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Verso loves being out in the Canvas.
It has been six months since he stepped out of the Heart of his painted world and started living in it, living with his big brother, and seeing the world he has created with his own eyes.
He hasn’t stopped Painting, but it is different now.
During the day, he gets to explore the word. And oh, is there much to explore! So many places, nooks and crannies, and he's far from seen even a quarter of it all. During the night, however, when his physical body rests, does his soul return to the Heart of the Canvas. But where before Painting was a chore he’d grown tired of, a task he had to perform without end in sight, now he gets to take the joys he sees in the Canvas and give it back to it.
And there are so many joys, too!
Verso likes flying on Esquie’s back with the wind in his hair as they are on their way to a new place to discover the most.
We, as he is never alone.
His big brother Verso is almost always by his side out in the Continent, and Gustave joins them more often than not. They remind Verso of papa and maman sometimes, with their soft touches and sneaky kisses they think he doesn’t see.
Monoco is there more often than not, too, and the Gestral never wastes an opportunity to hoist Verso up on his shoulders to give him a better view of whatever area they are exploring.
Maelle—because that is who she is here inside the Canvas—joins too, but only sometimes. She splits her time between the Canvas and the Outside, and when she’s around she’s always so busy. Yet she never fails to make some time to spend with all three of her brothers.
But while he enjoys running amok in the Continent, he absolutely loves spending time in Lumière.
It’s the place where he lives with Verso and Gustave. Where he has his own room, where he can go to school, where he is making friends with kids his own age.
Lumière, where he can be a boy.
But it is confusing sometimes, because there are two Verso’s in Lumière. When Gustave calls for Verso, they both look. But the more time he spends in Lumière, the less he feels like Verso.
Verso is his big brother. Verso is the part of him that Paints while he sleeps.
Here, having crawled out of his attic bedroom window to sit on the roof, feet dangling off the side as he watches his new home below him, he doesn’t feel like Verso.
The sound of someone clambering up the roof makes him look up, and when Verso sees his brother inelegantly stumble across the roof he giggles, much to the older’s dismay.
“Oh you think that’s funny?”
Verso nods, kicking his feet in the air in amusement as the other sits down next to him with a heavy sigh. “You’re old.”
“Pot and kettle, mon petit,” his brother teases with a grin.
Verso pouts, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I’m eleven.”
He’s also around a century old, but that is in the Heart of the Canvas, not out here in Lumière.
His brother raises an eyebrow, giving him the same amused look papa used to give him. Then, he shakes his head with a smile. “Well, what’s an eleven year old doing on the roof? Nothing silly, I hope.”
Verso is quick to shake his head. “Just wanted to see uimière.”
“See?” his brother asks like he doesn’t believe him. “Or do you want to race over the rooftops? We could…” he stretches out his hand in front of him as his eyes jump from rooftop to rooftop before he looks at Verso with a grin. “We can see who is the fastest Verso.”
Verso hesitates. He has raced the rooftops with Maelle and it was a lot of fun. He’d love to do it with his brother, too! Maybe they can ask Gustave to join, Maelle did say he raced a lot with her when she was still living in Lumière. But he doesn’t want to race to find out who the fastest Verso is…
The older frowns at his lack of answer and places a hand on Verso’s shoulder. “Mon petit?”
Verso kicks his legs in the air, watching his feet. “I don’t want to be Verso anymore,” he whispers.
“What do you mean?”
Verso looks up at his brother with a frown. He feels… confused, and a little sad. It’s strange. “You are Verso.”
“So are you.” The older turns a bit, swinging one of his legs up onto the roof so he can face Verso better. He looks at him with worry in his eyes. “What’s on your mind, mon petit?”
Verso sighs with a small pout. “I want my own name.”
His brother hums. “Like how Alicia is Maelle here in the Canvas?”
“Yes!” Verso nods with a smile, happy that his brother understands. It’s why they are brothers, after all. “And then you would be the only Verso.”
His brother freezes at that, his face doing something complicated that Verso doesn’t understand. “I— you can be anything and anyone you want to be. If you want to be Verso, then you can be. Don’t let the fact that we share a name stop you, mon petit.” His expression softens and he smiles. “We are more than facsimiles of a dead man, even if we both have his name. We’ve been given a chance to live the lives we want to live in the Canvas. You don’t have to adapt to anyone but yourself, alright?”
“I never felt like a fasi… facsimel…” Verso stumbles over the foreign word.
“Facsimiles,” his brother helps with a chuckle. “But I guess copies is a bit less pretentious.”
Yes,” Verso nods, and thinks he is very nice to not tell his brother that pretentious is a very pretentious word, too.
Suddenly, a thought comes to his mind. Because if he wants a new name… His eyes widen. “Do you want to be Verso?”
His brother nods without hesitation. “I do. It’s not always been easy, but I don’t know who else I should be.” He leans his head to the side with a curious look. “If not Verso, who do you want to be? Do you have a name you like?”
“No,” Verso says, shaking his head.
“Ah.”
He hadn’t gotten that far. But that only means that: “We can pick one together!”
His brother laughs, putting his hands behind him and leaning back into a more relaxed position. “Alright, let’s do this.” He thinks for a moment. “What is… your favourite flower?”
“Sunflowers!” Verso exclaims without hesitation. “Like the one in my Drafts.”
“They are very pretty.”
“Yes! They have Esquie’s face!” He likes normal sunflowers too. They are very happy flowers, but the ones in the Drafts are the most fun as they remind him of his marshmallow friend.
His brother hums. “You could be… Maman, she had a friend, outside the Canvas. A Painter.”
Verso giggles. “Maman only had Painter friends.”
“But this one wasn’t with the Council,” his brother says softly, like he is sharing a secret. “He wasn’t from France. He was from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. That’s up north.”
“I know.” Verso rolls his eyes. He knows where the Kingdom of the Netherlands is.
“Smart lad.”
“We are.”
“Not always,” his brother mumbles with a dark expression. When he shakes his head, he looks normal again. “But, the Painter… he stayed in Paris for a while, I’m not sure you remember. We were… eight at the time, I believe.”
Verso shakes his head. Memories are difficult. Sometimes he does, and other times he doesn’t remember. And just sometimes a memory becomes loose, like a brick in a wall, and falls out for him to find. “What did he make?”
“Remember the painting of papa and maman they kept in their bedroom?”
Verso thinks it over. He knows the manor very well because it’s right here in the Canvas. And even if it’s not the real manor, it’s still a copy. “The weird blue one?”
“Yes, it's them at a café, drinking wine,” his brother explains. “He painted that. His style was always quite… eclectic. And the one at the café wasn’t the only one he made that’s in the manor.”
Verso frowns when his brother doesn’t continue. “Which one? Tell me!”
His brother grins. “No. I’m training your memory.”
“Not fair,” Verso says with a pout.
“But it’s fun.”
“Not for me.”
“I’m your older brother, it’s my job to tease you,” the older says with a laugh, he looks happy and relaxed. “But, I’ll give you another hint… he also painted with maman a few times, up in the greenhouse. We were there, once, plucking the flowers to maman’s great dismay. He painted those flowers. For Verso.”
Verso scrunches his nose as he thinks. He imagines the greenhouse, with its many flowers and pretty light. Tries to see maman there, painting with a friend while he is…
Picking sunflowers!
He was picking the sunflowers when maman scolded him and the red haired, bearded man behind the second easel chuckled.
“I remember! It is the sunflower painting!” he cries with a laugh. The laugh fades as he remembers the man, and Verso frowns. “He was a sad man.”
His brother nods with a sigh. “He was.”
“But…” Verso frowns to himself. The man had looked sad, but he had still been amused when Verso picked the flowers. He had still made him a painting of said flowers. Verso gasps, his eyes widening. “He is sad but makes beautiful things that make people happy. He is like me!”
His brother’s eyes widen and he straightens himself so fast Verso is afraid he’ll tumble off the roof. “Are you still sad?”
Verso shakes his head. “No! I’m happy now, and the Canvas is too.” He pats the roof, looking at Lumière with a smile.
For so long, the Canvas had been in pain, and it had hurt him too.
But now that is all over, and he will have a new name.
“What was his name?”
“Vincent. It means victorious.” His brother winks at him. “Quite fitting, don’t you think?”
“I want that name,” Verso says with a resolute nod. “I want to be Vincent.”
His brother, now the only Verso in the Canvas, smiles. “A good choi—”
“Are you two up there?”
Both Vincent and Verso’s heads turn as they hear Gustave call out for them through Vincent’s bedroom window. He sounds confused.
Vincent giggles.
“We are!” Verso calls back.
“What are you doing up there?”
Verso looks at Vincent and winks. “Talking.”
“On the roof?” Gustave sounds amused, like he thinks they are a bit silly.
Maybe they are.
Verso chuckles. “The view is pretty good.”
“Well, lunch is ready when you are done talking!”
“Merci!” Verso calls back to his boyfriend—and Vincent feels proud, because he helped with that! He stands up and reaches out a hand to his little brother with a smile “Shall we go, Vincent?”
Vincent takes his brother’s hand with a happy laugh, and together they make their way back to the bedroom window.
Vincent and Verso, younger and older brother.
Both living happily in the Canvas they call their home.