week four | dates

[marriagebroker]

Get dressed up, go on the town, this is your last week for romance!

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[reverso]

[Messmer is so clearly unused to this kind of gesture that Verso can't help but look a little amused when he freezes up. Just like a feral cat, indeed, and one that needs slow acclimation to touch and intimacy. This is innocent enough, at least, and only brief. His fingers work deftly.]

From the city of Lumière and back again, on occasion. That's about all the sailing I did, but the Continent itself was vast and full of landscapes that would tickle the imagination.

[Saying this to someone who hails from the Lands Between is pretty funny, actually.

Finished, Verso retracts his hands. Messmer's hair is not neatly tied into a ponytail!]

We did have those, though. [He tilts his head towards the sea, where another whale comes for air, its blowhole spewing fine mist as it does so.] But they flew.

[anathemaw]

[ Messmer hair successfully tamed - well, moderately tamed. He pauses and glances at Verso when he's finished, if only for the brief novelty of being at eye level with him. It's strange, this pull he feels. The gnawing emptiness remains inside him, as it ever has. Even the dim light of hope he'd refused to put out - that his mother's love was true - he has finally extinguished by his own admission. He pushes onwards only for the sake of granting those who had followed him into hell release. Yet he can't deny that, looking at this man, he feels something. A want. A desire for that hope that he's managed to find. It hadn't only been in that moment in the private room; it lingers now, too.

But he does nothing, and says nothing of it; he stands back up to his full height after a moment, following the cant of Verso's head. ]

A place where fish through the air doth swim. Such imagery belongeth to dreamers and painters in mine own.

[reverso]

[He watches him rise, his tall form cast against the cornflower blue sky above, throwing the color of his hair into starker contrast. What a handsome man......

Verso clears his throat, focusing on the sight of the whales a second time.]

Have you skilled painters who can bring worlds to life? [Like, literally.] ...I never mentioned it before, but my world was a Canvas that the original Verso painted as a child. So, fish and whales flying through the air... That was all the work of his imagination.

[An imagination which applies to this Verso, who shares both his experiences and memories. The line is blurry, and often.]

[anathemaw]

[ ironically, him clearing his throat draws Messmer's attention back to him again - doubly so with what he says. ]

... Such magic is the stuff of legend in my time.

[ yet he's heard of the idea. A world that could be created by a painter, contained entirely in oil and canvas, yet as full and real as the one he knows. So that's the kind of world Verso came from; now it makes more sense that it could be so readily erased. ]

Wert thou created by that same measure? By brushstroke?

[ he can almost imagine it: in the line of his jaw, or the flash of white in his hair. ]

[reverso]

[It is exhaustive and revealing work, being a Painter or Paintress. A person imbues a part of their soul into every Canvas, bringing it to life however they see fit, and yet, like all art, it is still a reflection of the creator in some measure.

There's a reason that Verso's world has fantastical places like underwater landscapes that are not underwater at all, where whales fly against the backdrop of the sky. Or the Gestrals themselves, a sometimes silly warrior race that was always friendly, always helpful. They were all the imaginings of a child, uncomplicated and whimsical.]

When my mother entered the Canvas, then yes, I imagine so. By the manipulation of Chroma, imbuing me with life and memories, and... by brushstroke.

[Though by no means in a conventional way. Aline had the power of a god while within a Canvas, and her brushstrokes were likely nothing short of grand instances of magic itself.]

Quite a power, isn't it? Almost a cruel one.

[Bringing sentient life into existence, placed into a situation where others—beyond their world—might debate on the validity of their realness.]

[anathemaw]

'Tis with a son of a god thou dost speak.

[ it is indeed a great power, but uniquely easy for Messmer to accept and understand. Once again, they share a most unusual trait... ]

There is no divinity without cruelty. By such measures doth life flourish. Cruelty is but the shadow compassion must cast.

[ all things are conjoined beneath the Erdtree - all exist as one, no matter how opposed they might appear. The peace in the Lands Between could only be maintained by the violence in the Shadowlands, or so he'd believed. Maybe Verso's creation was one of arrogance and selfishness, but it's led him to the man before him now: thoughtful, generous, and kind, at least in Messmer's opinion.

After a moment, he adds, caught somewhere between a sardonic afterthought and a quiet admission: ]

... Thou wouldst call me art when from a canvas thou sprung in sooth.

[reverso]

[...He realizes that there are times when Messmer's wisdom is highlighted, perhaps an indelible consequence of his age. Verso never really forgets this fact, but sometimes it merely falls into the background of his thoughts, only to be dredged up again on occasion. The demigod does not share many traits with Esquie, beyond perhaps size, but... it sounds like something he would say, too.

No creation without sacrifice, no kindness without cruelty. Two sides of the same coin. Verso no longer has the powers of a Painter—only his original self ever bore that burden—but he understands, inherently, that they too must realize this. And yet these powers can still be used for selfish reasons, irresponsible reasons, when a mind is bolstered by grief. His mother, for all her abilities, was still merely human, in the end.]

You may not have been painted like me, but art is found in all things. Physical appearances aside, you've a soul that's been shaped by unfair circumstances, too — and yet, to me, it is still a beautiful thing to look at. The kindness and empathy that exists there, despite it all.

[anathemaw]

[ leave it to Verso to yet again turn Messmer's words around into a sweet comment - he might consider it vexing if it wasn't entirely new to him, being so complimented by someone outside of his service and the royal hierarchy. That, and the fact that Verso's just so damn charming. With a quiet huff, he turns his gaze back out to the sea and the massive beasts whose shapes he can just barely make out beneath the waves. ]

Silver-tongued wolf, [ he replies dryly, though without malice - if anything, he sounds slightly embarrassed. ] 'Tis thy delusion alone.

[ but it's the second time Verso's called him beautiful, so it must be a delusion he truly believes in. Somehow. ]

Thy discerning eye fashioned thee a well-liked man in thy painted home, I imagine, if by it to such flattery thou wert often led.

[reverso]

[Verso has to let loose a laugh at that, carried by the wind. At a distance, another massive whale decides to breach the surface of the water, and onlookers all around "ooh" and "aah" in unison. The camera crew, too, still appears more occupied with the wildlife than their conversation right now — even if Verso can't help but wonder how long that'll last.]

Oh, are you calling me a charmer?

[Which... may not have been inaccurate back in Lumière before tragedy struck, but certainly not to an egregious degree. Probably.]

I didn't go about calling everyone I laid eyes on beautiful, you know. I only say that when I mean it.

[anathemaw]

[ Messmer's good at forgetting the camera crew is there. Probably because he still doesn't really understand what a camera is or what they're all doing?? He watches the whale, but one serpent's nose still points at Verso, watching him just as well. ]

Hmph. Thus to thine own question hast thou given answer.

[ he doesn't need to call him a charmer when he knows full well that he is one, immediately laying it on thick again like that. A charmer with strange tastes, admittedly, but still. The problem is that Messmer has no practical reason to doubt anything he says anymore, so he's left with no choice but to just accept the full brunt of that charm - something he hardly knows what to do with. A common theme in his dealings with Verso, it turns out. ]

I would know more of thee, charmer. Thy livelihood before the thirty-third expedition.

[ he speaks of painting in his childhood, and so often of art - is he an artist, or is that just a byproduct of the world he lives in? Messmer imagines him surrounded by friends, with his friendly personality, yet he'd mentioned before living amongst beastmen; he can play the piano in the house, but he wields a blade as well. There's much more to him than tragedy. ]

[reverso]

[You could say he's a... snake charmer.

He just flashes him that Charming(TM) grin of his, though it does soften into something more sincere as he drifts his attention to the snake looking at him, then the water stretching out beyond the boat, azure gleaming in the sun.]

Ah, so... all the way back.

[Before the Expedition 33. Before Expedition 0. When Lumière was still whole, before he knew the truth about anything. Back then, his life was the same as the original Verso's, running parallel up until surviving the manor fire; whether through experiences or mere memory, instilled by Aline's hand, is hard to say. But at that point, is there really any difference?

...This view is good for dipping one's thoughts into nostalgia, he thinks, as he figures out where to begin.]

Well, you know that I was expected to grow up as an established painter, just like my mother. And just like my father. But my two siblings, too, bore the brunt of that expectation as well.

[Ah, hm. No. Start with something lighter.]

That isn't to say we were never happy! We were. I was afforded hobbies and friends just like anyone else. I learnt how to play piano when I was a child, and my mother spoiled me with train sets. Life was easy for us, if I'm to be honest. We were fairly well off and from an influential family. [Verso was a rich kid.] Looking back on it now, I suppose I sort of floated through life, from one moment to another, not really having any destination in mind. I was never sure if my love of music was truly going to be accepted by my parents, so... what was the point in caring about anything else, back then?

[His casual, flippant facade was set in place all those years ago.]

[anathemaw]

[ Messmer's gaze is drawn back to Verso as he speaks, though his eye provides little more than the shadowy silhouette of him compared to what the snake sees. There was a good chance that his request wouldn't be received very well - Verso, after all, has a complicated relationship with his own history, as he's come to learn - but Verso seems willing enough to share it with him. Another little show of trust. Inwardly, he's grateful for that trust, and to learn more about the person who's so abruptly flipped his life on its head even more so.

It's no surprise that he was well-loved, as Messmer had suspected; he has the easy kindness of a man who's received plenty in return. The aimlessness, the wealth and influence - these are things Messmer understands well, too, despite the strange circumstances of his own existence. ]

Thy true heart layeth with music, then. [ He'll have to ask Verso to play for him sometime. Before they leave, of course; it seems unlikely to him that something as delicate and lovely as a piano could have survived in the crusade's wake. ] The expectations upon thee were strict indeed, if such a talent were not lauded.

[ he's curious about Verso's siblings, too - he's never mentioned them before. (Then again, Messmer supposes he's never brought up his own, either.) But that can wait. He seemed hesitant to expand upon them. ]