Lune beats back a small wave of frustration, knowing it's not anybody's fault. But she can't just move on from what happened with a shrug of her shoulders, not after literally her entire life has been tied up in preventing the very fate Lumière suffered. She can't yet face the possibility that all of her hard work – and her parents' – has been for nothing, that she'd wasted her life fighting the inevitable when she could have been living it. Verso may not be the answer and he may not have the answers, but at the moment, he's the only thing they do have.
"Yeah. You're right," she acknowledges Sciel's caution, finally taking a drink from the glass of water. To Maelle: "No one is saying cut him out. That wouldn't be fair, nor smart."
Lune imagines that would only drive him to Renoir, potentially. They don't want that, surely.
"He doesn't share anything he doesn't deem important. I just wonder what even is important anymore," Maelle says with a shrug, trying to look unbothered despite being very bothered. She doesn't approve of lying, but she can certainly understand.
There's no point in trying to dig for truths when it won't change how they are now. As much as she would like for Gustave to trust Verso, she has a hard time imagining it.
Sciel comes back with two more glasses. She holds one out to Maelle, scrutinizing her face for a moment; whatever Maelle's trying to hide, it's not going very well.
She feels much more sure about her own face, at least.
"He doesn't share things he deems important if it's personal," she says, like a gentle correction, because that's a lot of things, now.
Sciel pauses, and elects to sit on the coffee table, across from both of them. She sets her glass down with her and curls her fingers around the table's edge. There's a million things floating around in her head. She chews on it a moment, the words sitting on the tip of her tongue, then:
"I feel like I shouldn't say this," she admits, "It feels like prying, but I can't avoid that when it's all tied in together. Still... I'd like to understand how his mother became the Paintress."
And that that's meant for all of them, going back generations.
Lune feels like Maelle may have had it right the first time, but says nothing to counter. Arguably both Maelle and Sciel probably get Verso better than she does.
"Just because revealing something may not make a difference now doesn't mean it has no meaning or importance." She knows her and Maelle are (obviously) on different sides of that argument.
She gives Sciel a steady look, nodding after a moment.
"Agreed. That feels like a good place to begin. And how did the Gommage come to be tied up with her— why? If it's because of her, why did it come for us all regardless once she was gone? It makes no sense."
Some of this is Lune working it out aloud; and as if to counter the obvious argument, she adds, "Verso may not know, but we should still at least ask."
Maelle takes the glass of water but doesn't drink. It rests between her knees, hands clasp around it. She falls quiet as Sciel and Lune both speak. She wonders, too, about the Paintress. The nail of her thumb idly picks at the lip of the glass. The Paintress. Renoir. Alicia. Verso. There's so much there they don't understand.
"Is the Gommage tied to the Paintress?" She asks, voice steady, but small. She hasn't liked thinking too much about that day, because it ended with their deaths despite victory. She looks down at her hands, thumb still anxiously catching on the glass. "What I did to her, to Renoir... was that something else, or...?"
“He must know something,” she says. “I’ve asked about his mother. He changed the subject.”
As Verso is wont to do.
But there’s something more important at play now, and her attention swivels to Maelle. Every time Gustave has remarked on how far they’ve come with the Lumina converter, she’s politely swallowed the thought that he doesn’t know the half of it. The girl sitting on her hotel room couch now has the very same power that they’ve built their lives around for decades, and none of them have wanted to say anything about it for over a month.
Sciel finds herself shaking her head.
“It was Gommage, Maelle,” she says. No point in denying it. “But you didn’t Gommage us and then yourself. So does that mean there’s more of them out there?”
Lune glances from Sciel to Maelle, nodding her agreement. It was definitely Gommage, what Maelle did to Renoir and the Paintress, but that's all they can say about it for certain.
"I thought at first that it was the Curator, but then you did it again, independently." To the Paintress. Lune was so fascinated with the anomaly at the time that she didn't question it further. And there wasn't time, anyway. "Though clearly, it was something the Curator did to you that... unlocked it."
She frowns pensively. Unbeknownst to her, Lune echoes Sciel's thoughts; safe to imagine Gustave probably doesn't know about that particular detail. It will be extremely difficult to explain to him something that they don't really understand themselves. Lune's gaze tracks back to Sciel. Her question is an uncomfortable one, but the reasoning can be proven viable by simple process of elimination.
"If the Gommage is not tied to the Paintress, nor the Curator..." And certainly not Maelle. "Then perhaps it is because of someone else. We've been given evidence now that this... power? Ability? It's not so individualistic as we may have once perceived."
But that just opens up a whole new venue of questions.
Why me? The nightmares, the Curator's attention, the remarks and feelings here and there that still make no sense to her. Things only got more confusing once they entered the Monolith.
"... I don't feel like I could do it again now, if I tried," she says, eyes downcast. Not that there's anyone to try it on, and it seems the Gommage simply doesn't exist in the places they've been. "If there's some other person or being involved in this, I can't imagine we're going to find out the truth this far from Lumiere."
Sciel feels her shoulders dropping a little, her posture bending under the weight of these things they are powerless to untangle themselves from. Horrible conversations lie ahead of them, with both Gustave and Verso, and perhaps both at once. There’s no death march towards annihilation to focus them. Their ties to each other are not so strong that they could not break under too much pressure.
She finds herself looking at Lune even as Maelle speaks, her expression vaguely tense.
“Verso can’t know much about that,” Sciel says.
She regrets it even as it comes out of her mouth –– there’s no real need to be sure of anything, on that subject –– but it feels right to her. Why would he bother leading them to the top of the monolith if he knew there was something else beyond her? Why take them on a detour that could just get them killed? Why would he have them kill his mother, of all beings, if the real culprit was elsewhere?
A worse thought:
“Renoir might, but he wouldn’t give us a straight answer even to save his life.”
Lune bites back a sigh, feeling a welling of sympathy for Maelle. If anyone deserves answers for this, it would be her. She fears the girl may be correct.
Feeling the weight of that look, Lune meets Sciel's eyes, her own narrowing just a fraction as she tries to untangle the subtext here. It's not that she can't understand Sciel's reasoning and caution, but at the same time she knows of Sciel's soft spot for Verso. Lune is unwilling to agree to entirely scrap this venue of inquiry with him, and so she pushes back as diplomatically as she can.
"Doesn't hurt to ask for his opinion, all the same."
Well, it might hurt some feelings, potentially, but so will the whole rest of this topic. It's a chance Lune is willing to take, at any rate. When Sciel brings up Renoir, she scoffs.
"You're right, he wouldn't. And the less dealings we have with him," the way Lune spits out that word spells out her contempt well enough, refusing to even call the man by his name, "The better."
Sciel says what Maelle thinks--Verso might be old, might have complicated ties to the Paintress, but that doesn't mean he knows everything. Of course, the fact that he keeps so much hidden away doesn't help his case...
She does smile a little at Lune's remark about Renoir. That, Maelle fully agrees with.
"Our dealings with him would be much less if I knew I could get rid of him," she says.
There are plenty of obvious reasons to despise Renoir, and Sciel finds her heart to be similarly hard, even if there are few reasons to register that disdain aloud. That about covers it, doesn’t it?
Verso, as always, complicates things, and she feels the tension pull tighter like a notch on a belt. She purses her lips and nods, tearing her gaze away from Lune.
“And we’ve made an agreement to keep our distance from Renoir,” Sciel adds. “It’s better that we ignore him than risk trying something like that and ending up in another brawl.”
"That's good," Lune says with a slight nod, pulling her eyes from Sciel a little reluctantly. She itches to press further, but it will be better to talk about those things – and everything else – with Sciel a bit later, in private.
Another thought occurs to her then, a new frown knitting her brows. "Did Verso make that agreement as well? I can't imagine it's been easy for him, having to face Renoir again after..."
Maelle's stayed away. She thinks she won't be able to help herself, the next time she sees him. Before, she'd been confused and shocked and terrified, without her rapier, alone. She tells herself she won't seek him out, but if he dares show his face to her, or harms anyone--
Well, it'd be justified. Whatever she's able to do to him.
"I don't remember," Maelle says, a half-truth. He'd been there for that conversation, and she remembers the general sense of everyone agreeing, but did he?
If it weren’t so beautifully, succinctly Lune to ask, Sciel would curse. As it is, she’ll save harsher thoughts for Verso himself —– how does believing in the best of him land her so swiftly in uncomfortable territory, twice in so short a time? Just weeks ago, she’d stood calmly while backing Verso into a corner, and he had the grace to accept it.
Now she finds him doing just the same to her without even being here, and she feels no penance at all. He’d promised, and she can’t even defer this to a later conversation without upsetting Maelle, who is proving herself to be quite the little wildcard.
There’s nothing to do but to be honest. She turns her attention back to Lune. No sense in being contrite; this is Verso keeping secrets from Gustave, not her, but she does look distinctly apologetic anyway.
“We didn’t make him swear it,” she says. “But I know the score. He promised me he’ll speak with Gustave about it soon.”
Lune's gaze jumps from Maelle back to Sciel, already able to read from her friend's expression that she's about to say something she thinks will rock the boat anew. When Sciel replies, it doesn't entirely surprise Lune. She nods again, inhaling and exhaling deep and slow as she mulls everything over for a beat. She's beginning to have a slightly clearer picture of the dynamics at play, here. Not ideal, is Lune's impression.
"And do you think he will?" She asks Sciel, unusually gently. She's not crazy about having to bring this up, especially in Maelle's presence, annoyed at Verso for putting Sciel in such an uncomfortable position. She can only imagine the balancing act she's had to do between Verso and Gustave— and Maelle too, to a degree.
Maelle is quiet, but the troubled look on her face says it all. She enjoys this conversation about as much as Verso would, and she sets her glass of water down in favor of clasping her hands together on her lap.
Verso will never make things easy and it makes everyone question him more and more. It's all so--pointless, now. All that matters is staying together and away from Renoir.
She doesn't understand why everything has to be so complicated.
She sees Maelle’s movements in her peripheral vision, and she takes a brief moment to confirm what she suspects; she’s closing off, and for good reason. This conversation will not veer anywhere more pleasant again.
“I don’t know why he would tell me and then not do it,” Sciel says. “It’s hard, but…”
He wouldn’t sabotage her friendship with Gustave by putting her in a tighter spot. Sciel feels confident about that, so much so that she decides not to even suggest the alternative out loud. Doubling down won’t go anywhere useful, either. For a moment she just lets the but hang there, her expression overly hopeful, like she could reassure Lune that no gentleness is needed.
Here’s the but: She realizes she’s wringing her hands. She smiles and shrugs and decides she’d much rather care for the two people in front of her than worry about something Verso still has time to do.
“You know, it’s getting late. I think this is enough to stew on for one night, and Gustave will want Maelle home soon anyway… should we call it here for now?”
Let Maelle have some reprieve, before she shuts down entirely.
Lune remains silent, flattening her lips briefly in an imitation of a sympathetic smile. She hopes Sciel is right. She doesn't think Verso would deliberately decide not to follow through with a promise made, but when is it ever a good time to broach difficult conversations? It could be all too easy to push it back, and again... but Sciel is confident. Lune may not trust Verso, but she does trust Sciel with everything she has.
"Oh— yeah. Sure." Lune nods, setting her half-empty glass on the coffee table. As usual, Sciel picks up on the obvious cues and things she misses. "I suppose we have nothing but time, now."
But Lune only barely keeps her tone level and the grimace from her expression at that, knowing she's supposed to feel glad — or some other positive emotion — at the prospect. All she feels is pervasive uncertainty and a sense of... being out of place.
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"Yeah. You're right," she acknowledges Sciel's caution, finally taking a drink from the glass of water. To Maelle: "No one is saying cut him out. That wouldn't be fair, nor smart."
Lune imagines that would only drive him to Renoir, potentially. They don't want that, surely.
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There's no point in trying to dig for truths when it won't change how they are now. As much as she would like for Gustave to trust Verso, she has a hard time imagining it.
"What are we looking for?"
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She feels much more sure about her own face, at least.
"He doesn't share things he deems important if it's personal," she says, like a gentle correction, because that's a lot of things, now.
Sciel pauses, and elects to sit on the coffee table, across from both of them. She sets her glass down with her and curls her fingers around the table's edge. There's a million things floating around in her head. She chews on it a moment, the words sitting on the tip of her tongue, then:
"I feel like I shouldn't say this," she admits, "It feels like prying, but I can't avoid that when it's all tied in together. Still... I'd like to understand how his mother became the Paintress."
And that that's meant for all of them, going back generations.
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"Just because revealing something may not make a difference now doesn't mean it has no meaning or importance." She knows her and Maelle are (obviously) on different sides of that argument.
She gives Sciel a steady look, nodding after a moment.
"Agreed. That feels like a good place to begin. And how did the Gommage come to be tied up with her— why? If it's because of her, why did it come for us all regardless once she was gone? It makes no sense."
Some of this is Lune working it out aloud; and as if to counter the obvious argument, she adds, "Verso may not know, but we should still at least ask."
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"Is the Gommage tied to the Paintress?" She asks, voice steady, but small. She hasn't liked thinking too much about that day, because it ended with their deaths despite victory. She looks down at her hands, thumb still anxiously catching on the glass. "What I did to her, to Renoir... was that something else, or...?"
And why her?
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As Verso is wont to do.
But there’s something more important at play now, and her attention swivels to Maelle. Every time Gustave has remarked on how far they’ve come with the Lumina converter, she’s politely swallowed the thought that he doesn’t know the half of it. The girl sitting on her hotel room couch now has the very same power that they’ve built their lives around for decades, and none of them have wanted to say anything about it for over a month.
Sciel finds herself shaking her head.
“It was Gommage, Maelle,” she says. No point in denying it. “But you didn’t Gommage us and then yourself. So does that mean there’s more of them out there?”
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"I thought at first that it was the Curator, but then you did it again, independently." To the Paintress. Lune was so fascinated with the anomaly at the time that she didn't question it further. And there wasn't time, anyway. "Though clearly, it was something the Curator did to you that... unlocked it."
She frowns pensively. Unbeknownst to her, Lune echoes Sciel's thoughts; safe to imagine Gustave probably doesn't know about that particular detail. It will be extremely difficult to explain to him something that they don't really understand themselves. Lune's gaze tracks back to Sciel. Her question is an uncomfortable one, but the reasoning can be proven viable by simple process of elimination.
"If the Gommage is not tied to the Paintress, nor the Curator..." And certainly not Maelle. "Then perhaps it is because of someone else. We've been given evidence now that this... power? Ability? It's not so individualistic as we may have once perceived."
But that just opens up a whole new venue of questions.
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"... I don't feel like I could do it again now, if I tried," she says, eyes downcast. Not that there's anyone to try it on, and it seems the Gommage simply doesn't exist in the places they've been. "If there's some other person or being involved in this, I can't imagine we're going to find out the truth this far from Lumiere."
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She finds herself looking at Lune even as Maelle speaks, her expression vaguely tense.
“Verso can’t know much about that,” Sciel says.
She regrets it even as it comes out of her mouth –– there’s no real need to be sure of anything, on that subject –– but it feels right to her. Why would he bother leading them to the top of the monolith if he knew there was something else beyond her? Why take them on a detour that could just get them killed? Why would he have them kill his mother, of all beings, if the real culprit was elsewhere?
A worse thought:
“Renoir might, but he wouldn’t give us a straight answer even to save his life.”
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Feeling the weight of that look, Lune meets Sciel's eyes, her own narrowing just a fraction as she tries to untangle the subtext here. It's not that she can't understand Sciel's reasoning and caution, but at the same time she knows of Sciel's soft spot for Verso. Lune is unwilling to agree to entirely scrap this venue of inquiry with him, and so she pushes back as diplomatically as she can.
"Doesn't hurt to ask for his opinion, all the same."
Well, it might hurt some feelings, potentially, but so will the whole rest of this topic. It's a chance Lune is willing to take, at any rate. When Sciel brings up Renoir, she scoffs.
"You're right, he wouldn't. And the less dealings we have with him," the way Lune spits out that word spells out her contempt well enough, refusing to even call the man by his name, "The better."
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She does smile a little at Lune's remark about Renoir. That, Maelle fully agrees with.
"Our dealings with him would be much less if I knew I could get rid of him," she says.
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Verso, as always, complicates things, and she feels the tension pull tighter like a notch on a belt. She purses her lips and nods, tearing her gaze away from Lune.
“And we’ve made an agreement to keep our distance from Renoir,” Sciel adds. “It’s better that we ignore him than risk trying something like that and ending up in another brawl.”
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Another thought occurs to her then, a new frown knitting her brows. "Did Verso make that agreement as well? I can't imagine it's been easy for him, having to face Renoir again after..."
Well. Everything.
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Well, it'd be justified. Whatever she's able to do to him.
"I don't remember," Maelle says, a half-truth. He'd been there for that conversation, and she remembers the general sense of everyone agreeing, but did he?
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Now she finds him doing just the same to her without even being here, and she feels no penance at all. He’d promised, and she can’t even defer this to a later conversation without upsetting Maelle, who is proving herself to be quite the little wildcard.
There’s nothing to do but to be honest. She turns her attention back to Lune. No sense in being contrite; this is Verso keeping secrets from Gustave, not her, but she does look distinctly apologetic anyway.
“We didn’t make him swear it,” she says. “But I know the score. He promised me he’ll speak with Gustave about it soon.”
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"And do you think he will?" She asks Sciel, unusually gently. She's not crazy about having to bring this up, especially in Maelle's presence, annoyed at Verso for putting Sciel in such an uncomfortable position. She can only imagine the balancing act she's had to do between Verso and Gustave— and Maelle too, to a degree.
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Verso will never make things easy and it makes everyone question him more and more. It's all so--pointless, now. All that matters is staying together and away from Renoir.
She doesn't understand why everything has to be so complicated.
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“I don’t know why he would tell me and then not do it,” Sciel says. “It’s hard, but…”
He wouldn’t sabotage her friendship with Gustave by putting her in a tighter spot. Sciel feels confident about that, so much so that she decides not to even suggest the alternative out loud. Doubling down won’t go anywhere useful, either. For a moment she just lets the but hang there, her expression overly hopeful, like she could reassure Lune that no gentleness is needed.
Here’s the but: She realizes she’s wringing her hands. She smiles and shrugs and decides she’d much rather care for the two people in front of her than worry about something Verso still has time to do.
“You know, it’s getting late. I think this is enough to stew on for one night, and Gustave will want Maelle home soon anyway… should we call it here for now?”
Let Maelle have some reprieve, before she shuts down entirely.
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"Oh— yeah. Sure." Lune nods, setting her half-empty glass on the coffee table. As usual, Sciel picks up on the obvious cues and things she misses. "I suppose we have nothing but time, now."
But Lune only barely keeps her tone level and the grimace from her expression at that, knowing she's supposed to feel glad — or some other positive emotion — at the prospect. All she feels is pervasive uncertainty and a sense of... being out of place.