Chapter Text
“GUSTAVE!” Maelle screamed, pushing back against the Chroma barrier that surrounded her with all her might. Almost to her surprise, it crumpled before her blow, and she stumbled forward. She did not know what would be worse. That the White-Haired Man had lowered it to mock her efforts, or that she had broken it herself, only a second too late for it to actually matter.
She raced over to Gustave’s body, hoping against hope it somehow wasn’t too late. She was not unfamiliar with death; it had been a constant in Lumiere, and the shadow of the Gommage loomed over them all. She had spent all her life with a clock ticking down over her head, knowing if one of the Expeditions didn’t succeed, she could hope to live no longer than 25. Somehow the prospect had never quite scared her, though logically she knew it should have. She always felt something of a… disconnect with the concept and the rest of Lumiere. Even at the beach, with the other Expeditioners dying all around her, it hadn’t felt quite real. Death was something that happened to other people. It wouldn’t happen to her. It wouldn’t, couldn’t happen to Gustave.
Gustave… Indomitable, unassailable Gustave, who never lost hope for a brighter tomorrow and kept pushing forward no matter the cost. Who said they would defeat the Paintress and not only believed his words, but somehow made it seem truly possible despite everything they had lost. Gustave, who had somehow found the time amongst all his work and ambitions to take in an unwanted, friendless orphan girl when no one else did. Gustave, who had stuck by her side all her life and never left her despite her strangeness, like everyone else had. Gustave, who had been a brother to her in all but blood. Gustave, who I took for granted. A world without him had seemed somehow impossible, as alien and strange as one without water. She had been prepared to mourn Lune and had mourned Sciel before they found her again, in the Gestral Village. But not Gustave. Never Gustave. Maelle felt hot tears stream down her checks. Why did I never tell him how much he meant to me? Gustave, who would still be alright if I hadn’t been so selfish, coming out here nine years before my own Gommage because I wanted an adventure. Gustave, who would still be alright if I hadn’t wasted his time, making him throw rocks with me.
Her heart beat like a drum in her chest and her vision blurred. He… he was still breathing. She had to focus. There was still time. He couldn’t die. There… there had to be something she could do. She saw how Lune manipulated Chroma, healing injuries with such precision that they scarcely even left a scar. Maelle brought her hands to Gustave’s body and tried mimicking one of Lune’s gestures, pulling on the latent Chroma in the air around her as she had seen done so many times before. Faintly, she felt something stir, but it wasn’t enough. Gustave’s breathing only grew more ragged, and his shirt grew ever redder. If only I had taken the time to learn… But it wasn’t flashy, like fencing was, and she had been naïve, thinking she would never need to learn such a talent. Or… or… or… if I could just get his body down to Esquie, Lune could heal him herself. It’s just a few feet.
Maelle felt a cold hand wrap itself around her shoulder. Startled, she looked up. The White-Haired Man loomed over her, a mixture of pity and tired resignation in his gaze. For a moment he simply stared at her, before at last he spoke. “You won’t yet understand. But this is a kindness, not a cruelty.”
How dare he? Maelle felt true rage stir in her heart for perhaps the first time in her life. Never had she hated anyone as much as she did that man in that moment. He had stabbed Gustave through the back, only to mock him, allowing him to rally and summon his Overcharge just to demonstrate how worthless it was before him. Never once had he acknowledged Gustave’s humanity, rejecting all his entreaties, offering him not a single word of explanation or account before putting him down with the same nonchalant detachment one would a Nevron. Yet, now, now he spoke? After everything he had done? He presumed to pity her and offer her condolences? I will kill him! I will kill him and make that White-Haired Woman from my nightmares watch. I will kill him and slit his throat as many times as I must to make it stick!
Yet before she could so much as summon her rapier, he was upon her. A gentle push to her chest and she was… gone. Slowly, Maelle saw her body fall away beneath her.
She was drifting in an cool, inky void, all the color faded from the world. All around her it seemed to ripple, the only light the distant glow of a faint eclipse. She felt numb. Her thoughts were slow and dull. She couldn’t move the smallest muscle and couldn’t breathe, yet somehow, she didn’t have to.
“You let her come?!” She heard a woman’s voice echo from the distance. It seemed somehow familiar, but Maelle didn’t know why. Anxiety crept began to creep into her tone. “You know she’s too weak for this, how could you let her take such a risk?”
“You only care when things are right in front of you,” a man’s voice replied. He seemed tired and his voice was even more familiar to Maelle. She felt a great presence fix its gaze firmly upon her, and now she knew the man addressed her directly, “My sweet child, you were supposed to stay home. I told you not to worry,” he sighed. The presence pulled her, and she began to drift downwards, falling back towards her body. “But since you’re here now, just stay put—"
“What are you saying—” the woman’s voice cut in, panicked. “Why did you bring her here?” Maelle felt another great presence fix its gaze upon her. “You must go home, NOW,” the woman said, and Maelle’s body stopped its descent. “This does not involve you.”
“—when this is over, we’ll go home together,” the man answered. The first presence pulled harder, and Maelle began to drift downwards once again.
“No!” the woman cried. “So long as I have any power here, you will not use my daughter as a tool to steal my son from me a second time!” The second presence pushed against her, and Maelle flew upwards, spinning towards the eclipse.
Maelle found herself lying face down on a cool, wooden floor. Her face burned and her throat ached. She tried to push herself up, and every muscle in her body screamed in protest. A moment later, she realized there was something blocking her airway and she wasn’t breathing. Her reflex came back to her, and she started coughing, frantic. Ink somehow came up. Ink. She did not know how that was possible.
After what felt to Maelle an eternity of coughing and hacking, writhing around on the cold, wooden floor, certain she would never get the last of the ink out of her lungs and that she would die here, after everything else she had survived, a young woman’s voice called out to her. She sounded amused by her struggle. “Finally back in the world of the living, Alicia? Took you long enough. I had hoped you’d have at least gotten Renoir to come with you, but I suppose even that was too much to expect from you.”
“Clea…” Maelle whispered, though she knew not from where the name had come. She tried once more to push herself up from the floor and collapsed, falling back into darkness.