It's one of the many things Clive keeps with him after their cotton-soft hours wrapped in each other's bliss end, and when they finally crawl off of the much-abused bed and its ruined bedsheets to brave the world outside of the manor once more. Hope, and I want to have you, and I believe you.
Clive repeats these things in the back of his head as they traverse familiar and unfamiliar landscapes again, the eye of the Monolith (a different number etched onto its face now, bizarrely smaller than the number of years he's lived) watching them like a disapproving parent with an ominous reminder about it being past their bedtime.
They press on.
It's a cool night on the edge of an island with a coastal cave when it Happens; Clive, restless and unable to sleep, is standing near the edge of the coastline looking towards distant snowy mountains when he thinks he feels the flicker of familiar chroma, dark and deep and inexorable― the same one that awakened him days back, and pulled the creature inside him out of its flesh-and-blood cage. Its sense memory makes the fine hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and the creature in his chest rage (rejoice?). His pulse quickens, and he thinks of I am the son, and the man in the suit, and the scattered recollections of Joshua, his brother, dead― ]
Fuck, [ Clive whispers, as he feels flames start to leak from his hands, his teeth. ] Fuck, fuck.
[ There's nothing in the dark around them. The chroma could have been just another errant breeze― this world has been built by the same power that Renoir is comprised of― but the hammering of his heart heats the furnace ever-burning inside him, and the obsidian demon sitting just under Clive's skin shudders, laughs, beckons. ]
Fuck, [ he whispers again, as he drags himself towards the beach, away from camp. ] Verso, go! Run into the caves!
[ His voice sounds different; it vibrates in the expanding canyon of his chest, licks like flames over coals. Streaks of red color jet-black hair, and blue eyes glow fluorescent in the dim.
He can't control it. He remains in that half-primed state for a stuttering few seconds, breathing hard through chattering teeth, until he can hold it back no longer: something in him twists and bursts, and the last thing he feels before flames overtake him is despair, deep and shattering.
(In Clive's place, on the sandy shores where Clive stood moments before: a giant creature with two ramlike horns, volcano-black and pulsing with heat. The only thing it has in common with Clive are its eyes, two pinpoints of brilliant ocean blue.) ]
[Honesty has always been something of a burden for Verso. The lies he tells have changed over the years, but he can't really remember a time when he wasn't, in one way or another, actively pretending to be a different man than he is at his core.
So, it's nice, he thinks, how when he and Clive step back outside into the open air of the Continent, the wind that greets them almost seems to lift a weight off of his shoulders instead. They aren't safely tucked away in a room in a manor where no one can see them; they aren't naked with their hearts bared and pressed together, caught up in a languid passage of time that yields to their will and protects them from what awaits them on the other side of the moment. But as normalcy restores itself and the world stretches out ahead of them, Verso still feels okay. Better than okay.
He has hope and belief and Clive.
In these early days, the two men let their feet guide them while their hearts and minds work their way through all that's happened and everything they need to bright about. Often, they slip into comfortable silences while their thoughts get uncomfortable. One might press a kiss to the other's forehead, or take the other's hand, or join the other in their bedroll to hold them however they needed to be held. But they have their moments of healing, too, conversations and laughter and smiles that draw the night a little closer and make the promise of a new dawn feel more real.
Almost a week into their wanderings, Verso starts writing again. He's sitting by the fire as Clive stands on the coastline, trying to put to words how it feels just to be near him when he notices something off. A shift in his posture. A change to the curl of his fingers. A tension that replaces the sleeplessness.
When Clive calls out to him, Verso's already on his feet, determinedly heading towards the beach instead of the caves. A decision that becomes all the more solid and unshakeable when he notices the luminescent colouring of Clive's hair and the way flames strike across him like claw marks. And then Verso blinks – he fucking blinks – and Clive is gone, replaced first by flames and then by a monster. This doesn't stay his step, either, though it does keep him from summoning forth his blades else that aggravate the situation.]
Clive?
[His voice is loud and steady despite how clearly it rings with concern.]
You're okay. Focus on my voice.
[Will that work? Fuck if he knows. But he isn't going to sit back and do nothing; he's not going to cower away from someone with whom he knows he's safe, even if that burning beast wants to pose a challenge to that certainty.]
[ The burning beast is a clear threat to that certainty.
It undulates, roils, seethes. Clive, somewhere underneath the overpowering strength of the creature's character, pushes against its hungry, hostile yearning to be complete (whatever the hell that means), and scrabbles with mental nails and teeth to make the beast yield.
It doesn't. Not even at the sound of Verso's voice, which sifts through layers of mental sieves before it finally reaches Clive in the midst of all this fire, mouthing soundless defiance, chanting no, no, no, no, no.
Founder, not again. Please, not again.
The Nevron－ Ifrit, Clive finally hears it call itself, a triumphant exertion of its identity and name-purpose－ steps sideways, clawed feet skimming the edge of the coast, making water hiss and vaporize upon contact. There's no recognition in its eyes when it appraises Verso: its focus is one of instinctive aggression, an animal sensing something in its hunting grounds.
Ifrit huffs, snarls, and roars. The sound comes with more fire, spreading outwards from outstretched arms. It fills the beach with its ire, a rebellious child annoyed that it's been locked shut for too long; Clive's implorations to calm fall on obstinate ears, and it lashes out with another burst of flame at the nearest thing that looks like a toy, a two-legged creature speaking to it as if they're on the same terms. ]
[The one benefit of spending so long on the Continent, Verso supposes, is that he's come to recognise the signs of being hunted. Which also means that he's a bit desensitised to the whole ordeal, so he rolls his shoulders and flexes his wrists, shifting into battle position as he summons forth his blades.]
Right. Not sure what I was expecting.
[It is a goddamned Nevron, after all. They're not exactly known for being reasonable.
Verso, however, is supposed to have a better track record for embracing reason. Mostly. Now, though, he can feel his heart already clamouring to get ahead of him, its rhythms chaotic with a dread he hasn't felt since he realised that Julie and the others were intent on torturing the truth out of him and that he would have to kill his way free. That's not on the table now – it is absolutely fucking not on the table now – but rather than calming that particular burst of nerves, it puts him at an immediate loss once he starts thinking beyond his own endangerment.
At least his focus remains sharp. The Nevron fires off its first burst of flames and Verso rolls to the side, then rushes to close more distance between the two of them. A foolhardy move. A desperate one. It occurs to him that maybe retreating would be for the best – maybe all this beast needs is some space to calm down, as had seemed to be the case last time – but the thought of abandoning Clive to it and its whims is unfathomable. Maybe if he can get closer, though...]
I've seen bigger fires.
[It's a dumb taunt but the mask of flippancy that rises with it helps to ground Verso as he keeps inching his way nearer, still hesitant to attack.]
[ Unseen, in the depths of that strange Nevron and its corrosive chroma, Clive has his invisible hands white-knuckled around invisible reins, tugging at a thick neck that refuses to bend or bow. Desperate not to break the one thing in his life that makes sense anymore, the one thing he would rather die than hurt.
Clive looks at Verso through Ifrit's eyes, and sees Verso; Ifrit looks at Verso and sees something made in ancient, decades-old chroma. The same decades-old chroma that made him stir the first time in Renoir's presence, hungry for silver-gold energy cutting rifts in the ground, in the sky.
It unhinges its jaw, and snaps. The sand just under its feet burns, melts, turns to glass. Its next lashout is more focused, claws curled with intent: it makes as if it wants to grab, to sink claws and teeth and drink.
Sickening. Briefly, it occurs to Clive that he's protesting inhabiting Ifrit as much as Ifrit refuses to yield to him, and therein lies the problem－ but the thought of accepting that his need and want for Verso is manifesting like this is too horrifying to consider. That any part of him could want this, or yearn for this, makes him want to retch.
Calm, he yells at the beast again, but it swipes and lunges anyway. Like maybe it wants a little attention from the man its master likes so much. ]
[Night falls and Verso takes over the responsibility of keeping watch while Clive claims whatever sleep he can manage. Though the day had been calmer than usual, more about getting Clive familiarised with the lay of the land than about clearing said land of its ever-present Nevron problem, it had still been a long one.
Then again, most of them are.
Verso sits down on the edge of the camp, where the ground juts out over a small stream trickling its way towards a nearby river that can barely be heard roaring over the singing of katydids in the trees overhead. It's a nice night, the breeze cool and fresh, the sky clear enough to see every star that's not hidden behind the detritus from the Fracture. He closes his eyes and can almost, almost, almost pretend that the world is a peaceful place, a beautiful place; he can almost convince himself that it's still possible to fight for a lasting future.
When he opens his eyes again, time has stopped, colour has been stripped from the world, and Alicia stands before him. Immediately, he rises to his feet. And just as quickly, she gestures over to where Clive lays sleeping by the fire, pointing at him, then at Verso, at him, then at the manor, at him, then at Lumiere, at him, then at the Monolith.
Right. Of course she's curious; of course she sought them out as soon as she was able. There's no chance that Renoir hadn't told her to keep away from the Expeditioner who can become fire incarnate and who had, in turn, become her brother's companion. Verso just wishes he could have told her normally. That she didn't have to learn the truth from him like this.]
Yeah. Yeah, that's him. But you don't have to be afraid. He's a good man.
[Moving more directly in front of her, he smiles the shy kind of smile he's always gotten when introducing her to someone to whom he's given a piece of his heart. Alicia blinks before looking back in the general direction of the manor as if wondering what Renoir would think. He would hate it, of course. Will hate it when he finds out; Verso isn't sure whether Alicia will tell him or not, but he's not going to try and get her to keep his secrets. So...]
Go ahead, start time back up again.
[The look Alicia fixes him with is skeptical, but she does as she's asked, reverting everything back to normal. Then she tilts her head and points at Clive one more time, a different kind of question, more curious than confused, and Verso shakes his own head in turn.]
I'll introduce you later. He needs his sleep right now. And so do you. Papa'll be furious if he finds out you're here.
[She shrugs. Renoir might lecture her but that's the whole of it. Besides, she hasn't seen her brother in so long. She misses him. Leaving isn't an option. So, she gestures a bit ahead of them to where there's room enough for him to summon his piano, and she sweeps her hands in front of herself to imitate playing. Verso can only laugh in response, holding up his hands in concession.]
All right, all right.
[The piano is summoned; he takes his seat on its bench and she takes hers at his side. There's no point in asking her which song she wants to hear. It's always the same one: the one he wrote especially for her all those years ago. He obliges her without hesitation.]
[ Night, soft and gentle. Clive, in that fuzzy space between unconsciousness and dreaming, lets his mind drift in a pleasant muddle of primordial sense-memory: katydids and warm grass, Joshua's small hand in his, Cid's tobacco, blood and fire and cognac. Lying prone on worn bedrolls, he allows himself to congeal into himself, unmoving and unthinking and unaware―
―until, after a while of blissful oblivion, something cuts through the fog of Clive's heavy sleep, and filters through his void like the first whispers of morning against thin curtains. A Something that twinkles and shimmers and feels like starlight.
(Like Verso.)
It's only after he opens his bleary eyes and tries to sit up that he recognizes the Something for what it is: music. The trill and lilt of ivory keys, rising above the nighttime din. Clive looks for the source, and sees Verso sitting on a bench with his back to the campfire, swaying in time to the sweet, meandering tune with a small, thin girl who looks like animated ash perched by his side. Grey and black and stark in the darkness, ephemeral in a way Clive can't describe.
He opens his mouth to say something. Closes it. Something about this moment feels private. Sacrosanct. Like something fragile kept in cupped hands, liable to break at the slightest suggestion of pressure.
So he keeps his words to himself, and slides out from under his blankets to drift just a little closer, focus sliding from Verso― beautiful as always, made even more beautiful by the ease with which he maneuvers the instrument in front of him, making it sing like Clive has never heard― and the girl, who he can't quite make out in profile. Pale all over, like the white streaks in Verso's hair, leaning against Verso with the ease of someone who has been implicitly allowed into his space. ]
[The song transitions into a different one, then another, each less deliberate than the last as Verso uses the music to speak all the things to Alicia that he's never been able to bring himself to say. Like how he's sorry he left her behind, too, and how he still loves her most of all. All the ways he wishes things were different. Everything he wants to say to their mother for not being satisfied with taking away her face and her voice, but for also stealing her colour from her, denying her the right to belong in any capacity, even one where she simply fades into the crowd.
With Verso too lost in the music and the moment to be a very good guard (or even a passable one, good job, Verso), it's Alicia who notices they have an audience. She'd removed her mask at some point, so she turns and looks at Clive with wide eyes and scar-knotted skin, self-consciousness twisting her features once she realises her burns are exposed. Its in her rush to put the mask back on that Verso finally realises something's amiss; he stops playing mid-note, back tensing as he turns to Alicia, then to Clive, before relaxing again with a heavy exhale.]
Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you up.
[Sheepish and maybe a bit guilty, but there isn't a world in which he's capable of refusing to play for Alicia. He's sure Clive will understand, though, given the way he speaks of Joshua.
There's part of him, too, that isn't ready to be having the oh, by the way, I have a little sister who stays with our father, and our mother treats her terribly conversation, but there's no point in fretting over that now that it's well outside of his hands. So, he spins on the bench so he's facing away from the piano, then makes a sweeping gesture towards Alicia, who eyes Clive with the wary curiosity of someone who doesn't meet many new people.]
Clive, this is Alicia. My younger sister. Alicia, this is Clive, my...
[Wait, what the fuck are they, anyway? Lovers, partners, comrades in being completely fucked over by the Dessendres?]
He's one of the best things to happen to me out here.
[Which, okay, may not be saying much given how the brunt of what happens on the Continent is one degree of awful or another, but that contrast is itself a statement. How long has it been since Verso's had anything good to say at all?
Alicia cocks her head and shyly nods, her focus flitting like a butterfly from Clive to Verso, unsure where to settle.]
[ The cat is so out of the bag that it likely doesn't even remember ever having been in it. Clive, standing a few strides away from the sleek grand piano (black and gold), stares wide-eyed at Alicia for a fraction of a breath, surprised by the state of her face and then by the fact that she hurries to hide it; that tidbit to contend with is quickly subsumed by the shock that the girl in greyscale is Verso's sister.
(Clive notes the difference with which he speaks of her: not 'the Paintress's youngest daughter', not 'Alicia, the youngest sister'. My younger sister. A far cry from how he spoke of 'Clea'.)
There's no point in saying you never told me, so Clive doesn't. Instead, he sits in this new information before moving closer to literally sit― or, well, kneel― near Alicia's side of the bench, staying low with his hand on his chest, palm politely pressed over his heart. ]
Hello, Alicia.
[ A younger sibling. His heart softens a bit to think of it, and how Verso might adore her enough to indulge her like this in the middle of the night. That, in itself, removes most of the edge off of the lingering you never told me. ]
I apologize for interrupting your time with your brother. [ His lips curl up in a soft smile, but his brows turn down, appropriately apologetic. ] I fear I've been monopolizing him of late.
[ The same mental stutter here, as he wonders what it is that they exactly are, for Clive to have demanded so much of Verso.
He'll mull over that later. For now, the smile stays. ] He plays beautifully. [ And, okay, because he's entitled to just a bit of needling: ] I never knew. [ (Then again, Clive never asked.) ]
[Unaccustomed to strangers in general – and less so to polite ones who regard her with something completely absent suspicion and morbid curiosity – Alicia looks at first like she's not quite sure how to respond. But when Clive apologises, she fixes him with a look of sisterly exasperation and gestures to Verso. She's used to him monopolising his own time; at least he's not alone like he usually is after a Gommage, lost and depressed and almost hoping that no more Expeditioners land on the Continent's shores.
That look flares with pride when Clive mentions the piano playing, though, and she leans towards Verso, bumping him with her shoulder as if to say see, you should play more. He ignores it at first to address the needling, his sheepishness shifting into something more apologetic.]
Surprise?
[But then his focus return Alicia.]
Hey, you still owe me a song, remember? [And then back to Clive:] She likes to write.
[Very deliberately, he doesn't call her a writer. The title still hurts her after everything that happened, even if she's never met any of the real Writers herself. Alicia frowns at the reminder, though. Not in a way that suggests she's ashamed that she didn't bring the promised lyrics, but rather something more serious. Once more, she points to Clive; once more, she points to the manor. Then, she mimes being trapped in a cage. Verso closes his eyes and sinks back against the piano, ignoring how the keys cry out in protest.]
Ah, so that's why you're here.
[Alicia looks down at her feet, suddenly unable to look either of them in the eye, and Verso finds himself similarly struggling to meet Clive's own gaze. He manages easily enough, though.]
Renoir wants to use her to lure us into a trap.
[But then, that should be expected. He never was going to leave them alone after Clive summarily defeated him. Not wanting to leave her brother to explain everything, Alicia emphatically shake her head no at Clive. She won't help. She refuses.]
She'll knock him off our path. Should buy us some time.
[They cross the sea, they reach the shore. They pass through the iron gate, heavy and creaking yet obliging, and death awaits them on the other side. It lines the path ahead, too; it piles upwards towards the sky and blends into itself until it becomes hard to distinguish the bodies from the mud and dirt and detritus slowly working towards burying them. In some places, death is the ground itself and the obstacles that need to be stepped over else they trip and find themselves face-to-face with someone long-dead, whose colours have been stolen from them and whose chroma has been locked away in another kind of denial of life.
A few steps in, Verso turns to face Clive, walking backwards as he does, easily navigating the chaotic terrain blind. Almost unflinching, keeping his focus squarely on Clive and his expression strikingly neutral for a man who stands as one of two living souls amid thousands upon thousands of bodies. These grounds aren't strange to him; something draws him to them, time and again, and that familiarity changes the quality of his voice, turning it soft and melancholic as it fights to bear as much of the gravity of their circumstances as Verso can tolerate without being crushed by its pressure.]
Most of this is the work of a single Nevron. I've only seen him once so I couldn't tell you how. Just that he's big and he's strong and he hasn't been spotted in more years than you've been alive. Doubt we'll run into him if he's still out there, but...
[Does he really need to finish that thought? They're both Expeditioners.]
We'll keep moving until we get to the other side. I know a place where can... rest, afterward. Tucked away, out of the sight of the Paintress. We should stop there before continuing on.
[Idly, he thinks to mention that it's where he planned to bring Joshua and give him a proper burial, but the timing doesn't feel right. The piled-up bodies remind Verso of the scene he'd walked in on when he met Clive for the first time, and he can only imagine what Clive might be thinking right now.]
[ Death, cloying and scarlet. The sun is perpetually setting－ or is it always rising? that would be appropriately ironic－ yellow-orange over undulating firmaments and bunkers, streaming and screaming over broken bodies made bronzelike in the light.
It's impossible to feel anything but numb in the face of such unsurmountable numbers. Clive remembers the party they held on the night before their Expedition set sail for the Continent, double-digit tables sparsely populated by familiar faces; it'd been catastrophic when he lost them to flame and ash. He walks on, avoiding one pair of lifeless eyes and trading them for another, rows and rows and rows of men and women caught in rictus.
His thoughts drift. Blue eyes, stained dark. Emotion, like the sharp edge of a knife. He only gentles when spoken to, tugged back into present tense by Verso and his levelheadedness. ]
'In more years than I've been alive', [ he parrots. He even manages to sound amused by it, even if he feels miles away from his own body. ] You make me feel younger than I am.
[ He and Verso, if they ever go back, will be the two oldest men in Lumiere. Funny, that.
He presses on, brushing his fingers along a petrified arm held out in an eternal plea for help. A few yards away, he sees a Troubadour dancing its eerie waltz along bloodstained paths, swaying and hopping to invisible music, infuriating in its impassive levity. ]
I don't know how we would have been able to traverse this place without someone like you guiding us. ...Even without the Nevrons about, this place is enough to shatter morale.
[ Futility made tangible. Clive can't imagine how many Expeditions might have seen this sea of death and considered simply folding. ]
[Once Clive responds with that semblance of humour, Verso turns back around. Though he can't be certain of where his thoughts have truly wandered, the reassertion of Clive's strength feeds Verso's own. Which helps, despite his familiarity with the place. Circumstances are exactly as Clive says they are: the Forgotten Battlefield may well be the most difficult place on the Canvas to traverse for its effects on morale, and he isn't immune to that.
More than a few times, Verso has thought he's spotted new bodies leaning up against the piles of the old ones, their uniforms pristine, their bodies unmarred by battle and perfectly positioned, and he's wondered whether they've chosen death or he's projecting his own deep-seated exhaustion onto them. A question that could possibly be answered by reaching out for the chroma locked inside of them and letting its age reveal its truths, but also a question that he can't bear to have confirmed, and so he leaves the details to the dead who carry them, honouring their places among their brethren in the only way he knows how.
It doesn't feel like enough, but then nothing ever really does.]
The bigger groups can usually manage. It's the ones who've lost most of their members that struggle. A couple have... ended their Expeditions right here. I always wondered if they returned to Lumiere after. Can't imagine that would be an easy decision, but it's not like it's any easier to choose to stay out here, so.
[He's rambling.
Either way, the decision to return to Lumiere doesn't feel like one that he could make. Let the people believe that the hope they'd built into the ships and hoisted upon the shoulders of the Expeditioners can still be fulfilled until the changing number tells them otherwise, he thinks. Then again, there's value in information, merit in sacrificing one's pride in the name of bolstering the next Expedition, so maybe he's focusing on the wrong things. How the fuck is he supposed to know, either way?
With this reminder of how little he actually understands about his fellow people and the lives they lead, he runs his hand through his hair and sighs.]
[ A frisson of fear, brief, after each number Clive sees etched on familiar-looking armbands on familiar-looking uniforms (almost identical, with a few personal touches on each one). None of them bear the number of his father's expedition, nor Cid's; he doesn't expect the former to be here among the rubble, given that he assumes Verso would have told him if this was Elwin's final resting place (Verso had seemed to know something about his father's fate, which is still not a conversation he's been able to have), but the latter―
―he doesn't want to imagine it. Cid, a man who defied every single catastrophe with breezy humor and untouchable confidence, to have died in such a hopeless place. To have become another footnote in this relentless record of brutal destruction.
Clive is still thinking of his mentor when Verso mentions survivors, and his mouth forms the vague shape of an oh, almost in surprise. Right― it's not like Verso would know, not having lived in Lumiere since he left it so many decades ago. ]
For as long as I remember, and as far as I'm aware, Expedition Zero has ever been the only one that returned to Lumière after venturing outside of it.
[ History lost to the annals of time; they've discussed this. Courage deified for morale, but ignored for fifteen years after the Fracture anyway. Humans, imperfect as they are, will always choose peace of mind over reality.
As he sidesteps a pool of what looks like congealed blood: ] I suppose this place changes someone too much for them to consider returning. They quickly realize that they belong nowhere― not in the grim safety of Lumière, nor the imposing cruelty of the Continent.
The only choice left to them is how they die. [ Phrased specifically that way, since Cid is on the mind. ] And, as a fellow Expeditioner, I can respect what they chose.
[ An impossible decision, really. God, he wants to change things. Clive flits towards Verso, instinctively holding out a hand to catch him when he thinks Verso is going to trip because of his backwards walking (careful!!!), and breathing through his teeth when Verso retains his mountain-goat balance. Impressive. ]
―May I ask about a specific Expedition? Not my father's.
[It's strange how easily the word belong helps contextualise everything for Verso. There have been times when he's travelled alongside a promising Expedition and worried that they'd reach a turning point where they wanted to give up and go home. His own lack of belonging had found him longing for everything they'd behind. Not that he faulted their decisions, he just figured he had a better grasp on the weight of them.
Lumiere was often all they had in common.
Now, he considers whether he's been projecting all this time. After all, his heart never really left Lumiere; rather, its heart had turned against him. Long has he wondered what he would do if he was a simpler man with a home awaiting his return and friends who would cry at the sight of him, a family whose love was genuine, a career at the opera house, something normal awaiting him on the other side of the Continent's extremes. It feels like the answer is yes.
The rest of what Clive says, though – that has much clearer resonance. To choose to die in silence. To choose to protect Lumiere from despair. To choose to blend into a crowd so that when loved ones embark upon their own Expeditions, they never learn the truth and can tell themselves whichever stories help them sleep better when the ever-cold nights come and the ever-bright stars offer what little solace they can. Verso can respect that, too.]
Yeah. I suppose so.
[There's nothing else to say, really. He still can't speak of his own experiences or fill in the gaps between what Clive is saying and what the people in Lumiere might or might not be enduring. So he falls silent, letting his focus linger on the shipwrecks with their weathered masts and sunken hulls, frayed flags waving in the breeze against the starburst of rubble backlit like an explosion by the golden sun. That focus soon shifts to Clive's hand when he catches it in his periphery, and he takes that toothy hiss as a sign to fall into step by his side. A beneficial position, he finds, as Clive asks his question and his heart lurches just a bit in his chest, bringing a slight tension to his expression, too.]
I might not know anything, but of course, ask away.
[ Frozen Hearts turns out to be as perplexing a puzzle as any other place on the Continent: an ever-shifting landscape of structures in ice melting into pools of heated lava, primordial and intimidating. Navigating its sharp corners and hidden Nevrons turns out to be as arduous as the Grandis have promised, and Clive has worked himself up into a slight sweat by the time they reach a cavernous section of the area with a very nasty Veilleur guarding a very familiar-looking door.
The fight goes as well as any fight against an oversized monster with a penchant for weaponizing blights can go, which is to say－ Clive is short of breath by the end of it, wicking ink off the flat of his blade as he reaches inside his pouch of supplies (thank god he had the foresight to restock) for a tint and a check-in: ]
Are you alright?
[ Heels pivot on snow. Clive turns his back to the familiar shape of the gilded manor entrance in the process of facing Verso, shaking messy bangs from his eyes; his first instinct isn't to suspect that anything else could happen in the wake of a tough encounter like the one they'd just weathered.
That turns out to be a mistake. As he slides his attention away from the dissipating remnants of the Nevron and towards Verso, he thinks he hears the click of a doorknob turning, the creak of hinges giving way－
－and the sound of a soft footstep descending on snow. Indelicate, and with purpose. He doesn't see her in his quest to check on Verso's condition, but if Clive cared to turn (he will, in a moment), he'd see a waterfall of auburn hair, a pretty face set in fierce neutral, bare arms folded across a shirt stained in places with streaks and smudges.
Clive misses her, but she doesn't miss him. Sharp and severe, her scrutiny flicks over him; she nearly wrinkles her nose. ]
[Verso's never really fallen out of the practise of fighting, but the past few weeks spent exploring the nuances of the Canvas rather than exterminating its Nevron problem have resulted in him feeling more on the sore side of things than he'd like. That's not worth grumbling about, though, especially considering how they're both still standing and not scathed to extents that a tint can't fix. So, his response comes out as a good-natured:]
I've seen worse. [Which is more honest a yes than a yes itself would have been.] You?
[Before Clive can answer, though, the door opens all the way and Verso's eyes widen alongside it. He takes a step back, then forward again, grasping onto Clive's arm and pulling him back beside him. Even so, a flicker of hope rises in his heart that this might be his Clea, the one who has love for this world in her heart, but it's soon extinguished by the look on her face. She watches them in the manner of a lioness that's equal parts opportunistic and bored, as if she's aware that she's already won. She may well have. Almost immediately, Verso's thoughts flash back to what happened with Expedition Zero, to the ease with which she snuffed out so many lives in an instant, in a heartbeat, in a halved breath.
His own breath catches in his throat as he speaks.]
Merde. Clea.
[Every part of him wants to position himself between her and Clive, or else to tell Clive to get the fuck out of here, to just fucking run, but he knows that this is impossible on two fronts. Clea is stronger than the two of them combined, for one, and Clive would never leave Verso behind, for another. Which puts him a state of near panic, barely held at bay by the strict necessity of remaining level-headed and present for whatever will come.
"I must say," Clea says after an appraising pause, "I didn't expect the beast and the doppelganger to join ranks."]
[ No space or time to answer "you?", before he's being yanked and his attention is being pulled towards the sudden appearance of this stern-faced stranger. Clea, Verso says on a ragged whisper, and it takes a heartbeat to process that it's a name: Verso knows this person and the bitter edge to her voice, and this person knows Verso enough to call him 'doppelganger'.
The designation turns Clive to steel. Whatever warmth he reserves for Verso vaporizes when he turns his focus on the young woman and the severity of her scrutiny; the look on his face is a clear don't call him that.
She doesn't humor it. Her job, evidently, is not to suffer fools gladly. (That is not her brother, that man is not a man, all of this is a wish, a falsity, a delusion. They will take her family from her.)
"Aline always did have a firm hold on her toys," the woman called Clea continues. "That creature was supposed to awaken ages ago― long before leaving the safety of your Dome for the Continent."
Bare feet slide over snow, as if it were just another carpet. Clive, broadsword still in hand, tries to step out of Verso's grip, mirroring the need to put himself between the other man and 'Clea'. ]
Verso, who is she?
[ He has to ask, even if it earns him a scoff from the 'she' in question. ]
[They both know that Clive is the strongest of the two of them; even if Ifrit wasn't a factor, he'd still be able to hand Verso his ass. Which isn't to say that Verso is weak, but rather that the strength imbalance between them – even if it is slight – is an unarguable fact. Verso feels no shame over this. Together, they work well. Nothing else matters. So, the way that he quickly and decisively stops Clive from stepping ahead of him says and means something – don't, seriously, please fucking don't – that Verso can only hope that Clive picks up on.
It occurs to him that maybe he shouldn't tell Clive the whole truth here; there is simply no way that he can do so without revealing to Clea that he and Clive are much, much more than two men who are simply travelling together, which would make it all the more easy for her to weaponise Clive against him, or him against Clive. But Clea is smart. Brilliant, really. Nobody knew the real Verso better than she had. It is quite possible that she's already figured everything out for herself just by how Verso holds onto Clive, still. So, with a grudging sigh he decides that it's better for Clive to have all the information at his disposal rather than leaving him confused in the face of an incomparably strong enemy.]
This is Verso's older sister. She made the Nevrons.
["And you," she adds with flippant dismissiveness, casting her gaze on Clive, looking upon him as if he's a lesser creature. "I thought you'd be my piece de resistance. What a disappointment you turned out to be."]
[ Effectively stopped, both by the hand clawed around his forearm, and the firmness of the explanation. There's still cognitive dissonance when Verso refers to 'Verso' as someone else－ a strange vertigo, an inclination to push back with you're Verso－ but Clive swallows it down, and focuses only on the harsh, immovable facts of the matter.
This woman is a 'Painter', and she isn't an ally.
She is also his creator, apparently, which is a mic drop that she delivers with such cold dispassion that this, too, almost doesn't register. It's a cruel facsimile to the previous day's I love you, a thing that Clive had held evident but been blindsided by upon its delivery. The silver lining is that it doesn't feel anywhere near as shattering and re-shaping, which puts him in a good place to reorient his emotions, to ground himself in his reality: he's Verso's Clive, and that means far more to him than the terms of his creation.
So. ]
―Neither he nor I are tools beholden to anyone's whims.
[ Is a biteback to 'disappointment'. Unoffended on his own part (he can't be angry about not fulfilling a duty he never pledged himself), which is probably typical Clive behavior; he doesn't have the ego to bruise.
Still, Clea seems to find that amusing. Or, well. As amusing as she'll let herself be, steeped in self-ordained contempt. "Aren't you? Look at the both of you, playing make-believe in Aline's little sand castle."
It's pathetic, is the sentiment here. "I have no time for this. If the creature I painted is only going to hinder the progress I'm trying to make, I have to dispose of it."
A sigh. "As always, I have to do everything around here." ]
Or, more accurately: Tomorrow Politely Knocks a Few Times Before Letting Himself In. In this case, 'Tomorrow' comes wrapped in the form of a put-together young man with brilliant blond hair, who strides apologetically into the hurricane of a room that his brother and his partner are sleeping in (clothes strewn about, an open wine bottle still sitting on a chair, mostly-empty glasses set aside haphazardly) and gently, gently clears his throat until Clive finally deigns to stir.
"I thought you might be hungry," Joshua offers to a very groggy Clive. And then, after a beat: "you always got so cross with me when I didn't wear pyjamas to bed."
Clive turns red at the teasing. The saving grace is that the flush makes his brother laugh, twinkling and effervescent; a sound sorely missed, and very much coveted. It rings in his ears as he untangles himself from Verso and promises to join Joshua in the library later－ after getting dressed and situated－ for some freshly-made croque madames (how he found the ingredients, Clive doesn't ask) and some status updates, if any.
After Tomorrow Leaves, Clive heaves a sigh-chuckle and presses a kiss to Verso's jaw. ]
I'll never win against him. [ Testing his luck at being vertical again, he stretches his arms above his head and hears his shoulders pop. ] Is it like this with you and Alicia?
[Verso wakes slightly after Clive does, sleep disturbed more so by the feeling of him shifting beside him than the clearing of Joshua's throat. It's not particularly that he's a light sleeper (out on the Continent, there are times where wind rustling through the grass is enough to rouse him) or that he was comfortably asleep (again, this is not an experience he's had in decades), but rather that he's awash enough in a sense of safety that it takes a little bit longer for the situation to catch up to him.
When it does – and after he dumbfoundedly takes a moment to catch up – he laughs lightly at Joshua's teasing, unashamed despite how tangled he and Clive still are, grateful in two parts: that Joshua doesn't know him nearly well enough to make a dig on him, too, and that he gets treated to the rosing of Clive's cheeks as one of his first sights of the day.
With Joshua's departure and the promise of real food stirring Verso's stomach, Verso makes his own attempt at lifting himself out of a very soft, impossibly warm, and still enticingly Clive-occupied bed, letting out an old-man nose as his old-man body protests the unreasonably long journey from the bed to the wardrobe, responding over his shoulder as he does.]
Alicia respects a closed door.
[Said with humour but also a trace of something a bit sad; that respect stems from her own inclination towards keeping hers closed, a pursuit of isolation often furthered by her ability to stop time at will. In truth, he's a bit jealous of how at ease Joshua is around Clive, how natural and warm and, from his perspective, effortless their dynamic is. Verso hasn't had that with Alicia since before they learned the truth of their existences.
But now isn't the time to be a grumpy storm cloud raining regret down on the Rosfields, so while he pulls on a deep purple sweater and a pair of grey pants, he adds:]
Otherwise, yeah. She likes to get on my case about my writing. You know, "You missed a comma," "That word doesn't mean what you think it does," "You should be able to fit one more cliche into that poem." Stuff like that.
[Socks after pants. Whoops. Clea would've been on his case over that. Then he's off to fix his hair in the nearby mirror, obsessing as always over that splash of white hair that Clive adores.]
So, when'd you first realise what you were up against?
[ "Never win", Clive says, as if he hasn't been the architect of his own demise by never refusing any of Joshua's (increasingly rare) requests. His brother's life has been one of strict regulation and restriction, and Clive has strived to be the one person in Joshua's life who wouldn't turn their back on his needs, big or small.
That said, Clive can appreciate that there's a certain difference in dynamic at play between a brother and a sister, the latter of which he doesn't have. Mid is the closest analogue, and Clive certainly would never walk into her room uninvited, even if she likely wouldn't extend the same courtesy back.
Up on his feet Clive goes, borrowing another simple white shirt (the top three buttons struggle for their lives, so Clive decides to keep them undone) and slipping into his own expedition trousers (Verso's pants are a bit tight around the thighs; it would be a disaster if he bent down and ripped them). His personal grooming begins and ends there, and he pads over on bare feet to comb his fingers through the pillow-dented side of Verso's voluminous hair. ]
Brave of you, to share your poetry with her.
[ God knows that Clive has not shared his prose with anyone, and would avoid letting Joshua see his journal unless he absolutely had to. ]
Joshua was never a troublesome child, though. He only asked for trifles－ more time together, to be brought outside, to share a bed when he had trouble sleeping.
But we spent so much time apart, after... [ A hum, as he points to his scar. Explanation enough. ] More than ten summers. He'd become someone far smarter and more capable than I am, by the time we reunited.
[At first, Verso shrugs. The first poetry sharing happened not long after the betrayal, when he and Renoir and Alicia decided not to return to Lumiere. It's not a story that he'd particularly mind sharing with Clive, but it's also not a story for now. The mood is wrong, the focus on another younger sibling who knows better than the elder.
Before he can think to fix Clive's bed-tousled hair, Clive's fingers are running through his own. So, instead, he adjusts the way the placket of his shirt falls open against his chest, and he sets the collar just so, just the way his other self had been taught as a boy. Fussy little adjustments driven by the desire to touch rather than to fix. His shaggy dog already looks perfect in his eyes.
Though, of course, his life has been anything but; Verso lets out a soft sigh at the thought of a little boy clamouring for something as simple and as ordinary as spending some time outside and being with his brother, and he struggles, again, to understand the nature of Anabella's cruelties. At least his own mother wanted to give him the world. Granted, that's the whole fucking problem, but he can see where her heart was and how she was trying to piece it back together again.
Which also isn't the point. This is: ten years is a hell of a lot more time than he'd thought Clive and Joshua had been separated for. So, he steps back after the revelation, running his own fingers through Clive's hair, stroking it back to see into more of that breathtaking blue of his eyes.]
Makes sense. They really do grow up fast.
[Not that a decade is fast, but his frame of reference for that is off.
Idly, he wonders if Clea had thought that about Verso. If that had been part of what caused her to break apart from him. Seeing him with Alicia, watching him take on the kind of role she'd taken on with him, even if she'd only been a couple years older. Concluding that she wasn't needed anymore so she might as well strike off on her own. He feels like that with Alicia, sometimes. Wonders whether Clive does, too, but saves that question for later. There's another one he wants to ask first.]
So, what's the story behind you two making it back into each other's lives?
[ The separation could have been eighteen years, but I decided to be nice for once (citation needed) (mostly I couldn't think of an excuse) and reduced it to ten. That said, Clive outlines the events leading to their reunion with the sort of apologetic resignation that hearkens back to his claim that his first sin was being born. ]
Well. After she drove me out of our home, my mother saw to it that no one would take me in. [ He'd heard rumors about what she'd said, here and there: a cursed child, a Bearer of ill omens, the reason why Joshua fell ill. ] So I... was taken in by a group that most people in Lumiere didn't think too favorably of. Les Bâtards, they were called. They found my skills with a blade useful, and I...
[ A light scoff, aimed inwards. ] ...I cared very little about living, back then. It was enough that they could use me to whatever end.
[ He isn't proud of it. So he moves swiftly on, before he can start to sound self-pitying. ]
It hurt too much to even hear of Joshua in passing whispers. But I heard that he was deathly ill for the first five years that we were apart, and only slowly started to recover after our mother's Gommage. He'd been taken in by a different family at around the same time Cid pulled me from the gutter, and after some searching and negotiating and convincing...
[ Most of it was convincing. "Well, you'll never know if he hates your guts if you don't ask him, will you?" ]
...we found ourselves back together again. [ A low sigh, and a shake of his head. ] To this day, I marvel at the fact that Joshua agreed to meet me. He's always been too good for... well, his own good.
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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[ Hope, Verso calls him.
It's one of the many things Clive keeps with him after their cotton-soft hours wrapped in each other's bliss end, and when they finally crawl off of the much-abused bed and its ruined bedsheets to brave the world outside of the manor once more. Hope, and I want to have you, and I believe you.
Clive repeats these things in the back of his head as they traverse familiar and unfamiliar landscapes again, the eye of the Monolith (a different number etched onto its face now, bizarrely smaller than the number of years he's lived) watching them like a disapproving parent with an ominous reminder about it being past their bedtime.
They press on.
It's a cool night on the edge of an island with a coastal cave when it Happens; Clive, restless and unable to sleep, is standing near the edge of the coastline looking towards distant snowy mountains when he thinks he feels the flicker of familiar chroma, dark and deep and inexorable― the same one that awakened him days back, and pulled the creature inside him out of its flesh-and-blood cage. Its sense memory makes the fine hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and the creature in his chest rage (rejoice?). His pulse quickens, and he thinks of I am the son, and the man in the suit, and the scattered recollections of Joshua, his brother, dead― ]
Fuck, [ Clive whispers, as he feels flames start to leak from his hands, his teeth. ] Fuck, fuck.
[ There's nothing in the dark around them. The chroma could have been just another errant breeze― this world has been built by the same power that Renoir is comprised of― but the hammering of his heart heats the furnace ever-burning inside him, and the obsidian demon sitting just under Clive's skin shudders, laughs, beckons. ]
Fuck, [ he whispers again, as he drags himself towards the beach, away from camp. ] Verso, go! Run into the caves!
[ His voice sounds different; it vibrates in the expanding canyon of his chest, licks like flames over coals. Streaks of red color jet-black hair, and blue eyes glow fluorescent in the dim.
He can't control it. He remains in that half-primed state for a stuttering few seconds, breathing hard through chattering teeth, until he can hold it back no longer: something in him twists and bursts, and the last thing he feels before flames overtake him is despair, deep and shattering.
(In Clive's place, on the sandy shores where Clive stood moments before: a giant creature with two ramlike horns, volcano-black and pulsing with heat. The only thing it has in common with Clive are its eyes, two pinpoints of brilliant ocean blue.) ]
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So, it's nice, he thinks, how when he and Clive step back outside into the open air of the Continent, the wind that greets them almost seems to lift a weight off of his shoulders instead. They aren't safely tucked away in a room in a manor where no one can see them; they aren't naked with their hearts bared and pressed together, caught up in a languid passage of time that yields to their will and protects them from what awaits them on the other side of the moment. But as normalcy restores itself and the world stretches out ahead of them, Verso still feels okay. Better than okay.
He has hope and belief and Clive.
In these early days, the two men let their feet guide them while their hearts and minds work their way through all that's happened and everything they need to bright about. Often, they slip into comfortable silences while their thoughts get uncomfortable. One might press a kiss to the other's forehead, or take the other's hand, or join the other in their bedroll to hold them however they needed to be held. But they have their moments of healing, too, conversations and laughter and smiles that draw the night a little closer and make the promise of a new dawn feel more real.
Almost a week into their wanderings, Verso starts writing again. He's sitting by the fire as Clive stands on the coastline, trying to put to words how it feels just to be near him when he notices something off. A shift in his posture. A change to the curl of his fingers. A tension that replaces the sleeplessness.
When Clive calls out to him, Verso's already on his feet, determinedly heading towards the beach instead of the caves. A decision that becomes all the more solid and unshakeable when he notices the luminescent colouring of Clive's hair and the way flames strike across him like claw marks. And then Verso blinks – he fucking blinks – and Clive is gone, replaced first by flames and then by a monster. This doesn't stay his step, either, though it does keep him from summoning forth his blades else that aggravate the situation.]
Clive?
[His voice is loud and steady despite how clearly it rings with concern.]
You're okay. Focus on my voice.
[Will that work? Fuck if he knows. But he isn't going to sit back and do nothing; he's not going to cower away from someone with whom he knows he's safe, even if that burning beast wants to pose a challenge to that certainty.]
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It undulates, roils, seethes. Clive, somewhere underneath the overpowering strength of the creature's character, pushes against its hungry, hostile yearning to be complete (whatever the hell that means), and scrabbles with mental nails and teeth to make the beast yield.
It doesn't. Not even at the sound of Verso's voice, which sifts through layers of mental sieves before it finally reaches Clive in the midst of all this fire, mouthing soundless defiance, chanting no, no, no, no, no.
Founder, not again. Please, not again.
The Nevron－ Ifrit, Clive finally hears it call itself, a triumphant exertion of its identity and name-purpose－ steps sideways, clawed feet skimming the edge of the coast, making water hiss and vaporize upon contact. There's no recognition in its eyes when it appraises Verso: its focus is one of instinctive aggression, an animal sensing something in its hunting grounds.
Ifrit huffs, snarls, and roars. The sound comes with more fire, spreading outwards from outstretched arms. It fills the beach with its ire, a rebellious child annoyed that it's been locked shut for too long; Clive's implorations to calm fall on obstinate ears, and it lashes out with another burst of flame at the nearest thing that looks like a toy, a two-legged creature speaking to it as if they're on the same terms. ]
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Right. Not sure what I was expecting.
[It is a goddamned Nevron, after all. They're not exactly known for being reasonable.
Verso, however, is supposed to have a better track record for embracing reason. Mostly. Now, though, he can feel his heart already clamouring to get ahead of him, its rhythms chaotic with a dread he hasn't felt since he realised that Julie and the others were intent on torturing the truth out of him and that he would have to kill his way free. That's not on the table now – it is absolutely fucking not on the table now – but rather than calming that particular burst of nerves, it puts him at an immediate loss once he starts thinking beyond his own endangerment.
At least his focus remains sharp. The Nevron fires off its first burst of flames and Verso rolls to the side, then rushes to close more distance between the two of them. A foolhardy move. A desperate one. It occurs to him that maybe retreating would be for the best – maybe all this beast needs is some space to calm down, as had seemed to be the case last time – but the thought of abandoning Clive to it and its whims is unfathomable. Maybe if he can get closer, though...]
I've seen bigger fires.
[It's a dumb taunt but the mask of flippancy that rises with it helps to ground Verso as he keeps inching his way nearer, still hesitant to attack.]
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Clive looks at Verso through Ifrit's eyes, and sees Verso; Ifrit looks at Verso and sees something made in ancient, decades-old chroma. The same decades-old chroma that made him stir the first time in Renoir's presence, hungry for silver-gold energy cutting rifts in the ground, in the sky.
It unhinges its jaw, and snaps. The sand just under its feet burns, melts, turns to glass. Its next lashout is more focused, claws curled with intent: it makes as if it wants to grab, to sink claws and teeth and drink.
Sickening. Briefly, it occurs to Clive that he's protesting inhabiting Ifrit as much as Ifrit refuses to yield to him, and therein lies the problem－ but the thought of accepting that his need and want for Verso is manifesting like this is too horrifying to consider. That any part of him could want this, or yearn for this, makes him want to retch.
Calm, he yells at the beast again, but it swipes and lunges anyway. Like maybe it wants a little attention from the man its master likes so much. ]
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Then again, most of them are.
Verso sits down on the edge of the camp, where the ground juts out over a small stream trickling its way towards a nearby river that can barely be heard roaring over the singing of katydids in the trees overhead. It's a nice night, the breeze cool and fresh, the sky clear enough to see every star that's not hidden behind the detritus from the Fracture. He closes his eyes and can almost, almost, almost pretend that the world is a peaceful place, a beautiful place; he can almost convince himself that it's still possible to fight for a lasting future.
When he opens his eyes again, time has stopped, colour has been stripped from the world, and Alicia stands before him. Immediately, he rises to his feet. And just as quickly, she gestures over to where Clive lays sleeping by the fire, pointing at him, then at Verso, at him, then at the manor, at him, then at Lumiere, at him, then at the Monolith.
Right. Of course she's curious; of course she sought them out as soon as she was able. There's no chance that Renoir hadn't told her to keep away from the Expeditioner who can become fire incarnate and who had, in turn, become her brother's companion. Verso just wishes he could have told her normally. That she didn't have to learn the truth from him like this.]
Yeah. Yeah, that's him. But you don't have to be afraid. He's a good man.
[Moving more directly in front of her, he smiles the shy kind of smile he's always gotten when introducing her to someone to whom he's given a piece of his heart. Alicia blinks before looking back in the general direction of the manor as if wondering what Renoir would think. He would hate it, of course. Will hate it when he finds out; Verso isn't sure whether Alicia will tell him or not, but he's not going to try and get her to keep his secrets. So...]
Go ahead, start time back up again.
[The look Alicia fixes him with is skeptical, but she does as she's asked, reverting everything back to normal. Then she tilts her head and points at Clive one more time, a different kind of question, more curious than confused, and Verso shakes his own head in turn.]
I'll introduce you later. He needs his sleep right now. And so do you. Papa'll be furious if he finds out you're here.
[She shrugs. Renoir might lecture her but that's the whole of it. Besides, she hasn't seen her brother in so long. She misses him. Leaving isn't an option. So, she gestures a bit ahead of them to where there's room enough for him to summon his piano, and she sweeps her hands in front of herself to imitate playing. Verso can only laugh in response, holding up his hands in concession.]
All right, all right.
[The piano is summoned; he takes his seat on its bench and she takes hers at his side. There's no point in asking her which song she wants to hear. It's always the same one: the one he wrote especially for her all those years ago. He obliges her without hesitation.]
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―until, after a while of blissful oblivion, something cuts through the fog of Clive's heavy sleep, and filters through his void like the first whispers of morning against thin curtains. A Something that twinkles and shimmers and feels like starlight.
(Like Verso.)
It's only after he opens his bleary eyes and tries to sit up that he recognizes the Something for what it is: music. The trill and lilt of ivory keys, rising above the nighttime din. Clive looks for the source, and sees Verso sitting on a bench with his back to the campfire, swaying in time to the sweet, meandering tune with a small, thin girl who looks like animated ash perched by his side. Grey and black and stark in the darkness, ephemeral in a way Clive can't describe.
He opens his mouth to say something. Closes it. Something about this moment feels private. Sacrosanct. Like something fragile kept in cupped hands, liable to break at the slightest suggestion of pressure.
So he keeps his words to himself, and slides out from under his blankets to drift just a little closer, focus sliding from Verso― beautiful as always, made even more beautiful by the ease with which he maneuvers the instrument in front of him, making it sing like Clive has never heard― and the girl, who he can't quite make out in profile. Pale all over, like the white streaks in Verso's hair, leaning against Verso with the ease of someone who has been implicitly allowed into his space. ]
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With Verso too lost in the music and the moment to be a very good guard (or even a passable one, good job, Verso), it's Alicia who notices they have an audience. She'd removed her mask at some point, so she turns and looks at Clive with wide eyes and scar-knotted skin, self-consciousness twisting her features once she realises her burns are exposed. Its in her rush to put the mask back on that Verso finally realises something's amiss; he stops playing mid-note, back tensing as he turns to Alicia, then to Clive, before relaxing again with a heavy exhale.]
Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you up.
[Sheepish and maybe a bit guilty, but there isn't a world in which he's capable of refusing to play for Alicia. He's sure Clive will understand, though, given the way he speaks of Joshua.
There's part of him, too, that isn't ready to be having the oh, by the way, I have a little sister who stays with our father, and our mother treats her terribly conversation, but there's no point in fretting over that now that it's well outside of his hands. So, he spins on the bench so he's facing away from the piano, then makes a sweeping gesture towards Alicia, who eyes Clive with the wary curiosity of someone who doesn't meet many new people.]
Clive, this is Alicia. My younger sister. Alicia, this is Clive, my...
[Wait, what the fuck are they, anyway? Lovers, partners, comrades in being completely fucked over by the Dessendres?]
He's one of the best things to happen to me out here.
[Which, okay, may not be saying much given how the brunt of what happens on the Continent is one degree of awful or another, but that contrast is itself a statement. How long has it been since Verso's had anything good to say at all?
Alicia cocks her head and shyly nods, her focus flitting like a butterfly from Clive to Verso, unsure where to settle.]
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(Clive notes the difference with which he speaks of her: not 'the Paintress's youngest daughter', not 'Alicia, the youngest sister'. My younger sister. A far cry from how he spoke of 'Clea'.)
There's no point in saying you never told me, so Clive doesn't. Instead, he sits in this new information before moving closer to literally sit― or, well, kneel― near Alicia's side of the bench, staying low with his hand on his chest, palm politely pressed over his heart. ]
Hello, Alicia.
[ A younger sibling. His heart softens a bit to think of it, and how Verso might adore her enough to indulge her like this in the middle of the night. That, in itself, removes most of the edge off of the lingering you never told me. ]
I apologize for interrupting your time with your brother. [ His lips curl up in a soft smile, but his brows turn down, appropriately apologetic. ] I fear I've been monopolizing him of late.
[ The same mental stutter here, as he wonders what it is that they exactly are, for Clive to have demanded so much of Verso.
He'll mull over that later. For now, the smile stays. ] He plays beautifully. [ And, okay, because he's entitled to just a bit of needling: ] I never knew. [ (Then again, Clive never asked.) ]
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That look flares with pride when Clive mentions the piano playing, though, and she leans towards Verso, bumping him with her shoulder as if to say see, you should play more. He ignores it at first to address the needling, his sheepishness shifting into something more apologetic.]
Surprise?
[But then his focus return Alicia.]
Hey, you still owe me a song, remember? [And then back to Clive:] She likes to write.
[Very deliberately, he doesn't call her a writer. The title still hurts her after everything that happened, even if she's never met any of the real Writers herself. Alicia frowns at the reminder, though. Not in a way that suggests she's ashamed that she didn't bring the promised lyrics, but rather something more serious. Once more, she points to Clive; once more, she points to the manor. Then, she mimes being trapped in a cage. Verso closes his eyes and sinks back against the piano, ignoring how the keys cry out in protest.]
Ah, so that's why you're here.
[Alicia looks down at her feet, suddenly unable to look either of them in the eye, and Verso finds himself similarly struggling to meet Clive's own gaze. He manages easily enough, though.]
Renoir wants to use her to lure us into a trap.
[But then, that should be expected. He never was going to leave them alone after Clive summarily defeated him. Not wanting to leave her brother to explain everything, Alicia emphatically shake her head no at Clive. She won't help. She refuses.]
She'll knock him off our path. Should buy us some time.
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A few steps in, Verso turns to face Clive, walking backwards as he does, easily navigating the chaotic terrain blind. Almost unflinching, keeping his focus squarely on Clive and his expression strikingly neutral for a man who stands as one of two living souls amid thousands upon thousands of bodies. These grounds aren't strange to him; something draws him to them, time and again, and that familiarity changes the quality of his voice, turning it soft and melancholic as it fights to bear as much of the gravity of their circumstances as Verso can tolerate without being crushed by its pressure.]
Most of this is the work of a single Nevron. I've only seen him once so I couldn't tell you how. Just that he's big and he's strong and he hasn't been spotted in more years than you've been alive. Doubt we'll run into him if he's still out there, but...
[Does he really need to finish that thought? They're both Expeditioners.]
We'll keep moving until we get to the other side. I know a place where can... rest, afterward. Tucked away, out of the sight of the Paintress. We should stop there before continuing on.
[Idly, he thinks to mention that it's where he planned to bring Joshua and give him a proper burial, but the timing doesn't feel right. The piled-up bodies remind Verso of the scene he'd walked in on when he met Clive for the first time, and he can only imagine what Clive might be thinking right now.]
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It's impossible to feel anything but numb in the face of such unsurmountable numbers. Clive remembers the party they held on the night before their Expedition set sail for the Continent, double-digit tables sparsely populated by familiar faces; it'd been catastrophic when he lost them to flame and ash. He walks on, avoiding one pair of lifeless eyes and trading them for another, rows and rows and rows of men and women caught in rictus.
His thoughts drift. Blue eyes, stained dark. Emotion, like the sharp edge of a knife. He only gentles when spoken to, tugged back into present tense by Verso and his levelheadedness. ]
'In more years than I've been alive', [ he parrots. He even manages to sound amused by it, even if he feels miles away from his own body. ] You make me feel younger than I am.
[ He and Verso, if they ever go back, will be the two oldest men in Lumiere. Funny, that.
He presses on, brushing his fingers along a petrified arm held out in an eternal plea for help. A few yards away, he sees a Troubadour dancing its eerie waltz along bloodstained paths, swaying and hopping to invisible music, infuriating in its impassive levity. ]
I don't know how we would have been able to traverse this place without someone like you guiding us. ...Even without the Nevrons about, this place is enough to shatter morale.
[ Futility made tangible. Clive can't imagine how many Expeditions might have seen this sea of death and considered simply folding. ]
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More than a few times, Verso has thought he's spotted new bodies leaning up against the piles of the old ones, their uniforms pristine, their bodies unmarred by battle and perfectly positioned, and he's wondered whether they've chosen death or he's projecting his own deep-seated exhaustion onto them. A question that could possibly be answered by reaching out for the chroma locked inside of them and letting its age reveal its truths, but also a question that he can't bear to have confirmed, and so he leaves the details to the dead who carry them, honouring their places among their brethren in the only way he knows how.
It doesn't feel like enough, but then nothing ever really does.]
The bigger groups can usually manage. It's the ones who've lost most of their members that struggle. A couple have... ended their Expeditions right here. I always wondered if they returned to Lumiere after. Can't imagine that would be an easy decision, but it's not like it's any easier to choose to stay out here, so.
[He's rambling.
Either way, the decision to return to Lumiere doesn't feel like one that he could make. Let the people believe that the hope they'd built into the ships and hoisted upon the shoulders of the Expeditioners can still be fulfilled until the changing number tells them otherwise, he thinks. Then again, there's value in information, merit in sacrificing one's pride in the name of bolstering the next Expedition, so maybe he's focusing on the wrong things. How the fuck is he supposed to know, either way?
With this reminder of how little he actually understands about his fellow people and the lives they lead, he runs his hand through his hair and sighs.]
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―he doesn't want to imagine it. Cid, a man who defied every single catastrophe with breezy humor and untouchable confidence, to have died in such a hopeless place. To have become another footnote in this relentless record of brutal destruction.
Clive is still thinking of his mentor when Verso mentions survivors, and his mouth forms the vague shape of an oh, almost in surprise. Right― it's not like Verso would know, not having lived in Lumiere since he left it so many decades ago. ]
For as long as I remember, and as far as I'm aware, Expedition Zero has ever been the only one that returned to Lumière after venturing outside of it.
[ History lost to the annals of time; they've discussed this. Courage deified for morale, but ignored for fifteen years after the Fracture anyway. Humans, imperfect as they are, will always choose peace of mind over reality.
As he sidesteps a pool of what looks like congealed blood: ] I suppose this place changes someone too much for them to consider returning. They quickly realize that they belong nowhere― not in the grim safety of Lumière, nor the imposing cruelty of the Continent.
The only choice left to them is how they die. [ Phrased specifically that way, since Cid is on the mind. ] And, as a fellow Expeditioner, I can respect what they chose.
[ An impossible decision, really. God, he wants to change things. Clive flits towards Verso, instinctively holding out a hand to catch him when he thinks Verso is going to trip because of his backwards walking (careful!!!), and breathing through his teeth when Verso retains his mountain-goat balance. Impressive. ]
―May I ask about a specific Expedition? Not my father's.
o rite armbands
Lumiere was often all they had in common.
Now, he considers whether he's been projecting all this time. After all, his heart never really left Lumiere; rather, its heart had turned against him. Long has he wondered what he would do if he was a simpler man with a home awaiting his return and friends who would cry at the sight of him, a family whose love was genuine, a career at the opera house, something normal awaiting him on the other side of the Continent's extremes. It feels like the answer is yes.
The rest of what Clive says, though – that has much clearer resonance. To choose to die in silence. To choose to protect Lumiere from despair. To choose to blend into a crowd so that when loved ones embark upon their own Expeditions, they never learn the truth and can tell themselves whichever stories help them sleep better when the ever-cold nights come and the ever-bright stars offer what little solace they can. Verso can respect that, too.]
Yeah. I suppose so.
[There's nothing else to say, really. He still can't speak of his own experiences or fill in the gaps between what Clive is saying and what the people in Lumiere might or might not be enduring. So he falls silent, letting his focus linger on the shipwrecks with their weathered masts and sunken hulls, frayed flags waving in the breeze against the starburst of rubble backlit like an explosion by the golden sun. That focus soon shifts to Clive's hand when he catches it in his periphery, and he takes that toothy hiss as a sign to fall into step by his side. A beneficial position, he finds, as Clive asks his question and his heart lurches just a bit in his chest, bringing a slight tension to his expression, too.]
I might not know anything, but of course, ask away.
i get 99% of the details about this canon wrong but i managed to remember the armbands
there are so many details and i would like very much to exchange my dollars for a lore book
every day i'm asking sandfall about ways for me to give them money, tbh
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The fight goes as well as any fight against an oversized monster with a penchant for weaponizing blights can go, which is to say－ Clive is short of breath by the end of it, wicking ink off the flat of his blade as he reaches inside his pouch of supplies (thank god he had the foresight to restock) for a tint and a check-in: ]
Are you alright?
[ Heels pivot on snow. Clive turns his back to the familiar shape of the gilded manor entrance in the process of facing Verso, shaking messy bangs from his eyes; his first instinct isn't to suspect that anything else could happen in the wake of a tough encounter like the one they'd just weathered.
That turns out to be a mistake. As he slides his attention away from the dissipating remnants of the Nevron and towards Verso, he thinks he hears the click of a doorknob turning, the creak of hinges giving way－
－and the sound of a soft footstep descending on snow. Indelicate, and with purpose. He doesn't see her in his quest to check on Verso's condition, but if Clive cared to turn (he will, in a moment), he'd see a waterfall of auburn hair, a pretty face set in fierce neutral, bare arms folded across a shirt stained in places with streaks and smudges.
Clive misses her, but she doesn't miss him. Sharp and severe, her scrutiny flicks over him; she nearly wrinkles her nose. ]
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I've seen worse. [Which is more honest a yes than a yes itself would have been.] You?
[Before Clive can answer, though, the door opens all the way and Verso's eyes widen alongside it. He takes a step back, then forward again, grasping onto Clive's arm and pulling him back beside him. Even so, a flicker of hope rises in his heart that this might be his Clea, the one who has love for this world in her heart, but it's soon extinguished by the look on her face. She watches them in the manner of a lioness that's equal parts opportunistic and bored, as if she's aware that she's already won. She may well have. Almost immediately, Verso's thoughts flash back to what happened with Expedition Zero, to the ease with which she snuffed out so many lives in an instant, in a heartbeat, in a halved breath.
His own breath catches in his throat as he speaks.]
Merde. Clea.
[Every part of him wants to position himself between her and Clive, or else to tell Clive to get the fuck out of here, to just fucking run, but he knows that this is impossible on two fronts. Clea is stronger than the two of them combined, for one, and Clive would never leave Verso behind, for another. Which puts him a state of near panic, barely held at bay by the strict necessity of remaining level-headed and present for whatever will come.
"I must say," Clea says after an appraising pause, "I didn't expect the beast and the doppelganger to join ranks."]
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The designation turns Clive to steel. Whatever warmth he reserves for Verso vaporizes when he turns his focus on the young woman and the severity of her scrutiny; the look on his face is a clear don't call him that.
She doesn't humor it. Her job, evidently, is not to suffer fools gladly. (That is not her brother, that man is not a man, all of this is a wish, a falsity, a delusion. They will take her family from her.)
"Aline always did have a firm hold on her toys," the woman called Clea continues. "That creature was supposed to awaken ages ago― long before leaving the safety of your Dome for the Continent."
Bare feet slide over snow, as if it were just another carpet. Clive, broadsword still in hand, tries to step out of Verso's grip, mirroring the need to put himself between the other man and 'Clea'. ]
Verso, who is she?
[ He has to ask, even if it earns him a scoff from the 'she' in question. ]
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It occurs to him that maybe he shouldn't tell Clive the whole truth here; there is simply no way that he can do so without revealing to Clea that he and Clive are much, much more than two men who are simply travelling together, which would make it all the more easy for her to weaponise Clive against him, or him against Clive. But Clea is smart. Brilliant, really. Nobody knew the real Verso better than she had. It is quite possible that she's already figured everything out for herself just by how Verso holds onto Clive, still. So, with a grudging sigh he decides that it's better for Clive to have all the information at his disposal rather than leaving him confused in the face of an incomparably strong enemy.]
This is Verso's older sister. She made the Nevrons.
["And you," she adds with flippant dismissiveness, casting her gaze on Clive, looking upon him as if he's a lesser creature. "I thought you'd be my piece de resistance. What a disappointment you turned out to be."]
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This woman is a 'Painter', and she isn't an ally.
She is also his creator, apparently, which is a mic drop that she delivers with such cold dispassion that this, too, almost doesn't register. It's a cruel facsimile to the previous day's I love you, a thing that Clive had held evident but been blindsided by upon its delivery. The silver lining is that it doesn't feel anywhere near as shattering and re-shaping, which puts him in a good place to reorient his emotions, to ground himself in his reality: he's Verso's Clive, and that means far more to him than the terms of his creation.
So. ]
―Neither he nor I are tools beholden to anyone's whims.
[ Is a biteback to 'disappointment'. Unoffended on his own part (he can't be angry about not fulfilling a duty he never pledged himself), which is probably typical Clive behavior; he doesn't have the ego to bruise.
Still, Clea seems to find that amusing. Or, well. As amusing as she'll let herself be, steeped in self-ordained contempt. "Aren't you? Look at the both of you, playing make-believe in Aline's little sand castle."
It's pathetic, is the sentiment here. "I have no time for this. If the creature I painted is only going to hinder the progress I'm trying to make, I have to dispose of it."
A sigh. "As always, I have to do everything around here." ]
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tfw you put the sad man through so much that you forgot what you put the sad man through
i am eating so well on the sad man suffering 🥹
bless the tragic ben starrs
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Or, more accurately: Tomorrow Politely Knocks a Few Times Before Letting Himself In. In this case, 'Tomorrow' comes wrapped in the form of a put-together young man with brilliant blond hair, who strides apologetically into the hurricane of a room that his brother and his partner are sleeping in (clothes strewn about, an open wine bottle still sitting on a chair, mostly-empty glasses set aside haphazardly) and gently, gently clears his throat until Clive finally deigns to stir.
"I thought you might be hungry," Joshua offers to a very groggy Clive. And then, after a beat: "you always got so cross with me when I didn't wear pyjamas to bed."
Clive turns red at the teasing. The saving grace is that the flush makes his brother laugh, twinkling and effervescent; a sound sorely missed, and very much coveted. It rings in his ears as he untangles himself from Verso and promises to join Joshua in the library later－ after getting dressed and situated－ for some freshly-made croque madames (how he found the ingredients, Clive doesn't ask) and some status updates, if any.
After Tomorrow Leaves, Clive heaves a sigh-chuckle and presses a kiss to Verso's jaw. ]
I'll never win against him. [ Testing his luck at being vertical again, he stretches his arms above his head and hears his shoulders pop. ] Is it like this with you and Alicia?
[ Translation: does she kick your ass, too? ]
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When it does – and after he dumbfoundedly takes a moment to catch up – he laughs lightly at Joshua's teasing, unashamed despite how tangled he and Clive still are, grateful in two parts: that Joshua doesn't know him nearly well enough to make a dig on him, too, and that he gets treated to the rosing of Clive's cheeks as one of his first sights of the day.
With Joshua's departure and the promise of real food stirring Verso's stomach, Verso makes his own attempt at lifting himself out of a very soft, impossibly warm, and still enticingly Clive-occupied bed, letting out an old-man nose as his old-man body protests the unreasonably long journey from the bed to the wardrobe, responding over his shoulder as he does.]
Alicia respects a closed door.
[Said with humour but also a trace of something a bit sad; that respect stems from her own inclination towards keeping hers closed, a pursuit of isolation often furthered by her ability to stop time at will. In truth, he's a bit jealous of how at ease Joshua is around Clive, how natural and warm and, from his perspective, effortless their dynamic is. Verso hasn't had that with Alicia since before they learned the truth of their existences.
But now isn't the time to be a grumpy storm cloud raining regret down on the Rosfields, so while he pulls on a deep purple sweater and a pair of grey pants, he adds:]
Otherwise, yeah. She likes to get on my case about my writing. You know, "You missed a comma," "That word doesn't mean what you think it does," "You should be able to fit one more cliche into that poem." Stuff like that.
[Socks after pants. Whoops. Clea would've been on his case over that. Then he's off to fix his hair in the nearby mirror, obsessing as always over that splash of white hair that Clive adores.]
So, when'd you first realise what you were up against?
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That said, Clive can appreciate that there's a certain difference in dynamic at play between a brother and a sister, the latter of which he doesn't have. Mid is the closest analogue, and Clive certainly would never walk into her room uninvited, even if she likely wouldn't extend the same courtesy back.
Up on his feet Clive goes, borrowing another simple white shirt (the top three buttons struggle for their lives, so Clive decides to keep them undone) and slipping into his own expedition trousers (Verso's pants are a bit tight around the thighs; it would be a disaster if he bent down and ripped them). His personal grooming begins and ends there, and he pads over on bare feet to comb his fingers through the pillow-dented side of Verso's voluminous hair. ]
Brave of you, to share your poetry with her.
[ God knows that Clive has not shared his prose with anyone, and would avoid letting Joshua see his journal unless he absolutely had to. ]
Joshua was never a troublesome child, though. He only asked for trifles－ more time together, to be brought outside, to share a bed when he had trouble sleeping.
But we spent so much time apart, after... [ A hum, as he points to his scar. Explanation enough. ] More than ten summers. He'd become someone far smarter and more capable than I am, by the time we reunited.
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Before he can think to fix Clive's bed-tousled hair, Clive's fingers are running through his own. So, instead, he adjusts the way the placket of his shirt falls open against his chest, and he sets the collar just so, just the way his other self had been taught as a boy. Fussy little adjustments driven by the desire to touch rather than to fix. His shaggy dog already looks perfect in his eyes.
Though, of course, his life has been anything but; Verso lets out a soft sigh at the thought of a little boy clamouring for something as simple and as ordinary as spending some time outside and being with his brother, and he struggles, again, to understand the nature of Anabella's cruelties. At least his own mother wanted to give him the world. Granted, that's the whole fucking problem, but he can see where her heart was and how she was trying to piece it back together again.
Which also isn't the point. This is: ten years is a hell of a lot more time than he'd thought Clive and Joshua had been separated for. So, he steps back after the revelation, running his own fingers through Clive's hair, stroking it back to see into more of that breathtaking blue of his eyes.]
Makes sense. They really do grow up fast.
[Not that a decade is fast, but his frame of reference for that is off.
Idly, he wonders if Clea had thought that about Verso. If that had been part of what caused her to break apart from him. Seeing him with Alicia, watching him take on the kind of role she'd taken on with him, even if she'd only been a couple years older. Concluding that she wasn't needed anymore so she might as well strike off on her own. He feels like that with Alicia, sometimes. Wonders whether Clive does, too, but saves that question for later. There's another one he wants to ask first.]
So, what's the story behind you two making it back into each other's lives?
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Well. After she drove me out of our home, my mother saw to it that no one would take me in. [ He'd heard rumors about what she'd said, here and there: a cursed child, a Bearer of ill omens, the reason why Joshua fell ill. ] So I... was taken in by a group that most people in Lumiere didn't think too favorably of. Les Bâtards, they were called. They found my skills with a blade useful, and I...
[ A light scoff, aimed inwards. ] ...I cared very little about living, back then. It was enough that they could use me to whatever end.
[ He isn't proud of it. So he moves swiftly on, before he can start to sound self-pitying. ]
It hurt too much to even hear of Joshua in passing whispers. But I heard that he was deathly ill for the first five years that we were apart, and only slowly started to recover after our mother's Gommage. He'd been taken in by a different family at around the same time Cid pulled me from the gutter, and after some searching and negotiating and convincing...
[ Most of it was convincing. "Well, you'll never know if he hates your guts if you don't ask him, will you?" ]
...we found ourselves back together again. [ A low sigh, and a shake of his head. ] To this day, I marvel at the fact that Joshua agreed to meet me. He's always been too good for... well, his own good.
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