all. He -- does his best to ignore the rush of relief, but he does let himself pick his way closer across some of the various rooftop gardens. Is he working on something for the dome? An engineer, he should've guessed, from the arm. It's fine. He can just get a look at what he's working on, satisfy some curiosity, watch him for a while, perhaps, and move on. Gustave grapples across the rooftops with obvious skill, and Verso watches, quiet, until --

Verso is moving before he even realizes it, sprinting across the rooftops, chroma surging through him. There's another grapple point nearby, and he hurtles through the air, reaching out, just barely makes it in time to catch Gustave by his outstretched metal arm, cursing under his breath as he hauls them both through the air. The landing isn't the most graceful with how he's had to interrupt the trajectory (it was messy, the leap of a man who knows he doesn't have anything to fear but pain if he did fall), but it's a landing. He almost throws himself across floor of the rooftop garden he's managed to swing them into, managing to pull Gustave with him until they've both spilled messily across the dirty and concrete.

Fuck. Merde. Is Gustave okay? He's fine, he can pick himself up from a spill like that. He should leave. No, what's wrong with him, he needs to at least check on the man, no, this is stupid, he knows better than this. He scrambles to gathers himself, pushes himself upright, head snapping around. Where can he go? Staying hidden on the rooftops only works from people down below, and as his gaze settles on Gustave as he realizes its too damn late. ]

You. [ Catch your breath. Breathe. ] -- You okay?

[ He's glad. He's glad, really. Don't mind how his eyes are still darting around slightly, still looking for a way out. ]

[maellum]

[Maman painted Verso with so much love and emotion. Maelle is nowhere near as skilled, but she practices. Lune and Sciel, in retrospect, were easy. Their chroma wanted to be again, and Verso had helped guide her hand. The expeditioners took less care, less thought, because all Maelle knew about them was that they were willing to fight to defend their home. The finer details could come later.

Lumiere is where she allows herself to be creative and she tries to emulate what she thinks came before her parents inflicted so much damage upon Verso's canvas. The sun shines brighter, and people are happy. The harbor is full of laughter and festivities every day and every night, and Maelle practices more and more. Families. Large ones. There are grandparents and parents and children and grandchildren and no one is a sad, lonely orphan.

No one, except for her. There's a loneliness that creeps into her chest when she doesn't expect it. It's not Papa or Maman that she misses. She'll see them again, eventually.

It's Gustave. But she can't be impatient. She must do this to the best of her ability.

She loses track of time until one day, she feels ready. She's made everything perfect. Their home is as it was, but the sun shines brighter through the windows of Gustave's bedroom. The nerves Maelle feels gives her the last push of encouragement--oh, she's missed him, but it's that longing that will bring him back to her. Through two sets of memories, he's always been vibrant and clear. The brother she needed when she had lost hers. The father she needed when hers wasn't there. Gustave gave her a family she could have only ever dreamed of, and for that, she wants to give him everything he could have ever wanted.

That begins with life.

It takes longer than she'd like, and the concentration threatens to make her temples pound, but she paints him. Slowly but surely, he returns to their painted world, expedition uniform clean and intact despite her memory of blood, so much blood on the fabric and her face and the warmth and the scent of it. By the end, the finishing touches take the last of her energy, and she stops both because she's done and because her eyes are tired. Her palms press into them for a moment before she drops her hands and looks at her masterpiece, heart rabbiting against her ribs.]

[demainvient]

[ Everything is been so crystal clear, there at the very end. He almost wants to tell Lune about it, that the apparent secret to perfect clarity is simply this: to look your death in the face and know that it cannot be escaped.

It slows down; all of it. The sounds of the waves crashing against the implacable black rock of the cliffs. The sound of his own breath, harsh in his damaged lungs. The pounding of his heart as it limped its way onward, stubbornly beating despite the terrible damage it had sustained. The warmth of his own blood as it wells from the hole in his breast, soaking his uniform, the uniform Sophie and his apprentices had gifted him. This, too, is your legacy, she'd murmured, and he hears her voice so clearly that he could almost imagine her here next to him, lending him her quiet strength, her belief. Even now his sleeves don't fall from their secure rolls at his elbows. The boys had done such a superlative job fixing them. He knows they'll do the same with every project they undertake. They'll keep Lumière safe.

That, too, is his legacy. Engineers to fix and rebuild, using the skills he taught them. He never had children, but something of him will carry on even after he's gone all the same.

All this is so clear, and something else, too: Maelle, there behind him. She sobs and begs, fists pounding ineffectually on the barrier between them, and he could tell her it won't work, that if she even could break free she would need to run and leave him behind, but there's no time. All he can do is turn to her with all the love he's ever felt for her there in his eyes, the tiniest soft tug at the corner of his mouth. He's not afraid, when he looks at her. He wants her to see the truth, the bedrock of him, how he would do anything for her, even this. How he would always have done this, if it was what was needed so she could live.

For those who come after. For Maelle.

The fear creeps back in as he turns to face the white-haired man, as he realizes, again and again and over again, that he is going to die here, that his life will be snuffed out. But he still has to try. A flick of his hand; the familiar grip of his sword materializing in his palm. He lifts his arm, his sword flashing. He pushes himself forward into a run.

He dies.





Unexpectedly, some time later, he breathes, lips parting soft and sudden, his chest lifting with the first breath after an infinite, extended pause. His eyes flutter and open, blinking, bewildered, in the sunlight. He's...

Alive? ]

runaway

[maellum]

Gustave is nice. Nicer than most of the people that have taken her in. He's patient and warm and tries to get her to talk even if she's shy. He lets her sit in silence while he talks, and shows her around the workshop, shares little bits and pieces of his ideas. Emma is nice, too. She's given Maelle a bedroom young girls would dream of, with clean white curtains and a beautiful bedspread and a wardrobe with some clothes and a promise to eventually fill the rest of the space with more as time goes by. Maelle's already done the math--she'll be about seventeen, eighteen, when the Gommage comes for these two, but every time she does the math with the families that take her in, it's not long before she finds herself back at the orphanage.

They're both kind. They've met her nightmares with soft words and looks of concern--not for themselves and how they'll ever live with a girl that wakes up with a start and wakes them up at off hours, but with concern for her and the terror that grips her even when her eyes are open. It's different. She can see it. They've sat with her and read to her and done their very best to soothe her even when it seems like nothing is getting through. Every night she's woken up with a cry, there's been someone by her side when her senses return to her.

So, when she's managed to slip out in the night and tucked herself between some barrels and crates lining the harbor, she finds herself wondering why she's here. It's cold and damp and the breeze feels like needles against her bare arms. She left without her coat. Quickly, an ugly voice reminds her that it wasn't her coat. They got it for her. They'll want it back, surely, because she's simply getting ahead of the curve. Eventually, she'll be too much for them. Eventually, the patience will go away along with the kindness and gentleness and warmth. They'll grow frustrated and angry because they're tired and their routine is ruined. She's just saving them all some time. No family has ever wanted her, not even her own, so there's no reason these people will be different even if their warmth feels like it's touched the marrow of her bones.

It would have been nice to stay with them. She liked listening to Gustave talk, and sometimes it was funny when he and Emma would playfully argue with one another before her. Siblings. Family. Not a thing that's meant for her, no matter how much she wishes it were.

[demainvient]

It's funny to remember the arguments he and Emma had about this before he managed to convince her that fostering one of Lumière's many orphans was not only the right thing to do for them, but also their duty as childless adults in a city where unbroken families are few and far between. She hadn't disagreed, of course, but she's always been more cautious than him, more conservative, and he'd had to make the strongest case he could... and yet almost as soon as they brought Maelle home, all those arguments between them vanished like mist.

Emma is just as infatuated as he is, he thinks, though she shows it in different ways. She'd filled Maelle's wardrobe with new warm clothes; he'd stocked the little shelves in that same bedroom with books they could read together. She'd picked out the bedspread; he'd built the frame and recruited Lucien to help him lug in a mattress. They'd gone to one of the old, unused hotels to find it, and it's much less used than almost any other piece of furniture in the house, plush and comfortable and lacking any broken springs. And Emma has taken almost as many turns as he has in the middle of the night, going to Maelle's bedside to comfort her when the girl wakes from some new nightmare.

They'd talked those over, one day when Gustave had come back from walking Maelle to class. Only a few weeks in, and Maelle had woken almost every night with bad dreams. Gustave had taken to simply sleeping in a chair at her bedside, the book they'd been reading open in his lap and his head hanging down. The crick in his neck is worth it, of course, but there must be something else they can do?

But the nightmares keep coming, and they're all tired. Emma's been putting off her evenings out, but one day Gustave insists, puts his foot down, and waves her off for a night out with Sol, who has been more patient than most but who looks outright relieved to finally have some time alone with his paramour.

Gustave doesn't mind. He likes making dinner for him and Maelle, likes making sure she's brushed her teeth before sending her off to bed, but he's tired, too, and sometime after dinner he's fast asleep on the couch, totally oblivious to the small sounds of a window opening and a small body creeping out.

He's not sure what it is that wakes him. Not a sound, but maybe the absence of one: he expects to be woken by a cry from Maelle's room, but nothing comes. The reason is all too clear once he gets up and shuffles over to check on her: her bed is still neatly made up, untouched, and the window is open, letting in the cold damp air.

The rest is a bit of a blur. He runs to the door in a panic, grabbing his coat on the way – and then realizes Maelle's coat is there too, left behind, but it's cold out, how long has she been outside without it?? – and is on the street in almost the next moment, calling in a panic as he struggles with his coat, putting on the wrong arm first, forgoing the scarf tucked into a pocket. "Maelle!"

Nothing, nothing – he makes his way rapidly along the streets and alleys near the apartment, calling for her with almost every breath, his heart thudding with trepidation. It's so chilly, and she's so small–

"Maelle! Where are you?"

act 2 AU things ahoy

[trebuchim]

[ It's like some horrible fever dream. Snatches of a panic-laced nightmare.

There's blood on Lune's hands, the coppery smell of it stuck in her nose, coating her palate. Sciel's face, chalk-white, as she robotically does as Lune tells her in clipped words, her usual joviality snuffed out. Somewhere in the background Maelle's tangible terror, a living thing that nearly drowns them all under its weight. Lune steels herself against the nausea, against the sickening, cloying fear that threatens to creep up her throat to choke her, mingled with the awareness they shouldn't leave Maelle alone with that stranger. She can't let any of that get to her now, brute forcing her focus into crystallizing into this one, single thing, on pouring all the healing power she can spare from her Pictos into Gustave's mangled chest. An inch more to the side and it would have been too much. He would have been gone before he hit the ground.

As it is, he's only barely holding on, clinging onto the slimmest thread between life and death that could still be severed any second. Lune pushes herself harder, hands trembling where they hover over him as she works. Cold sweat bathes her back and brow, desperate mutters squeezing between painfully clenched teeth, impotent fury mixing with fear. Don't you dare. Don't you dare. Die? Fail? She doesn't know who she's talking to, her cognitive processes muddled by dread and overridden by instinct.

The rest becomes a blur, and she loses track of time. Distantly, she feels badly about leaving Sciel to deal with Maelle and the stranger, but she can't allow herself to be distracted. Days pass, probably— Sciel is there at her shoulder, on and off, to help, to check in on things. Gustave's chest is whole once more and the blood has been cleaned off as best they can, but that doesn't mean he's out of the woods yet. Lune maintains her vigil, abusing what tints they can spare so she can keep pouring healing and rejuvenation into him, checks his pulse, his breathing, his chroma, how his pupils respond, and begins the whole cycle all over again. More hours pass, the sun setting and moon rising. Long at last, Gustave stabilizes enough that Sciel presses Lune into stepping away long enough to get cleaned up and eat something, to rest. Lune takes the first two but refuses the latter.

Next thing she knows, she's jolting awake from dreamless sleep in some early morning hour, slumped into a heap by Gustave's bedroll, in the makeshift shelter they've rigged up out of scavenged old tents. Dread lashes through her, instant and gripping. Oh no. No, fuck— she'd fallen asleep. She groans a muffled noise of pain as she wrenches herself up, aggravating the crick in her neck from the awkward pose she'd lain in for too long. She feels like shit, wrung out to the bone, but none of that registers as she scrambles to her knees and presses two fingertips into the side of Gustave's neck, a huff of relief escaping her at the feel of a steady pulse beating beneath the digits. He looks better, she realizes with a start once the spike of dread dissipates. Much, actually— his breathing is even, there's color to his skin again. His eyes move slightly beneath fluttering lids, almost as if...

Cautious hope flares in her and she extends her arms again, palms out as she gathers chroma to her, her Pictos singing to her as the cooling energy of rejuvenation pours out into him once more. ]

Come on, Gustave. [ Her voice is a quiet mutter, hoping against hope. ] Please.

[demainvient]

[ For those who come after.
Right?

The last words he ever expected to speak aloud. A last attempt at a smile at Maelle, stricken and pale as chalk beneath the spray of brilliant red blood that's spattered over her face. He has to make his best guess at where she's still locked behind that gleaming cage of paint; his vision is already going. There's only one chance left, and it's no chance at all, not really, but he turns and reaches his hand for the familiar grip of his sword anyway. His fingers close by muscle memory; he can't feel the ridges of the grip or the balance of the blade, only the weight, dragging him to the side. His arm is gone. Every movement feels drunken, off-balance.

It's all right. He doesn't have to go far. All he needs to do is lean forward and let gravity do the rest.

A heartbeat later, as he falls amid a bloody bloom of petals, he's distantly surprised that it still hurt. It doesn't last long. He hits cold, damp rock and blackness overtakes him long before the dissolution of his chroma sends him floating away on the cold, lonely sea breeze.

He's conscious of nothing else for what seems like an eternity, or maybe only the space of a few heartbeats. All he knows is blackness and emptiness, no dreams, no Sophie smiling at him from whatever world might lie beyond this one. He fell and then he wakes, drawn back to life by what feels like a Cruler sitting on his chest. A finger shifts; his brows draw together in a frown. Someone is talking to him exhorting him to come on, come on, Gustave, wake up, and when he blinks his eyes open its to find himself flat on his back, his vision hazy and a bone-deep ache in his chest. It's hard to breathe, but he takes a gasp of air anyway, confused and startled. Memory rushes back, and with it comes fear, cold and cloying, and Gustave's hand scrabbles at the air, grasping for chroma, for his sword.

If he's here, if he's still alive, then – ]

Maelle–

[ His voice is a wreck of itself, barely more than a whisper, but the panic is real. Where is she? Is she alright? What happened? ]

[trebuchim]

Lumière glows in the inky night, balmy and mellow beneath the Dome.

From their vantage point high above the cobbled streets, up on the empty rooftops not too far from the Hanging Gardens, Lune and Gustave have a perfectly picturesque view of the warm glow of lanterns and candles dotting the alleyways like ribbons of light, converging at the main plaza and leading all the way down to the harbour. It's beautiful, because it's so alive. Faint notes of music and laughter drift up to them, the sound of people thriving— celebrating once more, even though it's an ordinary weekend night. And why not, when they finally have ordinary days, weeks, months, years, nothing but time stretching out ahead of them, without the fear of Gommage.

Perhaps they should be down there amongst the rest of their people. But sitting here side by side, just the two of them, taste of wine and affection on their tongues, holds more appeal. Time enough later to seek out their friends, if they wish. The detritus of a modest picnic sits spread on the blanket beneath them — some cheese and bread, a bottle of red — nibbled on occasionally between kisses and conversation. Lune shifts a little on her hip, and rests her head on his shoulder.

"I can see why you'd like hanging out up here." There's a smile in her voice. The view really is wonderful. The smile on her lips hitches at the corner, audible as she teases, "Are you sure you don't want to throw a rock?"

[demainvient]

Sometimes he wonders if this is a dream. Some long, spun-out hallucination, a figment of a mind letting go. There are nights when he wakes up convinced he's back on those cliffs, feeling cold light spear through his chest.

But he got off them, in the end. His friends saved him. Lune saved him.

Hard to say when her warm weight against his side started to feel so familiar, so natural; when it was that he realized how perfectly her head fit into the curve of his shoulder. He puts his arm around her now and chuckles, leaning onto his metal left hand as his gaze follows hers out over the city. "Why, would you let me up if I did?"

Teasing her back, the smile that's hardly left his lips since they stepped off Esqiue's back and onto the cobblestones of the harbor plaza deepening the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. They don't always fade away anymore, those lines. They're starting to sink into his skin, marks he can't wash away. Wrinkles that will only deepen as he ages. Now that he can age.

He turns his head to press his lips to her hair, taking a deep calm breath. Strange to smell good soap and shampoo on them both again, to be wearing something other than their uniforms. Her hair is soft and silky against his mouth, catching on the wiry hairs of his mustache and beard. He never really thought he'd ever feel this kind of contentment again. "Besides, I'd just hit someone down there if I tried. Not that I think any of them would feel it, just now."