[ 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. ]
𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒 —𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒐
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. ]