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
[ What kind of man helps kill his own father? What could Verso's motivations possibly have been? Was it really out of the goodness of his heart, did he really throw his loyalties onto the side of the Expedition? Why? ]
I mean, the Paintress, I can understand, but Renoir?
Renoir didn't want any Expedition to reach the Paintress. She granted him immortality. Somehow.
[He and Verso both. Because they were family? Maelle does wonder how much of that is true, now. Not that it matters.]
He's a monster. You remember the beach. Verso knew he needed to be stopped. I don't think it was easy for him, but... he chose our side.
[He had fallen silent after Renoir, when approaching the Paintress. When the ash and petals took to the winds. Maelle had been so wrapped up in her own emotions she didn't think to talk to him. Maybe she should have. Maybe she still can, for what it's worth.]
I know you don't trust him, but we had to. It... was hard, Gustave. Really hard. You were gone and--
[They had to continue. And that meant accepting help.]
[ He opens his mouth to ask are you sure that's the whole story? but Maelle's voice falters, fading out, and he lowers his head, feeling the clutch of guilt.
He was gone. Taken from them, maybe, rather than left them of his own volition, but gone all the same. It's hard not to feel like that's a failure on his part, no matter how unwilling he'd been. ]
You continued.
[ It's what they all do, right? One fell. The rest continued. He's sure Lune would have driven them along on the mission no matter what, even if Verso hadn't appeared. ]
[They continued. And how she wishes it was with Gustave. He should have been with them every step of the way. He should have seen what they accomplished because of the Lumina Converter. He shouldn't have been dropped onto the stones and left to the elements and the cold when he had been her home, her warmth.
Immortal or not, she'll kill Renoir if he even looks Gustave's way.
Maelle takes a shaky breath and tries to keep herself calm, a grimace appearing on her face with the effort it takes.]
I thought I got to skip the difficult conversations by joining Expedition 33.
[The Gommage. The last wishes, hopes for the future. The goodbyes. Miserable things that would make Maelle want to run and never look back because how could she ever say goodbye to Gustave? The Continent wasn't any kinder. She hates this conversation, and how she feels as if they don't understand one another.
But it had felt that way when she first told him her plan to join him, hadn't it? It gives her a minute sense of hope, but hope has been sparse since their return to Lumiere.]
[ This city is so strange, patchworked together in a way that feels like the opposite of Lumière and the Continent. Back home, everything felt like it was all supposed to be part of one whole, a world Fractured apart. Here, it seems like nothing really fits together.
But he and Maelle still do. Right?
He tips his head back and forth, gives her a crooking half smile. ]
Turns out there's no escaping the difficult conversations even when you're dead.
[ A terrible joke. Sophie would have laughed, though, he thinks. ]
I really am glad he was there to help you all. And he helped me here, too, I just...
[ His lips twist, eyebrows pushing up as he shakes his head. He's always been honest with Maelle, about everything aside from that one, devastating thing, always talked to her like an adult, has always taken her opinions seriously. He is now, too. ]
I guess I don't understand him.
[ Dryly, poking fun at himself in an attempt to shake her from her own morose mood: ]
And you know how much I enjoy not understanding things.
[Terrible, but the joke makes her laugh. They're both dead. To Renoir or the Gommage, at the end of the day, dead is dead and here they are in the next life. Their morbid jokes are at home, here.]
I don't know if I fully understand him, either. [Then, poking fun at herself:] Because we both know how good I am with people.
[Gustave is the only person she would say she actually understands. He's made it easy for her, with how open and welcoming he's been since the day they met. Everyone else... it feels like there's a wall.
Maybe not so much with Verso, if she thinks about it, but she pointedly does not while standing with Gustave.]
[ He laughs, too, and for a moment it feels like they could be back up there at the Hanging Gardens, the Expedition still to come, the Gommage not yet brushing its gentle, lethal touch over Lumière. ]
Well, you're pretty good with him so far. Pretend he's a Gestral, or something.
[ He wonders how Karatom is making out with his Ultimate Sakapatate. No more Expeditions for them to worry about, but he hopes the Nevrons will keep away. ]
[Oh, that laugh. She's missed it so much that hearing it might always make her heart squeeze. Maelle laughs under her breath, unsure if they should continue talking about Verso, but hoping that she might endear him to Gustave in some minor way.]
Wow. Okay. Not all of us can be sixteen, you know.
[ But he's chuckling as she bumps his shoulder with hers, and his eyes soften as he looks down at her. Everything else is still there, they both know it, but it's not Maelle's responsibility to fix this. ]
You know, Verso's at least three times older than me. You'd better be making fun of him, too.
Oh, I do. He's old as dirt. But you're my old man.
[She bumps into him again, a fond smile reaching her eyes. Nothing is fixed, but she can at least make him laugh, here and now. That has to amount to something when simply being with him heals something within her.]
[ She bumps into him again, and he leans into it, keeping his arm nudged against her shoulder. There probably will be fighting, he thinks, and a lot of it, if that first arena he found himself in is any indication.
...and the Lumina converter won't work here, not with no Nevrons to kill. They have no way of getting stronger, not unless Gustave can find some way to adjust it, to make it work in however many worlds they might end up visiting. ]
Oh, well, I'm glad I have some use, at least. Even if it's only as a target.
[Maelle explains with a hand sweeping between them. They're close enough that she can lean her head against his shoulder, red strands catching here and there.
... in the silence, she lets herself be a little girl again.]
[ Her head is a soft weight against his shoulder, so familiar it makes his heart ache. He hasn't had to miss her as long as she's missed him, and he doesn't even really know how long it's been, for her. Weeks? Months?
But he remembers how long the days felt when she was gone, tucked away into that strange manor while he and Lune searched, tried their best to find their way through. He'd felt like only half of himself, in those days. ]
Yeah.
[ Quiet, just for the two of them. Somehow he doubts it'll just be for this one night, but no part of him minds. He doesn't want to be parted from her, even for a few minutes. ]
Of course.
It'll be nice not having to set up watches, won't it?
[It's a relief to hear, even if Maelle couldn't imagine him saying no. It will probably be for far longer than one night--but Maelle reasons it would leave space for Lune, should they find her. Or she find them.
Either way, she's not ready to be apart from Gustave for any significant amount of time.]
Mmm. It'll be like when I was little and you'd stay with me after a nightmare. You always had a story.
[And as she grew older, grew more comfortable, the nightmares were less often. Glad as she was for more restful sleep, she missed waking up to see Gustave asleep in the chair beside her bed, neck at some impossible angle. It was only after losing him that she truly realized how special those moments were.
[ He remembers those nights, the ones where he stayed up late in the quiet dark, talking Maelle down from her nightmares until she was relaxed enough to sleep again. He'd been exhausted in those days, a young man himself, trying to be head of the household and look after not one but two sisters along with a handful of apprentices, working hard on Lumière's infrastructure.
But it had all been worth it, when he could look over and see Maelle relaxed into sleep, breathing deep and even. More often than not, he'd stayed right there in that chair at her bedside, legs outstretched, his head resting on his hand, and fallen asleep himself, unwilling to leave her alone in the dark. ]
I guess I better, seeing as I haven't found any engineering texts here to inflict on you.
I'm sure I can come up with something. But it might be your turn to tell me stories, non? With everything you've seen. It can't all have been bad, right?
[The engineering texts led to some very odd dreams. At least they weren't nightmares. The memory makes her smile, though it dims at his request. She finds herself not eager to think about the time in which he was so far away from her.]
It wasn't all bad, no. But... [She shifts just enough to slip an arm through his. She wishes she had his journal still, with her carefully written accounts of all the things they saw. Words for his apprentices, because he had so diligently written in that journal himself. It had been important. In the end, the boys had been too heartbroken to read it. Maelle understood.]
It was sad. Everything new I saw... I could only think about how you would have loved to see it, too.
[ He can hear the way her voice dims; she's always worn her heart on her sleeve, just like him, in so many more ways than he thinks she even realizes. When her small hand comes sliding through the curve of his elbow to take his arm, he presses it gently, reaches across with his metal left hand — shiny and new as the day he first got it — to cover her hand with his. ]
I would have liked to have seen it all with you.
[ There's no sense in not acknowledging it. There's so much grief in all of them right now, but this is part of it: mourning a lost opportunity. The things he would have loved to see. The things she would have loved to have shared with him. He can only imagine how much it hurt for her to be reminded of him so constantly, after he'd been so brutally torn away. He remembers her saying a year on the continent with him would be better than nine in Lumière without him, but she hadn't even gotten that, had she?
He shifts, letting go of her arm but holding onto her hand, so he can turn and lean against the railing and coax her close, holding out an arm she can slide under to press herself next to him if she wants, to lean on him the way she hasn't been able to for so long. ]
I guess we'll all still be sad about it for a while, even now that we have each other again.
[ Him, Maelle, Sciel... Verso, too. He'd seen the flickers of shadow in the man's clear eyes. To have lived so long... he must be carrying mountains of grief. ]
But I'd still like to hear about it. When you're ready.
And the good news is, it looks like we'll be able to see a whole lot of new things here together. Right?
[She wonders how much Sciel has told him. If she shared how Maelle cradled his arm until she could leave it somewhere beautiful. Her other hand comes to rest atop it, thumb brushing over the metal joints, and she wonders if it's somehow still there in that clearing while also being here.
When he moves, he doesn't need to say anything for her to understand her place. Right under his arm against his side, where she can feel him breathe. It feels good to lean into him. It feels right. Quickly and quietly, she wipes away a tear that's escaped and made its way down her cheek. Nowadays she finds herself crying without even realizing it. She never thought it possible to be so incredibly happy and heartbroken at the same time.]
Yeah. [On all counts. They're together, but they both remember when they lost one another.] I do want to tell you about what I saw. Like snow. It's probably good you missed that, because I would have loved to throw some at you. It was so cold. You would have made some funny noises.
[ He hadn't wanted Maelle to come on the Expedition, almost as much as he wanted to glean every last moment he could with her. And the truth is that even if he hadn't died on that cliff, she would have lost him shortly afterward: to the Gommage, if they hadn't reached the Paintress. To the Gommage, apparently, if they had.
But there still would have been more time. A little more time.
He curves his arm around her and tucks her close to his side, letting her lean against him. He was always only meant to be support for her, he thinks. For her, for his apprentices, for his friends, for Lumière. He's never known what to do with himself if there wasn't someone around to help. ]
I wouldn't have expected anything less. Why do you think I have this scarf?
[ It isn't because he thought he'd encounter snow and that Maelle would subsequently try to shove some down his neck, but why let facts get in the way of teasing her?
But he grows more serious again in the next moment, squeezing her gently against him. ]
You will. We will. We'll see it all. And I'll be right here with you, okay?
[He's her comfort. Esquie may give wonderful hugs, but no one can compare to Gustave. Her slender arms snake around him so that she can return the embrace.]
Don't leave me again. We have too much time to make up for, now.
[Time is too precious to be upset with Verso, immortal or not. She met Gustave too late in her short life and lost him far too soon. She won't lose him ever again.]
None of this makes sense to me, not that it ever really did, but I do know I still need you.
[She's not as adult as she thought she was, when she joined the Expedition, took her life into hands. She often caught herself looking for a man that wasn't there, for his advice, his reassurance. She's too old to be coddled, but she's missed feeling so safe and secure with Gustave. She'll never tease him for being too cheesy again. She was the luckiest orphan in all of Lumiere to have a guardian that loved her without reservation.]
[ One arm curves around her shoulders, holding her close; the other settles over the arm she has snaked tight across his body. She's still so small, only sixteen years old (and now will she only ever be sixteen years old?), barely more than a child and feeling delicate and fragile in his arms even though he knows her strength, her capability. Sixteen might be as good as an adult in Lumière, but that's by necessity, not because it's enough time being a child.
...And he still can't promise to never leave her again. He'd been taken from her once, and it's possible it could happen again, no matter how hard he fights to stay by her side. He shakes his head, holding her close. ]
I do still need you. I always need you.
[ He huffs out a breath that's not quite a laugh, rueful and fond. ]
I saw you everywhere I looked when I first got here. I missed you so much.
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[ What kind of man helps kill his own father? What could Verso's motivations possibly have been? Was it really out of the goodness of his heart, did he really throw his loyalties onto the side of the Expedition? Why? ]
I mean, the Paintress, I can understand, but Renoir?
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[He and Verso both. Because they were family? Maelle does wonder how much of that is true, now. Not that it matters.]
He's a monster. You remember the beach. Verso knew he needed to be stopped. I don't think it was easy for him, but... he chose our side.
[He had fallen silent after Renoir, when approaching the Paintress. When the ash and petals took to the winds. Maelle had been so wrapped up in her own emotions she didn't think to talk to him. Maybe she should have. Maybe she still can, for what it's worth.]
I know you don't trust him, but we had to. It... was hard, Gustave. Really hard. You were gone and--
[They had to continue. And that meant accepting help.]
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He was gone. Taken from them, maybe, rather than left them of his own volition, but gone all the same. It's hard not to feel like that's a failure on his part, no matter how unwilling he'd been. ]
You continued.
[ It's what they all do, right? One fell. The rest continued. He's sure Lune would have driven them along on the mission no matter what, even if Verso hadn't appeared. ]
I get it. Really, I do.
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Immortal or not, she'll kill Renoir if he even looks Gustave's way.
Maelle takes a shaky breath and tries to keep herself calm, a grimace appearing on her face with the effort it takes.]
I thought I got to skip the difficult conversations by joining Expedition 33.
[The Gommage. The last wishes, hopes for the future. The goodbyes. Miserable things that would make Maelle want to run and never look back because how could she ever say goodbye to Gustave? The Continent wasn't any kinder. She hates this conversation, and how she feels as if they don't understand one another.
But it had felt that way when she first told him her plan to join him, hadn't it? It gives her a minute sense of hope, but hope has been sparse since their return to Lumiere.]
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But he and Maelle still do. Right?
He tips his head back and forth, gives her a crooking half smile. ]
Turns out there's no escaping the difficult conversations even when you're dead.
[ A terrible joke. Sophie would have laughed, though, he thinks. ]
I really am glad he was there to help you all. And he helped me here, too, I just...
[ His lips twist, eyebrows pushing up as he shakes his head. He's always been honest with Maelle, about everything aside from that one, devastating thing, always talked to her like an adult, has always taken her opinions seriously. He is now, too. ]
I guess I don't understand him.
[ Dryly, poking fun at himself in an attempt to shake her from her own morose mood: ]
And you know how much I enjoy not understanding things.
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[Terrible, but the joke makes her laugh. They're both dead. To Renoir or the Gommage, at the end of the day, dead is dead and here they are in the next life. Their morbid jokes are at home, here.]
I don't know if I fully understand him, either. [Then, poking fun at herself:] Because we both know how good I am with people.
[Gustave is the only person she would say she actually understands. He's made it easy for her, with how open and welcoming he's been since the day they met. Everyone else... it feels like there's a wall.
Maybe not so much with Verso, if she thinks about it, but she pointedly does not while standing with Gustave.]
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Well, you're pretty good with him so far. Pretend he's a Gestral, or something.
[ He wonders how Karatom is making out with his Ultimate Sakapatate. No more Expeditions for them to worry about, but he hopes the Nevrons will keep away. ]
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He practically is one.
[Does it make sense now, Gustave?]
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[ He pretends to give it some thought, shakes his head with a exaggerated disbelief. ]
Nope. Can't be. He hasn't tried to fight me even once yet.
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[There was absolutely no hesitation with that reply.]
Speaking of old, we're going to have to get back into practice soon. Can't have you getting rusty if any of our missions here involve combat.
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[ He finally unfolds his arms to hold his hands up in surprised, defensive. ]
Hey, I've already fought here. A bunch of times. If anyone's rusty, it's going to be you.
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[She motions back to the door with a smile, and bumps her shoulder into him. This, here, is her Gustave. Goofy and happy, life in his eyes.]
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[ But he's chuckling as she bumps his shoulder with hers, and his eyes soften as he looks down at her. Everything else is still there, they both know it, but it's not Maelle's responsibility to fix this. ]
You know, Verso's at least three times older than me. You'd better be making fun of him, too.
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[She bumps into him again, a fond smile reaching her eyes. Nothing is fixed, but she can at least make him laugh, here and now. That has to amount to something when simply being with him heals something within her.]
You're more fun to tease.
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...and the Lumina converter won't work here, not with no Nevrons to kill. They have no way of getting stronger, not unless Gustave can find some way to adjust it, to make it work in however many worlds they might end up visiting. ]
Oh, well, I'm glad I have some use, at least. Even if it's only as a target.
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[Maelle explains with a hand sweeping between them. They're close enough that she can lean her head against his shoulder, red strands catching here and there.
... in the silence, she lets herself be a little girl again.]
Can I stay in your room tonight?
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But he remembers how long the days felt when she was gone, tucked away into that strange manor while he and Lune searched, tried their best to find their way through. He'd felt like only half of himself, in those days. ]
Yeah.
[ Quiet, just for the two of them. Somehow he doubts it'll just be for this one night, but no part of him minds. He doesn't want to be parted from her, even for a few minutes. ]
Of course.
It'll be nice not having to set up watches, won't it?
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Either way, she's not ready to be apart from Gustave for any significant amount of time.]
Mmm. It'll be like when I was little and you'd stay with me after a nightmare. You always had a story.
[And as she grew older, grew more comfortable, the nightmares were less often. Glad as she was for more restful sleep, she missed waking up to see Gustave asleep in the chair beside her bed, neck at some impossible angle. It was only after losing him that she truly realized how special those moments were.
She won't take them for granted again.]
Do you think you still have more?
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But it had all been worth it, when he could look over and see Maelle relaxed into sleep, breathing deep and even. More often than not, he'd stayed right there in that chair at her bedside, legs outstretched, his head resting on his hand, and fallen asleep himself, unwilling to leave her alone in the dark. ]
I guess I better, seeing as I haven't found any engineering texts here to inflict on you.
I'm sure I can come up with something. But it might be your turn to tell me stories, non? With everything you've seen. It can't all have been bad, right?
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It wasn't all bad, no. But... [She shifts just enough to slip an arm through his. She wishes she had his journal still, with her carefully written accounts of all the things they saw. Words for his apprentices, because he had so diligently written in that journal himself. It had been important. In the end, the boys had been too heartbroken to read it. Maelle understood.]
It was sad. Everything new I saw... I could only think about how you would have loved to see it, too.
[She thought of him all the time.]
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I would have liked to have seen it all with you.
[ There's no sense in not acknowledging it. There's so much grief in all of them right now, but this is part of it: mourning a lost opportunity. The things he would have loved to see. The things she would have loved to have shared with him. He can only imagine how much it hurt for her to be reminded of him so constantly, after he'd been so brutally torn away. He remembers her saying a year on the continent with him would be better than nine in Lumière without him, but she hadn't even gotten that, had she?
He shifts, letting go of her arm but holding onto her hand, so he can turn and lean against the railing and coax her close, holding out an arm she can slide under to press herself next to him if she wants, to lean on him the way she hasn't been able to for so long. ]
I guess we'll all still be sad about it for a while, even now that we have each other again.
[ Him, Maelle, Sciel... Verso, too. He'd seen the flickers of shadow in the man's clear eyes. To have lived so long... he must be carrying mountains of grief. ]
But I'd still like to hear about it. When you're ready.
And the good news is, it looks like we'll be able to see a whole lot of new things here together. Right?
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When he moves, he doesn't need to say anything for her to understand her place. Right under his arm against his side, where she can feel him breathe. It feels good to lean into him. It feels right. Quickly and quietly, she wipes away a tear that's escaped and made its way down her cheek. Nowadays she finds herself crying without even realizing it. She never thought it possible to be so incredibly happy and heartbroken at the same time.]
Yeah. [On all counts. They're together, but they both remember when they lost one another.] I do want to tell you about what I saw. Like snow. It's probably good you missed that, because I would have loved to throw some at you. It was so cold. You would have made some funny noises.
[Maybe it snows here.]
I want to see everything here with you, Gustave.
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But there still would have been more time. A little more time.
He curves his arm around her and tucks her close to his side, letting her lean against him. He was always only meant to be support for her, he thinks. For her, for his apprentices, for his friends, for Lumière. He's never known what to do with himself if there wasn't someone around to help. ]
I wouldn't have expected anything less. Why do you think I have this scarf?
[ It isn't because he thought he'd encounter snow and that Maelle would subsequently try to shove some down his neck, but why let facts get in the way of teasing her?
But he grows more serious again in the next moment, squeezing her gently against him. ]
You will. We will. We'll see it all. And I'll be right here with you, okay?
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Don't leave me again. We have too much time to make up for, now.
[Time is too precious to be upset with Verso, immortal or not. She met Gustave too late in her short life and lost him far too soon. She won't lose him ever again.]
None of this makes sense to me, not that it ever really did, but I do know I still need you.
[She's not as adult as she thought she was, when she joined the Expedition, took her life into hands. She often caught herself looking for a man that wasn't there, for his advice, his reassurance. She's too old to be coddled, but she's missed feeling so safe and secure with Gustave. She'll never tease him for being too cheesy again. She was the luckiest orphan in all of Lumiere to have a guardian that loved her without reservation.]
And I'm pretty sure you still need me.
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...And he still can't promise to never leave her again. He'd been taken from her once, and it's possible it could happen again, no matter how hard he fights to stay by her side. He shakes his head, holding her close. ]
I do still need you. I always need you.
[ He huffs out a breath that's not quite a laugh, rueful and fond. ]
I saw you everywhere I looked when I first got here. I missed you so much.
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