Work Text:
I — Dans le Manoir
Lune had grown used to the wild grass beneath her feet on the Continent. In Lumière, the cobbles were heavy with passing time. The oppression of the coming Gommage made everything lifeless and dull. Not here. Each footfall was a revelation. Chroma soared up the etchings in her calves with each step, the strange and wondrous power of this place awakening her senses. Perhaps they had been asleep all her life. It did not matter what sharp gravel or strange puddles her next footfall might land upon.
That was what made the smooth marble floors of the Manor so strange. She tried to focus her attention on that uniformity, not stare at the pair before her.
Gustave pulled away three times to check Maelle’s face before wrapping her in the tightest hug she had ever seen. It was as if he might never let go. He laughed. The light had come back to his eyes— just like that. Even now, he pulled his little sister to sit on the edge of the bed in this room she had been staying in, interrogating her, how did she get here, had she been well, what did she mean, the Curator? She had to bat off his prosthetic arm for gripping her too tightly, laughing for the first time since the beach, and dropped her head against his shoulder. The young duelist’s tense posture melted with relief.
Lune studied the wallpaper.
She knew she had admonished Gustave the night before they entered the Flying Waters, but he had needed it then. The mission was greater than them all. It didn’t keep Lune from feeling a quiet, fierce flame of hope burn in her heart. Two survivors were a tragic coincidence. Three was a pattern. There could be others. Protocol would bring them to obvious places, places they could be found. The expedition would continue.
Watching Maelle take Gustave’s arm, scoffing with teenaged scorn but a world of warmth in her eyes, she was glad they at least had each other. No matter how this expedition went, there would be no one at home to embrace her that tightly.
This mission was her family. All that was left of them.
She would not let it fail.