Chapter Text
Packing up camp is one of Gustave’s favorite routines.
Nobody, absolutely nobody, shares the sentiment — Maelle sleeps in on purpose to avoid it (knowing full-well that Gustave hates waking her up), Lune grumbles the entire way through, and Sciel just… disappears until they’re ready to go.
Gustave loves it, though. Enjoys the repetitive ritual of it: stuffing things into his backpack, kicking out the dying embers of their fire, checking Maelle’s satchel to make sure he doesn’t need to sneak her a spare brush or mend any clothes.
He has been teaching himself how to repair fabric since they started traveling. They don’t have much spare clothing among them, especially the girls — trying to work clothing off of a dead expeditioner is virtually impossible, save for a bra or a pair of pants. And Gustave hates getting near them, hates the reminder of that beach. Distance from it has only made the death cement itself in his brain, forced him to think about the horrible way they all—
…So, he’s been teaching himself to repair fabric.
Sophie did some gorgeous embroidery. She fixed up plenty of his pants and shirts for him during their three years together. He loved it, finding embroidered stars or flowers on his attire. Like she was imbuing a little piece of herself into his clothing.
When they broke up, Gustave pointedly avoided anything Sophie-related at all, but he likes to think she kept up the hobby. Unfortunately for Maelle, Gustave cannot stitch plants or animals into her shirts and pants. She has to make do with his sad squares of brown and (if he’s lucky to find any) purple.
He and Lune are nearly done packing up. They share a glance, then both look at Maelle. She’s snoring. Gustave turns to face Lune again, who has her eyes narrowed at him.
She’s your kid, she mouths.
He throws up his arms. Mouths back, I do it every—
Lune whips around and walks back to her satchel, not having another word. Fine, then.
Gustave crouches over her, metal fingertips pressed into the earth to balance himself. “Maelle,” he stage-whispers. “A giant Nevron is attacking the camp, and we need help.”
Maelle squints her eyes open at him, only to shut them again. Wordlessly, she sticks an arm out and summons her rapier. She offers it to him hilt-first, with the frustratingly impressive dexterity only a half-asleep fencer could muster.
“I— Maelle, I don’t know how to use it.”
She smacks it onto the dirt and keeps sleeping.
A ruckus sounds from the bushes nearby. Sciel prances into camp, grinning. “I’m back, guys! What’re we having for breakfast?”
…Gustave loves packing up camp in the morning.
—
Stone Wave Cliffs is a gorgeous region. Barren as it may be, the stone formations and coastlines are unlike anything he’s ever seen — tall, proud, and entirely unwelcoming to visitors. He expresses his respect for it all to Maelle, who brushes him off jokingly.
“It’s just a bunch of rocks,” she argues.
“Hexagonal rocks, Maelle. It’s brilliant!”
The air is cold and constantly buffeting them with wind. Gustave can taste salt on his lips every time he speaks. Sciel complains that her eyes are stinging from it, but he thinks it’s refreshing. After everything they’ve endured this past week, the… all of the death and grief and misery — this is nice.
They’ve wound their way through stone caves and abandoned villages, Esquie following from the coast. They see him through the rocks every few minutes, soaring through the air with an ease that Gustave can’t even begin to fathom. Magic is… odd to get used to, even after being surrounded by it in Lumière.
The Nevrons are annoying but not impossible to defeat. Maelle is dragging them into every possible fight.
“I can do it myself,” she grumbles, as they approach their fifth Greatword Cultist.
“You know that isn’t happening,” he responds with false cheeriness.
—
They’re tossing rocks again, per Maelle’s request. Gustave never knows how to say no, but he’s sure the girls and Esquie can wait a moment.
“What about this one?” Maelle inquires, holding it up.
He twists around, only to wave it off. “Nah, I taught you better than that. Look at it.” He grabs it with his metal arm, deftly rotating it in his hand. “Too small, won’t go anywhere.”
She blows a raspberry and chucks it off the cliff anyway, searching for another one.
A few seconds of searching before Gustave finds the perfect one and picks it up. He tosses it into the air with a grin. “Just heavy enough, see? But not—”
Something slams into his side, sending Gustave rolling to the floor. His nose hits the ground with the painful crunch of broken cartilage. Whatever attacked him grabs his shoulder and drags him onto his back. The back of his skull connects with hard stone, making his world spin out of focus. He gets a blurry glimpse of Maelle — trapped, in some sort of chromatic shield — before the attacker continues his pursuit.
Arms grapple with his, pinning him to his back. Legs wrap around him, one slotting between his thighs and pressing painfully against his crotch; the other hugging across his hips and squeezing.
A few moments of disoriented silence, then the telltale singing of metal against its sheath. Gustave’s pounding heart drops to the pit of his stomach.
He digs his back into the ground in an attempt to escape what comes next, words coming out in a mangled groan. “No—”
Clothing pops under the pressure of iron, eating its way to his skin; the blade slides into his flesh with a sickly squelch and deliberate slowness. A guttural scream forces its way out of Gustave’s throat, and his world dips into pure agony.
His head snaps up, desperate eyes trying to glean the damage done. Instead, his forehead collides with the attacker’s nose. Gustave’s head ricochets back to the stone floor while the other man lets out a string of curses.
Gustave chokes on his own spit, hands scrambling to pull it out, pull it out, but—
The stranger’s right arm grabs his left, slides his hand down until his palm pins Gustave’s to the floor. His left hand balances on the dagger’s hilt, threatening to turn a stab wound into something worse.
Gustave’s pain-riddled mind has hardly any time to process any of this — he tilts his head back to face the attacker, hips bucking despite the pain. He can’t move. Boots squeak pitifully on wet stone as he tries to kick his way free, but the stranger doesn’t even flinch.
They make eye contact — frantic brown collides with unwavering blue. They’re centimeters away, close enough that Gustave can taste the wine on his breath. He bares his teeth, chest heaving. Each breath is misery for the gaping wound on his stomach.
Black hair brushes against his forehead, blocking his view from anything but him.
The man’s nose bumps against Gustave’s as he leans even closer, putting more pressure on the dagger. Gustave feels it slide further into his gut, hitting the stone. His mouth works silently around unspoken words, lungs rendered useless from the pain.
“You get up, he kills you,” he breathes. “Play dead.”
His assailant sits there, unmoving, until he stops struggling. Gustave freezes up like a wounded bird. Wings clipped, stuck to the ground.
Finally, with a pointed stare, the stranger stands up. As he pushes off the floor, he brushes his hand across Gustave’s face, forcing his eyes shut. Clothing shifts, bootsteps trail away from him. “Don’t play with your food,” he chides.
The white-haired man chuckles. “Good man,” he mutters.
“GUSTAVE!” Maelle sobs. He can hear her fists pound against the shield in a fruitless attempt to escape. She’s trying to get to him, save him—
Gustave shifts his head toward her, but the minuscule movement is enough to soak his skull in agony. Ears ring, almost loud enough to drown out the voices around him.
“It really is her,” the man marvels.
The cane clicks on the floor, footsteps drifting past Gustave’s right side. He’s going to kill her. They’re going to cut her open, and he’ll be lying here, impaled and bleeding out. Feigning death like a coward, just as Lune said—
A whispered voice, a soft nudge of the leather boot against his left shoulder. “Stop moving.”
He grits his teeth behind closed lips and slows his breathing despite the wild animal in his brain telling him to get up and draw his sword. Tries to drag his thoughts away from the piece of iron jammed into his stomach.
“Gustave, please. Get up, Gustave,” she begs. A long, drawn-out hiss of the shield as she drags her palm down it. He can’t help her. Tears threaten to spill out of his closed eyes at the realization.
Rain and dirt lock up the metal joints in his bloodied left arm. For the best, his frayed mind thinks. He’d be tugging the blade out of him if it wasn’t. Gustave hears the shield drop with the low thrum of chroma. He squeezes his eyelids shut even more and prays he isn’t making the biggest mistake of his life.
He recognizes the whistle of Maelle’s rapier cutting through the air. “Stay away,” she demands — her voice trembles. Gustave tries to shift again; the resulting pain is enough to get him to sit still for good.
“You won’t yet understand,” the older man croons, “but this is a kindness. Not a cruelty.”
“No—”
A surge of energy shakes the ground. Both men stumble back, if they’re hurried shuffling is anything to go by. Gustave’s shaking fingertips touch the ground beneath them. Something wet and warm coalesces with the rain. He sluggishly taps his pointer finger to his thumb — it’s sticky.
It takes far too long for him to realize that he is touching his own blood.
“Renoir,” the stranger warns, but the older man shushes him. The cane clicks on the ground again.
“This won’t make sense to you now, but we both want what’s best for our families.”
“You just killed mine,” Maelle wails wretchedly. Shuffling again, the flourish of her rapier. “Stay the FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”
Gustave barely suppresses a flinch at her words. He’s useless, forced to listen to these men torment his sister and do nothing about it. Couldn’t even get up if he tried — the blade embedded in his gut pins him to the floor like an insect. The slightest movement, a breath too deep, and he’s sent spiraling into a pained haze.
“I tire of this,” the stranger mutters. Boots stomp on the ground, away from him. Toward Maelle.
“No, please— please, GUSTAVE!” she screams, then there’s scuffling—
Gustave blinks an eye open just in time to watch Maelle fall off the cliff.
…
Her rapier clatters harmlessly on the ledge, then rolls off. Each deafening clang of her weapon hitting rock on the way down drives another blade through his body. Chokes him. Lightning flashes like an afterthought, searing the men’s silhouettes into Gustave’s bloodied eyes.
He bites his lip in an attempt to stifle his sob, only barely succeeding. The sky above him warps and blurs like an abstract painting. Maelle is—
His mind turns to static.
…
Voices filter in against Gustave’s will, sounding as though they’re suspended in water. “...were down there,” the older man hisses. He has no idea how long he was out — seconds, maybe. Minutes.
“She’ll hit the rocks on the way down,” the stranger says dismissively.
The cane clicks on the ground impatiently, a staccato beat to mirror Gustave’s racing heart. “You don’t know that.”
“She remembers nothing. She’s little threat to us,” he defends. They walk away from the cliffside, the cane on his left, the boots on his right. Neither pay him any mind. “Go back to camp, I’ll finish off the man and make sure…”
Distance renders him deaf to their words. The rain is a torrent, stinging his eyes as he blinks them open. His head rolls to the right. He stares at the empty cliff.
And passes out.