@gcmmage said: you look like shit. / drops a lighthearted thing for once (:
half-doubled over and still catching his breath, verso scoffs — scandalized; ❝ — you're just as covered in nevron bits, if you haven't noticed. ❞ straightening up, he gives her a vaguely withering look. and then he extends a hand to flick a bit of gore off her shoulder.
of course, initially — verso had intended to go nevron-hunting to blow off steam alone. but maelle had intercepted him on his way out of camp, and he’d made about the bare-minimum effort to dissuade her. the nevron bits in question belonged to the serpenphare; a quarry perhaps better known as the massive flying snake. and all things considered, it would have been embarrassing to get eaten by it a second time.
verso parks his hands on his hips, frowning at the slain nevron;
❝ … stupid snake. ❞
they both stare at the thing for another moment, before verso sways slightly to bump maelle with his shoulder; ❝ well — bravo. monoco and i never managed to take this one down, ourselves. ❞ verso sighs, tilting his head at the downed serpenphare again. ❝ he's going to be very jealous, when we get back. ❞ not to mention the very real possibility that lune will be waiting up for them at camp, ready to berate him for this most recent blatant show of irresponsibility, too.
sharing a grin sidelong with maelle, he can’t help but laugh at their mutual disarray, with a little swell of pride. it's an odd feeling — the ripple of familiarity in the stillness, which verso quietly dismisses in his mind. perhaps, just another misplaced echo. residual firelight from a memory that doesn’t belong entirely to either of them. or perhaps — just another inevitability in his paint-strokes, from the start.
it’s not unexpected, that she should remind you of your sister. your alicia. this time; it’s the sun-spot memory of afternoons spent practice-fencing in the wide open halls of the manor — getting lightly reprimanded by their mother, when the occasional casualty of a vase drew her ire from the study.
perhaps offered another path, alicia would have smiled like this, too.
therein lies the danger, of course. he abandons his own family for this one. and yet, each time he errs into the notion of some sort of belonging, with the 33s — he has to remind himself to take one step back. maelle doesn’t remember now, but it’s only a matter of time. time — that slips steadily through fingers, for each moment not spent advancing toward the monolith.
you could tell her. but you've come this far, haven't you?
verso shakes the sentiment — shelves it, for now — it's not the right time. there's too much at stake.
shoulders roll as he swipes at the dust on his own cloak, eyes raised to meet maelle’s again; ❝ — where did you learn to fight like that? is that what they're teaching at the academy, these days? ❞
It had taken a different kind of courage and curiosity to find Maelle. At first, she caught only whispers amongst those in Lumiere— some spoke of a new paintress, one who gifted life. Others spoke of her like a friend they had known for years.
Now, gazing at her, Julie can't be sure which is truth and which is rumour. How long does it take to become myth? It's as though she's become one already.
She's so young. She doesn't wish to say it, knows for a fact that to thread a perception of person with something as unrevealing as age is useless and often cruel. But it causes a heartbeat of hesitation. The desperation with which she might have spoken before is dulled, the knife of the questions lowered.
All she's left with is the one that won't fade. But she doesn't start with it. Julie starts with her name. "Maelle," she says, "Why did you bring them back?" Why did she bring her back? There was nothing left for her here. Nothing to come back for. "We didn't— I didn't choose this."
she doesn't look like she won; her outline stays sharp against the moonlight that doesn't soften her. simon stands across from her now, no weapon between them, no war left to fight - only the war of silence, of looking and being seen.
his stitched body hums, not with pain, but with residue. chroma flickers feverishly beneath his ashen skin, golden and unstable. he cannot feel cold anymore, he only feels pressure - from within, from memory, from her.
maëlle meets his gaze. the last time they faced each other, she rewrote the air around his bones and called it mercy. he shifts - just slightly - weight moving from heel to heel. his limbs still remember the abyss, how stillness was survival; his breath feels wrong in his throat - soundless and unowned.
(say something.)
his voice, when it finally comes, is a cracked bell.
"you put me back together."
and then, softer:
"but I don't think I came back the way you meant for me to."
the wind picks up - dry and full of sorrow. It catches in their white hair, pulls at the edges of his form like he's still unsettling, like the world hasn't fully accepted him yet. the stars are out now, pale and indifferent. simon doesn't look at them - he looks at her - the new PAINTRESS, contemplative and unyielding, kind and terrible in her care.
(I was gone. you brought me back, but not all of me followed.)
@gcmmage said: painted alicia, saying nothing, wearing her mask, and looking up at him before very gently, tentatively, tugging his sleeve. don't leave, being the implication. you know before the whole casting himself away from his painted family of it all (: so very long ago.
--
me when i write an unhinged drabble that requires a readmore,
‘ so this is how it is, then? you would turn your back on us? on your mother? your sister, who needs you ’ —
verso nearly barks a laugh, sound bitter. his father’s disappointment is a familiar, cold grip at the back of his neck. and it threatens to paralyze him in place, as it has done so many times before.
‘ do you hear yourself — what family? you see how she deteriorates, and we do nothing! you know it’s wrong, and you just — let it go on. you live in an illusion. you force us all to live in her illusion! ’ —
‘ enough. ’ a short, clipped warning, which verso ignores. they're well past that, now. have been for some time. verso stares at him hard.
‘ … clea’s gone. maman is slowly killing herself. — you will never have this family back. not how you want it. ’
‘ ENOUGH. ‘
verso suppresses a flinch at the crack that resounds across the dining room; where cane strikes the floor so hard, he swears he hears the marble splinter.
bad as he knows it is — there’s some sick satisfaction to be found in staring back into his father’s eyes, and digging at a shared wound. he was already sorry the moment he said it. but not enough to move his stubbornness, or take it back. neither of them are sorry enough. the evidence of their argument has dented a column. what had once been the scene of their family dinners is spattered red. an old portrait hangs barely by a nail, sliced and singed by verso’s blade.
it felt fitting. or good, in some petty way, to see it all marred and imperfect.
they watch each other for a long time. verso half-expects him to continue. but he doesn't. it's a hollow victory. no one speaks. so verso steels himself. straightens up.
‘ … i’m going, papa. ’
' fine ', his father says, unreadable.
' fine ', verso answers, hoarsely. it feels like a cold draft has cut through him.
he forces himself to step back, one step after another. half stumbling, with the blood trickling in his eye.
and now, a strained silence rests familiar over the dessendre manor, as verso leaves his father behind. walks, unsteady into the foyer.
there is nowhere for him to go. but he’ll take nowhere. wherever. anywhere. the furthest corner of this canvas, if he has to. if it eases this crushing weight, somehow. his mind is reeling in a nonspecific freefall; the gestral village would take him in, maybe. or esquie. anywhere, god, anywhere else. he can’t stomach another day playing pretend; acting as though none of them see the strings holding them in suspension.
... like it doesn’t matter. like living forever is worth any of this.
but he deserves it, doesn’t he? this torturously slow asphyxiation. this inescapable existence. what he gets, he supposes, for playing his part wrong. for not being good enough, at the very role he was created to fill.
the slightest tug at his sleeve removes him from his careening thoughts. tentative, but insistent. he feels her quiet, pleading gaze on his back. the house, hollow as it is, had barely whispered back her footsteps.
his little shadow.
his reason for sticking around at all, as long as he has — she shouldn’t have had to see this. she shouldn’t have to be in the middle of their war of attrition.
❝ ... alicia, ❞ he hesitates.
the blade at his side dematerializes in an instant, forgotten. he halts there by the heavy oak door. eyes lowered, ashamed. of himself. of the mess he's made. of the blood slipping down the brooks between his fingers, dripping imperfectly on his father’s marble floor. and all the hardness in his shoulders sinks low in exhaustion.
his father is something he has learned to weather. but it's his little sister, peeking up at him from behind her curtain of white hair, that threatens to undo him entirely.
you're a coward, to be leaving her again.
guilt crawls up, as it always does, from the recess where he’s tried many a time to bury it. ( bury it ten feet down. it unearths. so you bury it again. it floods out. the bones. they always come back up, and you're always burying them. there's a room on fire at the end of the hall, and you never make it there — )
he won’t do this anymore. he can’t.
verso turns slightly. looks down over his shoulder. his hand lowers slightly, from the deep wound struck vertical across his eye.
it's fine. he had done worse to his father, after —
after julie.
verso suddenly wants to be sick. the nauseating sting of split skin is the only thing grounding him. preventing him from slipping over some hysterical cliff. no — he is utterly vacant, now, of the venom spat in the face of his father’s infuriating conviction, just moments ago. instead, he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. shaky and tired.
you could take her with you, couldn't you? it is unfair to still treat her as a child. yet — you can’t stomach that, either. it's dangerous. too dangerous. she is safer here.
verso settles to one knee before her. unbloodied hand coming up to squeeze her shoulder gently. he looks over her face. the side baring scarred skin, unhidden by that cruel porcelain mask. he endures another stab of guilt; how many times will you let her down?
she reaches for him slightly in return, worried. fingers flinching just shy of his cheek. wound tugs when he tries to warm his expression for her. ❝ i’m fine. i — just need… ❞ voice cracks, thin. to be somewhere else. or possibly, to be somebody else. he struggles gracelessly for the right words. the ones that will make him feel like something less horrible. he clears his throat roughly; ❝ — i... need to go, for a little while. you'll be safer here, with papa. ❞
not more than a room away from him, and he can hear his father’s voice again, needling him in the back of his mind; who are you truly sparing, with your lies?
verso blinks back a stinging in his eyes. rises to his feet again slowly, unsteadily. alicia still has him by the sleeve. not wanting him to go. he hesitates, again, expression softening.
❝ alicia… ❞ he sighs, again, a little helplessly. his resolve threatens to waver, as he pulls her into him, against his chest. hand comes to cradle at the back of her head, his other arm hugging her tightly. resting his chin on her head, he murmurs; ❝ we'll see each other again soon — before you can even miss me, huh? ❞ his smile is watery. he hopes she doesn't hear it in his voice.
at the top of the staircase, he meets their father’s silent stare.
a hundred times before, they might have stopped it here. both of them are sorry. but it doesn't change anything.
verso's tired. and it doesn't change anything at all.
you were just looking for a good enough reason to go.
he lowers his gaze. to his sister; ❝ should you ever need me, you need only call for me — and i will be there. i promise you. ❞ when he finally parts from her, he can’t bring himself to meet her look. her hurt is felt distinctly, as clutching fingers slowly release the fabric of his shirt. and she retreats back a step, eyes on the ground, too.
there is a numbness in him that grows, when no one tries to stop him again.
"promise me?" @ gustave, complete with a pinky held out.
Gustave's features soften the moment Maelle extends her pinky, a serious expression on her face. It's sweet of her, to think that Gustave would never break a promise between the two of them, no matter how dire the circumstances. The truth is that Gustave would betray her trust in an instant if it meant keeping her safe.
"Promise," Gustave says after a moment, smiling softly as he curls his pinky around Maelle's own.
"We'll leave together, all of us." It's not technically a lie. Lune would say that a chance is hell is still a chance. And Gustave does still want to have hope, even after what happened at the beach. It's just so damn hard.
"Perhaps even Noco will come back with you, if you ask very nicely."
