—— verso dané.

Gustave hums, quiet and thoughtful as he looks at Verso, tipping his head just a little. He listens, pursing his lips as he considers what Verso says, the unspoken parts of it and it makes him frown a little - just a thoughtful expression. "We have to make choices that are ugly and unpleasant. But it doesn't inherently mean that we're irredeemable or we don't get to try again." Gustave says it softly, with the gentle weight of someone who doesn't necessarily know exactly what he's going through, but he understands somewhat.

Verso's shoulder is rigid when Gustave's hand squeezes — not in response to the touch, but as a matter of course. His thoughts blaze, because Gustave isn't wrong —— there aren't many who can live a life free of regret, free of cruelty, free of mistakes —— but he would bet anything that Gustave hasn't ever——

He doesn't look over to him, and there's a long moment of silence. His gaze is held out over the world before him, craggy rock and suspended floating detritus from a world of before — but he isn't seeing much at all, his thoughts a muddled swirl of memory. There's a place he knows they'll be resting before they move into the Monolith —— a safe place, place where Esquie will bring them down and they will make camp for the night.

He knows it well; he left two journals up there because he couldn't stomach burning them.

" —— during Expedition Zero, " he says suddenly, his voice a harsh rasp, " I found out I couldn't die. My —— " He hesitates, because what were they? He doesn't know. " Julie. Her name was Julie. She saw it. She saw me die, and then not die, and I —— I couldn't just fucking tell her the truth. My father was convinced she was —— that she had been turned against us. But she was just scared. I know she was just scared. I know —— "

"Natural curiosity of a scientist I suppose. I've read journals from the early days, books after the fracture but - so much was lost or only half written. And we've established much regarding pictos since then." Gustave says lightly, unapologetically. Warm palms press against his back and Gustave looks over his shoulder at Verso, smiling softly. "I remember seeing diagrams. Pictos carved into skin - before we learned we could tattoo some of it - summon that way. Like Lune'a tattoos." Gustave muses as he brings the soap up to his shoulder, slipping the bar over the curve of it and the curve of his neck.

He grimaces then, at the thought and nods. "Mm, it still hurts when you first start toying with it, but far less now that we know where to store the weapon, how to pull it free without our own blood and bones rearranging around it."

" It was all new, " he says, low, voice drifting — a little bit of old memory, a little bit of nostalgia, barriers lowered enough for the moment to be looser-tongued than he might otherwise be. " We'd used them for other things. Farming. Shows. Simon —— ah, a friend of mine —— told me they used them on the fishing boats for lights, to propel them, to keep the catches cold. But we never had to have them ready. Never had to —— " A pause, a hitch as his breath catches, and he shakes his head just a little. " Tattoos came long after my time, " he admits, wry. " It was a good idea. Is a good idea. Way better than what we had to do. "

God, though, the way the soap ( which does, for the record, work a treat ) slides over Gustave's neck, sleek and shining, makes his heart suddenly lodge in his throat and make all other thoughts swiftly swim south. He clears his throat instead, and huffs a little laugh.

" Fine, fine, twist my arm, " he sighs, and takes a little step back. When he fights, it's no secret that the element of light comes to him like second nature, imbuing almost everything he does. On the battlefield against Nevrons, it can be brutally efficient and terrifying in some ways, searing through their defenses in a way that fire doesn't quite do. But here, with brows wrinkled deeply in focus, he makes a deft gesture with fingers, calling chroma to them and molding it in ways that is probably not something those without the memory of a Painter could do. But either way: a few simple globes of light, almost painful to look at in plain air, settle into the water and slowly sink, diffusing a warmth into the ice-cold spring water that can be immediately felt. It doesn't make it hot — couldn't, really, given how much water there is — but it takes the bite away.

"I see that. I suppose it's much like what I've done for my own uses." Gustave hums, thoughtful, curious as Verso joins him in the cold river. "Yes, the bath won't make it any worse. In theory anyway." Gustave says with a resigned little sigh. He carefully unhooks his arm, taking off the metal prosthetic and holds it out to Verso. The leather harness follows, curled carefully so the straps don't hit the water's surface.

For all he teases, Verso is careful with the prosthetic as it's handed over — intricate and surprisingly light for what it is, the delicacy of it never fails to amaze him. He sets it on a safe place on the bank, curling the leather straps under so it's protected, and then turns back with a little smirk.

" I'm sure you are, " he says, but it's light; he'd talk about it without being pressed very much. " Frankly, it was all terribly barbaric compared to now. " He huffs softly, wading back out to press palms against Gustave's back, though he pulls a little short at kissing him there — he's tough, but that smell lingering is something. " Chroma's easier to tap into, now. It didn't used to be. It all started with the Fracture, but even then, it wasn't near what it is now. Back then, we had to use a lot of our own, " and he grimaces, faintly, though it's not a bad memory; it's just part of how things were. " And it hurt. Merde, it hurt. I had the pictos for my weapons written on my arm for awhile, and when you summoned them it felt like it was being pulled out of your bones. Someone figured out eventually how to use it from elsewhere, to store it. "

Verso makes a terrible joke and it serves him right that he is hit with a mouthful of the very scent he was avoiding with the sleeve across his face. "Serves you right." He grumbles, lips curving just a little into a bemused little smirk. But he pulls out a few things and Gustave shrugs off his shirt, and then stepping out of the pants as well - kicking them away with the others and he grimaces - exhausted. At least Verso has soap - however that's going to help.

Sometimes, honestly Verso forgets — how different his experience with chroma is. Both in the truth that he was raised in an era where they were barely learning what it did and what it could do and how to utilize it, but also because he has the memories of a Painter. His fingers remember pulling at the strings of the canvas, even if he himself is far more limited.

He just grins, broadly. " Creative application of chroma mechanics, " he quips, and it has the tonality of something that he's heard before. " If it doesn't work, I don't know. Taking a bath will help more than it'll hurt. "

" Sorry, sorry, " Verso says, and does he actually sound apologetic in the least? Of course not; he's fighting to keep a straight face. " I thought I caught a whiff of defeat in it before it expired. Maybe it was a gas resort. "

Now he's laughing, and when he draws in a breath he gets a mouthful of that, and god, he gags; serves him right, probably. " Okay, okay, " he titters, flipping open the book and finding some supplies - a clean knife to carve a picto into, a bar of soap in his pack. It's misshapen, but —— well, they all use what they can out here, and it's probably fortunate he has that at all.