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Chapter Text

“I just don’t understand what they were thinking?” Lucien repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. “I mean, come on. Am I missing something? We’ve waited all this time, and Lune wants us to stall the landing till morning? We’ve all been looking forward to this! Especially Maelle! Why did she vote against it?”

It was strange. Especially since it hadn’t happened last time. Gustave knew Lune had been just as excited about the landing as the rest of them. 

And it was because Gustave recalled the last time around that he was probably the most surprised of everyone when Lune suddenly made her requests just as Gustave’s senses returned to him.

Lune had approached Alan just moments ago and asked that they wait till morning to land, and that they drop anchor for the night. Alan had been just as caught off guard by Lune’s request as everyone else had, but ultimately decided to bring it to a vote. 

Lune was outvoted drastically, with only three other people on her side.

“You sided with Lune,” Catherine voiced, cutting off Lucien’s continued rant as she looked to Gustave. “What were your thoughts on waiting till morning? Other than the fact Maelle voted with Lune.”

Gustave huffed in mock offense, though unable to stop the fond smile creeping up his face. 

“Believe it or not, Maelle doesn’t dictate my every move. Just most of them.”

That at least got an amused hum from Catherine and a snort from Lucien.

“So he admits it-!”

“Visibility,” Gustave answered Catherine’s question. “We’re landing on a beach we know nothing about with an oncoming eclipse hanging over our heads. We have no way of knowing what the condition will be like on the beach, or if we’ll be able to see the threats lurking there.”

“Come on, Gustave,” Lucien threw an arm around Gustave’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

If only that were true, my friend. If only this wasn’t the last night we see each other.

But what could Gustave do, alone. His attempts to follow after Lune, Sciel, and Maelle had been thwarted two-fold. First by Lune telling him to back off, then by Lucien dragging him away to complain his ear off. 

It couldn’t be a coincidence that the four of them remembered. 

“He does raise good points, Lucien,” Catherine mused, staring between the coming shore and the eclipse threatening their survival. “Too late now, I suppose. We’ll just have to be ready for anything.”

“Yeah. Right,” Gustave nodded solemnly. “Like Nevrons. Or weird old men.”

“Weird old men?” Lucien scoffed. “Come off it, Gustave! Now you’re just telling ghost stories.”

Yeah. Ghost stories. The stuff of waking nightmares. 

Unable to keep staring at the horizon and their approaching doom, Gustave turned to look out over the ship, taking in the faces of those he lost the last time around. A perfectly timed action as that was when Lune, Sciel, and Maelle had emerged from wherever they had disappeared below deck. 

“Excuse me, my friends,” Gustave said quickly, pulling away from Lucien and Catherine to make a bee-line for the three. “Lune! Sciel! Maelle!”

Lune paused, something in her body going tense as she heard his voice, eventually turning around to look at him with a shuttered off glare. Sciel at least had the decency to face him as she gave him a nervous smile that came off like a grimace, glancing between Gustave and Maelle. 

Maelle wouldn’t look at him at all.

“Maelle,” Gustave called gently to his daughter/sister. They really needed to figure that out, didn’t they? “Are you upset with me? Have I done something wrong?”

“Now isn’t the time, Gustave,” Lune tried to cut him off.

“Perhaps we should have this conversation somewhere else,” Sciel attempted to grab his arm and guide him away. 

“Is it because I took too long picking the rock? Or because I failed to keep my promise on the Cliff?”

It was easy to see Lune and Sciel’s reaction to his question because they’re facing him. Both seem to jolt upright, their eyes widening as their mouths’ dropped open. Lune actually seemed to lose her balance for a moment, stumbling back before catching herself with expert ease. 

“Wha-what?” Lune asked, pressed, pleaded. All three at one. “Gustave, you-?”

It was harder to gauge Maelle’s reaction because she was facing away from him. But to Gustave, who had spent so much time learning her tells, he could see the shock set in. First her body tensed, shoulders hunching up. Her arms came up for a moment as if to wrap around herself, or a stuffed animal that was long gone. Her breathing stopped for a moment, too, with an audible hitch that broke Gustave’s heart.

“I am… sorry,” Gustave forced out. “I am so, so sorry, Maelle. It was just. We were on the cliff. My blood was all over your face. He was going to kill us both. I had to- I needed to-. I wasn’t going to let him hurt you, Maelle.”

Maelle was trembling now, shaking in a way that had Gustave’s heart pounding too hard in his chest. She must have been in so much pain after his sacrifice. Abandoning her as so many others had before him. He’d never forgive himself for the pain he caused her. 

Stepping forward, Gustave rested a hand on her shoulder. “Maelle, I- oof!”

The second his hand brushed her shoulder, Maelle spun around, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms around him in a vice. Gustave’s arms immediately flew around Maelle, pulling her close. 

“I’m sorry, Maelle,” he whispered into her hair.

Maelle shook her head, pulling away just enough to look him in the eyes. To the ever growing pain in his heart, she was crying, but there was a relieved, warm smile on her face.

“I’m not mad at you,” Maelle promised. “I know why you did it, but I don’t ever want you to do that again.”

“Maelle-”

“And you’re sure this wasn’t you?” Lune cut in quickly, eyeing Maelle somewhat warily and with a little too much intrigue.

Maelle’s brow pinched as she looked at Lune, then Sciel, and then finally back at Gustave, as she seemed to contemplate the strange question. At least Maelle seemed to understand what Lune was asking

“I don’t… I don’t think so,” Maelle shook her head, looking back to Lune. “But everything is kind of fuzzy right now. I don’t know…”

Maelle pursed her lips, thumping her head back against Gustave’s chest with a grumble, like she was fighting off a bad drunken headache. Except Gustave knew Maelle hated any sort of wine or alcohol, so that couldn’t possibly be the case. 

“What is it you think Maelle has done?” Gustave pressed a hand gently to the back of her head, massaging gently.

She leaned into the touch, but there was still a pinched thing to her face. Gustave turned his attention away from Maelle to look at Lune and Sciel. Lune was frowning in that contemplative way of hers, and Sciel was gazing out towards the water with a pointed frown.

“What?” Gustave asked.

“We don’t have enough time to catch you up on everything,” Lune finally decided to say. “Which means you’re going to have to survive the beach again, Gustave. We’ll meet up at the Indigo Tree as planned, and then go from there.”

“But the others-”

“We’re going to try and save as many as we can,” Sciel spoke up quickly. “When we get off the boat, gather as many people to you as possible, and then we’ll use our collective knowledge to get as many people away from the beach as possible and away from those creepy Noir Nevrons. If by chance we can’t make it to the Indigo Tree, we’ll meet at the Gestral Village.”

“But the old man-”

“I’ll be taking care of Renoir,” came the response from Maelle.

Gustave thought his heart might have stopped.

“What?” he pulled back, looking into Maelle’s eyes to find a determined fire there. “Maelle-”

“Maelle stands the best chance against Renoir,” Lune said firmly. “We don’t have time to explain everything right now, but we will. There is so much we have to tell you, and I’d prefer not to keep explaining over and over again.”

“But the old man-”

“I’m not fighting him alone,” Maelle said quickly. “The man who saved me on the beach, Verso, he’ll be there. He won’t let Renoir hurt me. And I certainly won’t make it easy for Renoir, either.”

“How can you be sure?” Gustave pressed, feeling a little hysterical. 

Man on the beach? Verso? Make it easy for Renoir? What was she saying?

“How can you be sure things will play out the way they did last time?” Gustave pressed. “What if something goes wrong? Or-or there is some deviant you don’t expect? Or-?”

“Gustave,” Sciel reached a hand out to rest on his shoulder, drawing his gaze to her. “We understand your concern, and that this situation is less than ideal. But Maelle is right. We are going to have to split the team up if we want to save as many of our friends as possible. We know Verso will be most likely to help Maelle, so Maelle will face Renoir and we will rally our friends to face the Noirs.”

“We don’t have enough time to make a proper plan, or to explain why we need a proper plan,” Lune stated bitterly, still glaring at the approaching shore. “If we had more time, maybe we could save the whole team. Instead we’re walking into a death trap mostly unprepared and banking on training and protocol to save lives.”

“I thought you liked protocol,” Gustave attempted to jest.

Lune whipped around to glare at him, but that glare quickly melted as she released a pent up breath. 

“We missed you, Gustave,” Lune said sincerely, losing part of her hard, focused edge as she spoke. Giving him something more vulnerable. “You were the one who…”

Lune tampered off, turning back to the horizon with a grimace on her face. Gustave had half a mind to press, to ask her what she meant. But Maelle’s grip around his waist tightened as she pressed her head back to his chest, and Sciel was squeezing his shoulder.

“Try not to leave us this time, yeah?” Sciel teased, though the usual cheek in her voice wasn’t as present. “Which means you better give it your all on the beach.”

Then Sciel was pulling away, resting her hand on Lune’s arm, guiding her away. Leaving Gustave and Maelle to have a moment. 

“Hey-”

“I’m not who I used to be,” Maelle suddenly said, muffled in Gustave’s chest. “I’m not-Gustave I-”

“Hey, hey,” Gustave hushed gently. “It’s okay.”

“No,” Maelle looked up to him, shaking her head rapidly. “No, you don’t understand, Gustave. So much happened. There’s so much I have to tell you. But I’m not… I’m not the same Maelle I used to be.”

That was true. Trauma tended to change people, and it was clear that Maelle, Lune, and Sciel had been through far more than Gustave would be able to predict. He had to imagine what horrors his own death had brought to Maelle, of the woman it made her into. But this was Maelle.

Gustave hummed, pretending to contemplate what Maelle was saying. 

“I mean, yeah, I imagine you have changed,” Gustave told her gently. “But you’re also not the same person Emma and I adopted into our family. Always so skittish. Constantly running off. Trying to hide her nightmares.”

This didn’t seem to bring any comfort to Maelle. 

“You don’t understand,” Maelle tried once more. “The things I’ve done- the things I’ve tried to do-”

“And I did the one thing I swore I’d never do to protect you,” Gustave cut her off gently. “I gave my life for yours, I left you alone. That's the thing, Maelle. The things we do for love, the things we do protect those we care about, to save lives, maybe they’re unforgivable. Maybe they go too far. But do you honestly think there is anything you could do that would make me care for you any less?”

To Gustave’s horror, this also didn’t comfort Maelle and she looked as if she was going to cry. What happened to make Maelle so scared she’d think he would hate her? 

Gustave had half a mind to charge at Lune and Sciel to demand answers. But the sky overhead was getting dark with the eclipse, and he could see the beach where they were set to land.

“Maelle, listen to me, you could tell me you were actually the Paintress herself and I would still love and care for you,” Gustave stated warmly. Because whatever had happened, Gustave needed Maelle to understand just how much she meant to him. “I swear on my life. And given I’ve already died once, that should have more weight to it, right?”

And to his delight, that pained, dejected look went away. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open as if Gustave had said the most outrageous thing in the world. Her hands curled deeper into the fabric of his shirt as fresh tears came to her eyes. But it wasn’t caused by sadness this time. 

“Do you really mean that?” Maelle whispered as the first tear fell.

Gustave gave her his warmest smile, reaching up to brush the tear away with his thumb as he cupped her face.

“Every word. All you have to do is trust me, and then I’ll prove myself right when you finally sit down and tell us everything, okay? Just as I am choosing to trust that I will either see you at the Indigo Tree or at those weird corals from last time. This Verso better take care of you.”

Maelle huffed a laugh as another tear fell. “He will. Promise.”

Before Gustave could say anything to that, though, Alan gave a shout over the deck.

“Everyone! Prepare to dock! Our Expedition officially starts the second we land on that beach! The people of Lumiere are counting on us to make our way to the Paintress! Let’s try to be the first Expedition who actually makes the Paintress pay!”

There was a cheer among the ship, a rallying cry shared by almost all. Gustave couldn’t bring himself to contribute, knowing what awaited them on the beach, and Maelle seemed to grimace against the chorus of voices. A quick look for Lune and Sciel showed they were reacting much the same as Maelle. 

Just what happened after he died?

“Come on. We should make sure all our equipment is ready for the challenge,” Maelle grabbed his arm and tugged him towards Lune and Sciel. “The Noirs aren’t going to be easy to fight, and we really should try to save as many as possible.”

“Right,” Gustave agreed, letting Maelle tug him along. 

He would get his answers later. But first-

“Maelle,” Gustave gently pulled them both to a stop, Maelle turning to look at him with a curious frown. “Promise me again. Promise me that if it gets too much, you’ll run.”

“Gustave-”

“You promised me before,” he tried to press.

“So did you,” she countered.

And Gustave had to wince because yeah, he probably deserved that. That didn’t mean it stung any less. 

“I guess-yeah. Yeah I did. Guess neither of us was going to keep that promise. Doing crazy things for those we love and all that. Alright. Fine. Then promise me this. If it gets to be too much, you’ll call for me. If we’re going to meet our end, this time we’ll meet it together. Alright?”

Maelle nodded once. “I think I can promise that, yeah.”

“Good. Then when you call, I’ll be right there.”

Maelle’s smile turned a little watery. “I know you will. You always are.”

—-------------------------------------

It was dark and foggy as the boat ran ashore on the beach. Gustave could practically feel his heart beating wildly in his chest, drowning out all other noise on the beach. Which wasn’t a good thing, given the circumstances. He couldn’t see the lurking dangers he knew were hidden in wait. He couldn’t spot the old man that wished to take their lives. For the beating of his heart to take over his sense of hearing right now was just bad luck. And they couldn’t afford that at the moment. 

Gustave swallowed, hoping it would still his heart as Alan disembarked first. 

Alan. Their fierce commander. Steadfast and strong, voted by majority to be the leader of the Expedition because he was both relatable, and willing to reign them all in while compel them forward. The first of their group to fall, too. 

Jérôme and Tristan followed quickly after, with Lune hot on their trail. 

But Lune was already moving closer to the fog on the far right, raising her arms into position for a fight. Tristan turned to give Lune a strange look, but Alan and Jérôme were already pushing forward, testing each step and trying to peer through the darkness that threatened them.

“I’m starting to think you were right, Gustave,” Lucien whispered from behind him. “Who would’ve thought the eclipse would land perfectly over the beach today of all days? And the fog? Unnatural. This place gives me the creeps.”

“Yeah,” Gustave said, though his voice sounded strained, even to his own ears. “Best be on guard.”

Then he followed the others and disembarked, with Maelle close beside him. A quick glance behind revealed that Sciel was planting herself closer to their rear, meaning Gustave would take the side closest to the left. 

Maelle was already summoning her rapier when the entire Expedition went still as a loud, almost knocking-like sound rang out over the beach. 

Gustave thought his heart might have stopped in that moment as his grip on his sword and gun grew tighter and he rotated from tracking the fog in front of him, to tracking the fog to his left. The anticipation was weighing down on him like an anvil stuck in his chest. It was taking all of Gustave’s will not to crumble under the pressure. 

He hadn’t realized it at the time, what with the joy of being surrounded by old friends and the realization of where he was, but he was about to face the man that had killed him just moments earlier. 

He was afraid.

The cane thunked against the ground again, and Gustave could feel his breathing coming a little faster. It was like he didn’t have any control, his body was locking up, threatening to betray him and force him to fall once more to this man. Maelle was behind him. Trapped in the old man’s snare. Using her as bait to keep Gustave in place so he couldn’t run. So he would have to-

“Gustave,” Maelle’s soft, firm voice washed over him as her hand grabbed onto his arm. 

No. He wasn’t on the cliffs. He wasn’t about to face death again. And Maelle was safe.

He forced himself to breathe normally, glancing over at Maelle’s concerned expression and giving her a gentle nod. She nodded back, though her lips were pursed as she searched his face. Gustave couldn’t blame her doubts. But he didn’t have time for fears or punishment. 

Again the cane thunked against the ground, seeming to ring louder and louder with each step the old man took. They could see his silhouette by now. Maelle was starting to move forward, and Gustave followed her a couple steps.

Alan was the first ahead, his own silhouette nearly masked by the fog. But Gustave could see just enough of his friend to see the man raise a hand to get the others to stop. For a split second, all Gustave could see was Alan’s head falling forward, even as the beat of the cane continued to grow louder. 

“Easy, Alan,” Lune called out a warning as Alan attempted to get closer to the forming shape of a man. “Don’t get too close.”

Alan turned to look at her momentarily, seeing Lune already in position and giving her a nod. Then he turned to look over his other shoulder at Jérôme. 

“Get ready,” he instructed firmly.

By now they could make out the old man’s form as he grew ever closer. Again, Alan took a step forward to get closer. Choosing not to heed Lune’s warning. Maelle quickly realized that Alan was not going to stop moving towards the threat and began to dash forward. 

But Jérôme was faster. 

“Maelle, don’t!” Jérôme hissed, catching her around the waist.

“No!” Maelle gasped, a terrified octave filling her voice, only growing higher as she struggled against Jérôme’s grip. “No! Jérôme! Let me go! Alan! Don’t go any closer! Jérôme! Please !”

No, Gustave thought in growing horror. They were going to lose Alan again.

It was too late. Alan was mere feet away from the man that would end his life, and was already enthralled with the impossibility standing before them. 

“Alan! Fall back!” Lune called out her own warning this time. 

“You- You’re old,” Alan breathed in complete disbelief as the old man turned to look at him. “How did you- How did you survive the Gommage?”

Alan ignored Lune’s warning. Ignored Maelle's terrified cries. Completely enraptured by the old man's old, wrinkled, gray appearance. He stepped forward, one step. Two. Three. Creeping ever curiously closer to the trap in front of him.

“Commander!” Sciel tried this time, her voice ringing over the beach.

Gustave’s own voice was failing him at the moment. 

“Which Expedition are you fr-?”

Too late.

Maelle screamed as she ripped out of Jérôme’s stunned arms as the old man raised his cane to attack. Gustave could practically see the scene play out. The cane moving faster than any of them could process in a burst of strange light. Alan’s head falling as their only warning. The bright bursts of chroma that would charge out and end so many lives.

The nightmare from last time around was still so vivid. Still so fresh. Gustave found himself anticipating the ending all over again. Even as Maelle dug her hands into the back of Alan’s jacket to pull him away from the strike, Gustave knew it would be too late to prevent the tragedy to come. In that moment, Gustave felt sure history was doomed to repeat itself.

And yet…

The nightmare didn't loop. 

CLANG

The entire battlefield seemed to hold its breath as the sound of metal cane against steel echoed across the beach like a shockwave. A strange chromatic ripple effect nearly sent half their team stumbling backwards, but the momentum did help Maelle with her task.

Maelle and Alan were thrown backwards with the blast, both still thankfully whole. Though poor Alan took the brunt of the attack if Alan’s gasp of pain was anything to go by. They hit the sandy beach hard, with Maelle twisting about to plant her feet and bring their slide to a stop, rapier once more drawn and ready to attack. 

But as she crouched protectively over Alan, she was met with the same thought that had caused all her fellow Expeditioners to come to a frozen halt.

“Verso…?” Maelle breathed in a whisper that seemed to echo.

A man stood between Maelle and the old man, one Gustave has never seen before. He had black hair and wore an expedition uniform, but that was really all Gustave could see from here with the man’s back to them. This stranger had a sword up, blocking the strike from the cane, and judging by the expression on the old man’s face, the man was also locked in a staring contest with the man. 

The stranger, Verso, as Maelle had named him, turned only slightly to look at Maelle, before turning back to the old man. 

This man, Verso, had supposedly saved Maelle last time. And now he stood between their crew and complete annihilation. Gustave wanted to thank this man.

“It's been awhile,” the old man greeted Verso.

“Has it?” 

There was something flat in Verso's tone, almost dead sounding. At least, the closest thing to dead Gustave believed one could sound. It caused Gustave to frown and it seemed to shake Maelle out of her shock as she scrambled to her feet. Even the old man seemed rather disturbed by Verso’s tone if the deepening of his already crinkled brown was anything to go by.

It was as if the old man was suddenly worried for Verso.

“What are you doing here?” the old man appeared to accuse.

Verso didn’t say anything at first, and Gustave could only imagine this to be a rather impressive staredown between the pair. The entire battlefield was trapped in a stand-still, watching the exchange to see what would go down. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” the old man pressed, a touch more urgent this time. Letting some of that worry leak out. 

“I’ll be where I like,” Verso quipped, defiant, and bitterness dripping from his tongue. 

Still not looking away from the old man, Verso took several slow, deep breaths. And then-

“Nevrons!” Verso’s voice seemed to pierce through them all. “You’re all surrounded by Nevrons! Take arms and fight for your lives!”

The battlefield erupted into chaos.

Chapter Text

The old man looked upset by Verso’s declaration, and perhaps a bit worried, still. But only for a split second. Because in the next blink of an eye, the old man was pulling back and raising his cane once more. This time, Verso dodged the strike, but that meant it sent a blaring chromatic blast towards the Expedition. 

“FALL BACK!” Jérôme cried out to the expedition as he struggled to pull Alan to his feet. 

He must have taken a worse but from the chromatic blast than Gustave first thought because Alan was struggling to get to his feet. 

“Lune!” Sciel’s voice called out in warning.

Gustave only had a second to glance over his shoulder as the piercing bright light came sailing towards them. His quick glance let him watch as Lune took to the sky, springing upwards and gathering chroma to herself as she parried the attack mid-air. 

That was all the time Gustave had to awe at Lune’s skill before one of those weird hand Nevrons suddenly made itself known. He didn’t see where Sciel had ended up, couldn’t tell where Lune’s voice was coming from as she barked orders, couldn’t see where Maelle had run too. 

But that was in part due to the fact that people were running about wildly on the beach, most running straight into the trap the old man had left for them.

“Save who we can,” Sciel had said on the boat.  

“On me!” Gustave bellowed to those closest to him as the Nevron revealed itself. “Here! On me!”

Another blast of pure chroma slammed into the ground behind Gustave, and he had to fight to keep his footing. He couldn’t afford to be knocked down this time. Not when the Nevrons were crawling out of the darkness. 

“Gustave! Move!” Lucien’s voice came from his left.

Lucien grabbed him by the arm just in time to dodge another chroma blast. Unfortunately, the chromatic shockwave was enough to send both Lucien and Gustave stumbling forward, tripping over themselves in the dirt. This time he wasn't face down in the dirt, gasping for air and unable to hear beyond the ringing in his ears, at least. But it did send a painful jolt through his body momentarily rendering him paralyzed. 

Gustave fought through the pain, struggling and gasping for air and forcing himself to move. Lucien was there in seconds.

“What the heck are you thinking, Gustave!?” Lucien shrieked as he yanked Gustave to his feet.

Gustave grit his teeth as he fought to keep pace with Lucien. He wasn’t sure how Lune managed to deflect the blast of pure chroma, but he wasn’t going to try the same thing. His best bet of survival was facing and dodging the Nevrons. So he let Lucien drag him along, let his friend guide him to rest behind the rocks. 

“He’s not following-!” Lucien gasped as the blasts continued to get further and further away from the rest of them. “Who was that!? Who was-!?”

Gustave threw out a hand, hushing Lucien as he tried to listen carefully. The one thing he could always count on from Nevrons was the sound, and with the blast already drowning out most noise, he needed to pay extra attention.

Margot gasped out a heavy breath as she turned to face Tristan, “What do we do now?!”

Tristan was out of breath, and for a moment, Gustave was afraid Tristan might have been hit with the way he was sucking in air. But his voice was still firm as he spoke. 

“Regroup at the rally point,” Tristan hissed. “The Indigo Tre-”

Tristan cut himself off as the sound Gustave had been waiting for finally approached, followed by a glowing light through the dust and fog.

Taking a breath, Gustave summoned both blade and gun, launched to his feet, and attacked.

“Gustave!” Lucien shrieked in horror as Margot swore.

The Nevron released a pained cry as Gustave cut into its hand, then braced himself to parry the blast of energy the creature prepared to send his way. Lucien and Margot quickly dragged Tristan, the Nevrons intended victim, away from the fight in time for Gustave’s parry to strike true, sending the Nevron stumbling backwards, tripping over a rock and landing on its strange backside, flailing to get up.

“RUN!” Gustave bellowed at his friends. “Weapons drawn! Now!”

Lucien, Tristan, and Margot listened to his cry, summoning their weapons from pictos as they all took off at a run. They’d barely made it a few feet before another sound caused Gustave to skid to a stop. 

“Margot! Dodge!” Gustave shouted.

Margot heeded his cry, quickly ducking into a roll as one of the Nevron’s attacks came sailing out of the sky exactly where she had been standing. Gustave managed to parry the second blast, before taking off after his friends.

“How the heck are you doing that!?” Lucien cried out.

Gustave didn’t have time to answer that as he raised his gun and began firing shots at the Nevron standing directly in front of Lucien. Lucien let out a cry of horror as he quickly raised own gunsword and began firing at the thing with a panicked frenzy. 

Gustave’s arm began to spark as the Nevron grew closer.

“Lucien! Move!” Gustave shouted as he called upon the lightning.

With the overcharge coursing through his arm, and Lucien ducking out of the way, Gustave charged, slamming his fist into the Nevron and sending it skidding backwards. Displeased by this, the Nevron made to charge up an attack. 

“Tristan, watch out!” Gustave bellowed.

Tristan dodged the blast, Margot doing the same, but as the third blast aimed for Gustave, he braced himself and parried it, using the opportunity to land an up close and personal stab to the Nevron. 

Gustave wasn’t sure they stood a chance at fighting these things. The last time they had tried to return to the beach, the four of them barely escaped with their lives. So he wasn’t planning on killing them. Just buying enough time to run.

“Keep running!” Gustave shouted, urging everyone onward as another harsh strike stunned the Nevron. “Move! Get off the beach!”

By this point, he was matching pace with Margot, Tristan, and Lucien. They were making a break for it, running as fast as they could. Gustave’s heart was once more pounding in his ears, and that would later be what he chose to blame his deafness on with what happened next. 

For in front of them and to the right, a bright light sparked. A third Nevron.

Gustave only had seconds to process what was happening as he summoned his gun with one hand and grabbed Margot’s arm with the other, attempting to pull her behind him. The Nevron was forming a chromatic orb of blackish-white energy.

Just as it prepared to release, Gustave raised his gun and fired.

And then the world went white before swallowing him in darkness.

—--------------------------------

Maelle wasn’t sure how long they’d been running before they finally stumbled to a messy stop. She had tripped over part of a brick building in the process of trying to slow down, and was now lying on the ground, staring up at the sky as she breathed in the fresh air around her in heaping lungfuls. 

She wasn’t going to lie; it was nice being able to breathe again without pain. 

Not for the first time since realizing she was back in Verso’s canvas, Maelle reached up to touch her face, feeling the smooth skin. She even closed her good eye, marveling at her ability to see out of where her other eye should be missing from. Her body was healthy and strong again, ready to take on Nevrons with a power she’d often feared she’d never have again.

For a moment, Maelle could lay there and pretend like everything was alright. That things were peaceful.

She knew better, though.

Slowly sitting up, Maelle found herself once more staring at Verso’s back. He’d stopped nearby, just a few feet before her, and had chosen to sit down on what was probably the chunk of building she’d tripped on earlier. He hadn’t said a word since calling out to warn the others of Renoir’s trap.

Verso’s entire body was wracked with tension that Maelle could physically see. From the way he was hunched forward to the way his shoulders were almost to his ears, to the way his breathing was just a bit too stiff to be normal. 

It was like… his body had run out of lies and cares to give.

Maelle’s heart ached at the sight, and she slowly rose to her feet, testing her body. When she was sure she was alright to move, she approached Verso. 

She didn’t bother to call out to him. Didn’t bother to tap his shoulder to get his attention. All of that felt wrong. Just approaching him like this felt like she was only deepening the rift between them. Perhaps she deserved it, even if it still stung.

Instead, Maelle sat herself behind Verso, with her own back facing his, and she allowed the silence to wash over them both once more as she basked in the reality that he was here.

Silence, however, had been a cruel companion for Maelle at times, and she could not wait for him to fill it for long.

“It’s nice…” she began, slow and hesitant, “... to see you again.”

There was a sound, almost like a scoff or a laugh. 

“That’s probably not what you want to hear,” Maelle said. Her gaze fell to her hands in her lap as she cursed herself mentally. “Sorry.”

This was harder than Maelle thought it would be. Not that she’d been able to put much thought into what was happening on the boat. But she was at least glad her guess about Verso being on the beach was right. She hadn’t expected him to openly oppose his father right off the bat. Just him getting her out of there when things went south would have been enough. But he went a step further. Even if it hurts him. 

Maelle pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin against them as she wrapped her arms around her legs. The place they’d managed to run towards was fairly beautiful, covered in lush green and flowers and pieces of fallen debris from buildings destroyed during the Fracture.

“Its been four years since you released my brother from the canvas,” Maelle told Verso gently, relishing in the sound of her voice after so long. “It wasn’t easy, but I did try to move on. I tried to find ways to live my life. I can’t speak much outside the canvas, so I started to learn sign language. Though it's hard to have a conversation when no one else understands the language you’re using. I don’t write as much anymore. It’s hard to find joy in a hobby that took so much from you. So I started trying to actually learn to paint. I got really really good at portraits. I don’t go out in public much. People are too afraid of my face, so I-”

“Why did you repaint the canvas, Alicia?”

Maelle’s voice stuttered to a halt as she choked on her sentence. She whipped around, faced with Verso’s backside once more.

“Me?!” she asked incredulously.

“Who else,” Verso’s voice was short and clipped as he stood up, choosing to walk a few feet away from her. 

“What? I didn’t-!”

“Renoir wanted the painting destroyed to protect you. Clea made ardently clear that the painting meant little to her so long as she got what she wanted. Maman- Aline, I would hope would be smarter than to repaint the canvas. So that leaves you. You who so longed to keep everyone here. ‘Just a little longer’.”

Maelle scrambled to her feet, closing the distance between them, reaching out to grab his arm. But he pulled away, walking away from her, like looking at her was-

“Verso, please listen to me! I didn’t-!”

“All I wanted was for my existence to end,” Verso cut her off again, a harsher edge to his voice. “For this all to end. For the pain and mourning and the suffering. It was finally over. I could finally rest. And then you-”

“ I don’t paint canvases anymore! ”

This time she cut him off, and Verso actually froze. As Maelle breathed heavily from her outburst, Verso slowly turned to face her fully for the first time since he appeared on the beach. His eyes were blown wide, mouth slightly open as he gaped at her.

“...what?”

Maelle huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. This time, she turned away from him , though she kept him in her periphery.

“After you sent me back, Papa wouldn’t let Maman or me paint or enter any canvas. And then, when I finally did enter a canvas it felt… wrong. So much of me was painted over in Lumiere that my chroma was trying so desperately to find it, it felt like my own chroma was rejecting the new canvas. It took me years to feel comfortable in another canvas. And I’ll admit, I did try to repaint bits of the canvas at first, but it still all felt wrong. So I don’t-I don’t paint canvases unless Clea or Papa asks me to help. I prefer portraits. So I can… so I had something to remember everyone by.”

It was silent for a moment, save for the gentle breeze blowing through the grass and greenery. For all she wanted to see Verso’s face again, now she felt like a child, hiding a terrible secret from her big brother’s judgement, and now she was forced to confess.

That wasn't even a fair analogy. Verso wasn't her brother.

“How am I supposed to believe that?” Verso pressed, though there was a different shift in his voice, a desperate hopefulness that made Maelle’s chest ache. “How-how am I supposed to believe that you wouldn’t-”

She had to make this count.

Spinning on her heels, Maelle turned to face Verso. The action startled him a bit, jolting him into a horrific flinch that had Maelle wincing. But she has to make sure to face him with all the honesty and spirit she could muster.

“I swear on my brother’s grave that I was not the one to repaint Verso’s canvas!”

For a moment, even the air between them was silent. Maelle with her willed honesty and Verso with his searching, but desperate disbelief. 

Reality seemed to crash into Verso as he realized she was telling the truth. So much so that he actually staggered forward, nearly falling to his knees. Maelle moved forward to help catch him if necessary and he seemed to stumble into her. She braced his arms, as one of his hands found support on her shoulder. 

And then she was looking into his face again, finding herself re-memorizing it for the first time in years. 

Gray eyes like her, and how had she not thought about that before. That painfully gray scar over his left eye, like the reverse of her own scar, that seemed to make his left eye open just a little wider than his right. Smaller, less obvious scars peaking out from his goatee. And one final scar across his nose. His face was covered in dirt and blood, much like her own after the battle against Renoir and the Noirs. 

She missed him. 

“You really didn’t repaint the canvas,” Verso breathed in disbelief, watching as Maelle shook her head. “Then-then how? I don’t understand. Why are- How is this possible? Verso left ! He stopped painting!”

Maelle nodded this time, swallowing thickly. “After Verso stopped painting, Papa brought the canvas to the Painter’s Council. Maman and Papa had to explain to the Council why Maman suddenly disappeared, so they learned about all that happened in Verso’s canvas. The last I saw of Verso’s canvas, the remains were being locked away in the vault for restricted paintings beneath Notre Dame. Maman lost her seat as Head of the Council because of it.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Verso stood up. “I’ve been back for at least a day, though my memories of the Expedition only returned hours ago.”

Maelle pursed her lips as she lifted a hand to her head, kneading against an ache that was slowly making itself known. 

Or maybe it has been there the whole time and she was only just noticing?

“I don’t… I think I’ve been back for a day or two, but it was all… muddled? Like a fog over my mind as I went through the pattern of the day of the gommage all over again. It felt… strange. And then it was like all my awareness snapped back to me, and I was on the ship and Lune, Sciel, and Gustave were there. And they remembered too, and… and…”

Why did her head hurt so much?

“Maelle!” Verso snapped, grabbing her by both shoulders and giving her a little shake. 

The jolt was enough to pull Maelle back to the present, where Verso was studying her face. He removed one hand from her shoulder, tilting her head up, and pulling her good eye wide open, forcing her head towards the sun. Maelle winced at the bright light, tried to step back, but Verso kept her close.

“Your pupils are acting weird,” Verso noted, finally lowering her head. “Here, track my finger with only your eyes, don’t move your head.”

He held a finger in front of her, moving it back and forth. Maelle did her best to follow, but with how floaty she felt, she wasn’t sure she did a good job. 

“A concussion, perhaps?” Verso noted with a frown. “What were you doing before you entered the canvas?”

What was she doing before she re-entered the canvas?

Maelle hadn’t had time to think about it. Not with the strange fogginess and puppetry that followed her through Lumiere. And definitely not when they suddenly all came to on the ship headed towards Renoir’s trap, desperately trying to compare notes. 

“We were… it was his birthday,” Maelle whispered, trying to wrack her brain.

That was important, wasn’t it? It had been her brother’s birthday, and the family wanted to do something to celebrate. A stepping stone after their grief. Doing something Verso enjoyed…

“We were at the opera. It was the intermission, and we’d been escorted to a private room to refresh ourselves. There was food and drink and…”

Something had gotten their attention. Clea had been annoyed by it. Had approached and…

“There was a canvas in the waiting room. Covered by a sheet. Clea ripped the sheet off. She was annoyed by its presence because no one was supposed to be working that day. I remember the shock on her face when she saw what was behind it, her panic filling all of us, and-and then…”

Why was everything so fuzzy? Why was it so hard to think?

“Maelle!” Verso shook her again.

“I- sorry,” Maelle said as she snapped back to herself.

“Okay. Okay. Something bad happened at the Opera. Got it. We’ll revisit that later when you don’t look like you’re going to transcend into a new reality every time you think about it,” Verso decided quickly. “Are you well enough to carve your way through some Nevrons?”

Maelle was tempted to just nod and carry on, but given how floaty her head felt, she paused. Whatever this strange feeling was, she couldn’t let it stall her. She was a paintress. She was a Dessendre. 

But most importantly, here, in this canvas, she was Maelle.

Whatever this floaty feeling was, it needed to go. Closing her eyes, Maelle moved the chroma within her to force it down. It could remain locked away for now, to be opened and observed when she wasn’t in a place where she could be attacked at any second. 

She opened her eyes to meet Verso’s worried expression.

“Ready,” she said with conviction. 

“Good,” Verso nodded once, pulling away from her. “Then I suppose we should follow the story as last time, then. I’ll take you to the Manor, and-”

“No,” Maelle protested quickly. “We should make for the Indigo Tree. I want to explain everything to the others before we head to the Manor.”

“What? Why the heck would we do that?” Verso demanded.

“Lune and Sciel already know the truth. Gustave knows some, too. And anyone else who managed to survive this time deserves to know what they’re fighting for.”

“Maelle, the canvas-”

“Isn’t Verso’s canvas anymore,” Maelle countered quickly. “And maybe this is all a painted fantasy of a grieving family, but that doesn’t make any of you any less real. With the last fragment of Verso no longer painting the canvas, that means Maman has no reason to come back. The canvas can exist without my family’s grief hovering over it.”

“And you?” Verso countered. “What will you do? Remain in the canvas until you rot away in front of your family in the real world? Do you really think your family will sit by and let that happen?”

Maelle opened her mouth to respond, to explain her plans, what four years of looking back on her time in Expedition 33 had brought her. But the explanation she was so prepared to give didn’t get a chance to come out. 

A scream pierced the air, causing both Verso and Maelle to jolt into stance and draw their weapons.

“What was that?” Verso asked in a hush. “Another of Clea’s creations?”

There was another sound this time, but it wasn’t the mortified sounding scream from before. It was the sound of someone letting out a pained shout as they were struck.

“No… an Expeditioner!” Maelle breathed in horror before taking off towards the sound.

“Wait! Maelle!”

But Maelle wasn’t going to let someone else die. She raced through the landscape, rushing towards a series of caves, where she could hear the distressed cry of someone echoing from the walls. Verso was hot on her heels, weapons still drawn, as they both entered the cave. It didn’t take long for Maelle to come across the owner of the cries.

“Catherine!” she cried out in horror. 

Catherine was dragging herself across the floor towards the mountain of stone bodies as a Lancelier stalked ever closer. Her left leg was limp and bloodied, and it was clear Catherine had not gotten off the beach unscathed. 

The Lancelier had her cornered against the stone bodies of fallen Expeditioners, and it was clear Catherine was looking up into the face of what would be her death. Something Maelle wasn’t going to allow.

“Oh no you don’t!” Maelle barked as she launched herself across the gap and attacked the Lancelier from behind. 

It staggered forward with the blow before turning around to face her. Maelle took the opening to deliver another series of blows, cutting the creature apart. It tried to strike back, but Maelle was quick to parry the blow and throw another attack right back at it. Giving Verso time to race up behind her and deliver a killing strike. 

The Lancelier crumbled to the ground at Catherine’s feet. She stared at it in disbelief, wheezing heavily from her injuries. Maelle wasted no time getting to Catherine’s side and grabbing her healing tint.

“Maelle, what-? Who is that?”

Maelle turned to glance at Verso before breaking open the healing tint and giving it to Catherine. Verso stood nearby, both trying to avoid looking at Catherine, and standing guard. 

“That’s Verso,” Maelle said quickly as she made sure Catherine recovered from her injuries. “He helped us on the beach. Can you stand?”

It took a bit of doing, but Catherine managed to get her feet under her. With Maelle’s help to guide her, Catherine was up and moving, approaching the wary Verso.

“Thanks. For helping Alan and Maelle,” Catherine offered Verso her hand. “And for saving my life. I suppose I owe you.”

After a moment of hesitation, Verso took Catherine’s hand and shook it. 

“My pleasure,” he offered cheekily, though his smile was still shaky at best. “We shouldn’t stay here. With how many bodies are just lying around, I’m sure there had to be more Nevrons than just that Lancelier lurking about.”

“We need to rendezvous at the Indigo Tree,” Catherine said, turning to Maelle, then back to Verso. “I don’t suppose you can get us there?”

Verso paused for a moment, to Maelle’s surprise. Then he grinned. “An Expeditioner who doesn’t ask me 20 questions right off the bat? Color me surprised.”

“Oh, believe me, I have plenty of questions,” Catherine said with a huff. “But Maelle seems to trust you, and she’s not one to get along with others easily. Plus you just saved my life. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt for now. Then I’ll decide what to grill you on. No use getting distracted in Nevron infested territory.”

Verso turned to Maelle with a grin. “I like this one.”

Maelle just grinned back at him and motioned him to lead the way. With an incline of his head, he guided them away from the bodies and out into an open field. Catherine followed him quickly, but Maelle stalled for a moment.  She turned to the bodies trapped in limbo. 

It was so tempting to just call on their chroma now, but with how old the chroma was, and how much the Nevrons messed with it…

“Wait a little longer,” Maelle told the bodies. “I’ll fix this. I swear it.”

“Maelle!” Catherine called out to her. “Come on! We don’t know what else could be lurking around here, and Gustave would kill me if something happened to you!” 

“I’m coming!” Maelle called back, sparing one last glance at the bodies before she raced to catch up.

Not yet. There wasn’t any point in bringing the lives back yet, especially as she ran the risk of messing them up in the process. And with the weight of the task to come, she couldn't afford to take any chances by alerting Maman or Papa to her meddling, and Clea least of all. It was best to just assume her family were all here in the canvas with her, after all. 

Still, she wouldn’t leave them trapped like that forever.

Chapter Text

The first thing he became aware of was the sound of rushing water.

The second was that his entire body ached. Followed by the realization that he was laying face down against something rough and lumpy, which wasn’t helping. It was kind of hard to breathe, too. And his eyes felt like they were being weighed shut. 

Priorities. Breathing first.

Gustave attempted to clear his chest, then again, forcing the weird lump in his throat down as he attempted to force his eyes open. It was still hard to breathe, but at least his eyes were opened. 

Well, he thought they were open. Everything was kind of fuzzy at the moment. Still, he had to be making some progress, right? If his eyes went from seeing nothing to seeing light and greenish blue fuzz everywhere?

After a moment of trying to breathe and focus his vision, he could make out his robotic arm in front of him. Thankfully still attached. And his flesh arm seemed to function just as well when he tried to move it. His vision was getting better.

Then it was time for the next priority. To get moving. Gustave got his arms under him, still trying to clear his throat, and pushed himself up best he could. 

Okay, he was up. Somewhat. Now he just had to get his feet under him. That was easier said than done. His feet felt like a mix of being full of lead and completely asleep with that prickly feeling at the same time. His first attempt to stand nearly failed, had his arms not been functioning enough to catch him. Thankfully more of his vision was clearing. After a moment he was on his feet. Poorly balanced and likely to tip over at the wrong move, but he was up.

He stood there for a moment, testing his weight. But if there was one thing he’d learned from the last time around, it was dangerous to stay in one place too long. So he took a couple steps just to get moving.

Only to stop as a sharp ringing filled his ears and his vision blurred out again. It became even harder to breathe and his heart was doing this funny thing. A heart attack? It certainly felt that way. 

Curse this stupid block in his throat and chest. His heart was beating far too fast, painfully so, and not doing anything to help the ringing or the breathing. 

Gustave brought his fist up to his chest, forcing himself to cough in a desperate attempt to regulate his breathing, willing his heart to calm down and for the strange sensation of his heart acting funny to go away. For the rest of his senses to even out. 

After a bit of this, his body complied. Much to his relief. 

He was soon breathing easier, and his heart fell to a normal-ish rhythm. He’d blame the continued oddness of it on the fact that the adrenaline was still coursing through him like an alarm. Keeping him alert. But at least his vision had adjusted and his hearing came back. 

Gustave took a moment to ground himself before trying to walk any further forward. Tripping and having to do that whole process all over again because he gave himself a concussion was not a good idea right now. 

Focus on something else.

There was grass beneath his feet. Tall, flowering, green grass. He hadn’t seen green grass since-

-since…

Gustave spun around, perhaps a bit too fast as his head went all fuzzy again. It nearly sent him back to his knees with how fast he turned. But he managed to stumble himself upright through the haze until he was staring at the source he heard when he first came to.

Rushing water.  

Whether this was a twisted, cruel joke, a tempt of fate, or just life telling him that time travel meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, Gustave found himself staring at the waterfall he’d woken next to last time around. 

“How is this…?”

Gustave wasn’t sure he wanted to answer that question. Not with the grand scheme of things that was set to happen. However, if he did allow himself to consider the implications, he could at least rest easy with the knowledge that this had to mean Lune, Sciel, and Maelle were still alive too.

But what of the others? Lucien? Tristan? Margot? 

They were with him during the attack, he’d managed to keep them alive and away from the Nevrons. But now they were nowhere to be seen. Did this mean he failed? 

That thought alone nearly sent Gustave to his knees with the weight of his failure. He stumbled forward, hand coming to rest on his chest over his heart as it threatened to stop beating. His gaze fell back on the waterfall, where the end met the pond below in a cascade that felt much like his mental state, churning and pummeling anything that-

Wait…

His eyes caught sight of something behind the falls, barely visible behind the water, and somewhat wedged on the rocky backdrop. He practically tripped into the water, willing his legs to work against the tension of the water pressure as he waded to the object in question. It wasn’t easy. He was still in shock, and his body was worse for wear. But he pushed through the water to get to the strange shape.

The closer he got, the more sure he became. 

He quickly ducked under the fall, drenching himself as he got his hands under the shoulders of the body and heaved.

Margot sputtered and gasped, struggling weakly as Gustave accidentally gave her a face full of waterfall. With his own bearings still out for the count, Gustave ended up dropping Margot against her thrashing. She fell into the pond with a splash. This sent her thrashing about, trying to swim in a shallow pool. Gustave had to quickly dive for her arms again, hooking her under her shoulders and yanking her up.

“Easy, Margot! Easy! It’s me! It’s me!” he called desperately as she nearly clocked him in the face. “It's Gustave!”

Margot stopped thrashing and fell limp against his grip. Which probably wasn't the best idea because Gustave’s legs and arms were already shaking, but he managed on pure adrenaline. 

Gustave let her have a moment to take in several lungfulls of air, let her get her bearings as he held her up and out of the water. 

“...Gustave?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Gustave offered, his own voice sounding a little choked. “We made it off the beach, Margot. We’re alive.”

“We’re alive…” Margot breathed through her raw throat, looking dazedly down at the water. “The others…?”

“I don’t know. I just woke up and I found you. Can you stand? Maybe we’ll find others nearby.”

Margot seemed to really think about what Gustave was saying for a moment. Then she gave her head a rough shake and attempted to plant her feet under her. Gustave probably should have dragged them both to dry land before she attempted this. The small current from the waterfall didn’t do Margot any favors. But Gustave didn’t let her fall, either. After some trial and error, they were both standing on dry ground, with Margot balancing herself on Gustave’s shoulder.

“Stay close, alright?” Gustave told her firmly. “There are bound to be Nevrons around. And you’re not in any shape to fight right now.”

“What about you?” Margot asked warily. “You look like you took one of those blasts to the face.”

He probably had, especially with how sore and heavy his body felt. But he’d done the same thing last time and been fine. In shock, sure, but he was pretty sure he was in shock now. The only difference was that Gustave’s shock was mixed with elation rather than depression. 

He’d saved someone else. Maybe more, if he could find them.

“I’ll be fine,” Gustave brushed off, giving his best smile to Margot. “Don’t worry, we just-”

Gustave took a step and something in the tall grass groaned, causing the pair to jump backwards with a startled yelp. Margot, already on shaky legs, fell back on her butt, nearly dragging Gustave with her. But Gustave managed to catch himself, gun drawn as he stared down at the source of the sound. 

But that fear quickly shifted to elation.

“Lucien!” Gustave cried with glee, dismissing his gun and collapsing to his knees beside his friend. He grabbed Lucien by the shoulders, shaking him. “Lucien. Lucien! Wake up! Come on!”

Poor Margot was still regaining her bearings as Lucien came to, groaning and moaning as he tried to force his eyes open. Gustave laughed, and then he choked on a sob as Lucien forced his eyes open, only to slam them closed again as the light from the sky pierced him. Gustave quickly moved to block the light, tapping Lucien’s face gently but insistently.

“Lucien. Lucien. Come on. You have to get up. We can’t stay here, alright? You need to get on your feet.”

Lucien groaned again, but slowly forced his eyes open. Gustave felt slightly hysterical, holding his once best friend like this. Alive and breathing. He choked on a laugh and a sob all at once as Lucien’s gaze focused on him.

“Gustave…?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me. Can you get up?”

“...My head,” Lucien whimpered.

“I know. I know, but we have to keep moving, Lucien.”

It took a little longer than Gustave would have liked, but awareness slowly came back to Lucien. As did his memories of the night before. One minute, Lucien was frowning against the pain. The next, his eyes were blowing wide and he was throwing himself up into a sitting position, nearly headbutting Gustave in the process. 

A mistake on Lucien’s part because poor Lucien was quick to throw-up his last meal.

They were in no state to move like this, Gustave realized. Margot was still too shaky after her swim, and Lucien might have a concussion. What they needed was-

“Ah!” Gustave gasped, quickly fumbling for his pockets. 

He’d had a healing tint last time, right? It had survived however he’d gotten there last time. He let out a laugh of delight as he found the healing tint, passing it amongst the others and watching it take effect. 

“Gustave,” Margot handed the bottle to him. “You should use the last of this. You don’t look so great.”

There could be others, though. Others who were injured and stranded as they were. He wasn’t sure how many had survived the beach. Gustave was more than willing to save the tint for the others, knowing he could fight under worse conditions, but Lucien took the choice from him by forcing the tint to wash over him.

“Lucien, wait-”

“What the heck are you thinking, Gustave,” Lucien shoved him gently. “You took that blast to the face! You’re bound to be more injured than the rest of us.”

“But I- Not that I- I’m not- I just wanted to-”

“Come on,” Margot nudged him on the shoulder. “You said it yourself, Gustave, we shouldn’t stay here. There’s no telling what else we might encounter.”

“At least we’ll see them this time, right?” Lucien motioned around him as he stood. “I mean, no more eclipse. We’ll have a fighting chance for sure.”

“Right,” Gustave agreed, moving to stand with Lucien and Margot. “We should move. Quickly.”

Gustave began to lead the way, with Lucien and Margot close behind. There weren’t many places to go other than forward, which was just fine by Gustave. It made the fact that he knew where he was going less obvious. 

Soon, they came upon the first clearing, and to Gustave’s surprise, the Nevron he fought last time was already up and moving about. The sound of the Lancelier clanking about had Gustave already drawing his sword and gun as they approached, with Margot and Lucien summoning their own weapons behind him.

All it took was a glimpse for Gustave to fire his gun at the orb of chroma at the Lancelier’s head. For the Lancelier was standing over a trembling body, ready to strike straight down.

“Tristan!” Lucien shouted in alarm as Gustave fired. 

The orb of chroma exploded, sending the Lancelier stumbling backwards. The action had the Nevron stepping a few feet away from Tristan. Gustave wasn’t going to give it a chance to get closer. He quickly leapt the distance between himself and the Lancelier, delivering a forward slash, then a backslash, spinning around to give another swipe, and then a follow up strike, before flipping around to attack from above. Then he retreated backwards, putting enough distance between himself and the creature that he could react more freely. 

A good call, because the Lancelier made to lunge forward, twirling its spear around once before going in for a jab at Gustave’s torso. Gustave quickly got into position and parried, followed by a counter strike that had the Nevron falling dead. At his side, the Lumina converter activated instantly and the Nevron faded to nothing.

“Tristan!” Margot called worriedly, quickly rushing to the man’s side. “Tristan! Are you alright?”

Lucien was fumbling around in his pocket, searching desperately for something, anything to help, and thankfully coming up with one of his own healing tints. Tristan looked rough, covered in his own blood, and stabbed pretty badly. The tint washed over their friend, healing and cleaning him up.

Tristan’s breathing came easier as he took in the faces of his friends and relaxed. Gustave was quick to offer the man a hand, gently pulling him up on trembling legs, with Margot and Lucien there to help brace him.

“You guys are alive,” Tristan rasped in disbelief. “I thought-”

Gustave couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as he reached out to clasp Tristan’s shoulder. With Margot and Lucien supporting Tristan, Gustave found himself beaming at the three lives he managed to save. 

His friends were alive. More of them survived . Whatever blessing this was, Gustave was even willing to thank the Paintress for this second chance. 

“We’re alive,” Gustave repeated, letting the words leave his mouth. “All of us. And we’re going to keep going and find more survivors. But we have to keep moving.”

“Look at you taking charge,” Lucien teased, giving Gustave a punch in the shoulder.

“What?! I’m not- I mean I am, but- listen, we just need to-” 

“We know what you mean, Gustave,” Margot shushed with a pat to the shoulder. “Tristan, can you stand on your own? Move on your own?”

“Well I won’t know if you lot keep holding me up, now will I?” he snarked back.

Slowly, carefully, Lucien and Margot stopped supporting Tristan. The healing tint had definitely taken effect as Gustave hoped it would, and Tristan was standing on his own and moving just fine. 

“You look well enough,” Gustave nodded once. “But if anything feels wrong, shout. Now, we really do need to get moving.”

“Alright. But which way?” Tristan glanced around at the two entrances.

“That way, towards the lamppost,” Gustave pointed, already moving towards it. “Lucien, Margot and I came from the other way, and it's a dead end at a waterfall.”

“What’s a fully working lamppost doing out here?” Margot questioned.

“Perhaps a remnant of Old Lumiere?” Tristan offered. “Though I don’t recall them being so close to the beach. Assuming we are still close to the beach, that is.”

“Is that… blood?”

Gustave didn’t bother to answer any of their questions, only taking a moment to glance down at the blood splatter. He knew there was a lot of it, that it was impossible not to step in it. But he also knew it was better to press on than to stop and think of all the lives lost. Last time around, he’d been in shock, with everything he came across just adding to the creeping feeling of depression that led him to put a gun to his head. 

“Grapple hooks,” Margot noted as they passed by the discarded grapple hooks on their side of the cliff. “I guess, that means we can’t come back without them.”

“Not that we’d want to,” Lucien pointed out warily. “I’d rather put as much distance between us and the beach as possible. Scary old man and all.”

As the others chatted behind them, Gustave continued to lead the way. And it wasn’t that he didn’t want to continue the conversation, it was just the fact that he had this terrible feeling he was forgetting something. He was wracking his brain, trying to recall some Nevron or incident that happened as they moved along the rocky, grassy, terrain but was coming up empty. 

There was supposed to be a cave ahead, right? He recalled there being a lot of bodies in the cave. And then there was-

Catherine.

Gustave picked up the pace. It had taken him longer to get moving this time with the others. It might already be too late. 

“Hey! Gustave! What gives!?”

Gustave ignored the startled cry from Lucien as he began to run. The sound of the others dashing to keep pace followed behind him, but Gustave only allowed himself a second to be grateful for the sound before he pressed onward. They already passed a body by the time they got to the cliff, and Gustave was quick to get up and keep going. 

“Gustave! Slow down! That’s an order! Protocol says we must stick together!”

Yeah. Gustave knew that. But sometimes protocol needed to be broken, and Gustave had no desire to fail Catherine a second time if he could help it. 

As the other three cleared the climb, he heard Lucien’s cry of horror, heard an impressive string of swears from Margot, and a terrified gasp from Tristan. The bodies and the blood. There was no way to tell if it was new or old, especially with how the scent of old and new blood had clearly mixed. All the bodies had turned to stone already. Gustave knew they were lost. 

But Catherine…

The cave entrance came up quickly, and Gustave plunged inside, making a beeline for the heart of things. The stench in the air only grew worse, and a red fog threatened to make it hard to see. Gustave hardly remembered any of this from last time. Perhaps he’d been in too great a shock to recognize anything. It was a wonder he’d made it this far with his head so lost in his growing horror and guilt. 

The walls themselves seemed to emit a red, ominous light. As though to warn others against entering. An effect aided by the ever growing trail of bodies that ultimately led to the giant pile in the center of the cavern. Many of those bodies seemingly strung up towards the ceiling by some strange force.

Gustave made a beeline for where he’d seen Catherine before, her lifeless body flashing before his eyes. Her face had been bloodied, her eyes frozen wide-open in shock, impaled by the spear of a Lancelier. He wondered if she’d killed it in turn, given Lune and he never saw another Lancelier in this cave. 

He turned a corner, bracing himself for the worst.

But Catherine wasn’t there. 

Gustave even searched around the bodies somewhat carefully. Searching for something, anything that wasn’t stone, and found nothing. 

She wasn’t there.

Did that mean she escaped? That maybe she had been thrown off course? Or did she perish on the beach and he was left with a fool’s hope?

“What-what is this?” Tristan asked, slowly approaching the pile of bodies. “Some sort of… nest?”

“Its a trap,” a familiar voice washed over them, causing the others to flinch, and Gustave to spin around. “For the Expeditioners. When it set off, it trapped their chroma within them, and now they’re stuck here, dead, and forever part of the landscape.”

Despite the ominous explanation, Gustave couldn’t stop the grin from splitting his face again.

“Lune!” he breathed in relief.

Gustave quickly crossed the space between them and pulled her into a hug. Lune went willingly, to his surprise, returning the hug as she hid her face in his shoulder. They stayed that way for a moment. Silent in the comfort and relief at finding the other still alive. 

But then she spoke, keeping her voice soft.

“Its good to see you in better spirits this time around, Gustave.”

“Yeah, well, I saved some lives this time,” Gustave grinned, keeping his own voice low. “And Catherine isn’t here. I’m hoping that means she survived.”

“I brought some friends, too,” Lune hummed, pulling back and motioning to two figures standing in the dark.

“Alan! Jérôme!” Gustave cried in glee. “You’re both alive!”

And they were both standing there. Their fearless commander and second in command were standing there, alive, breathing, with Alan’s head still firmly on his shoulders. Gustave couldn’t help but close the distance, pulling Alan into a relieved hug. Whoever this stranger was, this Verso, Gustave owed him a million times over.

 “You as well,” Alan said, relieved, clasping him by the shoulder as Gustave pulled back to clasp Jérôme’s arm. “Maelle’s not with you?”

Gustave shook his head, his smile falling a little. “We were separated on the beach when she ran forward to save you. I’m hoping we’ll find her at the Indigo Tree.”

Or at the strange mansion from last time, though Gustave didn’t say as such out loud. From the looks of it, Lune hadn’t told them anything about their little stint through time just yet. Probably for the best, given the absurdity of the claim. Gustave was still trying to wrap his head around it.

“I’m sure Maelle is fine,” Lune said. She was rounding the bodies, observing them carefully and eyeing the path that led into the ceiling. “She’s tougher than she looks.”

“Geez, Lune, have some sense,” Lucien chastised with a hiss. “Maelle’s practically his kid, or sister, or whatever their weird relationship is, and-”

“She seemed to think it's both,” Lune cut Lucien off, looking temporarily at Gustave before looking back to the pile of dead Expeditioners. 

“Wha- wait, did she, was that what-”

Lune finally stopped observing the pile of bodies to give Gustave a knowing grin. “Ask her yourself when we see her again.”

“I will! I mean- yeah, yeah, I’ll definitely- I will,” Gustave agreed, unable to fight the smile once more creeping across his face.

“As cute as this is,” Margot called out from further in the cave, “we may want to wrap this up. I think we’ve got company.”

Sure enough, the sound of stomping filled the cave as the Nevron approached. Gustave had forgotten how big the thing was, and how much bigger the echoing sounds made it seem. 

Steeling himself, Gustave summoned his sword and gun and prepared to aim. Lune was already at his side, in her stance ready to fight. 

“Lumina converter still intact?”

“Yep. Used it once already.”

“Good. That thing will carry us a pretty long way,” Lune stated as she watched the Nevron slam its shield into the ground with a roar. “Margot, this Portier has a weak spot. A swirling ball of chroma in its center. Hit it, and you’ll give us an advantage.”

Margot was suddenly on Lune’s other side, summoning her musket and taking aim. The second the Portier lifted its shield, revealing its body, Margot fired, hitting her target dead on. The swirling mass of chroma at its center exploded, causing it to cry and stagger back.

“Gustave!” 

Gustave didn’t need to be told twice, he quickly lunged for the opening, delivering a quick Lumiere assault before pulling back in time for Lune to fire one of her Ice Lances at the thing. The Portier roared in anger at the triple assault, and brought its arms together to form its shield.

“Danger!” Lune warned as the Portier brought its shield up over its head.

With a groan like roar, the Portier brought its shields down towards the trio. They were ready for it, though. Even Margot’s training kicked in as they all parried the shield back up and then used the momentum to follow through and deliver one last triple attack that killed the Nevron where it stood. 

Behind them, Lucien began clapping. “Now that was a show!”

Gustave huffed as he turned to grin at his friend, even as Lune tapped his shoulder to guide him towards the Nevron.

“And for the grand finale,” Lune declared as Gustave knelt down and held the Lumina converter towards the Nevron.

As the Lumina converter got closer, it pinged with the chroma within the Nevron. The body dissolved into a shower of sparks, fading into the converter just as Gustave knew it would. This did get a round of applause from the others, to which Lune and Gustave bowed with twin smiles. Just for fun.

“And to think Expedition 34 called it crazy,” Jérôme laughed with a shake of his head. “We might make it after all.”

“We will make it,” Lune cut him off. “But first things first. We should get to the Indigo Tree. There might be other survivors.”

“Lune’s right,” Alan agreed, stepping to the center of their weird semi-circle. “We’ll make our way to the Indigo Tree. Rally with any survivors. Then we’ll make a plan from there. For now, we stick together and we stay alive. Got it?”

“Got it,” the group chorused.

“Lune. Any idea which way to go?” Alan asked her.

“Yeah, I’ve got a few. Let’s get out of these caves.”

With Lune leading the way, their much larger group left the cave and the bodies behind. Soon, they’d be making their way to Maelle, and perhaps Gustave could finally get some answers.

Chapter Text

Lune led the way expertly through the Meadow. The others marched dutifully behind her, trusting her knowledge and research to get them through the mess they found themselves. The Meadow, itself, was relatively peaceful for the first bit of the walk. And it truly was beautiful, now that Gustave allowed himself to enjoy the scenery. The grass was tall and uncut, with flowers here and there, and small bodies of water that you could see your reflection in. They even found their first marker from another Expedition, a flag planted by Expedition 81 where they took a quick rest to check each other over and recuperate. 

Lune even led them into battle against the Nevrons, rotating them out and getting them in positions to fight based on their skills, ensuring each person got a chance to try their hand and master the art of parrying and dodging, as well as testing their attacks and pictos. 

She preferred groups of three in the front with three in the back on standby in case things got tricky. A sound call, in all honesty, rotating everyone around to get a try at the Nevrons and working everyone into a routine to fight.

It was clear that Lune preferred to partner with Gustave, though. A surprise, given that in training, she preferred Tristan as her usual partner. At least, it was a surprise to everyone but Gustave. 

“There are lampposts everywhere,” Lucien noted as they trekked onward through the Meadow. “Are you guys seeing this? Fully functioning lampposts like the one where we found Tristan. Isn’t that weird? Almost like they’re lighting our way, or something.”

“Maybe they are,” Gustave teased, still riding that giddy feeling of everyone being alive. “Maybe they’re a sign from someone else out there who wants us to succeed.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were,” Lune voiced, and that made Gustave sober as he turned to look at her. 

She’d stopped in her own movement, eyeing the lampposts like she was only just now seeing them. Now that Gustave thought about it, there was a lot they never stopped to question. The mission always came first for their little ragtag group, and while Lune sought answers, lampposts weren’t something on that list. 

But now, at a silly comment from Lucien, Lune was hyper-focused on them. Like they held answers only she could pick apart.

What changed? What did Lune know that Gustave didn’t that suddenly made the lampposts so interesting? He longed to ask about her adventures. But the sheer absurdity of their situation kept him silent. 

“I swear if you three jinx us,” Tristan threatened, though he didn’t finish. “Can we ask these questions later? We are on a time crunch, and I’d rather regroup as soon as possible.”

“Easy, Tristan,” Alan stepped in. “Lune’s musing has gotten us this far. If we had listened to her on the ship, we might have avoided the massacre on the beach. Lune thinks the lampposts are important. I’ll trust her judgement.”

For a moment, Lune didn’t say anything. Peaking at her from behind her hair, Gustave could see the stunned expression on her face, could tell that she was suddenly holding her breath. Then she blinked, forced the breath out, and continued moving like she hadn't stalled out of nowhere.

“Tristan is right, we should keep moving. If we’re right, there will be more lampposts on the way and I can continue my musing then.”

Her tone sounded normal, but Gustave could tell Alan’s words had really gotten to her. Like some sort of weight had shifted off her shoulders. Even her glide through the meadow as she picked up the pace seemed a bit lighter. 

Had she been panicking? 

It made sense. Lune was always one to consider every variable, and she had probably been having a terrible time trying to calculate what all this time travel could mean. She was probably already thinking through every outcome of telling the others about their little trip through time. And here he was, all up-beat and happy they had managed to save lives, unknowing of Lune’s internal conflict.

Gustave felt like a terrible friend.

Yet with a few simple words, Alan had reassured her. That was why he was their leader, after all. Gustave had missed his steady presence.

They continued on, occasionally leaving their lamppost lit path to pick up pictos and lumina and chroma. Lune seemed particularly drawn to the chroma this time around, storing it away personally when they found it, but dividing the lumina and pictos up easily enough. There were, of course, Nevrons still about, but they kept on carving their way through with relative ease. Well, maybe a few scrapes and near fails here and there. But they weren't terrible at it.

And then they came across the next abnormality.

“A building?” Jérôme questioned in surprise as they stared at the giant structure blocking their path. “And the outside seems rather intact. Did people used to live out here?”

“Who knows,” Lune shrugged as she moved towards the entrance. “Its possible this building has always been here, but given it seems to deliberately block the pathway, and there isn’t a way around it, I’d assume it was displaced by the Fracture.”

“The inside is definitely destroyed,” Lucien agreed as he followed Lune inside. “Probably abandoned years ago, right? Centuries? Decades?”

“Everything on the continent was abandoned after the Fracture,” Gustave reminded his friend. “Everyone got out and fled to what is now our home of Lumiere.”

“Not everyone,” Lune whispered solemnly under her breath. 

Gustave was the only person close enough to hear, and judging by the pinched expression on her face, that was deliberate. Gustave’s eyes widened as Lune turned away, making for the makeshift ramp towards the second floor. 

They really needed to pull away so Gustave could ask his burning questions. But pulling away from the group was just too risky right now. He could be patient. 

“The Indigo Tree is not too far from here,” Lune spoke louder this time, addressing everyone. “If anyone else made it, they’ll regroup there.”

“Right,” Alan nodded. “Keep an eye out. Just in case we run into others.”

They explored the house a little, discovering barely anything outside of Lumina, a bit of chroma, and surprisingly a still working grandfather clock. And then they reconvened at the giant opening on the third floor, staring over the vast land before them.

“We’re really here,” Margot breathed, sucking in a breath of air. “This is really the continent.”

“It’s beautiful,” Jérôme noted softly. “Like a work of art waiting to be shown to the world in a picture or canvas.”

Lune flinched so violently she tumbled into him, and Gustave quickly reached up to steady her. Thankfully no one else seemed to notice the sudden reaction, but Gustave was starting to get really worried about Lune. 

“Lune-”

“I’m fine, Gustave. Just… caught off guard,” again she spoke in a hush so only he would hear before raising her voice and acting like nothing happened as she addressed the others. “The Indigo Tree is over there. If we move quickly, we’ll be there within an hour, maybe two if there are too many Nevrons.”

The descent down the hill towards the wider plain was silent, almost eerily so. Gustave had half a mind to start a conversation with Lune just to break it, but every question he could think to ask her seemed like a bad idea. 

Thankfully, Lucien spoke up for them. 

“So, Alan. Jérôme. How did you two get off the beach?” 

“Lune rallied us,” Alan motioned to her. 

“It was brilliant!” Jérôme declared to the group with a grin. “Maelle practically threw Alan at me so I didn’t see much. Had no idea she was so strong, by the way. Alan isn’t light.”

“Jérôme,” Alan’s tone warned.

“What? It’s true!” Jérôme huffed, giving Alan a shove that barely moved the man. “She shoved you at me like you weighed nothing at all. Then she was charging forward at that old man, trying to deflect blasts towards the Expedition with that other stranger. And then there was Lune! She managed to soar up into the air and volley one of those weird blasts back at the old man, but the entire battle field lit up and those weird hand-Nevrons showed up. Lune tried to rally as many of us as possible, but of course no one was listening cept me and Alan. She took one of those Nevrons near by herself and would have taken on a second alone had Alan and I not charged forward to join her.”

“We fought our way through the beach,” Alan picked up after Jérôme finished. “We found a place to lay low in the meadow. Then Lune rallied us on to the tree. That's when we found you in the caves.”

“I tried to rally more,” Lune scowled. “Tried to grab as many people as I could, but it all went so wrong so fast…”

“You couldn’t have predicted everything,” Gustave placed a hand on her shoulder. “We did what we could with what we knew. And now we’re here. All of us. That’s got to count for something, right?”

“It does,” Lune agreed slowly, but there was still something that seemed to trouble her. 

“What about you lot?” Jérôme inquired of the others. “How’d you get off the beach?”

“Well, our successful survival is largely in part due to Gustave,” Tristan declared to their commanders. “The four of us sought shelter behind a rock to try and avoid the old man’s attacks. We were lucky he didn’t follow us, but we hadn’t noticed the Nevrons. Well, by we I mean Lucien, Margot, and myself. Gustave, however, saw the Nevron appear. Just as it was going to grab me, Gustave sprang out of our hiding spot and shot it point blank. He then rallied us up the beach, telling us when to dodge or parry, before eventually firing a shot right at one of the Nevrons blast. Must have blown us sky high, we ended up in a meadowy ditch near a lamppost.”

“Gustave, Lucien and I landed near a waterfall,” Margot corrected. “You somehow landed in a ditch.”

Lune gave Gustave a nudge, an impressed smile on her face. “Well done.”

“Thanks. Though I can’t say I did much besides react. Just went with what I knew, you know?”

“I know. But you were always better at improvisation than I was.”

“That’s a whole lot of Nevrons,” Lucien suddenly noted, and the group paused to look.

It was a lot of Nevrons. Gustave knew for a fact there were others lying in wait nearby. He glanced to Lune, who was already steeled for a fight. 

“Here we go again,” he said to her. 

“Back into the fray,” she agreed, raising her arms into position. “I’m glad you’re here, Gustave.”

“Yeah. I’m glad you’re here, too.”

One of the Nevrons spotted them, and the fight began.

—------------------------------

They got lost.

Made a wrong turn. Went down the wrong path. Gustave wasn’t exactly sure what they did, but they had to reconvene at the 81 flag at the bottom of the hill in front of the house to rest after the stupid Mime.

“It looked kinda like you,” Lucien teased as Lune tried to heal Gustave’s concussion from a well aimed invisible hammer strike. “At least we got you a change of clothes if your uniform gets too bloody.”

“No,” Gustave groaned out, wincing as Lune tilted his head to better look at the wound. “Absolutely not. I have a spare expedition uniform in my bag, thank you very much. I am not dressing up like the mime using the mime’s clothes.”

“But it’ll be fun!” Lucien pressed, holding up a hat and beret.

“Then you wear it,” Gustave glared as the pain finally eased. “Thank you, Lune.”

“My pleasure,” she hummed, stepping back and turning back to their surroundings where Margot and Jérôme were scouting. 

“It looks like there’s a ledge up this way,” Margot declared back to the group. “And its in the direction of the Indigo Tree. Perhaps one of the Expeditions put up handholds.”

“Expediton 69,” Gustave rattled off as Lune and Lucien pulled him to his feet. “They were the climbing Expedition. If anyone put up handholds, it would be them.”

“Some pretty creepy statues,” Tristan remarked as they walked around the cliffs, searching for a way up.

“I don’t think they were statues,” Lune voiced, though she didn’t turn to look at anyone. “They were probably Nevrons. Maybe even Axons.”

“Axons?” Alan questioned.

“Beings like Nevrons, except bigger. Grander. Harder to fight. They’re made of some of the strongest chroma out there,” Lune rattled off, something dark and bitter in her tone.

Gustave had never heard of Axons before, but he wasn’t going to discredit or point that out to anyone. As one of the other more knowledgeable Expeditioners, discrediting Lune seemed like a bad idea given their situation. 

Still, the fact that Lune seemed to know these Axons, had encountered them, meant she and the others had made it further than the Stone Wave Cliff. That alone was enough information for Gustave.

He couldn’t bring himself to think of when or how they might have died. That thought scared him.

Lune suddenly stopped them, her head whipping upwards. Sure enough, a bunch of Nevrons came sailing over the cliff. 

“Margot! Lucien! These Nevrons can fly and tend to evade direct physical attacks!”

“Say no more,” Margot grinned, summoning her musket and taking aim. 

She took down the Nevron in the center with three well aimed shots, then managed to hit the second one a shot before she needed to recharge her musket. Lucien quickly followed her up with his own gunsword, while Gustave focused on the third, taking several well aimed shots to bring the Nevrons down.

The others cheered as Gustave’s last shot killed the Nevrons, and Gustave couldn’t help but bump fists with Lucien at a job well done.

But their victory was short won as the Nevrons faded away into the lumina converter. The fight revealed a painfully bloody sight. Two expeditioners, dead, long since turned to stone, lay before them. One still half tucked under a tent and the other impaled by a lancelier spear. Because of the rocks, the blood of their fallen comrade, a member of Expedition 81, still lay there in a puddle around his stone body, old and rotting. 

The sight was sobering, and their triumphant grins quickly fell away. 

“We should keep moving,” Alan rallied them this time, throwing an arm around Lucien and gently guiding Margot away by the arm. “Come on. The sooner we see other survivors the better.”

“Alan’s right,” Lune began to move forward again. “No matter what, we continue.”

Lune made to step up and around the pass, making it a few steps before she froze and suddenly darted forward in a crouch. Alarmed, the rest of the Expedition quickly scurried forward, peaking around the bend to see what had alarmed Lune.

“Is that the same as those Lancelier’s from earlier?” Lucien hissed in disbelief.

“No,” Tristan said slowly. “I think it’s bigger. And stronger.”

Lune, who was hunched behind a giant stone… something, turned to look back at them for a moment. The Lancelier hadn’t spotted them yet, but it was clear she intended to charge forward regardless of if she’d be spotted soon or not. 

“Hold, Lune,” Alan hissed at her.

She nodded, keeping ducked down. Alan kept an eye on Lune and the Lancelier with sharp precision. For a brief moment, the Lancelier turned just enough away that it gave them a blindspot. That was apparently what Alan had waited for. He tagged Tristan on the shoulder, before racing forward. Tristan followed without question, moving to Lune’s side even as Alan passed her.  

Alan summoned his great sword in between blinks and then lunged forward to deliver a sharp series of attacks to the Lancelier from behind. Margot had her musket out, ready to aim, but Jérôme motioned her to wait. 

As Alan pulled back, Tristan and Lune were up and bracketing Alan on either side. Gustave could see why Jérôme wanted them to wait. Had Margot tried to make a shot, she risked hitting the trio. Margot swore under her breath but kept her gaze locked on the situation at hand, ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

Lune was the one to attack this Lancelier’s chromatic orb, using a small burst of chroma to take it out before gathering her pictos to cast immolation, burning the Lancelier. Tristan was next, with his staff poised, he quickly prepared his pictos and and sent an ice lance straight for the Lancelier with a series of twists.

“Dodge, Alan,” Lune warned as the Lancelier approached and prepared to attack.

Alan got into a stance, dodging the first swing and parrying the second. As the Lancelier tried to pull back, Alan charged forward, dragging his blade across the ground before yanking upwards, then pausing the momentum to allow gravity to aid him in a powerful strike downwards, before dragging the blade back up and at a diagonal and spinning around to bring the blade back down at an opposite diagonal. Then he retreated backwards as Lune prepared another immolation spell. 

Annoyed, the Lancelier turned its attention to Lune. It spun itself about once before thrusting forward with the momentum to deliver a powerful strike at Lune’s torso. Lune, however, wasn’t an amateur at this little game, and she redirected the attack with a fluid strike of her arm before borrowing the momentum of the spear to spin herself about and deliver a sharp kick to send the Lancelier flying backwards. Tristan was quick to follow up by launching himself forward and delivering a flying attack jab with his spear, pushing the Lancelier back further. 

Again, the Lancelier charged forward to attack Lune, and again she parried and countered, giving Alan the chance to charge it with a simple swipe of his blade. Tristan twirled his staff before sending his own immolation as Lune finished the thing with her own Ice Lance, leaving the three to watch as it disappeared into a burst of chroma.

“Well done you two,” Alan praised, settling a hand on Lune’s shoulder. “That was some impressive parrying, Lune.”

She nodded once, seeming to swallow. “You did well yourself, Alan. Thanks, for coming to my aid.”

“Always,” Alan nodded once.

It was clear those words affected Lune more than she wanted to admit. She quickly ducked her head and moved past the spot where they felled the Nevron to grab a nearby chroma catalyst stuck between two bodies. Then she turned to the others and motioned wordless to a nearby cliff with a grapple that would pull them upwards.

“On we go, I guess,” Jérôme remarked warmly. “With all of us together, we might be unstoppable. Don’t you think?”

“Please don’t jinx us,” Margot hissed at him. 

One by one the others approached the lift up, taking their turn up while bickering about what counted as a jinx and what didn’t. Lune, however, hung back. 

Gustave hung back with her.

“You know,” he began slowly when Lune still didn’t speak, “at the risk of jinxing us, I’d say we actually do have a much better chance this time. If Sciel managed to save anyone, and Catherine perhaps survived, we’ve got an even greater chance. I mean, we made it pretty far last time, didn’t we? And we can-”

“We made it to the Paintress, Gustave,” Lune’s voice was soft, weak, fragile. So painfully unlike her. “Sciel, Maelle, and I made it to the Paintress with the help of Verso and a Gestral named Monoco. And we won. ”

Gustave paused, eyes wide as he turned to look at Lune. But she wasn’t looking at him, just staring down at the ground, fists clenched in front of her. 

“...what?”

“We won, but… it all went so wrong. Everything. There’s more at play here than just the Paintress. She’s not even the one causing the gommage. It’s her husband, another painter she has trapped beneath the Monolith. And we tried to stop it. We tried to save everyone, but he gommaged everyone . And Maelle, she brought us back, but it wasn’t enough and we-”

“Lune, breathe,” Gustave quickly grabbed her by the arms, pulling her to face him. “Breathe, Lune. With me. In… Out… In… Out…”

Thankfully Lune didn’t need further prompting as she forced her breathing to match Gustave’s. When calmed down enough, Gustave gave her a small, encouraging smile. 

“Okay, so a lot happened after I died, I see,” Gustave teased, getting a scoff from Lune as she took a step back. “Whatever happened, we’ll all sit down and let it all out at the campfire. Then we’ll figure out what to do, right?”

“Right,” Lune nodded, sort of shakily before it became firmer. “Right. We’ll figure this out. Maelle will have an idea what to do. You’d have been so proud of her.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Gustave laughed, pulling away from Lune and moving towards the grapple point. “Come on. Let’s keep going.”

She followed after him, and he motioned for her to go first.

“I’m really glad you’re here with us, Gustave,” Lune confessed softly.

“I’ll try to stick around this time,” he promised with a grin.

And then Lune was grappling up with Gustave following after her. Alan was there waiting for them, looking them both over. He cast a worrying glance at Lune before nodding to Gustave, not saying a word. Gustave appreciated it, and he was sure Lune felt the same way.

“Gustave!” Lucien called from further up. “Do you see this! The trees are blue!”

“Something must be disrupting the chroma around here,” Tristan was quick to conclude. “We should be careful. We have no idea what we’re walking into.”

“Nevrons!” Jérôme warned as he and Margot got into position.

“Can’t leave them alone for a second,” Alan grumbled, moving to join the others, even as they had already felled the next Nevron.

“Lampposts!” Lucien cheered giddily, pointing like a child. “And Expedition 69’s grapple hooks! We were right!”

They were all like giddy children, climbing up the cliff and finding a sort of cave. Alan took the lead at his insistence, giving Lune a pat on the shoulder as he passed by. She kept close behind him, though, ready to strike and defend where needed. Even if Alan was basically relieving her of leadership. 

“Ah, look, little lanterns, now,” Margot cooed over the little lights around the cave as they followed the only path forward. “Maybe Lune’s right. Maybe they are there for a reason.”

“That sounds more terrifying than comforting,” Alan stated flatly. “Like the sort of thing Leona used to say when she was three to freak us out.”

“She always did have a strange sense of humor,” Jérôme agreed. “I bet you it was your wife, though. She had a pretty interesting sense of humor, too.”

Alan turned back to give Jérôme a half-glare, half-smile. He turned back to face the front as they rounded another bend, clearly intending to say something witty. But whatever comeback he had died on his tongue as his hand immediately went up, signaling they hold. They all tensed as one, those with room to summon their weapons did so, while others prepared to summon theirs at the first sign of movement.

“What is it, Alan?” Jérôme asked, teasing tone nowhere to be heard.

“I’m not sure,” was Alan’s curt response as he tilted his head to the side as if to look from a better angle. He began to creep forward, hand still up to keep them still but ready. “It… looks like a Nevron. I think. But not one we’ve seen before. It’s… white. Almost coloreless.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Lune and then she was breezing past Adam and stepping straight out into the open. Alan lunged to pull her back, but Lune twisted away and marched forward. 

“Lune,” Alan hissed.

“It won’t hurt me,” Lune stated with conviction, moving closer to the Nevron. “The white Nevrons are harmless. They don’t carry the same bloodlust as their kin. We’re safer here than we are anywhere else on the continent.”

“Is she mad!?” Tristan hissed.

“No,” Gustave pushed past him. “She’s right. The white Nevrons won’t hurt us.”

Gustave pushed past everyone, giving Alan a sure nod before pushing past him and into the opening. He knew what this looked like. He knew what conclusions he came to last time. But the white Nevron had never hurt them last time, and now that he knew the contents of the journal, he could guess what happened.

He picked up the journal and held it out to Alan. To let the others take note of the record left behind. 

“It’s really not attacking,” Lucien breathed in awe as he came to stand next to Gustave. “Why isn’t it attacking?”

“It certainly attacked them,” Margot growled, her musket up and aimed.

But Lune was already standing in her way, crouching down next to it as it watched her.

“Hello,” Lune greeted softly. “Were you left here all alone? She abandoned you here?”

“Abandoned? No. Light. If I have light I can hear her calling.”

“It… it talks?” Jérôme breathed in shock, his own glaive dropping a little from his protective stance.

“The journal says as much,” Tristan declared as he and Alan presented the journal to the others. “Expedition 81 appeared to have made contact with it. They were, however, divided on what to do about the Nevron.” 

“Looks like they tore themselves apart,” Alan noted softly as he scanned the stone bodies. “They couldn’t agree on what to do.” 

“But why don’t the dead disappear like they do in Lumiere?” Lucien asked, crouching down beside a body. 

“It’s their chroma,” Lune answered, still knelt beside the white Nevron. “It's been trapped inside their bodies. That’s what happens here when a Nevron kills you. Judging by the way the trees moved, they didn’t just turn on each other, they were attacked by something. Another trap, forcing their chroma to remain in place.”

“But this Nevron didn’t kill them?” Margot accused, musket still raised.

“I would never plunge others into darkness. I was painted to bring light. To enlighten. Light.”

“Painted?” Jérôme questioned. “By the Paintress?”

“Paint-ress? Yes. She painted me. Help me…. find light.”

Lune stood then, turning to Gustave. “We need to bring Maelle back here. She needs to talk to it.”

“Maelle? Why Maelle?”

“Because she’ll know the right questions to ask it. About its Mistress. If you remember the white Nevron from the cliff, it said the Paintress and its Mistress were different people. Maelle can probably get more out of it.”

“You mean you found the answer to that riddle?”

“Yes, we-”

“What the heck are you two talking about,” Tristan demanded.

Gustave froze, as did Lune. They’d both forgotten they had an audience.

Chapter Text

She was different. 

When Verso first saw Maelle again on the beach, just a glimpse of her as she charged towards his father, he’d been so sure she was the cause of all this. That she’d repainted the canvas, brought them all back with the idea to fix things. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed it with the piece of Verso’s soul put to rest, but it was the only thing that made sense. 

But after fighting alongside her, seeing the way she spoke and acted, and her strange explanation from earlier, now he wasn’t so sure.

She was already approaching the Nevron with a frown, giving it a kick to the side as it failed to disappear. Verso had half a mind to remind her of the purpose of the Lumina Converter, but really didn’t want to engage in that sort of conversation yet. 

Thankfully, there was a distraction staring at him.

“You’re not half bad,” Catherine noted as they felled another Nevron and Maelle walked over to it.

“I should be, I’ve been doing this for a few years, give or take,” Verso hummed non-committedly.

He realized his mistake when Maelle tensed and whipped around to face him.

“A few years?” Catherine paused. “Hang on, what Expedition are you from?”

That question. How many Expeditions had asked him that question? How many different answers had he given? He didn’t know. Not anymore. The last time he told the truth was with Expedition 33, and even that was masked in several other lies and half-truths.

And just like that, with one simple question, the rush of everything that happened, slammed into him with the familiar weight of exhaustion.

It wrapped around him like a familiar friend, coating him like a blanket, and settling into his body like a second skin.

“I don’t suppose I can just not answer that, huh?” Verso tried for suave, but even he could hear the lackluster in his voice.

Catherine’s whip, which she had dismissed after the Nevron fight, reappeared in her hand. Verso eyed it for a second before lowering his head. He was just so tired. The fight had finally been over. He’d been gone. He didn’t have it in him to resist whatever happened next.

“Catherine, stop.”

And that was Maelle. Standing between him and Catherine. Her own weapon wasn’t drawn, but she was poised to defend if it came to that. 

“I will vouch for him,” Maelle stated firmly. 

“Maelle-”

“I’m asking you to trust me.”

“I do trust you. But this man-”

“Expedition 0,” Verso answered before this could escalate any further. “I was part of Expedition 0. Alongside my father. Renoir. The man from the beach.”

Catherine went stiff, and Maelle whipped around to look at him.

“Verso-”

He couldn’t look at her. Looking at Maelle hurt. So he faced the safer option, Catherine, even as he addressed Maelle.

“I’m tired , Maelle. I don’t… not anymore. I am a member of Expedition 0. I was one of two survivors of that Expedition alongside my father. And the only reason we survived that night was because the Paintress, Aline, my mother, made us immortal. My father believes that what the Paintress gave us was a gift.”

Catherine met his gaze, swallowing as her grip tightened on her whip. “But not you.”

“Not me,” Verso agreed.

Catherine studied his face for a minute, and then she turned to Maelle. 

“You’re still going to vouch for him, Maelle?”

“Yes,” Maelle stated, then she looked a little sheepish. “And this does have to do with why Lune, Sciel, Gustave and I were acting weird on the ship. In case you were wondering. And I do plan to tell you everything once we get to the Indigo Tree and reunite with the other survivors. Promise.”

“Fine. I’ll leave it for now,” Catherine agreed, dismissing her whip. “But that entire story was crazy, and there better be a really good explanation when we reunite with the others.”

“It's only going to get crazier,” Maelle admitted. “But you will get your explanation.”

They were talking in circles; the bond of trust was dancing on a thin thread. Verso put a hand on Maelle’s shoulder, still looking at Catherine as he spoke. 

“The Indigo Tree is just around that corner. If we scurry up it fast enough, we’ll be able to avoid most of the Nevrons. Hopefully any other survivors will come find us soon.”

“Right. Then we better get moving,” Catherine answered, clipped and formal. 

That was fine. Verso was tired of beating around the bush.

He was tired of everything.

As Catherine turned to move, Maelle reached up to rest a gentle hand on top of his hand on her shoulder. It was such a delicate, kind gesture. Verso yanked his hand away as if burned. Perhaps it had. He wasn’t deserving of this reaction from her.

“Verso-”

“You should be angry with me,” Verso said, though it came out like an accusation. “Furious. I threw you from the canvas. Destroyed the last bit of your brother you had. Ruined your life. I-”

“You didn’t ruin my life,” Maelle quickly cut him off. “And I was. Angry, I mean. For a long time. And you weren’t even there for me to take that anger out on.”

Verso had to fight every instinct within him that wished to recoil. Judging from Maelle’s pained expression, he wasn’t entirely successful.

“Four years, remember,” Maelle stated gently, reaching a hand out towards him. Not all the way. Not touching, but a silent offering. “A lot can happen in four years. A lot did happen in four years. I’ll tell you all about it sometime. But I'm not mad. Not anymore. Now come on. We’ve got a lot to talk about, and that isn’t a good idea in Nevron infested territory.”

The lack of anger almost felt worse. Like she was striking him with each word. And the worst part was, he couldn’t explain why. He should be glad Maelle didn’t hold any of this against him. So why?

“If it makes you feel any better, your betrayal at the end is still fresh for Lune and Sciel. Lune’s furious. And Sciel’s harder to read when she wants to be, but the sting is definitely still bothering her. I’m sure you’ll get more worthy reactions from the two of them.”

But you were the one who should have hated me the most.

Oh. So that was why.

“If you two are done talking,” Catherine called from further up ahead. “I’ve found our tree, and I’d like to get up it before we attract more Nevrons.”

“Coming!” Maelle called back, then turned back to Verso expectantly.

That ache and dread in his chest didn’t go away, but Verso was tired. And that outweighed his own self-loathing for the moment as he took Maelle’s hand and allowed her to tug him towards an unknown outcome. 

What more could he do than follow the Paintress who wanted him to stay?

—----------------------------

“Lune, you’ve been acting strange since the party,” Tristan’s expression was pinched, his hand flexed as though to summon his staff. The only thing stopping him was the Expedition journal he hadn't put down. “At first I thought it was just nerves, second guessing your calculations. But then on the ship you really started acting weird when you asked Alan to delay the landing. Then your strangeness with Sciel and Maelle. Gustave I can understand, and maybe even Maelle. But you’ve never liked being near kids, and you’ve been avoiding Sciel through our entire training. And then on the beach, you seemed to know something was coming-”

“What are you implying?” Margot demanded. “That Lune somehow knew we’d be slaughtered?”

Gustave glanced to Lune, hoping to take a cue from her, only to find her incredibly pale, and her face marginally blank. 

“That’s absolutely ridiculous!” Lucien was quick to jump to their defense. “Lune and Gustave were just trying to protect us! Gustave said it, himself. They were worried about the eclipse and visibility.”

“Except there wasn’t supposed to be an eclipse last night,” Tristan argued back. “Not for another twenty years, at least! How did the four of them know that was meant to happen when even our charts were saying it would be clear?”

“It is rather strange,” Jérôme agreed, eyeing the pair warily. “Lune was standing next to me when she suddenly made the suggestion. Like some sort of switch came on. The four of them didn’t even talk until after the vote had been called for and they lost. So how did they know?”

“Not you, too!” Lucien cried in disdain. “They saved our lives!”

“Alright. Enough!” Alan barked, taking the journal from Tristan. “I’m sure Lune and Gustave have an explanation. We can’t tear each other apart. Look around. Expedition 81 disagreed with their way forward. And this is their fate. Remember. ‘Learn from the ones who came before…’”.

“‘...and lay the trail, for the ones who come after.’, Lune finished for Alan, then she swore under her breath. “I need something flammable. Quickly.”

“You heard her,” Alan quipped.

The others began to search around, looking for something, anything, that could be set on fire. It was Lucien who provided a bit of oil and flask to put it in. Taking it, Lune turned to the Nevron and offered the light.

“I need to have a conversation with my friends,” Lune told the Nevron firmly. “But it's not safe for us to talk here. If I give you light, even temporarily, will you guard us while we talk?”

“For light? To protect light? Yes. I will guard. Of course. Gone are the days I wander in darkness. Soon, I shall shine!”

“Hang on, you’re just going to trust it?” Jérôme asked incredulously as Lune began to climb up towards the Nevron’s lantern.

“Yes. It’s part of my… weird explanation,” Lune flapped a hand in the air. “But we can’t just talk out in the open like this, and I won’t keep you all in the dark about what I know. I won’t… I won’t make his mistake. I trust all of you.”

His mistake? Whose mistake?

The others looked to Gustave for answers, but all he could do was offer them a helpless shrug and a confused shake of his head. He had no idea who Lune was talking about. So they all turned to look at Lune as she shoved the temporary light source into the lantern then hopped down. Then she shot a spell at it, setting the light ablaise. 

“Oh…” the Nevron gave a strange grumble sound of awe. “This light… Long have I awaited this light! I must join the others. Lead me… Mistress. For the future shrouded in darkness.”

“Darkness…” Lune whispered, then her eyes widened. “Do you know what your Mistress desires?”

“Will please, Mistress,” the Nevron seemed too absorbed in its new found light to hear Lune’s questions. “Capture. Light.”

But Lune’s flames proved too powerful, and the small bit of oil quickly burned out, falling dark. The rest of the Expedition quickly got into position, ready for a fight. But the Nevron didn’t move. 

“My light… I caught only a glimpse… I felt my Mistress guiding me. I could almost hear her… I must have more light… To understand what she asks of me. Shine. I need to shine once more.”

“I gave you light, and you promised to stand guard,” Lune spoke firmly. 

“Yes. Stand guard. Speak freely. I will protect the ones who gave me light.”

For whatever reason, that seemed to assure Lune and she slumped. Literally. 

Lune was usually very graceful with everything she did. She’d spent years studying the best ways to control and utilize her pictos, going so far as to learn to dance to make sure nothing she did was ever rigid or sloppy. Every part of Lune’s movements was meant to be graceful and controlled. 

But Lune slumped, falling to the meadow floor with an ungraceful thump. She took several slow breaths, to the point Gustave was crouching beside her to see if she was alright, before looking up at the others.

“You are all going to want to sit down for this,” Lune said firmly. 

If her ungraceful slump had not already rattled them, her conviction had them all sitting quickly. Looking at Lune now, Gustave could see she’d been on the cusp of a breakdown, even before she broke down to him before they took the grapple. But she’d been pushing forward because she had to, because there was no other option for her. Here he was, all giddy at having saved so many lives, and Lune was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. 

“Lune-”

“Not now, Gustave,” Lune held up a hand. “I just need to-”

“Don’t bear this alone,” Gustave cut her off this time. “I’m here. And I’m not planning on dying on you again.”

And that was the moment Lune finally looked at him, really looked at him. Even in her previous breakdown, there was a part of her that kept looking away from him. As if looking at him for too long meant he might not be real. Or that maybe he wasn’t the Gustave she wanted to be there. But as she looked at him now, something in her shifted, and tears pricked at her eyes. 

“I’m here,” he told her, the same promise he gave Sophie, gave Maelle. 

Lune sucked in a breath, nodding as she reached out to grasp his wrist, hands going to his pulse. He put his other hand over his arm, helping to further ground her as she tried to get herself back under control. 

“What are you two on about?” 

There was real fear in Lucien’s voice, and all over his face as the pair turned to look at him. The others looked just as uneasy, or somewhat accusatory. 

“Tristan,” Lune addressed him first. “You know me. You know I don’t like to rely on information unless I have all the variables. That I prefer to have all the facts before I present my findings.”

“Everyone knows that,” Jérôme joked.

But Lune ignored him, looking directly at Tristan until he nodded to acknowledge her words.

“I don’t have all the variables,” Lune told him. “I don’t understand what’s happening, and that terrifies me. But you weren’t wrong. Jérôme is also right. The second this happened, I reacted and asked Alan to stall the ship.”

“What are you saying, Lune,” Alan pressed. “Its not like you to beat around the bush.”

Gustave could see Lune gearing up for this next part, could see the way it was eating at her to say what she was about to say. He gave her hand a squeeze in reassurance, hoping to ground her.

“I did know the massacre on the beach was going to happen,” Lune told the group firmly, “because I had already lived through it alongside Sciel, Gustave, and Maelle.”

Gustave half expected someone to demand answers. Half-expected anger. He wasn’t sure, but he was met with confused silence.

Then Lucien let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “What are you saying? You had a premonition or something?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Lune confessed. “I don’t think it was a premonition. It felt… too real to have just been a vision. I lived it.”

“I’m still very confused,” Margot said, looking to the others.

“Are you saying you think you time traveled?” Tristan demanded. “Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?”

“Yes,” Lune said firmly. “But I did. Me. Gustave. Sciel. Maelle. The massacre on the beach, the four of us were the only survivors.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Gustave quickly vouched for her. “We all woke up back on the ship. Lune just reacted first, and we all met up and realized we’d time traveled afterwards. I can’t… I can’t explain it. If Lune doesn’t understand it- I’m not sure how to prove it- there’s just so many… We just…”

“We were slaughtered on the beach,” Lune continued when Gustave’s words failed him. “By a man named Renoir. A member of Expedition Zero granted immortality by the Paintress. He’s trying to protect her. The four of us survived, and we continued on with our mission. We… we lost Gustave at the Stone Wave Cliff.”

“And that’s where my memories end,” Gustave informed the others as he squeezed Lune’s hand again. “I died saving Maelle. From the old man. Renoir, apparently. I didn’t… learn his name while I was alive.”

“What happened, Lune?” Tristan pressed. “If you came back in time-”

Lune swallowed before she said the next part. “We were wrong. About the Paintress. Lumiere. Everything.”

“Does… that mean you lost?” Lucien asked slowly.

Lune shook her head. “We beat the Paintress. And then the entire world was gommaged. By her husband.”

“...what?” Jérôme breathed.

“There’s so much I have to tell you all,” Lune began, her tone picking up, becoming slightly hysterical. “We learned so much far too late. And we… we got so far. We were so close to saving everyone. But everything went wrong, and we tried to-”

“Hey, hey, breathe,” Gustave reached up to grip her shoulder. “Breathe, Lune. We’ll talk about what needs to happen. You can tell us everything. But you told me something about Maelle being able to explain it better?”

Lune nodded swiftly. “Maelle survived. She survived the final gommage. She’ll know what happened, why we’re back. She should be at the Indigo Tree.”

“Then we go to the Indigo Tree,” Gustave said, turning to look at Alan. “The way there is filled with Nevrons so we’ll put this on hold until we can meet with other survivors.”

“I think that’s a sound idea,” Alan agreed. “Come on you idiots. Let's go.”

“Wait. We’re not going to address any of this?” Lucien waved desperately at the two.

“We’re in the middle of enemy territory,” Alan stated. “Relying on a potential enemy for protection. And this is the most incoherent I have ever seen Lune. If we want answers then we find Maelle.”

“And you’re alright with that?” Jérôme pressed, something grave in his voice.

“Lune hasn’t betrayed us. She’s saved us. As has Gustave. Whatever is going on. Whatever this madness. They’re still focused on the mission. For now, that’s enough for me.”

“They also haven’t steered us wrong,” Margot said nervously, motioning to the white Nevron. “I mean, it hasn’t attacked us. And it has been standing guard.”

“Then we head out,” Alan stated, nodding to Margot. “Unless anyone else has doubts they wish to voice?”

No one spoke. Whether because they didn’t actually have doubts or because they didn’t want to go against Alan, Gustave didn’t know. But at least for now, there was silence. Honestly, Gustave was grateful for the silence because it meant he didn’t have to talk about the one thing he was avoiding.

“Come on then,” Alan rallied them all to a stand. “Lets head out. Weapons drawn. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

The group scurried to obey, allowing Alan to lead the way this time. Lune, however, paused to look back at the Nevron.

“We’ll come back,” she told it.

“Will you bring Light? To enlighten?”

“We can try,” Lune promised. 

And then she turned to follow after the others. Gustave waited for her, not wanting her to be alone after she’d nearly broken down again. But Tristan was waiting too.

“Lune, I-”

“Please don’t,” Lune held up a hand to stop him. “You were… you were right to be suspicious, Tristan. I wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding anything. And I shouldn’t have hidden it in the first place. Not after what I know, what I’d seen.”

“This is pretty hard to believe,” Tristan confessed, a bit of suspicion still in his voice. 

“I know. And I can’t expect you to believe it, either. I don’t have any proof or facts, and I don’t even know how it happened. I’m just grateful it did. And I hope I can give you your answers soon.”

“I suppose all I can do is hold you to that,” Tristan stated, and then he moved to follow the others.

As Tristan went through the cave exit, Gustave turned to Lune.

“Well, that went better than expected. Right?”

Lune shot him a glare before pushing past him to join the others. Gustave quickly hurried after her, only to find the rest of their team staring up at a red flash in the sky.

“Flares,” Jérôme stated giddily.

“There must be survivors!” Margot said.

“Not if we don’t move quickly,” Lune cut in to any potential celebration. “Alan!”

“Right! Come on!”

Weapons drawn, they raced to the Indigo Tree, and whoever the potential survivors could be.

—--------------------------------

Atop the Indigo Tree, Catherine had taken one look at Maelle and Verso and decided the two needed space to talk. She’d gone off to find a vantage point and keep an eye out for other survivors. Maelle was grateful for the privacy. 

But Verso still wasn’t looking at her, and Maelle had no idea what to say. She bit her lip, considering for perhaps the fifth time before finally forcing herself to face Verso.

“Was it peaceful?” she forced the words from her mouth. “Your rest.”

“...I don’t know. It feels like no time has passed.”

He sounded so tired. So defeated. It hurt to hear him like that. To see that he had just… given up.

Okay. So she’d obviously asked the wrong question. She knew better than this. She’d been trained for this. Why was all of her training escaping her now? 

Shaking out her hands and taking a breath, Maelle steeled herself. She rounded Verso, ducked down to get in his line of sight, forcing him to look at her. He complied, though slowly, mechanically. 

“You have my brother’s memories, right? That’s what you told us?”

Verso looked instantly stricken, the first real emotion he’d shown since his outburst in the Meadow. 

“I’m not your brother, Maelle,” he said, voice strained, almost pleading with her to understand. 

Maelle rolled her eyes. “I know that, Verso. I’m not your sister, either. We are ourselves. But you were my friend in the time we got to know each other. But that’s- I’m getting sidetracked. Do you have my brother’s memories of painting?”

Now Verso just looked confused. Which was definitely progress from the kicked, abused puppy look from earlier. Maelle would take these wins where she could. Even if this was proving to be a frustratingly slow process. 

No. Patience was good in a situation like this. She had to be patient for Verso’s sake. 

“I can paint, if that is what you’re asking? But only regular canvases. I cannot paint here. Or create as your family does. I am part of this world and don’t have the authority to do anything within. A painting can’t paint within a canvas.”

“So you do know the basics!” Maelle gasped in delight. “That’s perfect!” 

Now Verso just looked wary. His arms were wrapped around himself, like he was putting up shields and trying to disappear all at once. 

“I have a proposition for you,” Maelle declared, pushing forward. “We save the canvas.”

“Alicia, I-”

“We save the canvas,” Maelle explained quickly. “We kick out Papa. We kick out Maman. And we restore the control of chroma to whatever soul recreated the canvas. And then, once we do that, I take over the painting. I leave a piece of my soul in the canvas to paint so that the canvas is mine. Just to maintain things here. More if I can manage it.”

“You want to… replace the artist of the canvas?” Verso blinked at the absurdity. “Alicia, that takes a skilled painter to-”

“I’ve had training,” Maelle stated quickly. “I told you I picked up painting. I don’t create my own canvases anymore, I only create portraits. I didn’t lie about that, but Maman and Papa were insistent that what happened never happens again, so they’ve had me take lessons. I’m a real, certified Paintress now, Verso. And once I put an aspect of myself in the canvas, I’ll leave. No one will have to worry about me, or Maman, or anyone again.”

Whatever resolve Verso had crumpled instantly, and he was back to that wary, dejected look. 

“I suppose I can’t stop you,” he whispered.

“I’d prefer you didn’t,” Maelle agreed, “but, I said I had a proposition, and I meant it. As you probably already guessed, I’d like your help.”

“...okay…”

“In exchange,” Maelle plowed on, ignoring his current reluctant agreement, “I was thinking… one final gommage.”

Verso, who had been limp in his acceptance of his fate, suddenly went tense. His head slowly lifted to look at her once more. Maelle could see the confusion and disbelief. Good. More expressions. She could work with this. 

“What are you talking about? Why would you..?”

She waited for him to finish the question, but it was clear he couldn’t grasp what she was offering. 

“I’ve been studying as a Paintress. A lot. And I found out what Maman did to make you and your family immortal. I can take that away, if you’d like. Not-not now. I’d need the chroma to do it, and I’m not powerful enough to undo Maman’s work while she’s still in the canvas. But if we can get her out, I can fix it. And then, if you really still want to rest after we succeed, then I’ll give you one last gommage. You and your family. Together. If you want. An end to all your pain and suffering. You. Clea. Alicia. Renoir. All of you.”

Could she blame Verso for the look he gave her after her declaration? No. The disbelief and anger in his expression spoke volume of how they ended things last time.

Her mistakes had hurt Verso most of all and she knew he would never let her forget.

The look alone was enough to shake Maelle’s resolve. But she stood firm under his glare, hoping her conviction was enough.

Because if this plan was to succeed, if she was to create a world on compromise for the benefit of everyone, she needed Verso on her side to remind her that she was not part of this canvas. 

She could not stay, and he would make sure she never forgot it.

“How can I believe you?” Verso asked, his voice low and dangerous. “After everything you did last time?”

“I’m not that person anymore!” Maelle argued back.

No. Wait. She was supposed to be patient. Yelling and getting angry wouldn’t fix things. It wouldn’t help anyone in the long run, either. So she rocked back on her heels and took a deep breath, closing her eyes to ground herself. 

She met Verso’s gaze, staring into the eyes that glared at her with such hatred and fury.

The eyes that were begging her to tell the truth.

“I swear on my brother’s grave,” Maelle told him. “I will end your immortality and put you to rest if that’s what you want, if you help me save this canvas.”

She offered her hand to Verso once more, this time to seal the deal between them. And Verso, who was already given up, stared at it. She still wasn’t sure Verso believed her, even when he clasped her hand and they shook on it. But she could deal with that later. 

For now, they had to find the other survivors.

At that very second, as they let go, a flare went up not far from the tree.

“What idiot set that off?!” Catherine shouted down to them. “There are Nevrons everywhere! Are they trying to die!?”

“No,” Verso said, as something roared out in the distance. “They’re trying to survive.”

Chapter Text

The three of them carefully crept down the tree, not trying to attract the attention of any of the surrounding Nevrons. So far there wasn’t any sort of movement. Which only served to make the situation with the flare more eerie. No screams, no thundering footsteps, no roaring Nevrons. Nothing. 

“And you’re sure the flare came from over here?” Maelle pressed, turning to Catherine.

“I watched it sail up over the tree line,” Catherine huffed, but Maelle could tell she was just anxiously jittery. “I was literally staring right at it. Someone had to-”

Before Catherine could finish defending herself, someone darted out of the brush and to their left, tripping over his own feet near the base of the tree. 

“Léo!” Catherine cried out as their friend scrambled to his feet.

“No… Watch out!” Verso screamed, shoving both Catherine and Maelle backwards as he lunged at Léo. 

Maelle could only choke on a scream as a tree branch erupted from their right, shooting forward and impaling Verso in the back and through his chest before pinning him to a wall. But the act saved Léo’s life. It was much easier to dodge a person than to dodge a rogue tree root. So while Verso was pinned, Léo had successfully rolled out of the way.

“Verso!” Maelle cried out as Verso screamed in agony. 

She attempted to run to him, rapier already drawn to hack off the branch holding him hostage. Catherine had other plans, though. She threw an arm around Maelle’s middle, hauling her backwards and away from the tree towards Léo. 

They were just going to run away, Maelle realized hysterically. They were just going to leave Verso here against a Nevron that had him pinned.

She was about to twist Catherine’s arm, but the choice was taken from her as a wall of tree roots appeared, stopping their escape. Catherine was forced to drop Maelle as she summoned her whip, spinning around to face the Nevron before them.

An Eveque, Maelle noted. It wasn't one of Clea’s more recurring creations. Which meant Maelle didn't recall its moveset. Had she even fought this one before?

“It’s huge,” Catherine gaped at the giant thing. “What the heck did you do to make it so angry, Léo!?”

“I don’t know!” poor Léo was definitely panicking. “I was just running for my life!”

“Well stand your ground and fight!” Catherine quipped.

“Léo! Look out!” Maelle cried to the man as the Nevron approached holding twin spikes.

Maelle had to agree with Catherine. Whatever Léo had done, he’d really ticked off this Eveque. It was stabbing at the man with the intent to kill, and Léo was barely dodging the strikes in time. If they didn’t act quickly, it just might kill him with a well aimed strike.

“Catherine! It’s chest!” Maelle called to her. “Hit the chroma in its chest.”

Immediately Catherine took aim, summoning her wrist crossbow to her and taking aim. With practiced precision, her shot rang true, and the chroma burst. The Eveque cried out, finally stumbling away from Léo. In turn, Léo tried to take a swipe at it, but his axe just bounced off the thing.

“It has shields!” Maelle warned. 

“Not for long!” Catherine hissed, charging three more shots with her crossbow and firing each one until the third shot pierced the final barrier and caused the Eveque to cry out in pain. “Now, Maelle!”

Willing her rapier to ignite, Maelle charged forward, delivering a series of attacks that set the Eveque ablaze. Then she lunged backwards and out of its reach. Not that it did much, for in the next second, the Nevron was sending roots pulsing through the ground to come up and attack them. She barely dodged the first strike, and had to lunge back towards the Eveque to avoid the second strike. And then, for whatever reason, the Eveque sent the third attack at Léo. To Maelle’s horror, Léo didn’t realize what the Eveque was doing and took a hard jab from the roots.

“Focus, Léo!” Catherine warned. “This isn’t training!”

The Eveque decided to take advantage of Maelle’s newfound close proximity and summoned another spike to impale her with. But Maelle was no amateur. As the spike came sailing towards her, her instincts came in and she prepared her rapier to parry, sending the spike flying away and using the action to deliver a hard stab at the Eveque.

Upset by this, the Eveque let out a dark cry that seemed to shake the entire Meadow. 

“Oh, shut it!” Catherine bellowed as she raised her whip and lashed out at the thing, sending a wave of electricity through the length of the cord with her pictos. As the whip made contact, a harsh jolt caused the Eveque to spasm and cry out more.

“Well now you’ve really made it mad,” Léo accused with a tremor to his voice. 

But still, Léo raised his axe and moved to attack again, this time going from below and sending a sharp burst of power upward with his axe. The action cut through the creature, causing it to stun, and giving Maelle an opening to deliver another sharp attack of her own.

With it stunned, Maelle and Léo spun around and delivered another attack of their own before falling back towards Catherine, who was once more winding up her whip and delivering a series of quick, rapid strikes with expert ease. 

But the Eveque recovered, and to Maelle’s horror, it was summoning friends and reinforcing its shields.

“Oh, that’s bad,” Léo breathed in horror.

“Take care of it’s friends!” Maelle ordered the other two. “I’ll take care of the big one!”

“What!?” Léo gaped.

“You heard her!” Catherine snapped at him. “Stop staring like an idiot!”

Her wrist crossbow was out, and she took a shot at the chroma orb on the left before switching to the one on the right and using the rest of her chromatic shots to kill that one. Grumbling under his breath, Léo charged towards the one on the left and delivered several attacks that killed that one. 

Which left Maelle with the big one. She moved into her offensive position, putting more strength and flexibility into her attacks. But she wasn’t aiming to kill it. Not yet. Not that she could. There were shields back up now, and a lot of them from the look of it. Preparing her blade, she charged her chroma through it and began to jab at each individual barrier. 

But it howled in frustration before she could fell the last two, and Maelle was forced to jump backwards as it sent more roots below ground to attack them. Léo managed to dodge. Catherine attempted to parry but wasn’t successful, and Maelle managed to parry her own strike this time. But then it attacked a fourth time by sending a final wave of roots at all three of them at once. An attack they all took point blank with a cry of agony.

“It’s desperate!” Maelle called to the others. “We have to break those shields!”

In response, Catherine spun her whip around once and lashed out with a powerful cry, cutting through the second to last barrier. Léo followed up with his own battle cry, bringing his axe down on the last barrier. Maelle followed after them, giving a slash of her blade to one of the creature’s legs. 

It was clear it was nearly dead. Struggling to hold on to what life it had left. And still holding some weird grudge for Léo. For in the next moment, it made it’s move by summoning two twin spikes, extra big, and made to lunge at him.

“Parry it!” Maelle ordered.

To her relief, Léo obeyed, swinging his axe around to parry the strike and send it backwards, before spinning around and cutting into the Eveque with his axe. The Eveque cried out weakly and attempted to retreat backwards. 

But Verso hadn’t just been lying around. 

Having cut himself down from the roots, with much difficulty because he was pressed face first against a stone wall and a tree, he came charging at the Eveque from behind looking like a gorey, bloody mess that delivered several sharp strikes at the Eveque with a battle cry of his own. Felling it right then and there. 

With one last anguished cry, the Eveque collapsed in a heap on the ground, leaving them all out of breath and a bit bloody and dirty. Staring at it and each other.

“You… weren’t kidding… when you said… your friend was… immortal,” Catherine forced out between pants, pausing to fully catch her breath before continuing. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece.”

“Well… mostly,” Verso motioned to his torso. 

And yep, now that the dust had settled, Maelle could see a pretty impressive gaping hole in Verso’s chest. With a hiss, Maelle dug into Catherine’s pockets for her healing tint, then rushed over to use it on Verso. But she carefully maneuvered herself to block Catherine and Léo’s view of the hole as she used her own painting ability to heal the hole far faster than Verso would have managed on his own.

“Can’t fix my clothes?” he asked teasingly, voice thankfully a whisper.

“Not without questions,” Maelle told him firmly, frowning at the remains of the damage. “I’ll fix it once we tell the others. When everyone gets here.”

“Maelle… that may not go the way you want it to…” 

“I know,” she nodded but didn’t say anything else as Catherine approached form behind.

She whistled in surprise. “That’s gotta be handy, if the healing tints are that effective on you. There’s not even a trace of a scratch.”

“Yeah, well, I heal good,” Verso shrugged.

“So why the scar on your face?”

“That one is… personal…”

“Complicated,” Maelle supplied. 

“Complicated. That’s a good word for it.”

“Okay. Hold on,” Léo approached the group. “What’s this about this guy being immortal? I mean, he just had a hole in his chest, yeah? That wasn’t my imagination?”

“And this is why I wanted to wait to reunite with everyone,” Maelle sighed.

“Crash course,” Catherine stated. “This is Verso. Maelle trusts him. Rare, I know. He’s the son of the old man who slaughtered the others on the beach, and he’s decided to help us. He and his father are also immortal. Any questions?”

“I, uh, several, actually…” Léo tried.

“Save them for later, then,” Catherine waved him off. “For now, we get back up in that tree and wait for the others. I don’t want you running around and ticking off anymore big Nevrons.”

“I didn’t tick it off!” Léo protested.

“Seemed pretty ticked off to me,” Maelle supplied unhelpfully.

“I swear that thing just had it out for me!” 

“Léo!” a frantic, familiar voice called out from somewhere behind them.

The four whipped around at the cry as Gustave came racing around the corner with Lune hovering close beside him. But Gustave stumbled to a stop as he caught sight of the four figures standing at the base of the tree. He found Léo first, clearly relieved, then he found Catherine with a giddy grin, and then he found her.

“Maelle…” Gustave breathed.

Maelle didn’t actually hear him say it. But she could see the familiar way his mouth formed her name. That was all she needed to take off and run straight into his arms. He met her half way, pulling her into a tight embrace. They’d barely been in each other’s arms before he adjusted his grasp and picked her up, spinning her round and round as laughter peeled from both their lips. 

“You’re here!” Gustave breathed in relief as he set her down. “Are you alright? You’ve got blood on you. Are you-”

“It’s mostly not mine,” Maelle shook her head. “Took a semi-hard hit from the Eveque, but I parried most of the attacks. Catherine and Léo are worse off than I am.”

As Gustave checked her over with gentle hands, Maelle’s gaze drifted towards Lune, pleased to see her. And then she saw them. The others. Alan, Jérôme, Tristan, Lucien, and Margot. She looked up to Gustave with wide eyes, getting a grin and a nod, before turning back to the others. Then she was running towards them, tackling Lucien in a hug. He laughed and caught her. 

“Look at you! Alive and well!” Lucien teased. “I thought you were dead for sure when you charged that old man!” 

“I knew what I was doing,” Maelle scowled at him.

Then she spun around to look at Alan. “Are you-”

“I’m fine. Thanks to you, Maelle. I owe you my life.”

Maelle shook her head. “You’d have done the same for me. I just reacted. Just… try not to get too curious about anymore old men?”

Beside him, Jérôme snorted. “We'll be doing our best to avoid mysterious old men from now on.” Then he grew serious. “I’m sorry, Maelle. I should have trusted your judgement.”

Again, Maelle shook her head. “I’m a kid. I know that. People don’t really trust kids to know what they’re doing. Sorry if I twisted your arm, though.”

“Nah, I deserved it,” Jérôme waved off.

Then Maelle turned to Tristan and Margot. She didn’t know either of them as well as she should, but she could change that, now. 

“I’m glad you’re both alright,” she told them. “Did everyone make it off the beach alright?”

“With some help from your guardian,” Margot motioned back towards Gustave. “He was brilliant, Maelle. Just as reckless as you were.”

“Where do you think I get it from?” Maelle teased, getting laughs from the others.

She turned back to the base of the tree, seeing as Gustave moved to embrace Catherine as well, and to pat Léo on the shoulder. Lucien was already moving past her to get to Catherine, too, as was Alan to check on his Expeditioners. 

But then her attention shifted to Lune. And Verso. 

And the stare off they were having mere inches from each other.

“Lune,” Maelle called out to her, approaching slowly. “Verso has-”

The words died on Maelle’s lips, replaced by a gasp as Lune moved. Punching Verso across the face so hard his body spun before collapsing on the ground in a heap. 

“Lune, stop-!” 

But Verso held up a hand to stop Maelle from getting any closer, tilting his bruised face to look at her. 

“I deserve it,” Verso said. “I deserve it.”

“You more than deserve it, you COWARD!” Lune hissed as she slammed her foot down on Verso's hip.

Verso let out a mix between a gasp and a grunt of pain, but he did not bother to crawl away.  Just kept his head down as he nodded through the pain.

“I am. I am a coward.”

But admitting it only seemed to anger Lune further as she twisted her body and the spun back around to deliver a powerful kick that sent Verso flying. Gustave, Catherine, Lucien, and Léo had to dodge out of the way as Verso’s body slammed into the base of the tree and came tumbling down right where they’d been standing. Verso coughed, a bit of blood falling onto the ground below. 

“Coward!” Lune roared, stalking forward. “Traitor! Betrayer! How many times have you hurt us?! We trusted you! We trusted you with our lives! With our secrets! And you hurt us again and again! You- you-!”

“Lune, stop !” 

And before anyone could blink, Maelle was standing between Lune and Verso as if she had always been standing right there. Arms spread wide, standing guard over Verso as he lay crumpled on the ground. 

“Maelle-!” 

“Hasn’t he suffered enough?” Maelle begged, not moving. “Haven’t we all suffered enough?”

“You know what he did!”

“Don’t do this,” Maelle shook her head, voice small, but still carrying across the meadow. “Don’t do what Expedition Zero did. Please.”

Lune recoiled. Visibly stumbling back several feet as her body shuttered violently. Even Verso had gone painfully still from where he’d been trembling behind Maelle. 

And then Maelle lowered her voice, keeping it so that only Verso and Lune could hear. “I won’t excuse what Verso did, Lune. The lives he helped take and the fate everyone suffered. It was wrong. But he was right that I wasn’t strong enough to stay in the painting. It would have killed me. But we’re back, now. We’re back and we can fix this. And I need Verso’s help to do that. I understand if you don’t want to trust him, but trust me. Please.”

Lune took a slow, even, angry breath. “And how do you know he won’t just betray us again? How do you know he won’t help your father?”

“I made a deal with him,” Maelle stated.

“A deal?” Lune questioned, turning to where Verso was pushing himself to a stand against the trunk of the tree. “What deal?”

“The saving of the canvas,” Verso grunted, his own voice still a hush. “In exchange to an end to my immortality and the safety of my sisters. And my father, if he agrees to it.”

Well, that was a half truth, but Maelle could play along. When Lune met her gaze, Maelle nodded firmly. 

“I can stop him from living forever, but I need to get Maman out of the canvas first,” Maelle said. “Unfortunately, she’s got the chroma, and whoever controls the chroma controls the canvas, as my sister likes to remind me.”

Lune seemed to consider that for a moment, and then she scowled.

“Fine. Fine! But I swear, Verso, if you try anything else-”

“What do I have left to try, Lune?” Verso said, that awful sound of exhaustion creeping back into his voice. “I already succeeded once, and it was ripped out from under me. There’s nothing I can do.”

Lune grit her teeth. “The painful part is that I believe you.”

“You can get in another punch if it makes you feel better,” Verso motioned to his face. “I’ve still got another eye that needs swelling.”

Lune might have taken Verso up on that offer had Maelle not shifted just slightly to further shield Verso. A quick flick of Maelle’s head reminded Lune and Verso of their audience. Lune looked to her friends, the people she once fought beside and planned to fight beside again.

“Have you told them anything?” Lune asked, raising her voice so everyone could hear again. 

“Well… we let them know Verso is immortal,” Maelle motioned to the hole in Verso’s uniform. “And they witnessed it first hand thanks to the Nevron. We also told them he’s Renoir’s son. The man from the beach. And… he told Catherine that he’s the Paintress’ son, as well.”

“ WHAT!? ” came the cry of disbelief of everyone from Lune’s team. 

“Well, you’ve made progress,” Lune nodded. “As for us. I told them we time traveled. That we lost Gustave. Reached the Paintress. Beat the Paintress. And then everything went wrong. Though I… wasn’t very specific.”

“ WHAT ?!” Catherine and Léo gaped.

“So we’ve got the bare bones out of the way,” Maelle sighed, crossing her arms over her chest in thought, before beckoning the others over. “At least neither side is going into this completely blind. Still… not the greatest start.”

“There is no good place to start,” Verso said through a groan as he shifted his weight. “Believe me, I’ve got 67 years of trying.”

“Are we just not going to talk about how Lune threw this supposedly immortal guy around like a rag doll?” Lucien motioned to Verso.

Lune fixed him with a glare that had him shutting up as everyone gathered. 

“Lune,” Alan spoke this time. “Is this man going to be a problem? You made several accusations.”

“All pretty condemning, might I add,” Margot nodded. “Is he dangerous?”

“No,” Maelle said flatly. “I trust him.”

But Maelle was a child, as she had reminded them earlier, and so the others turned to look at Lune. For her part, Lune shut her eyes and looked away as a slight flush crept up her neck. 

“I am… angry. At Verso. And I’m not sure I trust him anymore, but I do trust Maelle. And if she says we can trust Verso, then we can trust him. My problems with Verso are more… personal.”

She took a moment to get her flush under control before turning back to face everyone. 

“You’re right, Verso, there isn’t a good place to start with something like this,” Lune stated, addressing the man civilly, at least. “But we have one advantage you never did.”

“Oh?” Verso hummed, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice. “And what’s that?”

“A Paintress who is actively trying to help us, not kill us.”

As one, Verso and Lune turned to look at Maelle. Everyone else followed, staring at Maelle in varying stages of confusion.

“Um, Lune, that’s Maelle,” Lucien reminded. “Last I checked, she was a courier. Not a paintress.”

“Maelle?” Gustave asked softly as he noted her expression. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Maelle sucked in a breath, and then, out of nowhere, she summoned a small, thin paintbrush to her hand. Then she turned to Verso, raising the brush and once more willing her chroma to do what she had trained it to do. 

To paint. To heal. To give life back to where it was taken.

Before the eyes of the others, Verso’s body knit back together as her chroma brushed against him. Aline was no doubt aware of her interference with her most perfect creation, but she also knew that her mother would allow it as it was healing and fixing Verso. The last thing she did was fix the gaping hole in Verso’s uniform. 

Then she stood back, dismissing her paintbrush and took a moment to let what she’d just done sink in. 

When the silence stretched on too far to be comfortable, she turned to face everyone.

“My name is Alicia Dessendre,” Maelle introduced herself to everyone. “I am a Paintress of the Dessendre family, a prestigious family of painters. 67 years ago, my home, my family, was attacked through people I believed to be friends. My brother lost his life, and my mother, in her grief, entered a canvas my brother had painted and painted over it, creating a fake portrait of my family. My father followed her, not wanting her to destroy herself. They fought, and it caused the Fracture. In the Monolith year 49, I entered my brother’s canvas to find my Papa and Maman and beg them to come home and to stop the war they had wrought between them. But my Maman’s chroma was too strong for me to handle. She painted over me, erased me, and I found myself born as Maelle in Lumiere. My only connection to who I was being the nightmares I had every night of the fire that stole my brother’s life.”

Maelle took a breath, looking into the faces of each Expeditioner before ending with Gustave. But even that became too much, so she tore her gaze away and turned to focus on the group as a whole.

“Any questions?”

At first, it was silent. No one seemed to want to disrupt the hush that hovered over them. But then Léo cleared his throat. All heads whipped around to look at him.

“Uh, yeah,” Léo raised his hand just a little then slowly lowered it. “So I just got here. Got no idea what’s going on but, um… I have several. Can I ask them now? Or do we need to wait again?”

 Maelle looked to Lune and Verso. Verso was unhelpful as he only offered a shrug, but Lune seemed to actually consider the question.

“Let’s get up the tree first. Then we can explain further. There’s a lot we need to tell you guys. About everything. And I’d rather be as covered as we can be.”

“Probably for the best,” Maelle agreed with a nod. “You get first question once we get up there, Léo. I know you’ve been trying to ask them for a while.”

“Thanks,” Léo offered a sheepish smile. “But, uh, what does painting have to do with time travel?”

Maelle swallowed. 

“That… is the one question I’m still trying to figure out.”

“Wait,” Lune said, looking to Maelle. “But I thought you-?”

Maelle shook her head. “Lune, the last I saw of the canvas was four years ago. After my Papa destroyed it and locked it away. I wasn’t the one to repaint the canvas.”

“Then how are we-?”

“I don’t know. But whatever’s happening, I’m not going to let my family tear this world apart. I spent the last four years thinking of ways I could have fixed what went wrong last time. I’m not going to let anyone destroy the canvas again. No matter who or what is painting.”

Chapter Text

Lune finished carving a message into the tree from where Maelle was watching.

“Are you sure about this?” she inquired again of the girl.

Maelle nodded, reading over the message. 

“Went to the weird corals. Head North. Seek sanctuary from the door inside the hut.

Lune”

“Sweet and simple,” Maelle said. “If there are any other survivors we didn’t come across in the Meadow, they’ll come here. And there are several entry points to the Mansion all over the canvas. We’ll be able to reunite with them through the doors.”

“And you’re not worried about the Curator? Or Renoir?”

Maelle rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet and her heels. “Well… I can’t say much for Renoir. But I am planning to keep an eye on Papa.”

“Really? How?”

In response, Maelle turned to look at Lune, unblinking and with her lips pressed together. Lune half expected the girl to say something. Until it dawned on her what Maelle wanted to do.

“No!” Lune argued immediately. “No, no, no! We are not letting that thing come with us again!”

“Lune-”

“He watched us that entire time, Maelle! Knew every plan we had! Every action we were taking! He practically manipulated us into finishing the job for him!”

“He updated our pictos.”

“So could you!” Lune waved her hands about. “Why? Why would we let this man anywhere near our Expedition again?”

“Well he’s probably going to follow me anyway,” Maelle reminded Lune. “I would rather be able to see him and know he’s there than keep looking over my shoulder wondering what he is and isn’t listening to.”

Lune scowled, but there wasn’t an argument she could make against that claim. Instead, she turned to look at Verso. 

She didn’t like either situation, but she couldn’t deny keeping the two Dessendres close wasn’t a bad idea. It also… bothered her, how blank Verso looked. Something about it rubbed her the wrong way, especially after how hard he fought to get the result he wanted. 

A cruel part of her pitied him, and she kept having to remind herself to squash that feeling down. How many more times could she handle a betrayal? 

No. Thinking about that would get them nowhere. 

“And the other reason?” Lune pressed. 

“The harder part,” Maelle sighed bitterly. “Convincing Papa to let us keep the canvas. The part of him that is the Curator is only an aspect of him. If we can appeal to him to be on our side, he might make it easier to beat the Axons to get to Maman. Which could be nice because it’ll be one less person to fight. If not, we’ll have to figure out how to make him return that aspect of himself before we go to face him beneath the Monolith.”

That was true. If they wanted to win, they’d have a better chance of keeping the canvas if they dealt with Renoir first. The only wild card would be Aline once she had full access to the canvas and what she would try to change. But if they could get Renoir on their side, they could tip the battle of the canvas in their favor to a degree. 

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” Lune asked.

“Four years of regret and thinking back on all that went wrong,” Maelle shrugged. “Every mistake. Every action. Every consequence. It was… a lot. It’s kind of nice… that I get the chance to test it all, to see if I can save everyone. If a little scary because everything is sort of just theory and their are actual lives that will be affected by my actions. But there's also this giddy sort of excitement that maybe I can save them. Is that what it feels like for you when you make a discovery?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Lune hummed. “Alright. Fine. We’ll try it your way. But we’ll need to be prepared for anything.”

“Yeah. I know,” Maelle nodded, sucking in a pained breath. “Had plenty of time to think on the what-ifs, too.”

She turned to look at the others. Lune followed, watching as they all seemed to be doing their own thing. It might have looked like they were all just idly playing around as they waited for Maelle and Lune to finish, except for the fact that everything was being done absently. The weight of the truth of their existence, and the reason for the erasure, weighed heavy on them all. To know they should never have existed, and that they only existed in a world meant to be filled with grief. 

Lune hated thinking about it, herself. 

“We should get moving,” Maelle’s voice washed over Lune before her own thoughts could spiral. “We should make camp on the plain. The Meadow isn’t safe, what with how close the Nevrons are. At least on the plain the Nevrons are more wide-spread. A small reprieve, I suppose.”

“Your sister sounds… interesting,” Lune commented.

“That’s one way to put it,” Maelle gave a pained, thin smile. “Will you rally them? They’ll trust one of their own more.”

“You are one of our own.”

Maelle shook her head. “Not really. Not anymore. Maybe to you, Gustave, and Sciel. But the others? I don’t have the history and shared trauma I do with you.”

The worst part was, Lune couldn’t argue. There was a wariness to the others, now. Knowing that Maelle was both a paintress and the daughter of the two people who caused their suffering had rattled all of them. Not to mention the absurdity of the situation they were now in.

Lune had never been good with people, but…

“Alright,” Lune stepped forward, sweeping her gaze over everyone before landing on Alan. “We need to move. The Meadow is still crawling with Nevrons and it will be safer to make camp on the plain where we can see what’s coming. We can take the time to process somewhere safer to defend.”

Alan’s eyes slid shut with a sigh. “She’s right. We need to move. Gather yourself and get ready. Lune. Lead the way.”

“Well, there’s one more thing I want to do before we make camp,” Lune stated, turning to look at Maelle. “Something your sister left behind.”

—---------------------

“I’m surprised they’re not freaking out more,” Maelle said.

“I give it till we get to camp,” Lune told her.

“Why till camp?”

“Because that was when Gustave and I finally had a moment to sit down and process what had happened to us last time around after the beach. The melt down between us wasn’t pretty at the time.”

Maelle peaked over her shoulder at the others, watching as they trekked along behind them. Between the three of them, Maelle, Lune, and Verso had told their story and everything that happened. How they had both succeeded and failed. 

Maelle chose to leave out the part where she and Verso had fought, why the canvas was ultimately destroyed, only telling the others that her brother’s soul could not handle the grief. 

And then she had to tell them how it had all restarted. Of the four years it had been for her, of the canvas’ mysterious reappearance at the Opera. 

There had been questions, yes. She’d answered them. But the information was perhaps too much. Especially given they were in a life or death situation when another Nevron made itself known. Verso, Lune, and Maelle had dispatched it, but it had given the others a chance to sit and think. 

“I don’t think you or Sciel had much of a chance to process things, either,” Maelle pointed out to her friend. “It all just… happened.”

“We had a mission,” Lune said. “I processed at camp, just as the others will, and then I kept going.”

Maelle nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s easier. Then feeling too much.”

Lune didn’t bother to respond to that, plunging their group once more into silence. Maelle looked to Verso, but he had fallen silent as well, his expression back to that blank exhaustion that had haunted him.

She was grateful the White Nevron wasn’t that far away. 

Verso stopped at the entrance of the clearing, stepping out of the way so the others could file in. Maelle and Lune approached the Nevron as the other hung back. 

But the second Maelle saw the Nevron, all she could feel was sad.

“One of Clea’s imperfections,” Maelle spoke to the clearing. “Incomplete because it did not meet her standard, and got disregarded.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t kill it,” Lune answered. 

“She never does,” Maelle stated. “For all of my sister’s perfectionism, she doesn’t like to forget, either. So she discards them, throws them away and out of sight. But they are unfinished, so they are often confused. Lost.”

“Why?”

Maelle turned to look at Verso. His face was pinched, and there were tears threatening to come to his eyes. For a second, the image of the painted Clea flashed in Maelle’s mind, and she forced herself to turn away and looked back at the Nevron. 

“I don’t know. I never understood Clea. Not like my brother did.”

Clea was this strange, weird enigma. Frosty and often cruel. She wielded her words sharply and like a weapon. Just like her paintbrush. Each of her creations were monsters of destruction or fear. And yet… 

Maelle shook her head and approached the Nevron, kneeling down beside it.

“Hello. My friends tell me you are looking for light.”

“Light? Yes. Can you… help me?”

Maelle nodded, pulling out the resin the others had found while trying to get to the tree. Carefully, gently, she painted over it, before climbing up the Nevron to put the light source in the lantern.

Then she hopped down, nodding to Lune. With a nod back, Lune aimed her hand and fired a flame at the lantern, setting the resin ablaze. The Nevron was instantly delighted.

“My light! It has returned! At last! My Mistress! Guide me… to the future… the future shrouded in darkness!”

Maelle’s eyes widened at the declaration, and she turned to look at Lune. 

“Oh…” was Maelle’s intelligent response. 

“Do you think they’ve been warning us?” Lune stepped up beside Maelle. 

Wasn’t that the question. “It’s… possible. I can’t pretend to understand what goes through my sister’s head. One second she could be reminding me the fire is my fault and the next she’s lecturing me about taking better care of myself.”

But she couldn’t worry about Clea’s twisted motives right now. This Nevron was peaceful, misinterpreting Clea’s directions of light. And now that it had its light, it would probably try to search out Clea’s calling. She couldn’t allow it to turn hands and start killing Expeditioners.

“Do you have a name?” Maelle inquired of it.

“Yes. Jar. I am… Jar.”

“Jar, then. What will you do now?”

The Nevron paused to consider. “Mistress. She wants me to light. Enlighten. Capture… the light. For the future.”

Maelle nodded slowly. 

“And what is the future Clea sees?”

“Darkness.”

Total obliteration. The canvas completely destroyed and devoid of life. Maelle felt stupid now, looking back and seeing all the hints and clues dropped over and over again. Hindsight was a curse, she supposed. 

Or a blessing, given the circumstances.

“So… if we, as Expeditioners have brought you light, would you protect us if we crossed paths, or if others came after us. Guard our light so that we may also prepare for the upcoming darkness?”

“Protect? Guard? The other asked the same. Yes. I can. I have my light. I am enlightened. I shall help others. Be enlightened. Protect their light.”

“Good. Then, go. Enlighten the world. Share your light. We, however, must be on our way-”

“You. Who are you?”

Ah. That… that was one question Maelle was hoping to avoid.

“I’m… I’m Clea’s sister. Your mistress.”

“Mistress’s sister? Little Shadow?”

Maelle’s face went blank. 

“She… called me ‘Little Shadow’?”

“Little Shadow. Yes. Mistress’s sister.”

“Right…” Maelle grit her teeth. “Well, good day to you.”

Maelle spun on her heels and stalked away, pushing past the others and making back for the Indigo Tree. She didn’t bother to see if the others were following her. Just stalked forward like a woman with purpose. She was about halfway down when Gustave finally caught up with her.

“Maelle, are you-”

“I’m fine,” Maelle answered quickly.

Too quickly and far too clipped because Gustave immediately grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. She scowled at him as he gave her that inquisitive raised eyebrow of his that meant he saw right through her. Her scowl only deepened as he realized his intuition about her tone was right and his cheeky lopsided grin stretched across his face. 

Gustave made to say something, only to be interrupted by a Nevron that chose to make itself known by jumping down in front of them.

Maelle heard the cry of alarm from the others, saw Gustave reach out for her to pull her to safety. But this was an opportunity. Rapier in hand, Maelle lunged, cutting through the Nevron in a flurry of movement that had her sister’s creation falling dead by the final strike.

But it wasn’t enough, and Maelle found her irritation simply bubbling further.

“Maelle,” Gustave called again, coming to her side and tugging her close. “Calm down.”

“But she knows I hate that nickname!” Maelle growled at Gustave. “She did it on purpose! I bet all her creations call me that just to spite me!”

“You can’t know that-”

“Yes I can!” Maelle argued back. “You always tease Emma about that time she exploded your oven, remember? And Emma always teases you about that time you fell asleep mid conversations. Siblings always do stuff like this! And now all of you know that stupid nickname! And it’s all her fault! Clea’s the worst sister ever!”

Gustave snorted, reaching up to poke her in the side of the head. “Is there a story behind this ‘terrible’ nickname?”

“No!” Maelle hissed at him. “None at all! And if any of you ever call me that, I’ll kick your butts into next week!”

A laugh burst past Gustave’s lips this time, and Maelle shoved him. An act that only made him laugh harder. She scowled, spinning away from him with a huff, only for him to come and wrap her in a hug from behind. 

“You haven’t changed, Maelle,” he told her softly and in between laughter. 

“Yes I have! I’m a big scary painter now! And if I wanted to, I could erase you for using my sister’s dumb nickname against me!”

“You wouldn’t,” Gustave teased, rocking her to the side.

Maelle went easily, still scowling. 

She’d missed this. For as much as she had adjusted to being back in the real world, being with Gustave was different. He was her brother and her father in a way that Papa and Verso weren’t and never had been. He was the light at the end of a tunnel that made her feel warm and loved and seen. Who helped her carve a path forward in life without parables or lies.

Didn’t mean she wasn’t grumpy that her brother/father figure now knew that terrible, awful nickname because her sister was the absolute worst.

“Then I’ll erase your lips so you can’t say it!”

“You’d miss my voice!”

Dang. He got her there and he knew it. 

Well, when you can’t beat them…

Maelle took a minute to give Gustave a cheeky little grin before she made her body go limp. Having been rocking her from side to side teasingly, Gustave’s grip around her had been loose. So he had to scramble to catch her. But Maelle didn’t make it easy as she forced her full weight downward, dragging Gustave with her with a triumphant cry as he yelped.

Then they were both on the ground, bursting into laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. And in that moment, as the others watched the two act like fools, the tension that came with Maelle’s story cracked. 

For a moment, the world felt normal again.

Gustave rolled off Maelle and onto his back so the pair of them were staring up at the sky. Above them, the clouds rolled by and a beautiful blue met them, slightly altered by the strange chroma in the area, but otherwise normal. 

“If this is a painting, your brother must have been talented,” Gustave whispered to Maelle.

“He was,” Maelle whispered back. “He put a lot of care into this canvas. Made it a place where he and Clea could escape from the stuffy nature of society and expectations. Which is funny, because my brother ultimately hated painting. It’s why this is his only canvas.”

“... not you?”

“Not me what?” Maelle turned to face Gustave, who was already looking at her.

“He didn’t invite you to play in the canvas?” Gustave asked with a frown. 

Maelle had no idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“You said your brother and Clea played in the canvas. As an escape. But not you?”

“Oh…” Maelle turned back to look at the sky. “No. I didn’t… my brother invited me. Several times, actually. But… when I was little, about four, Maman started me painting. Just like she had with my brother and Clea. By the time I was six, Maman had all but declared me a lost cause as a paintress. I wasn’t learning fast enough. Wasn’t meeting expectations. I wasn’t as good as my brother or Clea, and with the war coming, she just…”

Maelle stopped. Her memories of her childhood and her Maman, of painting at all, weren’t fond ones. They ached. And only served as a reminder as to what she’d done to forever hurt her family.

“So, I decided that, if I couldn’t paint, then I didn’t want to spend time with my siblings when they painted. Not to mention I had fallen in love with books and writing at the time. So I spent my time in my room with my nose in a book whenever my brother and Clea went to play. I didn’t want to be constantly reminded of my lack of skill, so I hid away. It helped that Maman and Clea detested my hobbies.”

Gustave hummed, knowing well the vindictive hobbies younger siblings could have. “So you found a fun little way to get back at your family and something fun you could enjoy. A perfect combination for family drama.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really write anymore. Or read. Not for Papa’s lack of trying to assure me he doesn’t mind my hobby. Always buying me books he thinks I’ll like… I think he just wants a sense of normalcy. But… as it turns out, Maman is just a terrible teacher.”

 “What?” Gustave snorted, turning to look at her. “The Paintress is a terrible teacher?”

“Awful!” Maelle complained, throwing her arms up in the air towards the sky. “Because the second I start learning under someone else, I actually made progress in learning to paint! And then! I found out from Clea that both she and Verso’s had tutors outside of Maman!”

Gustave gasped, mockingly encouraging her. “What? No!”

“Yes! Maman can paint whole worlds, create beautiful lives! But she can’t teach to save her life!”

“Your brother could have told you that,” a voice spoke from overtop them.

The pair turned to see Verso watching them. He’d crept closer, expression still closed off, but there was something there. Something fond and a bit list that haunted his eyes.

“What? My Verso? Tell me Maman is a terrible teacher where Maman could hear? Perish the thought, as they say in England, Maman would be crushed!”

A small grin did peak out this time. A win, in Maelle’s book. She was going to have to talk to him sooner rather than later if she wanted her friend to be himself, again. 

“England?” Tristan questioned. “What’s England?”

It occurred to Maelle she was going to have to watch her figure of speech from now on. 

“Later,” Maelle declared as she sat up. “We’ve had enough revelations of reality for one day, and I can dump more information on you later.”

A sobering slap to the face to the others who had finally been starting to relax. It felt as though, in an instant, Maelle had made one step forward and leapt three paces backwards. The wariness with which they regarded her stung, but she swallowed down her frustration.

Besides, it was hard to be frustrated or upset when Gustave put an arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side to shield her from the world. 

“Well, if we’re done with the Nevron, we should get moving,” Lune moved to once more rally their friends. “The sooner we deal with things in the Weird Corals, the sooner we can find Sciel and whoever else she might have saved.”

“We’ll have to back track to the tree,” Gustave agreed, pushing himself up and pulling Maelle up with him. “Best to have our weapons ready. These things like to come back.”

“Can’t Maelle just cut through them all?” Lucien asked skeptically. “I mean, she just cut through that one.”

“Lucien,” Lune warned.

But Maelle held up a hand to stop an impending fight.

“I am sort of starting from square one with the rest of you,” Maelle admitted, flexing her hands. “I do have some control over chroma, but I’m nowhere near as powerful a paintress as Maman and Papa, and any major changes will draw their attention to us. I’ve been painted over again, but I think I managed to use most of my chroma to remember myself this time, I just-”

Her head was feeling kind of strange again as she tried to think back on what happened. Almost floaty. It was… hard to focus…

“Maelle?” Gustave asked, voice worried. “Maelle, what’s wrong?”

“She’s doing it again,” Verso breathed.

“Doing what again?” Gustave demanded.

“This… this happened last time. When I asked her why we were here,” Verso motioned to her, finally approaching her. “Lune. Come here and watch this.”

“Verso-”

But Verso wasn’t listening, just grabbed Maelle by the shoulder and held up a finger in front of Maelle’s face. Lune went to snap at him until she noticed what Verso had. Maelle was struggling to focus on his finger.

“Alright Maelle, test time again,” Verso chirped, a bit of frantic, desperate worry creeping into his tone. “Focus on my finger. Follow it with your eyes.”

Again, Maelle struggled to do so.

“Verso, what’s-?”

But again, Verso was moving. He summoned his blade and dragged it across the ground, dragging a nice thick, straight line for everyone to see, right in front of Maelle. Then he grabbed Gustave by the arm and dragged him to the opposite end.

“Alright Maelle, see Gustave! We like Gustave! I want you to walk to Gustave, but you have to do that by balancing on that line!”

Maelle, still strangely dazed, looked at Gustave and then at the line. She got this weird, determined look on her face where she frowned at the ground and stuck out her tongue before taking a step. Missing the line. Seeming to realize this, she attempted to correct her footing only to trip over herself. She might have landed flat on her face as Gustave, Lune, and Verso not lunged to catch her.

“What’s wrong with her?” Gustave demanded.

“I don’t know,” Verso shook her head. “The way she’s acting, it’s almost like she’s drunk. But Alicia hates alcohol, and with the way the fire burned her face and throat, I can’t imagine that any alcohol would feel good.”

“So, what, you think she’s been drugged?” Lune demanded.

“Possibly,” Verso admitted. “And if I had to guess, I’d say it happened outside of the canvas. Probably right before she entered.”

“Someone drugged Maelle before she entered the canvas?” Gustave demanded. “Who?”

Verso shook his head. “I don’t know. This is all just wild guessing. But she’s only acted like this twice and both times when she slips back into her memories as Alicia right before entering the canvas.”

“Then what do we do?” Gustave pressed hysterically. “How do we snap her out of it!?”

“Well, that’s the easy part,” Verso stated.

Then he grabbed Maelle by the shoulders and shook her. Hard.

“MAELLE!” he shouted in her face.

Her arms came up to grab his forearms, and she managed to successfully plant her feet. Verso stopped his shaking, allowing Maelle to snap back to herself with a groan.

“Ah… what…? What? What did I do?”

The sight that greeted Maelle was of everyone hovered around her, staring in shock or worry as Verso gripped her by the shoulders. Gustave’s hand immediately came out to cup her face, and Lucien was checking her forehead while Lune grabbed her shoulder as Verso pulled back.

“What? What happened? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Well, my dear not-sister,” Verso began slowly, teasingly, in a way that sounded so painfully like her brother would do when he was about to catch her doing something she shouldn’t. “Tell me, have you taken up drinking, per chance?”

“... have I taken up what?!”

Chapter Text

Setting up camp was a quiet affair. 

They put it up far faster than they ever had with just the three of them, and once it was set up, Maelle excused herself to be alone for a few minutes. As everyone else settled at the campfire, Verso attempted to duck away. But Lune pulled him back.

“What’s happening to her?” Lune demanded.

“I don’t know, Lune. I-”

“Don’t give me that,” Lune growled at him, giving him a hard shove on the shoulder. “You’ve got some idea. Or at least a theory. You’ve been defeated this entire time, but the moment you realized something was wrong with Maelle, you acted, like you always do. So what’s wrong with her?”

Verso sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t actually know what’s wrong with her. But from the look of her, she’s been drugged.”

“Drugged? Gustave gaped.

“Possibly,” Verso stressed.

“You think it was the writers,” Lune pressed, something piercing in her gaze that made Verso shiver.

“The who?” Lucien questioned.

“They are the most likely candidates,” Verso agreed with a nod, trying to ignore the game of twenty questions about to start. “Lune. It was Verso’s birthday and they were at the Opera to celebrate. They were already vulnerable. Unguarded. If someone drugged her…”

“... then Renoir and Aline might have been drugged, too,” Lune breathed.

“The paintress has been drugged?” Léo asked skeptically.

“Now that I think about it, Clea was definitely drugged, too,” Verso remarked.

“You saw Clea?” Lune demanded.

“Briefly. Shortly after I woke back up here. And before I got my memories back. Didn’t really process it at the time, but she was going on about betrayals and chroma and demanding I watch her sister. It was extremely incoherent, and she was tripping over herself the entire time. Which isn’t like her.”

“But Clea was in the painting?” Lune asked again. “However briefly, Clea was here?”

“Yes. And she was acting weird. Which is only furthering my drugged theory.”

“So why isn’t it affecting Maelle right now?” Tristan stepped into the conversation, and this was a question Verso was actually willing to answer. “If Maelle’s been drugged, why is it only affecting her when she thinks about what happened?”

Lune looked to Verso, just as confused.

“Chroma is… powerful, and Alicia was never a powerful paintress. When she entered the canvas the first time, Maman, Aline, painted over her. And I can already see the confusion, so basically, imagine you wake up with amnesia. No idea who you are. No way to get your memories back. And you’re basically told you have to start your life over from scratch. That was what made Alicia into Maelle. Aline took every bit of identity that Alicia had and in its place, Maelle was born. That appears to have been a repeat this time, but something is different.”

“So what you’re saying,” Catherine began slowly “is, even though Alicia and Maelle are the same person, in a sense, the part of her that is Maelle is protecting Alicia from whatever happened to put her back in the canvas?”

“Given the horror story we were told, it sounds like it’s always been that way,” Jérôme grumbled.

“Maybe you should go check on her,” Lucien whispered to Gustave.

Out of the corner of his eye, Verso saw Gustave nod, quickly rushing off as the others all continued trying to process this new revelation. Verso just hoped the man was as amazing as Maelle always made him out to be. Because the last thing Maelle needed was Gustave to hurt her. 

“I honestly thought I’d be freaking out a lot more about this,” Margot huffed with a slight hysterical edge, turning to look into the flames. “But all I can feel right now is worried for Maelle.”

“She’s been through a lot,” Alan agreed. “Enough for two life times. Neither of them kind.”

“And yet she’s fighting harder than almost anyone in Lumiere,” Catherine pointed out. “How many of us have given up? Or are just here to make something of our last year? Maelle has to deal with the burden of knowing her family caused our trauma and she’s still trying to fix it.”

“Bet she thinks we hate her,” Léo mumbled. 

“Doesn’t she already think that,” Lucien pointed out. “I mean, Maelle had a horrible time in Lumiere, remember? How many people gave her up, huh? Just cause she was having nightmares no one understood? And it turns out she’s just been dreaming of her brother’s death she couldn’t even really remember over and over again? That’s messed up.”

“Maybe…” 

Lune’s voice washed over the others, drawing attention back to her. Verso had been watching her the whole time, watching as the gears in her head spun. Tristan had also been watching as the gears seemed to turn in Lune’s head, waiting for her to share whatever theory she’d been creating.

“If four painters entered a painting drugged, and it was a canvas they already knew, would the shock of their chroma re-entering cause things to snap back in place?”

Verso blinked. “I’m… honestly not sure. I don’t know if that theory has ever been tested. I suppose it might be possible.”

“But the one variable that leaves is who repainted the canvas,” Tristan reminded Lune, who instantly turned to the man.

“Yes, that’s the one variable that’s still bothering me,” Lune agreed. “The easiest answer would be another Dessendre. But Renoir and Clea wouldn’t dare. Aline doesn’t strike me as the type to risk her family like that, especially with the drugs. And Maelle has sworn up and down she hasn’t repainted the canvas. Perhaps a close friend?”

“You know I have absolutely no idea what’s been happening outside of the canvas, right?” Verso reminded Lune with a sigh as she turned to look at him. “My memories end with the fire, and my own in the canvas begin with just before the Fracture.”

“Then I guess you get to sit this one out,” Lune huffed.

Verso made a show of sitting down on a nearby log, gesturing at Lune and Tristan to continue with their theories with a flourish of his hand. Lune rolled her eyes but complied, volleying possible ideas back and forth with Tristan. Choosing to tune out their discussion, Verso turned, instead, to the others.

“-I mean, she’s still Maelle,” Catherine was saying slowly, still unsure. “She’s proven that repeatedly. She’s just managed to make more sense of herself.”

“But are we sure a Paintress can be trusted,” Jérôme pressed urgently. “How do we know she isn’t on her father and sister’s side?”

“Lune trusts her,” Alan reminded his second like that explained everything.

“I trust her,” Lucien spoke next. “She hasn’t steered us wrong, yet. Maelle or Lune. And… she’s still Gustave’s girl. You saw the way they were acting. That was them. That was the Maelle who was always following Gustave around with a cheeky little remark. So maybe she’s got new memories, or powers, or whatever, but that hasn’t changed anything. Like Catherine said, if anything, she’s more sure of herself.”

“She also saved our lives,” Léo pointed out. “As many as she could. I mean, I never interacted with her before. She had no reason to come save me. But she warned me when to parry or dodge in that fight against the big Nevron. And I know I was one of those guys who said stuff about her being strange behind her back. She’s beaten me enough times in a spar for me to even think she hadn’t heard me. If she wanted us dead, she wouldn’t have saved a guy like me just to string us along.”

“What, then? We just trust a paintress?” Jérôme scoffed.

“Except we’re not trusting a paintress,” Catherine argued back. “Maelle doesn’t have enough chroma to fix what her parents broke. We’re choosing to trust a teenager who followed around our friend like a lost puppy.”

“That doesn’t exactly make her situation sound more appealing,” Margot pointed out. 

“...It sounded better in my head,” Catherine admitted, then she shook her head. “Listen. My point is, we’re not trusting some god-like being that’s holding our lives over our head. We’re trusting Maelle, a kid who just wanted to see the world and save the lives she cares about.”

Verso let them continue their debate, turning to be sure that Lune and Tristan were still deep in their own discussion. Then, without a word, he slipped further back into camp and settled beneath a tree, staring at a gap between two cliffs. And waited.

—----------------------

He found her near the edge of a cliff, throwing rocks towards the Monolith.

The act was so surprising that Gustave had to pause for a moment and watch. Of course he knew Maelle had been slowly picking up the habit before he died. But to see her still doing it now? 

“Oh, that was a good one,” he praised as the next rock left her palm.

“I know,” she answered cheekily, tilting her head towards him with a smile on her face. “I’ve had four years of practice, you know.”

“What, you kept doing this outside the canvas?” 

Maelle nodded seriously. “My body outside of the canvas was weak after the fire. I have… I have burns all over my face and throat, some down my chest. The doctors said it would hinder me my whole life. But I was pretty stubborn. I started taking walks, and even jogging. Found a nice little place at the back of our family home where I could throw rocks into a well. It wasn’t a Monolith that delivered a giant warning of foreboding over us, but it helped build my strength back up.”

It sounded nice, honestly. Just throwing rocks. Except, there was the part that kept repeating in Gustave’s brain.

“You have burns all down your front?”

Maelle hadn’t turned to look at him, yet. Not fully. Instead she knelt down, picked up another rock, and tossed it in her hand a couple times.

“From the fire,” Maelle said after a moment. “The one that took my brother from us. Verso, my brother, he was safe. But I was still inside. So he ran back inside to save me.”

Then she was throwing the rock with as much force as she could muster. A betrayal of what she was really feeling. For all her calm bravado as she spoke, Gustave could see how much this memory was tearing her apart.

“Where the fire killed him, I lived,” Maelle continued, reaching down to search for another rock. “But not without the scars to remind us what we lost.”

“Maelle-”

“This is the first time I’ve heard my own voice in four years,” Maelle stated, cutting Gustave off as if she didn’t want to hear him try and ease the conversation. “I-I had to learn how to speak without it. If I wanted to speak at all. There’s a language outside the canvas called sign language. I’ve been learning it the best I could, and-”

“Would you teach me?” Gustave asked.

Her carefully constructed mask of control suddenly stuttered. Eyes wide, Maelle whipped around to stare at him, rock falling to the ground with a soft thud. Though it seemed to echo in the silence between him, magnifying the disbelief dancing across her face.

“You… you want to learn?”

“Well, it’s how you speak out there, right?” Gustave gestured towards the sky, not really sure how else to refer to life outside the canvas. “Of course I want to learn. I’d like to learn all about your life out there, you know. You may have memories of a different life now, of being someone else, but that hasn’t changed how I feel about you, Maelle.”

“...and how do you feel towards me?”

“Is it not obvious?” Gustave asked with a grin.

But that grin faltered as he noticed the vulnerable expression on Maelle’s face. Watched as her bottom lip trembled, as her arms came up to wrap around herself, as she took a nervous step back, then forward, then back again. Yet her eyes did not leave his face. Searching his face for something.

“Oh, Maelle,” Gustave breathed, closing the distance between them and pulling him into an embrace. She went willing, slotting against him like she’d always belonged there as he did his best to shield her from the world in his embrace. “You’re my family. And I-I know we never- there were things we should have-I’m sorry we didn’t-”

Maelle hummed, tucking her face against his chest to cut off his rambling. 

“We never did decide if you were my father or brother,” she mumbled, nearly muffled against his shirt.

“Yeah, well, I think we were both dancing around that one.”

“To me you were both,” Maelle said, craning her neck to look at him. “Best father and brother I ever had.”

Oh. Oh. Well, that was… Gustave wasn’t sure how to respond to that other than to break down in tears and never let his girl go. But that didn’t feel like the right call here. So he met her gaze with a smile, making sure Maelle could see he was about to tease her. 

“Better than the old man and your real brother?”

Maelle gave him an annoyed scowl. “Family is… complicated.”

“But not me?”

“No. You’re the most uncomplicated person in my weird family,” Maelle stated. “You and Emma. I’m the complicated one.”

“Hey, no you’re not!”

“Yes I am,” Maelle hummed, tucking back into Gustave’s chest. “I’m a paintress, remember. I’ve lived two lives. I’m… different. Just like I always knew I was.”

“Maybe you are,” Gustave agreed, “but you’re still Maelle. You’ve already proven that to me. Just with a few extra years on you. Besides, I did promise my feelings wouldn’t change even if you were the paintress, herself, remember?”

Maelle snorted. “I thought you were joking.”

“I was serious!” Gustave insisted, getting a laugh of disbelief from Maelle. “I mean it! I was dead serious!”

“I know that now,” Maelle huffed, pulling out from Gustave’s embrace, shaking out her hands. “Okay. First lesson.”

Then, she made a series of gestures, motioning towards herself, then making a strange sign with her hands, before making a gesture at Gustave.

“What did that mean?” he asked.

Maelle grinned, repeating the gestures as she spoke this time. “I. Love. You.”

Gustave stared in surprise, before a grin broke across his face, and he did his best to sloppily repeat the gestures.

“I. Love. You.” 

Maelle grinned, causing Gustave’s own smile to grow. 

“Is that how people normally teach sign language? Through full sentences?”

“Not at first,” Maelle shook her head and continued to sign as she spoke. “Most teachers start by teaching the alphabet. What I just showed you is just one of my favorites. I use it a lot in front of my family.”

Family. Such a wonderful word, for all its complications. Gustave would gladly claim them, regardless of who or what Maelle was. She was first and foremost his little girl. So Gustave signed the gesture again, with more confidence this time. 

“You learn quickly,” Maelle praised, her smile growing ever larger. 

“Always have,” he teased. “Especially when I’m motivated. What else can you teach me?”

“I’ll teach you the basics,” Maelle hummed, preparing her hands. “But then I need you and Lune to help me with something before Alan tells us we all need to sleep.”

“Anything,” Gustave promised.

—--------------------------------

After a quick lesson, Gustave went to fetch Lune as Maelle sought out the next person she desperately needed to speak with. She’d been a little surprised to see him no longer around the fire, but her feet lead her further back into their campsite, to a particular place she knew no one would be occupying.

“A difference between you,” Maelle declared, announcing her presence to the miserable man. “My dear brother would never have shied away from a social scene. He’d have withstood it until the night ended, and only left to find me.”

Verso scoffed with a shake of his head. “That was hardly a social scene, and besides, I’ve got 67 years on your brother, at the least. Maybe I’ve just realized your habit of ducking away and hiding was the better call.”

Maelle hummed, coming to stand beside Verso and following his gaze.

“This is where Papa liked to stand,” she noted. “I never noticed he had a near perfect view of the Monolith.”

“You had no reason to make the connection last time,” Verso reminded her.

The fact that he was the reason she never had any idea to suspect the Curator hung heavy between them, but neither commented on it. Though Maelle suspected that Verso was waiting for her to act on the reminder. 

Instead, she leaned against the tree, watching the Monolith with her brother’s portrait as they waited.

“Alright,” Lune’s voice called out to them. “We’re here. What do you need?”

“Well, I’d like to tell you about my deal with Verso,” Maelle turned to greet them. “There are a few things I think we should all have out in the open.”

“Like what?” Gustave asked.

“Do you remember what I said to everyone? About why Papa was working so hard to get Maman out of the canvas?”

Gustave nodded slowly as he thought back. “You mentioned it was dangerous for Painters to be in a canvas for too long. That even a skilled painter can’t spend the rest of their lives in one without killing themselves outside the-”

Gustave froze as the realization settled over him. 

“You were in the canvas for sixteen years,” Gustave breathed, looking from Maelle to Lune to Verso and back to Maelle. “How long is that outside the canvas?”

“Long enough for it to become a problem,” Maelle confessed. “I was already losing myself. By the end.”

“Maelle-”

“I know. Not great,” Maelle nodded. “And I’m not sure how being drugged will affect me this time, either. But if I leave the canvas now, there will be nothing stopping Papa and Maman from tearing each other apart.”

“But your health, your life, shouldn’t be in the balance to achieve that!” Gustave argued back.

“He’s right,” Verso moved to stand. “You can’t risk sacrificing yourself like that. Though I’ll admit, I’m impressed you were willing to tell him the risk. He doesn’t seem like the type to let you just throw your life away.”

“He’s not,” Maelle turned to look at Verso. “And the deal still stands.”

“What deal?” Lune demanded.

“That Verso helps us kick Papa and Maman from the canvas, and helps me in replacing the aspect of whoever is currently painting the canvas with an aspect of myself. In exchange, I leave the canvas to live my life, and I remove Verso’s immortality once I have the chroma and do one final gommage.”

“That… sounds reasonable,” Lune mused as she looked to Verso. “Then we all get what we want, in a sense.”

“Yeah, well, that’s easier said than done,” Verso quipped, pulling away from the others.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Verso turned to look at Lune. “The painters can’t just flat out resist the deterioration that comes with being in a canvas for too long. Maelle was falling into that mind set by the end of the Expedition, even with her memories back. I have no way to guarantee she’ll keep her end of the bargain.”

“It’s called having trust,” Lune spat back in his face.

“Forgive me if I’ve felt the sting of betrayal more times than I can count,” Verso quipped back. “Especially from painters.”

“Probably every time you look in the mirror.”

“Stop!” Gustave got between them. “Fighting isn’t going to solve anything. Maelle, please tell me you have some idea about what to do?”

Maelle didn’t answer with words, but Gustave seemed to understand as they looked at each other. When Maelle was satisfied, she grabbed onto Verso’s arm and tugged him back towards the tree. Then she tugged him to sit with her, motioning with a wave of her hand for Gustave and Lune to do the same. She didn’t speak until 

“Verso,” she addressed him gently, hands folded in her lap as she met his gaze. “Do you remember at the Indigo Tree, when I asked if you had my brother’s memories of painting?”

Again, Verso’s expression turned pained as he tore his gaze from her.

“Yes,” he responded through gritted teeth.

“And do you remember all the rules and things that come with that?” 

“They are ingrained in me, yes.”

“Good.” 

Verso turned to look at her as he heard rustling, watching in confusion as Maelle adjusted her sitting position so she was no longer sitting on her legs. Instead, her legs were laid out before her, and she was sitting up straight with one hand in her lap and the other reached out in front of her. 

“I told you I had a proposition, and I meant it,” Maelle declared, moving her hand towards her own chest and calling on the power within her. “I asked you if you knew what Verso knew about painting. So now I ask; do you know what this is?”

And from her chest came a bright red swirl of chroma that settled itself into a lumpy sort of shape in her palm. She held it out to Verso, watching his reaction carefully. His gaze had dropped to the chroma as it formed. As it took shape, his eyes widened and his mouth slowly dropped open, but it wasn’t until the object had properly formed that Verso lunged to his feet and staggered backwards.

“Alicia!”

“Yes?”

“That’s- that’s a-!”

“A painter’s heart,” Maelle explained as Verso stuttered over himself. “My painter’s heart. A swirling form of chroma inside each painter or paintress that helps to anchor them to the canvas.”

A textbook answer. The simplest of explanations for the thing in her hands. In reality, the chroma in her palm was so much more complex, so much more ethereal. Not even the painters’, themselves, knew everything about the core of chroma that kept them inside a canvas.

“I’m sorry,” Gustave said as he looked from the overly calm Maelle to the frantic Verso. “But why is a ‘Painter’s Heart’ so import-”

Gustave was cut off as Verso lunged for it, wrapping his hands around Maelle’s wrist and trying to shove her hand back towards her chest. Gustave and Lune were quick to jump to their feet and summon their weapons, but Maelle held firm, keeping the chroma lump held out towards Verso.

“This isn’t a toy, Alicia! You have to put that back! If anyone takes this, if anyone uses this-!”

“It could kill me, in worst case scenarios, yes,” Maelle agreed, getting startled gasps from Lune and Gustave. “It can be used to hurt me. Torture me. Which is why it's generally forbidden for painters to wield the core of another. But it also has a lesser purpose. It can expel me from the painting.”

“Alicia, this isn’t-!”

But Maelle cut off what Verso was going to say by allowing her own grip to go slack, starling Verso. He fumbled with her wrist as it went limp and ultimately let go, not wanting to harm her. Then, seeing her opening, Maelle shoved the lump of chroma forward and into Verso’s chest.

Verso went positively rigid, voice dying as he stared at Maelle, wide-eyed and mouth agape. Maelle slowly withdrew her hand as Lune staggered to her feet next and Gustave had pitched forward to crawl towards her, all of them frozen as her hand came back empty. 

“Maelle…” Gustave whispered.

“What did you just do?” Lune asked, then her voice pitched upwards, demanding. “What did you just do, Maelle?!”

“I’m sealing our deal,” Maelle declared, meeting Verso’s gaze once more. “You, Verso, will help us get Maman and Papa out of the canvas, and help us save it in the process, and in return, I will leave after I have ended your immortality and gommaged you and your family should you all wish. To ensure this I have given you my Painter’s Heart.”

“...why?” Verso breathed. “Why would you-?”

“If, by chance, I go back on my word, if I fall into the trap of those painters that fall back into the trap of becoming one with the painting, you now have the power to expel me, and the fate of the canvas is in your hands.”

“WHAT!?” Lune shrieked.

It was a wonder that no one had come to check on them yet, especially with all the shouting they were doing. But maybe they were just trying to give them space. Which was nice of them. 

But Verso was staring at her with a pinched expression, close to a glare, trying to catch the bluff.

“What’s to stop me from expelling you right now?” Verso questioned slowly.

“Simple,” Maelle gave him a cheeky grin as she pushed to her own feet. “If you want to get rid of Maman and Papa, you’ll need me. Not to mention the fact that, the second you expel me, you lose my heart, and I won’t make the mistake of giving it to you a second time. And besides, Lune will be watching you like a hawk.”

Verso’s jaw clenched as he accepted what Maelle was saying. Because she was right, and they both knew it. Though it was funny to see his gaze shift briefly over to Lune. Lune fell into her role immediately, arms crossed over her chest as she realized the weight of what she would need to do.

“And what if I decide you’re too far gone and Lune tries to stop me, anyways?” Verso challenged.

“Gustave,” Maelle said, motioning to the man. “He knows me best, outside of you. If I start slipping too far, you and Gustave can talk about it. Then you can debate what to do with Lune. He’s always protecting me.”

Verso turned to Gustave, seeing the conflicting series of emotions crossing Gustave’s face. However, all three of them were able to see the moment Gustave made up his mind and he turned to Verso with a serious expression.

“To protect Maelle,” Gustave told Verso. “Always.”

“... Okay,” Verso nodded slowly, turning back to Maelle. “Okay. You have a deal. But if you ever do something that stupid with your heart again-!”

“It’s not that big a deal,” Maelle scoffed. 

“Not that big a-! I’m not even a painter, and I know what you just did was stupid and life threatening! Who the heck is teaching you?!”

“Simon Thibaut,” Maelle answered simply.

Verso blinked. “What?”

“I told you. Maman’s a terrible teacher.”

Verso was very, very quiet for a moment. Then;

“I’ll kill him.”

Chapter Text

It had been so long since she’d smelled a campfire, that her senses immediately perked her mind awake. It was a disorienting feeling, smelling food cooking over a fire again. And more so to feel something other than the soft plush bed her Papa had gotten her. But her mind was also groggy, and that alone was enough to jolt her to awareness.

Maelle sat upright, her breath coming a bit too fast.

“Hey, hey,” a hand, robotic in nature, came into her line of sight, “another nightmare?”

Had she had another nightmare? No, she didn’t think so. But now that the hand was in view, Maelle followed it up to the arm it was attached to, then to the shoulder, all the way to the concerned face of a man she thought she would never see again.

It wasn’t a dream.

Maelle shook her head, getting herself under control. 

“Just disoriented,” Maelle whispered softly. “I’m really glad you’re here, Gustave.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he told her as he moved to stand, offering his hand to help her up. “Come on. Alan’s giving the team a couple more minutes, but then we need to eat quickly and get moving if we want to use the most daylight for your plan.”

Right. The plan. Her plan. The plan Lune really didn’t like but couldn’t argue with. The plan that had everyone else extremely wary and on edge. 

That plan.

But her Papa had been helpful as the Curator, and Maelle preferred to have the aspect of him close where she could keep an eye on him than let him wander around without her knowledge. She couldn’t even be sure he wasn’t just watching them right now. 

Not that she wanted to think about it. 

Turning her attention to the here and now, Maelle found most of the others were still asleep. Alan was awake, standing above the fire next to Jérôme, who was busy making porridge in a pot over the fire. Neither was speaking, not that there was much sound at all at camp beside Tristan’s snoring. 

Lune was sat on her preferred log, clearly lost in thought in her usual pose, one arm crossed over her chest and the other hand reached up to cup her chin in thought. But to Maelle’s surprise, she wasn’t alone. Verso, of all people, sat beside her, clearly also lost in thought. Given the position Maelle put them in, she thought they might just avoid each other entirely for a bit.

“They seem to be doing better,” Gustave nodded towards the pair. “I talked to them briefly when I first woke up.”

“Do you think they got any sleep?” Maelle asked warily.

“What? Lune? Sleep? You know she’s as bad as I am when it comes to a project, if not worse, according to Tristan. But, I also think they took the last shift of look out together. On purpose. So I’m not surprised they were awake before the rest of us.”

Maelle was honestly surprised Lune hadn’t torn Verso apart. Or the camp, for that matter. She’d been so angry at Verso.

Well, maybe Maelle had just been around people who preferred a painful vengeance for too long.

The pair moved to join Lune and Verso at their log. Alan gave them a nod of greeting before looking back at the fire. Maelle nodded back, though Alan had already looked away, and she stood in front of Verso, while Gustave stopped in front of Lune. Verso, at least, turned to look at them in acknowledgement, but Lune remained lost in her musing. 

“Are you both alright?” Maelle asked softly. 

“As okay as we can be,” Verso answered with a fleeting crooked grin before his gaze fell downcast once more. “Though something tells me she’s going to be mad at me for a bit.”

Maelle was almost surprised to hear the disappointment in Verso’s tone, but she looked to Gustave instead rather than comment on it. It had always been safer to look towards Gustave for some sort of cue or action.

Gustave shrugged and leaned over to Maelle. 

“How long do you think it will take her to realize we’re standing here?” he asked in a faux whisper.

Verso snorted, something in him seeming to relax at the question. Maelle couldn’t stop her own snicker. 

“Probably an hour,” Maelle snickered behind her hand.

“I’ll be generous,” Gustave whispered back. “I’ll say thirty minutes.”

“She does like to get lost in her own head, doesn’t she?” Verso mused, watching Lune with a fond smile on his face. “Well, then, I say ten seconds.”

“Ten seconds?” Maelle shook her head. “Lune wouldn’t-”

But then Verso proved to be right, if only because he cheated. Before Gustave or Maelle could stop him, his hand moved to hover right by her ear and he snapped. Loudly. Lune jerked violently at the sound, whipping around to glare daggers at Verso in the same second. But Verso was unswayed by the action, only grinning as innocently as possible before titling his head towards the pair. 

“Oh!” Lune blinked at her audience. “Gustave. Maelle. Good morning.”

“So, what do I win?” Verso asked the two.

“Nothing, because you cheated,” Maelle huffed.

“I didn’t cheat. I used my resources to create a favorable outcome.”

“That’s still cheating.”

“There weren’t any rules set before the bet began.”

“You're impossible.”

“No. I’m resourceful.”

Now it was Maelle’s turn to glare at Verso as his own grin continued to grow wider. A quick glance at Gustave showed the man was covering his mouth with his fist, but there was a mirth to his gaze that told Maelle he was trying not to laugh.

He cleared his throat as Maelle’s glare turned to him.

“What has you thinking so hard this time, Lune?”

Lune huffed, turning back to her musing as her gaze became a little distant. “Everything. All of it. The things we’ll need to do to get to both painters. The time crunch we’re on with only a year left, and who knows how much time for Maelle. The questions we still don’t have answers to. Sciel and what she must be thinking.”

“Well, Noco should be settled as a merchant by the Manor when we get to the door,” Verso reminded her. “We can send him on ahead to the Gestral Village to look for her if you want?”

“That… might actually help,” Lune confessed as she turned back to Verso. “I’d forgotten about Noco. We’ll have to do our best to make sure we don’t lose him again.”

“Monoco would appreciate that.”

“Monoco?” Gustave asked skeptically.

“A gestral with a… special gift,” Maelle told him with a grin. “He can turn into any of Clea’s Nevrons if he collects their feet. My brother based him on our family dog, Monoco the second, who had an obsession with licking and attacking people’s feet. Noco was a gestral he based on our other, smaller dog. They’re quite the pair as a group of gestrals.”

“And what are they like outside the canvas?” Gustave asked curiously.

“Well… Monoco the second actually died of old age when we were young, but he loved to follow Noco around,” Maelle began, thinking back on her family dogs. “The family had another dog, Monoco the First, before I was born, who taught Noco. So Noco taught Monoco the Second how to adjust to our family. We got Monoco the Third shortly after, and he’s a funny dog who likes to bother Noco. Noco has proven to be a stubborn old man, still as vibrant as ever, if taking more naps. Monoco the third is quite content to match Noco’s energy levels and to lay down beside him whenever Noco decides to take a nap. Even if Monoco doesn’t like to let Noco sleep too long.”

“Fitting,” Verso hummed as he turned to look in the direction of the Mountains. “Especially given that Noco was the one to teach Monoco after his first death, and Monoco was the one to take in Noco after his first death.”

“How strange that the world here sometimes mirrors the one out there,” Lune mused. “I’d love to know more about your world, Maelle.”

“I’ll have to show you sometime,” Maelle said.

“Well, you could tell us, too,” Gustave reminded her gently as he began to move his hands through the alphabet. “You’ve already started teaching me sign language.”

“Sign language?” Lune questioned, and even Verso looked confused by Gustave’s hand movements.

“It’s a language,” Maelle said, quickly moving her own hands along with the words she spoke. “Sign language is pretty much what it sounds like. A form of language where you use your hands to form symbols to speak. Since I can’t really use my voice outside the canvas, I learned sign language. I… still write most things. Not many people know sign language, but it makes things easier for me.”

“Well, I’d like to learn,” Lune said quickly. 

“As would I,” Verso agreed just as quickly. “It only took me a few years to teach Monoco our language, how hard could sign language be?”

“You… you all actually want to learn?” Maelle asked skeptically. 

“Of course I do,” Lune said, standing to her feet. “Why wouldn’t I want to learn a new language from a world outside of ours. Besides, it's your preferred method of speaking, isn’t it?”

“Preferred by necessity,” Maelle reminded. “But… yes. Thank you.”

Verso was frowning at her as he moved to stand with the others, but he didn’t say anything. Maelle could guess what was going through her head, and she didn’t really feel like answering those questions right now. 

As Maelle sat back on her heels, she turned to Lune and Gustave, who were both staring at her expectantly.

“Wait… you mean right now?” 

“Well, now is as good a time as any,” Gustave waved at their camp. “Use the day while we still have it, right. And I bet practicing will only make us learn faster. Imagine us, having entire conversations in silence. No Nevron would hear us coming.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I think it’s ingenious. And I’m sure Lune would agree with me.”

“We could also use it to tell secret jokes behind each other’s backs,” Verso grinned with a wag of his brow, getting a snort from Maelle. 

Lune opened her mouth to chastise Verso, but was interrupted.

“Then perhaps we should all learn.”

The group of four practically jumped out of their skin, all spinning around to find that Alan had left the fire and was staring them down. Verso and Gustave looked cowed by Alan’s disappointed stare, while Lune preened in vindication. But then Alan turned and winked at Maelle before turning to kick Lucien in the foot.

“Get up, Lucien. Maelle’s going to teach us her otherworldly language.”

“Huh? Wha-? What we doin-?”

“Jérôme is done making breakfast,” Alan said as he moved to Catherine, giving her a gentle shake. “Get something to eat. The others can join the lesson as they eat. We’ll practice on the road in-between Nevrons.”

Gustave turned to grin at Maelle before guiding her over to the fire where Jérôme was waiting for them. He began to dish out breakfast as they settled around the fire.

“You know, you haven’t told us much about your life outside,” Gustave was saying as Maelle shoveled a bite of porridge into his mouth. “What do you do? Do you work? Any fun hobbies other than my knack for throwing rocks and going on your long walks around the ground?”

Maelle had to chew quickly and swallow to answer that barrage of questions. 

“What is this, an interrogation?” she teased, nudging him as she nearly choked on her porridge.

“I’m serious,” Gustave pressed. “And curious. You lived a whole lifetime out there, and it made you into the person you are right now. As your guardian, and as someone who cares about you very much, I’d love to know more about you.”

And then, to punctuate how much he meant it, he brought up his hands and signed the phrase she taught him last night.

“I. Love. You.”

This stupid, stupid man. Maelle adored him. And she meant it. The best father and brother she ever had. But, her life as a Dessendre was rife with conflict and pain. So it became a matter of where to start. Maelle honestly hadn’t considered that anyone would be interested in her life as Alicia.

She could start before the canvas, but… many of those memories hurt. She didn’t want to start with the bad things, especially since Gustave was already worried about her staying in the canvas. He’d be devastated.

“Well,” Maelle began, spreading her arms wide as if to show off. “You’re looking at the young and only apprentice of the Head of the Painter’s Council!”

 “An apprenticeship!” Gustave praised in delight. “Maelle, that’s wonderful! And to the head of a council? Emma would be beside herself with joy!”

“Or she might faint and accuse me of lying,” Maelle teased.

“I didn’t think you were all that interested in politics,” Gustave continued to gush.

Here, Maelle’s smile tightened. Thankfully, however, Verso stepped in.

“Hang on, I thought you were adamant that Maman wasn’t your teacher,” Verso stated with a frown on his face. “And last my memories claim, Maman was head of the painter’s council?”

“She was,” Maelle agreed with a slow nod of her head, smile slipping from her face. “Until Papa decided enough was enough and took the remains of Verso’s canvas to the Painter’s Council. Given Maman’s… extended time and fall to the canvas, she was declared unstable until further notice and was removed as head. A majority vote put Simon Thibaut as the head of the council.”

“You mentioned that name last night,” Lune recalled, a frown on her face. 

“You’ve technically met his portrait,” Verso told her carefully. “Well, what was left him after Clea and Maelle’s Papa got to him.”

“Wait. You don’t mean…?”

“The Simon at the bottom of the Monolith,” Maelle nodded. “He was one of Maman’s more… creative investments in the Council. Bold, charming. The ‘perfect’ match for her Clea. You saw what Clea thought about that, and she still doesn’t fail to make her distaste known whenever he stops by the house. But Maman is rather disappointed and upset with him, too.”

“Upset? Why?” Verso frowned. 

“Because he turned out to be a fop,” Maelle shrugged nonchalantly. 

Verso’s face went through several emotions at once, much to the surprise of Lune and Gustave.

“...What?”

“Monsieur Thibaut turned out to be a fop,” Maelle waved her hand about. “More concerned with appearance and clothing and childish stories. Maman was mortified that she ever thought such a man would be right for Clea. The second she got second chair on the Council, she began opposing anything and everything he said. Not that it’s done much to stop him from implementing changes.”

“No. No, that can’t be right,” Verso said with a shake of his head. “I know Simon. He’s not some… some floozy or dandy or-”

“You knew Maman’s perfect portrait of him,” Maelle reminded. “And besides, just because he’s a bit excessive doesn’t mean he’s a bad Painter. He’s certainly better than Maman.”

“Not a-” Verso looked like he would strangle something then and there. “He tried to tell you that a Painter’s Heart was-”

Verso cut himself off, shoving to his feet and beginning to pace. The entire thing caused Maelle to snort and she quickly shoveled a large helping of porridge into her mouth to cover the reaction. Verso still heard it, though, and he glared at her.

“I don’t want you anywhere near him,” Verso threatened.

“Why? You’re not my brother,” Maelle scoffed. “And at least Monsieur Thibaut was willing to learn sign language to talk with me. And he doesn’t look at me as though I’m something to be scared of or pitied. He’s already doing better than most people in my life, even if he is a bit excessive.”

“Surely there are others who learned with you,” Verso tried.

Only to be shot down with a simple shake of Maelle’s head. “Monsieur Thibaut was the one to sign me up for lessons, and he was the only Painter willing to walk me through my therapy after the events in the canvas. Maman was busy with her own therapy and reclaiming her seat. Papa was too busy with the estate and the council. And Clea dove headfirst into the war.”

“Wait, wait,” Gustave butt in quickly, looking from Maelle to Verso. “Are you saying no one in your family was willing to learn sign language, even though it’s the only way you can speak?”

The silence that followed Gustave’s question was palpable. Maelle kept her face carefully blank as she refused to look at either Gustave or Verso. Instead, she looked down at her porridge, watching as she mechanically stirred it around with her spoon. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the growing horror on Gustave’s face, and the way Verso’s crumbled. 

Around them, their small audience they had slowly been gathering was just as quiet. At least, it was until Lucien finally stumbled up in between Tristan and Catherine, looking at everyone in confusion as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“What are we talking about?” he asked, just a bit too loudly.

“Well,” Tristan began slowly. “I think we just-”

“Sign language,” Lune was quick to interrupt, shooting to her feet to face the others from where they stood behind Maelle. “Maelle suffered an injury outside of the canvas so she can’t speak verbally, and we’ve discovered her main form of communication is a language called sign language. We’re all going to spend a few minutes before we leave camp to learn.”

“Except some of you were taking too long to get up,” Jérôme teased lightly. “We decided to be nice and include you, or we’d all be talking about you behind your back right now.”

And with a simple jest, the mood in the camp burst as Lucien gave a squawk of indignation, getting a shove from Catherine as he yelped in her ear. Soon everyone was moving around the campfire to grab their breakfast and chatter resumed as if Maelle hadn’t just dropped a bitter part of her life on them.

Gustave tugged her into his side, gently massaging her back as he continued to eat with one arm, so Maelle copied him and ate the rest of her breakfast in silence.

“Alright, Maelle,” Alan motioned to her once a good portion of them had finished and dishes were being collected. “Show us how this language works.”

So Maelle began much the same way with Gustave, by using a sign to say something.

“Thank you,” she said aloud as she signed. “Sign language is a language that uses your hands, body, and expressions to create sentences to speak with others. As I’m doing now. The gesture I just gave Alan is used to say ‘Thank you’. Like this.”

And as they all copied her action, Maelle felt somewhat lighter.

—-------------------------------

The trek through the plains was somewhat silent for two reasons. One, because there were Nevrons everywhere and they either had to fight them or rush past them without being spotted. And two, because everyone was silently practicing their alphabet in sign language. 

Maelle had flittered about the group, correcting here and there, but as they got closer to the weird corals, she walked ahead of the group with Lune, where Maelle was already teaching her more phrases.

“So,” Margot began as she sidled up next to Gustave and Verso. “Why are we deciding to go fetch Maelle’s father, again?”

“Because within the canvas, he’s a powerful, dangerous being responsible for the gommage. And we’d rather have him on our side, thinking we’re helping, than have him against us and watching our every move.”

Margot paused for a moment in her thought before nodding. “That’s fair. But are we just ignoring the fact that Maelle’s family seems absolutely terrible to her?”

“I was wondering the same,” Alan came up on Verso’s other side. “Gustave?”

Gustave said nothing at first before turning to Verso. “Are they really all that terrible?”

Verso pursed his lips and refused to look at anyone but Maelle. “Family is… complicated. Especially when you’re a Dessendre. The spotlight has always hovered over them. And Alicia, Maelle, she was born later in the family 10 years after her brother. She was the runt. Papa’s favorite, but she always seemed to disappoint Aline at every turn, and Clea… Clea’s… complicated when it comes to emotions. I’m not sure how to describe it…”

He paused, releasing a long, heavy sigh. 

“They care. But not always in the way they should. Papa probably wants Maelle to try speaking again and sees sign language as a hindrance. Clea probably tries, but her patience wears thin. As for Maman… I don’t know. I can guess, but…”

“It’s complicated,” Jérôme finished for him, marching from behind them. “Believe me, we all know about complicated families here. Well, maybe not Gustave-”

“Hey! Emma and I fight plenty,” Gustave reached back to give Jérôme a light shove. “We’ve just learned to keep that behind locked doors. And away from Maelle.”

“Has Maelle ever caught the two of you in a serious argument?” Catherine asked.

“Twice, actually. Once when we first adopted her. Freaked her out so bad, Emma and I got purposefully good at hiding them. And the second time was when Maelle declared she was going on the Expedition.”

“I still remember that one,” Lucien winced as he patted Gustave on the shoulder. “That was a nightmare of a fight. I’d come by to drag Gustave to training, and Emma was definitely winning that argument. Maelle slipped out the door so fast when I knocked, I thought you’d gotten a dog I’d just let escape. Took thirty minutes to drag Gustave away, and by then, we were late to our first day as Expeditioners in training.”

“I remember that,” Catherine laughed. “You both were so pale, I’d thought you’d seen a ghost.”

“I slept in my workshop that night,” Gustave shivered. “And the night after.”

There was a bark of laughter from the others at Gustave’s suffering that had Maelle and Lune turning to look back at them. But the two kept walking, content to let the others joke around. And then the pair was ducking into the swirling door of chroma a few feet away, and Gustave felt himself grin.

“Are you all ready to see something amazing?” he inquired of the group.

Slowly, they all stepped into the door to see Maelle and Lune were already a bit of a ways ahead. But they were all immediately enthralled by the wild coral and seaweed growing around them, or the ocean that seemed to be above them. 

Their faces were full of wonder as they walked slowly forward to where the girls had stopped. To their surprise, a sea creature came down and danced around Margot and Tristan, causing them both to stare in awe, before it drifted away. 

“Stunning, isn’t it?” Lune asked them as she approached. “It’s like we’re under water but not at the same time.”

“This is brilliant,” Tristan breathed in awe as he continued to look around.

But then he caught sight of Maelle and Gustave standing side by side in front of something. The others were already drifting towards them, all pausing at the sight of two bodies sat side by side. Turned to stone. And dressed in Expedition uniforms.

“68,” Gustave informed everyone softly. “Elodie’s Expedition.”

“Do you really know the commanders of every Expedition?” Jérôme questioned incredulously.

Gustave grinned at Jérôme and then at Lune for some reason. 

“Expedition 68. Their boat was blown into the air by a storm. Lumiere lost sight of it, but assumed they’d crashed on the continent.”

“And yet, you said this is what happened when they were killed by Nevrons,” Catherine knelt down to knock against the stone head of one of them. “So they survived the storm, right?”

“Most likely,” Verso agreed with a nod. “Never met this Expedition, myself. But, the Nevrons here were bound to have given them a hard time. Especially the big ones.”

“Can you do anything?” Lune questioned.

The others turned in time to see Maelle shaking her head. “Not while Maman and Papa are in charge of the chroma in the canvas. The best I could do is harness their essence, give them a temporary form like I did last time. But then I’d lose them, and it will be harder to potentially bring them back. Right now they’re part of the canvas. I’ll be able to do more once they’re no longer fighting over the chroma.”

Then she turned her gaze to look at the anchor behind the pair. 

“I think they took out a whale,” Maelle mused, moving towards the creature. “Poor thing.”

“Are whales not Nevrons?” Lucien asked.

Maelle shook her head. “It’s a giant sea creature. My brother used to swear up and down he saw one when he was on a cruise. Clea always said he was bluffing. The sad part is, my brother was a fantastic liar, so I never found out if he was lying or not.”

Maelle turned to look at Verso, but the man mimed zipping and locking his lips, getting a scowl from Maelle. 

“Let’s keep moving,” Alan patted her on the shoulder. “I assume this door isn’t far. And I don’t want to run into whatever killed them.”

“Not sure we have much of a choice, Alan,” Jérôme joked, jabbing Alan in the side. “From the sound of it we’re a bunch of Nevron magnets.”

“Please stop talking,” Alan deadpanned.

Jérôme only laughed and continued onwards towards an opening in the corals. It was the wrong way, but it would ultimately loop around back to where they were, but if Jérôme was going to jinx them, they were just going to let him learn the hard way.

Chapter Text

They got lost several times. Verso thought it was funny. It kind of was.

Eventually, Jérôme remembered that Lune, Gustave, Maelle, and Verso had been here before. Which then had Lune leading the way. 

“There are bodies everywhere,” Léo noted as they walked through the weird corals.

“Kind of sad that such a beautiful landscape is ruined by the carcasses of our fallen,” Margot said. “Like a warning to us that we aren’t meant to be here.”

“Sounds like Clea,” Verso agreed bitterly.

“Your sister’s messed up, Maelle,” Lucien informed Maelle flatly. “Like, really messed up.”

“Try living with her,” Maelle hummed back, like this was just a usual part of life. “She loved to recreate our nightmares in her paintings. She’s only gotten worse as the war became more personal. You know she sculpts, too, and when I refused to enter her paintings, she’d come into my room and leave her latest creations lying around for me to find. She’s a menace.”

“My condolences,” Lucien mock-mourned.

Maelle shoved him, but they were both laughing as Lucien stumbled into Catherine.

“Stay on guard,” Lune called back to warn them. “The Nevrons here are different from the ones in the Meadow. Tristan. Jérôme. This one up here is more agile.”

Jérôme was quick to summon his glaive while Tristan summoned his staff. The pair were quick to flank Lune but she shook her head.

“There are two more up ahead,” she motioned. “Gustave. I want you with Tristan and Jérôme. I’ll go on ahead with Catherine and Lucien.”

“These are called Luster’s,” Verso informed the group. “They’re not strong against brunt force attacks, but what they lack in strength they make up for in speed. Parrying will be your friend.”

Gustave turned to Lune with a nod, moving to take Lune’s position between Tristan and Jérôme. He turned, momentarily, to look at Maelle, who gave him a firm nod. Then he lunged into the fray. They were only facing a singular Nevron, so Gustave lunged at the Luster from behind with a Lumiere Assault. That got its attention and it spun around in time for Jérôme to attack it with precision, swinging his glaive with quick grace and skill. This was followed by Tristan triggering his pictos and hitting the creature with an Immolation spell. It wasn’t enough to kill the creature, which meant the trio had to brace as the Nevron rallied itself and lunged. First it attacked Jérôme, who had to dodge as he wasn’t able to parry in time. But then, it turned on Tristan from behind. Tristan steeled himself.

The thing about Tristan was he’d been apprenticed to Lune’s parents since he was six. He and Lune had grown up together, and while he wasn’t as skilled in martial arts as Lune, he wasn’t a slouch, either. With staff in hand he parried the first strike with ease. And when the Luster made to make a third attack against him, Tristan used that attack to once more charge up his pictos. He deflected the oncoming attack but used his staff as a springboard to spin himself around and deliver a deadly, fiery kick to the Luster’s back. Killing it with one last blow. 

The three of them allowed themselves a moment of celebration before they turned towards the others. While they had been taking care of the one Luster, Lune had herded Catherine and Lucien towards the group of two. They had taken a similar setup to what their small team had, with Lucien in the center and Catherine and Lune flanking his sides. Lucien had already delivered his own attack while Catherine wound her whip to deliver a strike, and Lune used a newer set of pictos to deliver a shot of Earth up from the ground to attack both Luster’s at once. 

The Luster that Lucien and Catherine had clearly focused their attacks on was the first to attack, charging itself up and aiming for Catherine first. She didn’t dodge or parry in time, and Lucien was forced to whip around and parry the attack from behind with the blade of his gun sword. The action sent the Luster spinning towards Lune, and she slammed her heel into the Luster’s back to kill it with an icy blast of light. Lune was then quick to cast healing over Catherine, but the second Luster charged it’s attack. This time Catherine was ready, and she parried the attack, re-directing the direction of the Luster towards Lune.

Lune moved fluidly, parrying the next two attacks before delivering a fiery kick at the Luster that had the thing burning. Then Lucien charged forward with a finesse of movement that cut the Luster down. 

“Hey! We’re getting pretty good at this!” Lucien cheered as he turned to the others.

“Don’t get cocky,” Catherine warned, though she was grinning alongside him. “I don’t want you jinxing us.”

“Catherine’s right,” Alan said. He was leading the others over, his own sword drawn just in case. “That first Luster nearly got a lucky shot in. We need to be careful. Watch ourselves. We’ll be facing stronger foes than Lusters.”

“Much stronger,” Verso agreed. “Though I’m hoping we can avoid the big ones.”

“Big ones?” Lucien questioned.

“You’ll see,” Verso said. “Best keep moving. The sooner we get to Noco, the better.”

Verso began leading the way this time, not that anyone was complaining. Though Lune kept close to him.

“You’re worried about Noco,” Lune noted as they kept their pace slow in case a Nevron decided to jump them.

“I’m worried about a lot of things,” Verso admitted.

“Well you’re certainly more expressive than when we reunited.”

Verso gave her a crooked little grin. “My offer to punch my other cheek still stands.”

Lune rolled her eyes but didn’t press, her attention turning towards the mine-field they were approaching. Something was already beginning to stir in the sand, and the entire Expedition tensed. 

“Do we have a sharp shooter?” Verso inquired.

“Margot,” Lune beckoned the woman forward. “Catherine. You two have excellent aim. Gustave and Lucien on standby.”

In seconds, Margot had her musket in hand, while Catherine pulled up her wrist crossbow. The two women took aim at the swirling mass of sand, waiting for it to settle.

“Be careful of the mines,” Verso said carefully. “The Demineur have their own mines attached to a chain. Shoot them, and it will take out more than just the singular Demineur. They’re like the flying Nevrons, so free-aim is better than a direct attack they can dodge.”

“Good thing I have some experience with flying Nevrons, then,” Margot grinned as she fired her first shot.

The shot rang true, and the first Demineur that emerged had its bomb go off. The explosion caused it to stagger, along with the other two Demineur that came out of the sand with it. Catherine took a shot at the Demineur on the left while Margot turned her attention to the one on the right. The duel explosions caused all three to stagger. And with a couple more well aimed shot, the Demineur were down. 

“That was almost easy,” Catherine mused.

“Glad you think so,” Verso patted her on the shoulder. “Because now we have a whole hoard of Lusters and Demineur standing between us and the door. We’ll need to carve a path through. And this time, you don’t have Maelle and I going ahead of you to clear it up.”

The others stared at him incredulously before a series of groans erupted from the group.

—--------------------------

There were far more Nevrons this time around than last time. Then again, there were far more of them in their Expedition than there were last time, too. So it wasn’t hard to cut through the ever growing presence of Lusters and Demineurs, it was just painfully tedious. They got a few interesting bits of chroma, lumina, and pictos out of it. But by the end, they were all a bit grumpy and sore.

“Hey, look!” Lucien called, suddenly chipper amongst the grumbling and healing. “Lampposts!”

“Lampposts under water?” Margot questioned skeptically as she moved to look over Lucien’s shoulder. “Hey! Lune! Your lampposts are back!”

Lune took a moment to make sure Alan could kill the last Luster before spinning around and coming to stand beside Lucien and Margot. Immediately she frowned at the brightly lit pathway. 

“Why did I never notice before,” she mused, taking a couple steps closer.

“Notice what?” Maelle asked curiously. 

“These lampposts. They’re everywhere. And they always seem to light the way we need to go.”

Maelle looked at the lampposts with a frown of her own. 

“That… is strange,” she said after a moment.

“Do you have any idea who painted them,” Lune asked.

“Well, I would assume Maman,” Maelle shrugged. “They seem like her style. Maman prefers Art Deco, while Papa prefers Art Nouveau.”

“Pardon?” Lucien stared at her.

“Ah, right. Painting is… rather taboo here. And out there we have words for the different styles. To put it in the simplest, dumbest terms possible; when Maman paints, she painted the Eiffel Tower like this.”

In Maelle’s palm, there was a short swirl of chroma to which a replica of the Eiffel tower appeared in her hand. 

“But when Papa paints, then this happens.”

And with a short wave of her hand, the spine of the Eiffel Tower bent. The others watched enraptured by the action, but Maelle dismissed it quickly. When Lune went to protest, Maelle shook her head.

“It’s best not to mess too much with the chroma while Maman is still technically in control,” Maelle said quickly. “I don’t want her to expel me because she thinks I’m causing a problem.”

Lune pursed her lips but chose to accept that response, turning back to the strange pathway.

“So you think Aline put these here,” Lune mused. “But why?”

“They’ve been here for years,” Verso came up behind them. “I always assumed it was to light the way to her.”

“But the lamps led us to the Stone Wave Cliffs,” Lune reminded. “What was that?”

“The Lampmaster, probably,” Maelle offered. “Clea is good at painting over a painting’s intended purpose, remember?”

Lune fell silent, her gaze immediately flitting to Verso. Verso didn’t say anything, and neither did Maelle, the two refusing to look at each other at the reminder. Sensing the tension that was rising amongst their ranks, Lucien decided to get a closer look at one of the lampposts.

“Do you think they’re powered on chroma?”

“Must be,” Margot chose to humor him, coming up to knock on one of them. “I mean, it doesn’t make sense for them to be running on anything after 67 years, right? Unless they’ve got some power source we don’t know about.”

“Bet Gustave would love to pick these apart,” Lucien turned to his friend. “We’ll have to come back after we kick the Painters out of the canvas. Unlock all the extra mysteries we don’t have time for now.”

“A continuation of the Expeditions,” Lune hummed, joining the trio. “I hadn’t thought of that before. But there’s so much on the continent we have yet to explore…”

“Alright you three,” Alan patted Lucien on the back. “We can ponder the world later. Let’s get moving. Is this the right way?”

Verso nodded, pushing forward and leaving Maelle behind to stare after him. Lune fell in step beside him, neither speaking a word, as the others walked past. Gustave, however, hung back to stand beside her.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

Maelle took in a deep, long breath. 

“My family has hurt everyone in this canvas. But of everyone, we’ve hurt Verso the most. And yet he’s done so much to try and help us. I can’t… I can’t blame him for wanting things to end. But I worry about him. And I worry that I’m not strong enough to correct the wrongs my family caused.”

“Well, you’re certainly not going to correct them alone,” Gustave reminded her with a grin. “You’ve got me. And Lune. And I’m sure Sciel is waiting for us with the Gestrals. Whatever you need, we’ll help.”

Maelle gave a half, tired little smile as she turned to look at him. “Thanks, Gustave. You always seem to know what to say.”

“Really? Cause half the time I feel like I’m spouting nonsense.”

“Sometimes you do, yeah,” Maelle teased.

“Then which is it? I always know what to say or I’m spouting nonsense?”

“Hmmm. Both!”

He scoffedl, giving her a playful shove forward as she giggled. The pair of them raced to catch up with the others, following the strange lampposts around the curving cave wall until they came to the clearing. 

“It does look like a hut,” Léo was saying. 

“Something tells me it’s a bit more than that,” Tristan was saying as he walked along the thing. “The door looks… grand.”

“Are we not heading inside?” Jérôme questioned.

“Not yet,” Verso held up his hand, searching along the ground somewhat frantically. “He has to be here somewhere.”

“Who?” Jérôme asked. “Maybe we could help look for him?”

Verso didn’t answer, instead reaching down to flip over a rock. When that proved to not have the answers he wanted, Verso dropped said rock and moved to dig around in some nearby corrals. 

“He’s looking for Noco,” Lune informed the others. “The little gestral merchant that Maelle was telling us about. He’s very important to Verso, and he normally sets up his shop here. But last time he-”

The ground began to shake aggressively, startling everyone, and many were quick to draw their weapons. Lune, however, was quick to hold out a hand as a smile began to spread across her face, and Verso stood to his feet quickly. He barely made it to Lune’s side when a giant wall of corral suddenly burst as a tiny humanoid figure made of wood leapt through it and landed right in front of them.

“Noco!” Verso breathed in relief, quickly stumbling forward to kneel in front of the gestral. “My favorite patate. How are you?”

“Oh-hrooo! Verso! My favorite not-a-patate! You’re here! What took you so long?”

“Took me so long? Where were you?”

“Looking around! You were supposed to be here yesterday!” Noco wagged a finger at Verso as if to tell him off. “Hehe! I thought you had done something crazy again!”

“It really is a gestral,” Lucien breathed in surprise.

“Well, we told you they were real,” Gustave gestured at the little gestral. “Did you think we were pulling your leg?”

“I don’t know! It’s one thing to hear your best friend talk about it, it’s another for one to actually be standing in front of us!”

“Oh-hrooooo! Mustache man! You came back too!”

The clearing got suddenly silent.

“Wait…” Maelle began slowly as she stepped towards Noco. “Noco, are you saying… you remember last time. When Verso brought me here after the beach? And that you remember Gustave and Lune and me?”

“Of course I remember! Gestrals come back! Though my memories came later! And time was all strange! But I’m back! Your scary old dad is not very nice, Verso!”

Verso choked on a sound that might have been a sob or a laugh. Maybe a keen, actually. Whatever the case, he was quick to gather the little gestral in his arms. Noco struggled a little bit at the sudden action, but ultimately allowed Verso to hug him close. He patted Verso’s face, before returning to his struggling to get put down. When Verso complied, he found himself surrounded by Maelle, Gustave, and Lune. 

“It’s so good to have you back with us, Noco,” Lune said genuinely. “You really scared us back in Old Lumiere.”

“Old Lumiere! Pffffttt! Not going there again! No treasure and lots of death. Just like everywhere.”

“That’s morbid,” Maelle teased. “Never took you for a pessimist, Noco. Thought that was Verso’s job.”

“We can share!” Noco decided after a brief moment of thinking.

“Well, Noco, if you don’t object, we’d love for you to meet some friends of ours,” Gustave motioned. 

“Oooooh! More fierce warriors?”

“Fierce warriors?” Jérôme questioned. 

“Noco here is a gestral merchant,” Maelle stood and motioned to the gestral in question. “We’ll run into quite a few of them throughout the continent. They’ll sell useful items for chroma, but they hide their best items unless you can beat them in a fight.”

“Only the fiercest warriors!” Noco agreed, gesturing at the three time travelers. “They have proved themselves already! Especially moustache man! He helped and will help us fix our ultimate sakapatate! What about you, eyebrow-mustache man? Are you a strong warrior?”

Poor Léo blinked and pointed to himself in confusion, getting a snicker from Catherine and Margot. 

“Ooooh! You look real strong!” Noco stated as he stopped in front of Alan. “Like Golgra! Our Chef!”

“Chef?” Alan questioned, looking to Jérôme, who shrugged.

“Well, Alan is our Commander,” Gustave grinned, humoring the little merchant. “He might impress Golgra a little bit.”

“Is there really an entire village of gestrals?” Tristan asked quickly. “The stories say there are, but-”

“Hmm. Maybe.”

“What-?”

“Noco is teasing,” Lune put a hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “There’s an entire village not far from here.”

Tristan’s eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas as he looked from Lune to Noco, to everyone else. When he realized Lune wasn’t lying, his face split into a grin that Lune eagerly shared.

“We don’t have time for detours,” Alan reminded quickly before his two researchers could go off. “We have to get to the Paintress.”

“The Paintress? How you gonna cross the sea? You’re so slow. And you have no fins!”

“There’s another sea between here and the paintress?” Jérôme turned to Lune with a frown.

“Unfortunately,” Lune nodded. “However, we won’t have to worry too much about crossing. We just need to ask Esquie for help. And he will help so long as we retrieve his stones. He’ll be able to carry us across the sea.”

“The Esquie?” Tristan gaped giddily.

“The only problem is, the gestrals guard Esquie’s home,” Lune continued as if Tristan wasn’t completely geeking out. “We’ll need Golrga’s permission and her password. And even though we technically already know it, I’d rather not anger Golrga by going without her permission.”

“I take it Golgra is powerful,” Alan asked.

“Very. There’s a reason she’s kept her position as Chef of the village in a place where fighting and killing each other is a hobby.”

“And!” Gustave was quick to step in and say. “We can’t forget the Gestral village is where Sciel was. If we’re lucky, she’ll already be there by the time we arrive. Hopefully with other survivors.”

“Well, then I guess we’ll be seeing your gestral village,” Jérôme joked at Tristan, who looked all too pleased by this declaration. 

“What’s it like, Lune?” Tristan pressed. “Is it just like the legends?”

“I’d say it’s better!” Lune began to gush.

As Lune began talking about the gestral village to the glee of Tristan, and the amusement of the others, Maelle moved to sit beside Verso.

“You alright?” she asked, voice low. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t realize how much his death affected me,” Verso said after a moment. “Not till he was standing in front of me perfectly okay.”

“Verso-”

“I thought it had stopped affecting me. Seeing people I cared about die. I’ve seen so many…”

Maelle was silent for a moment, contemplating. “I don’t think it ever gets easier. No matter how used to it you are. You just haven’t let yourself care enough in so long.”

“...Maybe you’re right.”

Maelle hummed, leaning over to rest her head against his shoulder. Verso tensed for a moment, but didn’t pull away like he had last time. Though he did grow stiffer as she reached out to grip his hand.

“I’m not your brother, Alicia,” Verso said quietly, like a plea for her to understand.

“I know. And I’m not your sister. But you are my friend, and you’re hurting right now, and it kind of sucks to suffer on your own. So you can hurt with me here because friends don’t let friends hurt alone.”

“...Friends, huh?”

“Yeah. Friends.”

The others geeking around them, Maelle and Verso mourned the loss of someone they cared for, and tried to process that said friend was now back with them as if he never left. After a little bit of time passed, Gustave came and sat on Verso’s other side. He didn’t touch or hold, he just sat there. Sitting beside them like an anchor. 

It was nice in a way that made Verso uncomfortable.

“I’ve got this feeling that if we let them keep talking, we’ll be here forever,” Verso said to break the moment. “And I’d rather get things with your Papa done and over with.”

“Okay,” Maelle agreed.

She lingered a moment longer before she sat up and pushed to her feet, tugging him with her. She didn’t let his hand go until he was steadily on his feet. With a quick glance to Gustave, Maelle moved to talk to Alan. The two men watched as Alan leaned down to talk to her, seeming to nod along as he turned to whisper to Jérôme. 

“She’s growing up,” Gustave noted as they watched her wait patiently for Alan and Jérôme to finish speaking.

“...You must be proud.”

“Yeah, well, I imagine you are, too,” Gustave glanced at him before looking back to Maelle. He was smiling fondly.

“I’m not her brother, Gustave.”

“Maybe not. But you care about her. Whether it be as family or friend, you’re allowed to care for others and the progress she made. We both know Maelle was an angry kid who felt she didn’t fit in with the world. At least now she knows why, and she’s found a path for her life. That’s something to be proud of.”

Verso stared at Gustave like he’d grown a second head. “You really do just seem to know what to say, don’t you?”

Gustave laughed. “If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that.”

This man was an enigma. Verso wasn’t sure what it was, but this man was… different. In a strangely good way. Despite everything life had thrown at this man, including his death, Gustave was still a light in this broken, dark world. 

It was a light Verso didn’t feel he deserved to stand in the presence of.

“I’m… sorry.”

“Hm? Whatever for?”

“For not saving you that night. On the Cliff.”

Gustave blinked. “Don’t blame yourself for that. There’s no reason for you to be sorry that I died. It was a tough situation, what with Maelle held in that sphere, and the others trapped. I don’t blame you.”

What?

“No, Gustave, you don’t understand-”

“And that was your father, too! Those confrontations had to be awkward, even if you were saving a life.”

This man was ridiculous. Absolutely, utterly ridiculous.

“Gustave, you need to listen to me. I-”

“Alright!” Alan cut off the chatter by projecting his voice. “We can fight Noco and go see the gestral’s later. Right now we have a plan. I want everybody ready to move. You have five seconds.”

“Tell me later,” Gustave said to Verso with a grin. “Best not to keep Alan waiting.”

Later. Verso wasn’t sure he’d have the courage to confess his greatest sin against the others later. But Gustave was already moving, joining Lune and Maelle at the front. But to Verso’s surprise, Gustave turned around to face him with a grin, beckoning him forward with a smile. 

Verso’s gut reaction was to run. To hide. To be anywhere but near this man and the light he gave off just by breathing.

But he took a step forward. Then another. And another. Soon enough, he was standing with the others as they approached the door to the main entrance of the manor.

“After you,” Maelle motioned brightly.

Verso huffed, but shoved towards the door, willing them to open. And as they did, the members of Expedition 33 were sucked in by a bright light, leaving Noco alone to sit and guard the door as the Expedition began their daringly crazy plan. 

Only for most of them to land in a heap on the floor as Léo tripped on the entrance way rug, slamming into Catherine, who fell into Jérôme, bumping into Alan, who grabbed at Margot, who snagged Gustave’s jacket, and then grabbed Lucien’s arm, dragging them all down onto the hard floor of the manor with a loud thud. 

Lune, Tristan, Maelle, and Verso stared at the mess of limbs in startled silence.

“Well… that’s one way to get Papa’s attention,” Maelle muttered as the pile of limbs groaned.