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Lune peered over the ledge. Snow crunched under her feet, falling off the edge in white clumps. “I wonder what’s going on down there,” she said.
In the hollowed out clearing three Danseuse Nevrons stood in a semi-circle watching the movements of a much larger Danseuse. Then, as it paused, the three smaller ones copied its movements. Almost like it was teaching them.
Fascinating. She looked around for a way down. Luckily there was a chroma rope nearby. So they weren’t the first to come here then.
Sciel caught her arm as Lune walked past. “You aren’t seriously thinking of going down there?” Sciel asked, fond exasperation in her voice. She knew Lune well enough to already know the answer.
“I’ll only be a few minutes. Go on ahead, I’ll catch up.” Lune said in reply.
Maelle leaned over the ledge, frowning. “By yourself? It’s not safe.”
“It’s a white Nevron,” Lune reasoned, “None of the ones we’ve encountered so far have been violent.”
“If it does attack your fight will be glorious,” Monoco intoned.
“Yes, thank you Monoco.”
“Of course not as glorious as if I battled it myself. Then I could claim its feet as my own.”
“Yes, thank you Monoco.”
The white gestral settled back, nodding happily to himself. Lune smiled reassuringly at Maelle, “I’ll be fine.”
“We won’t go far. Give us a shout if you need, okay?” Sciel said, “And don’t get too caught up in your science.” She put an arm around Maelle’s shoulders, leading her away. Monoco looked down at the Nevron one more time, before trudging after them.
Lune readied herself to go down the rope.
“Clea?”
Lune paused, looking back. Clea was still standing where she was before, not moving away with the rest of the party. Verso walked back towards his sister.
Lune wasn’t sure what to make of Clea. Not that she’d had a chance to talk to the woman, with Verso hovering over her like a mother hen ever since they’d freed her a few days earlier. Merde, but she had so many questions.
“I want to talk with it.” Clea said, in that distant voice of hers. As if she were half trapped in a dream.
Her skin was still that grey tone, shot though with gold gilding. Like the faceless forms of the Paintress and the Curator. She was something caught between painted and painter. But her eyes were clear and her mind seemed to be her own again. Maelle hadn’t been sure how long that would last. She’d done her best but apparently the eldest Dessendre was a far more skilled painter than she was.
“The Nevron?” Verso asked. Clea nodded. “I’ll stay as well then.”
“No.” Clea waved him off, the movement airy. “Go help Alicia.”
Verso hesitated, shifting indecisively. He opened his mouth to argue.
“She’ll be fine,” Lune snapped, harsher than she had meant. Verso’s head jerked to face her. Lune sighed, forcing herself to be more civil. She empathised with him but his betrayal still stung. “Nevrons won’t attack her.”
Clea couldn’t, or wouldn’t, control the Nevrons outside of the workshop. But none of them raised a weapon against her either. Largely they ignored her.
“That’s not what I’m – Clea,” Verso said beseechingly.
“I don’t need your babysitting,” Clea scolded, words halting.
Interestingly, this seemed to reassure Verso more than Lune's logic.
“Right. Okay. Yeah,” he said, backing away slowly, eyes still on Clea. He nodded to himself, and finally turned away, disappearing around the corner after the others.
“Shall we?” Lune asked, grabbing the rope and spinning down. She landed lightly on the snow, then moved to the side to make way for Clea.
“Hmm. Human…” the larger Danseuse said as Lune approached. It half-bowed to Clea. “Mistress… but you are not…”
“I am not,” Clea agreed. She folded her arms. The Danseuse hummed again, tilting its head as it examined her.
“I am unfinished. And yet still I dance. Does this displease you?” The Danseuse asked.
“It should. I was created in her image.” Clea’s mouth twisted.
Lune thought of Blanche, the white Nevron tasked with neutralising the other white Nevrons. How it had told them that the Paintress Clea saw their existence as evidence of her failures. How much of that Clea existed within this one? Verso insisted that he was not the original Verso but he still had all his memories.
“Would you dance with me?” The Danseuse offered, not seemingly bothered by Clea’s answer. Lune was already stepping forward as Clea shook her head.
“I will,” Lune said eagerly.
The Nevron turned to her. “We are rejoiced to know that humans care for our way of expression. And battle.”
“Battle,” Lune repeated. “You want to fight?”
“A ‘fight’? No, no, no, clearly you do not see. I am inviting you to the most intimate and elegant of dances.”
Lune had never really cared for dancing the say Sciel did. She didn’t understand the appeal, though Sciel had compared it to fighting on more than one occasion. What would Nevrons consider dancing, she wondered. “This dance, it helps us to battle?” she asked.
“Yes. You understand and yet have much still to learn. Allow me to demonstrate. Dance with me. Parry to the rhythm of my strikes. Then might you witness true bliss.”
Lune glanced to Clea, who nodded and took a step back. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Let us dance in a sea of fire and ice,” The Danseuse teacher said.
The attacks came without pause. Lune barely dodged the first few, the burning heat singeing her clothes. Then she found her stance and began to parry. But the waves of fire were relentless and soon sweat was dripping into her eyes. Her parry timing suffered and more attacks made their way through. Lune reeled away, sitting down heavily in the snow. She pulled out a healing tint, downing it between panted breaths.
“Again,” Lune said, climbing to her feet.
She lasted longer the second time. And then even longer the third. There was a rhythm there, like the Nevron had said. Most Nevrons attacked in set patterns and learning them, learning how to predict them, had been the topic of her and Gustave’s conversations the first several days on the continent.
A surge of grief distracted her and she messed up the timing. Lune stumbled back, unable to recover under the onslaught. Clea already had a healing tint ready for her. Lune took it with a nod of thanks.
They were going to get him back. Him and everyone else they’d lost to the bickering of the Painters. This world might be a canvas but it was hers and she wasn’t going to let them erase it so easily.
The fourth time she found a lull in the rhythm to counterattack. With the fifth she became more confident, her movements more sure. She was parrying far more attacks than she let through. Her sixth attempt was her last. She danced through the motions, parrying the attacks away then spinning around to counterattack in turn. She found herself laughing slightly as the dance drew to an end, the thrill of executing a new skill well running through her.
“Your dance was enthralling,” the Danseuse teacher praised, “It seems there is nothing more I can teach you.”
Though tired, Lune still felt light on her feet. She couldn’t remember the last time fighting had felt like that. Satisfaction after beating a difficult Nevron yes, but also those fights were tinged with danger and desperation. Training for the expedition had been fighting for a purpose, not for fun. Tristian had pulled her away from her work occasionally, playing the guitar was her escape. But she’d never felt the thrill of fighting the same way she knew the others did.
Clea was still watching the Nevrons.
“These few follow me, but to little profit,” the Danseuse teacher was telling her.
“They learn the moves,” Clea said.
“Yes but only that. Our kind have travelled as far as we can go. Whereas humans? Gestrals? They may climb the tallest mountains, if they so wish.” Its voice seemed wistful.
Before the expedition, Lune hadn’t known Nevrons to be capable of speech. Now one was becoming philosophical in front of her. A small thing, compared to the way everything she had ever known had turned itself upon its head the last few weeks. But it struck her, to empathise with a Nevron.
“It isn’t within your design.” Clea agreed.
“That doesn’t mean you stop trying. With enough effort, everyone can achieve the same,” Lune countered.
“Everyone… I do not believe you,” the Danseuse Teacher said and turned away. It no longer wanted to interact with them. Lune had learned by now not to push when the white Nevrons were done talking.
She watched Clea as they made their way back up the rope. Lune couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Clea’s face was always so blank. It was as if she had forgotten how to emote. And maybe she had. After sixty-seven years of being painted over, turned into a tool at the whim of a Paintress. Was it possible that she no longer believed she could be something more, trapped by the strokes of a brush?
The thought troubled Lune. Maelle said that she couldn’t paint over Clea, just scrape enough away that some of what she was originally painted to be bled through. How much of this Clea was of her own will and how much was still being controlled by the Paintress Clea? Could they really trust her?
They walked in silence, following the path up the mountain. Her dance with the Danseuse Teacher had taken longer than Lune had thought it would but the others couldn’t have gotten that far ahead. They would have had their own fights, as evidenced by the lack of Nevrons in the area, leaving the way clear for Lune and Clea.
More Nevrons would come, later, to fill in the empty spaces. Or maybe not. Not anymore. Lune shot Clea a glance. With her out of the workshop, it was possible that no more Nevrons would spawn.
Lune followed the thought. If no more new Nevrons were being created then they could send teams to the continent to clear areas out. Start expanding the city from Lumiere to the continent proper. They’d need the space. Without the Gommage the population would finally start growing. And after they brought everyone back they’d have plenty of hands to help.
After they brought everyone back. After they freed the canvas. After, Lune marvelled. She’d never given it much thought before. Her goal, ever since she became her parent’s apprentice at four years old, had been the Paintress. Figuring out how to defeat her and stop the Gommage. There’d never been much time to think about after.
“Nevrons can’t change,” Clea said, pulling Lune from her thoughts.
“Nevrons were made to trap chroma. But that one didn’t want to kill me. It danced,” Lune countered.
“That was not change. Its design was flawed from the beginning. It should have been erased,” Clea argued.
“What about the other Nevrons that were learning from it. Were they also mistakes or did they change?” Lune was curious.
Clea seemed troubled, at least from what Lune could tell. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Hello!” A voice called out to them. A gestral trader. He waved them over excitedly, putting his whole body into the gesture. “More humans. Do you want to trade?”
“How long ago did you see the other humans?” Lune asked, walking over to him.
“Hmm, I don’t know. Today, I think. Yes, today,” the gestral said. Lune looked at Clea who sighed.
“Verso’s creations,” she said.
“What do you have to trade?” Lune asked.
“Oh!” The gestral dug around in his pack. “Nothing. The other humans bought it all. But we can still fight if you want.”
“That’s okay,” Lune said. “Can you tell me which way the other humans went?”
“That way.” The gestral pointed in what was probably a random direction. Lune thanked him anyway.
Gestrals were no less fascinating now to Lune than when she first met Noco. None of them really seemed to know how they could grow in size or what the process was that could bring them back. She knew it involved a river but Monoco said it was sacred and only Verso was allowed to accompany him resurrect Noco. The process wasn’t perfect though and it left Noco without memories. But if she could study it, then maybe she could find a way to replicate it, or make it a smoother transition with less memory loss.
Caught up in her own thoughts, Lune didn’t notice anything until a chittering sound came from off to the side. By now Lune was more than familiar with the noises that mimes made. Its head slowly turned to face them. Lune scrambled to put some room between them as the mime charged, busting through the crates in its path. Electricity began to crackle in her hands as she prepared to attack.
But Clea stepped forward to meet it, summoning a long, slightly curved sabre. Chroma swirled around the blade as she flourished it. At the last second she stepped to the side, letting it pass by her. She struck out with her sabre and where the blow landed, the mime’s paint chipped and fell away.
Lune sent a lightning bold down on the mime to give Clea an opening to dodge as it spun, swiping at her with its massive hand. It hit the empty air where Clea had stood just seconds before.
Clea twirled behind the mime, skirt fanning out around her.
The mime turned its attention to Lune. It summoned its spectral hammer, slamming it down on her. She parried again and again, feeling her arms shake from the force of its blows. She hated fighting mimes. They were an infuriating mix of fast and slow that threw off her timing. And they hit hard.
The mime swung its hammer up again for what should be the final strike of its sequence. Lune readied herself to counter.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, the mime collapsed in a bundle of limbs, hammer disappearing. The colour seeped away from it until all that was left was grey. Then it chipped and the mime disintegrated away. Clea stood over it, finishing up the strike of her sabre with a flourish.
Lune gaped at her. “Did you steal its chroma?” She’d never taken down a mime so fast.
Clea shook her head. “I repurposed it,” she said.
Lune narrowed her eyes. “How?” she demanded.
“Everything is chroma. I just strip away what is there and use it to paint something new.” Clea turned, making her way back to the path.
Lune chased after her, not ready to just let her leave the conversation there when she was finally getting something close to answers. Verso said that Clea was the best painter out of the siblings but so far the woman had refused to even help Maelle with figuring out her abilities.
“You didn’t make the white Nevrons, the other Clea did.” Lune said as she caught up, trying to keep her tone neutral.
Clea nodded. “They were the firsts of their kind. From before.”
“But you created the rest?”
“I painted them. But they were not my design. Clea sculpted them. I was the brush not the painter.”
“Could you now? You still have the ability to paint. Not just Nevrons but other things? People?”
“I am not a Paintress,” Clea said sharply.
Lune darted out in front, stepping into Clea’s path and forcing the other woman to finally look at her. “You know more about how chroma works than anyone else. Maelle needs your help if-”
“She’s not Maelle,” Clea cut her off, “She is Alicia. I’m glad her diversion into the canvas has been fun for her but she’ll need to leave eventually.”
“Fun? Nothing about this is fun. These are our lives.”
“We are paint on a canvas. His canvas. Now he is dead and it needs to be destroyed for the family to move on.” Clea said, stubbornly.
“That Verso might be dead but yours isn’t. He’s up there,” Lune pointed towards the top of the mountain, “He’s alive. And so are the rest of us. Don’t you want to have a chance to actually live?”
Clea crossed her arms. “There’s more going on then just us. Renoir is needed in the outside world and he can’t do his duty if he’s too busy trying to keep Aline and Alicia out of this canvas.”
“I don’t care about what’s happening outside the canvas, that’s their world. It doesn't mean that they get to destroy ours. You’re not her, that family isn’t yours. This world is.” Lune argued.
Clea harrumphed, flicking her hair.
Lune pressed her advantage, stepping forward and jabbing a finger into Clea’s chest. “You’ve spent the last six decades making someone else’s killing machines. Now you have the opportunity to paint life. Help us.”
Clea pressed her lips together. “I’ll think about it,” she said grudgingly.
Lune tried to say more but Clea brushed past her, stalking off up the path. Lune watched her go, scoffing. What a stubborn, infuriating, chroma-blasted woman.
She’d try again later. Lune wasn’t about to just give up so easily. She’d made some ground just then, all she needed to be was keep pushing. She really just didn’t understand this loyalty that both Clea and Verso had to people who had done nothing but hurt them. Yes they had the memories of the originals but they were so much more than that.
Snow brushed the tops of her feet as she flew after Clea. No matter what anyone else said, she was real. She’d lived and loved and grieved just as much as any Painter. She was going to save this canvas and bring everyone else back. She wouldn’t accept any other option.
Her temper cooled with the softly falling snow. The continent really was so beautiful when she wasn’t constantly being attacked by Nevrons. Despite what she’d said earlier she was curious about the world outside this one, the one her world had been modelled on.
It didn’t take long for her to catch up and fall into pace with Clea. She’d let the argument go for now, but she still had one burning question.
“So, what’s with all the mimes anyway?” Lune asked.
Clea threw her head back and groaned.