Chapter Text
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Banner art by aliennotperson
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“Well, you know, it’s like I always say: it’s not about the rock. It’s more about the—”
Gustave is cut short by a bolt of light so intense it steals his breath away. The pain comes, then the adrenaline when he sees the wide-eyed shock of Maelle’s expression, the blood on her face. His blood on her face.
Over the ringing in his ears, over the sound of the White-Haired Man’s cane on the Stone Wave cliff side, he thinks he hears Maelle say his name.
“Run,” he says. He meant it to sound like an order. It comes out more as a gasp.
Maelle is trying to rush forward, but light traps her. He pants around the wound. Just below his ribs, his hand is covered in blood. Far, far too much blood.
Behind him, the White-Haired Man approaches slowly, like he has all the time in the world. His gaze is on Maelle. Maelle, covered in his blood.
“Run!” she’s saying. Pleading. “Please run!”
He blinks at her. Turns away. The pounding of her fist against the light shield is hollow. He feels hollow too.
“Why… why are you doing this?” he pants. The man doesn’t even seem to care – his eyes are only for Maelle, it seems.
Gustave growls low in his throat – or at least he thinks he does. Is that noise really coming from him? Is he really summoning his sword against the White-Haired Man? What other choice does he have though, really?
Thunder rolls and Gustave charges.
His heart pounds. His blood flows faster. Out of him, mostly, he thinks. What’s left inside his body is shot through with adrenaline, turning the next few moments into a haze as he clashes with the White-Haired Man. For all the blows he delivers, all the questions he asks, the White-Haired Man remains disturbingly calm, parrying each of Gustave’s attacks with mere flicks of his cane.
Distantly, he hears Maelle calling for him through the barrier. Even more distantly, he hears Lune and Sciel yelling, Esquie crying out in alarm. His only hope is to reach for the sky, to pull the lightning into him. It sizzles through his metal arm, static bursting at the seams as he struggles to control it.
There is the familiar blast of pure, blinding red, then the sound of a body crashing into the far wall. Beside him, there is the sound of falling metal against wet stone and grass.
He wants to sag with relief. He might live. He might live.
But the White-Haired Man is not done yet. Gustave is not done yet.
“For those who come after,” he says to Maelle, weaker than he’d like, “right?”
He tries to smile for her. He’s not sure it’s working. She is saying something about promises he can’t keep, not anymore.
His sword is in his hand again. What choice does he have, really? He is all that stands between a cruel man and his friends. His loved ones. Maelle and Lune and Sciel and even Esquie. What kind of choice is that? It isn’t a choice at all. Just the only option left.
He rushes. He’s stumbling, he’s sure, and slow. Too slow. Time is slowing all around him: a single missed step, a barely-there clash of weapons, a blade through his torso like white-hot light.
His heart stops to the sound of Maelle screaming his name.
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Light and dark. Dark and light. Chiaroscuro.
Gustave is not here, yet he is. He has no senses, but he senses Maelle when she suddenly appears, her soul thrust out of her body. He knows she is not dead, not like him, yet here she is, suddenly falling through this eclipse between lives, the endless something that is behind and beneath and between worlds.
He reaches for her, even though he is a mote in the dark, a single speck in the chroma. He will make no difference – he knows he has no power here – but he reaches nonetheless as she falters, flailing through this void between life and death, between in and out. He hates to see her so scared. If he can just reach her, she’ll at least know she’s not alone.
A feminine voice appears in the ether before he can reach out, echoing across the open expanse:You let her come? You know she’s too weak for this – how could you let her take such a risk?
It’s admonishment, the kind used between one parent and another. But whose parents? Maelle’s? They’re long gone – though if Gustave is here in death, perhaps they are too. Do they even realize that their unruly teenager is listening just behind the door, separated from her body and reality?
A man replies, terse: You only care when things are right in front of you.
Who are they? He is her parent now, not them. Or her brother? Her… something-important.
My sweet child, you were supposed to stay at home. I told you not to worry.
So they do know Maelle is here, that she is floundering, on the verge of panic.
But since you are here now, just stay put—
To the man: What are you saying? To Maelle: You must go home, now. This does not involve you.
Home – a concept he recalls with her. Father, daughter, brother, sister. Something-important, so long as it is together at home. He will take her back there.
When this is over, we’ll go home together.
As the light, as the dark, as the chroma itself, he stretches toward Maelle.
No!
In the light, in the dark, in the chroma itself, he finds her hand.
“Gustave?” Her voice is a whimper, barely audibly in the vacuum.
He doesn’t understand how she recognizes him, nor how he understands there is power building within her – the power of a desperate wish made by a lonely girl, perhaps. It matters little to him. So long as he can use it to send her back into life, he will… even if it means she has to go without him.
With his essence wrapped around her in what might be his final hug goodbye, he lets her power flow into him, a torrent of love and affection connecting them one last time.
He pushes her out.
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Gustave opens his eyes to the sound of a cane striking the stone beach at the edge of the Continent. Maelle is beside him, fresh off the Expedition’s boat. The hand he used to protect her last time falters, coming back to clutch his stomach as pain and disorientation grip him, squeezing tight enough that he can do nothing more than gasp for air for a moment.
The motion draws Maelle’s attention. Her voice comes as a whisper. “Gustave?”
He shakes his head, unable to catch his breath from the pain lancing through him, unable to do more than to use his hand again to push her back.
Alan is in the middle of his question to the White-Haired Man when Gustave draws breath enough to pay attention: “... did you survive the Gommage?”
“Alan,” Gustave wheezes out, too soft to be heard. Too late to warn him.
Alan tries to begin again. “Which Expedition are you from—”
The next moment Gustave recalls with frightening accuracy: a swipe of the White-Haired Man’s cane, a quick flash of light as it cuts through the air, and, finally, the sound of Alan’s head hitting the soil with a soft, wet thulk. It is the sound of his nightmares, played out again in real time.
Gustave is back on the Dark Shore.
And he is too late to stop any of it.