Chapter Text
"We have arrived, mes amis!"
Snow crunched beneath his boots as Gustave slid down Esquie's side, adjusting the straps of his backpack as he took in the sight of Monoco's Station before him. Its wide-open entryway stood several stories above them, the broken clock nestled above with stalactites and snow keeping it frozen in place. Weathered stone held cracks where the test of elements and time had been unkind to the building, the barest hint of a walkway above in veritable ruins. Frosted windows failed to provide a view of the inside of the building. All around, overhead and throughout, the environment had long-since claimed the area. Bells befitting a large church floated overhead like a trail to nowhere, almost reminiscent of a certain Gestral's staff. A loan statue of a Grandis stood in its lonesome corner of the area, and ominous stalactites spilled from overhead in a threatening warning.
The Grandis had fixed up much of the area around them since the years after the Painters' War. No longer did flames and fallen comrades litter the entrance cavern, and a hole in the mountain had made it possible for Esquie to slip his way into the place without disturbing too much of Time's Relics. Now, rather than fire and death, the courtyard held all manner of train cars and engines — several in parts, some whole and possibly workable.
Gustave took in a breath, tugging up on his scarf as he let his feet carry him forward to explore. For the next few months — or however long it took for him to work on this project — this was to be where he worked and lived.
It had been five years since their gods had been forced out of the Canvas. Five years, for them, in which Gustave had had to wrap his head around not only the events after his death — of Canvas Worlds and a grieving family, of a dead brother and the remains of a soul pushed past its breaking point — but also of their future. A future they now, apparently, had for years and years to come, if his friends were to be believed.
Lumiere had thrived in that time since. With loved ones brought back and lovers reunited. Children born from the relief crowded the streets and people grew older, wiser, as their infrastructure finally saw a chance to grow and grow. Gone were the days where their most capable were doomed to a life of training for a battle with no hope, replaced instead with a desire to grow and learn about the world about them. With their fragment of the city growing more and more occupied, the Council had begun to deem it necessary to start seeking to expand beyond their shores. The hope was that they might even be able to reclaim Old Lumiere.
With expansion, however, became the issue of travel. They had boats, of course, but it was a slow and a still-arduous journey to travel through the seas of the Canvas. Their Aqua Farms could only grow so many crops, and there was a whole world of fauna and foliage to explore that might expand their variety. The Canvas ever remained a treacherous place with Nevrons still about — an unfortunate relic that not even Maelle was able to do much about, save for outright begging the family member responsible to erase them entirely. A feat she had declared nigh impossible.
A second pair of footsteps in the snow broke him from his reverie, brown eyes flitting back to the sullen, black-haired mystery that was Verso. With a fur-trimmed, hooded half-cloak over his shoulders and a matching black tunic over white shirt, Gustave watched the man fiddle lightly with his gloves and testing his step upon the snow, grey-blue eyes flitting towards the station. He adjusted the wooden bracer on his left arm — an almost ridiculous thing, a mere plank of wood with red-painted patterns resembling a Gestral’s mask — before finally stepping forward.
Gustave had to admit: he looked good.
He tightened his grip on his pack, inclining his head to the station once Verso's gaze flit to him.
"They're expecting us. We should take a look."
The other man made a quiet noise of a hum before shaking his head. "You go. I'll check the surrounding area."
Gustave furrowed his brows. "We're supposed to—"
Verso had already turned away, patting Esquie's plush leg, though he turned at least to face Gustave once more. "We're supposed to get trains running. You work on them in here, with the Grandis and Monoco. Esquie will help find and move any from outside. I’ll be keeping an eye out for Nevrons and clearing them out."
Gustave wanted to say something to that. He couldn't think of anything, resulting in him biting on his tongue perhaps a bit harder than he should. Perhaps mistaking his silence for acquiescence, Verso took his leave with chroma and the snow crunching beneath his hasty retreat.
Because Verso hadn't wanted to be here at all.
He was only here because somehow Maelle had convinced him.
Gustave didn't know much of the exchange between them. He knew of the strain just as much as anyone in their little inner circle: that Verso and Maelle had fought over the fate of the Canvas. Verso's goal had been the destruction of it, seeking oblivion from the fate he'd been painted into. He had almost won, too, from the way Lune and Sciel had told it: the fighting between the pair of them had been intense, and yet none of them could do anything else but watch from their side of the portal. Until it had gone dark, obscuring their visual of the fight from within.
And then they had re-emerged from within. Maelle with a quiet determination and a refreshed wave of grief. Verso with no small amount of dreaded acceptance. Neither of them had been willing to explain in detail what had happened, only that the Canvas would remain and that the real Verso's soul had been put to rest.
Since his return, Gustave hadn't interacted much with the immortal. No one had. He had gone into obscurity after the revival of most of Lumiere, and he had outright refused to assist beyond keeping the lands surrounding their city safe and taking a look at the Shield Dome — that he had, apparently, built with his father shortly after the Fracture had occurred. Lune and Sciel hadn't necessarily sung his praises, but neither had deemed him the villain that the rest of their population had led themselves to believe.
For all that he had said and done as well, Maelle trusted him wholeheartedly. She had been the one to recommend Verso to assist him on this trip as a whole, citing his knowledge of the Continent and his prowess in battle — both things that were indisputable. She had assured Gustave that Verso would be more than enough, that he would keep him safe.
The man was an enigma, and he kept to himself.
"VerVer will keep you safe," Esquie assured softly, his oversized hand coming down in a surprisingly gentle pat atop Gustave’s head. "He's just very sad right now."
"It seems like he's sad all the time," Gustave found himself muttering, looking up to the great Esquie as the mythical being gave a fond laugh.
"Not all the time. I promise."
He found himself giving a soft hum in doubt but didn't push. Esquie knew Verso the longest, after all. And he didn't much fancy fighting with someone who could take down Nevrons in one hit.
"Well. Until then, let's get to work."
Gustave adjusted his pack as he made his way towards his work zone for the foreseeable future. The station's courtyard housed half a dozen cars at most. Passenger ones, by the appearance of some of them, as he couldn't find any way they might have had an engine attached at any point. He tugged out the diagrams found amongst Lumiere's oldest records, identifying what parts he could from where. Some of them had wheels missing entirely, where others had them cut in half. A few in-tact parts were spread about in as organized a manner as Gustave expected from the Grandis.
But, he noted with no small amount of disappointed, not one locomotive.
He let his feet take him into the station proper as he surveyed the area there next. Some passenger cars sat next to the boarding platforms, untouched save by time and elements. The same couldn't be said for some of the train tracks, still left broken and torn and floating off like a stairway to heaven. What he could only assume were walkways had long-since crumbled to the same thing that had ravaged the rest of the station in its entirety, a gaping hole left in the glass dome above it all like a broken cage.
The faintest click of wood on stone made Gustave flinch something fierce. The soft chime of a bell forced his shoulders back down from his ears.
"You have your work cut out for you," came Monoco's gruff tone, the Gestral coming to stand on Gustave's right. "The Grandis are still searching for parts for you, and for an engine that's worth fixing. Though they can't seem to decide on one… "
Gustave swallowed down the instinctual lump that had lodged in his throat. "There are choices?"
"Probably. Neither I nor them know shit about trains." Monoco paused, his gaze sweeping the area before falling back on Gustave. "You're alone? I thought Verso was coming with you. We were told to prepare a place to sleep for two."
"Ah, well… "
"VerVer is sad, Momo," Esquie chimed in with a soft sigh. "He left GusGus by himself to go hunting."
Monoco growled lowly under his breath. "Of course. He's trying for a head start, the bastard."
"A… head start?" His confusion gave way to some curiousity.
"Of our hunt! He who defeats the most Nevrons on this trip shall be the little spoon for the coming winter months." Monoco puffed up with his enthusiasm. "It is the superior position."
Huh. Not quite the direction he thought that would be going.
The Gestral grumbled more as he spun on his heel and marched on forward, tapping his staff — not a cane, not that cane, not even close — against the ground once more. "It's not too far, just around the corner for your privacy. "
"You're just going to leave as well?" Gustave questioned, incredulous at this point.
"You're safe here." As if that answered that.
That was now two companions — granted, only one of them was technically meant to be with him — that had left him to his own devices. He had known to expect as much from Monoco at least. Gestrals were notoriously fickle creatures, more focused on the thrill of battle than the intricacies of engineering. Monoco in particular was stronger than most, yet he was also a Searcher of Lost Gestrals, bringing back little ones recently revived by the Sacred River to the Gestral Village.
Gustave sighed heavily, gaze flitting skyward as he watched a light snowfall develop and infiltrate their little cavern. This, he feared, was likely to be a long few months.
Another gentle pat atop his head had his gaze turning back up to Esquie, offering the mythical creature an attempt at a smile. "Where will you be staying, mon ami?"
"I will be nearby," Esquie replied easily, and Gustave felt a small weight lift off of his shoulders. "I want to see the trains moving again, too. Maybe then Verso won't be so sad."
There was a hopefulness to Esquie that was infectious. The engineer chuckled lightly as he reached to pat the gentle giant's leg. "I’ll see what I can do then."
Maybe these next few months wouldn't be so bad after all.