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As soon as her feet hit the docks, Lune set off at a brisk pace through the streets of Lumière, weaving as quickly as she could through the crowded market. She stopped only briefly to pick up some flowers — and then to buy fresh bread for dinner — before continuing on towards the schoolhouse in the center of town.
She jogged up the steps of the school and walked past the first few rooms, following the sound of Sciel’s voice as it floated down the hall. Just shy of the open door to Sciel’s classroom, she stopped, leaned against the wall, and waited.
Moments later, Sciel’s voice rang out to announce dismissal, and there was a great rustling of papers and scraping of chairs before a stampede of children poured out into the hallway.
“Good work today everyone!” Sciel called after them. “Don’t forget your practice exercises!”
The students ran down the main hall and out into the sunlight, chatting and playing in little groups amongst themselves. It warmed Lune’s heart to see them so carefree, to know that these children would never have to work long into the night to attend an apprenticeship, as she and her peers had once done.
Lune watched the last of them disappear out into the school yard, then rounded the corner and stepped into the doorway.
As always, the sight of Sciel took her breath away. She sat at her desk, grading assignments, and even in the simple shirt and trousers she wore to teach, she looked utterly ethereal. Most of her hair was tied back in a ribbon, but errant strands fell around her face as she leaned over her work, and the sunlight that streamed through the window caught like a halo on the crown of her head.
Without looking up, Sciel said, “Antoine, if you’ve forgotten your bookbag again, it should be over by the–”
Lune cleared her throat.
Sciel looked up and immediately froze in shock. “... Lune?”
“Surprise?”
A wide smile broke out across Sciel’s face, and she strode quickly across the room to pull Lune into a hug. “You’re here! I thought you weren’t coming home for two more days!”
Lune held her and breathed in the scent of lavender and home. “I missed you, so I came back early.”
Sciel pulled back from the hug and kissed her. “Oh, I missed you too!” She took Lune by the hand and pulled her back to her desk while she collected her things. “This is perfect, I have an excellent bottle of wine for us to open with dinner tonight. What do you say?”
“I think it sounds infinitely better than another night of expedition rations,” Lune laughed.
“None of those youngsters you take with you know how to make a decent stew, do they?”
“They try, but it’s not half as good as the ones you used to make. Do you have work you need to finish? I can wait for you.” Lune nodded to the pile of assignments on Sciel’s desk, waiting to be graded.
“Nothing that can’t wait till tomorrow. Now, come on! Let’s go home.”
Over the past few months, Lune had learned — much to her own surprise — that she did not enjoy being away from home nearly so much as she had once thought. Before, she had thought that her heart yearned perpetually for the vastness of the continent, for exploration, and for discovery. And although she had spent her life ready to die for Lumière as a concept, she had held no real attachment to it as a place.
But somewhere along the way, her home had become a person. And, as it turned out, Lune did not much like being away from her.
Sciel never begrudged her the time away, nor did she stifle Lune’s ambitions or her desire for adventure, and for that, she was intensely grateful. And yet, Lune still found herself conspiring more and more frequently to hurry her trips along, for although the pull to learn and explore remained, there was a new pull that beckoned her home as well.
“Yes. Let’s go home.”
———
That evening, they sipped their wine and prepared their meal, laughing and talking as they caught up on the weeks apart. Had Sciel finished that book she had been reading, and did she like the ending? What was the latest from Verso and Monoco, and how were the gestrals doing? How was Maelle? How were Sciel’s students?
Lune felt a deep contentment wash over her. Her entire life had been spent in service to progress and to forward movement, but in this moment, she was at peace.
She found herself once again caught up watching Sciel in her element. The way she couldn’t help but dance in place to the record playing on the gramophone, the way she tasted the sauce each time she seasoned it, the way her lips were stained with red wine when she kissed her.
Lune loved her. She loved her so much.
And she found herself dreading the prospect of leaving again in just a few weeks.
Perhaps she could encourage her new recruits to accelerate their training so she could send them on their own from time to time.
But until then…
“Would you… come with me again? Next time?”
“To the continent?” Sciel asked.
“Yes.” Lune crossed the room, wrapping her arms around Sciel from behind. “Come with me. Please?”
Sciel turned around in Lune’s arms, a regretful look on her face. “You know I’d love nothing more, but I can’t leave my students for weeks at a time.”
“Not weeks,” Lune said. “A few days, at most.”
“It would be nice to get away for a few days…” Sciel said, with a growing smile on her face.
“Just us,” Lune added. “I want to go back to the Axon islands and investigate the chroma there. The new recruits aren’t ready for some of those nevrons yet.”
“Ah, I see, so you just want me for my fire power?” Sciel smirked and rolled her tongue into her cheek in a way that meant that she had already decided, but she wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
“Something like that.” Lune rolled her eyes fondly. “And besides… I miss you.”
Sciel softened then, and her teasing lilt was replaced with genuine affection. “And I miss you too. Yes, of course I’ll come with you.”
———
And so it was that they found themselves waving good-bye to Esquie on the beach of Sirène’s island just a few weeks later.
The first thing Lune noticed as they entered that sandstone fortress was the silence. Before, the Axon’s song had been an omnipresent, inescapable drone, even in the farthest corners of the deepest rooms.
But now, the silence was a deafening absence, and all other sounds felt amplified in its vacuum. Lune could hear the wind whistling through cracks in the stone and flapping in the suspended bolts of fabric. She could hear fine grains of sand as they skipped across the tiles.
“It’s strange…” she said, barely more than a whisper, almost afraid to break the silence, “to be here without her song.”
Sciel wandered over to the edge of the balcony in the entryway, as if some part of her was still drawn by the echo of that old song. She hummed a little tune, something reminiscent of Sirène’s melody, though perhaps not exactly the same, and swayed lightly to it. “It was quite beautiful… if you could forget she was trying to trap you here forever.”
“Right,” Lune said dryly, “which was exactly what she wanted you to do.”
Sciel twirled around with a dramatic flourish. “At least it didn’t work, did it?”
Lune couldn’t help but laugh, even if the sentiment was a bit dark. “It very nearly did, the way I remember it.”
“We were fine.” Sciel waved a hand dismissively. “Besides, we won in the end. Because you saved us.” Sciel grinned, punctuating the word you with a playful poke to Lune’s sternum, then spun away again, continuing to dance to a song that only she could hear.
Lune watched her for a few moments, entranced, then said, “She reminded me a bit of you, you know. Sirène.”
Sciel’s dance faltered, just slightly. “Did she now?”
“Does that really surprise you?” Lune sidled over to Sciel and took her hand. “An elegant dancer who could subdue even the mightiest expeditioners with her grace and beauty alone? Sounds familiar to me.”
“Okay, charmer,” Sciel drawled.
“I’m being serious!”
“I know you are,” Sciel said, smiling up at her. “And it’s very sweet.”
“I remember the first time I saw you dance at the festival. It was the year after we first met, and I was doing my best to keep my distance. But when I saw you dance… I knew if I watched you long enough, I wouldn’t be able to stay away from you.” Lune breathed deeply and looked out over the grand hall. “It was a bit like that. Listening to her song.”
Sciel leaned up on her toes and kissed her, then smirked and added, “Sirène was quite tall though, if you remember correctly. So I suppose it wasn’t exactly a spitting image.”
Lune rolled her eyes fondly, but something about Sciel’s wry response plucked a dissonant chord in the back of her mind. Sciel often liked to banter with her — it was one of Lune’s favorite parts about their relationship, in fact — but this time, it felt ever so slightly forced. It was like Sciel needed the levity to distract from something else, but Lune couldn’t quite put her finger on why.
Before she could think on it any longer, Sciel was already walking over to the lift and waving her over, so she stored that thought for later and followed.
———
As they continued their journey down into the bowels of Sirène’s lair, Lune’s gut feeling that something was indeed off about Sciel only grew. On the surface, everything seemed fine. They laughed and talked as they walked, and the conversation flowed as easily as it ever did. But Sciel’s side of the conversation felt somehow too light-hearted — strained, even. And although she still could not identify the cause, Lune felt a growing gulf between them.
By mid-afternoon they reached one of the lowest rooms. It was shaded and dark, protected from the harsh sun that beat down on the rest of this place, and filled with a flowing floor of rich fabric. The cool air was a shock after the warmth outside, and Lune suppressed a shiver. There was a manor entrance to one side, and she knew they’d find a handful of Benisseurs scattered around — though that was nothing they couldn’t handle with ease these days.
But then... Lune realized she knew this place for another reason. One of Renoir’s soul fragments had stood here once.
She had talked to him briefly, when they came here during the Expedition. About knowing oneself and knowing others. About whether such a thing was even possible. At the end of their conversation, he had asked, When did she start pulling away? The question had been altogether mysterious at the time, but now Lune knew he’d been talking about his wife, the Paintress herself.
A chill ran down her spine as she thought about how strangely Sciel had been acting all afternoon, how oddly distant, despite being physically present. But no, Sciel wouldn’t just turn away from her like that. They trusted each other. Sciel would come to her if Lune had done something to upset her.
But still…
Lune thought back on the day, trying to pin-point when the differences had started. It had been at the entrance, hadn’t it? After she suggested that Sciel reminded her of…
Oh.
All at once, several additional similarities between Sciel and Sirène — or, more accurately, between Sciel and the Paintress — fell into place.
Yes, they were both dancers who captivated those around them, but more importantly, both of them were mothers who had lost a child… and who had very nearly lost their own lives to grief.
Lune shuddered. She didn’t like to think about that period of Sciel’s life. It was simply too painful to imagine Sciel so distraught, so hopeless. More painful still to know that Lune might have lost her forever and not even known until much later. She felt a familiar swell of guilt, knowing she had been completely absent during Sciel’s darkest hours.
At last, Sciel’s voice dragged her from her thoughts. “Do you want to take out these few or shall I?”
Lune startled and looked around to find that Sciel had moved a few dozen paces ahead and was peering around the next corner, no doubt also looking for the Benisseurs they both knew would be waiting there. Sciel turned around with a smirk, twirling a card between two fingers, then added, “Or perhaps we’ll put it to a wager? Last one to take down a nevron cleans up dinner?”
It was not uncommon on these trips for them to make a game out of nevron encounters, but something about Sciel’s tone continued to ring hollow in Lune’s ear, and her usual mirth was uncanny and fragile.
Renoir’s parting question echoed in her mind: When did she start pulling away?
“Sciel, wait. Are you–”
“Come on, I’ll race you!” And, in a flash of golden ribbon, Sciel was gone.
Lune sighed.
With a flick of her wrist, she called a roiling ball of fire into the palm of her hand and hurried into the fray. She would gladly chase after Sciel for the rest of her days. She just desperately hoped that wherever Sciel was running, she was not running away from her.
———
Hours later, they found a quiet corner to camp for the night, tucked in a small alcove in the chamber where the Tisseur had once been. The climate on Sirène’s island stayed unnaturally warm at all times, so there was no need for a fire. Indeed, they would hardly need their bedrolls at all, except to soften the stone floor beneath them as they slept.
As they finished up their evening meal, Lune found herself lost in her thoughts again, staring at the empty spot where the Tisseur had worked tirelessly, endlessly, in service to Sirène. She thought again about Renoir, who had painted this vast fortress for his wife, and who had then added himself to the portrait here — spinning away, in a hidden, unassuming chamber.
The image of Sciel dancing at the Festival of the Gommage flashed again across her mind’s eye. The memory morphed, and now she saw Sciel spinning Maelle around the fire during the Expedition, drunk on wine and on the knowledge that they would make their final stand the next day. And finally another, newer memory, in which Sciel swayed lightly in Lune’s kitchen on a quiet evening, stirring a sauce on the stove.
Lune saw herself in the periphery of each of those moments — content to hover on the outskirts, as long as she could still bask in Sciel’s light. And she felt a sudden, disturbing kinship to the man who had once tried to end their entire world.
“You alright, love?” Sciel asked from somewhere over her shoulder.
Lune startled from her thoughts and turned to look at Sciel with a grimace. Fuck, Sciel had been out of sorts all day, and yet here she was, comforting Lune anyway.
“What? Oh, fine, I’m fine. Just…” Lune turned back to look at the Tisseur’s alcove, “... thinking.”
Sciel tilted her head at her, looking concerned and a bit disbelieving. “Are you sure? You’ve seemed a bit off this evening.”
“Actually… I was thinking the same thing about you.”
“Who me? Oh, you know I’m always peachy.” Sciel’s thin veneer of levity reappeared immediately, and it was that, more than anything, that told Lune she had struck a chord.
This time, Lune didn’t take the bait. Instead of bantering back, she let her voice soften, as if she worried Sciel might run away again. “Is it because of what I said at the entrance? About you and Sirène?”
That, it appeared, Sciel had not been expecting. “Oh, that’s nothing,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Just, you know… some bad memories.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“I…” Sciel sighed, defeated, and finally let the facade drop. “I don’t know.”
It pained Lune to see the way Sciel’s shoulders hunched, like the stones around them were a weight, pushing her down. All of a sudden, being in this confined, cave-like chamber seemed fundamentally wrong. It was too enclosed, too limiting. Sciel should be as boundless and free as the Sky itself.
An idea occurred to her. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“What?” Sciel asked. “Now?”
“Just a short one. Come on, you’ll see.”
And although confusion knit her brow, Sciel stood and followed.
Lune led them up and around the corner to the platform where the Glissando had once been. Expedition 67 had blasted through the walls here, leaving it open to the night sky. She sat down on the edge of one of the rocky shelves, dangling her feet over the vast expanse below, then tugged Sciel down by the hand to join her.
Glancing to the side, Lune could see that Sciel seemed lighter out here already, even if only slightly. “You don’t have to talk with me about it if you don’t want to,” she explained, then tilted her chin towards the stars above, “but I thought you might want to tell them instead.”
Sciel’s eyes softened as understanding dawned. “I think I would like that very much.” She slid closer to Lune until their sides were pressed together, then nestled against Lune’s shoulder so she could lean her head back and look up.
Lune wrapped an arm around Sciel’s shoulders and pulled her ever closer, doing her best to impart whatever comfort she could. If Sciel wasn’t ready to share with her, that was alright. She’d simply hold her while Sciel spoke with her oldest friends.
At long last, Sciel broke the silence.
“I spent a long time after Pierre died coming to terms with the… with the role I played in our daughter’s death.” Sciel swallowed hard, as if the words themselves made her physically ill. “Most of the time, I’ve learned to live with it, but every once in a while it still catches me off guard.”
Lune hummed in understanding. “Like today?”
“Like today,” Sciel confirmed. “It’s hard, sometimes, when I think about the Paintress. The real one, that is. Aline.”
Lune resisted a very strong urge to apologize. By now, she deeply regretted bringing up Sirène or the Paintress at all. But Sciel didn’t need her guilt, and there would be time for apologies later. Instead, she swallowed the feeling down and pressed a kiss to the top of Sciel’s head, waiting silently for her to continue.
“It’s a strange feeling… to realize that the woman I grew up fearing more than anything else — hating, even — was not so different from me after all.”
“You’re nothing like her,” Lune countered, unable to keep the venom out of her voice. She could not bear to see the most beautiful soul she had ever known compared to a tyrant.
“No, I am. I’m just like her.” Sciel’s voice was heavy with resignation and thick with unshed tears. “Sometimes, I think about Maelle’s life before the canvas. How sad and alone she was. It makes me furious to think that her mother was so lost in her own sadness that she abandoned her daughter… and then I remember.”
Lune felt a righteous, defensive anger burn hot and fast in her chest. She wanted to protest, to argue all the reasons that no, it wasn’t the same at all.
But then Sciel’s shoulders shook with a silent sob, and Lune’s anger was quenched by a colossal wave of sadness. “Oh, my love. Come here.”
Sciel turned her face into Lune’s shoulder and wept.
Lune held her while she cried, and then long after the tears subsided. Sciel leaned heavily against her, exhausted and wrung out from the depth of emotion.
After some time, Lune took Sciel’s face in her hands and kissed the tear tracks on each of her cheeks. The salt was bitter on her tongue. Then she leaned back, pulling Sciel with her until they were lying side-by-side, stretched out on the smooth stone.
She was reminded of the way they had lain together like this during the expedition, on a little grassy patch just outside of camp. She had been too afraid even to hold Sciel’s hand back then, worried that she might overstep and disrupt whatever tentative friendship they were rebuilding. But now, she opened her arms and pulled Sciel against her, holding her close and safe.
Sciel took Lune’s hand in her own and traced the golden lines of chroma there with her thumb. “I’m sorry I was distant today. I should have told you why.”
Lune shook her head. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But I hate to see you hurting when I can’t do anything to help.”
“You’re already helping. This is all I need,” Sciel said. “Just this. Just you.”
Lune felt her heart stutter in her chest. Just her had never, ever been enough for anyone else before. “You have me. I’m here.”
She trailed her hand lightly up and down Sciel’s back, and Sciel clung to her like Lune might disappear if she let go. But as the moment stretched on, her fingers loosened, and Lune felt Sciel relax against her as the worst of her sadness started to dissipate.
At last, Sciel asked, “How did you defeat her?”
“Who? Sirène?”
Sciel nodded against Lune’s shoulder. “We were all lost to her song, but you broke through somehow.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure,” Lune said. “I think Sirène didn’t know how to distract me. She tried to use my parents, but there was nothing in the world that I wanted more than to defeat the Paintress — and so there was also nothing I wanted more in that moment than to take down another Axon.”
Sciel hummed. “That makes sense.”
“If we had to face her now though…” Lune tucked a few strands of hair behind Sciel’s ear thoughtfully. “Now, I think it would be a different story.”
Sciel breathed out a tiny laugh. “As flattered as I am, let’s hope we never have to find out.”
Lune smiled and pulled her closer. She wished she could defeat the darkness that still haunted Sciel’s heart as decisively as she had defeated Sirène.
But then… maybe she could, in a different way.
“Dance with me?”
“What?” Sciel propped herself up on her elbows and looked down at Lune with a somewhat baffled smile.
“Dance with me,” Lune repeated.
“Who are you and what have you done with my Lune?”
With a shrug of her shoulder, Lune chewed her lip and did her best to look nonchalant.
“Let’s dance then!” Sciel grinned and took Lune’s hand, pulling her to her feet. She wove their fingers together and rested her opposite hand on Lune’s waist. Lune placed a hand on Sciel’s shoulder in return, and then stood at attention, waiting for further direction.
“Relax, Lune,” Sciel chuckled. “It’s a dance, not a duel.”
“Right, right. Of course.” Lune cleared her throat and tried her best to release the tension in her shoulders.
“Here we go. Follow me, I’ll show you where to go.”
They spun in slow, careful circles. As the dance progressed, Lune followed Sciel’s lead with more and more ease. A gentle push with her hand or a pull at her waist told her exactly where she needed to go next, and she was content to let herself be led wherever Sciel wanted to take her.
Sciel, too, seemed to return to herself in the dance. Her shoulders loosened, and her motions became more free. Lune saw her reclaiming this part of herself, not as a reflection of Sirène, but as a fundamental element of her own personhood, and the shackles of that comparison started to fall away.
And then — because the night was beautiful and because she wanted to and because she could — Lune wrapped an arm around Sciel’s waist and pushed her feet off from the ground, sending both of them spinning into the air. Sciel shrieked with laughter and held onto Lune’s shoulders as they spun higher and higher, pushing the limits of her pictos, before returning gently to the ground.
She pushed Sciel’s hair back from her face and searched her gaze, pleased to find that the heaviness from earlier in the day seemed to be all but gone. “How do you feel? Better?”
“Much better,” Sciel said, warm and genuine. “Thank you, for this.”
“Of course.”
“And…” Sciel started, mischief already glimmering in her eyes, “Now that you’re such an experienced dancer, I shall expect you to be my partner much more frequently.”
Lune snorted. “As long as you don’t mind me stepping on your toes, I think that can be arranged.”
“Well, I suppose it’s a good thing I’m not the one who refuses to wear boots!” Sciel laughed again, and even though it was at her own expense, Lune felt it warm her heart.
As they walked back inside, hand in hand, Lune felt as if her heart was still soaring among the stars.