[ In response to Clea's irritation—no, something worse than irritation; genuine indignation at what he's said—the concern grows, tightening his chest and unsettling his stomach. This isn't normal, she must know. She's exacting at times, but never to this degree. ]
—Then playing pretend. Or swimming, or skiing.
[ There's a somewhat exasperated edge to his voice, frustration that his answers seem not to please her even though he knows it isn't quite fair. Surely it's not really about the answers, not about whatever they might or might not have done together as children. Unfortunately, that's what rankles most of all. Can't she just talk to him, rather than giving him some nonsensical test? ]
But I think we've grown quite beyond jigsaw puzzles and pretend.
[ Jigsaw puzzles, anyway. They just got better at pretending, as they got older. ]
[ Is he remembering, or is he throwing out answers to pacify her? What memories had Aline given him of their activities behind closed doors, when Maman had busied herself with Council work and Papa had been doting on Alicia? Playing pretend. Yes, they had played pretend, underneath the very sky now above them. Pretending to power they did not possess, pretending to be great explorers discovering new and strange lands. Pretending that there was a world where they would always be safe.
Clea crosses her arms, staring at him with a forced coldness.
Do not bend. Even if the frustration in his voice is achingly familiar and echoes in her mind with the voice of a dead man, a voice that had changed through the years from the frustrated boy running from the Lampmaster to the deep voice of a man proclaiming that she is being difficult. She can hear it: "Clea!"
The desire to be kind to him is a siren that will drown her at sea. That will drown them all. She sees Papa's fidgeting, the way he paces and stops at the doorway and looks at Aline and the Canvas. Even his love for his youngest child won't keep him from his wife forever.
Kindness would be a cruelty to those who are still living.
The longer she stays, the longer she looks at him, the more she will want. The more her heart will resist what her mind knows needs to be done. ]
This is pretend, Verso.
[ Clea raises her arm, gathering her Chroma, the air rippling around her so intently the woman is difficult to see, colors writhing and flowing, saturating the air with an undeniable thickness.
Rather than turn it on him, which would alert Aline, it pulses outward and, suddenly, the world twists, leaving them standing on a road made of grass and flowers rather than cobblestones.
—Clea, [ is somewhere between shocked and chiding. She can't just do that, whatever 'that' is. The world spins for a moment, his mind working overtime to catch up to the sudden change in surroundings, the feeling of soft dirt beneath his feet rather than rough stone. He feels as if he might fall over from the disorientation, and he holds an arm out to steady himself.
His first half-formed thought: ] That was—
[ And another: ] How—?
[ And then finally: ]
It was you.
[ The strange, impossible changes to the world. It's been Clea all along sending Maman into a tizzy. ]
This whole time, it was you, and you never said.
[ Because she's been there, listened to them speak of it. It must have been feigned ignorance, curiosity, but it had seemed so genuine. Of all of the things Clea is, he didn't think her an actor. That's always been more his speed. ]
[ 'The whole time, it was you, and you never said.'
He thinks she's that... that thing. That pale imitation of her that Maman uses to scaffold her delusions, to pretend that what she's doing isn't causing harm that will be difficult, if not possible to repair. (Does she care? Maybe not - maybe Verso had been the only one Maman had actually loved, but that will not stop Papa. She, Alicia, and Papa are apparently replaceable, unimportant presences in Aline's life.)
It's revolting. It's obscene.
And it thinks that's her. ]
I'm not her.
[ She snaps the words out in an angry hiss, face twisting into something ugly in her rage. She is not her. This is not Verso. This city is not their Canvas - not the place of joy and play it's supposed to be, but a twisted, disrespectful imposition of false realism. Aline may have loved her son, but it's clear she had no respect for him, rampaging through his work and prying it apart for her own selfish wallowing.
Above them, windows crack in unison, fracturing in perfect harmony before finally shattering, showering them both in glass.
Clea shuts her eyes and forces herself to breathe. To control herself. To try to stop the blood pumping and the sudden desire to wrap her arms around his neck and squeeze, to punish him for making her feel this way. For mocking her brother with his existence. To gommage him right here. Maman would bring him back, and her presence here (in the Canvas she had more right to) would only provoke a direct fight. Would rend everything asunder. ]
I'm not her. I'm Aline's actual daughter.
[ Her voice is controlled but brittle, the temporary peace fragile, liable to break. ]
She made this place to hide. Made you.
[ It's a risk, but Clea reaches out with her Chroma, touches the inside of 'Verso', plucking his 'soul' as though it were a harp string, letting it resonate with her power for a moment instead of Aline's. Providing him the same sense of rightness he feels in Aline's presence before letting it fade away. ]
She's locked herself away here. I interfered to remind her not to lose herself.
[ Clea is— incensed. Out of control. Full of a rage Verso has never seen in her before. It's frightening, and he shudders involuntarily at the sound of breaking glass. Tiny shards rain down on the both of them, bits sticking in his hair.
She's right. His sister would never do this to him. Even if she were capable of such things, she wouldn't use it to— torment him like this.
No, this is something different wearing Clea's face. Actual daughter, she says, and he shakes his head almost imperceptibly, an instant reaction. Maman's actual daughter is the one that he loves, not this stranger who speaks with Clea's voice, wears her clothes.
He feels the urge to reach out and— he's not certain. Surely he should rid Lumière of this doppelganger, but he finds it difficult to raise a hand against Clea. (Not Clea.) His fingers twitch, and he shifts his weight restlessly, impatient and impotent. ]
[ Something inside of Clea finds the shudder deeply satisfying, filling the part of her soul that cries out for vengeance even though this creation has nothing to do with the world outside. Had not chosen its own making. A part of her, buried along with Verso, would have been concerned about her reactions. Now, all she knows is that people fearing her keeps them safe. They will question whether to go against them if Clea commits to making blood run through the street. ]
The situation has changed.
[ Clea repeats herself. ]
If Maman doesn't attend to her responsibilities, Papa is going to come in here and try to force her.
[ She can see it. Can see him arriving and him and Maman tearing this place apart, destroying some of Clea's oldest memories with her brother for the sake of their own pettiness. Destroying the trees, the skies, the land. Every memory associated with this place. Maman blotting all over it is bad enough, but a fight would make it irrecoverable.
Rage foments in her stomach, but this time it isn't aimed at the creature wearing her brother's face, but at her parents. If one of them would move just an inch, this could be prevented, but of course they won't. Not without intervention. ]
If he does, they'll tear this city - and the world where it sits - apart.
[ Clea purses her lips and crosses her arms defensively, a sign she's having emotions that displease her. ]
I would prefer they did not. My preference means nothing to them. You need to break Maman's illusion. You're the only thing she cares about right now.
[ Clea—or the thing that looks like Clea, but can't possibly be—speaks so decisively, like any of this makes sense. He's still reeling from her accusation that their lives here are in some way unreal, that their family isn't legitimate. ]
You have to know that you sound crazy.
[ If there's any part of her that is the same as Clea, his Clea, then she should cling to rationality against all odds. The fact that she isn't, the fact that it's Clea's face and voice expressing these insane things to him, is frightening. He wishes very badly that it were his sister here instead. She would talk him down, tell him that the swirling dread that's forming in the pit of his stomach is ridiculous and overdramatic.
He shakes his head. ]
Illusion? This is real.
[ There's a twinge of doubt in his voice, though, like maybe Clea is just confirming what he's known all along: that there's something deeply wrong with this place, with him. ]
[ She's going to end up crazy if she has to deal with this much longer. If this were her Verso, the real Verso, she'd have to read his feelings from his body language and his tone of voice. Here, she can read his Chroma, can tell that the dread and denial is sitting in his gut even before he shakes his head, denying her words. ]
Is it, Verso?
[ Is it, truly? Think it through. ]
Why does nobody move away? Why does nobody move to Lumière from the other places on the globe?
[ There are globes here: Clea has seen them. Aline really has gone to extraordinary measures to ensure that this feels real enough to keep her mind cosseted. That also means that she has to keep remnants of the real world. A globe with only one city on it would remind Aline too strongly of her illusion. ]
Where do the trains go, Verso? Why haven't you ever ridden one outside of the city?
[ And, of course...]
If this is real, why can I change this place as I please? Do you want this building to be pink? Orange? I could make a window shutting sound like a piano arpeggio.
[ Clea is, of course, right. About everything. These are things he's wondered about before; why does no one ever leave Lumière? Maman had said it was because Lumière was the best city on Earth, and he'd been inclined to agree. But then— why does no one ever come here, either?
He'd wondered, but he'd been too afraid to investigate it further. Somewhere, deep down, he'd known he wouldn't like the answer. ]
If it isn't real, then—
[ He wades through his memories. So many of them are foggy, but there are a few with startling clarity. ]
How come I know that you fell out of your double pirouette at your ballet recital, and it made you so angry you practiced until your feet bled?
[ The whole family had had to suffer her bad attitude, but— ]
Until you could do a triple pirouette without breaking a sweat.
[ How dare he? How dare he beg her in Verso's voice? How dare he remind her that Verso is never going to be upset with her again because he's gone? That she'll never hear his exasperated 'stop' again? How dare he try to use a memory against her? A memory from her life, that Aline had stolen and used for...for what? Flavor?Realism?
Had she given him all of the memories of Clea being a failure? ]
Because Maman wanted you to have that memory - it's hers, not yours. You remember my failure.
[ As they had unfortunately all witnessed it, as well as her attempts to remedy her inadequacy. ]
Do you remember when 'you' snuck out of your room at night to try to convince me to stop?
[ A moment between her and her brother their mother had not been privy to? How could this be Verso when he is only filtered through Maman's vision? When he is so much more than any one of them knew? Verso had been a different self with them all, a different self outside. They were all him. ]
Do you remember my answer?
[ "I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best." ]
Do you remember if you agreed with me?
[ He hadn't. He had been a tender hearted boy who'd grown into a tender hearted man. ]
CLEA!!! she has me frothing at the mouth (complimentary)
That didn't happen, [ he replies quickly, because it's the only answer that makes sense. If he doesn't remember it, it must not have happened. It's been one of the basic tenets of life for decades, gone unquestioned.
But why didn't it happen? He can't recall fretting over Clea pushing herself too far, but he knows he must have. He would have— should have done something to put a stop to it, and he didn't. It feels wrong, yet he has no recollection of confronting her. The problem had just faded away, as most of them tended to, and he'd never thought of it again.
He reasons, ] It— I wanted to stop you.
[ Did he? It's the only thing that makes sense, so his mind fills in the gaps with hypotheses and theories. He rubs at his temple, migraine quickly forming. ]
[ This isn't Verso, but Aline had gotten some aspects of him correct. Like his tendency to deny and dance around any truth that he found unpleasant, as though he could force the truth to bend through sheer force of will. It was interesting that her brother had never taken to painting given how much he'd liked to rewrite history.
Clea's response is wordless. She doesn't need to speak. She waves a hand, Chroma pulsing, and gives him the rest of the memory. Unlike Aline, she doesn't stitch it onto his mind, doesn't pretend it's his own. He sees Clea's perspective:
Clea is 12 years old and she's a failure. She and the other girls had started their en pointe last year, and she'd been so proud, but it's hard to keep up. The other girls at the Opèra (because where else could she go - would a Dessendre go - except for the best?) are there every day, practicing for hours. Not splitting their time between dancing and painting, not trying to grasp more time using a Canvas and miscalculating how much practice they need with their real body. Not disappointing everyone.
She'd ruined the recital and made the school look bad. She knows it: That she's only there as an indulgence, that she can't actually dance, that she made a fool of herself and of Maman, who had looked at her with lips pursed in disappointment. She knows because she heard the commentary of the patrons backstage after the show: "Not the best dancer, but lovely to look at." And she knows hearing it makes her feel wrong, mortified.
Clea is a failure and she needs to fix it. So she does. She will fix it - she dances for hours, stopping only when she needs to sleep, locking herself in her room unless one of her parents extracts her for a meal.
"Clea?"
She's changing her shoes - once her feet started bleeding, the pointe shoes end up filling up with blood and she needs to change them. It throws off the balance. Clea is about to throw another pair onto the growing pile, but her brother's voice stops her.
He's looking at her in horror. At the shoes. He has that look on his face: the one that suggests he's about to cry.
"What is it, Verso? I'm busy."
"Clea, you have to stop." He goes so far as to put a hand on her arm, physically stopping her from tying up her next pair of shoes. From continuing.
She sighs. He doesn't understand. "Verso, I have to do this. I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best. Accomplishment requires suffering - I can't stop every time I'm uncomfortable." Clea parrots words their mother has spoken back at him.
"Will I have to?" That's the question that makes Clea freeze: those large grey eyes looking at her, wondering if he's going to be expected to do this to himself. 'No' her mind tells her instinctively. Not Verso. Just her. But how can she explain?
"No, Verso."
"Why do you?" Because she's not good enough. Clea moves his hand and doesn't answer, resumes tying her shoes. This time, though, he doesn't leave. Or cry. He grabs the shoe out of her hand and throws it at the door with a ferocity that makes Clea blink.
"NO." He says with such conviction Clea feels a wellspring of pride inside of her. "You stay, I'm going to get bandages." It's odd, to be given orders by such a suddenly serious little boy, with no sign of his usual laughter. When he leaves, he sprints, hurrying as though this was something important.
The memory fades, but it remains etched into Verso's mind. Just as silently, Clea reaches out and untangles his Chroma - the strands that are crossing over each other and starting to snarl - easing the pain in his head. ]
Edited (haha what are words) 2025-09-25 22:46 (UTC)
[ Verso spends a significant amount of time imagining how he might look in someone else's eyes, but this is the first time he's ever had the opportunity to really see it. Except—
It's not him. It's someone who looks like he used to look, acts like he used to act, but he knows deep down that their essence isn't the same. How could it be, when Verso has no recollection of this ever happening? It's not something he would ever forget, the sight of dark red blood pooling in one of his most beloved people's shoes, yet he must have. The memory is too vivid to be fake, in more clarity than most of his. He can hardly remember ever being that small, but Clea has his exact image in her mind's eye, down to the wavy strands of hair sprouting from his head that he hadn't quite figured out what to do with yet.
I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best. He wants to grab her and shake her, even now. She's Clea in appearance only, but suddenly that doesn't matter, fraternal feeling flooding him at the borrowed memory. She was right: he is tender-hearted.
There are a million questions on his tongue, but there's only one that seems most important: ]
[ The question shatters Clea's guarded heart into a thousand pieces. Hostility drains from her bearing, leaving only a look of pure and utter lostness on Clea's face, eyes haunted and hollow. Nobody had asked her about herself since... since the fire. Aline left. Renoir splits all his time between Alicia's bedside and staring at Aline in the Canvas. Sometimes he tells Clea to do something, or asks her to watch over Alicia.
Tears that she quickly wipes away well up in her eyes. The only person who had truly known and cared for her is dead, and he's never coming back.
Another memory enters Verso's mind, a fragment from Clea not closing the connection properly: Clea sitting and Verso wrapping what is truly an absurd amount of bandages around each injured foot with a nine year old's sensibility that more is always better. His small face is scrunched up with the utmost concentration, as though winding the bandages around her foot were as important as creating a great work. As though it mattered.
As though she mattered.
Clea forces herself to breathe - she doesn't technically have to here, but the act is grounding.
There's a rough edge to her voice when she answers. ]
Yes. It was idiotic anyway. Maman was correct: I lacked the attributes to be a truly worthwhile dancer.
[ Too tall, too muscular, too unwilling to give up her sculpting or Painting. Now her dancing was little more than a parlor trick done for her own amusement. She'd danced for Verso's music, but his appreciation aside, they both knew it wasn't actual art. ]
[ It's painful not to remember these things. To have— what, forgotten them? Never had the memory in the first place? Either way, it feels like a grave sin. Where he'd once smoothed over the gaps where his memories were absent, their nonexistence now feels stark. There are big, empty holes where there should be something, anything.
Not real, Clea had said. Is that what this is, then? A painting that he'd never wanted to admit was lacking in detail? The thought of verbalizing that aloud makes him want to throw up, so he doesn't. Instead: ]
Maman wouldn't say that.
[ Not to him, anyway. She'd always acted as if he hung the stars, as if he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. Frequently, she'd cooed about how bright his future was. ]
[ It's a splash of cold water on Clea's heart. This isn't Verso. He has no memories of her constant attempts to win Aline's approval, of the times he'd found her in this very Canvas working off her frustration after failing. Of the discussions they'd started to have once Verso had realized that his desire for music over painting was a disappointment: it had been the first time he hadn't been her golden child. He doesn't know that Aline's approval of Clea has always had conditions, unlike her love for Verso or Renoir's tenderness for Alicia.
She's known for years: If she doesn't achieve, she has no value.
Not that it had mattered in the end. She still doesn't - Aline abandoned them and Renoir is about to follow. ]
Not to you.
You can do no wrong.
[ Even now, even with him gone, it infuriates a part of her. Effort hadn't mattered: Verso had been charming and Alicia had been adorable, and that was all that mattered. ]
I'm surprised she bothered with a copy of me at all. It's not necessary.
It's shocking, and perhaps a bit uncomfortable, how badly he wants to take a step forward to close the distance between them. To take her by the shoulders and shake her, or maybe embrace her. To tell her that she's necessary to him, and that if she talks that way about herself again, he's going to play Chopsticks off-tune for a whole day and make her listen to it.
This is not his Clea, yet there must be some part of him, deep in his bones, that recognizes her anyway.
But there are greater things at stake here than a sister's feelings; he crosses his arms, worries his lip. ]
You called this all an illusion.
[ He can still feel every bit of logic in him resisting the thought, coming up with excuses, just as he's been doing every time something didn't make sense here. As he's had to do, to remain sane. ]
[ Clea is not known for being sensitive or delicate. Verso is the one who knows how to massage words, who is sensitive to other people's feelings. He also struggled with the truth because of it. Clea has always felt it was better to know the truth: She's never been able to stomach being condescended to, and lies meant to spare her feelings always reek of condescension. ]
Verso. - our Verso -
[ She clarifies. ]
He died. In the fire. Saving Alicia.
[ Clea crosses her arms, clearly agitated, fingers digging into her own flesh in displeasure. Alicia, who is on bed rest and about to be abandoned by both of her parents instead of one. ]
Maman couldn't handle that, so she decided the proper thing was to abandon us and create her own Verso. Create a city where he was alive and she could pretend everything was well.
[ Even now, he finds himself trying to reason around it: ]
Died— no, I didn't make it in time.
[ And Alicia was permanently marred for his mistake. It's one of the few moments in life that he can think back to as truly horrible, but as Maman has reassured him countless times, it was an accident. He isn't responsible for what happened to her. But if that's not true, and if this is all an illusion as Clea says, then— that means that Maman made that happen.
Verso shakes his head, violently rejecting the thought as quickly as it comes. There's another explanation, obviously. Maman would never be so cruel to her own child. A Dessendre would never be so cruel to another Dessendre.
A little exasperated: ] Even if your wild claims are true—
[ And he knows in his heart of hearts that they must be, no matter how hard he wants to fight it. ]
You made it to Alicia. You did not make it out of the fire.
[ It's easier to show him than to explain. Clea shows him flashes: her stumbling out of the house holding Francois close to her chest, coughing due to the smoke. Hearing her sister's screaming, Verso running back inside before she or Aline could stop him. Verso passing the charred and burnt Alicia to Clea through a window while Aline stands comatose in the background, only for a beam to crumble and pin him into place. Clea wishing Papa were home instead of curating an exhibit in Nantes. Clea's frantic efforts to try to press cold, wet cloths to Alicia's moaning form while Verso screamed in the background, knowing if she left one the other would die. The smell of Alicia's and Verso's burnt flesh.
By the end, Clea's fingernails have dug into her flesh so hard they've drawn blood, which she doesn't seem to notice. ]
I would let her stay. If she wants to abandon us, forcing her isn't going to change that.
[ Forcing Aline out of the Canvas wouldn't return her to normal. Wouldn't make her want to care for Alicia as she should. ]
Papa isn't. He's going to try to force her out. It won't work: She's stronger than he is. But it will rend this world beyond repair.
[ No, that's not how he remembers it at all. The memory of the fire itself is as vague as they come, but there's one part in perfect lucidity: he remembers bursting through the door of their home to try to get to Alicia, then immediately hearing Maman call that everything was all right, that they'd gotten her out. Now that he thinks of it, he can't remember how Alicia ever got out—just that she did. Dealing with her wounds in the aftermath had been so chaotic that he'd never thought to question it.
He's quiet for a moment. It's harrowing to hear your own voice scream with the agony of death.
Finally, the both of them curled in on themselves as they stare at each other, he asks, ] ...Papa, force Maman? He's never denied her anything.
[ He looks so much like Verso. That same curled in shock. The grey eyes looking at her like she would have all the answers. Every time, she wishes she did. She knows she's hurting him, telling him this, and seeing it rends her soul, tearing it imperceptibly.
It's hurting him, but he would be hurt either way. This way, he has a choice. This way, he wouldn't be blindsided by what might happen.
This way, he might understand and help. ]
The version of Papa she made has never denied her anything.
[ She can't help the anger that leaks into her voice, anger on her Papa's behalf. For Aline to so baldly show that she'd prefer a version of him without agency, without the ability to disagree with her... Clea doesn't know what that is, but it isn't love.]
There have been rifts between them before.
[ Even in real life, Verso had known less and Alicia even less than he. Clea is the one who saw the fractures, saw the changes in how they each spoke at the Painter's Council. ]
Obviously, he's always been aware of the reality that his mother will die before he does, but it's always been in a vague, distant way. Something that will one day happen once she and Papa have grown old and watched Clea achieve enormous success and Alicia come into her own and Verso live exactly the sort of life he's supposed to. It isn't supposed to happen before that, and it isn't supposed to happen because of him. ]
And you think your way of solving things is better than Papa's.
[ Not accusatory, just factual. Even his Clea is a bit of a know-it-all. ]
[ Clea doesn't deny it. Renoir and Aline aren't behaving rationally. Their judgement is impaired. She'd known this day might come eventually - Clea has seen her friends struggle with first grand-parents and, lately, parents who are unable to do the things they once could. She'd known when Papa had finally admitted to needing a cane. When she found a grey hair on her own head, feels the pounding in her skull after a night that, 10 years prior, would not have made a dent. She feels her flexibility waning instead of improving as it used to. Feels a new understanding that she needs to decide on whether to have her own children quickly - that time is not infinite.
Worries that Verso and Alicia had been too young for, but which Clea is becoming more acquainted with. Time stops for no one, including their parents. If they can't act, she must. ]
You must convince her to leave. At least long enough to stop her condition from continuing to deteriorate.
[ If she wants to spend all of her spare time playing with dolls, Clea isn't going to stop her. ]
If she and Papa are in here, I can't guarantee anyone's safety. In here or outside. The people who set the fire are still active. I cannot protect us from them, tend to Alicia, and manage all of our affairs.
[ There's already talk among the Council, a faction that wants to pin the conflict on their family and wash their hands of it to protect the rest of them. A faction gaining allies with Aline refusing to helm her post. ]
I have limits. If they attack again and succeed, the next time we may all die. If Papa enters the Canvas, he won't rest until its destroyed. I would prefer to prevent that.
[ She pauses, looking him over with that far-away look Clea gets when she's contemplating a plan or a piece of art. ]
I'll need to alter you so Aline doesn't simply remake you as she prefers.
[ Clea says all of this in such a matter-of-fact manner that he almost wants to believe it really is that simple, but his head begins to ache again as he tries to wrap his mind around it. Convince Maman to leave. Push her out from their home. Of course, he can't bear the thought of this world causing her to slowly decay, but it's difficult to tolerate the idea of a world bereft of her, too.
A world that, if Clea is to be believed, isn't even real.
He blinks a few times, shakes his head. What he needs more than anything is time alone to ruminate, to put all of the puzzle pieces together. ]
Alter me, [ he repeats, scoffing. ] Do you always talk about people like they're ill-fitting dresses?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
—Then playing pretend. Or swimming, or skiing.
[ There's a somewhat exasperated edge to his voice, frustration that his answers seem not to please her even though he knows it isn't quite fair. Surely it's not really about the answers, not about whatever they might or might not have done together as children. Unfortunately, that's what rankles most of all. Can't she just talk to him, rather than giving him some nonsensical test? ]
But I think we've grown quite beyond jigsaw puzzles and pretend.
[ Jigsaw puzzles, anyway. They just got better at pretending, as they got older. ]
What is this really about?
no subject
Clea crosses her arms, staring at him with a forced coldness.
Do not bend. Even if the frustration in his voice is achingly familiar and echoes in her mind with the voice of a dead man, a voice that had changed through the years from the frustrated boy running from the Lampmaster to the deep voice of a man proclaiming that she is being difficult. She can hear it: "Clea!"
The desire to be kind to him is a siren that will drown her at sea. That will drown them all. She sees Papa's fidgeting, the way he paces and stops at the doorway and looks at Aline and the Canvas. Even his love for his youngest child won't keep him from his wife forever.
Kindness would be a cruelty to those who are still living.
The longer she stays, the longer she looks at him, the more she will want. The more her heart will resist what her mind knows needs to be done. ]
This is pretend, Verso.
[ Clea raises her arm, gathering her Chroma, the air rippling around her so intently the woman is difficult to see, colors writhing and flowing, saturating the air with an undeniable thickness.
Rather than turn it on him, which would alert Aline, it pulses outward and, suddenly, the world twists, leaving them standing on a road made of grass and flowers rather than cobblestones.
Another alteration to this blight of a city. ]
Maman is playing pretend.
no subject
His first half-formed thought: ] That was—
[ And another: ] How—?
[ And then finally: ]
It was you.
[ The strange, impossible changes to the world. It's been Clea all along sending Maman into a tizzy. ]
This whole time, it was you, and you never said.
[ Because she's been there, listened to them speak of it. It must have been feigned ignorance, curiosity, but it had seemed so genuine. Of all of the things Clea is, he didn't think her an actor. That's always been more his speed. ]
Why?
no subject
He thinks she's that... that thing. That pale imitation of her that Maman uses to scaffold her delusions, to pretend that what she's doing isn't causing harm that will be difficult, if not possible to repair. (Does she care? Maybe not - maybe Verso had been the only one Maman had actually loved, but that will not stop Papa. She, Alicia, and Papa are apparently replaceable, unimportant presences in Aline's life.)
It's revolting. It's obscene.
And it thinks that's her. ]
I'm not her.
[ She snaps the words out in an angry hiss, face twisting into something ugly in her rage. She is not her. This is not Verso. This city is not their Canvas - not the place of joy and play it's supposed to be, but a twisted, disrespectful imposition of false realism. Aline may have loved her son, but it's clear she had no respect for him, rampaging through his work and prying it apart for her own selfish wallowing.
Above them, windows crack in unison, fracturing in perfect harmony before finally shattering, showering them both in glass.
Clea shuts her eyes and forces herself to breathe. To control herself. To try to stop the blood pumping and the sudden desire to wrap her arms around his neck and squeeze, to punish him for making her feel this way. For mocking her brother with his existence. To gommage him right here. Maman would bring him back, and her presence here (in the Canvas she had more right to) would only provoke a direct fight. Would rend everything asunder. ]
I'm not her. I'm Aline's actual daughter.
[ Her voice is controlled but brittle, the temporary peace fragile, liable to break. ]
She made this place to hide. Made you.
[ It's a risk, but Clea reaches out with her Chroma, touches the inside of 'Verso', plucking his 'soul' as though it were a harp string, letting it resonate with her power for a moment instead of Aline's. Providing him the same sense of rightness he feels in Aline's presence before letting it fade away. ]
She's locked herself away here. I interfered to remind her not to lose herself.
[ Clea's mouth presses into a thin line. ]
The situation has changed.
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She's right. His sister would never do this to him. Even if she were capable of such things, she wouldn't use it to— torment him like this.
No, this is something different wearing Clea's face. Actual daughter, she says, and he shakes his head almost imperceptibly, an instant reaction. Maman's actual daughter is the one that he loves, not this stranger who speaks with Clea's voice, wears her clothes.
He feels the urge to reach out and— he's not certain. Surely he should rid Lumière of this doppelganger, but he finds it difficult to raise a hand against Clea. (Not Clea.) His fingers twitch, and he shifts his weight restlessly, impatient and impotent. ]
What do you want?
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The situation has changed.
[ Clea repeats herself. ]
If Maman doesn't attend to her responsibilities, Papa is going to come in here and try to force her.
[ She can see it. Can see him arriving and him and Maman tearing this place apart, destroying some of Clea's oldest memories with her brother for the sake of their own pettiness. Destroying the trees, the skies, the land. Every memory associated with this place. Maman blotting all over it is bad enough, but a fight would make it irrecoverable.
Rage foments in her stomach, but this time it isn't aimed at the creature wearing her brother's face, but at her parents. If one of them would move just an inch, this could be prevented, but of course they won't. Not without intervention. ]
If he does, they'll tear this city - and the world where it sits - apart.
[ Clea purses her lips and crosses her arms defensively, a sign she's having emotions that displease her. ]
I would prefer they did not. My preference means nothing to them. You need to break Maman's illusion. You're the only thing she cares about right now.
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You have to know that you sound crazy.
[ If there's any part of her that is the same as Clea, his Clea, then she should cling to rationality against all odds. The fact that she isn't, the fact that it's Clea's face and voice expressing these insane things to him, is frightening. He wishes very badly that it were his sister here instead. She would talk him down, tell him that the swirling dread that's forming in the pit of his stomach is ridiculous and overdramatic.
He shakes his head. ]
Illusion? This is real.
[ There's a twinge of doubt in his voice, though, like maybe Clea is just confirming what he's known all along: that there's something deeply wrong with this place, with him. ]
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Is it, Verso?
[ Is it, truly? Think it through. ]
Why does nobody move away? Why does nobody move to Lumière from the other places on the globe?
[ There are globes here: Clea has seen them. Aline really has gone to extraordinary measures to ensure that this feels real enough to keep her mind cosseted. That also means that she has to keep remnants of the real world. A globe with only one city on it would remind Aline too strongly of her illusion. ]
Where do the trains go, Verso? Why haven't you ever ridden one outside of the city?
[ And, of course...]
If this is real, why can I change this place as I please? Do you want this building to be pink? Orange? I could make a window shutting sound like a piano arpeggio.
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[ Clea is, of course, right. About everything. These are things he's wondered about before; why does no one ever leave Lumière? Maman had said it was because Lumière was the best city on Earth, and he'd been inclined to agree. But then— why does no one ever come here, either?
He'd wondered, but he'd been too afraid to investigate it further. Somewhere, deep down, he'd known he wouldn't like the answer. ]
If it isn't real, then—
[ He wades through his memories. So many of them are foggy, but there are a few with startling clarity. ]
How come I know that you fell out of your double pirouette at your ballet recital, and it made you so angry you practiced until your feet bled?
[ The whole family had had to suffer her bad attitude, but— ]
Until you could do a triple pirouette without breaking a sweat.
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Had she given him all of the memories of Clea being a failure? ]
Because Maman wanted you to have that memory - it's hers, not yours. You remember my failure.
[ As they had unfortunately all witnessed it, as well as her attempts to remedy her inadequacy. ]
Do you remember when 'you' snuck out of your room at night to try to convince me to stop?
[ A moment between her and her brother their mother had not been privy to? How could this be Verso when he is only filtered through Maman's vision? When he is so much more than any one of them knew? Verso had been a different self with them all, a different self outside. They were all him. ]
Do you remember my answer?
[ "I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best." ]
Do you remember if you agreed with me?
[ He hadn't. He had been a tender hearted boy who'd grown into a tender hearted man. ]
CLEA!!! she has me frothing at the mouth (complimentary)
That didn't happen, [ he replies quickly, because it's the only answer that makes sense. If he doesn't remember it, it must not have happened. It's been one of the basic tenets of life for decades, gone unquestioned.
But why didn't it happen? He can't recall fretting over Clea pushing herself too far, but he knows he must have. He would have— should have done something to put a stop to it, and he didn't. It feels wrong, yet he has no recollection of confronting her. The problem had just faded away, as most of them tended to, and he'd never thought of it again.
He reasons, ] It— I wanted to stop you.
[ Did he? It's the only thing that makes sense, so his mind fills in the gaps with hypotheses and theories. He rubs at his temple, migraine quickly forming. ]
I must have wanted to.
:> - sorry this got long
Clea's response is wordless. She doesn't need to speak. She waves a hand, Chroma pulsing, and gives him the rest of the memory. Unlike Aline, she doesn't stitch it onto his mind, doesn't pretend it's his own. He sees Clea's perspective:
Clea is 12 years old and she's a failure. She and the other girls had started their en pointe last year, and she'd been so proud, but it's hard to keep up. The other girls at the Opèra (because where else could she go - would a Dessendre go - except for the best?) are there every day, practicing for hours. Not splitting their time between dancing and painting, not trying to grasp more time using a Canvas and miscalculating how much practice they need with their real body. Not disappointing everyone.
The memory fades, but it remains etched into Verso's mind. Just as silently, Clea reaches out and untangles his Chroma - the strands that are crossing over each other and starting to snarl - easing the pain in his head. ]She'd ruined the recital and made the school look bad. She knows it: That she's only there as an indulgence, that she can't actually dance, that she made a fool of herself and of Maman, who had looked at her with lips pursed in disappointment. She knows because she heard the commentary of the patrons backstage after the show: "Not the best dancer, but lovely to look at." And she knows hearing it makes her feel wrong, mortified.
Clea is a failure and she needs to fix it. So she does. She will fix it - she dances for hours, stopping only when she needs to sleep, locking herself in her room unless one of her parents extracts her for a meal.
"Clea?"
She's changing her shoes - once her feet started bleeding, the pointe shoes end up filling up with blood and she needs to change them. It throws off the balance. Clea is about to throw another pair onto the growing pile, but her brother's voice stops her.
He's looking at her in horror. At the shoes. He has that look on his face: the one that suggests he's about to cry.
"What is it, Verso? I'm busy."
"Clea, you have to stop." He goes so far as to put a hand on her arm, physically stopping her from tying up her next pair of shoes. From continuing.
She sighs. He doesn't understand. "Verso, I have to do this. I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best. Accomplishment requires suffering - I can't stop every time I'm uncomfortable." Clea parrots words their mother has spoken back at him.
"Will I have to?" That's the question that makes Clea freeze: those large grey eyes looking at her, wondering if he's going to be expected to do this to himself. 'No' her mind tells her instinctively. Not Verso. Just her. But how can she explain?
"No, Verso."
"Why do you?" Because she's not good enough. Clea moves his hand and doesn't answer, resumes tying her shoes. This time, though, he doesn't leave. Or cry. He grabs the shoe out of her hand and throws it at the door with a ferocity that makes Clea blink.
"NO." He says with such conviction Clea feels a wellspring of pride inside of her. "You stay, I'm going to get bandages." It's odd, to be given orders by such a suddenly serious little boy, with no sign of his usual laughter. When he leaves, he sprints, hurrying as though this was something important.
no apologies needed... i am eating it up!!!
It's not him. It's someone who looks like he used to look, acts like he used to act, but he knows deep down that their essence isn't the same. How could it be, when Verso has no recollection of this ever happening? It's not something he would ever forget, the sight of dark red blood pooling in one of his most beloved people's shoes, yet he must have. The memory is too vivid to be fake, in more clarity than most of his. He can hardly remember ever being that small, but Clea has his exact image in her mind's eye, down to the wavy strands of hair sprouting from his head that he hadn't quite figured out what to do with yet.
I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best. He wants to grab her and shake her, even now. She's Clea in appearance only, but suddenly that doesn't matter, fraternal feeling flooding him at the borrowed memory. She was right: he is tender-hearted.
There are a million questions on his tongue, but there's only one that seems most important: ]
Did you stop?
om nom nom family drama - you broke her, good job
Tears that she quickly wipes away well up in her eyes. The only person who had truly known and cared for her is dead, and he's never coming back.
Another memory enters Verso's mind, a fragment from Clea not closing the connection properly: Clea sitting and Verso wrapping what is truly an absurd amount of bandages around each injured foot with a nine year old's sensibility that more is always better. His small face is scrunched up with the utmost concentration, as though winding the bandages around her foot were as important as creating a great work. As though it mattered.
As though she mattered.
Clea forces herself to breathe - she doesn't technically have to here, but the act is grounding.
There's a rough edge to her voice when she answers. ]
Yes. It was idiotic anyway. Maman was correct: I lacked the attributes to be a truly worthwhile dancer.
[ Too tall, too muscular, too unwilling to give up her sculpting or Painting. Now her dancing was little more than a parlor trick done for her own amusement. She'd danced for Verso's music, but his appreciation aside, they both knew it wasn't actual art. ]
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Not real, Clea had said. Is that what this is, then? A painting that he'd never wanted to admit was lacking in detail? The thought of verbalizing that aloud makes him want to throw up, so he doesn't. Instead: ]
Maman wouldn't say that.
[ Not to him, anyway. She'd always acted as if he hung the stars, as if he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. Frequently, she'd cooed about how bright his future was. ]
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She's known for years: If she doesn't achieve, she has no value.
Not that it had mattered in the end. She still doesn't - Aline abandoned them and Renoir is about to follow. ]
Not to you.
You can do no wrong.
[ Even now, even with him gone, it infuriates a part of her. Effort hadn't mattered: Verso had been charming and Alicia had been adorable, and that was all that mattered. ]
I'm surprised she bothered with a copy of me at all. It's not necessary.
[ She's not necessary. ]
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It's shocking, and perhaps a bit uncomfortable, how badly he wants to take a step forward to close the distance between them. To take her by the shoulders and shake her, or maybe embrace her. To tell her that she's necessary to him, and that if she talks that way about herself again, he's going to play Chopsticks off-tune for a whole day and make her listen to it.
This is not his Clea, yet there must be some part of him, deep in his bones, that recognizes her anyway.
But there are greater things at stake here than a sister's feelings; he crosses his arms, worries his lip. ]
You called this all an illusion.
[ He can still feel every bit of logic in him resisting the thought, coming up with excuses, just as he's been doing every time something didn't make sense here. As he's had to do, to remain sane. ]
Why would Maman do that?
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Verso. - our Verso -
[ She clarifies. ]
He died. In the fire. Saving Alicia.
[ Clea crosses her arms, clearly agitated, fingers digging into her own flesh in displeasure. Alicia, who is on bed rest and about to be abandoned by both of her parents instead of one. ]
Maman couldn't handle that, so she decided the proper thing was to abandon us and create her own Verso. Create a city where he was alive and she could pretend everything was well.
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Died— no, I didn't make it in time.
[ And Alicia was permanently marred for his mistake. It's one of the few moments in life that he can think back to as truly horrible, but as Maman has reassured him countless times, it was an accident. He isn't responsible for what happened to her. But if that's not true, and if this is all an illusion as Clea says, then— that means that Maman made that happen.
Verso shakes his head, violently rejecting the thought as quickly as it comes. There's another explanation, obviously. Maman would never be so cruel to her own child. A Dessendre would never be so cruel to another Dessendre.
A little exasperated: ] Even if your wild claims are true—
[ And he knows in his heart of hearts that they must be, no matter how hard he wants to fight it. ]
—She's happy here.
[ They're happy here. ]
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[ It's easier to show him than to explain. Clea shows him flashes: her stumbling out of the house holding Francois close to her chest, coughing due to the smoke. Hearing her sister's screaming, Verso running back inside before she or Aline could stop him. Verso passing the charred and burnt Alicia to Clea through a window while Aline stands comatose in the background, only for a beam to crumble and pin him into place. Clea wishing Papa were home instead of curating an exhibit in Nantes. Clea's frantic efforts to try to press cold, wet cloths to Alicia's moaning form while Verso screamed in the background, knowing if she left one the other would die. The smell of Alicia's and Verso's burnt flesh.
By the end, Clea's fingernails have dug into her flesh so hard they've drawn blood, which she doesn't seem to notice. ]
I would let her stay. If she wants to abandon us, forcing her isn't going to change that.
[ Forcing Aline out of the Canvas wouldn't return her to normal. Wouldn't make her want to care for Alicia as she should. ]
Papa isn't. He's going to try to force her out. It won't work: She's stronger than he is. But it will rend this world beyond repair.
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He's quiet for a moment. It's harrowing to hear your own voice scream with the agony of death.
Finally, the both of them curled in on themselves as they stare at each other, he asks, ] ...Papa, force Maman? He's never denied her anything.
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It's hurting him, but he would be hurt either way. This way, he has a choice. This way, he wouldn't be blindsided by what might happen.
This way, he might understand and help. ]
The version of Papa she made has never denied her anything.
[ She can't help the anger that leaks into her voice, anger on her Papa's behalf. For Aline to so baldly show that she'd prefer a version of him without agency, without the ability to disagree with her... Clea doesn't know what that is, but it isn't love.]
There have been rifts between them before.
[ Even in real life, Verso had known less and Alicia even less than he. Clea is the one who saw the fractures, saw the changes in how they each spoke at the Painter's Council. ]
He thinks she'll die in here.
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Obviously, he's always been aware of the reality that his mother will die before he does, but it's always been in a vague, distant way. Something that will one day happen once she and Papa have grown old and watched Clea achieve enormous success and Alicia come into her own and Verso live exactly the sort of life he's supposed to. It isn't supposed to happen before that, and it isn't supposed to happen because of him. ]
And you think your way of solving things is better than Papa's.
[ Not accusatory, just factual. Even his Clea is a bit of a know-it-all. ]
I don't know what you want me to do about it.
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[ Clea doesn't deny it. Renoir and Aline aren't behaving rationally. Their judgement is impaired. She'd known this day might come eventually - Clea has seen her friends struggle with first grand-parents and, lately, parents who are unable to do the things they once could. She'd known when Papa had finally admitted to needing a cane. When she found a grey hair on her own head, feels the pounding in her skull after a night that, 10 years prior, would not have made a dent. She feels her flexibility waning instead of improving as it used to. Feels a new understanding that she needs to decide on whether to have her own children quickly - that time is not infinite.
Worries that Verso and Alicia had been too young for, but which Clea is becoming more acquainted with. Time stops for no one, including their parents. If they can't act, she must. ]
You must convince her to leave. At least long enough to stop her condition from continuing to deteriorate.
[ If she wants to spend all of her spare time playing with dolls, Clea isn't going to stop her. ]
If she and Papa are in here, I can't guarantee anyone's safety. In here or outside. The people who set the fire are still active. I cannot protect us from them, tend to Alicia, and manage all of our affairs.
[ There's already talk among the Council, a faction that wants to pin the conflict on their family and wash their hands of it to protect the rest of them. A faction gaining allies with Aline refusing to helm her post. ]
I have limits. If they attack again and succeed, the next time we may all die. If Papa enters the Canvas, he won't rest until its destroyed. I would prefer to prevent that.
[ She pauses, looking him over with that far-away look Clea gets when she's contemplating a plan or a piece of art. ]
I'll need to alter you so Aline doesn't simply remake you as she prefers.
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A world that, if Clea is to be believed, isn't even real.
He blinks a few times, shakes his head. What he needs more than anything is time alone to ruminate, to put all of the puzzle pieces together. ]
Alter me, [ he repeats, scoffing. ] Do you always talk about people like they're ill-fitting dresses?
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2 fast 2 Verso
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sorry for musty and crusty old tag!!!
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Et fin?