WHO: Expedition 33 (Gustave, Maelle, Sciel, and Verso) WHEN: post-mingle, pre-mission WHERE: the apartments WHAT: the remaining members of Expedition 33 NOTES\WARNINGS: spoilers for Acts 1&2 of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
It's nice, seeing Maelle and Gustave together again. Not that they'd ever been particularly clingy, but she can see them alert in a new way, looking around whenever the other strays too far or leaves the room. They'll settle, she's sure. Until then, she'll smile every time she sees how many inches are between their elbows.
It's less cute when Maelle says that, but.
"Not even a piano could make it less ugly," she says, crisply, a joke without a wink. Where is the wallpaper, the ironwork, the etchings in the bedposts? "But seems quieter than my old apartment. The restaurant below kept its terrace open until two in the morning."
She's by the window, for now, figuring out how to jimmy it open to let a better breeze in. The arm that should do it is broken. New, strange problems to have: Lumière's weather had been so sterile, kept even by the Dome, and a real summer is going to be interesting to contend with.
"What was our last proper pied-à-terre, anyway? The manor floor? Verso, come help me with this."
She has her doubts whether Verso will stay, but it wouldn't surprise her if he did. Once an Expeditioner...
Verso can't help but be surprised to be invited. He stands his own distance away from everyone as he lets his eyes drift around the space. Like he's taking in where they will be as everyone else is.
He wasn't sure there was a place for him. His gaze drifting back to Gustave, to Maelle, then Sciel. A little smile coming and going but he doesn't know what his place is among them. Isn't the person they wanted more time with here?
His eyebrows lift when Maelle addresses him. He blinks shortly after as he frowns in an exaggerated manner but still not yet saying anything. It's the joke from Sciel that really tells him just how quiet that he is being.
"Well, actually--" Like he hasn't been a silent specter, like he shifts to a teasing, playful tone. "-- we do have a piano that we could try to fit. I happen to lift one while I was somewhere. It just felt a little sad to leave it unplayed where it was."
The little smile that he has been giving shifts to a wider one.
"I'm helping, I'm helping." He holds his hands up to indicate he's coming over to assist Sciel with getting the window open. Four hands are better than two, and he's going to live that thought to himself as he helps with getting the window open.
He looks down at Maelle with a smile, leaning towards her just a little, like a flower facing the sun. "Yeah, I think a little rubble... maybe we could break some windows, put a few holes in the floor. Make it homey."
But Sciel's right: the place lacks any appealing characteristics aside from four walls and a roof. Lumiere was old and ruined, but there was still beauty everywhere, even in the small apartments. Maybe they can improve this one; maybe it'll be temporary until they find someplace else. (Maybe they'll all split up and go their separate ways, the Expedition finally broken.)
But Maelle continues, looking over at Verso, and Gustave's smile turns bemused. "A piano?"
Something he missed, by virtue of simply... not being there. He ignores the strange twist in his stomach and looks at Verso's back, bewildered frown melting away into a chuckle as he realizes what must have happened. "Wait... did you steal that piano from the casino?"
Leave it to Gustave to roll with her joke. He gets a grin, and it lingers on her face as she watches Verso go and help Sciel. It's so strange, this combination of the people she cares about, but it's not bad. It's wonderful. She had always wondered how Verso and Gustave would get on, and from what she can tell, it's as she thought. Then again, Gustave gets along with just about everyone he meets.
"Verso plays beautifully," she says. "Maybe once we get some decor in here, we can have a concert."
A stolen piano is still a piano. The decorating is probably going to fall on Sciel's shoulders, at the end of the day. Two of them are going for the Lumiere special, and Verso is Verso. They need help if it's going to feel like a functional home.
Sciel puts her shoulder into holding the window open so Verso can fiddle. Her body angled this way, Verso ducking in close to help, she can give him a private, encouraging look. Don't be a wallflower, now.
"I didn't know we had a thief in our midst," she remarks. "And to think I saw you as such an upstanding gentleman."
She turns her head to Maelle, then Gustave, both with a smile. To Gustave:
"Without Lune to give directions, you're our only chance at running a respectable household, you know."
Catching the look she's giving him, he offers a small smile in return. His chin dips in a small, little nod. All right, all right, no wallflowering. A brief second later with a twisting shove the window is open.
"It may have come from the casino, yes." He points lightly in Gustave's direction first before swishing his index finger to point to Maelle. "I did promise you one."
And since he is so close to Sciel, he lightly takes a swipe at the tip of her nose. "My good name is being tarnished by my actions, and I won't stand for the consequences." But he is already laughing and stepping away from the window to join the others.
"You get to be our upstanding gentleman, Gustave."
"Does he." There seems to be an awful lot Verso can do, from helping a grievously injured man to playing piano. A product of his long life, maybe; all those years to fill. Gustave can hardly imagine it. Since the Fracture, Verso has lived more than twice as long as his entire life, beginning to end.
His glance follows the way Verso snubs Sciel's nose with a fingertip, laughing, charming. There's a faint flicker of his eyebrows, pressing down and up again, and then he's lifting a hand of his own, palm out, waving them off. "Oh, no. No, don't put that on me. I may have been the oldest, but I didn't run our household. That was all Emma. And she'd laugh herself sick if she heard someone call me an upstanding gentleman, probably."
Maelle was already biting back a laugh at Sciel targeting Gustave. It escapes without warning when Verso piles on after her. Her eyes are often glued on Gustave, smile wide as she watches him try to get out of this. No chance.
"Yeah, but you're outnumbered. Three to one in favor of you being the head of this household," Maelle points out. "It shouldn't be too hard."
Her attention shifts back to Verso lightning quick as he touches her, and her smile is a grin just as quickly; how dare you? She’d push him if he didn’t flee.
She stays where she is, sitting on the narrow windowsill, taking up the breeze.
“And,” she adds, ”some of us have seen you look dashing in a suit. None of us clean up as well. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve seen Verso with a washed face.”
"It seems you can't escape the allegations of being a dashing, upstanding gentleman." He inclines his head toward Gustave, grinning a little more.
But he does pause, eyebrows furrowing, to pivot back toward Sciel. "Although, I am sorry but I look so ruggedly handsome when I'm a little dirty." He makes a sweeping gesture toward everyone else. "It's for your benefit."
"Only a very good, very biased friend would ever call me dashing," he points out, with a glance at Sciel that's a little more assessing than usual. "Is that really the only qualification you think someone needs to run a household? Looking nice in a suit? I don't even have that suit with me."
He points at Verso. "How about Monsieur Ruggedly Handsome? Should that be a qualification, too?"
"Well, I'm glad you've bathed for our benefit," she says, teasing Verso because she can. With dirt and sweat comes a particular smell, and Maelle is unfortunately solidly armpit height.
Sciel rolls her eyes playfully away from Verso and goes right on to catch Gustave’s look. She meets it with a shrug, shameless.
“I won’t be accused of telling the truth,” she says. “Besides, Verso can’t lead, he struggles without consistency. But if all I’ll get from you is complaints…”
She pushes herself to her feet, crossing the room to Maelle. She puts an arm around the girl’s narrow shoulders.
"Or someone who actually thinks that you are dashing." He swirls his index finger in the air, making small little circles, as he tosses a quick wink to Gustave.
"And you're most welcome." And he inclines his head toward Maelle.
Crossing his arms, he lets out a pained little sigh -- as dramatic and theatrical as he can manage. "I'm afraid she's right. I can't lead this household. It'd be ruined within a week."
His eyebrows lift with who the vote has changed to, and he huffs out a laugh. "She is the heart of our group, it is true." He dips his chin down as he mulls over that idea. "But if we need an adult and Gustave is unwilling and I'm incapable, it seems like the answer may be--"
And he shifts around to face the two. "--our dear Sciel, who has both the beauty and grace to lead this merry band to victory."
His eyebrows go up with that shrug, but it's all the comment he'll make — for now. Sciel and Verso are both adults, they can do what they want, but...
It doesn't seem to stop Verso from his usual exaggerated compliments, smiling as easily as he had at the obstacle course, at the waterpark. It lands a little differently, now. "Well, she certainly has plenty of experience with wrangling children," Gustave says, lightly. "But how is she at creating and enforcing a chore wheel?"
"What? You've really lost it if you think I'm even an option," Maelle laughs, voice a touch higher out of anxiety because what if. Sciel gets a barely-there push with her shoulder. If these so-called adults aren't being mildly gross, they're busy being bullies. Maelle likes it much better when it's aimed at Gustave.
"And you. You're even more insane," she says to Verso. The heart of the group? No, that was always Gustave. Another laugh escapes her as Verso comes to her rescue. "Sciel is the clear best choice, I think."
She glances at Gustave. The chore wheel? Really? She was happy to leave that in Lumiere.
She eases up her grip, should Maelle want to move away entirely, but she lingers right where she is. It’s a better angle on Gustave, anyway, and the furrow of that dark brown. Later, she decides, and she gestures broadly with her free arm, a little showy, a little silly.
“Well, then! I promise to be a benevolent leader, and to always move the chore wheel based on merit, rather than any petty whims. Shall we move on to orders of business?”
His eyebrows lift in response to the furrowed brow. He tosses a look of innocence even as he smiles. But he is soon holding his hands up in surrender at the "accusation" of insanity.
His hands do drop when Sciel graciously and theatrically accepts her role. "I feel as though we got played." He will take a second to look betrayed before inclining his head in her direction.
"Like what chores we truly have no right in doing?"
"There might be a few other more pressing matters than that." His glance flicks over to Maelle, as it has every few moments since they found each other again. Once again, they're in a situation where they need information they don't have, where everything is a question he doesn't know how to answer yet.
"Aurora, for one. Echo. These... missions. Some of the ones I've heard about have sounded dangerous, others just... strange."
A mission where everyone had to pretend to be a happy family? A gladiatorial world? How does any of it add up to saving their own?
And do they even still have a world left to be saved? "And that's not even touching on the complications of the other people here and their own motivations and abilities. Not to mention... Renoir."
His arms tighten across himself, but he quells the impulse to reach for that spot in his side where he'd been speared through, pouring blood, the wound through his chest that Aurora healed. He's getting better about it, he thinks. "We don't know what he might do."
Renoir. Maelle would prefer to talk about chore wheels and pretend that man isn't here. Her expression becomes much more somber, shoulders tensing under Sciel's arm, because Renoir is responsible for the single worst moment of her life. Just because Gustave is standing beside her again doesn't erase the memory of that kind of terror, that kind of grief. Not for her, not for Gustave.
She can't look at him or Verso and Sciel is all too perceptive, especially this close. That single open window doesn't feel like it's letting enough air into the room.
"... we'll kill him. We did it before. We'll do it as many times as necessary until he learns to stay away from us."
Silliness set aside, Sciel considers her duty as de facto leader done for now. Better to satisfy the questions she has, too, to most quickly get back to enjoying their afterlives... and whatever mission for Lumière's future is coming next.
But at Maelle's suggestion, she eases her arms off the girl, hands moving to her shoulders instead. Bracing.
"I met him," she remarks. "It wasn't pleasant, but he doesn't have any more experience or knowledge of this place than we do. He's just any old man, here."
There's no need to disagree with killing him, but it does put an odd pit in her stomach to imagine how that would look in a place like this. Would it be as sterile as the walls around them? Would he bleed brighter, on some raked concrete path outside a featureless building?
His gaze drifts between the three of them at the mention of Renoir and what to do about them. It lingers between Gustave and Maelle.
He stares at the ground briefly as he takes a few steps backwards. Subconsciously, he moves himself to be further away from the group - like they have to move their heads to speak to him instead of looking directly at one another.
Verso turns his head toward Sciel, noting her looking towards him. Yet again his gaze flickers back to the other two first.
"He's just an old man now." He repeats what has already been said but drifts his gaze toward the wall, toward the open window. "Our world is something he wants to maintain and survive." Frowning, he doesn't add anything else in defense of him; he can only say that much in any case.
"I saw him, too." Quiet, as he recalls that meeting. The way the sound of the cane echoed on the stairs. His own weak legs, trying to keep him upright without wavering. The man's calm dismissal. Those flashes of anger. "He was one of the first people I saw here."
And the last he'd seen in his own world. He shakes his head at Sciel, at Verso. "I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss him. If we can get stronger, regain our weapons, so can he. Our one advantage is that it seems like he's willing to leave us alone, so I agree with Sciel. We should do the same."
He turns his glance on Maelle, more intent, a little of the sternness of her guardian seeping in. "I don't want you anywhere near him. Even here, he could be dangerous, and he might not even be our biggest problem. Don't go seeking revenge, okay? If you see him, run."
Maelle looks between Sciel, Verso, and Gustave. Reluctantly, she nods, and decides to fess up since everyone else seems to be laying out their encounters.
"I... also saw him. Before I found you," she murmurs, eyes on Gustave. "I ran."
This time. She knew, alone, she would not be able to fight him. Even if he's just an old man, Gustave is right.
"So we all stay away from him. Distance, like Sciel said. Right?" Her eyes linger on Gustave, something pleading in them, before she looks to Sciel and then Verso. She can feel the pinpricks of upset behind her eyeballs. Gustave didn't run before. The one and only time she can recall him breaking a promise to her.
Sciel's expression softens, watching Gustave process, hearing his voice drop. How strange, to see someone reckon with their own death; how miserable that it would happen to someone so dear to her.
She nods, sure.
"All of us run," Sciel agrees, gently kneading Maelle's shoulders with her thumbs; easy, girl. Deep breaths. "He doesn't actually know much about us. If we steer clear, we can keep it that way."
She pauses, just a short purse of her lips.
"And... we keep each other informed. If we do cross paths with him, we speak up. Yes?"
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It's less cute when Maelle says that, but.
"Not even a piano could make it less ugly," she says, crisply, a joke without a wink. Where is the wallpaper, the ironwork, the etchings in the bedposts? "But seems quieter than my old apartment. The restaurant below kept its terrace open until two in the morning."
She's by the window, for now, figuring out how to jimmy it open to let a better breeze in. The arm that should do it is broken. New, strange problems to have: Lumière's weather had been so sterile, kept even by the Dome, and a real summer is going to be interesting to contend with.
"What was our last proper pied-à-terre, anyway? The manor floor? Verso, come help me with this."
She has her doubts whether Verso will stay, but it wouldn't surprise her if he did. Once an Expeditioner...
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He wasn't sure there was a place for him. His gaze drifting back to Gustave, to Maelle, then Sciel. A little smile coming and going but he doesn't know what his place is among them. Isn't the person they wanted more time with here?
His eyebrows lift when Maelle addresses him. He blinks shortly after as he frowns in an exaggerated manner but still not yet saying anything. It's the joke from Sciel that really tells him just how quiet that he is being.
"Well, actually--" Like he hasn't been a silent specter, like he shifts to a teasing, playful tone. "-- we do have a piano that we could try to fit. I happen to lift one while I was somewhere. It just felt a little sad to leave it unplayed where it was."
The little smile that he has been giving shifts to a wider one.
"I'm helping, I'm helping." He holds his hands up to indicate he's coming over to assist Sciel with getting the window open. Four hands are better than two, and he's going to live that thought to himself as he helps with getting the window open.
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But Sciel's right: the place lacks any appealing characteristics aside from four walls and a roof. Lumiere was old and ruined, but there was still beauty everywhere, even in the small apartments. Maybe they can improve this one; maybe it'll be temporary until they find someplace else. (Maybe they'll all split up and go their separate ways, the Expedition finally broken.)
But Maelle continues, looking over at Verso, and Gustave's smile turns bemused. "A piano?"
Something he missed, by virtue of simply... not being there. He ignores the strange twist in his stomach and looks at Verso's back, bewildered frown melting away into a chuckle as he realizes what must have happened. "Wait... did you steal that piano from the casino?"
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"Verso plays beautifully," she says. "Maybe once we get some decor in here, we can have a concert."
A stolen piano is still a piano. The decorating is probably going to fall on Sciel's shoulders, at the end of the day. Two of them are going for the Lumiere special, and Verso is Verso. They need help if it's going to feel like a functional home.
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"I didn't know we had a thief in our midst," she remarks. "And to think I saw you as such an upstanding gentleman."
She turns her head to Maelle, then Gustave, both with a smile. To Gustave:
"Without Lune to give directions, you're our only chance at running a respectable household, you know."
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"It may have come from the casino, yes." He points lightly in Gustave's direction first before swishing his index finger to point to Maelle. "I did promise you one."
And since he is so close to Sciel, he lightly takes a swipe at the tip of her nose. "My good name is being tarnished by my actions, and I won't stand for the consequences." But he is already laughing and stepping away from the window to join the others.
"You get to be our upstanding gentleman, Gustave."
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His glance follows the way Verso snubs Sciel's nose with a fingertip, laughing, charming. There's a faint flicker of his eyebrows, pressing down and up again, and then he's lifting a hand of his own, palm out, waving them off. "Oh, no. No, don't put that on me. I may have been the oldest, but I didn't run our household. That was all Emma. And she'd laugh herself sick if she heard someone call me an upstanding gentleman, probably."
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"Yeah, but you're outnumbered. Three to one in favor of you being the head of this household," Maelle points out. "It shouldn't be too hard."
Says the sixteen year old.
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She stays where she is, sitting on the narrow windowsill, taking up the breeze.
“And,” she adds, ”some of us have seen you look dashing in a suit. None of us clean up as well. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve seen Verso with a washed face.”
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But he does pause, eyebrows furrowing, to pivot back toward Sciel. "Although, I am sorry but I look so ruggedly handsome when I'm a little dirty." He makes a sweeping gesture toward everyone else. "It's for your benefit."
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He points at Verso. "How about Monsieur Ruggedly Handsome? Should that be a qualification, too?"
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"Well, I'm glad you've bathed for our benefit," she says, teasing Verso because she can. With dirt and sweat comes a particular smell, and Maelle is unfortunately solidly armpit height.
"Are we sure Lune isn't here, somewhere?"
They need an adult.
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“I won’t be accused of telling the truth,” she says. “Besides, Verso can’t lead, he struggles without consistency. But if all I’ll get from you is complaints…”
She pushes herself to her feet, crossing the room to Maelle. She puts an arm around the girl’s narrow shoulders.
“I’ll have to change my vote to Maelle.”
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"And you're most welcome." And he inclines his head toward Maelle.
Crossing his arms, he lets out a pained little sigh -- as dramatic and theatrical as he can manage. "I'm afraid she's right. I can't lead this household. It'd be ruined within a week."
His eyebrows lift with who the vote has changed to, and he huffs out a laugh. "She is the heart of our group, it is true." He dips his chin down as he mulls over that idea. "But if we need an adult and Gustave is unwilling and I'm incapable, it seems like the answer may be--"
And he shifts around to face the two. "--our dear Sciel, who has both the beauty and grace to lead this merry band to victory."
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It doesn't seem to stop Verso from his usual exaggerated compliments, smiling as easily as he had at the obstacle course, at the waterpark. It lands a little differently, now. "Well, she certainly has plenty of experience with wrangling children," Gustave says, lightly. "But how is she at creating and enforcing a chore wheel?"
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"And you. You're even more insane," she says to Verso. The heart of the group? No, that was always Gustave. Another laugh escapes her as Verso comes to her rescue. "Sciel is the clear best choice, I think."
She glances at Gustave. The chore wheel? Really? She was happy to leave that in Lumiere.
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She eases up her grip, should Maelle want to move away entirely, but she lingers right where she is. It’s a better angle on Gustave, anyway, and the furrow of that dark brown. Later, she decides, and she gestures broadly with her free arm, a little showy, a little silly.
“Well, then! I promise to be a benevolent leader, and to always move the chore wheel based on merit, rather than any petty whims. Shall we move on to orders of business?”
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His hands do drop when Sciel graciously and theatrically accepts her role. "I feel as though we got played." He will take a second to look betrayed before inclining his head in her direction.
"Like what chores we truly have no right in doing?"
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"Aurora, for one. Echo. These... missions. Some of the ones I've heard about have sounded dangerous, others just... strange."
A mission where everyone had to pretend to be a happy family? A gladiatorial world? How does any of it add up to saving their own?
And do they even still have a world left to be saved? "And that's not even touching on the complications of the other people here and their own motivations and abilities. Not to mention... Renoir."
His arms tighten across himself, but he quells the impulse to reach for that spot in his side where he'd been speared through, pouring blood, the wound through his chest that Aurora healed. He's getting better about it, he thinks. "We don't know what he might do."
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She can't look at him or Verso and Sciel is all too perceptive, especially this close. That single open window doesn't feel like it's letting enough air into the room.
"... we'll kill him. We did it before. We'll do it as many times as necessary until he learns to stay away from us."
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But at Maelle's suggestion, she eases her arms off the girl, hands moving to her shoulders instead. Bracing.
"I met him," she remarks. "It wasn't pleasant, but he doesn't have any more experience or knowledge of this place than we do. He's just any old man, here."
There's no need to disagree with killing him, but it does put an odd pit in her stomach to imagine how that would look in a place like this. Would it be as sterile as the walls around them? Would he bleed brighter, on some raked concrete path outside a featureless building?
She glances at Verso. It's an undeniable impulse.
"We keep our distance, first and foremost?"
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He stares at the ground briefly as he takes a few steps backwards. Subconsciously, he moves himself to be further away from the group - like they have to move their heads to speak to him instead of looking directly at one another.
Verso turns his head toward Sciel, noting her looking towards him. Yet again his gaze flickers back to the other two first.
"He's just an old man now." He repeats what has already been said but drifts his gaze toward the wall, toward the open window. "Our world is something he wants to maintain and survive." Frowning, he doesn't add anything else in defense of him; he can only say that much in any case.
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And the last he'd seen in his own world. He shakes his head at Sciel, at Verso. "I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss him. If we can get stronger, regain our weapons, so can he. Our one advantage is that it seems like he's willing to leave us alone, so I agree with Sciel. We should do the same."
He turns his glance on Maelle, more intent, a little of the sternness of her guardian seeping in. "I don't want you anywhere near him. Even here, he could be dangerous, and he might not even be our biggest problem. Don't go seeking revenge, okay? If you see him, run."
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"I... also saw him. Before I found you," she murmurs, eyes on Gustave. "I ran."
This time. She knew, alone, she would not be able to fight him. Even if he's just an old man, Gustave is right.
"So we all stay away from him. Distance, like Sciel said. Right?" Her eyes linger on Gustave, something pleading in them, before she looks to Sciel and then Verso. She can feel the pinpricks of upset behind her eyeballs. Gustave didn't run before. The one and only time she can recall him breaking a promise to her.
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She nods, sure.
"All of us run," Sciel agrees, gently kneading Maelle's shoulders with her thumbs; easy, girl. Deep breaths. "He doesn't actually know much about us. If we steer clear, we can keep it that way."
She pauses, just a short purse of her lips.
"And... we keep each other informed. If we do cross paths with him, we speak up. Yes?"
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