Chapter Text
In the time that followed, Lune reflected on those early days: the departure of Expedition 33 from Lumière, the initial bloodbath on the Dark Shores, their progress through the Continent toward the Monolith…
(Everything was so strange and new: the passive White Nevrons, the journals of Expeditions left behind, and the wreckage of previous journeys. Those who came before had failed in their quest to reach the Paintress, but it fed her insomnia, giving her new things to ponder and learn.)
Gustave’s murder, cruel and unfair. And then -
Verso.
(If she’d known what she knew later, would she have let her eyes linger on him? Or sought him out in the evenings, creating reasons for their hands to touch?)
(Or - would her joy at seeing him have spurred her into something she might have once imagined unthinkable: to race to him at their first meeting and kiss him (frantic and hungry, taking advantage of every second she could. To let him know how much she missed him, how much she needed him). She’d draw upon his strength to fill her, sustaining her heart until she had to inevitably let go.)
She almost missed that time - before. It was a prelude to the bloodshed and sadness, to the family that loved her like one of their own, to the desperation and desire, and -
And it was simpler, then.
*
Everything went wrong when they reached the Monolith.
Thousands of candles burned with everlasting flames, leading a path to where the Paintress hunched, her head pressed against her knees. “Eerie,” Sciel said slowly, glancing back at Maelle and Lune. But then she shrugged and said, “but also kind of romantic. Maybe this is what the Paintress is into?”
Maelle frowned doubtfully, but Lune caught a glimpse of Verso’s face: horror and disgust clearly visible as he looked from the candles to the Paintress. Then he noticed her stare and swept his feelings under a grim expression. “Let’s go.”
Renoir was waiting for them as they neared the Paintress’s feet. “You really are insisting on doing this, aren’t you?” He asked, leaning on his cane. His pale eyes moved to each of them in turn. When he looked at Lune, she arched an eyebrow in challenge. He blinked and for a moment she thought she saw a flicker of amusement - but then he rounded on Verso. “For the last time: leave. You would destroy our family - ”
“I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m trying to save it,” Verso snapped, venom in his voice. “You’re wrong to protect her.”
“If you fight the Paintress, you will die.” Renoir’s solemn voice held a note of grave certainty.
A chill ran down Lune’s back. She glanced at Verso, but he wasn’t deterred. “All of this ends today, Renoir.”
Renoir’s mouth tightened. “I do this out of love,” he warned, “to protect those who are left.”
Verso summoned his blades. “Save your platitudes,” he spat, and Maelle roared, "you’re going to pay for what you did!”
Renoir’s gaze moved to Maelle, and Lune saw him nod slowly. “Very well,” he said, and straightened his shoulders. “It is better to fall by my hand than hers, after all.”
And they fought him - Verso and Maelle the fiercest of all, unleashing their most powerful attacks on the old man. Just like the fight in Old Lumière, in front of the Manor, Lune got the feeling Renoir was holding back, waiting for the right moment to strike them down -
But it didn’t come.
Too soon, it seemed, he staggered and dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. His face was flecked with blood. Maelle started forward, triumph on her face - but Verso’s arm shot out, holding her back. “It shouldn’t be you,” he muttered. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t look at Renoir, either. “I don’t want… this shouldn’t be on your conscience.”
“I have every right. He killed Gustave - !”
“I know. But I promise you: you don’t want this, Maelle.”
She sent him a fiery glare. She pointed her rapier at the dying Renoir. “Then you do it.”
Verso glanced at the old man. He lowered his arm and stepped forward - but reluctance was clear in his hunched shoulders.
“Hey.” Sciel stepped up to Verso’s other side, her hand on his elbow. “Maybe you shouldn’t be the one to do this, yeah? He’s your father, after all.”
His hands tightened around the handles of his blades. “That’s why it should be me,” he said, shrugging her off.
Renoir tipped his head back as Verso approached, gazing up at his son. “Just know,” he rasped, his voice full of pain, “I… do this for you. And for her. With the hope that… you can one day forgive - ”
His words drowned in a gurgle of blood. Sciel gave a cry of shock and Maelle sucked in her breath, as if seeing his death somehow pained her. Monoco made a low grumble and turned away.
Lune watched. She watched the blood spill out of Renoir’s neck as he slumped to the ground, and met Verso’s eyes as he turned. He looked straight at her, his face and chest drenched in his father’s blood.
“It’s almost over,” he said in a monotone. He ducked his head as a spasm of grief crumpled his face. Tears fell in mirroring tracks down his cheeks, cutting through the red. “This… this is what the Expeditions were made for.”
No one said anything. Maelle was staring at Renoir’s body, her hand squeezing a fold of fabric over her chest.
Lune stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Verso,” she murmured. She knew he hated him, but…
But Renoir was still his father. Family.
She understood the complexity of feelings toward family all too well.
Lune hesitated, then gently placed her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, swiftly, his eyes glassy and searching. She nodded slowly, acknowledging his pain and his sacrifice. “We continue,” she said.
He nodded gravely in return. “We continue,” he echoed. He turned, and Lune followed his gaze up to the Paintress.
“Let’s press forward,” Lune said.
But they only took a few steps forward when the Paintress stirred. She lifted her head, the empty face staring down at them. She seemed to consider them for a few moments, and Lune found herself holding her breath, wondering what the Paintress would do. Then the Paintress lifted an arm, waving her hand in a dismissive go away gesture before dropping her head once again against her knees.
“Oh hell no!” Sciel shouted, while Maelle’s words were swallowed in an enraged scream as she charged the Paintress. She stabbed a giant toe in a flurry of lunging strikes. Sciel quickly joined her, with Monoco erupting into a stalact to deliver a devastating charge with his horn.
The Paintress didn’t move.
“Fight me!” Maelle shrieked, her voice high and strained. She ignited the flames around her rapier and flipped into a gradient attack. “Stand up and fight me, you bitch!”
Sciel added her battle cry to Maelle’s, spinning her double scythe in a blur of motion.
“What is the Paintress doing?” Lune asked. It wasn’t logical; why wasn’t she responding? Didn’t she feel the attacks at all?
Is this why the other Expeditions failed? A voice inside her asked. Is it possible that… the Paintress can’t be defeated?
“She knows we’re here,” Verso said. His voice was quiet, but there was a bitterness that soured his words. “She just doesn’t care.”
And for a few minutes, it seemed as if Verso was right. Maelle, Sciel, and Monoco attacked, over and over again. Maelle screamed until her voice began to turn hoarse. She kept throwing herself at the Paintress, her hatred and rage pushing her to keep fighting even as Sciel and Monoco slowed.
“I hate you,” she cried, her voice cracking from the strain. “Fight - Fight me!”
“Maelle,” Sciel murmured, glancing over at her. She gestured hopelessly to the Paintress. “It’s like we’re not even here.”
“I don’t care.” Maelle stabbed her rapier to the hilt, twisted, then ripped it out again. “You killed them. You killed my entire family. I hate you. I hate you!”
The Paintress’s hands curled into fists.
“Watch out, she’s moving!” Lune called. Too late; with surprising speed, the Paintress’s head shot up. She lifted her arm. She swept her hand in an arc; red petals appeared in the air around Maelle.
“No!” The word exploded out of Verso. He started forward, but Monoco was faster. He bowled into Maelle, knocking her to the ground - and the petals descended around him. He greyed as his spirit left him, his body gommaging into ash and petals.
Verso sprinted to Maelle and Lune searched for any remnants of Monoco, anything she could resurrect -
Nothing. He was gone.
“Dammit!” Sciel launched into a gradient attack, her scythe a blur around her. “If this is the end - so be it!”
“Get back, stay safe,” Verso said warningly to Maelle. His eyes flickered to Lune before he turned to face the Paintress. “Renoir is dead, Paintress. I killed him. He’s dead!”
The Paintress moved her hand in a swath. Red petals descended on Sciel and she calmly flicked the card in her hand. She got off one last attack before dissolving into gray and red.
She was smiling when she died
“No!” Maelle wailed. She struggled to her feet and Lune hurried to assist, dousing the girl with a quick surge of rejuvenating energy.
“Focus,” Lune cautioned, but her brain was quickly retreating into the same risk-assessment mode it had locked itself into after Gustave died. If they retreated now, they might lose one more Expeditioner, but it would mitigate full loss of the group. If they took Esquie back to Lumière, the entire city could be informed and they could determine a different approach -
“Coward!” Verso bellowed. He jabbed an accusatory finger up at the Paintress. “Come down here and look at us when you kill us!”
“What are you doing?” Lune demanded, incredulous and aghast. “If we die here - ”
“If I die, I’m taking her with me,” Maelle vowed, her hoarse voice giving an uncanny lilting quality to her words. She raised her rapier to the attack position.
Lune whirled on Verso. Surely he would see some sense. “Verso.”
He met her eyes, sending her one of those looks she’d come to recognize as uniquely Verso: oblique and heavy, as if he knew more than he let on.
“This is why we’re here,” he said. “You. And me. And Maelle. To finish this.”
Lune stared back at him. But before she could decide exactly how to respond, Verso’s face changed. He rounded on the Paintress. “All of this is your doing,” he snarled. “And you know I won’t stop until this is over. So come on. Come on!”
But neither of them were watching Maelle. With a roar she launched herself toward the Paintress, her rapier extended -
And the Paintress’s fist slammed her into the ground.
Lune and Verso both screamed. Lune pounded her own fists into the ground, columns of earth bursting under the Paintress’s hand and pushing her back, off of Maelle. The Paintress reeled a moment, then stared at her hand as if surprised.
Lune turned her attention to Maelle. Verso knelt beside her, and Lune sank down on the girl’s other side. She tried not to grimace at Maelle’s injuries: her chest was oddly sunken, like part of her had deflated. Her fluttering eyes and short gasps visibly slowed as Lune glanced over her.
She set to work, summoning energy, summoning life into Maelle. She ignored Verso’s panicked murmur (she couldn’t make out what he was saying anyway) and focused all her efforts into healing. The gouts of blood began to fade from Maelle’s Expedition uniform, the broken bones joining together in soft pops. But still Maelle strained for breath, the blood draining from her face until she was ashen grey.
“No, no, no…” Lune spread out her fingers, desperately searching. Punctured lungs? Internal bleeding? Unless she knew the exact cause, she didn’t know where to concentrate - Lune shuddered. I could lose her. We could lose her.
Then -
Red petals fluttered in her periphery. She froze, then glanced up. They were falling around her.
Her eyes found Verso. Fresh tears raced down his face, following the tracks made before. He stared back at her, realization and sorrow stark on his face. “No,” he said.
Suddenly the air around them shifted, a heavy slant of movement. It was if the very earth had stumbled.
Verso slowed. Lune felt herself grind to a halt.
Sound vanished.
It was a moment.
It was an eternity.
And then…
Life sped up again. Lune gasped, her shoulders drooping as she was released from - from - whatever that was.
The Paintress? She wondered. Then she looked up, and all thoughts fled from her head.
The petals were frozen in the air above her. Lune scrambled back, away from their reach.
Maelle lay motionless on the ground. Verso stared, like a statue, at the place where Lune had been moments ago.
Movement to the side drew her attention, and Lune whipped around, her arm raised to summon fire. A woman stood between her and the Paintress. She had been pointing at Lune, but now she lowered her arm. She moved slowly, strangely, as if she were under water; even her hair stirred gently over one shoulder, in slow motion. All the color had leeched from her, dousing her in greys and black, as if she’d just stepped out of a photograph. Her hair covered one eye, and the lower half of her face was obscured by a porcelain mask.
She was the only thing that moved.
Lune blinked, and suddenly Maelle’s panicked words returned to her: stories of dreams and visitations by Renoir and a Masked Woman.
Could this be… her?
“What do you want?” Lune asked, pushing down a flare of apprehension. “Renoir isn’t here. He’s… He’s gone.”
The girl didn’t speak. She just lowered her head, nodding.
“Maelle, she’s…” Lune glanced at the girl on the ground. She still looked close to breathing her last, despite Lune’s best attempts. “I don’t know if I can save her.”
The Masked Woman’s head jerked up. Her vibrant white eye stared directly at Lune and she stepped forward, gesturing to herself and then Maelle.
Lune stared, uncomprehending. “I’m sorry, I don’t…”
The woman made another insistent gesture. Her - Maelle. Her - Maelle.
“What, you and Maelle… you’re Maelle?”
The Masked Woman nodded emphatically, gesturing one more time. Then she summoned a rapier and held it up - and Lune recognized it immediately.
“Maelle?” She whispered. She analyzed the woman’s face above the mask, then glanced down at the teenage girl. Now that she looked, there was a kind of resemblance. The Masked Maelle looked somehow older and more somber than her counterpart. Her strange black uniform and colorless hair had thrown Lune off at first, but the tilt of her head was familiar.
But if there were two Maelles here, that would mean -
“How?” She asked. “How are you here but also - ” She turned, pointing to the girl on the ground. “Which of you is - I mean, how did you separate? Or are you from different - ”
Masked Maelle shook her head. She touched her mask with a gloved hand and shook her head. Then she made a series of motions that Lune fought hard to comprehend: pointing to the Paintress, to her prone self then somewhere behind her, her own chest, then two fingers crossed, another gesture to the air behind her - finishing with a wave toward her.
Lune stared back, uncomprehending. She’d always been rubbish at this sort of thing. “I don’t understand.”
Masked Maelle tried again, repeating the same motions as before, only faster. Lune crossed her arms, fighting down annoyance. It had been a long time (when her parents were alive, honestly) since she’d felt this stupid. “Okay, you need me for something,” she said. “But - why?”
Masked Maelle took a few steps forward, gesturing in a circle to all of them: Lune, Verso, both Maelles. Then she pointed back at the Paintress.
“To help fight the Paintress?” Lune asked.
She shook her head jerkily, making an impatient rolling motion with her hand. When Lune didn’t answer, Masked Maelle shook her head again, her gray hair slowly waving from the motion.
“Could you write it down?” Lune suggested.
Suddenly, without preamble, the world jolted to life. Behind Masked Maelle, the Paintress turned her head. She’d seen the second Maelle.
“Alicia!” The panicked cry burst from Verso. He raised himself on one knee, pushing off the earth with his hands - and the world stopped again.
Lune whirled to look at Masked Maelle. She had her arms raised, her gloved hands spread wide.
“You’re - You’re the one stopping time.” Lune’d known it, subconsciously (Masked Maelle was the only logical answer), but seeing it happen was entirely different. “But how? Why?”
For a few moments, Maelle didn’t move. Whatever magic she’d done held steady, and she slowly lowered her arms. Then she turned to Lune and held out her hands beseechingly.
“You’re trying to help,” Lune translated. “No - you want help.” She glanced up at the Paintress, the featureless face turned toward them, then at Verso, frozen mid-crouch.
Quickly, Lune made a mental list of everything she now knew:
Masked Maelle could stop time.
She needed Lune: something only she could do, perhaps? Something with Chroma or the elements?
Explaining took too long (and Lune didn’t understand her hand motions anyway).
Her control only lasted so long - and all the while the other Maelle (the one Maelle Lune knew and loved) was dying at their feet.
Gloved hands closed around hers, and Lune jumped; even through the leather, Masked Maelle’s hands were like ice. She stared urgently, her white eye wide.
And Lune made a decision.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, whatever you need to do - do it. I’ll help however I can.”
Masked Maelle nodded once. She reached up one hand, placing the heel of her palm against Lune’s forehead.
Words - words that didn’t belong to Lune spoke into her mind, low and scratchy (like the crackling air on a gramophone) -
>Return.<
>Go… back.<
Then she pushed Lune backward. The ground disappeared and the world spun with color and sound.
…And suddenly Lune was standing by a hedge, cobblestones beneath her feet. Tall buildings rose on her right - the residential district of a city, it looked like.
No. She knew this city.
Or, what was left of it.
Nausea twisted in her stomach, sudden and strong. She turned, covering her mouth, hoping she wouldn’t have to vomit in the immaculately-trimmed hedge.
Realistically, it probably didn’t last longer than twenty or thirty seconds. Lune just focused on breathing - in, out - her body trembling with the effort of staying upright. Slowly, gradually, the feeling receded. She straightened, swallowing hard, and looked around.
Her initial assessment had been right: this was Lumière, but not the one she’d known. In this Lumière, the buildings stood tall. The streets were clean of scattered petals, and there were streetlamps and post boxes: normal signs of life. Down the street, Lune even saw a horse and carriage turn a corner and disappear.
No whorls of crystalized Chroma. No broken buildings.
She tilted her head up. The sky was cluttered with gray clouds. There were no floating stones, no levitating lamps or crumbling bricks strewn mid-free fall. It was almost… strange. It was so orderly. It was like -
Lune gasped. She spun around, craning her head to catch a glimpse of the Monolith. She hurried to the end of the hedge, looking over a grand mansion and saw -
The Crooked Tower. But it wasn’t bent; it stood erect like a saber, defying the heavens.
(It looked… so tall.)
If the Tower wasn’t crooked, if the city was intact, and if she didn’t see the Monolith, then…
(Go back, Masked Maelle had said.)
…she’d come to Lumière before the Fracture. Before the Paintress.
She’d traveled through time.
“Wait, wait,” she muttered to herself. Time travel wasn’t possible. It was theoretical; pointless to study or explore to any real degree. Besides, there were laws that had to be followed for even hypothetical time travel to work - gravitational and mathematical, to start with.
More likely she’d hit her head and had a concussion. Perhaps she’d been Gommaged and these were just the final, flitting thoughts of a dying woman -
No. That wasn’t right; she was still alive, still standing here and thinking, wasn’t she?
(Besides, she didn’t have enough imagination to come up with time travel as a last speculative thought.)
Lune made herself take a breath.
And… if it’s true and I did travel through time… her mind whispered.
If it were true, there would be no Monolith yet. That was a hypothesis she could prove.
She began looking again, leaning this way and that. As she looked, her eyes were drawn to the grand mansion, a long path and more hedges leading to the imposing door. She knew that place, too. Where had she seen…?
Of course.
“Old Lumière,” she whispered.
The Manor.
The Paintress’s Heart.
“Excuse me.” A hesitant voice spoke behind her. “Are you lost, madame?”
Lune turned. It was Maelle: alive and well, dressed in a casual shirt, vest and trousers. She held a wrapped brown parcel in the crook of one arm (books, by the shape of them).
Maelle’s eyes widened. “Wait… It’s you, isn’t it?”
Lune started forward, equally surprised. “I - Maelle, are you alright?” She gave the girl a quick look-over to be sure. "You're not hurt?"
Maelle blinked. “Maelle? I’m Alicia.”
Lune stared back.
Maelle - or, Alicia’s - eyes traveled over Lune’s clothes before returning to her face. She hitched the parcel higher in her arms, tilting her head. Her long auburn ponytail swished over her shoulders. “Usually when people introduce themselves, it’s customary to tell them your name in return,” she said, sending Lune a wry smile. “So…?”
Lune tucked away her curiosity about Old Lumière and Ma - Alicia to examine later, when she was alone. She realized the girl was still waiting for a response, arched eyebrows joining her amused expression.
She looked so very much like Maelle just then.
Lune took a breath to center herself.
“My name is Lune,” she said.