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Chapter Text

The first time Verso killed himself, he didn’t even realise he had done it. Night had fallen over the continent, but sleep evaded him, his sleeping bag promising nothing but restless dreams and false memories.

He didn’t know which was worse. His nightmares, or the wishful remnants of a life he had never lived?

Watching the stars rise above him, Verso had remembered his not-younger self adoration for them. Verso had painted this canvas’ stars to be bright enough to chase any monster from the dark. There had been adventures with Esquie to chase after the glistening lights, to climb so high they could touch their warmth. It felt unfair, in a way, that the boy had been able to feel their fire while Verso was stuck under their cold stare.

His wings had spread in answer to his chest's yearning. He wanted his own memory of touching the stars.

So Verso had climbed up, and up, and up, until his wings ached and his breath turned cold from the freezing air. He had forced his weary limbs to beat faster, higher, even after his lungs stopped bringing oxygen to his heart. His gaze was stuck on a lone star shining above him, still cold, still too far despite the reducing fractured earth below him. His body had pushed forward, wings lifting him well beyond his limit, until black spots had taken over his vision.

Verso didn't remember falling. He remembered climbing up, the star so close it was almost in his grasp, then peaceful nothingness. He remembered waking up to the ground striking his head and the pain of his body breaking into pieces. The smash thankfully brought him back into the nothingness, leaving only a trace of memory behind.

He remembered waking up again to the sight of the night sky, its cold lights watching him from afar, as the memory of a boy stroking them haunted his mind. An imperfect recreation, able only to roam shadows where the original was a god roaming amidst stars.

He did it again anyway. Sometimes it was the sun, sometimes it was the night stars. Whichever attracted his ire this day. Verso took off and flew up until he reached his body limit, challenging the star to a race he couldn't win, death always crippling him on the verge of success. The act was in vain, a pitiful tantrum of a creature cornered into eternity; yet it allowed him to touch, just for a moment, the fabric of the cage he was trapped in. More than that, for a few peaceful seconds, it brought him the gift of oblivion.

Verso flew, and Verso fell.

Verso woke up, so he flew again.

𓇢𓆸 ꒰ঌ ໒꒱ 𓍯𓂃🖌

The second time Verso killed himself, it was through the fury of a fight. Expeditioners were falling one by one under the Dualliste blade. So many had died from Nevrons on the way here already, it broke Verso’s heart to see their number dwindle even more. He charged into the fight, knowing it was already too late to fend the Dualliste off. Still, he refused to back down. He was tired of sitting and watching people get murdered.

He kicked the large Nevron on its mask, falling like a meteor from the sky to force it to stagger backward. His appearance attracted several surprised glances from the fighting group, but as soon as the expeditioners realised he was battling the Dualliste, they welcomed it. They separated the battlefield into two sides: one made of Verso, distracting the Dualliste with a fast flurry of aerial attacks, while the others slid in blows and threw as many spells as they still had the chroma to send.

Injuries stacked up on his body faster than they could heal. His wings had taken damage, reducing his flight to glorified jump, and his muscles were aching so much they were trembling. It took him longer than it should have for him to realise that the secondary set of attacks had ceased, and the Duellist attention was being solely focused on him. 

He turned towards the retreating expeditioners. “Continue! We can do it!”

A large sword swipe stole his attention back towards the fight. The absence of supporting spells was answer enough however. Verso grit his teeth and focused on stopping the Dualliste for as long as he could. He couldn’t blame them for choosing to retreat rather than fight with a stranger. If the group managed to escape the Battlefield, they may get a chance to survive the night.

Inevitably, Verso’s legs faltered under the Dualliste blows. The sky was long out of his reach by now, an earlier strike cutting through the delicate feather-covered flesh. Knees digging into the dirty mud, he parried once, then twice, then thrice… Until his arms faltered as well, and an additional cut appeared along his neck. Still, Verso staggered back upward, challenging the Nevron to keep him down.

Each minute mattered.

He wished he could say the Dualliste had failed. But the Nevron’s blade struck true, sending bursts of pain through his torso. When Verso refused to stay down anyway, confident in the knowledge blood loss wouldn’t kill him, the blade removed his sword arm. His nerves shouted in agony. Verso showed none of it. He clenched his remaining hand around his dagger and charged.

Verso never really learnt what part the Dualliste cut next. He could take a guess, from the blood-splattered ground and the oblivion that followed. He wasn’t particularly tempted to check.

Screams reached the edge of his consciousness as his brain came back online. Chroma called to his separated parts, yearning to bring them back together. He moved with his mind filled with fog, barely registering his surroundings beyond the next piece of his body to fix. By the time the fog lifted, the screams had stopped. Verso walked towards their source anyway, still half-numb from the regeneration process.

He reached the scattered stonified body of the earlier expeditioners. Large lines were embedded on the figures, the Dualliste blade mark on flesh and bones forever immortalised. The Nevron must have chased after them as soon as Verso had fallen down. All his pain bought them was a dozen meters.

Verso felt an urge to echo the screams he’d heard earlier. It wasn’t as if there was anyone alive around to hear them. The Dualliste had done his job thoroughly. There was no one left to witness the ugly creature hiding behind his masks.

He opened his mouth and let out the despair curled inside his chest until his voice turned hoarse. When the Nevrons came with more blades, attracted by the noise, he let them strike true.

Chapter Text

The thing was, Verso liked to fly. He loved being able to glide above the sea, to cross the fractured fragments of the continent by a few beats of wings. It was something that was fully his. Something the Verso he inherited his memories from could never have experienced.

The thing was, there was another inhabitant haunting the skies: the Serpenphare. As it was a large predator roaming the sky, on the exact route Verso generally took, their paths often crossed. Mostly in Verso’s disfavour as the Nevron loved taking him as a snack.

It never chased down Renoir, the other main inhabitant of the sky beyond Esquie. Perhaps it was because it remembered the only time it did, and the scar it wore ever since.

Now, most of his meetings with the Serpenphare were unpleasant and unplanned. There was only so many times you could stand the hideous smell and acid burn of a flying snake stomach before growing to hate it. This time however, Verso almost hoped to see the whoosh of pink fur announcing its arrival and Verso’s next demise.

He glided along the coast, from the Painting Workshop to the White Sands. Flying held its own kind of peacefulness. In the endless azure of the sky, there was nothing; no one to remind him of his nature or his failures. Sometimes, when everything became too much, Verso just took the air and flew until his wings hurt too much to lift him. But today, the sky’s brand of emptiness was not enough to quell the restlessness of his heart. Verso needed more.

His wish was granted eventually by a flash of green scales and the snap of a rock-strewn maw. It was only once trapped between the tunnels of Nevron-flesh that Verso realised how stupid his idea had been. As far as deaths went, a mad climb to the stars would have been quicker, and was relatively painless before reaching oblivion.

Here, Verso was trapped. Flexible walls contracted at a rhythm known only by the Serpenphare itself, pushing him further and further into the narrow darkness until he was too big to be pushed anymore. His arms were stuck in front of his chest and his legs uncomfortably kneeing his stomach. One wing hadn’t folded in time when the Nevron had swallowed him and was stuck in an awkwardly twisted position. The acid covering the Nevron insides was already beginning to do its work, his feathers slowly dissolved while his skin burned and blistered.

Usually, this was when Verso used what little movement his arm had left to summon his weapon and cut his way through, before he was pushed even further into the Serpenphare stomach and fully immobilised. This time however he refrained, letting the churning prison press him into a slow death.

Verso had sought the Serpenphare out for one the most complete forms of oblivion he could find. He needed a place where no one would find him after the fight his father and him had had. Most of the words exchanged had been puerile in nature, aimed to hurt rather than persuade, but Verso couldn’t stand it anymore. He couldn’t watch his father slowly lose more and more parts of himself as he turned into a cold blooded murderer. He couldn’t smile at Aline’s disintegrating appearance as she called him my son, even though he wasn’t the one she called for. He couldn’t look Alicia in the eye and swear to her she was loved, when her face still bore the scars of the eternal torment she had been painted to bear. 

He had tried drowning, but generally Esquie fished him back right out. Verso honestly had no idea how his friend kept finding him in the vast ocean separating the fractured bits of the continent. He’d once buried himself, but his regeneration didn’t allow for more than bits of unconsciousness between the long length of intolerable awareness despite the lack of oxygen, and the earth pressing on him on all sides had made him so claustrophobic he had dug his way out like a wild dog.

The desperation that had then fuelled him was not dissimilar to the claustrophobia haunting him now. The air was rancid. His throat was burning from the inside, hurting him at each inhale. Panic clawed at him as he choked on nothing, unable to properly breathe. 

Verso forced himself to calm down. He had chosen this. He just had to wait. The acid would kill him soon enough, and then he wouldn’t care anymore about the painful twist of his arm or the ache of his half-melted wings.

He just wanted the pain to stop.

Time slowed itself to an eternity. Skin melted, bone broke, then bone mended and skin regenerated, as healthy as before - if not for the blisters already reappearing on it. Vero alternated between loss of consciousness and agonising awareness. He must have died more than once by now, but it was hard to keep track. There was nothing but the pain, the slow numbness spreading through his nerves, and darkness. Light danced before his eyes in impossible patterns, and Verso liked to think they were small stars Clea had painted to guide explorers eaten by Nevrons to their rest. He knew the real Clea was much harsher than that: she had painted the Lampmaster to mock the other Verso’s fear, not to illuminate his nights, but the thought felt nice to entertain. It wasn’t as if there was anyone to contradict him in the Serpenphare stomach.

Verso was hovering on an invisible edge of agony, letting the pain break his thoughts into powder with its particularly cruel brand of mercy, when the constricting walls around him contracted. They pushed inward in waves, breaking any shape his skeleton still had in their squeeze. He would have screamed if his throat wasn’t already ruined. Oblivion thankfully met him soon after, sparing him the memory of the torture that followed.

When he opened back his eyes, the darkness had become lighter. His arms and his legs had space to move again, and his wings had recovered enough to properly settle along his back. The Serpenphare innards were still cramping, pushing him further forward, towards wider spaces and less rancid air.

Verso had barely time to brace himself before he was projected onto wet earth. Sunlight immediately assaulted his eyes. They must have been damaged during his journey in the Serpenphare stomach, because the world was filled with blurry shapes instead of its usual clear colors. A hiccuping whine filled his ears. The Serpenphare was spasming above him, its usually bright flashy fur a damp, sorry figure. 

Verso braced himself for the Nevron to notice him and devour him again, but even after the spasming ceased, the Serpenphare just kind of stayed here, floating above the mess of half melted-petrified expeditioner’s remains it had just coughed up. 

The sun ran its course while Verso's body knitted itself back together, all under the Nevron's passive watch. Perhaps it was simply waiting for him to move. If that was the case, Verso would simply outwait it. The grass he had been thrown on was rather comfortable, the island stuck in a perpetual early spring climate, and he had all the time in the world.

Nevrons didn't need to sleep, but surely this one would grow distracted at some point. It wasn’t even truly looking at Verso, just kind of contentedly floating while keeping the island in a corner of its vision.

His resolution lasted as long as the growing itch of his back. It was inconveniently localised just between the base of his wing and his spine, in a place Verso could barely reach sitting up, much less laying down on his belly, arms trapped in awkward positions. Verso stealthily wiggled, hoping one of the island rocks poking at his skin would reach far enough to scratch it, to no avail. Thinking about it was a mistake. The need to scratch spread, until it felt like his whole body was calling out its complaints and demands from its extended immobilisation. It went to the point where even his right toe itched.

Verso slowly sat up, carefully monitoring the Serpenphare reaction. It curiously tilted its head towards him, but when Verso didn't move more, it focused back on the horizon. Verso made one step towards the cliff. The Nevron turned its head. He froze. The Nevron looked elsewhere. He made another step. He felt a bit like he was playing red light, green light as a child. A laugh threatened to escape his lips as he reached the edge of the island. 

Verso shook his wings, making sure the ruffled feathers were in flying order, then let gravity take him into the air.

His flight didn't last longer than half a meter. As soon as his feet left the ground, a large tail whacked him back onto the island he had just left. Verso groaned, his mouth full of dirt and things he didn’t want to think of.

Fluff wrapped around his waist and trapped him against the Serpenphare’s side. The Nevron had apparently stopped its passive observation in favor of exploring every inch of Verso’s skin. Its large head nuzzled him, as if scenting a familiar smell from his body. Verso expected it to open and swallow him at any moment, now that he had fully revealed to the Nevron he was alive, but found once again his expectations disabused.

His healing generally used the surrounding chroma to fix his body. Verso wondered if, having spent so long in the Serpenphare’s stomach being unmade and remade, his cells had taken a similar feel as the Nevron’s body. Did it think Verso was a part of him, like an extra tail that could fly away?

Verso reached out. The fur was soft, kind of reminiscent of Monoco’s hide, if more brightly-colored. The harder parts felt cool and surprisingly smooth, between wood and scales. 

The Nevron didn’t bat an eye at his petting, calm despite the unprecedented human touch. Its patience did have one limit: any attempt to escape the hold he was trapped in was met with a firm tightening of the Serpenphare’s grip. Verso adjusted his wings and leaned back, resigned to being a Nevron playdoll for the foreseeable future. At least the cushioning fur was a lot more comfortable than the dark rancid insides of the Serpenphare’s stomach.

After a while, it must have gotten tired of this specific island, because it flew away with Verso still solidly coiled in its tail. They traveled together through the sky of the continent, the Nevron sometimes stopping at things only it could sense before continuing its route. Having its tail in a knot should have bothered its flying, but it never released the loop around Verso’s waist.

Tired of the position, Verso attempted to summon his sword while the Serpenphare was drifting aimlessly through the air, likely dozing off. He barely scratched the hard skin, lacking the necessary momentum. Still, it was enough to wake the Nevron up and surprise it enough to slightly loosen its tail. Verso used the opportunity as best as he could, wiggling out of the hold and into the wide-open air.

Like the first time, his escape attempt didn’t last long, and Verso found himself trapped back by the sinuous Nevron body. Only this time, his arms were trapped as well, banishing any thought of resummoning a weapon. The Serpenphare chuckled at him, like chiding a misbehaving child, before resuming its aimless drifting.

If there was anything Verso loved about flying, it was the absolute peace of it. The sky stretched endlessly beyond him, the constricting borders of the canvas almost forgotten and any worries left far below on the fractured earth. Generally flights never lasted more than a day, limited by the width of the canvas and the weariness of Verso’s wings or by the urge to escape his own thoughts. He had never expected to be stuck in the sky with a Nevron as a lone companion and unable to move more than a bit of wiggling. It was a surprisingly, awfully dull experience.

After a lot of wordless coaxing, Verso managed to convince the Serpenphare to let him glide next to it, rather than being stuck in its tail swallowing a mouthful of pink furs at every breath. It was a harrying experience: the massive Nevron’s speed was hard to follow and being too slow afforded him either a nip at the heels or another forced napping session in the Serpenphare coils. It was still much better than being gripped by the mix of soft and hard skin, unable to move for hours to end, nothing to rest his gaze on than the Serpentphare’s swoops and the unreachable void of the horizon. The physical exercise felt good as well, quieting the unrest of his mind and lengthening the time he slept, letting time flow while he enjoyed dreamless unawareness.

Verso had been sleeping amidst the Serpenphare loose coils, its grip on him just tight enough to keep him airborne, when he felt the powerful muscles tense under him. He escaped the clamping trap just before it crushed him.

Verso raised bleary eyes to the wide open mouth of the Serpenphare. All the curious attentiveness of the last few days was gone from the Nevron, replaced by a painfully familiar aggressive animosity. His regeneration must have finished absorbing the foreign chroma, converting its signature into something that was indisputably Verso.

As far as the Nevron was concerned, he was not a strange novel part of its body anymore, but one of the creatures it had been painted to kill.

Verso folded his wings and let himself drop towards the continent. He felt the Serpenphare’s growls follow him. Making use of the painful experience he won during previous encounters, Verso alternated between wild drops and mad slaloms between the islands to throw the large Nevron off. It didn’t like the low altitude and generally dropped the chase if Verso managed to reach lower levels. More than once, he almost felt its muzzle snap closed right after his toes. Each time prompted a more powerful wingbeat than the last in his despair not to end up back in the Serpenphare’s stomach, the idea entirely unpleasant once his death wish had passed.

He was now more glad than ever of the hours spent following the Serpenphare. Verso didn’t think his wings had ever beat so strongly before, nor his loops reached such speed. He crash-landed into the humid pine-filled ground of a forest near the Coastal Cave. The Serpenphare took one glance at the raised-spear shapes of the trees and turned around, its graceful dance reducing to a point between clouds.

Verso flipped on his belly and closed his eyes, utterly spent. His muscles were shaking from the mad chase he’d just lived through, his mind struggling to connect the blissful fog of sleep to the panic-fuel adrenaline that followed. He didn’t even bother to check for Nevrons before deciding to continue his nap here. With enough imagination, the branches of the trees were a roof, and the itchy ground under him a comfortable bed.

He dreamt of pink fur and smooth scales. When he woke up, there was a wordless ache in his chest that wore the color of the sky.

Chapter Text

The blizzard was raging outside Verso and Monoco’s little wagon in Frozen Hearts. The windows were covered in a thick layer of frost, adding a white filter to the already overwhelming milky outside. The wind echoing around the mountain mixed with the creaks of their tenuous shelter to form an eerie symphony. It gave him ideas of compositions, though the result would likely be haunting screeches appreciable only to a select few. Perhaps he could play it to the grandis, once the storm had calmed down enough to fly.

Monoco opened the door and entered with a flurry of snow. Verso flinched as a blast of cold air reached the spot he had perched in, almost knocking over an opened bottle of polishing wax with the movement. Still, he kept silent, giving the Gestral time to lock the entrance and look around the room for his human companion. A giddying feeling of anticipation bloomed in his chest, washing away any lingering cold.

It took the Gestral several seconds to notice Verso’s absence in his usual corner below the back window, the warmest spot of the room, and his unwelcome presence nearer the entrance, where Monoco usually spent his hours tending to his leg collection. Monoco froze.

“Verso. This is my spot.”

Verso smiled and waved from the seat he was comfortably stretched on. “Now it's mine. Use it or lose it.”

Monoco stumbled in exaggerated disbelief, knocking himself in the mask with his staff. The bell attached to it rang loudly in response. It was still ringing when the Gestral pointed his staff in Verso’s direction. “Do you want to fight?”

Verso jumped from his seat, sword and dagger already materialising in his hands. “Yeah, I want to fight.”

He’d been bored all day while Monoco ensured the surroundings were safe from the Nevrons most imperious to the blizzard. It felt unfair that the Gestral could get out, while Verso could not despite being immortal, his body as frail as a regular human. He felt cooped up and restless, folded wings twitching with nervous energy demanding release.

His long-time friend didn’t disappoint, using a shelf as support to jump in Verso’s direction. Staff met sword as they clashed, sending furniture tumbling in their wake. Neither of them could use their full strength, the space too narrow for Verso to spread his wings or for Monoco to change shape. Fighting in the middle of the wagon was probably not their brightest idea, but then they had both done worse.

Verso hopped onto the kitchen counter and goaded Monoco to follow. “Too high for you, mon vieux?”

Monoco swept his staff at Verso’s ankles to force him off the counter. “Just enjoying the view of you falling off your high horse.”

Verso obliged, using the opportunity to strike at Monoco’s extended side, only to tumble as his feet caught themselves in a chair.

“I see the rumors about your entertaining skills were true,” Monoco towered over him.

Verso growled and rolled before his friend could pin him on the ground. He kicked the chair that had made him fall, sending it tumbling on the Gestral. The result was disappointingly not as spectacular as Verso’s fall, but it did give him time to gather himself and get his feet back under him.

Verso charged toward Monoco’s feet rack, knowing the Gestral would be caught off balance trying to protect it. A triumphant thrill made his heart race as his prediction turned right. For the next few seconds, Verso had the upper hand, successfully adding a dent to Monoco’s jaw and a kick to his stomach. His lips pulled upward. He was in control. 

As if in revenge, Monoco rained a flurry of blows on him, pushing him further and further from the entrance, near where Verso’s sleeping spot was. Verso let him, smoothly parrying each attempt to pass through his defenses even as he obediently walked backward, knowing the extra space in this area would allow him to use two more limbs. He didn’t take into account Monoco gambling on it being large enough for a Nevron.

A Chalier threw him violently backward against the window. Glass cracked, unable to bear the blow, and instead of a wall Verso found himself projected into freezing snow. “Putain, Monoco!” he cursed.

Cold took over all of Verso’s senses as he struggled to regain his bearings. Snow had infiltrated his coat when he fell, leaving wet tracks along his spine as it melted. He could feel some slipping beneath his largest feathers as well, drenching the soft duvet that ensured his limbs stayed warm. His wings had been painted to be a pretty symbolism, not to survive the harshness of the continent. Verso shivered. The wind had become ten times louder, and the snow was so dense he could barely see Monoco’s dancing silhouette in the wagon’s new entrance.

“I win!” Monoco cheered, loud enough to be heard above the tempest. Verso ignored him despite the bitterness the loss spread on his tongue. He should have reacted faster, should have been able to block the Chalier’s charge or strike back even as his body was engulfed in snow.

Verso put a stop to his meaningless ruminations and ran back inside to inspect the damage instead. He saw the twisted edges and dented metal that once supported the window and cursed again.

He had chosen this spot to sleep in because it was located between the hearth and a heavy set of decorative curtains. Ever since they had moved in this wagon, Verso’s spot had been one of the warmest places in the room. Which in Frozen Hearts terms meant the only place he could doze off in without freezing overnight, limbs numb and toes blue from the cold. That warmth was gone now, chased away by the tempest rushing inside through the broken window.

Verso ran to one of the half broken extensions of the wagon where they kept various junk, to build furniture and improve their home whenever the desire struck. He yearned to use them to fix the neighbouring wagon one day, doubling Frozen Hearts’ inhabitable space. For now though that space was equal to zero, the wagon as good as an open air cave if they didn’t seal its hole.

Verso managed to scavenge a large piece of metal wide enough to cover the broken window. When he came back, he found Monoco was still standing in the broken opening, unbothered by the blizzard sting. Verso nudged him out of the way to work. 

By the time he managed to find how he could fix the contraception, Monoco had come back with some screws and light teasing before disappearing again to rouse the hearth fire. Verso stayed deaf to the teases, feeling suddenly too exhausted to joke back, and focused on pinning his improvised shutter against the wall. 

The operation was tricky, his fingers turning numb from the extended time in the cold. Increasingly violent shudders warned him he was drenched and freezing, and that now was not the time for home renovations. The metal had absorbed the external temperature and burned to touch. Even once the plank was finally fixed enough the raging wind wouldn’t dislodge it, Verso couldn’t appreciate his rushed handiwork. Standing inside the wagon in what had once been the warmest lookout, he could feel a current of freezing air making its way inside.

Monoco slipped in above his shoulder, knocking on the installation. “Acceptable,” the Gestral judged. He nudged Verso’s shoulder with his staff. “Ready for another round?”

Verso whacked him off with a wing. “No.”

He swallowed, repressing the anger and hurt bubbling in his throat. Fighting inside the wagon had been a stupid idea from the start. Monoco had broken the window, but Verso had been the one to egg him on. His friend didn’t deserve to take the brunt of Verso’s diving mood from the loss of his favourite spot.

Still, it hurt. Frozen Hearts was cold. The wagon was cold. This corner had been the only place Verso managed to sleep in, and now it was gone, taken away by the freeze that seemed to permeate every centimeter of this place. He could always take more blankets, or ask Monoco to sleep beside him, but that wasn’t the point. There was resentment growing in his belly in being faced with his body’s limitations. His mother had given him eternal life and limbs to soar through the sky, but she hadn’t spared a drop of chroma to shield him from human pain.

“Are you sure? Not even a little tempted to even the scores?” Monoco placed a hand on Verso’s forehead, as if checking he was sick. 

“Yes,” Verso growled, batting the wooden fingers away. 

“My win, then.” Monoco twirled around and retreated near the entrance, picking a Nevron foot from his rack in passing.

Monoco didn’t understand. He could live years and years without his whole existence pulling him down like an old wet rag, his body painted by a child yet much better prepared to eternity than the ’greatest creation of an accomplished Paintress’ that was Verso. Gestrals were made for highs and battling. They rarely got truly hurt and grieved in the way of children, intensively and fast, a magic kiss enough to make all suffering forgotten. 

Sometime Verso wondered if his counterpart had painted the Gestral in wood to spare them the pain of scratches or the nagging bite of the cold. Or maybe it was only Monoco and his thick fur, so used to Frozen Hearts he became oblivious to its climate. It felt frustrating, to be this upset after what should have been a relaxing spar for something as dumb as a broken window, unable to even muster a joke to divert Monoco’s increasingly concerned glances and hide his weakness. Verso curled up under his handiwork, trying in vain to gather some of the spot’s former warmth. The coming hours would be long.

And long they were.

Verso shivered miserably, unable to warm up despite the fire purring nearby. He couldn’t decide between using his drenched wings as a blanket or keeping them away until the feathers dried. As a result, he ended up doing some kind of restless dance: spreading them, finding the chill brought by the messily blocked window too cold, folding them inward around his body, shivering from the wetness brought by the soaked down feathers, spreading them again. 

Every time the movement stung, sending pins and needles along his frozen limbs. Verso tried to run a hand through his wings to dry them faster with some preening, only to promptly retract it as his fingers turned numb. Touching the damp feathers just made him colder.

Instead, Verso just curled inward into his equally damp cloak. He missed the warmth that had inhabited this very corner just a few hours earlier. Back then, the perspective of a fight had empowered him enough to wander through the chillier air surrounding Monoco’s favored spot. An idea that had exploded into a phenomenal failure. Verso fought off the persistent moisture trying to gather at the corners of his eyes and clenched his jaw to stop the chattering of his teeth. It was just pain. There was no need to overreact to it, not when the cold couldn’t kill him.

After what felt like an eternity, a smelly, heavy yet soft object landed on his head. Verso looked up from the crook of his knees to glare at his aggressor. “Here. Your consolation prize,” Monoco playfully threw. 

The Gestral’s corner was missing its usual blanket. Monoco himself didn’t seem to suffer from the cold any more than when he had stood dancing in the wagon's broken opening. Once again, frustration bubbled in Verso’s chest as he witnessed the gap between Monoco’s healthily gleaming fur and his own disheveled shape. They were both creations, and yet, one was clearly better adjusted than the other. Verso wished Aline hadn’t bothered keeping his suffering so human after Painting his body with wings and immortality. He wished she had made a less faithful portrait of Verso. He wished she hadn’t made any at all.

He threw the blanket back, immediately missing the sweet dry warmth it had provided. Verso grit his teeth through the next round of shivers and turned away. Usually, he would have put on a smile and taken the offered comfort, maybe quipped a few snarky words of his own, but Verso wasn’t currently in a mood to elegantly accept the Gestral’s pity.

He was tired.

Soon enough, he felt the blanket being tossed back at him. It landed on the wing spread furthest from the hearth, clinging to it like a heavy drape. “Monoco,” Verso growled, this time not even bothering to look up.

“You're shivering,” the Gestral stated, all playfulness gone from his tone.

“I know.” He could feel the tremors shaking his body well-enough.

“Humans aren’t made for these temperatures.” The rustling sound of dry fur moving around echoed, enticing. “Come now, I’ll warm you up.” 

Verso shook his head. He didn’t want to move. This was his spot, broken window and blizzard raging or not. Now that he was getting used to it, the cold felt fine, a deserved hurt after everything. It quieted the self-loathing that roamed in his chest.

The imperfect suffering of a perfect Creation.

Verso had never frozen to death. He’d burned.

Monoco let out a sigh. “I'm sorry about the broken window.” Verso peeked up, his breath frozen by Monoco’s sudden apology. The Gestral put away the feet he’d been polishing to pat the Nevron fur laid out in a messy pile next to him. “If you fall ill, you’ll never be able to take your revenge. Come.” He opened his wooden arms in invitation. “Just this time, you can be the little spoon.”

A burst of yearning bloomed in Verso’s chest. He remembered similar cold nights spent in the Gestral’s arms, pressed against the sculpted wood to catch blissful moments of warmth. He remembered further too, as he curled into the Gestral soft fur as a child for comfort after Clea and him had another fight. No, not him. Verso had been Painted a 26 year old adult, he’d never had a childhood. Him. 

A countercurrent of bitterness rose in his mouth. Even after going through rebirth, Monoco hadn’t changed since then. Suddenly it was too much. He felt trapped in a skin that wasn’t his, plunged in memories he’d never lived. He’d never stepped into Frozen Hearts’ wagon, yet the sound of the purring fire and Monoco’s anchoring presence combined with the freeze digging into his bones felt achingly familiar, echoing memories of snowy Christmas in Paris or long days spent snowball-fighting in the canvas. Monoco the dog and Monoco the Gestral had always been prompt to volunteer their warmth then, turning the biting cold into a cozy memory. 

An unfathomable knot of grief tightened his chest. Who did Monoco see, when he looked at Verso? 

He stumbled upward, waves of needles prickling his body as what little warmth he’d conserved while curled into a ball was freed into the freezing air. Monoco leaned back, preparing to make space for one extra body amidst his piles of fur and feets. 

Verso walked past him, reaching for the door. The room felt too small, the walls closing in on him. Monoco’s presence was heightened to his senses, too close, bringing up memories he yearned to escape from. Mixed emotion raged in his chest, leaving him feel as worn as the trampled earth of a battlefield. Restless energy buzzed anew in his bones, amplified by the exhaustion weighing on his mind. He needed to leave.

“Where are you going?” Monoco straightened up.

Verso forced a smile to his lips. “Just getting some fresh air.”

“In the blizzard?” The Gestral looked ready to fight him again over it. Verso didn’t give him time to, rushing past the door into the freezing wind and blinding snow. A snap of wings and he was gone, the shifting feelings of his heart settling back to the simpler ache of loss.

The tempest made him crash a dozen minutes later on the neighbouring mountainside. Flying between raging winds definitely hadn’t been his best idea, but Verso had been filled with the urge to escape. He’d been successful in that at least, the wagon and its broken warmth far behind. Not even a trace of it was left, the harsh freezing snow chasing any lingering heat off his skin. And with it, his memories were gone as well, too soft for the harsh bite of the blizzard against his damp skin.

This pain was fully Verso’s.

His shaking redoubled. He didn’t fight against it, letting his body lead its vain war against the snow. Nevrons covered the snow-coated plain he’d landed in. He dodged the Danseuses and Pelerins that wandered too close, not in a mood for a fight. In his current state, he’d just get pierced and cut into pieces without succeeding a single parry until his parts were too small to twitch and the Nevrons got bored. And Danseuses took a long time to get bored. As much as it was one of his most recurrent deaths, Verso was not currently looking forward to that kind of agony.

It was cold. So cold. Maybe if he stayed out in the blizzard enough, his blood would freeze, taking the hurt away. If Verso slept here, would Frozen Hearts uphold to its name and plunge him into a dreamless hibernation he’d never wake up from?  

Verso didn’t feel like sleeping either yet, so he walked instead. He’d retracted his wings beneath the cloak, the wetness of his feathers against his back not an issue since his clothes had become utterly soaked from his flight in the blizzard. Even the thick fur couldn’t protect him anymore.

The exercise helped him regain some heat, although the lack of pain coating his body might just be from frostbite induced numbness. Verso should probably have attempted to fly back to Monoco, or at least off the mountain into a warmer climate, but he continued his aimless wandering instead. The all-encompassing freeze siphoned any thoughts, leaving behind only fragmented sensations. 

In a way, battling the elements brought a needed sense of adventure to his ice-lead tongue.   It felt like a challenge against his nature, another dare against the paint that made him. Verso was not just a copy of the pampered son of a renowned Painter family in Paris. He was more. 

Verso couldn’t tell how long he fought against the freeze before he slipped on a fallen trunk peeking out from under the snow. His wings spread for balance only to tangle in the low branches, twigs twisting into frozen fluff. Verso fell forward and knocked his head on another tree, leaving him just dizzy enough to be unable to dodge the ensuing shower of ice falling from its branches.

He sluggishly registered his position sprawled face down in the snow, half a meter deep under the surface. If not for the lingering sting of the cold and the stiffness of his muscles, Verso would have found the place comfortable. Weight accumulated on his wings and back as snow fell from the sky. Soon enough, his body grew too numb from the cold to feel it. Verso just knew the layer covering him was thick enough to fill his vision with white, but shallow enough he wasn’t lacking oxygen yet. 

Idly, Verso wondered how long his immortality would succeed in keeping his heart beating. Standing back up felt like an impossible task right now, meaning he would stay stuck here for quite some time. In a place like Frozen Hearts where snow never thawed, it could be years before he saw the sun again.

It wasn’t an unpleasant thought. Frozen Hearts was looking to be a peaceful resting place for a long, dreamless sleep. At the speed the blizzard had been raging, it wouldn’t be long before his pit looked like just another white mound amidst thousands of others.

Would Monoco search for him? He hoped not. The Gestral didn’t feel the cold like Verso did, but he wasn’t immune to it either. His wood would suffer from an over-extended time in the blizzard, and he’d been outside fighting all day already.

Perhaps he thought Verso had simply flown back to the Sky Island like he sometimes did when everything became too much, and wouldn’t notice his disappearance until months had passed and a new expedition had gone by. There was something funny at the thought of Monoco trying to force Serpenphare to spit him the only time the overgrown lizard was actually innocent.

He closed his eyes, feeling a wave of exhaustion spread throughout his frozen limbs. A deep sense of calm was slowly filling him. His shivers had stopped at some point, which should ring alarm bells in his brain, but Verso just couldn’t bring himself to care. The snow was soft under his fingers, almost warm. His thoughts were quiet. It felt nice.

Verso was tired. So, so tired… 

 He let go.

𓇢𓆸 ꒰ঌ ໒꒱ 𓍯𓂃🖌

Verso floated, half here and yet nowhere at all.

A gruff voice was cursing. “Fuck, Verso wake up!”

Verso followed the trail of the voice back towards his body. It was being roughly shaken, tingling pain blooming through frozen nerves. He suddenly missed the void he’d been floating in a moment earlier. Verso curled back from the voice, attempting to return to his previous blissful state of nothingness.

It didn’t let him. Wooden hands energetically rubbed his stiff skin, forcing blood to run anew through frozen veins. “Come on, moron.”

Verso resigned himself to being alive and blinked his eyes open. Monoco’s worried mask greeted him. “Welcome back, sleepy head."

He grunted an answer and turned away, trying and failing to escape the hands’ rough rubbing as he found himself secured in an encompassing embrace. They were still in the spot where he had collapsed, crusted snow clinging to his clothes and ice covering his feathers. The blizzard had stopped, giving way to a clear view of the surrounding valley and the mountain peaks beyond.

Verso stared at the absolute destruction surrounding him. Deep holes covered the ground, as if a group of Nevron had suddenly developed a profound hatred for snow. It would have made sense, if the ground hadn’t also been littered with Nevron body parts. Even with the blizzard blocking most of his sight, he clearly remembered that there had been a forest on his right, yet now there only was a crater. The trunk he had slipped on was much further away, laying in multiple pieces on battered ground.

Verso turned back towards his friend. “Monoco?” he asked, not really knowing what he was asking.

How long had the Gestral been looking for him?

The grip around his shoulder tightened. “You better not leave again.”

Once the sting of the cold had faded to numbness, the snow had felt nice. It had been soft and comforting, surrounding his mind with a thick layer of haze before plunging him in oblivion. 

It had been peaceful.

For the first time since he’d woken up, Verso properly looked at Monoco. The Gestral looked horrible. Deep scars marked his mask, and patches of his fur were missing. One of his fingers laid limply, only a few threads keeping it attached to the rest of the hand. Verso’s hand instinctively reached out, tracing the edge of a deep gouge marking the wooden arm. There was a weariness in the Gestral’s stance that suggested his friend had spent days and days battling Nevrons and digging through the snow, without any guarantee of finding Verso beneath it.

It had been peaceful, but… It wasn’t worth the new scars embedded in Monoco’s wood.