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?
[ She watches him closely, a stony look on her face. No, not always. Only when the risk of being too familiar would be ruinous. Only when they aren't actually people. She alters her clothing, her statues, her paintings. That's what he is: A Painting. A Painting tailor made to make her heart hurt, but a Painting nonetheless. ]
Only ones I can tailor.
[ Like him. Like his 'friends' and the rest of Aline's obscene fake family. ]
If you go back, she will erase knowledge of everything I have told you. You will wake up one morning, Maman will be gone, and your city will be ripped apart, and you will have no idea why it is happening.
[ Verso visibly stiffens at the suggestion of being tailored, an involuntary reaction to suddenly feeling like one of her sculptures. Malleable under her exacting hands. She'd always made sure they were just right. He says nothing on the matter, yet to internalize the truth—that he is a thing for her to tailor—even when it's been laid out in front of him in perfect clarity. There'll be time for that later, once he's alone with his own mind.
For now, he raises an eyebrow. ]
You talk about her so flatteringly.
[ There's clearly hostility between them. It's strange—while he can remember the two of them butting heads at times, he can't remember Clea ever regarding Maman with such scorn. ]
She's not as unreasonable as you're painting her out to be. [ Ha, ha. ]
She could have at least made you better at wordplay.
[ The taunt comes out without thinking. He's just as bad at it as her actual brother had been, always running straight toward the obvious. The only one of them with enough talent in the area for it not to be eye roll worthy is Alicia.
Clea crosses her arms. Of course he's defending her. What other option does he have? He can't think for himself. He was made to cater to Aline's wishes and in her world, she would be correct about everything always. ]
You're right.
[ Deadpan. Clea's preferred way of communicating 'you're an idiot and you're wrong.' ]
She's completely reasonable. Spending decades lecturing others on the necessity of attending to necessities and then immediately running away to leave them for others when she feels sorrow is reasonable. Ignoring her husband to go seek comfort in the arms of a copy of him who is neutered and cannot refuse her is reasonable. Leaving her youngest child, who has just been horribly maimed, is reasonable.
[ Clea's face twists with anger but her voice remains eerily calm. ]
Taking over the place I created with my brother and making it about her is reasonable. Creating a copy of me against my will, using my voice and body and intimate preferences to fuel her fantasies, is reasonable.
[ She'd seen her doll and her 'lover', walking through "Lumière". The way he kissed under her other self's ear the way Clea liked, the way he'd known she secretly enjoys somebody running their hands through her hair. Seen her other self run a finger along his jaw and tilt his chin up just as she does.
Clea visibly shudders. ]
Doing so in the place that holds my childhood memories is the epitome of reasonable. You're right, Verso. I'm simply wrong and overdramatic. I should have no feelings about this whatsoever as long as Maman is happy.
[ She's here to bleed until she's the best, nothing more, isn't that so? ]
[ Clea, even his Clea, has always been gifted at criticism. She can look at a piece of art and come up with fifteen different ways that it could be improved in an instant. He's reminded of that now, with the way she rattles off argument after argument, each one more piercing than the last. Even with his reluctance to accept that Maman—who he'd been convinced, up until this point, was an entirely rational and reasonable person—could really be as bad as she says, he can't deny that her points are... unpleasantly valid.
He wants to argue, still. Say that lots of great art is a recreation of reality. It is, perhaps, his psyche's only defense against the crippling realization that he's no more than a few of Maman's brushstrokes.
But there's something more pressing to hold onto. ]
Maimed?
[ A horrible choice of words. It brings back memories of Alicia when she'd first been burned, her skin raw. ]
[ An answer all its own. Clea remembers. Remembers him passing her down through the window while he'd been pinned, remembers Alicia's skin sloughing off in her hands and covering Clea in her flesh and blood. She remembers the smell and the desperation. ]
She'll never speak again. Or see as she should. She can't breathe without pain.
[ The only sign that Clea is bothered by what she recounts is the shortness of her sentences. Fragments and words that she can't bear to elongate as she tries to hold back the memories. ]
She still needs care. Renoir and I have been trading off the necessary care. I don't know if I can care for her and our parents. I don't know if I can keep everyone safe.
[ Renoir is so ready to leave her. The moment he thinks she Alicia won't immediately die, he'll come in after Aline. Even if he's right, Clea doesn't know what she's supposed to do. What does she tell Alicia when she wakes up and is finally lucid? Finally understands what had happened instead of spending every conscious moment moaning in pain? Will Alicia be able to communicate without pain?
Part of her is furious with her sister. How can she hold that back? Renoir is the understanding one, the one who has always coddled Alicia. And now that she desperately needs him for that, he would leave her.
How is Clea to explain that Verso is gone and their parents left? That all Alicia has is her?]
I'm trying.
[ The sentence is short, clipped and, to those who know Clea, full of self-judgement. She's trying but it's not enough. ]
[ She'll never speak again. Or see as she should. She can't breathe without pain. Images of Alicia flash in his mind: her first initial attempts to speak, the way she'd dropped her hand mirror in horror when she first looked at herself with her missing eye. Is it even worse, out there in Clea's world? (He can't bring himself to name it the real world, not just yet.) Surely Maman would make Alicia's suffering less here—surely her circumstances are only so torturous in here because it's even more intolerable out there. ]
Putain, [ he swears, horrified. So many times, he's scolded himself for not having been faster, convinced that he could have prevented her mangling. Now he knows that even if he had been there, it wouldn't have been enough. Alicia's life would still be irrevocably changed for the worse.
His eyes squeeze shut for a brief moment before he opens them again, mouth pressed into a thin line. ]
I know. I know you're trying.
[ Like he has any notion of what things are like outside of the Canvas. But this Clea is still Clea, albeit a much harsher version of herself, and Clea never stops trying. ]
Shit. [ This is an awful fucking situation. ] I should be there.
[ I, not him, because he hasn't yet reconciled the fact that they aren't one and the same. ]
[ He isn't Verso, but it hurts to see him look that way. So horrified and worried for Alicia, unable to do anything. Helpless. She knows the feeling and how it burrows its way into the mind. Not for the first time, Clea wonders how much better it would have been for them all if she'd been the one trapped in the flames and not Alicia. Verso could have left her in there and their parents would have the children they needed, healthy and whole.
It hurts to see even a copy of Verso look that way and to be able to offer him no answers. She's always had answers for him, from the earliest days she can remember, his bright little toddler face looking up at her almost constantly from the moment he could walk.
He's never going to look at her again. ]
You're not.
[ The truth does not care for their feelings. The truth must be attended to. ]
Aline isn't there either. Renoir is soon to follow.
[ Not 'Maman' or 'Papa'. Clea has started to put up her walls, to disentangle herself. It makes their abandonments hurt less. ]
[ A raised eyebrow, at that. How can she distance herself so easily from her family? This isn't his sister, and yet— it feels as if she is, feels as if his flesh and blood has just disavowed their house.
Maybe she has. Maybe their family is more fragmented than he'd thought. Maybe, he thinks, Maman had her reasons for hiding away in a Canvas. Is it so wrong to want their family to be whole again? They've been happy here, and from what it sounds like, miserable out there. It's no excuse for leaving Alicia uncared for, but he struggles not to justify it regardless.
And then, like a shot through the heart, he wonders if that's on purpose. Would he have criticized this outside of the Canvas? Did Maman make him this way, so that he would never question her? It's an awful, horrible thought, and he feels guilty as soon as he thinks it, like he's committed a terrible sin. To make up for his transgression, he defends their parents once again: ]
[ Even her Verso had always been sentimental. Emotional. Perhaps that is why Aline had favored him so, despite the differences between their temperaments. Renoir, too, possesses an emotional nature, and Aline had chosen him as a husband. Clea has never felt as comfortable with her emotions: From a young age, something about them has always seemed to be wrong. Her emotions are not the gentle, still lake or the bubbling stream but a raging river.
They must be controlled.
The question lies on the tip of her tongue: Are they? Clea's body language becomes stiff, her posture defensive. She crosses her arms in anger to stifle her ridiculous urge to hug herself. It is a childish impulse and they do not have the time for Clea to indulge her childish whims. ]
They do not wish to be.
[ The only testaments to the emotions beneath her surface are a slight break on the last word and the way her eyes refuse to meet Verso's. ]
I cannot force them to consider us worth their time, but they still have a duty of care to Alicia.
[ Verso tells her they're family, and Clea stiffens like he's just said something terrible. He knows it can't be true that they don't wish to be—Maman and Papa are dedicated to nothing more than they are to this family.
...To this family, anyway. Perhaps not to Clea's. ]
Yeah, they do, [ he admits, although he still finds it difficult to accept that Maman is shirking her motherly duties. She's always been doting, even overbearing. Difficult, sometimes, but 'neglectful' wouldn't have entered his mind. ]
You should come back with me. We'll talk to her about this together.
[ Convinced, still, that she'll understand if only she hears it from Clea's lips. Verso can be the mediator between them, as he's been many times between Maman and his own Clea. ]
Edited (i wrote 'family' more times in one paragraph than vin diesel says it in fast and furious) 2025-10-07 23:09 (UTC)
[ Clea's voice drips with a very familiar brand of sarcasm. She's never been shy about telling anyone she thinks they're being a moron, and the copy of her brother is no exception. ]
We attempted to talk to her. Do you really think this was my first choice for an option?
[ It isn't. She'd prefer to ignore them completely. Every minute she spends talking to him is a reminder of how little Aline cares for them, how easily each of them is replaced. How little Aline respects her and Verso's childhood together. How everything is always about her, rendering the rest of them nothing more than mere props in her own personal grand drama. ]
If you try to talk to her, she will either change you, or erase and remake you until you're compliant. Unless you allow me to protect you.
[ Which she is doing for her own purposes, but unlike Aline, Clea admits it. ]
[ His Clea talks like that, too, sometimes. Like she not only thinks she's the smartest person in the room, but that she knows it. That she thinks he and everyone else is irrational and too emotional. On one hand, it's familiar, and that familiarity is almost comforting. It says yes, this is the sister who once protected an injured rabbit in the yard from a hawk. Yes, this is the girl who taught him to throw a punch when he was young and being hassled at school. Yes, this is Clea, one of his favorite people in the world.
On the other hand, he's always hated when she talked to him like that. ]
Allow? [ he asks, arms crossed, feeling strangely vulnerable and perhaps a bit afraid, although he tries not to show it. Erase him. Remake him. 'Protect' him, by changing him. Like he isn't even a real person at all, just one of their wooden posing mannequins to be moved around to their liking. ] Doesn't seem like you'd need my permission.
[ It's both a comment and a challenge. Would she do it to him, if he didn't want her to? If he asked her not to? ]
[ Even if Clea could not read this place's Chroma as easily as a patisserie menu, no version of her brother - real or no - could truly hide his feelings from her. There are too many tells she'd learned to read as soon as she could talk, too many signs she'd watched him develop and refine over the years into near (but not complete) invisibility.
He should feel afraid and vulnerable. He is. All that has changed now is that he knows his situation. That the veil of ignorance has been lifted. ]
You're correct. I don't require your permission. I could Repaint you to only speak my words: To walk back to the manor and deliver my piece.
[ Clea has never minced words. She could. She could do all those things and more. ]
I could make you detest trains, and music. I could turn you into the painter Maman pretends she doesn't secretly wish he had been.
[ Had she kept that? Or is this Verso perfect in every way to her mother? Had she excised the parts of him she hadn't enjoyed? ]
And that would be the first step to becoming just like Aline.
[ Which is why she will not. Aline is using their likenesses without their consent, fueling a fantasy. This creation is not Verso. He is a pale, incomplete reflection. Aline has used her dead son's voice and body to deliver soothing, untrue words. If Clea forces her changes, she will be using her dead brother's voice to deliver anger and frustration. Either way, his visage would be being used.
It's disrespectful. His existence is disrespectful and made without concern for the man he represented. A version made by Clea would be no different. The point is to have Aline's fantasy break, not to impose one of her own.
She crosses her own arms, mirroring him. It's a gesture the true Verso had picked up from her, after all. ]
If you say no, then when the world breaks, you will live knowing it was your fault.
[ Your fault. The words echo in his head, Clea's voice: your fault, your fault, your fault. If everything she has said up until now is true, she's right. This is all his fault. A world in which he exists is too tempting for Maman to ignore, a vice she can't help but indulge in while suffocated by grief. It's him who's done this to their family, and it's him who has to take the responsibility to undo it.
This could all be a trick. Maybe Clea does need his permission, and is only trying to get his guard down so that she can change him to her whims. Despite that awareness, he finds that he believes her. Maybe only because she wears the face of someone he loves so well; maybe only because she speaks in her unwavering voice. All the same, it's belief. ]
All right. Do it, then.
[ Whatever 'it' might entail. ]
Then I'll talk to Maman, and—
[ What? She'll leave their family forever? Something in his gut twists. ]
[ He isn't Verso, but he looks like him. He talks like him. Verso is dead, but he steels himself like Verso. Clea can see it: He's a man grown but she sees the 8-year old boy, putting on a brave face as he walks into the dark. Everything he does reaches inside of her, pulls out more memories, memories that make her want to scream. Memories that make her want to shut herself away and cry so nobody sees how weak she is without him. ]
It's not going to hurt.
[ Clea does not lie. That is why when Verso had wanted to know the truth of something, he had come to her. ]
You won't feel different. I'm not changing you: I'm preventing Aline from altering you.
[ He will be the same. Clea knows he isn't Verso, but she feels the need to reassure him all the same. That's what makes him dangerous: that pull her heart feels, the small part of her mind that wants this to be true so desperately. That whispers she could do this too. They don't care if she's there, why not retreat herself? Why not feel loved, as she once had in this place?
No. It isn't right.
Clea reaches. Aline has possession of the ambient Chroma of the Canvas, of course. And of her own creation: Lumière and its inhabitants. That is not, however, the totality of the Chroma that exists. There is Chroma in the water, Chroma in the air, in the earth. Chroma in the time that passes, in the stars. Chroma in the world itself.
It is that Chroma upon which Clea calls, summoning it to hand from the foundations upon which Lumière rests, trickling up through the ground and surrounding her. Carefully, she separates it into strands. With a look of intense concentration on her face, Clea weaves those strands into the creation in front of her: pulling away small parts of him and interweaving the new Chroma with the Chroma Aline had used to create him. She creates a scaffold of his 'self', one that will repair any attempt to damage or alter it. She makes him a true denizen of the Canvas, like the Grandis and the Gestrals, not merely one of Aline's.
It's delicate, pain-staking work. Clea's arms, hands, and fingers move in the tiniest of motions, brows furrowed in concentration, completely focused on the task in front of her.
Until, eventually, it's done. Clea exhales. ]
There.
[ Now, had she lied? She had not. Her lips press themselves into an unhappy line once more. She dislikes this situation. She also dislikes Renoir's approach; what he describes sounds more like control than assistance. ]
She needs to attend to her husband and child. She has no right to abandon them.
[ Clea pauses, hesitating, before pressing onward. She will speak. She is her own messenger, not Papa's. ]
He has no right to insist she grieve in the way he prescribes. I do not like this. That is not important.
[ She does not have to like it. Aline has duties. She also has the right to her self. Even the parts Clea and Renoir do not like. She has a right to privacy, to be Aline and not only a wife, mother, or a leader. To preserve the parts of her that imbue her creations.
[ She reassures him like— like a sister reassuring her little brother, like Clea giving a pep talk to him before his first recital, when the room had been spinning and he'd been sure he was going to walk out on stage and retch in front of everyone. She had been the only one whose words could reach him: firm, entirely honest. He'd never, not for a second, thought anything she'd said was a lie.
She wasn't lying to him just now, either. It doesn't hurt; she's careful with his Chroma, precise like a surgeon opening him up, taking him apart, and putting him back together again.
And then it's over, and she's talking to him again, authoritative like she expects him to nod unquestioningly like he used to when they were little. He feels the urge to, even, some deep-seated, inborn desire to follow Clea's lead.
But he doesn't. ]
I thought you wanted me to speak to her. Those are your words.
[ He shakes his head. ]
I'm not going to tell her what to do. I'm going to talk to her.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
[ 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 subject
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.
no subject
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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Only ones I can tailor.
[ Like him. Like his 'friends' and the rest of Aline's obscene fake family. ]
If you go back, she will erase knowledge of everything I have told you. You will wake up one morning, Maman will be gone, and your city will be ripped apart, and you will have no idea why it is happening.
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For now, he raises an eyebrow. ]
You talk about her so flatteringly.
[ There's clearly hostility between them. It's strange—while he can remember the two of them butting heads at times, he can't remember Clea ever regarding Maman with such scorn. ]
She's not as unreasonable as you're painting her out to be. [ Ha, ha. ]
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[ The taunt comes out without thinking. He's just as bad at it as her actual brother had been, always running straight toward the obvious. The only one of them with enough talent in the area for it not to be eye roll worthy is Alicia.
Clea crosses her arms. Of course he's defending her. What other option does he have? He can't think for himself. He was made to cater to Aline's wishes and in her world, she would be correct about everything always. ]
You're right.
[ Deadpan. Clea's preferred way of communicating 'you're an idiot and you're wrong.' ]
She's completely reasonable. Spending decades lecturing others on the necessity of attending to necessities and then immediately running away to leave them for others when she feels sorrow is reasonable. Ignoring her husband to go seek comfort in the arms of a copy of him who is neutered and cannot refuse her is reasonable. Leaving her youngest child, who has just been horribly maimed, is reasonable.
[ Clea's face twists with anger but her voice remains eerily calm. ]
Taking over the place I created with my brother and making it about her is reasonable. Creating a copy of me against my will, using my voice and body and intimate preferences to fuel her fantasies, is reasonable.
[ She'd seen her doll and her 'lover', walking through "Lumière". The way he kissed under her other self's ear the way Clea liked, the way he'd known she secretly enjoys somebody running their hands through her hair. Seen her other self run a finger along his jaw and tilt his chin up just as she does.
Clea visibly shudders. ]
Doing so in the place that holds my childhood memories is the epitome of reasonable. You're right, Verso. I'm simply wrong and overdramatic. I should have no feelings about this whatsoever as long as Maman is happy.
[ She's here to bleed until she's the best, nothing more, isn't that so? ]
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He wants to argue, still. Say that lots of great art is a recreation of reality. It is, perhaps, his psyche's only defense against the crippling realization that he's no more than a few of Maman's brushstrokes.
But there's something more pressing to hold onto. ]
Maimed?
[ A horrible choice of words. It brings back memories of Alicia when she'd first been burned, her skin raw. ]
No, you said I saved her.
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[ An answer all its own. Clea remembers. Remembers him passing her down through the window while he'd been pinned, remembers Alicia's skin sloughing off in her hands and covering Clea in her flesh and blood. She remembers the smell and the desperation. ]
She'll never speak again. Or see as she should. She can't breathe without pain.
[ The only sign that Clea is bothered by what she recounts is the shortness of her sentences. Fragments and words that she can't bear to elongate as she tries to hold back the memories. ]
She still needs care. Renoir and I have been trading off the necessary care. I don't know if I can care for her and our parents. I don't know if I can keep everyone safe.
[ Renoir is so ready to leave her. The moment he thinks she Alicia won't immediately die, he'll come in after Aline. Even if he's right, Clea doesn't know what she's supposed to do. What does she tell Alicia when she wakes up and is finally lucid? Finally understands what had happened instead of spending every conscious moment moaning in pain? Will Alicia be able to communicate without pain?
Part of her is furious with her sister. How can she hold that back? Renoir is the understanding one, the one who has always coddled Alicia. And now that she desperately needs him for that, he would leave her.
How is Clea to explain that Verso is gone and their parents left? That all Alicia has is her?]
I'm trying.
[ The sentence is short, clipped and, to those who know Clea, full of self-judgement. She's trying but it's not enough. ]
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Putain, [ he swears, horrified. So many times, he's scolded himself for not having been faster, convinced that he could have prevented her mangling. Now he knows that even if he had been there, it wouldn't have been enough. Alicia's life would still be irrevocably changed for the worse.
His eyes squeeze shut for a brief moment before he opens them again, mouth pressed into a thin line. ]
I know. I know you're trying.
[ Like he has any notion of what things are like outside of the Canvas. But this Clea is still Clea, albeit a much harsher version of herself, and Clea never stops trying. ]
Shit. [ This is an awful fucking situation. ] I should be there.
[ I, not him, because he hasn't yet reconciled the fact that they aren't one and the same. ]
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It hurts to see even a copy of Verso look that way and to be able to offer him no answers. She's always had answers for him, from the earliest days she can remember, his bright little toddler face looking up at her almost constantly from the moment he could walk.
He's never going to look at her again. ]
You're not.
[ The truth does not care for their feelings. The truth must be attended to. ]
Aline isn't there either. Renoir is soon to follow.
[ Not 'Maman' or 'Papa'. Clea has started to put up her walls, to disentangle herself. It makes their abandonments hurt less. ]
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Maybe she has. Maybe their family is more fragmented than he'd thought. Maybe, he thinks, Maman had her reasons for hiding away in a Canvas. Is it so wrong to want their family to be whole again? They've been happy here, and from what it sounds like, miserable out there. It's no excuse for leaving Alicia uncared for, but he struggles not to justify it regardless.
And then, like a shot through the heart, he wonders if that's on purpose. Would he have criticized this outside of the Canvas? Did Maman make him this way, so that he would never question her? It's an awful, horrible thought, and he feels guilty as soon as he thinks it, like he's committed a terrible sin. To make up for his transgression, he defends their parents once again: ]
'Aline' and 'Renoir'? They're your family, too.
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They must be controlled.
The question lies on the tip of her tongue: Are they? Clea's body language becomes stiff, her posture defensive. She crosses her arms in anger to stifle her ridiculous urge to hug herself. It is a childish impulse and they do not have the time for Clea to indulge her childish whims. ]
They do not wish to be.
[ The only testaments to the emotions beneath her surface are a slight break on the last word and the way her eyes refuse to meet Verso's. ]
I cannot force them to consider us worth their time, but they still have a duty of care to Alicia.
[ Who is a child. ]
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...To this family, anyway. Perhaps not to Clea's. ]
Yeah, they do, [ he admits, although he still finds it difficult to accept that Maman is shirking her motherly duties. She's always been doting, even overbearing. Difficult, sometimes, but 'neglectful' wouldn't have entered his mind. ]
You should come back with me. We'll talk to her about this together.
[ Convinced, still, that she'll understand if only she hears it from Clea's lips. Verso can be the mediator between them, as he's been many times between Maman and his own Clea. ]
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[ Clea's voice drips with a very familiar brand of sarcasm. She's never been shy about telling anyone she thinks they're being a moron, and the copy of her brother is no exception. ]
We attempted to talk to her. Do you really think this was my first choice for an option?
[ It isn't. She'd prefer to ignore them completely. Every minute she spends talking to him is a reminder of how little Aline cares for them, how easily each of them is replaced. How little Aline respects her and Verso's childhood together. How everything is always about her, rendering the rest of them nothing more than mere props in her own personal grand drama. ]
If you try to talk to her, she will either change you, or erase and remake you until you're compliant. Unless you allow me to protect you.
[ Which she is doing for her own purposes, but unlike Aline, Clea admits it. ]
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On the other hand, he's always hated when she talked to him like that. ]
Allow? [ he asks, arms crossed, feeling strangely vulnerable and perhaps a bit afraid, although he tries not to show it. Erase him. Remake him. 'Protect' him, by changing him. Like he isn't even a real person at all, just one of their wooden posing mannequins to be moved around to their liking. ] Doesn't seem like you'd need my permission.
[ It's both a comment and a challenge. Would she do it to him, if he didn't want her to? If he asked her not to? ]
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He should feel afraid and vulnerable. He is. All that has changed now is that he knows his situation. That the veil of ignorance has been lifted. ]
You're correct. I don't require your permission. I could Repaint you to only speak my words: To walk back to the manor and deliver my piece.
[ Clea has never minced words. She could. She could do all those things and more. ]
I could make you detest trains, and music. I could turn you into the painter Maman pretends she doesn't secretly wish he had been.
[ Had she kept that? Or is this Verso perfect in every way to her mother? Had she excised the parts of him she hadn't enjoyed? ]
And that would be the first step to becoming just like Aline.
[ Which is why she will not. Aline is using their likenesses without their consent, fueling a fantasy. This creation is not Verso. He is a pale, incomplete reflection. Aline has used her dead son's voice and body to deliver soothing, untrue words. If Clea forces her changes, she will be using her dead brother's voice to deliver anger and frustration. Either way, his visage would be being used.
It's disrespectful. His existence is disrespectful and made without concern for the man he represented. A version made by Clea would be no different. The point is to have Aline's fantasy break, not to impose one of her own.
She crosses her own arms, mirroring him. It's a gesture the true Verso had picked up from her, after all. ]
If you say no, then when the world breaks, you will live knowing it was your fault.
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This could all be a trick. Maybe Clea does need his permission, and is only trying to get his guard down so that she can change him to her whims. Despite that awareness, he finds that he believes her. Maybe only because she wears the face of someone he loves so well; maybe only because she speaks in her unwavering voice. All the same, it's belief. ]
All right. Do it, then.
[ Whatever 'it' might entail. ]
Then I'll talk to Maman, and—
[ What? She'll leave their family forever? Something in his gut twists. ]
I'll talk to her.
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It's not going to hurt.
[ Clea does not lie. That is why when Verso had wanted to know the truth of something, he had come to her. ]
You won't feel different. I'm not changing you: I'm preventing Aline from altering you.
[ He will be the same. Clea knows he isn't Verso, but she feels the need to reassure him all the same. That's what makes him dangerous: that pull her heart feels, the small part of her mind that wants this to be true so desperately. That whispers she could do this too. They don't care if she's there, why not retreat herself? Why not feel loved, as she once had in this place?
No. It isn't right.
Clea reaches. Aline has possession of the ambient Chroma of the Canvas, of course. And of her own creation: Lumière and its inhabitants. That is not, however, the totality of the Chroma that exists. There is Chroma in the water, Chroma in the air, in the earth. Chroma in the time that passes, in the stars. Chroma in the world itself.
It is that Chroma upon which Clea calls, summoning it to hand from the foundations upon which Lumière rests, trickling up through the ground and surrounding her. Carefully, she separates it into strands. With a look of intense concentration on her face, Clea weaves those strands into the creation in front of her: pulling away small parts of him and interweaving the new Chroma with the Chroma Aline had used to create him. She creates a scaffold of his 'self', one that will repair any attempt to damage or alter it. She makes him a true denizen of the Canvas, like the Grandis and the Gestrals, not merely one of Aline's.
It's delicate, pain-staking work. Clea's arms, hands, and fingers move in the tiniest of motions, brows furrowed in concentration, completely focused on the task in front of her.
Until, eventually, it's done. Clea exhales. ]
There.
[ Now, had she lied? She had not. Her lips press themselves into an unhappy line once more. She dislikes this situation. She also dislikes Renoir's approach; what he describes sounds more like control than assistance. ]
She needs to attend to her husband and child. She has no right to abandon them.
[ Clea pauses, hesitating, before pressing onward. She will speak. She is her own messenger, not Papa's. ]
He has no right to insist she grieve in the way he prescribes. I do not like this. That is not important.
[ She does not have to like it. Aline has duties. She also has the right to her self. Even the parts Clea and Renoir do not like. She has a right to privacy, to be Aline and not only a wife, mother, or a leader. To preserve the parts of her that imbue her creations.
It is not all or nothing. ]
Do you understand?
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She wasn't lying to him just now, either. It doesn't hurt; she's careful with his Chroma, precise like a surgeon opening him up, taking him apart, and putting him back together again.
And then it's over, and she's talking to him again, authoritative like she expects him to nod unquestioningly like he used to when they were little. He feels the urge to, even, some deep-seated, inborn desire to follow Clea's lead.
But he doesn't. ]
I thought you wanted me to speak to her. Those are your words.
[ He shakes his head. ]
I'm not going to tell her what to do. I'm going to talk to her.
[ It'll go great. ]
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sorry for musty and crusty old tag!!!
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Et fin?