Chapter Text
It was easy. Maelle had thought rebuilding Lumiere, both city and people, would take weeks or months of study, struggle, and setbacks. But with this river of chroma at her command? This flood? She couldn't believe they had defeated her father, when he had access to this. She only needed to give it the gentlest of touches, a mere thought, to direct it. It was like Lumiere wanted to be remade. No, she corrected. It demanded.
Soon, the flood became an ocean, and Maelle could only struggle to stay afloat. She felt waves of chroma batter her mind, and an undertow dragging her under. A strangely familiar sensation... Suddenly she remembered that day sixteen years ago, when she had drowned in a sea of chroma and became Maelle.
She panicked. With a surge of adrenaline, she broke free of the current, becoming an island in the storm. But she knew if she tried to wade back in, to exert any more control, she'd be pulled right back under. She was merely a conduit at this point, the palate and brush the city used to repaint itself.
She cast her gaze around to find the others, to see how they fared in this torrent. There! Sciel, Lune, and Monoco were sheltering in Esquie's shadow. No, not sheltering. Basking. Gazing in wonder. They seemed unaffected as the chroma flowed around and through them. Sciel had her hand out, making bright ripples in the streams running by. Lune was transfixed. Monoco was...well, Monoco. She was never quite sure what the gestral was thinking. And was that? It was. A faint, "Wheeeeeeeee!" just barely audible above their heads.
The sun broke free from the clouds above as the tide of chroma ebbed, revealing the newly remade buildings, the streets cleared of rubble, the glass windows whole in their frames. It's like a fairy story, and the princess has just woken from a thousand years of slumber, Maelle thought. In fact, almost exactly like. Odd.
Just then, before the thought could fully take shape, she spotted a small whirlpool of chroma. A reluctant little eddy of white petals, refusing to join the rest of the current.
Maelle brightened. Got you!
Elsewhere
With a gasp, Gustave sat upright, his hand going immediately to his right side to staunch the bleeding. Although, there didn't seem to be any bleeding. Or pain, for that matter. Lune...? Had she made it back up the cliff to heal him?
Wait, Maelle! He quickly twisted around, searching for his sister and the white-haired man, to throw his body between them if he could do nothing else. He flung out his left arm to brace his torso as he stood, then immediately fell on his face. It seemed he had no left arm.
Belatedly, he remembered the massive charge of chroma he'd built up, completely frying his mechanical arm to prepare a fatal blow. At least, it was supposed to be a fatal blow. The arm had fallen off after that, even the mechanical connections destroyed. Well, if I wasn't dead before, I certainly am now, he thought as he rolled onto his back. What an embarrassing last moment.
But no final stab came, and he realized all was quiet. Also, the sun was shining. Hadn't it been night? He struggled to his feet, using his right arm this time. "Maelle!" he called, turning around in all directions. "Lune! Sciel!" He ran to the cliff edge, peering down. "Esquie?"
No one. The cliff top was deserted, as was the base. And yes, it had definitely been night before. His friends must have believed him dead and moved on. Good. When one falls, we continue.
(A second thought, that he couldn't find them because they were all dead, drifted around his subconscious, but couldn't make it to the surface.)
With a sigh, he began searching the ground for his arm. It would be far too damaged to repair in the field, but maybe he could salvage something. How long had he been unconscious? He wasn't especially hungry or thirsty, so perhaps just the night? But that certainly wouldn't be long enough to heal a wound like that. He wasn't sure a wound like that could heal naturally.
(Another thought, that he actually, definitely, had died, was given no more air than the first.)
So someone must have healed him, but who? He couldn't imagine his friends would heal him, then leave him behind. At least, not without a message of some kind. And he couldn't see why they would take his fucking arm, WHERE IS IT?! Did the white-haired man take it as some kind of a trophy?
He growled his frustration, picked up a rock and turned to lob it at the Paintress, then dropped it before he could get a good wind up.
The monolith. There was no number.
Gustave just stood for a moment, mouth agape, unable to process this new reality. Well. Not just the night then.
Before his mind could get any further in its rebooting process, however, there were massive, heavy steps behind him, and the sound of rock grinding on rock. It seems something had heard him call out after all.
Merde.