Chapter Text
Lumière, Monolith Year 37
Sciel used to love this time of year, before. Before…
Before, the crisp air was refreshing; the shift of colours in the trees was inspiring, the softness of Pierre’s borrowed sweater was comforting. Now it aches, the fabric feels wrong, the breeze feels like it’s mocking her, and it takes all everything within to stop it from consuming her.
So Sciel slips on her old boots and shrugs her light coat on for the first time since last spring and steps out into the street. She lets the scent of falling leaves fill her lungs and gives herself permission to try. To try and love it once more. To try and see the beauty of autumn in Lumiere. To try and enjoy today, despite it all.
She isn’t teaching today so she meanders the quarter, then along past the tower until her feet inevitably carry her towards Gustave and Emma’s home: their modest little maisonette on the top floor of a building overlooking the harbour, the Red and White Tree, the Monolith. Six months feels like far too long since she’s been over, and a pang of guilt settles deep between her lungs at the thought. Gustave spends so much of his time making sure she’s keeping well, always coming by unannounced with viennoiseries or a new contraption to show her, always making sure she isn’t alone. She loves him dearly for it, she knows how much the Academy needs his attention, but he always finds time for her. He has since they day they met, but more so after she lost Pierre, and nearly lost herself.
As always, the door is unlocked when she arrives, which means that someone is home. She knocks anyway, just in case, but is met with silence. Gustave is probably busy in his little workshop upstairs and hadn’t heard her. She pushes open the door and calls his name.
“He’s not here,” a voice says from the living room floor.
Sciel looks down to find a young girl with fiery auburn hair hunched over a small notebook. She can’t be more than eleven or twelve. This must be Maelle.
“Oh,” is all she can say.
“He’ll be back soon, though.”
The girl doesn’t look up from her writing.
“Alright,” Sciel says, stepping out of her boots and hanging up her jacket. “I’m Sciel, mind if I join you here?”
Maelle shrugs. “It’s a free living room.”
Sciel settles on the floor at arms length from her.
“What are you working on?”
“Poem.”
Maelle still hasn’t spared her so much as a glance, but Sciel remains undettered. She’s seen more than her fair share of aloof adolescents. And, Gustave had told her enough about Maelle and her adoption, her situation, on his visits since the last Gommage.
“She’s reserved,” he had said. “I don’t think she believes this can be her home.”
But Sciel doesn’t see someone reserved. She sees a young girl who is likely briming with potential and a hunger for something more than a little, modest life in Lumière could ever give her. And so, content with the easy silence that might have made most other adults uneasy, she just hums softly, pulls out her deck of cards and starts to shuffle it until one, two, then three cards tumble from it.
She turns them over one by one with care and attention.
Maelle finally looks up from her writing and slowly closes her journal.
“What are you doing?” she asks. Her body language still suggests disinterest, but her tone betrays her. Sciel counts it as a success.
“Asking the cards for guidance.”
“For what?”
The Hermit, reversed.
“How to make the most out of my day,” Sciel murmurs.
“How can they possibly tell you that?” Maelle inches closer to peer at the cards. Sciel’s lips curl into a smile.
The Chariot, upright.
“Well, each card carries its own meaning,” Sciel explains. “And depending on what I’m searching for, I can parse an answer from what they tell me.”
Maelle scoffs. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Sciel gives her a knowing smile.
“Only if you don’t let it make sense.”
Maelle watches, skeptical, as Sciel turns over the final card.
“The Hermit, reversed: isolation or withdrawal. That one seems a bit on the nose… I have been quite lonely of late. This is what’s blocking me.” She points to the second card. “The Chariot, upright: determination. Driving forward with purpose, that’s my solution. And finally, Strength, upright. This one sounds obvious, but it’s about courage, not brute forcing it. That’s the lesson.”
“So, how does that help you make the most of your day?”
“The cards are reminding me to let myself enjoy it, find goodness in the little things and the people I meet — including young girls who like writing poems.”
Maelle lets out a small laugh.
“All that from some cards with some pretty pictures on them.”
“Yes.”
Sciel waves her fingers and the deck dissipates. Maelle’s eyes go wide.
“Pictos,” Sciel says with an easy shrug.
“I’m Maelle,” the girl says, offering her hand. Sciel takes it and squeezes it gently.
“I know.”
“Did the cards tell you that, too?” she asks, a playful glint in her pale eyes.
Sciel chuckles.
“Didn’t need to. Gustave talks about you all the time.”
“Oh.”
“Why does that surprise you?”
Maelle shrugs, picking at the rug.
“I’m not all that interesting to talk about. Just another foster to hand from family to family.”
Sciel sidles the last of the distance between them and summons the deck once more. She shuffles them slowly at first, then, noting Maelle’s interest, does so with a little more flair than is strictly necessary.
“I don’t think that’s true at all, Maelle.”
“How would you know?”
Oh, how Sciel wishes she could tell Maelle all the reasons she is not a burden for having lost her parents to the Gommage, or how each foster family surely loved her, even if they couldn’t spend forever with her. How Sciel came so close to having the opportunity to have one of her own. But she can’t. Not today. And certainly not when it isn’t something Maelle needs to hear just now. So instead, she performs another deft flourish with the deck, allowing a single card to fall from it. She catches it and shows it to Maelle long enough for her to catch a glimpse of its face before tucking it back into the deck.
“Because,” she says patiently, “every life is worth something. Every person is worth knowing. Everyone has something to offer, even if they haven’t figured it out yet.”
Sciel stops shuffling, reaches behind Maelle’s ear to ‘magically’ conjure the card she had pulled and hands it to her. Maelle studies it reverently.
“L’Éoile.”
“Mhm.”
“How did you do that?”
“Magic.” Sciel winks at her and Maelle laughs, properly this time. It’s so delicate and open.
She looks up at her now with a new kind of warmth. No, trust. Sciel’s heart feels a little lighter.
“Stars shine brightest in the dark,” she murmurs. “They can guide, they tell us stories…” Stars are also a bit like grief, she thinks: still present, even after death.
“Are you saying I’m like a star?”
Maelle rolls her eyes.
Teenagers.
“Hey," Sciel says indignantly, "it’s your interpretation of the card that matters, not mine. So if that’s what you see, then perhaps it’s true.”
Maelle’s gaze falls back onto the card in her hand.
“Do you really think I could be more than just a runner for the warehouses?”
“Why not?”
“Well, I know I should just be grateful to be doing anything at all, but…”
“But?”
“I feel like I’m missing something. Like I have something to do — something more. A purpose that’s just out of reach, only I don’t know what it is yet.”
“I understand a bit of that.”
“You do?”
“I was a farmer all my life. I loved it. It ran in the family, long before the fracture apparently. But I wanted to do more. It wasn’t until I met my-,” Sciel’s throat catches. “It wasn’t until I moved to Lumière proper that I discovered how much I love teaching. Something about being able to do more for others just felt right.” She leaves out the fact that it was Pierre that inspired her.
“You moved here for your husband?” Maelle asks.
Sciel looks at her surprised.
“Not a stretch,” she shrugs. “Did he Gommage this year?”
“No, no. He um…” Sciel’s eyes sting. “That’s a story for another time.”
“Okay.” Maelle hands her the card. “I want to learn how to fence.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I sneak into the Academy a lot when I don’t have to work and just watch. It looks so fluid, artful. Kind of like painting. But they won’t take me for at least another year since I never got into any of the apprenticeships.”
“You’ve got a while before yours still. Thirteen years, right?”
“Right.” Maelle casts her eyes downwards as though she’d taken Sciel’s words as rejection.
“There’s no harm in learning,” Sciel says hastily. “I’m no fencer, but I’m sure Lucien or Alan would teach you if you ask. And I can ask Lune if there are any spots available sooner. It’s been a while since we spoke anyway, this is a perfect excuse.”
“You’d do that?”
“Do what?” Gustave’s voice carries from the doorway. He pads into the living room and his tired eyes soften when he sees the pair of them sitting together.
“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he beams, crossing the carpet with vigor.
“Coucou, mon ami,” Sciel grins and gets up to greet him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Sciel said Lucien would teach me how to fence!” Maelle chirps.
“You what?!”
“Relax, Gustave,” Sciel bumps his arm. “What’s the harm? She’s probably safer fencing with Lucien instead of skimming the rooftops anyway.”
Gustave looks skeptical.
“Exactly! At least then I can be useful!” Maelle argues.
“Running for the warehouses is useful.”
“Yeah, but it’s boring.”
“Exactly, Gustave," Sciel teases, "it’s boring.”
Gustave looks between them and sighs.
“I need some tea before we get into this.” He pinches the bridge of his nose before disappearing towards the kitchen. Sciel follows.
“I’m glad you’re out of the house,” Gustave says, pulling two mugs from the cabinet. “What brings you over?”
“It’s Pierre’s birthday." It hurts to say it, like the gaping hole where his existence should be gets a bit bigger for a moment.
Gustave stills for a beat, then puts the mugs down and turns around.
“Right, of course. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
They lapse into a heavy silence as they wait for the kettle to sing. And even when the tea is steeped they don't talk much. They don't really need to. Gustave, ever the protector, simply sits beside her and they mourn, as they nearly always do.