Work Text:
It was only Verso’s Canvas.
An ostensibly dead thing, made precious only for its ties to the man himself. On its own, it was only Canvas and paint. No better than any piece of artwork in the atelier, ostensibly worse; for all his heart and spirit, her dear brother would never have made much of a career as a Painter. Clea told herself these things—logical thoughts, all true—but the sickly feeling twisting in her gut refused to ebb.
Standing beside her parents, standing before Verso’s Canvas, felt like waiting to enter a tomb. Despite the sunlight streaming in through the grand windows, the atelier felt cold. Gooseflesh prickled along the Paintress’s forearm and throat, down her sternum and beneath her blouse. She hugged her arms over her chest, momentarily self-conscious. A ridiculous reaction; there was no one left to see her. Verso was dead and buried. Alicia still hesitated to stray from her room. And her parents?
Her parents were no more than ghosts. Clea frowned, fighting the urge to reach out and touch their shoulders, see if their skin was as cold and waxy as it looked. Like the Canvas, she couldn’t stomach the sight of them for longer than a handful of moments at a time. They were too diminished, pale shadows of the once larger-than-life Painters she’d admired.
Human, she thought, disliking the bitter taste on her tongue. Woefully, unmistakably human.
Aline, the most powerful Paintress Paris had seen in centuries, if ever, reduced to no more than a grieving mother, incapable of facing reality or bearing the weight of her duties. Clea dug her nails into the palms of her hand, the hot flash of pain preceding the flesh giving way, little crescents of blood cutting rivulets down her skin. Aline’s connection would have smoothed the way; she might have rallied the Councils, Painter and High, to her cause if she’d been able to drag herself away from her delusions for a time.
The woman opted to drown herself instead, tossing the respect she’d clawed from the other artists aside. Clea was left to pick up the pieces, salvaging what little she could from their family friends and debtors, bringing all their wealth and resources to bear.
And Renoir—
Clea pursed her lips. Her father’s absence stung in a way she struggled to voice. They had both abandoned her, but papa—
They were most alike, weren’t they? He’d always professed as much, gathering her to her side or wiping clay residue from her cheek with one callused thumb. But instead of protecting their family, instead of finding justice for Verso as he ought to have, he’d thrown himself after Aline. A choice devoid of all logic and reason. He’d left them exposed.
He’d left her alone.
And the worst of it was the fool couldn’t even manage on his own. It’d been a lost cause from the start. Without Clea’s intercession, he’d have thrown himself into the Canvas, been cast out, thrown himself in, over and over until the damned Painting bled the life from his body. They’d have another body to bury, and nothing at all to show for it.
Renoir was the reason she had to re-enter the Canvas. Even her cursory intercession had not been enough; Aline had dug herself in like a tick, buoyed by superior experience, skill, and the raw depth of her emotions. The latter tethered her, less like ropes woven around her body and more akin to vines taking root in her very flesh. Without additional help, without more specialized Nevrons, their marital spat would drag on for an eternity.
Clea needed his assistance too badly to wait.
So despite the nausea pooling in her belly as she stared at the Canvas, Clea resumed her familiar place at her mother’s left hand (Renoir had always occupied the right, did so even now). The Paintress turned her attention towards the Canvas, casting out with her mind, slipping into the familiar gap. The residual traces of her brother’s chroma washed over her like an embrace, warm. Clea associated it with summer evenings and sunrises.
It stood in marked contrast to Aline’s chroma.
That was white—sorrowful, cold, implacable as death itself.
~~~~~~~~~~
Clea never allowed herself to wander.
Half (more) of the Canvas’ creation had been her doing. The ideas were always Verso’s. Her brother had no shortage of fanciful imaginings. But in the beginning, it’d been her brush shaping the landscape, following his cheery commands.
Clea turned her attention towards a point on the horizon, watching Flying Water’s aquatic dome glittering in the sunlight. It’d been a favorite of theirs, both fascinated by the deep sea and the strange creatures hidden beneath the waves. They’d experimented with color—brilliant reds, blue, purples you could never quite get away with on the surface. She remembered how proud maman and papa had looked when they toured their work. Their faces had lit with a childish wonder that Clea held close to her heart for decades.
The Gestral would remember her. Not welcome her, maybe—she’d never indulged their ridiculousness like Verso. And there was Esquie’s Cave and—
A childish, nostalgic longing twinged in her chest. She clamped down on it hard.
Clea was not here to reminisce. She was not her mother. This was business.
She settled on a far shore, all of Verso’s and her work set far behind her. The Monolith and Renoir’s abominations stood before her, scarring the horizon.
It helped her focus, she found. Looking at the axons, all she felt was a dull rage.
She grasped at her fury with both hands, using it to paint Nevrons the size of mountains. They would devour this place, wear it down like the sea eroded rock faces, feeding the energy to Renoir. Aline’s painted family—what remained of it— would be powerless to stop them.
Clea surveyed her work. The massive creatures were ugly, shapeless things, seemingly cast out of uncolored clay. Not her most inspired work. It didn’t need to be good. Only effective. They turned their gaping maws towards the Canvas. The ground seemed to wash away, soil dragged up into their mouths in a cloud of dirt and dust. Eating away the color, the land, everything.
The Paintress told herself it was necessary. Her parents had forced her hand.
~~~~~~~~~~
Falling Leaves had been her creation, not Verso’s at all. Clea raised her hand to catch one of the leaves.
It’s just trees, he’d grumbled. It’s just autumn. That’s not much of anything.
She’d ignored him then and ignored him now. The Paintress pressed her palm flat against one of the trees, listening to the chroma’s song as it flowed beneath her palm.
She was not a sentimental woman by nature, but the forest had been a touch of self-indulgence. Their family was prone to its tidal swings in emotion—Verso, Aline, and Alicia were all prone to fits of staggering highs and joy and staggering bouts of depression. They were also—and to this end, Clea struggled to find the words—strangely seasonal creatures.
Aline was the spring, some goddess of life, green, and rebirth. Alicia had followed in her steps. Verso was the summer, all warmth and humid air in their lungs. Renoir was the winter, death, but also safety; four walls to keep out the worst of the chill, a den to lay one’s head.
Her family’s viewpoint would differ, but Clea had always fancied herself as autumn. The harbinger of colder weather, life winding down, but still with a hint of summer’s residual warmth. Just autumn, as Verso had said, with a touch of derision. The Forest had been a tribute to that, a self-portrait she’d never own.
Clea lifted the hem of her skirt to keep it from dragging across the damp ground. Despite being further off the beaten path, Expeditioners had ventured into the forest by droves. Their bodies littered the ground, chroma trapped, unable to return to Aline.
Her creations had certainly kept busy.
She followed the trail as it wound into the deeper stretches of the woods. The path plunged off the side of a ravine, winding down into a cave. That coiled feeling reasserted itself.
Clea frowned, calling on chroma to ease her descent into the darkness. She had never been one for self-portraits. Any portraits, really. The thing lurking in the cave was a mistake, a byproduct of her fractious emotional state. By all rights, she should have done away with the damned thing.
She hadn’t. The Lady of Sap had proved too fine a steward of her will. If its continued presence made her a hypocrite, so be it.
“It’s a family tradition at this point,” a voice said. Clea stiffened. She had seen the little boy lingering by the gate up above, but this—it was different. It was Verso’s voice, not her Maman’s damnable little creation, but her brother. The ghost of him still lingered in her mind, familiar as breathing. “Aside from painting, hypocrisy may be what we do best. As much as you might like to protest otherwise—” Verso drawled, leaning against the roots of the tree. Clea refused to look at him. If he remained at the corner of her eyes, if she didn’t have to see, he might stay as he was—a vaguely Verso-shaped silhouette, a memory of her brother. If she looked, the more fatalistic bent of her mind would assert itself. He would be as he was in the last minutes of his life, a ruin of burnt, weeping flesh, the hair and eyes gone, most of the skin of his cheek eaten away. “We both know the apple didn’t fall so far from the tree.”
Clea pursed her lips, arms coming across her chest. “I do not have the time to entertain this fantasy.”
“You have nothing but time, sister-dear. Maman has kindly provided exactly how much on her Monolith.”
“You’re not real.”
“Mm. You’re right—but this is also a magical Canvas painted by a dead man. Reality is a bit loose.” He pushed from his perch, standing just to the right of the Lady of Sap. The ghost extended his hands, curling his fingers before they made contact with the creature’s surface. “You’ve ruined our haven, sister-dear.”
“They’ve ruined it.”
The Verso-thing shook its head. “You act like Maman’s grief is malicious.”
“Our parents were visitors,” Clea said, voice cold. “They had no right to the Canvas then, less to it now.”
“And so instead of protecting it, you’re what? Leaving it to bleed out? Humane of you.”
She snorted. “Unlike you, I will not be dragged into our parents' childish squabbles.”
“A little late for that concern,” Verso began, stepping in front of her. Clea squared her jaw, forcing herself to meet the thing's eyes. The face was a ruin of burnt flesh, but the eyes. No matter how brutally pragmatic, her mind was unable to change them; they remained the same pale blue-gray. “Clea—”
“You’re a figment of my imagination.”
The ghost smiled, the corner of its mouth pulling up grotesquely. Clea's heart clenched. “Am I? I have such a reasonable amount of limbs for one of your creations.” His tone softened. “Honest answer, Clea: is this what I would have wanted?”
She bit down on the inside of her cheek, hating the thing wearing her brother’s face, hating herself for conjuring it. Because the answer was obvious: no. Verso would not have his Canvas torn apart. Verso would not want her scouring Paris in the dead of night, wearing herself ragged on the hunt for his killers. Verso would have wanted them together. And if she’d told him that was ridiculous or impossible, her brother would flash his devil-may-care smile and shrug.
She loved and hated him for that.
“It doesn’t matter,” Clea said, her gaze shifting towards the Lady of Sap. She didn’t need to look into the ghost’s face to know that its expression fell. She spoke with a perfunctory, almost easy indifference. It belied the deep ache the words left in their wake. “You’re dead, Verso. It falls to me to pick up the pieces.”
“It shouldn’t.”
In a softer voice, she said, “That doesn’t matter either.”
He nodded, eyeing her creation, eyeing the corpses and destruction left in its wake. Clea no longer wanted to stay in this cave, in Verso’s tomb, in this damned Canvas. There were too many echoes here; the world was too thin, and she could not be here, hallucinating, losing her grip on reality like the rest of her family. There was too much at stake. She had to—
“—Will you miss it?” Verso asked. He’d turned away from her again. When she didn’t answer, he clarified. “The Canvas.”
She swallowed, a snatch of conversation flitting through her thoughts. Verso, perhaps nineteen at the time, inebriated, his arm hooked around her neck. She couldn’t remember precisely why they’d been in the atelier together—celebrating her fellowship with the Painters, perhaps?—only that there’d been too much wine. He’d had the grand idea of dipping into one of their old haunts, only they’d never managed to find his Canvas.
I never thought of it as mine, he’d said. A shrug, I’m lying. I did—it was mine. But it was ours, too.
“I’m protecting our work.”
He chuckled, dipping his head. In her heart, she knew the damned thing was smiling.
“Not what I asked, sister-dear.”
Clea held her head high, stuffing down the answering surge of feelings. She had neither the time nor the space for them. Down the road, perhaps, but now, while the rest of her family languored, she lacked that luxury. Clea crossed her arms over her chest, the stolid Dessendre heir once again. The words tripped off her tongue more easily than she would have expected.
“It’s a child’s playplace, Verso—I put it behind me years ago.”
What was more Verso than to lie?