𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏.

[demainvient]

𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 ⊹ 𝒆𝒑𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒚 ⊹ 𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒖𝒂𝒍
 

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[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.]

[demainvient]

[ Renoir has offered them advice and experience since joining them, and much of it has been thoughtful, useful, logical. Perhaps this is, too, and yet Gustave shakes his head, drawing his legs up to rest his arms loosely on his knees. ]

Every expedition helped pave the path for those to follow. To them, we are the ones who came after— learning more about them, about what they experienced here... how could it be anything but helpful to us?

[ The truth is his focus is, for perhaps the first time in his life, split. He no longer wants to rail against duty and protocol, to yell fuck the mission and abandon every plan they've ever made, but neither can he move forward without first finding Maelle, making sure she's safe.

If she's hurt, if she's... He has to find her. He will find her. And then they can all move on together, the last ragged band of what was once Expedition 33. ]

Even the journals we've found are just fragments. There's too much we don't understand. Perhaps... perhaps one of the other expeditions managed to find the answers we need.

[ He looks back over at Renoir, the warmth of the fire bringing color and life back into his face after the bruises and weariness of the day. ]

Have you traveled with other expeditions since then?

[betenoir]

[Renoir directs his gaze back towards his conversation partner; this curious and inquisitive young man who is beginning to ask too many questions. He says nothing and stares, judging how much is appropriate to share. The more he speaks of the expeditions, the more they learn about the world, and the greater the chance they will ask one question.

Why do you always seem to be there?

So he continues staring, pressuring, intimidating with the pressure his presence brings. Perhaps he doesn't want to share (he doesn't). Perhaps he has lost good friends (he didn't). Perhaps he just wants to enjoy the warmth of the fire (he does).]

Once or twice. [Three. Four. Five.] But you are approaching this from the wrong perspective. Do you understand what the first expedition was for?

[It wasn't about stopping the Gommage. It was about finding loved ones. Only he had found his far too late.]

[demainvient]

[ He shakes his head once: no. What little he thought he had known no longer seems to answer all the questions he has, and Expedition Zero... they were the first to travel back into this broken land. ]

Were they still trying to reach the Paintress? Did they even know about the Gommage then?

[ How many of them could it have taken, back then? He knows people used to live to a ripe old age — their new companion here is proof of that — but how long was it before the Gommage began to eat away at their population, before they knew just how close to extinction they were coming? ]

[betenoir]

The Fracture tore everyone apart. Families were shattered. Husbands lost their wives. Mothers their sons. Children were stranded without their parents and everybody lost their homes.

[He lines his words with enough truth they become real. But not enough truth they become personal. Perhaps he cannot blame his son for being who he is beneath it all.]

People were dying from starvation. We were surrounded by saltwater. [An engineer will understand the importance of needing to remove salt from water.] The one spark keeping us all together was the thought of finding our families.

[He pauses to look at the campfire. There had been enough flames during those years.]

We knew barely anything except they were not here. The Paintress was the last thing on our minds.

[demainvient]

[ The first expeditions were doing what he's doing right now: trying to find their families. They must have felt just as lost and shocked; they, too had lost everything and everyone, just like he and Lune had on the beach.

And there's another thing. That we, there, shifting Renoir from observer in Gustave's mind to ancestor.

The older man gazes into the fire, seeing who knows what memories, and Gustave leaves him to them for a long moment before he speaks again. When he does, his voice is gentle. ]

Who did you lose?

[ Who had been ripped away from him, that he was desperate to find? Is that why he's willing to help them find Maelle, to reunite Gustave with the only family member here on this continent with him?

And had he ever managed to find the ones he'd sought so many years ago? ]

[betenoir]

[For Renoir, this is not a matter of what he sees in the fire but what he hears. Alicia screaming in the inferno engulfing their home. Being the saviour. Being the observor. Being the protector. One of them leaves him silent for a long moment and he indeed takes his time before choosing to speak again.]

Aline.

[He refers to her by name. Because she is more than his wife. She is graceful, loving, his mentor, his protector.

His saviour.]

I thought myself grateful for being fortunate I was still survived by my children.

[Except the Gommage now looms across everyone. One would think that is the reason he returns to being silent.]

[demainvient]

Aline.

[ The name drifts quietly, respectfully, from his lips. He's well-versed in the tone and timbre of grief; he knows long sorrow, still as sore as the day the cut was first received. It's as familiar a sound as the report of his own pistol, the way the air moves around the blade of his sword.

And—

His own gaze lifts from the fire, following the trails of sparks up into the sky where they disappear among the stars that are laid so thickly here. ]

How many children did you have?

[ However many it was, they too must have been lost long ago, and yet there's a layer beneath the understanding in his voice that even now he can't quite entirely cut out of himself: longing.

Another life, another future. It's a dream he had to let go of long ago. That he still cherishes part of it, held close to his heart like a secret, is his own fault and no one else's. ]

[betenoir]

[The crackling of the fire draws a long and tired expression; his mind losing itself inside the illusion of embers and ash. It is true he cannot afford to trust them with information about his family. It is possible he has abandoned trust to survive in a world sundered and ripped apart. It is likely both are true for different reasons, but what those reasons are for both might be complete anathema.

Or too similar for comfort.]

Two daughters and a son.

[Three children and their mother. Four experinces of loss. One is enough for several lifetimes, four is unbearable. He looks at Gustave from the corner of his eye]

Do you want children?

[demainvient]

[ The breath pushes out of him, an almost full-body motion, at that question. ]

I...

[ He'd spent years trying to reconcile with the loss of what never was. There was never going to be a soft-haired, blue-eyed baby for Maelle to coo over; he was never going to look into a brand-new face and try to find the ways his features and Sophie's blended together. He lifts his hand to rub his temple for a moment, head shaking slightly to the side, submitting to the truth. ]

...Yes. Very much.

[ Two daughters and a son; treasures beyond his wildest imagining. And lost, all lost. He wonders if any of them are still here, tucked gently into the landscape, their bodies smooth stone. ]

But my... the woman I was with...

Sophie.

[ Still said softly. The bruise of this grief is still blooming. ]

She... disagreed on the... morality of bringing a child into this world.

[betenoir]

[The issue is complex, an exchange of conflicting ideals, and through his own love for his wife, he finds himself wondering whether their relationship survived. Considering the importance of children in creating a family, he cannot picture their path leading forward - towards the future - and returns his gaze to the fire.

Perhaps the most respectful path to choose now is to listen. His gaze hardens for a moment. Does he want to listen when his children are alive and suffering? His next question is aimed less at learning about mortality and more about motivation.]

You would prefer children yourself?

[demainvient]

[ He's nodding as he looks back over, tired but sincere. ]

Yes. I did. I... would, yes.

[ Though how it could happen now, he doesn't know. The very thought of finding someone now that Sophie's gone, of creating a life and a family with them feels so alien, strange. And that's assuming he manages to make it back home after all of this, that they win through, that the Gommage never comes again. ]

My family is very small.

[ It has the feeling of an explanation to it, more so as he goes on. ]

Just me and my two sisters, for a long time. I always wanted to see it grow. And I had apprentices but... I still wanted children of my own.

[betenoir]

You want somebody to inherit your legacy.

[Your family. This man clearly wants the memories and experience of being a father. But the word apprentice rouses his interest. Children working on themselves. Building the future. He remembers doing the same before the frature shattered that dream.]

What do they study?

[Your apprentices.]

[demainvient]

Maybe a little. Yes. If my legacy is anything worth preserving.

And if they wanted to follow in my footsteps.

[ Not every child does, he knows, and the ones who follow that path against their own wishes, well...

He knows it weighs on Lune. The pressure.

But he brightens visibly at the change of topic, at the mention of his apprentices. ]

Engineering. Mechanical, largely, though I've taught them a few disciplines. They'll be looking after the Shield Dome while I'm away, making sure it continues to run smoothly.

[betenoir]

[The Shield Dome. Renoir maintains a natural and steady gaze. The Dome is one of his finiest pieces of work. Incomparable to his children but of tremendous importance, protecting families from the dangerous of the world]

I remember building it with my son.

[Just slide in a nugget of information, a treat for someone with an engineer's mind.]

I am relieved to hear it has been maintained so diligently.

[Nailed it. Verso would be proud.]

[demainvient]

You... you built it?

[ It's a shock, but only for a moment: the Shield Dome, its maintenance and upkeep and the way it keeps all of Lumière safe, has been such a large part of his life that he can hardly remember a time when its inner workings weren't as familiar to him as the abilities of his own hands. Most of the information about the men and women who designed and built it was lost long ago, he'd never in a thousand lifetimes have dreamed he'd one day sit next to the man who had dreamed it into reality.

There's a flash of brightness in Gustave's eyes, his face, that has been missing since the beach: the light of academic fascination. ]

That's... it's incredible. Your work is... is... it's extraordinary. Studying it helped me reverse-engineer some of the elements I needed for the Lumina Converter.

look at that goddamn NERD

[betenoir]

[Every word is absorbed. Each compliment is analysed. Both are prized apart and picked into pieces, then rebuilt to ensure truth and veracity. Distrust of strangers darkens his face, etched into tired and wrinkled lines.

Then he stops studying Gustave. He looks into the fire and begins studying something that happened decades ago.]

It's been a while since I heard anyone say something positive.

[People complained about not seeing the skies above. People complained about living behind a wall. People complained about being alive. He is more than a little jaded. That might be why he finds the other man's enthusiasm rather offputting.]

Renoir out here making his day!!!

[demainvient]

Well, you will hear nothing but praise from me for that.

[ He's animated in his excitement, hands up and skating through the air, flesh and blood and metal alike as he sketches out the arc of the dome, recalls all the fiddliest bits of its design. ]

How you even managed to get it up and running — and so soon after the Fracture — has always been incredible to me. If I can create one thing that's even the slightest bit as effective and innovative and useful as the Shield Dome, that could help Lumière just a fragment as much as your invention did, I could call my work good.

[betenoir]

[Renoir is entirely the opposite of Gustave, hands grasped as one, brought together in a vigorous grip as he stifles the urge for movement or expression. You haven't been in the position to hear people call it stifling, have you? He wants to ask. But he cannot find the energy. It would be pointless.]

Perhaps you might. Necessity is the mother of invention. [He doesn't have it inside himself to be too critical, but with the Gommage ticking down...] But anybody's work is a waste of time so close to the end. I would think yours is best spent finding some kind of peace.

[Go home. Don't waste your lives. Appreciate what time you have.]

[demainvient]

[ He shakes his head: no. ]

I will find no peace until we find Maelle.

[ She's his focus now; finding her, keeping her safe. Part of him still wants to try to bring her back to Lumière, where she can be safe behind Renoir's Shield Dome. He could... come back after that. Finish the mission once he knows she'll be all right. ]

But the Lumina Converter... that, that really might be my legacy, in the end. I spent so many hours... days, really, weeks... working out every detail of its design, and it works, Renoir.

[ There's a flash of pleasure, of satisfaction; the almost disbelieving joy of an inventor who has flicked a switch and brought his creation to life. ]

It'll give us the edge we need.

[betenoir]

[Part of him, the husband and inventor who had existed before the Fracture, is aroused by the possibilities. But even then his invention had been a necessity, not a labour of love.

But it had become one. The same barrier protecting his wife from those who would deliver harm. And now he finds his interest piqued but for reasons other than what this man might assume.]

Really? Would you offer a demonstration?

[He has been avoiding Luminare these past years. It does sound like something new and dangeorus. But dangerous for the wrong people.]

[demainvient]

The next Nevron we kill, [ he promises.

He can feel the slight weight of the Lumina Converter where it hangs from his backpack, swinging gently with his every movement. He hadn't known, not really, not until he and Lune were crouched beside that Nevron and he pulled the converter out for its first ever run in real conditions. ]

But the basic idea is that it draws the chroma from the Nevrons and converts it into usable lumina for us. With every fight and every Nevron we kill, we'll get stronger.

[betenoir]

[Interesting.

The promise of a new solution to an old problem. He could never exist every place all at once, not even with his gifts, especially now he must endure this alone. His posture suggests a heightened interest.]

It takes intelligence to construct a device like this.

[Did he just offer fatherly praise to this man to get his trust? Like father, like son.] Innovation.

[demainvient]

It takes a lot of experimentation.

[ He's not being falsely modest, and he's not immune to the thrill of Renoir's compliment. It nestles deep in his chest, a warm coal of approval. ]

But considering the direction we were moving with our Pictos and the sheer amount of chroma locked up in the Nevs, I thought it could work. And it does. Already we're getting stronger, more able to do things we never could before.

[betenoir]

[Experimentation. Renoir considers all their conversations up to this point; realising this man enjoys the process as much as the discovery. It might make one believe he is easily led by the nose. But he has a sharp intelligence that deserves to be respected.

Which he does. Father to father.

Except each must put his own family first. So he reads between the lines, about what happens to all that chroma that should be redirected towards his wife.]

And this strength can only improve the further you push on. [Making it a problem best handled swiftly.] You should be proud of such an achievement.

[Should. His emphasis just isn't there.]