[Maelle pointedly keeps her eyes down. She listens, but she doesn't want to meet Sciel's gaze. Sometimes it's just too much. Change. Everything changes. She wonders if the change she's struggling with is Verso or Gustave.
It's always concerning one of them.]
Oof.
[Maelle breathes out. That's more difficult to stomach than her read about love.]
I'm thinking... I'm thinking that I do believe I matter to him. [In this moment, as long as her insecurities behave.] And maybe that's why he--like you said, he doesn't know how to be with people. And the people he has been with are all dead. Us included, now. It's easier to hide, sometimes. I get it.
[Hide the truth, hide his feelings. Isn't she doing that now, to spare Gustave some pain that will inevitably find him anyway?]
[In this very moment, she feels it would be hard to be charitable with him, face to face, but the frustration that kicked up in her conversation with Renoir hasn’t lasted. It was never going to.]
I’m glad you know you matter to him. And I think it is very kind of you to think of his feelings, when it would be easy to villainize him. But you can’t wait for him to come around and be a better friend to you, either.
[Verso may lie, but the more she thinks about it, the more she wants to give him the benefit of the doubt in at least one thing: he was genuinely happy to spend time with her.
Maelle lets out a breath, leaning back in her seat to look at Sciel. She shrugs a shoulder.]
Gustave. The Gommage. I think he doesn't know what to do with Gustave, which would align with what you've said about Verso not knowing how to be with people. And then... he led us on the path to killing his father and his mother and somehow that led to the Gommage coming for us all. I'd feel pretty terrible about that if I were him.
[How embarrassing to be wrong. How miserable to have even more deaths on your shoulders.]
He’s never been so tricky to pin down in conversation. It felt like he was either trying to get away from conversation, or springing from one thing to the next…
[They’ve all coped in their own ways, and she’s felt equally manic at times, even without whatever painful knowledge he’s hiding in his heart.]
And what about you? Do you have a wall of your own?
It’s not an admonishment, you know. You don’t have to do anything about it if you don’t want to –– especially if it’s what you need to do to feel comfort. How do you want to be about all this?
[Sciel pauses, looking at Maelle, and then she puts the cards back together in a deck and slides them away from them. Forget the cards.]
Maelle, a normal person takes years to grieve a lost loved one, and spends years looking for them in other people. You’ll be asking for yourself what to do for a long time. There is no magic answer.
It is a lot. [She can agree with that.] Perhaps we can think about it differently, though.
We didn't think we'd ever see Gustave again. Now we have him, hale and whole. We also have another opportunity to save our world. I think any other problem after that is pretty manageable.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It's always concerning one of them.]
Oof.
[Maelle breathes out. That's more difficult to stomach than her read about love.]
no subject
What are you thinking, Maelle?
no subject
[Hide the truth, hide his feelings. Isn't she doing that now, to spare Gustave some pain that will inevitably find him anyway?]
I wish we could talk about it.
no subject
[In this very moment, she feels it would be hard to be charitable with him, face to face, but the frustration that kicked up in her conversation with Renoir hasn’t lasted. It was never going to.]
I’m glad you know you matter to him. And I think it is very kind of you to think of his feelings, when it would be easy to villainize him. But you can’t wait for him to come around and be a better friend to you, either.
[She sets the card down.]
What do you think caused the tension between you?
no subject
Maelle lets out a breath, leaning back in her seat to look at Sciel. She shrugs a shoulder.]
Gustave. The Gommage. I think he doesn't know what to do with Gustave, which would align with what you've said about Verso not knowing how to be with people. And then... he led us on the path to killing his father and his mother and somehow that led to the Gommage coming for us all. I'd feel pretty terrible about that if I were him.
[How embarrassing to be wrong. How miserable to have even more deaths on your shoulders.]
It felt like there was a wall since we came here.
no subject
[They’ve all coped in their own ways, and she’s felt equally manic at times, even without whatever painful knowledge he’s hiding in his heart.]
And what about you? Do you have a wall of your own?
no subject
With him? Or in general?
no subject
Either, if you want to talk about it.
no subject
[There was still a wall between her and Emma, after all.]
no subject
[Either could find themselves jockeying for their own version of normalcy.]
no subject
... could it be both? Somehow?
[She would love to be able to cut herself in two like Verso, so she could be with both Gustave and Verso and never have to choose.]
no subject
Of course it can be. Especially if that’s the answer that speaks to you.
no subject
[Maelle's still not sure how much she believes it, but it's... something. Maybe it'll get her thinking, at least.]
The tension, the walls? The clinging?
no subject
no subject
[Sciel is the most normal person she knows.]
no subject
Maelle, a normal person takes years to grieve a lost loved one, and spends years looking for them in other people. You’ll be asking for yourself what to do for a long time. There is no magic answer.
no subject
Ooh. You're making me sound normal.
[Maelle is sure she would grieve Gustave for the rest of her life, had she actually gotten to live it upon returning to Lumiere.]
no subject
You are. You’re very normal.
no subject
[She says with a small smile. The touch is nice.]
no subject
Oh please, I’m lived with you for months and months now, if you were strange I’d have noticed.
no subject
[You're in it, Sciel.]
no subject
He is strange, but it’s an endearing sort of strange.
no subject
[Not the get returned to the orphanage kind of strange!]
It just feels like... endless problems. No matter what we do.
no subject
We didn't think we'd ever see Gustave again. Now we have him, hale and whole. We also have another opportunity to save our world. I think any other problem after that is pretty manageable.
no subject
It still surprises me sometimes. That he's... really here. And okay. Relatively speaking.
[The same could be said for them, but his death was far worse than the Gommage.]
Does it catch you off guard sometimes, too?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)