#cleamaesta

[encreved]

Plotted starter for @cleamaesta who asked for nice things before we get to more angst !!

They were unfortunately late for the green hour. The sun had set already, and the stars were shining outside his window. The streets below were buzzing, and surely all his favourite cafes had served their first absinthes of the day. If he tried, he could picture his friends toasting, music keeping them company as they discuss politics, art and the pleasures of the flesh. But, while he’s sure one day he’ll bring Clea along, he also wanted to keep her first experience with la fée vert as safe as possible. The liquor per se is not dangerous, but the hallucinations it can bring are another thing entirely, and he wants to see for himself the effect the absinthe has on Clea. Perhaps it’s an excess of caution, something out of character for someone like him, but something he’s sure she’ll forgive.

He can sense her curiosity. It lingers in the air, makes it vibrate like heat does with the horizon on a summer day. Felix basks in that. It is so rare to see Clea unfamiliar with something. Usually she navigates the world like it bends to her will, and Felix couldn’t blame her if he tried. His surely does. He shakes his head at that thought. God, if she could read his mind, he knows she’d roll her eyes at his sappiness. It isn’t like him. But what can he do? Saw him in ways no one had ever seen him before, like he were a haunted house that couldn’t scare her away. Stil, it’s not a good reason to stand there in the middle of his living room and look at her like she hangs the moon and the stars, for heaven’s sake!

So he moves, steps closer to where she’s sitting on his couch, basks in the way she looks completely at home there, and grins brightly at her. “Okay, here we are.” He sets down the two glasses next to the bottle of absinthe and the bottle of icy water that were placed on the coffee table before her, then moves to grab his spoons and sugar cubes. “Ma princesse, are you ready to become a scoundrel yourself?” He asks her, bending to place a quick kiss on her mouth before sitting down next to her.

“It is actually pretty simple, I assure you. And knowing you, I think you’ll love the louche.” The particular shade of green the drink got, almost fluorescent, was nothing short of a magic trick for Felix. The taste could disappoint, but the ritual itself was one of his favourite things in the world. “I’ll do yours first, then, if you wish, you can do mine,” he tells her, blue eyes glancing at her beautiful face for a moment, before he turns his attention back to the table. Licking his lips, Felix begins to pour the green liquor in her glass. A slow, measured movement.

Then he grabs his favourite silver spoon, its design reminding of the royal crest, and places one sugar cube on top of it. “Now,” he whispers, grabbing the cold bottle of water. “We slowly melt the sugar into the absinthe, until it starts to shine.” Drop after drop, the liquor changes colour. Becomes milky, shady, like the people who love that drink. It feels like sharing a mystery. His heart is beating fast. He stops pouring once the sugar has dissipated, then looks at Clea. “Go on, taste it, princesse. Then you can make mine.”

[cleamaesta]

—  #CLEAMAESTA  —  indie & priv.   CLEA DESSENDRE  of Clair Obscur : Expedition 33 ,  painted by clio  (25+, she/her) ,  not spoiler free .

[obscurd]

✏️ do your worst little shadow <3

Send in ✏️ and I’ll use this (improved) incorrect quote generator featuring both our muses!

Alicia: Clea, I screwed up, big time. Clea: Alicia, given your daily life experiences, you’re gonna have to be more specific.

@cleamaesta

[simioso]

i know you've been keeping something from me. // eyesemoj @cleamaesta / little mermaid

It's no secret that Simon's terrible at keeping secrets —— at least those of his own. To those around him, close to him, he'll hold their secrets to the grave —— but for his own, he's not subtle at all when it comes to things close to his own chest. He usually doesn't even try: honest to a fault, loyal to a fault.

He should have known. He bears a guilt that's a messy, nasty thing, cruel and sharp-toothed, especially when there's part of him that reminds him that he was deluded and intentionally misled, but there's another aching part of him that says he should have known.

Her words are a gentle prod, firm as she always is —— and it's in those moments that he wonders how he could have ever mistaken the other Paintress for her. Ah, but how the unfairness of it aches ——

Here in this room, though, he doesn't quite meet her gaze, which is proof enough of his perceived guilt. Their world as it is has been remade, and they have everything that was taken from them, then, changed as they are. For as much as he likes to pretend that none of what happened before affects him anymore, those who knew him before can see the weight, the guilt, the raw spot so much of what happened during his unmaking and exile that has left on some fundamental part of his soul.

Of course: she, too, has those scars. They both do. The kind of scars that you don't wear openly, but memory has a way of making you remember they're there.

He draws in a breath, letting a hand rest on the back of a chair near the window, his chroma-burned gaze held out the window to the peaceful dark outside. There's an unleashed dog jogging alongside a kid that lazily peddles on a late evening bike ride carrying a heavy package, and he watches them go, briefly envious that their night continues without the weight of difficult questions and past transgressions.

" Yes, " he admits, quietly. " And maybe it's wrong of me. I'm just —— " And his brows knit for a moment before he looks back to her. " I'm tired of everything they did haunting us. Hurting us both. " A brief silence, heavy. " Do you really want to know all of it? "

[topaintandwrite]

that's not going to happen. not to me. // pclea to clea - @cleamaesta | The Stranger

Its voice grates like chalk upon a blackboard— off-angle, aggravating, and something she wished to be silenced. It was shocking enough to spy this facsimile for the first time, in the company of her family and notably blithè as they roamed the streets. So when it speaks with her voice, holding that same self-assuring tone, Clea isn't caught off guard by it. Not entirely. They've both had time to consider the implications of the other's presence after all.

"Funny, I don't remember asking a question." Clea stalks closer to the lookalike. Her gaze is critical—as if looking over its visage will give an expanation to this severe error her mother has made. Clea's foray into the Canvas was to help destroy Lumière and destabilise the chroma while her parents fought. Catching sight of this lookalike fleeing the destruction irked her enough to deviate—long enough to move this Painted thing to her personal manor, and Paint the barest constraints to keep it within the home's perimeter and largely out of trouble. It's bold to step close into its space, but Clea doesn't fear a mere Paint stain.

"If you think I'd turn a blind eye and let you to your life, you're already flawed in concept." The palm of Clea's right hand radiates with chromatic energy. Aquamarine petals manifest and fall to the ground, while the energy swirls around her digits like a graceful breeze. "You should be glad I've better use for you than keeping you as a caged bird. If my mother's grief hasn't blinded her, maybe you'll have some competence I can work around."

It's a wonder if Aline gave it the ability to Paint, or if it exists simply as part of the dècor for 'Verso'. One might argue Clea should feel grateful Aline Painted them all in. That she was at least authentic in her pain. But besides grief and rage bubbling in equal measure, there's a hollowness that lingers in Clea.

Emptiness, because here stands a chance to know how her mother perceives her under such a lens. It teeters damnation because this is illegal under their laws and tutelage. Clea couldn't forget the day she Repainted a creation, for never was Aline so stern and angry about what it means to create—as well as what limits they must respect, what is better left alone than explored and subsequently killed because of it.

In a sense, Clea can judge this creation for Aline made it in her image. At worst, it is a stain to be wiped away, and Clea will have to learn how to look at Aline with some measure of neutrality at minimum. At best? Clea might learn something after all, about these arts Aline forbade her to learn and then practises herself. The hypocrit.

"The question now is how difficult you'll be." Clea reaches a hand to it, ignoring the faint threads binding the creature here and instead going to touch unmarred, vibrant skin and clothes.

[vcrso]

@cleamaesta said: i like to keep some things to myself . //  :)

- heavenly || accepting -

. There were times when Verso wondered if his elder sister thought everything was a trade secret- like the Painters must keep all information close to the vest even from family, lest it get out and spoil something. At times, it was infuriating, if only because his sister's skill boggled his mind and even simple questions could trigger an acerbic response.

But she did answer, sometimes. Particularly if he asked in a way that offered her the chance to figure something out aloud- like when he questioned some of her designs and she could talk about their function. In their youth, she would answer as she painted something so masterful into his Canvas that he could spend a week just marveling at it, trying to understand how it was so easy for her (back then, his eye missed the callouses that littered her hands, the pressure on her shoulders, the sharply expectant eye of their parents, the title of Dessendre so heavy on her shoulders). But, sometimes, she would don that knowing smile like she was physically locking the knowledge away just out of reach for her own entertainment.

This time, he'd clearly asked wrong, receiving that grin as she headed past where he sat at his piano. He set the fallboard over keys and leaned his elbows on it as he watched her with suspicious eyes.

"You've been hiding in the atelier for a month. Last time you did this, it was for that big show maman made you do. I just want to know if we're going to be entertaining guests we both hate for the next week while she shows everything off."

[etoilesfantome]

"you can be a kind person with a good heart and still say no." @cleamaesta

He's speaking about a dinner date that has been set up on his behalf —— or, well, rather: a dinner that he would be attending, and most would be attending with a date or a significant other. The young lady is one that he knows — lovely, really, but dreadfully dull to his flighty, particular preferences, and he's feeling dreadfully cornered.

" I know, I know —— " But does he? He's people-pleasing to a fault and always has been; painfully easy to pressure, prone to stress from worry about making the wrong decisions and disappointing others.

" I just — don't feel like I have a good enough reason to say no. " He grimaces, shoulders hitching forward. " It's not as though they're asking me to marry her or anything. "

But —— he's also keenly aware that is what he's being pushed towards, eventually. Not now, maybe, but he's crossing the bridge out of his lower twenties and into his mid-twenties and his parents haven't been able to corner Clea into marriage yet and so they've turned their sights on their middle child.

" So if I say no, no, I've got other plans, and then I'm there anyway, it's going to look like I'm being cruel. " He utters a sound, frustrated and rough in his throat, and sets both elbows on the table and drags hands over his face, but then he cracks a look through a squint over at his sister. " You're lucky. I bet you're going with Simon, huh? "

He's all too aware of that little gnawing bite of jealousy somewhere deep, but it's not the cruel or pointed sort; he liked Simon ( more than he should, probably ), but he's also glad his sister has found someone such as he. " Maybe I should just ask Julie. Though I'm never sure if she likes me or wants to kick me in the shins. "

[h-a-unted]

@cleamaesta 's Clea gets a scene with Renoir.

A tap of his cane tries to call to the oldest of his kid's attention. He waits for a little before speaking. "Clea, come sit."

Renoir's hand gestures at the empty seat near him. The house is quiet this early in the morning – not that it was any different later on in the day now. The birds outside attempt to break that barrier of silence, remind them that sound is still alive.

He is a little shaken at the conversation he has to conjure up, but he thinks it for the best. Silence is killing them all. And where Aline spills the ink of her suffering everywhere, his oldest is too good at hiding her affliction.

As if nothing had happened, she kept going. There is a conflict to solve. Ever the dutiful daughter doing what needs to be done. Renoir saw Clea as the strongest of them all, yes, but she was still human. She still needs them. And he knows he is losing them all, he knows he has to try and preserve what little remains.

"Let's talk. But not briefly. Let's really converse." It's a request he hides as an order. Because otherwise, he believes she will remain avoidant. "Not about the conflict, today. About you. Indulge me, yes?"