Work Text:
Verso dies and dies and dies, and he's never dead. Fitting that it should go on and on, really, since death is the reason he exists in the first place.
He remembered flames before he knew what it was he remembered. The air sometimes tasted of smoke; he woke with the scent of burning flesh thick in his mouth. Alicia, he had thought, and guilt. Finding out that it had been someone else's death hadn't taken away the memories.
After all these years, it's still so strange: not his death, and he remembers it. Not his life, and he is living it.
Maëlle might have made him mortal, but she won't let him be dead any more than her mother did. If he dies, she will bring him back again and again, until she's had her fill of this false life with a false brother, or until she dies herself.
He lets his hair grow white, and she doesn't ask why. Some day, he will be old enough to die at no one's hand, and Maëlle will have no ready excuse to undo it. He'll die, and give Alicia back the life her brother died to preserve. His original sin, finally paid for.
"You look like a corpse," Monoco says above him, blocking out the rare stars that Lumière's artificial light doesn't. "Your city has running water. What's your excuse for that hair?"
Verso doesn't smile, though he's missed Monoco's pretend harshness. Moving the required muscles would take more energy than he has to spare, so he just stays where he is on the floor of the balcony and continues not caring. It doesn't really matter that Monoco's somehow in Lumière again. It changes nothing that needs to be changed.
"Have you completely lost what remained of your wits?" Monoco prods after a while, digging the bottom of his staff into Verso's side.
It would be easy to keep staring up at him in silence—but Monoco would only take that as a reason to escalate the prodding.
"Why are you here?" Verso makes himself ask.
"Maëlle wrote me. Said your lazy arse couldn't be bothered to cross the ocean to visit."
Maëlle can write whatever she wants; Monoco's free to side with her this time. Still, the unmistakable bitter taste of betrayal fills Verso's mouth.
"Did she."
"She did."
Verso stares. Silence makes people want to fill it, he figured out years ago—it has worked on him, too, often enough. It doesn't often work on Monoco, but that's alright. None of this matters anymore, and Verso's so tired. If Monoco wants to stand over him in silence for the rest of the night, even for the rest of the paltry years that Maëlle's slow death will buy them—he's welcome to it. Verso closes his eyes and imagines the end has already come.
A minute later, Monoco grunts.
"She asked for help."
There aren't many reasons to laugh, these days, wasting the real Verso's sacrifice as he is, knowing Maëlle is dying for nothing. But the idea that she wrote Monoco for help dealing with him, for help with—what, exactly? That does get a chuckle out of him.
"What does she want you to do? Bash my head in with your bell? Go ahead. She'll put it back together soon enough."
"Verso."
"I'm alive, aren't I?" he snaps.
He regrets it immediately, but there's far worse he can never take back anyway. Monoco crouches down without a word. It'd be better if he snapped back, if he walked away again. Easier, at least. He deserves more than what Verso wants for them, more than he has left to give, and even through the numbing fog of exhaustion, the reminder stings as it always has.
"This could be a new beginning," Monoco says, uncharacteristically gentle. "You could try."
Verso lets out a snort. Didn't he try? Didn't he entertain the idea that…
Well. He was wrong, as he so often is when he lets himself hope.
"There's nothing new about this," he rasps out. "She's doing exactly what Maman did."
"She made you mortal again. She's not Aline."
"She still won't let me die first." He has to pause, his throat painfully tight. "She's still dying here. Tomorrow never comes."
Monoco stares silently, his mask angled just so, somehow conveying disapproval without a word, a frown. Maybe now he will walk away.
Or maybe Verso really is losing it: it can't be all disapproval, when Monoco lays his wooden hand on Verso's arm.
"You tried," he says. "Moping won't change that you failed."
Nothing about that is news to Verso. He tried, and he failed, and he can't change any of it, now that there are people who know what it is he might try to do, now that there's no portal to the poisoned heart of the Canvas. He knows that too well; he's known that since Maëlle dragged him back to this half-life before the tower. But it's different in Monoco's voice.
He's crying before he can finish sitting up, his throat too tight for sobs, for breath—just silent tears around the silent scream caught in his chest. Monoco catches him with a grunt, and doesn't let go for a long time.
Maybe he could leave Lumière, go back to the continent with Monoco. It wouldn't change—anything, really. But Lune wasn't wrong before: living in the city again chafes. Everywhere he looks, there are ghosts, haunted ruins, a thousand reminders of what he did and failed to do. And he misses the fighting, the gestrals, the stars in their shattered sky, unshadowed by streetlights. He misses being forgotten, being able to pretend to disappear from a Canvas that will never let him. Being able to come as close to oblivion as immortality allowed.
But if he did try to leave, Maëlle would worry that he might get himself killed out of her sight, somewhere she wouldn't know to look. She might insist on making him immortal again. She might take it upon herself to accompany him, to remind him to be careful, the whole time obviously yearning for Lumière and everything she loves there. Everything she wants from this Canvas.
He doesn't want to find out.
He spars with Maëlle because Monoco will mock him if he gets much more rusty, and because it's easier to give in on this than to keep finding excuses not to. He goes out for groceries when he can't help it, since he can't get away with as many skipped meals now. He sits at the piano Maëlle put in the spare room of the apartment she painted for him—not above the old bakery, at least, since someone already lives there. He stares at the keys and doesn't touch them.
That's what he's doing when Esquié knocks on his window. It's probably meant to be a soft tap; it's loud enough that Verso flinches, and has no choice but to open the window before Esquié can accidentally break it.
"What are you doing here?" he asks wearily.
"Mon ami," Esquié greets him, flapping his arms a little to stay aloft. "I need your help."
The only reason Verso doesn't close the window is that Esquié would just knock again.
"Ask someone else this time," he says, sitting down on a nearby chair. "Maëlle could help."
Esquié makes a rumbling noise that's as close as he ever gets to reproach.
"I would, but you're the best at finding my rocks! You have the shaaarpest eyes."
Esquié's flattery is never subtle, and always sincere, which makes it particularly hard to resist. The fastest way to be done with this, anyway, is to go along with it.
"Where did you lose your rocks?" Verso asks, sighing in defeat.
"Oh, I only lost Urrie. It was definitely somewhere in Lumière. Sciel made me laugh so hard I couldn't help it."
Verso didn't even know that Esquié had been visiting anyone in Lumière. Sciel didn't mention it when she bullied Verso into going on a walk with her. Though maybe that was his fault, shutting down every conversation she started until she gave up and said she'd be back another day. Esquié, at least, frequently neglects to mention anything he isn't explicitly asked about, so Verso doesn't have to wonder if he's managed to offend him.
"Alright," Verso says, climbing out the window and onto Esquié's back. "Let's go, then."
Even with Maëlle's additions, Lumière isn't particularly big, and Esquié's fast. Verso expects to spend an hour looking for Esquié's lost rock, maybe two, if Esquié's in the mood for riddles and detours.
By the time he spots the familiar glow near the top of the tower, they've been flying around for hours, and Verso wants nothing more than to crawl back into his apartment and shut the blinds.
"I knew you would find it!" Esquié exclaims when Verso points Urrie out to him. "But I can't get it; my hands are far too big to fit! I'll fly closer and you'll grab it, right, Verso?"
He doesn't recognise the trap until the rock is in his hand and Esquié is turning in the air. For one moment, Verso is falling, the sensation somehow still distressing even now—then Esquié's arms wrap around him as Esquié plops down onto the flatter part of the steel structure.
"What are you doing?" Verso asks, one hand on his knee as he catches his breath, torn between annoyance and resignation.
"Thank you for finding Urrie, Verso," Esquié says, and puts out his hand so Verso can drop the rock in it. "That was a lot of work! I think we deserve a nap."
"Up here?"
"Oh yes, yes, as close to the sun as we can get! The light is so nice here. Don't worry, mon ami. I won't let you fall."
It wouldn't matter if he did, except that Esquié would feel bad—Verso vividly remembers the sobbing apologies after Esquié forgot that he needed air and dragged him down to the bottom of the ocean. But he doesn't say that; Esquié would disapprove. This has all the trappings of one of his well-meaning traps, and there's no point in pointing it out. Esquié would admit it readily and proceed as planned anyway. And he does love his naps.
"Alright," Verso sighs, sitting down on Esquié's plush belly. "A short nap, and then we're flying down."
Esquié hums contentedly.
It is nice here, so high above the city that the only sound is the wind's whistling. Down in the streets, the empty Monolith is always on the horizon; here, Verso can turn away from it and face the illusory boundary of the Canvas instead. It's a mirage, just a stage backdrop that exists even less than everything else. But for a moment, Verso can pretend there is more to this world than grief.
Esquié starts humming a little tune, not quite on key. This, too, is only an illusion. It'd be better if everything was already over, the looming catastrophe unfolded in its entirety instead of suspended like this, forever hanging above their heads. But he's tired, and Esquié is warm and comfortable and won't let him fall.
Verso leans back into him, the soft rumble of Esquié's humming echoing into his back, and closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, the sun is dipping into the sea, dripping molten gold into the waves. Esquié's oversized hand is laid over him like a blanket.
"Oh, you're awake," Esquié says as Verso sits up, rubbing his eyes. "See? I told you this was a really good place for a nap."
Verso smiles. It's hard not to, with Esquié.
"You are the expert on naps."
"The reigning champion! I'll show you all the best spots, if you want to learn."
"Yeah?"
That's all the encouragement Esquié needs to launch into a seemingly exhaustive list of those best spots—the middle of the ocean, a small floating island with a lake, a long-forgotten cave full of candy, his nest in the middle of the night when it's just barely lit by the lanterns.
Verso lets him ramble on and watches the night creep in, dragging deep purples and dark blues over their shattered sky, and he thinks—he would sacrifice all of this, the world and Esquié's warm rumble too, for his mother. For Maëlle. If he had to. If he could.
It's some small consolation, that he doesn't get to try again today.
It wasn't a lie when he told Monoco that neither of them was real. Flawed copies of a dead man and his dog, and everyone else still just pigments and solvent.
If he could only believe it, it would all be easier. It wouldn't matter that they're all doomed, or that it's because he exists. That they will all have to die again anyway, and this time for nothing.
But there are children running in the streets, families planning a future—friends he betrayed and loves clinging to this new beginning that they fought for, even though they know now how fragile it is, and he can never manage to believe it, no matter how much he wants to. And it changes nothing.
Autumn in Lumière is barely distinguishable from summer. Verso thinks again of the continent, the Grandis' icy shelter. Monoco probably isn't there anymore, now that he can go to the village with Noco. The station would feel empty without his gruff ribbing and ridiculous boasts. But at least if Verso was there, he wouldn't be sweating through his shirt again, just walking home with groceries.
He sees Lune before she sees him, and for one brief moment he considers turning into the narrow street to his left that won't take him to his apartment any faster, but in which Lune isn't standing. Then she lifts her head from the journal she was reading, and sees him.
They've talked since he failed to destroy everything she loves. Or more accurately, he's done a good job of failing to apologise for things he can't entirely regret, and she's done a good job of letting him know exactly how much she would value his rehashed, incomplete apology.
If her anger has cooled to a pointed distance in the months since, it's only because that's what's most efficient. Because he failed anyway, and Maëlle insists on keeping him around. He's not naïve enough to mistake Lune's reluctant practicality for the beginnings of forgiveness. He knew what he was giving up, when he made his choice; he just didn't expect to be around to miss it.
Lune puts the journal away and walks up to him with that familiar determined look on her face. It can conceal a lot, Verso learnt, when she was letting him learn her.
"Where are you going?" she asks without preamble. That's not the question Verso would have expected, considering his basket filled with bread and wine, and the fact that he is clearly not dressed to answer an invitation.
"Home," he says cautiously.
"I'll walk you."
She's seemed to resent his presence every time they've been in the same room, so this is new. But Verso's not going to argue with her in the middle of the street—probably in vain, if there's actually something she wants to discuss enough to bother talking to him at all. That, and he is still so very good at wanting things he can't have.
So he nods and sets off again, uncomfortably aware of Lune's silent presence beside him. Even with her (booted) feet on the ground, she barely makes a sound. As far as he has seen, she never glides in Lumière. Does she miss the continent too? Or is this who she is, when death isn't a sword hanging above her head at all times?
If he'd made different choices—if there had been different choices to make—Verso might have gotten the chance to find out.
They cross the plaza in silence, turning into a less populated street lined with amber trees. Hundreds of crinkling golden leaves cover the cobblestones, almost like they did the vale that the Scavenger used to haunt. Somehow, Verso remembers the horror of that creature less vividly than he does Lune's dark hair turned gold by the dappled sunlight pouring through the foliage, as she walked before him to their camp near the grove.
"You helped build the Dome," she says now, shattering the image. She can't really be asking—he remembers telling her that much—but she doesn't elaborate, so he nods anyway.
"We modelled it after the barrier around the Monolith."
"Hm. It did feel familiar…"
She considers it for a moment; Verso almost expects her to get absorbed by the idea and forget whatever she was planning to question him about. She shakes herself after a few seconds.
"Could you have done it if you hadn't known about painting?"
"Not that quickly," he admits. "Not that I did it alone, anyway."
Her mouth twists only for a moment before she nods to herself.
"Hmm. Your father."
She's silent as they leave the tree-lined street for a narrower one. Guessing at Lune's thoughts in those quiet moments was already impossible back when she trusted him enough to let him try, and he had every reason to try. Verso doesn't attempt it now. He does try not to fill the silence with unbidden thoughts of Renoir, so many years ago in that workshop, adding Pictos to the web that would power the Dome, talking of freeing Maman, of finding Clea with her help.
The Dome had seemed meaningful then, had seemed like a victory—like making their stolen lives theirs. Watching it come together piece by piece, Verso had briefly and viciously been glad for the life that the painter's death had made possible, and glad that he didn't have to face it alone.
That's all gone, now.
"Could you do it again?" Lune asks, as abruptly as she started this conversation.
It takes Verso a second to shake off the memories and remember what Lune's talking about.
"You could too," he hedges, more in confusion than because he actually wants to refuse.
"Yes," Lune agrees. "So could many others. But if you already know how, our time is put to better use on other projects. There's no shortage of those, and you aren't busy."
It stings even though he has no right to that sting. He hasn't been doing anything of any value, anything at all, really, beyond hoping that Maëlle would change her mind and let them all die. Lune's probably figured out half a dozen new ways to harness chroma for the benefit of Lumière in the meantime.
"Why do you need a new Dome?" he asks as they turn into the street his apartment's on. Lune slows down her pace, though she doesn't know where he lives; she's never been there.
"We're going to send out new expeditions," she says, a sliver of something softer, brighter slipping into her voice. "Try to build on the continent again. It would be easier if we didn't have to worry about Nevrons while setting up the temporary bases."
Or they could simply exterminate the Nevrons. Clea—isn't around to paint new ones anymore. But of course that wouldn't appeal to Lune. It would be a wasted opportunity to learn more about the creatures.
Verso bites back a sigh.
"I'll make some Pictos. You'll have to make the rest on site, though, depending on the environment and—"
"I was thinking you might do that yourself, actually."
She stops walking before he does, right in front of his door. Even though, as far as Verso knows, she's never been here.
It occurs to him that he might not actually know that much. That this whole conversation might not have been solely intended to guilt him into putting his skills and outrageous amount of free time to use for Lumière, even.
Lune watches him patiently. He remembers her offering him her trust, when he knew he didn't deserve it and she didn't yet.
"I don't think I should," he says, wincing at how unsure he sounds. "Maëlle would—"
"I've already talked to her. She has no objection."
There's some small measure of bitterness in the knowledge that Lune sought out Maëlle's approval first. But he would have had to bring it up with her himself if Lune hadn't, or pass up the chance to leave Lumière entirely.
He probably wouldn't have asked.
"You didn't have to," he says, his throat tight.
Lune hesitates, looking at him unblinkingly long enough that Verso finds himself wishing she would look away.
"We're alive," she says finally, clearly intending to go on. Before she can offer something else he doesn't deserve, he shakes his head.
"We'd be dead if I'd had my way."
"I'm very aware," she snaps.
Somehow, that's more comforting than her undeserved kindness: she isn't being tricked into this. She's perfectly capable of being angry with him. But she sighs and goes on, more evenly:
"You didn't listen to a word I said after the Paintress. You didn't give any of us a chance. You just made the same choice all over again." Another sigh. "But it's not helping anyone if you're miserable."
He can't deny it; she should know that he would make the same choice again, and only lacks the opportunity. Yet how could she not know by now? And she is still offering.
"If there was a way to save both—"
"There is," she says firmly. "There will be. We will find it. You don't even know that Maëlle will let herself die here, or that your mother will come back. She hasn't yet. "
He does know, is the thing. He's seen this play out before. Anyway, it's only a matter of time: Renoir will destroy the Canvas when Maëlle leaves, dead or alive.
But it's no use arguing this out with Lune now. Neither of them will change their mind—and he doesn't particularly want to give her another reason to resent him.
"When's the expedition leaving?" he asks instead, choosing the cowardly way out. Lune allows it.
"Next month, if the council doesn't delay us again."
"Us?"
Even as he asks, he realises that that's the least surprising part of today. Of course Lune is going—she was marking locations for future research and meticulously writing down every scrap of knowledge she could glean even in the middle of their mad rush across the world. She wouldn't miss out on going back just because he'll be there, especially when she could have so easily avoided his being there in the first place.
She doesn't dignify the question with an answer, only raises one eyebrow.
"Right," he says, ducking his head. "Commander?"
The first real smile he's seen from her in months touches her lips—the quick smug smile she occasionally let slip on the continent, after a particularly devastating attack, or after she'd rendered him speechless.
"Not like past expeditions, but yes. We'll have to both gather data and set up a temporary base for future building missions. It makes sense to put an experienced researcher in charge."
"And you're the most suited to it."
He means it, too. She took charge of the 33 handily enough. She knows the continent better than almost anyone, and she is brilliant. It wasn't her fault that winning and losing amounted to the same thing.
But Lune rolls her eyes, the gesture so familiar it's jarring, after months of distance.
"You don't know the rest of the team." She pauses, seems to consider that. "Come by the workshop tomorrow. I'll introduce you and give you supplies to get started on the Pictos."
Verso's been living—well, existing—in Lumière for months now, and the only person he's gotten to know at all is Joséphine, the wine merchant, because she likes to chat with customers. He used to be good with people. He might be still, if he tried. The idea of meeting Lune's colleagues alone sounds like a trial.
But he does want to go to the continent, badly enough that he'll grit his teeth and go into the workshop, even if he has to lie to them. He doesn't know what exactly Lune has told them, but she would warn him, probably, if they knew the role he played (plays, will play forever).
"Alright," he agrees.
Lune stares at him a moment longer, then down at the basket he's carrying.
"Don't come in with a hangover," she says. "We're working on new explosives."
Then she stalks away. Verso watches her leave bemusedly. As she reaches the corner, she pauses, turning around sharply. Before he can decide whether watching her leave was acceptable or a misstep to disguise, she nods at him and disappears into the next street.
Verso lingers on the doorsteps, watching the afterimage of her.
He was supposed to stay on the continent a couple of weeks, and return with the first team back. But he lingers, gets put in charge of a few reconnaissance missions that don't end in disaster, draws some new maps. Gets Lune to send him to the gestral village with barely any effort. Gets her to come along with only a little more. Loses a duel, badly, to Monoco, and has to hear about it for days, as Lune joins in on the teasing with careful dry quips.
Maëlle never shows up. It's only a longer leash, of course. He's not above enjoying it.
Sciel's garden is a mosaic of colours: daffodils bursting out of the ground near the rosemary, early strawberries peeking out under the lilac. Sometimes Verso gives her a hand, though she doesn't really need help growing anything. She tells him which shrubs to prune, where to sow which seeds, and he—doesn't have to think. Sciel makes sure her garden thrives one way or another, as confidently as she tore apart Nevrons on the continent.
When the sun climbs high enough to burn, she brings out playing cards and they sit in the shade of the linden tree. Even Monoco's cheating would be pointless against her: she wins almost every game.
"Let's play for stakes," she says one morning, grinning at him over her cards.
"What stakes?"
"Stories?"
He lets out a snort as he lays down two cards on the bench between them. He's been dealt worse hands than this; Sciel will probably win anyway.
"I'm all out of the dark and personal stuff."
"Oh, you'll come up with something," she says airily, and discards one of her cards for a new one. "Maybe you'll win, who knows? Smaller miracles have happened."
Before Verso can reply, Sciel catches sight of something over his shoulder and perks up.
"Back already?" she says, looking behind him, her voice bright with affection. She is always warm, but she only speaks like this to her husband.
"The wind's turned, so we're going to work on charts, but we didn't bring any down to the beach. Hello, Verso," Pierre says, nodding at him as he continues to the house.
Verso nods back before looking at the cards again. He takes his time choosing which one to trade for, and pretends he can't feel Sciel's eyes on him.
"Your turn," he says when he's done, and she remains silent and still a beat too long.
She hums pensively. When he looks at her again, she's considering her cards with a thoughtful frown. Pierre comes back out as she's making her move, a satchel overflowing with rolled-up charts slung across his chest. He leans over her shoulder to drop a kiss on Sciel's cheek, then takes a peek at her hand and laughs.
"Have some mercy on him."
"You know me," she drawls, and waves Pierre on with another sweet smile.
He goes chuckling. Sciel watches him until he rounds the hawthorn hedge, then glances at Verso before focusing on her cards again.
"You don't like Pierre much," she says, unusually even, the lilt gone from her voice.
Verso can't help drawing back in surprise a bit, though there's really no good reason to be surprised when Sciel sees more than he intends to let on.
"I barely know him," he denies, fumbling his cards a little. "He seems like a good man."
"But you don't like him," she insists.
She's wrong—less wrong than she could be, though. Verso can't dislike Pierre, because he doesn't know him except through Sciel's stories, and she loves him. It isn't dislike. It's just—
Every time he sees Pierre, he's reminded of Sciel saying she wouldn't want a copy of her dead husband, anymore.
"Is he like he used to be?" he blurts out. "Like you remembered him?"
A small frown forms on Sciel's face, her mouth pinching for a moment.
"Everyone changes," she says slowly, "and memory's fickle."
It's not quite an answer. Maëlle used Pierre's chroma to repaint him, but she never knew him before he died. What image did she hold in her mind when she coaxed the paint back into shape? What essence did she draw from?
Maybe it doesn't matter; maybe all she needs is the chroma, and a general idea of what she's making it into. Verso's memories of painting are too hazy to tell, and Maëlle's too inexperienced to know even now, even if he could bring himself to ask her. Still, he can't help wondering: how much of this is real, even going by the rules of their half-reality? Maëlle brought back so many people she didn't know, so quickly. Sometimes… On the worst days, it seems less like the life the Canvas used to brim with, however illusory, and more like a puppet show.
He discards another card and watches with some regret as Sciel takes her turn in silence. This is what she wanted, or as close to it as she will ever get. She wouldn't give it up even if she could. There's no point in pushing her for an answer she can't give, certainty she doesn't have.
He's about ready to apologise when she gives in first, with a sigh.
"He's Pierre. Everything else doesn't matter. However Maëlle went about it… She gave us time."
That's what it always comes back to in the end: Maëlle's time, her selfish, short-sighted sacrifice.
"Not much," he says, low so his voice doesn't crack. "Before she dies."
But Sciel shakes her head, a pensive look on her face.
"Everyone changes, Verso. Maëlle and her parents too."
She's wrong: Maman and Renoir spent decades refusing to change. And Maëlle's their daughter, trapped here as surely as they were, stuck in limbo as they were. Unwilling to let go, as they were.
Sciel holds his gaze a moment longer, and then smiles, putting all of her cards down on the bench between them, face up—a perfect sequence.
"I win," she says softly, and then chuckles. "No miracles today."
Verso holds on to the familiar choking fear a few seconds longer—Sciel is wrong like he was wrong every time he convinced himself to hope, and none of this means anything, there is never any way to win. But it's always so tempting a lie to believe.
He sets his cards down with a sigh.
"You win."
"So, a story." She considers him carefully enough that he has to force himself not to squirm. The corner of her lips tugs up in clear amusement as she sees his discomfort anyway. She's like a cat with a mouse, sometimes. Finally, mercifully, she looks away to gather up the cards on the bench between them. "A funny one, I think. What was that about the flying snake?"
And Verso huffs and tells her about the many, many times he and Monoco failed to kill the damn snake and only succeeded in discovering how nasty its insides were, before the expedition took it down at last.
Maybe Renoir really has given up, as impossible as that seems. Maybe Maman has convinced herself she doesn't care, or maybe she's too consumed with grief to give Alicia much thought, or too sick to come back into the Canvas.
But Clea won't let her sister die here. Would she? She's not the sister he knew; she can't be so different that she would watch Alicia die and do nothing. She was willing to wage war on her brother's murderers, alone. She will try to get Maëlle out if it comes to that. She will. She has to.
Maëlle's grasp on the Canvas isn't what Maman's was. She makes a dozen mistakes every day—a self-indulgent inconsistency here, the chroma allowed to flow outside of her control there. Maybe Clea could drag her out, willing or not. Maybe the only reason she hasn't yet is that no time at all has passed in her world. Maybe she's giving Maëlle time to leave on her own. Maybe, when she does come, Maëlle will be ready. Maybe she will find that other way that Alicia hoped for.
Probably not. But maybe.
Maëlle's the only one who has a key to his apartment (though he didn't exactly give it to her), so when Verso comes home from the market and finds his door unlocked, he knows who he'll find waiting in the kitchen.
She always sits in the same spot when she visits, her hands in her lap, her back ramrod straight the way it only ever was in battle, before she remembered who she was. She only lets herself in when there's something she wants to talk about badly enough that she would rather wait for him here than risk him using their spars as a distraction. Last time, it was to ask if he really wanted to join Lune's expedition.
Every time, he has half a second of wild, unjustified hope that she's come to announce she's leaving the Canvas.
"Verso," she greets him, standing hastily, the moment he pushes the door open.
She was sitting exactly as he pictured, he notes with the fondness he can never seem to shake. Before he can even close the door, she's taken his basket, set it down next to the sink and whirled back around. Verso takes in her brilliant smile, the way she's practically vibrating with excitement, and feels his stomach sink.
It's not that he wants to see her unhappy. If she's in the Canvas anyway, he would rather she was alright—as alright as she can be, wasting away in her brother's haunted house. In another life, that would be all that matters, and he could see her joy without dreading its cost.
"Maëlle," he greets her back anyway.
"I fixed the opera house," she announces, beaming.
Verso stares at her. Is that what she's been working on so devotedly the last couple of weeks that she didn't show up for their sparring matches most mornings? She never even mentioned it. With a whole world's worth of chroma at her fingertips, it should only have taken her a few minutes, an hour at most, to repaint one building.
She must see the confusion on his face. With a small gesture of her hand, she explains: "I wanted to get the details just right, so I went through the archives. That's why it took a while."
Painting—shouldn't require such detailed knowledge of the subject. Maëlle knows this. There was no reason to research the opera house. Except that this isn't really about the opera house.
"Why did you do that?" he grinds out.
Her smile wavers.
"You said you missed performing?"
Verso remembers telling her that, and meaning it, and expecting it would never be relevant. He had thought his promise to play for her in the concert hall would remain a self-indulgent daydream. A fond memory she could take with her after she left, and make better in her imagination than the real thing would have been anyway.
"I said a lot of things." He doesn't mean to hurt her; he almost cuts himself off when her lips tighten. But he asked only one thing of her, and it wasn't repainting the concert hall. "I didn't ask you to do that."
"It's a gift, Verso," she says, clearly exasperated now and frowning in earnest. Her throat works for a moment. "I know you didn't want—this. But I have been trying, and you haven't—"
"Have you?" Verso cuts in.
It doesn't matter that she's not entirely wrong, that he's been indulging her requests only when he couldn't help it, and shutting her out all the rest of the time. Silent spars in the mornings, excuses to put a swift end to conversations in his kitchen, and nothing of any significance.
If there was a way to do this without hurting her, he would try. But what matters is that she finally understand, and leave.
"Erasing Maman's blessing and replacing it with your own isn't trying," he continues even though she's blinking up at him furiously, looking as betrayed as she did when she realised he'd let Gustave die.
"Whose fault is that?" she retorts, anger overtaking the hurt. "You killed yourself the moment I made you mortal again! What was I supposed to do?"
"Let me."
Her face crumples for a split second before she hardens again, though the tears that spring to her eyes betray her. In another life, Verso would stop now, before he could really hurt his baby sister. But that's the crux of it: she is not his sister. She shouldn't be here to be hurt at all, and there is no other life for anyone but her.
"You're being cruel," Maëlle says, her voice held so tightly in check it can't tremble, and cracks instead. "I can't just watch you die again and—"
"I'm not your brother, Maëlle."
She freezes for only a moment. She's never been very good at concealing her emotions, so Verso sees the hurt, the betrayal, the confusion warring on her face before the tears start rolling down her cheeks.
It doesn't matter how she feels, how any of them feels, if it gets her to live. Still—that's easier to believe when she isn't crying soundlessly in front of him. But he can't try and take it back, or she'll take it as encouragement.
"I know you're not Verso," she says, and Verso doesn't let that sting. "This isn't about him." It is, though, as everything in this world—his world—always is. Maëlle breathes in sharply. Her voice breaks when she says, almost a whisper, "You just want me gone. Don't you?"
Verso wants—so much more than that. He wants her safe, with her family. Learning to laugh freely again, to live beyond her pain, beyond her guilt. He wants her to read all the thousands of novels that her world holds, to hone her powers at their mother's knee, to paint a thousand new worlds for herself that won't ensnare her as this one has. To grow into everything she could be; to grow old in time, and not wither away here. To live, even if he can't see it.
And he wants Noco to get big and strong enough to beat Monoco again, he wants Sciel to hold the child she hoped for, Lune to get her glimpse of a different world. He wants this world to unfold peacefully, free of the shadow of their grief, and he wants the small ghost of Maëlle's brother to rest at last. He wants, sometimes, to watch it all happen.
But those are impossible dreams. Whether Maëlle lives or not—whether she leaves or not—there is no tomorrow that can be more than a temporary reprieve, for them. Maëlle can have a thousand beginnings, if she only chooses to. This doesn't have to be her end too.
"I wish you could stay," he says when he can think of no way to put all of that into a sentence. Maëlle shakes her head, but he doesn't give her a chance to interrupt. "There is so much more for you out there. Nothing I could want is worth your life."
"This is my life! I've lived here too! What am I supposed to do? If I leave, Papa will destroy the Canvas, or you will, and you—you'll all die, and it'll be my fault again. And even if he doesn't—time will pass so much faster here, and there will be nothing for me to come back to, on either side—" She has to stop to swallow back her tears; when she speaks again, it's barely more than a whisper. "You'll just leave me again."
"Maëlle—"
"No," she snaps. "Not now, I can't—not now. Please, Verso. Please. I want to watch all of you grow old. I want to see Gustave's child and make Lune her painting and—and you promised to play for me. Please."
She's crying hard enough now that her words run together, more plea than argument. Still, Verso could resist her.
But there's no point in punishing her, or himself, for the only choices they can make. He's already tried that.
He swallows it all and goes to her, lets her press her face into his shirt as her shoulders heave with silent sobs.
Maëlle will never be convinced to abandon her brother's Canvas. If she had never become Maëlle, maybe, if she had never grown to care about it as anything more than one last remnant of her brother…
But she did. She has, and Verso's attempts to change that have backfired every time.
She will never want to give it up. But perhaps, in time, she will remember there is more to her life than this.
Verso practices until his fingers ache and he can see the keys even when he closes his eyes at night. If he's doing this, it might as well be perfect—as close as he can make it to those old memories of a more carefree time, as close as it can be to the idle dream he shared with Maëlle. If he's going to do it.
Day after day, he sits at the piano and plays and doubts. It might just give Maëlle one more reason to stay—there will always be another concert, another promise, another day spent pretending her brother isn't dead, if he lets her. If he gives her the excuse.
If he told her he changed his mind, she would be heartbroken and take down the posters anyway—but she still wouldn't leave. How hostile would he have to make this world, to force her out when even the knowledge of her looming death isn't enough?
Verso's no stranger to callousness, to hurting his sisters. He might be able to sour her love, if he really tried, though the memory of her brother will always make that a challenge. But there is too much she loves here beyond the man he resembles, and she's so determined to sacrifice herself. She would hate him and stay anyway.
Still. He's still considering it when he walks onto the stage.
It's a perfect replica of the one he remembers, all warm, gleaming floors and gilded mouldings. Almost too perfect, really, sharper than his memories.
There are so many reasons not to risk it, not to encourage her. If he could turn back time, to before he lost their duel, before the Fracture, before the other Verso died…
But he can't. That's what none of them seems able to learn, isn't it? Tomorrow comes anyway.
He takes his seat at the piano and waits for the applause to die down. It settles on him with the expectant hush of the audience: he can't unmake this. And that impossibility makes so much possible. Monoco's gruff boasts and Esquié blathering on about rocks, Sciel's garden in full bloom, Lune's hands around her guitar, her lips on his cheek.
Maëlle, clinging to him and whispering, "Not yet." Not yet.
He puts his fingers to the piano, and plays.