Chapter Text
She had chosen to come.
Alicia stands atop Stone Wave Cliffs and watches. Without voice. Without color. A silent portrait of Maman’s pain. Watching as her family, and theirs, wage war for control of the canvas.
Soon, Papa will step from the shadows, and soon after, Verso will step from his. But alone, Alicia will stand on the sidelines, muted and scarred, a forgotten facsimile of the girl below.
Maelle. Alicia, as she was supposed to be. In a different coat of paint. In the aftermath of the Lampmaster’s defeat, Maelle is alive and alight with laughter in the company of the man beside her. Gustave. Her brother in a way Verso cannot be. Not by blood, but by chroma and by choice.
“Ooh, what about that one?” Gustave asks, leaning down to pick up a stone from the cliffside.
“Does it really matter?”
Maelle’s eyes shine with adoration and admiration. There is fondness in every look between them, in every laugh shared. Clear smiles, unobscured.
Once, her family had been whole, too. Yet life and its cruel choices had taken them from her, one by one. Maman, who could not forgive nor forget her. Clea, her Clea, taken by the other. Papa, consumed in this war. Verso, turned against them, jaded and conflicted, lost not only to them but to himself.
And her, alone, omitted, as she might have been outside the Canvas.
But this Alicia, this Maelle. Her laugh is not a twisted, throaty rasp. It is light and airy, cast freely into the air like stones skipped into the ocean. When Maelle looks up at Gustave, it is a mirror, a self-portrait rendered in eidetic detail. Of Alicia, looking up at Verso, ashes in the shadow of his light.
Verso is in shadows now, she knows. Lying in wait. A liar, in waiting. He will intervene only to save Maelle and attach himself to this expedition as their mysterious savior, a stranger who knows, amongst those who know not, that they are not.
Lies of omission are the cruelest and gentlest variety. They spare the liar and the lied to in like measure, granting one the illusion and the other the reality of blissful ignorance.
They are her brother’s favorite form of deception.
The thud of Papa’s cane beat brings her attention back to the unaware pair. Each tap of it rings with finality, like the first and last notes of a lamentation only she and Verso can hear. Of his love for Aline. Of everything he would do to protect their family. Alicia draws a breath and holds it, taut in her scarred throat, as she feels him draw the chroma from the air.
She waits in symphony with Verso. Omitting herself from the truth, from the tragic narrative.
“Well, you know, like I always say, it’s not about the rock, it’s more about the –”
The strike cuts him off mid-sentence, piercing through the heart of him and painting Maelle’s face crimson with blood in a single monochromatic thrust. Red bleeds from him, staining the canvas of his corneas, the portrait of his face. Like his counterpart, Papa paints death.
“Run,” Gustave gasps, turning to face him.
Like a mirror, like a reflection – not of Alicia, but of Gustave, this brother that wasn’t Verso – this father that wasn’t Renoir – Maelle begs him in return: “Please… please run.”
Gustave staggers in front of Maelle. Ready to make his last stand. Not realizing her life is in no danger. Not from them.
“Why … why are you doing this?” he asks, voice labored, breaths heaving.
They know not. That is their curse and their blessing.
Papa doesn’t respond. He and Verso have long given up on offering the truth to the expeditioners.
Gustave’s sword materializes at his side. Had he taught Maelle to fight? As Verso had taught her? Reflections, in requiem.
Alicia shouldn’t be so affected. She has been a spectator to her father’s work before.
“We’ve done nothing to you… we should be on the same side.”
There are two sides to every story, but neither of theirs are headed for a happy ending.
Gustave attacks. Papa does not flinch. Dutiful and devoted, the perfect picture of filial fealty.
“Let her go… Please.”
The sky cracks with a storm as Gustave charges his mechanical arm, crackling with desperate lightning. He smashes a fist of overcharged energy at Papa, the force of his love tangled with levin, and sends him crashing into the cliffside, a crater of sparks radiating around him.
Without conscious thought, Alicia finds herself moving from her spot. Instinct, brushing against the rusted coat of her painted self. Papa is not harmed, but it’s not him that moves her closer to the edge.
Gustave's overheated arm drops, carrying with it the last hope of Maelle’s brother, and the rising hope of hers. Verso awaits, prepared to pick up the pieces and arrange them in pursuit of his goal.
Papa picks himself up, ever resolute, and marches onward, unceasing in his defense of his family. He does not require Alicia’s defense. That is not her role in their painted family; her presence in these engagements is only meant to maintain the balance between her brother and her father, and Verso has not intervened yet.
He won’t. Not until Gustave is dead.
“For those who come after, right?”
Gustave turns to Maelle, and Alicia is fatally familiar with the expression. The final farewell. It is not the first time she has seen a brother share one last look with his sister.
There isn’t a day that passes where it still doesn’t hurt. Of that, the Paintress has made sure. The memories are not hers, and yet she cannot forget them. They are as present as the scars that shape her.
“You promised…” Maelle begs, unable to break through the barrier, impervious to fists that could otherwise unmake it with the brushstrokes of a Paintress. Because Maelle knows not, she cannot.
Again, Gustave summons his sword.
He will die here. In front of Maelle. In front of Papa, and Verso, and –
Her. Alicia, silent, on the sidelines. Without voice. Without color. Without a chance of ending the cycle of their families’ grief, of their pain. Without the means to find another way.
For though her name is Alicia, she's not the one who has already lost her brother to a fire. Gustave is not hers to save.
But perhaps – perhaps –
Alicia reaches skyward, so quickly her mask falls from her face. In one practiced flourish, like a conductor ending a show, she uses a power only she and the Paintress share.
The world narrows. Time stops. Her mask never hits the ground; Papa’s attack never connects. This time, Alicia has not spared him from the cessation of chroma.
Of all things, absurdly, she wants to laugh. Until now, she has never interfered so openly, never defied a member of her family so directly. Always, Alicia has remained on the sidelines, in the shadows, not daring to bring herself into the light. It's a trait she thinks she might share with the real Alicia, who had grown up overlooked in lieu of brilliant Clea and charming Verso, whose talents in painting and music had thrived in the limelight.
She leaps from her vantage point and lands on the lip of the cliff in front of Maelle. She remains frozen in time, her expression locked in the amber of her impending grief. Alicia finds her gaze meeting her mirror, drawn to the unscarred reflection of their shared face.
In her distraction, she doesn’t notice Verso's approach.
“What are you doing?” her brother asks, unaffected by the pause in time.
Even in defying his plans, Alicia could not bring herself to fully deny him. Like her father, like the rest of her painted family, she exists within the outline of her design. She loves her brother. As Maelle loves Gustave.
Gustave, whose chroma she’s frozen in place opposite Papa. Both of them poised as if for portraiture, their emotions drawn in candid detail. In Gustave’s eyes, resolve makes its final stand, the determination of a man who’s already accepted his death.
In memories that aren’t hers, in nightmares that are, the real Verso had looked at her with eyes like his. Maman had painted her in the grays of guilt, and she had lived with it for many, many years. She shouldn’t blame Alicia for trying to absolve herself of it. Here was her chance; here was her choice.
“What Papa hoped.” Verso stands as if to bar her way, but just as she cannot deny him, he cannot deny her. She bypasses him and lays a hand on the open wound through Gustave’s chest. “Reaching.”
She cannot heal. They say time heals all wounds, but she's capable only of stopping time. But fire, she is more than familiar with.
For the first time, she draws on it, that haunting heat, as she cauterizes the fatal wound. The skin will scar, like a signature of her touch. It will hold until his friends can heal him. She cannot heal, but it does not mean she cannot help. It does not mean the heart cannot hold.
“Take them away."
“I don’t understand. Have you changed your mind? He’ll be upset with you.” Verso nods at Papa.
She shakes her head. No, Papa will be quite cross with her. For once, her fear of disappointing him hasn't stayed her hand.
But he’ll forgive her. For her father was painted to forgive all the flaws and sins of his family. That is his fate, as it was hers to stand, silent, on the sidelines. A living reminder of the real Verso’s death. Painted to be penance for another girl’s guilt.
“If she finds out about the Canvas and he’s alive, she won’t help us send Maman home. She won't let him go. He has to die, she won’t listen otherwise,” Verso says, gesturing at Maelle.
Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps Maelle will paint the bars of her own prison in the shadow of the monolith. Fall victim to the same dichotomy both their families have: that only one of their families can survive.
Alicia doesn’t know if Maelle will be different, but she knows she can be.
“Then make him listen.” She points at Gustave emphatically.
“If I can't?" he asks, voice cracking as his mask slips, as hers had. "Alicia ... I can’t fail again. I don’t know if I can live like this anymore."
In her worst nightmares, he begs her in the same voice to leave as the fire consumes him. When she wakes, she does so with the knowledge and guilt that in another world, she does.
"Try. For her... for me. I tire of the lies that haunt us," she says, honestly, hiding her face behind her hair.
Verso reaches out and caresses her face, his calloused palm against her scarred cheek. “My beautiful sister.” He sighs, hand falling to his side to rest on the hilt of his sword.
“All right. But you should go with them. Not me.” There’s an old weariness in his voice, one dogged by defeat and despair. “I’ve failed enough times.”
Alicia points at Maelle and shakes her head. She isn’t ready yet.
Verso nods and begins to haul Gustave over his shoulder.
Slowly, Alicia makes her way to Maelle and the barrier around her. Her eyes remain fixed forward, where Gustave had been prepared to make his final stand.
She draws her rapier and slashes, erasing the cage of chroma.
"Go. I’ll hold off Papa.”
“You don’t have to hide anymore,” Verso says, joining her and Maelle with Gustave thrown over his shoulder.
Already, Alicia can see the mask begin to fall back over his face, his plans shifting to accommodate the new variable he carries. Ever the perfectionist, her brother.
“Neither do you,” she says.
She spots Gustave's fallen arm and bends down to retrieve it.
It’s not about the rock, it’s more about the –
With a great heave, Alicia sends it sailing over the cliffside. It lands atop Esquie.
Readying her rapier, Alicia turns back to Papa and assumes a defensive stance.
Perhaps the pair of them, two brothers and two sisters, can become more than each other's reflections.
Perhaps Maelle will find another way, as she has.
After all, time heals all wounds. She releases her hold and lets it start anew.
As they say:
Tomorrow comes.