Archive of Our Own

It hurt. Every night as she slept, and every day in stray moments when she let her mind wander, Maelle felt the pain she had endured. Burning agony, a firestorm that should have rightly ended her being– the pain was long past and she had escaped the prison of her crippled body, but the memory of it all was deeply entrenched within her. Deeper than the cruel carvings the flames left across her once innocent skin, their mindless yet wrathful lick had their way with her soul and psyche.

The residuals of that pain were worse than the receivership of it. Lasting torments: how painful it was for her to even try uttering a single syllable. With how twisted and warped the inferno had left her skin, even a simple itch or muscle spasm became a point of deep aggravation, as everything beneath tried to act as though everything above had not fallen into shambles. An empty eye, vision forever slashed. 

But that was just the physicality of it, wasn’t it…?

Her body– no, Alicia’s body –was a cage. And Alicia might have managed to live content in that cage, in a kinder world. Physical pain could be mollified, coped with, calmed. But her world was not a kind one. She was unwittingly complicit in sparking the blaze that ruined her, and all her family knew it. Not all of them blamed her. 

Less for her own maiming, and more for how it maimed them. Verso was beloved. With him gone, only one held her faultless for being manipulated by the Writers. But her maman’s grief was deep, and she made no secret of her blame, her discontent. Aline Dessendre’s ire was a torturous prod that slid between the bars of her cage constantly, nettling the youngest Dessendre again and again, refusing to let her mind heal. The weight of Aline’s sorrow compounded upon Alicia’s own.

Her father tried to help, but when Aline retreated to live in Verso’s last remaining creation. Renoir did not wait overlong before committing himself to shaking his wife free of her doldrums. The only one that never made her feel guilty, gone. Alicia left alone in their restored manor, able to go and gaze upon her statue-like parents, knowing she was responsible for their strife–

And Clea. Clea, the middle daughter, eldest in a world without Verso. Clea was always strong. Always willful. She grew up quickly, without Verso’s penchant for softness, and she matured quicker in a world where so much fell upon her shoulders. In the conflict against the Writers, with both Aline and Renoir sidelined, she had become the premiere Painter. That kept her away from the manor. From Alicia.

Might’ve been better for Alicia that she was away. If it was, it wasn’t by much. Clea didn’t mince words when they met or spoke on the subject. Verso was responsible for his own decision, just as Alicia was for becoming an unwitting pawn in the first place. Years of fighting had hardened Clea and stripped away what capacity she had for sugarcoating and kindness, not that she had much to begin with. 

—It was Clea who said it best, who put Alicia on the path that led her to becoming Maelle.

“If you really want to be useful, then enter the Canvas.” 

“Help Renoir. I need him back here sooner than later.”

“I’ll fight this world alone if I have to, but I’d really rather not.”

“Can you handle that?”

A wordless groan, all Alicia could muster in response.

The youngest Dessendre lacked the artistry of Verso.

The youngest Dessendre lacked the skill of Clea.

The youngest Dessendre lacked the technical expertise of her papa.

The youngest Dessendre once had her mother’s passion. Ashes, now.

Clea understood what that groan meant. And she knew what else to say.

“Lest you forget, the only reason those two are in there?”

“It’s because your naivety cost Verso his life.”

And that was it. Guilt drove the novice Painter to compliance—

And in complying, in forcing herself into the conflict between her progenitors, Alicia became Maelle. Perhaps Clea had overestimated Alicia’s talent as a Painter, or perhaps she knew what would happen all along. Their maman’s chroma overwhelmed Alicia before she could assert herself, and led to a dissolution of herself, memories buried deep as she found herself recast, reborn, repainted…

For sixteen wonderful years, Alicia was Maelle and Maelle alone. Yes, the Paintress loomed unforgettable by the Monolith, seeming to paint doom upon those whose age reached the declared threshold. There was stress and grief and heartache, yearning, fear for the future and desperation to succeed– for those who come after, they had to succeed!

But once her memories came into stark focus, once-wispy details at last all painted in full? Maelle saw and appreciated her second childhood for what it was. A life full of love and wonder, raised by a brother as loving as Verso and the sister she wished Clea could have been. All laughter and joy, punctuated once a year by the solemn rose-petal shower of the Gommage.

As Maelle, she joined the 33rd Expedition. As Maelle, she helped defeat the Paintress, and that should have been it. But reality was a cruel thing. The loss of Gustave weighed heavily on her before she found out he was just a few brushstrokes of chroma. A painted figure by her real mother, just like everyone else she met in her late brother’s childhood Canvas.

Everything Maelle knew and cherished and fought for, a product of fiction, a tragic duet between discordant voices. One fought to remain in an idyllic world of fantasy, where her beloved boy lived eternal. The other fought to rip his beloved away from her escape and bring her back to reality, and the only method he had was total obliteration of all she had built.

… It hurt Maelle, the scars of the past, deep within and without. It hurt realizing the Paintress’ defeat only paved the way for Lumière to be obliterated. It hurt realizing that she had to fight against the only person who didn’t blame her for Verso’s passing. And most of all, it hurt having to kill her beloved brother to keep his Canvas going.

To stay in a world where she was whole and content. It didn’t matter that the Verso she killed was her mother’s fiction. It didn’t matter to her that the Verso she killed longed for an escape from his unwanted life. It didn’t matter to her that she had achieved her objective, and could have returned to Clea with a head held high, proud of herself. Maelle wanted to save the world that she had come to love.

A reality that suited her. Verso knew, even as she killed him, that his death would be temporary. As Maelle held his fading form, he pleaded for her to bring an end to it all– to at last let the splinter of child Verso to cease his painting, and rest. But Maelle wanted to save the world. She wanted to live happily, free of her body’s cage, free of her mother’s fell moods, of Clea’s expectations.

When the other Painters were gone, when she alone possessed the power to paint over the child-Verso’s Canvas, that Verso was the first one that Maelle painted back into being. And he knew. He put on a smile because Maelle wanted him to. Maelle wanted him to forget, but his eyes were hollow with grief.

She’d gotten better at Painting, but her skill left much to be desired. Still– without another creatively-driven will contesting her, it was good enough. Next came Gustave and Sophie, and then all the other members of Expedition 33, brought back from the out-of-hand slaying the painted Renoir dished upon them. Then Maelle brought back those lost to the 78th Gommage, based on her memories–

The further back she went, the less that memory could be trusted. Still: there were records. The repainted beings could remember and tell her stories, and if they wondered too much about why Maelle was asking those questions, she could make them stop asking. 

Maelle did not want to live as the new Paintress, not even as a benevolent Paintress. She just wanted to live a happy life, free from pain, and who could blame her? Who wanted for anything but contentment and peace? Slowly, over the course of years, she corrected Lumière within reason. Not every brushstroke of her mother’s could be replicated or needed to be. Not every creation was perfect; sometimes loathsome flaws were purposeful contrasts to bring out the light and beauty of what they stood beside.

She did not seek to bring back the Lumière that Verso and Clea created, but the one of her own childhood. A world saved, freed, able to look upon the Paintress’ Monolith each year and thank the Expeditioners who fought so hard to bring them their peace. A world that did not question how those cast away by the Gommage or slain on an expedition had returned. Maelle did not want to be reminded of those pains.

Bad enough that they haunted on her being’s periphery, in constant lurk for unguarded moments to resurface and plague her. As a cost to keep Lumière alive, though, she would gladly suffer the pain for as long as it came to her. A fair upkeep, for all the joy it brought to her. The pain was agony, but every other waking moment was spent in the company of family and friends.

Her life was love and laughter, warmth and excitement. Every day, Maelle was free to do as she pleased. She could eat as she pleased and adventure as she pleased, playing or conversing. 

Gustave, two-handed Gustave, cooked a wonderful breakfast every day. Emma helped. The older Verso ate in brooding silence, speaking only when spoken to, but the younger Verso took more readily to their familial communion. He was persistently exhausted, still responsible for the base of all within the Canvas, but happy to no longer be alone. 

Every day was a brunch with her dearest friends, their relationships deepened by the journey they remembered most of. Like the elder Verso, they remembered… but unlike the elder Verso, they were glad to persist. At least, Maelle was convinced of that. Their own thoughts were their own, and if they had any issue with the new Paintress’ ordinations, they kept them quiet. 

Maybe because Maelle didn’t want them to ever speak of it. Funny how that worked, them always doing what she wanted in her presence. Sciel had her husband and their baby and Lune had her parents, her elder siblings. Monoco didn’t fight half as much as he used to– but he never had to be away from Noco. Esquie was always jubilant and jolly and flop-full of wine, flying them wherever Maelle wished to go.

And every other night– Verso would play for them in the concert hall. He would play as Maelle remembered him playing in the manor. She would sit with a smile, transfixed, able to join the painted Verso with the brother she lost and could not Paint into being. His tears would run down his cheeks, despair in his rasping breath as his fingers danced beautifully across the piano’s keys, and Maelle would lead the ovation he always deserved.

Together they would all retire for a nightcap, and as the Paintress slumbered so too did her city.

For one year.

Two years.

Three, then.

Four more.

Five down.

Six years–

***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***-***

Maelle was always at her most content in the hour before her head hit the pillow, and she allowed sleep to overtake her. An unfortunate necessity. She lacked the skill to erase her own need for rest and respite. ‘Twas a dangerous thing for a Painter to flirt with, even then. Some elements of the human experience were vital for proper function.

In sleep, there would be pain, but in Gustave’s pain perdu– ah! Funny how a slice of battered, fried, sugared bread topped with strawberries could drive away so much agony. She looked forward to it every night. 

Six years of routine, and Maelle felt no need to shake things up. Her Lumière was comfortable. Cozy. A place as bright as its name attested, especially with winter erased. Funnier than any bread-based dishes was how she could remove a season, but couldn’t strip away something as mundane as sleepiness.

Still– there was something off that night. 

Just a tinge off, but her routine was static enough that it was nagging at Maelle. The concert hall seemed a bit warmer than usual. Verso’s song sounded almost manic. And the seats– they felt crowded to her. She had made a point of standing up and looking over them in the middle of the performance, trying to discern if an extra group had snuck in.

It’d be fine if they had, but for six years it had been the same people every performance. All her loved ones nearby, including her ‘nephew’. Sciel’s toddler was not of an age anyone would expect him to sit quietly and respectfully during Verso’s performance, but he did. He was a good boy for them all. It was what Maelle wanted.

… Nothing obvious had stuck out to her, though, and she brushed it off. No new faces. There was nothing unexpected, and their little afterparty soiree had gone as usual. The wine warming her belly helped Maelle move on, though the nagging persisted. It was just quieter.

Easier to ignore, though still present. Her bedtime ritual was well underway, not to be ruined by such a minute thing. Goodnights and goodbyes were said, hugs and cheek-kisses exchanged with everyone. Except Monoco. He preferred his goodbyes to be a bit standoffish, unlike Noco.

They all lived on the same street. Lune and her new husband were across the street from Gustave, Emma, Verso and of course Verso. Maelle had her own little home to the right of her family unit, never far from them. Sciel’s family had the house on the other side of Maelle. The gestrals slept somewhere. Maelle didn’t question it. That was the guiding principle of dealing with gestrals. Improv everything, question nothing, and never forget they were created by a child.

She had her wash. A good, long bath was a particularly guilty pleasure of hers, not that Maelle felt any guilt about her happy life within the Canvas. Touch of perfume in the water, and flower petals too. Not roses, though– funny how her Lumière lacked any roses whatsoever. Pasqueflower’s pink reminded her of nothing tragic. A brief pat-dry.

Alone in her living room, sitting upon a heap of towels, Maelle allowed herself to air dry from that damp state while reading her favorite novel. The same one over and over again– something written in Lumière by one of the painted figures, of their own volition. Their capacity to create new works of art proved to her they were real as they felt when touched.

Then it was a slip into a nightgown, and a perch upon her vanity’s seat.

That persistent little nagging did nothing to stifle her smile. There was a joy in seeing her reflection without its warped flesh, forever marred by fire. No scars with pits and ridges and twists: just smooth, youthful skin with a fair tone. Ruddy cheeks without a need for any false blush. Plenty of freckles. Everyone liked to say that she had the perfect amount of freckles, in no small part because Maelle loved to hear them say it.

The Paintress’ will upon her commandeered Canvas was manifest in all things, witting or otherwise. 

Six years had agreed with Maelle. It agreed with her very, very thoroughly. The woman that Alicia would have become, without those six years of agony– she was inarguably beautiful. A little more definition to her face, but not much. 

Heart-shaped, with just the right height to her cheekbones, and not an anatomically correct heart either. Hers was a romantic visage, with lips that were just as inviting in passive rest as they were in a smile. Lips that beckoned, encouraging suitors and gentleman callers. Some ladies of intrigue too.

No one inquired more than once. Maelle enjoyed the attention and the flattery, but she wasn’t interested in that kind of love. She was happy with what she had. No one had ever crossed through her bedroom’s door. In fact, no one had ever crossed into her apartment period. It was comfortably her space and hers alone, not that she spent much time there. It was only used for sleeping and for rousing. 

Those doors only opened for her to slip in and out, and she never forgot to close them.

Just as she never forgot to take her time in brushing her hair before putting it in a nighttime braid. Maelle’s locks had grown long and thick, vibrant with health… though not altogether natural health. As she took up the hairbrush and began to pull it through her long tresses, she canted her head and put her soft blue eyes to work studying her roots. 

It was common for women of a certain age to peer for early gray hair, from stress or age, and pluck them free. Far too early for Maelle to be doing that, just north of twenty– but she wasn’t looking for gray. She was looking for white. With the return of her memories came hair shocked white. At first, she didn’t think too much about it. It just was what it was, though her hair hadn’t lost its auburn hue after the fire.

Years removed from victory over the Dessendres beyond the Canvas, though, Maelle had taken to painting her hair back to its thriving natural color. Each attempt to paint the hair beneath the root had failed, but it was easy enough to just give it a nightly touch-up. Spotting some center-left of her hair line, she set the world right once more.

A blue and white wash of chroma spread over her face as red flooded along the colorless bits peeking up from her head. It spread over her left eye too, and for a moment her vision was slashed as it was beyond the Canvas. That only lasted as long as the painting itself.

Maelle set aside the brush and leaned in closer to the mirror, head canted to get her a better view as she inspected her work. Always took a bit of care in making sure the red didn’t splotch upon her head. While the others in her family could pinpoint their painting to specific details with ease, her brushstrokes tended to go stray over intended lines still.

Outside, the wind rustled past her window, stirring her curtains. A bit of autumn chill slipped in with the sudden gust. Maelle paused and looked over her shoulder with a frown that slipped easy from her lips, then put down her brush to move over and close the window.

She wasn’t much of a fan of the cold. Getting along with a warm fire was still a work in progress.

Her first warning was the persistent nagging; the second was the shudder that struck along her spine. 

Maelle gave neither their due. She was in the midst of her routine, and those little deviations did not scream nearly half as loud as they should have. Maybe that was the wine from the concert’s afterparty, making it easier for her to overlook what should have been apparent to her.

Reaching up, she grasped the window and pulled it down. When did I even open this…? Maelle wondered to herself. No one else could have. No one else ever entered her sanctuary.

When she turned, the third warning struck her with more magnitude. Her bedroom’s door was wide open, swaying as though the wind was gently pushing it back and forth, coming from either end. That made no sense.

Her fingers curled around the hairbrush in her hand, shoulders growing tense as Maelle asked: “Is someone there?” But there wasn’t. There couldn’t be. There never was. She never wanted anyone to come in, and because of that, no one ever asked.

There was a moment of silence, and then she shrugged the stiffness from either side of her collarbone. It must have been me being careless, too used to my daily formula. You’re a silly woman, Maelle. Her bare feet breezed forth on the hardwood floor. The long fall of her nightgown’s skirt swished gently along her ankles, the whole thing a plain white. Comfortable linen, but without a splash of the color one would expect the new Paintress to employ. It fit loosely upon her slender body, obscuring all shape behind the barest hint of a feminine silhouette; that came from the cut than the garment trying to cling upon her.

With her free hand, Maelle reached forward to grasp the swaying door’s knob. Bedtime braiding would recommence. She would enjoy her most content moments until nighttime’s pain reared and roared and left her sweating and rolling abed. Tomorrow, the day would go along as usual, with something fresh in the evening– she only wanted Verso to perform at the concert hall every other day, after all.

He wanted too much to never play at all. It was an equitable compromise.

The door shut without fanfare, easy as that. Nothing special about it drifting open, not at all.

“Why live so far beneath your means?” came a familiar voice from behind her, from the window, and Maelle damn near shrieked with surprise. Six years. Six years and not a single surprise. The surprise of her returned memories had been enough to spoil any delight she might have taken in them. The surprise of Verso wanting to destroy the place she felt happy and whole–

Well. The Lumière that Maelle oversaw was a predictable place.

The Paintress did not react reasonably to the modest surprise of an uninvited guest as she spun, mid-shriek. The hairbrush in her hand was wood and bristle, the former thick enough to give it some density– enough mass to take whatever velocity she put into it and soar away with it. 

In six years, nothing challenged her, but all those fencing forms were ingrained deep enough into Maelle’s muscle memory that her startled twirl ended on a perfect point. Her projectile ought to have taken the domestic invader square in the nose and left it bloody. Certainly, that was what the Paintress wanted to happen.

Instead, it exploded into a shower of rose petals all too reminiscent of the Gommage. A token amount relative to the size and chroma put into the brush’s existence, but not nothing. Immediately, Maelle wished it was more. Far more. Enough to keep her from meeting the eye of her home’s invader. 

“You…” she almost gagged out.

Just seeing her was awful. There was a rush of sickness to Maelle’s stomach, spoiling the fine wines and cheeses enjoyed at the concert’s afterparty. It was made quite worse by the sudden and splitting pain of a migraine across her head. Shock, though, that kept it from doubling over or dropping to her knees. “You!”

“I have a name, little sister. As do you.” The blue and white wash of chroma wiped slowly from Clea’s face. A hint of eye-matching blue shadow almost seemed left behind on her eyelids as she smiled a still smile, all lip and no teeth, one Maelle recognized too well.

Clea had always been strong. Steady. Serious. When they were children, she at least had smiles– not after Verso’s tragic death, though. Those new smiles always appeared to Maelle as a brandishing of arms. Confident. Sure. Undeterred.

“Don’t–” Maelle started to beg. She had not brought back… every lost Expeditioner who had time to live yet. There was one name she erased from her Lumière. One she never wanted to hear again. One she herself had abandoned. 

In her demesne, there would never be another one: “Alicia.” Clea said the word bluntly, and it struck Maelle like a club indeed. With its enunciation came another brief flare-up of Painter’s power upon Clea’s face, and the window slammed shut behind her.

Hearing the forbidden name did not endear Maelle to her sibling’s surprised visit. A pained snarl pushed up to the redhead’s lips, and her plea turned to an angry shout, wordless. She did not react well, her vision slashed in half as chroma washed its way across her face and consumed her eye. With a swing of one hand and a step forward, she sought to bring the Barrier Breaker forged by the Curator.

The most potent weapon for fighting another Painter, something that would quickly put Clea in her place. All it needed to do was cow Clea for a moment, and then it could go again. A pirouette led to a forward thrust that should have poised the golden blade’s tip just ‘neath her dear sister’s exposed chin.

Yet, her hand was empty once the motion completed. Clea tilted her head and looked down at the Barrier Breaker in her hand, brunette hair kept from swing or sway by the navy hairband she wore. That was a match to her ankle-length skirt, and the blouse she wore was crisp, white. Fine, but simple. Modest save for a scandalous hint of cleavage. “Renoir’s handiwork. Fanciful,” she deemed, giving it a cursory heft in-hand to test its weighting.

“Living the way you have, not even trying to hone your artistry… you should know better than to try and challenge me, Alicia.” Fanciful evidently did not impress Clea. She tossed the Barrier Breaker aside, as free as one might discard the remnant core of an apple in the wilderness. It burst into rose petals upon landing. “Is an attack any way to greet your true blood, after so long apart?”

Her elder sister took a step forward, past the outstretch of Maelle’s hand. 

They came face-to-face… and Maelle’s slashed vision was restored, her being violated as she felt Clea’s chroma suppress her own. It suppressed every inch of her from tip to toe, save for her hearing, her mind, her sight, her sense of touch. She was trapped in the apex of her thrust.

Clea gave a condescending pat to her petrified sister’s cheek. “I’m going to release you, now. Act your age. You know better than to challenge me in a Painter’s duel.”

–She found herself slow to move, once her body resumed its autonomy. Maelle flushed with embarassment, deep-welled enough to banish both quease and headache. “Why are you here, big sister?” she said with a more civil degree of respect. Respect was something Clea commanded easily. “I’ve made my choice, and I would like to thank you to leave me to it.” Her hand dropped, and her other took to rubbing it as she backpedalled a step.

That display of power, it left a quiver in Maelle’s voice. 

What claim did she have to being the Paintress… if another could so easily upstage her? Even backing off, the distance between Maelle and Clea did not seem to change, as Clea pursued with matching steps. 

“How long has it been in this Canvas, since you succeeded in your purpose?” Clea asked, her eyes roving along Maelle’s face. “You’ve come into your own.” There was a jape in her smirk, calm, as she added, “Quite nicely, at least up here.” Her fingers rose to catch Maelle’s jaw again.

A gentle touch, yet Maelle stopped retreating as if it were an unbearable squeeze. “Going on seven,” she whispered.

“Mmm.” Clea leaned in, the wash of chroma leaving her face as her brow came to settle intimately against Maelle’s own. Though the younger sister grimaced faintly, she did not try to squirm away.

“For Aline… a year outside constituted decades. That was the degree of her power, ma chère soeur. Under your influence, though…” Clea clicked her tongue lightly. “Your six years here have been five in the world beyond. That’s how deeply our parents have indulged your desire for reclusion and absolute control. They’ve left you here to languish in grief for five years. Their return to the fight against the Writers made it more convenient, hm?” The years beyond the canvas hadn’t occurred to her. That… sounded right, though. Clea looked a bit older. And she sounded a bit meaner.

Maelle said nothing.

Clea continued, “Five years is too long. You can’t remain here any longer, Alicia. They’ve joined in purpose, now that they understand the depth of your body’s decline. If they return here, Aline and Renoir will work hand-in-hand to destroy this Canvas and bring you home.”

“I won’t let them! This is where I belong!” Maelle started to bristle, but Clea’s finger alighted upon her lips in solemn shush. As easily as her will had overridden that of Lumière’s inhabitants, Clea’s seemed to still hers. 

“We’ve come to a compromise. That’s why I’m here, instead. Come willingly, and the Canvas will preserve. Once you’ve recovered, you may return for visits… but this is no place for a Dessendre to waste away. There has been quite enough of that,” Clea spoke softly; a false softness.

A kind offer.

Not an offer that Maelle trusted as far as she could throw Clea, even on a day where Clea would let her do it. She at last managed to pull away, upper lip curled. “Absolutely not! If I die here, so be it! It’s no business of yours, Clea–”

Then her mouth slammed shut. Clea did not walk straight back into Maelle’s personal bubble. “You only deigned to enter this Canvas on my suggestion,” she noted with a lift of her chin. “And now, I only do as I once bid you to do. Spare our blood from foolish grief.” She shrugged and tilted her head again, taking a cursory look over the room. Her eyes hovered thoughtfully on the bed. 

“No more playing with dolls, ma chère soeur. That’s all your friends and family are here. Playthings. Time for you to act your age.”

Then Clea looked back to Maelle, meeting her frozen eye with that smile again. “Luckily, I came prepared to help you do just that.” Even with the window closed, something about that smile brought that naked autumn chill back into the room. 

The blue-and-white wash of chroma slid across Clea’s face again, and Maelle found her body jerking out of her mid-retreat posture, stiff. Thigh to thigh, ankle to ankle, elbow to side, back spasming to a painful degree of straight. Had her mouth been capable of yelping, it would have done so on the spot. But it was closed, as were her fists.

What is she doing? Is she going to kill me to drive me out? Fright and paranoia pounded Maelle’s heart against her ribcage. In the periphery of her vision she could see the discarded Barrier Breaker. Would that be the instrument of her doom, her final goodbye to the Canvas she loved?

—Then she was soaring, twisting mid-air, mouth freed to let out a shriek as she plummeted back-first to her bed’s plush duvet. Though Maelle always slept alone, it wasn’t a tiny thing, her mattress– good enough for three or four of herself to share in. “Don’t do this, sister. Please!” Maelle gasped out, as her arms and legs shot out at diagonals, as though stretched towards the bed’s posters.

Some mobility returned to her, though only enough for Maelle to lift her neck and look at her sister as she stepped up to the foot of the bed. “You had a chance. Since you insist on being a spoiled brat, punitive action is necessary.” Clea smirked. “A little mercy now, and if you ever force us to this crossroads again… I’d rather you appreciate the risk in not complying, Alicia.”

Clea reached to one side, and the Barrier Breaker flew to her hand. Maelle clenched her eyes tight and whimpered helplessly, teeth gritting similarly. She couldn’t best Clea. Verso couldn’t. Not even Renoir or Aline could. She was a prodigy, and Maelle– Maelle had not even a shadow of her sister’s prowess. This is how it ends?

The blade whistled through the air, yet Maelle’s end did not come with it. She quivered as she opened her eyes, like a rabbit caught before a wolf’s hungry maw, and stared in confusion as an empty-handed Clea leaned forward. “Please. You know I’d never hurt you. Not in any way you won’t later appreciate,” she added.

“W…what’re you… talking about?” Maelle asked anxiously, unsure of her sister’s intentions as she leaned forward and over the bed. Increasingly, Clea’s behavior was beginning to unsettle her. Almost in line with that, she regained more control of her limbs. Though, an immense weight seemed permanently affixed upon either wrist and her ankles, preventing Maelle from any serious form of resistance against her sister.

“Off and on, I’ve had a look in on you. From what I’ve seen, you’ve avoided any entanglements with other adults… but don’t tell me you’re that naive, Alicia.” Clea climbed upon the bed, and her hands reached up to rest upon Maelle’s waist. 

They were not that much larger than Maelle’s own hands, but they felt so much larger with the control they could exert over the redheaded painter. She grunted and squirmed under Clea’s touch, not sure if she just didn’t know how to reply to that comment, or if her ability to form words had been specifically impaired, instead.

Not many people had ever touched Maelle. No one in any untoward way, certainly. Not after she became a burn-scarred hermit, and not within her version of Lumière– but she began to feel the wind’s direction.

Clea’s touch slid up to her little sister’s waist as she continued, “Surely, you’ve endured your friend’s gossip. In the times when you want them to behave as they once did, away from your company…”

There was an unfamiliar mirth in Clea’s chuckle. “The one with the cards, she loves her child, but one is enough. Quite a fan of sodomy, that one, giving and taking. Her husband is her perfect partner, in that respect. And the scholar could write a treatise on the flavors of a man and a woman. Nevermind the comfort that Monoco and Verso find in each other–”

Color flooded Maelle’s face as she gasped out, “I don’t need to hear this!”

“You do,” Clea replied plainly, fingers gripping into Maelle’s nightgown. “If for no other reason than this: if your punishment does not take, I will inflict it upon each and every one of them. And that will include the facsimile stand-ins for myself and our late brother,” she added, the latter where a hint of anger seemed to line her voice’s blade.

Then her hands ripped away. It took a great deal of strength for someone to tear well-woven fabric with bare hands. In that moment, fueled by her Painter’s power, Clea was strong enough to rip the strongest of silks with a mere flex. Maelle’s nightgown came apart suddenly, a long tear forming and growing longer, jagged in an instant. 

Before she could yelp, well ahead of her spine arching and her hips bucking reactively, it was done. It was being pulled out from under Maelle’s backside, thrown aside like the rag it now was. And still, Maelle did not understand. It was becoming obvious but it was so unthinkable. It was something she had never been interested in– and with her sister? Unthinkable. Impossible. Beyond the pale. 

Clea did nothing to obscure the evening’s direction. She knelt between Maelle’s spread-wide legs and gazed down at her revealed body, hands calm and sure as they returned to the frightened woman’s waist. Once more her eyes began to move over Maelle’s body, though now they did so more intrusively. The long rake of her gaze bordered on tactile– moreso for skipping Maelle’s face entirely. 

She rushed her hands up to meet her eyes upon the tender flesh of her little sister’s not-so-little breasts. “Aha!” Clea laughed without any prelude to repentance in her breath. “These are exquisite, Alicia.” Spilled out by the laid-out posture, Maelle’s tits were downplayed by gravity and physics. But that was far less hidden than the nightgown, and the cozy, baggy blouses Maelle preferred on a day-to-day basis. “Why doesn’t your wardrobe show them off more…? Downright motherly, they are,” she laughed again. 

“Please. You know I’d never hurt you. Not in any way you won’t later appreciate,” she added.

It didn’t hurt. Not yet. Not there. There was a gentle appreciation in the touch– gentle but absolutely sure. Not just of what she was doing, but how she was doing it. Clea did not squeeze overlong, her hold on either virgin breast brief in their almost massaging caress. The warmth of her hands forbade any chill, yet a chill again struck Maelle’s spine and flushed goosebumps across her fondled chest. All that the younger Dessendre could muster in response was an inarticulate, groaning hiss as she wriggled her body one way and then the other. 

As Clea’s hands slid to gather Maelle’s bosom from beneath, forcing a bit of a more natural shape to them, the redhead at last gasped: “W-what… why… this?” she asked, almost pained in the asking. 

She knew where this led. She did. She wasn’t that blind. But still– unthinkable. They were kin. When Clea laughed again, throaty and thrumming, Maelle settled on an answer, hissed again with upset fury: “D-don’t mock me, Clea! Stop this!”

“Don’t mock me, Clea,” mimed the sibling, in perhaps the very first immature thing Maelle could remember Clea ever doing. She aimed not to strike a fair approximation of her sister’s voice, but a nasally satire of a more childish voice. “Does this feel like I’m taking the piss, ma chère soeur?” the brunette asked next.

The answer was blunt: No. But what Maelle said out loud was instead a squeaking, “Ah!” when her sister bowed her head over the left breast and brought lascivious lips to the tight, erect tip of its nipple. She had tweaked and toyed with those vexatious things on her own, as anyone else would, but the wetness and warmth of a tongue was a far cry from the delicate pinching of fingers. 

Clea’s teeth teased the possibility of a bite, but stayed out of the way in favor of the loving tongue providing a more lurid bathe. Weighed down where she was, Maelle’s writhes amounted to flexes of her upper and lower back, paired with the more paltry attempts to jerk her arms and legs free. “That tickles!” Maelle cried out, unfamiliar with the very different sound of her voice. “Stop, Clea!”

It did not tickle. That word didn’t do it justice. A tickle was something Maelle always wanted to get away from. But even as she begged and wormed haplessly beneath the tongueplay, the movement of Maelle’s body always came to include a press up and into that which she protested. It was all-absorbing, amazing as it was upsetting.

And it kept her distracted from the other hand’s wanderlust, and her sister’s repositioning. Clea was laid out along her side, outside her legs– and with that other tit left behind, her fingers had stroked down nice and slow from ribs to belly to pelvis. When it reached Maelle’s lively land of red curls and that delicate place hidden lower, she became very aware of it, hissing sharp and falling silent, anxious, paying close attention.

She wouldn’t–

But Clea did, and she did it without reservation. It took her only a second to get her fingers into position, settled over the half-hidden slit of Maelle’s puritan cunt, and then a second more to press one in. A step beyond any private adventures Maelle ever attempted. Just one finger, delicate, deft, but it felt so much bigger inside her smallest place. She was immediately and acutely aware of her cunt’s flex around that finger, and how the follow-up digit struggled to squeeze in alongside it.

“Ah,” Maelle gasped more softly, yet more forlorn. More confused. 

It didn’t hurt, either. Not yet. Not there– not even as the second finger embedded its tip within her. The first finger hadn’t gone far ahead of it. Slow curling and coaxing teased her verymost entrance, warming the rest of the molten passage towards the idea of having more within.

“Do you think I’d ever do this… to someone I mean to mock?” Clea asked softly, leaving behind a nipple aching for more as she kissed along Maelle’s body. The path she traced was perpendicular to the way her hand took down under, but the wet touch left a lasting impression. For a brief beat, her blue eyes slanted up and met Maelle’s– –Maelle’s, struggling to focus. 

It didn’t help that those digits prowled deeper. Slowly. Painstakingly slowly. They explored, feeling those parts of Maelle that were untouched and would have remained forever so. “Any other Painter wasting away, especially one of your meagre talents? I would leave them to deteriorate and die ignobly. They wouldn’t be worth the effort, let alone the time.” 

… that finally hurt. Maelle’s eyes sheened damply.

The redhead had no reply for it, though she groaned. The trail of kisses continued lower, and Clea shifted as her lips graced the beginning of Maelle’s red thatching. Down there, she had turned white too. It grew slower and necessitated less touch-ups upon her roots. “Although, for all your growth, I can’t say this suits your childishness. In fact…”

Clea kissed fire to the center of that nest of curling hair, a wash of chroma coming over her face. Literal fire. Maelle was overwhelmed and unsure of what was happening until that happened. The flames were hot and danced quickly, spreading across her pussy’s decor as Clea lifted her face clear. Though they did not burn her skin, still. It was too real. She shrieked and lurched into motion, one begging word saying much: “CLEA!”

Too real, but it was like a grease fire in a pan. One flash of flame, and it was over. Not the slightest bit of damage to her most secretive region, save for the fact it no longer hosted any foliage. Maelle’s was bare, but not barren. Unwanted dampness attested to fertile ground, waiting for the right seed to be buried and take root. Hers was not a petite cunt at the best of times, with slit-lips that peeked out along her outer region. Then and there though, her labia were well-swollen.

“Get used to screaming my name, Alicia… Maelle… whatever you want to call yourself. I’m only doing this to you because I’m your older sister, and I love you, and I cannot abide another week of your ‘mourning’,” Clea spoke the words softly still, but there was an edge hidden beneath her velvet. 

Velvet was the feeling of her lips, as they kissed lower, as they found that place. The place that made Maelle swear off any further exploration of her womanhood, for how it tingled and throbbed and seemed to set her nerves to mindless fire if a touch lingered. “Ssssstop, don’t, Clea, please–” Maelle gasped out.

The jerk of her hips only served to serve up her pelvis to her sister’s dining. That little pink bulb of flesh found itself caught between lips that were clearly acquainted with many of its distant clit-kin. As Maelle gasped breathlessly and whinnied out, the violation of that first contact built immensely. Her sister’s skilled tongue peeked its tip along her clit and traced around, flicking up and then down, repeating that gasp thrice-over before Maelle had managed a single inhale to recover what she had lost.

To her left, to her right, up towards the bed’s headboard and down it towards its foot, Maelle’s fingers curled, nails trying to scratch blood from her palms before forming white-knuckled fists. Lower, her short toes mimed it, ankles trying to roll against the impossible weight suppressing their motion. Though Clea lifted her lips and dotted her clit with a kiss, it felt like no respite.

“Patience. You’ll want to be warmed up for what comes next,” Clea said with a smile. This time, she showed teeth. And those teeth looked hungry. Her head lowered again, and for a moment Maelle stared at the top of her sister’s brunette head before the clit-lavishing rendered her groaning once more. Her head fell back, and not upon any pillows, eyes twisting tightly shut as her mouth hung wide and vocal.

As the suckling continued, so too did the finger’s initial probe. Slow going, but it at last encountered the most potent barrier in Maelle’s Lumière, one not even Renoir’s Barrier Breaker stood a chance against piercing. Yet as far as walls went, it was one that stretched, giving little way rather than holding fast. It felt strange, but then, the whole experience was strange and abnormal and upsetting and worthy of language more foul than naming her sister. “Putain!” Maelle hissed.

It did no more to convince Clea to stop than anything else she tried… and as one minute turned into two, Maelle found herself drawing towards something she didn’t want to stop. And that frightened her more, as her body quivered with nervousness, with excitement, with something she had never endured before.

Little and gentle as each lick and suckle was, they built to a grand effect, dizzying Maelle. Were she not upright, she would have been staggered, reeling, vulnerable– exactly as Clea already had her, in truth. “Ssssomething… happening!” Maelle managed to whimper out over the sounds of her sister’s humming wetwork. That itself was much quieter than the redhead’s volume, though not to her recipient ears. It seemed to get louder and louder, drowning out all noise until–

That something happened. That something happened hard and it left Maelle numb and shaking, bordering on insensate. Fire once more raged through her mind, her body, and through her eyes too. The sting of her tears felt like the only reprieve from the wild flames that seemed to consume everything, a pyrolyse proper. And when there was nothing left to consume, a process over as quick as it began, it exploded.

Maelle exploded. She felt the explosion as every muscle seemed to contract and relax at once, at odds, in tandem, senseless and ordered and what did any of that matter? The explosion was what it was: amazing, breathtaking, an experience unlike any other she had chosen for herself in her Lumière. She screamed her sister’s name, only kept from a torrid dance upon the duvet by way of the invisible weights on her wrists and ankles. Her breast heaved, but not as much she gushed.

Time passed. Seconds? Minutes? Time passed, and Maelle forever lost it. As she came to grips with the present, breathing hard and feeling a swelter within, Clea was lifting her head from between Maelle’s thighs. Dampness was smeared across her lips, her cheeks, and again she smiled that hungry smile. The tongue responsible for the squirting ruin ran lazily along her lips and she commented, “A common reaction to my personal affections… though I must say, I’ve paid whores who squirted less than you, a virgin.” She laughed.

Embarassment could not add any more red to Maelle’s cheeks. In coming to grips, she found herself contending with the aftermath of her pussy’s explosion, all sweet and tempting wriggle, throb. Her head remained dizzy… and she felt like a moment’s touch would start it all over again, fresh. In a rasp too familiar to her ruined throat, she asked Clea, “Are… we done…?”

“No, ma chère soeur. Not yet, we’re not.” Clea slid back off the bed and stood straight, tall. Taller than Maelle, though not by much. “Did you not hear me when I said, you will want to be warmed up for what comes next? I didn’t mean your cumming, there,” she added with a smirk that made Maelle feel ashamed, foolish. Her eyes dipped.

… yet Clea’s suppression tugged upon her, forcing her to sit upright, all the better to witness once she gave into the temptation to look up. And that did not take long.

She heard her sister’s blouse being unbuttoned, and up her eyes went, unsure. Though she did not rip so much as a seam in the process, Clea undressed as quickly as she ruined Maelle’s favorite nightgown. Her blouse was just hitting the floor when her skirt started to chase after it. It was not the first time either sister had seen each other naked, though Clea had changed too in their time apart–

She was always slender, soft in both bust and hip, long of leg. Smaller than Maelle now, in the first respect, though the younger Dessendre’s gams could not compete still. None of those things had changed. It was the toning of her slim frame, the hint of muscle and exertion. Hints of scars old and recent. Not much, but enough to finger the elder Dessendre as a veteran of the ongoing conflict.

Nude, Clea wore them like medals. They were not flaws, but something else for her to be proud about. 

“What I meant… was this,” Clea murmured, her hands lowering to her own pelvis. There, she retained all which Maelle had burned away. Au natural hid much upright, but the wash of chroma spread along ma chère soeurClea’s hands, her belly, and overwrote the darkness of that pubic hair briefly, until–

“Fuck!” Maelle yelped, trying to recoil back at the surge of flesh, spewing and splattering undeniably sexual fluids as it erupted. Her eyes were wide with disbelief and panic: where Clea had just been undoubtedly feminine, now… now she hosted a cock. 

A very large, very thick and very erect cock, balls and all. The same hair that spread across her pelvis graced those fat danglers in particular, as though they had been there all along. From its brazen swell of a head, it dripped with remnants of what burst out in its eruption. More of the same stained her duvet, some clear, others gloppy and white. Clea grunted huskily and stared down at her new appendage with a critical eye. “Mmm… exactly as I envisioned. A creative punishment, as befits one Painter punishing another,” she said, with a smaller smile.

“Why the hell…?” Maelle asked, staring frightened at the obscene thing. And obscene it was. It may have looked natural on a man with a foot of height on Clea, and some hundred pounds of mixed muscle and fat. On her slender, lightly-toned frame, though, it looked notably larger. And it looked like it was probably half the width of her thigh, too. “Clea, enough of this,” she plaintively begged. “You’ve punished me enough!”

“You had your chance. Now, I need you to appreciate that I will follow through on my threats,” Clea said as her eyes lifted. In both hands she took herself, feeling over the prestigious stiffness with hands that marveled. Her shoulders shuddered, face twitching with treacherous emotiveness. “Though… Paint be damned,” she laughed with a sort of delight that left Maelle uneasy. “This feels good. I can see why so many men think with this little brain. Cute, isn’t it?”

“I-it’s disgusting,” Maelle replied quickly, and averted her eyes from the eyeless eye that seemed to stare straight into her, drooling all the while. Her shoulders shuddered and her cunt felt clenched tight, as did the neighbouring hole, anxious.

But there was no way that Clea would go that far. The touching was one thing, but that– that just had to be something to frighten Maelle into submission. And it was working. Already, Clea had made it resolutely clear what hope she had against her sister. Maelle could not put up a tenth of the resistance Aline managed against Renoir, and Clea outclassed both their parents. Had she wanted to end it all and rip Maelle clean out…

Is this just an excuse to do… this? That chilled Maelle, though with her body afire as it was, nothing could cool her bones.

“We’ll revisit that in a moment,” Clea smirked, and took a flowing step forward, crawling upon the bed and between Maelle’s thighs. Just before the wash of chroma fled her skin, the younger Dessendre found herself driven to her back again, winded just by the rush of it. Next, Clea was knelt between her thighs, in mutual brushing contact. Her hands retraced the familiar path up Maelle’s dipped waist and to her breasts. One stopped to play there, albeit briefly, while the other went higher, over her throat, over her face, and into her hair.

There Clea gripped. That hurt, too. Just a bit, her mane pulled upon to coax Maelle’s grimacing face up. “Look at this,” Clea smirked as her breast-loving hand once more abandoned tit in favor of grasping the fresh cock. Down it came, and Maelle squirmed with a whimper as it lay across her bald pubic mound, giving the redhead an unsettling preview of just how far it was ready to go within her. “All of that? It’s about to disappear inside you,” she taunted. 

“S-stop messing around,” was Maelle’s strongest protest, as though Clea hadn’t proven herself serious. Very serious.

“Fine. No more messing around,” Clea relented, and Maelle’s shoulders sagged with relief. 

They tensed right back up as Clea’s lips forced themselves against hers, and not in any platonic peck. The younger Dessendre gasped, and found her mouth defiled before her pussy could be broken into. Almost immediately, Maelle found herself subjected to the taste of her sister’s tongue… and all the places it had been before, upon her own body. But she didn’t have a chance to loiter on that, not with how quickly things moved. 

No Painter’s power was necessary to keep Maelle locked into the kiss. Just the rough grip in her hair– and all that shock –was enough. At no point did the shock subside enough for her to even consider complicity in their tongue’s dance. 

And certainly, as Clea guided her cock down and coaxed her hips back to make room for her to nock its head against Maelle’s flustered opening, nothing was poised to slow her down. Could she have done something to fight? Maybe. It wasn’t like her mouth was locked open. Clea’s tongue was right there. Easily bitten!

But she did nothing, not even out of pride or spite. As she lost her first kiss, she began to lose something else too, driven by her sister’s incessant refusal to cease her incestuous advance. Maelle’s snatch wasn’t fighting against her sister’s manifested cock, but its purity ensured a tightness that made it slow going.

The uncomfortable feeling of that first penetration had Maelle groaning breathlessly into the kiss, and her hips squirming futilely, unable to budge the rest of her body in any useful direction. Clea hummed just as she had around her sister’s clit, though with more humour now, as though the redhead’s struggle was a source of amusement to her. 

“Patience. You’ll want to be warmed up for what comes next,” Clea said with a smile.

Neither finger nor tongue did enough to leave Maelle feeling anywhere near prepared for what was being done to her, and there was no room for denial now. Such a thing could only happen in a family of Painters: her sister had decided to have a cock, and decided to fuck her too. Everything else felt irrelevant. That was what it drilled down to.

Her sister was going to fuck her, as only a man could fuck a woman. 

Its purple-swollen head breached through her narrow slit fully and left it stretched wide, paving the way for the narrower (but not at all lean) shaft to follow through. Still. It was a tight passage, reluctant to let Clea through. The ample spread of unwanted arousal greased the way, but that did not tear away the discomfort of the pushing.

The prodding–

Slow. Steady. That described how their illicit kiss ended too, a moment later, though in both cases the words could only rightly be applied to Clea herself. Maelle was trembling, unsure, and panting as her eyes opened, blurred by tears and upset confusion as she stared up at her sibling’s face. “Oh,” Clea purred a viper’s purr, grinning now, cheeks alit with fervent joy. “Alicia. The way this feels… much better than the other way around. And you’re taking it so well to start…” she continued, her voice husky.

Maelle did not feel well, but had she the time to lay back and think through her feelings, she would have struggled to land upon one. 

Her older sister was going to fuck her with a cock she didn’t have minutes prior. That was a fact that she doubted any other person could ever lay claim to. There was fear and anxiousness, but the relaxation brought on by her undesired and consentless orgasm ran bone-deep. Perhaps it was just the tension and fear that enticed her to want the comfort of release. Or perhaps–

“Clea,” she groaned breathlessly, her chance to refill her lungs wasted. For a still moment, the elder Dessendre simply soaked up against that little barrier her fingers had felt over prior. Then, Clea leaned her brow down to Maelle’s again, lips kiss-close but not quite closing the distance. Blue eyes bore into their younger match. “Please,” the redhead tried one last time.

Maelle felt her sister’s laugh, a pelt of warm air against her face, light and airy, musical and lovely in any other context. “Now you beg for it?” Clea asked, with a flush-cheeked smirk and a little cant of her head. “Oh, ma chère soeur… you’re such a little putain,” she teased.

“T-that’s not,” Maelle began to shoot back. The refute did not proceed past that point, for Clea took her opportunity to shoot her shot, and proceed past the point indeed. With an inelegant shove of her hips, brutishness ill-fit to women of their grace and legacy, she punched the head of her cock clean through Maelle’s tested hymen. The touches, the pushing, the prodding– test exams, at best.

If she had passed those, then Maelle failed the practical test with flying colors. Or flying color, as it were. She yelped out in surprise at the feeling of the barrier being broken, and of the untouched lands beyond being subjected to an unmitigated disaster. There was only one color added to the lurid painting they made, and that was the scarlet hint of blood left upon Clea’s thickness as her hips coaxed back. 

She didn’t feel her scream. She heard it, though, long and raspy and in dear need of some water and maybe a cigarette, not that she ever smoked before. No, all Maelle felt instead was that dick claiming her, making her into her older sister’s bitch. An inch past the breach, and Clea rolled her hips back. No time was wasted going into the second thrust, one that rammed much deeper into Maelle’s innermost precious. 

A gasp wheezed out of the redhead, as though she still had air to be fucked up and out of her lungs.

A gasp wheezed from the brunette’s lips too, all crude delight and wonder, like a Painter finding their first real joy in the art. “Oh, Alicia, your pussy…!” Clea laughed. “Your tiny little pussy!”

Those first two cock-stabs were the most distinct. Experimental, coming to terms with the unpracticed motions her hips were unsuited for. From then forth, there was no more hesitation. Clea thrusted as fast as she could, finding what little rhythm and pace she could hold down. Each one pumped her thickness as far into Maelle’s waiting twat as it could go, at least according to the motion. She could have gone to the very depths with each one, had she just a little more patience, a touch of restraint and a lot less of a power trip.

Maelle’s airless gasps continued, words eluding her. More and more, she grew dizzy, in dire need of prolonged ventilation, but it didn’t feel possible with that stupid big thing inside her. The lack of proper breathing left her feeling delirious– especially as the salacious sensations felt within her cunt began to course through the rest of her body. Her veins, her muscles, all afire again.

And that fire was so much better beneath her skin than dancing upon it. “This is amazing!” Never before had Maelle heard her sister laugh so freely, so joyously. She sounded like a different woman altogether, and not just for the underlining provided by the wet plaps and claps of thigh striking thigh, pelvis hitting pelvis. “So much… better, to fuck like this! Ha!” 

That ha! aligned with the thrust that gave Maelle back a vocabulary, though it was a limited one. Clea’s sloppy thrusts at last managed to find the bottom of that which it spelunked, and Maelle squeaked out a ragged, “Shit,” at the feeling of her sister’s crown knocking up against her cervix. It was not a pleasant thing–

“Please. You know I’d never hurt you. Not in any way you won’t later appreciate,” she added.

–But it wasn’t unpleasant either. It hurt, and unlike Clea’s prediction? She enjoyed it immediately, as much as she loathed it. No later was necessary. The crude cuss was chased by a lower groan and a fitful roll of her body, eyes closing, head trying to throw back. She failed to move it much at all, as Clea reasserted her grip in Maelle’s hair and buried her little sister’s mouth in a fresh kiss.

Whether it was the yelp or the way Maelle’s pussy rippled around Clea’s cock at that painful apex, the elder Dessendre was provoked into a frenzy. She was like a shark, though as a predator, the blood staining her cock wasn’t half as enticing as the hint of her sister’s pleasure. Their tongues lashed again as Clea laid into her sister’s deflowered cunt, breast kept squeezed to breast, hips seeming endless in their energy for piston.

No time to think, only to feel. No more protest– no more resistance. Maelle wanted more hurt and with it she wanted more comfort, and nothing felt as comforting as Clea’s tongue against hers, rolling over and over, teasing, taunting. To say that she kissed back would be generous, with how stiff and uncoordinated Maelle was, sloppy and distracted. But she kissed, and there was a desperate enthusiasm to it.

Her sister’s other hand groped and trailed along her back, her side, hugging the tortured redhead close. It ended up behind the small of her back, pushing up, playing into her own thrusts. At the same time, Maelle found herself clinging upon Clea.

… Maelle’s limbs had been freed, whether it was deliberate or a lapse on Clea’s part. Yet the only thing she did with them was throw them around her sister, arms tight around the brunette’s rounded shoulders. Her legs took longer to join the cling, at first raised with knees bent, bare feet stuck out to the sides. But with each subsequent body-ruining thrust, they wavered towards a clenching, a clamping, achieved just as Maelle felt her body beginning to rattle with ecstasy far beyond what the dance of tongue and clit alone achieved.

Then they snapped shut around her sister’s waist, ankles crossed over the small of her back, like a bear trap locking its catch. Clea could escape it if she cared to do so… but she did not, and Maelle’s squeezing legs were like a vyse. The forceful pounding into her cunt could not be deterred within the tight hold there, but the thrusts were shortened by Maelle’s four-limb embrace. Her hands began to scrawl and claw wildly at her sister’s back, and not without drawing some small amount of blood.

Pain? Not to Clea. Spurs.

What was destined to happen snuck up on Maelle, overwhelmed and lost in her invested throes. With her inexperience and the flurry of thrusts, she was ill-poised to reckon with the warning signs. The way the fire burned hotter, the building pressure within her, the unhinged spasms within her cock-stuffed cunt…! 

She screamed into the kiss as it hit, and as her body seemed to convulse and retract and relax and tense all at once. The gush of her second orgasm was as great as the first, yet stifled too, subjected to the reality of being stuffed deep with her sister’s obscene prick. Her eyes rolled and her back arched almost frightfully, sweating thoroughly all over and shaking like a volcano threatening a second explosion.

Time was funny in the Canvas, as Clea had pointed out– a year had been decades while Aline was in control. For Maelle, five outside had amounted to nearly six within. But then and there for her, with Clea in control, it felt like a moment was an eternity. And what a wonderful eternity of sweet, delicious nothing it was. Just mindless contentment and relaxation–

She didn’t even realize the kiss was over. Her eyes flickered and she groaned erratically, feeling vestiges of the continued pounding as she resurfaced from the abyss. How many times she came while Clea kept fucking her, who could say? It was not one of those that clawed her back. It was her sister’s depraved, haunting grin and the deranged bliss in her announcement: “It’s coming, Alicia. Get ready…”

“Wwwwait,” Maelle groaned out, with a few yelping gasps to follow. Those bottoming-out thrusts that struck cervix-deep were not as appealing, as she abruptly came to terms with reality. Her sister was fucking her with a cock. 

A cock and balls.

Unprotected.

“N-not… inside!” Maelle tried to hiss, and at last seemed aware of her freed limbs. Her hands scrabbled for purchase to push Clea off, and her legs tried to unwind. Neither managed their goal before Maelle felt her sister’s dick twitch. “Please not inside!”

“Please not inside,” Clea half-laughed and half-groaned, and Maelle felt mocked. Very mocked indeed.

But that was such a little thing in the wake of the final thrust, the lingering press against her cervix, and the long expulsion that followed. Something felt wrong about it. She had overheard gossip about what receiving a man’s seed might feel like, and it didn’t match up with what she experienced– warm and overwhelming. 

And it went on and on… Clea’s eyes lost focus, her mouth coming to hang foolishly as she shuddered and groaned. “Fuuuuck,” she at last managed to whisper out, beginning to grin loosely, lewdly. Slowly, she pressed up from her burrow within Maelle, though not amidst any withdrawal of her cock. Still half-buried, she gazed down at her little sister’s defeated form with clear relish, hands meandering across her body. “That… is something you and I will be doing again. That’s reason enough for me to keep this Canvas alive.”

The sudden onset of exhaustion kept Maelle from commenting. Though her limbs were not restricted again, she let them drop and lay in wild splay where they landed, looking up at her sister with hazy eyes. She panted deeply, sweat-soaked breast heaving, at last allowed to focus on the task of finding new equilibrium.

… shockingly, the idea of a repeat performance did not upset Maelle. Though, she didn’t have much of a reaction to it at all. Am I in shock? Or did she just fuck me that hard? the redhead wondered feebly. Her expression flickered and a groan broke into her gasps as Clea began to peel herself free of her cunt’s twitching cling. 

She did not enjoy the feeling of emptiness left behind. Not a full loss: there was plenty within, but the fluids left were less appealing. Mostly, their immediate leak made her feel a bit unclean. 

Clea didn’t seem to find it very filthy, herself. She knelt back and smirked grandly down at the free-flowing sight, and her hands lowered briefly, thumbs pinching along the flanks of her sister’s labia to spread it wide and only hasten the heavy flow. “What a gorgeous sight, Alicia. I’m going to have to paint this when I have a free moment… hang it in my office, maybe.”

“S-shut up. Don’t even joke about that,” Maelle grimaced, her face feeling hot as she looked away. “Don’t tell anyone.”

To that, Clea chuckled. It sounded a little more settled to Maelle’s ear. Still strange to hear her sister’s laugh, but at least it was less debaucherous. “If you’re feeling up to telling me off… you must be feeling well.” With one hand, she reached out and stroked Maelle’s sweaty flushed cheek. “Not bad, was it? Not worth all the protests.”

“I guess,” Maelle mumbled, and blinked her blue eyes a few times to clear away some lingering tears.

At least Clea cared. And at least she said– “Would you like to stay in the painting a bit longer? Just a bit.”

“... yes,” Maelle whispered, and if there was any damage Clea might have done to the love she had for her sister? That repaired it. She almost didn’t believe her ears when she heard it, but as she looked up to her sister’s face, she saw only a loving smile and sincerity.

“All I ask for,” the elder Dessendre said with that same smile, “is a little thank you.” The hand stroking her cheek slipped into her hair, gentle. At first.

There was little ambiguity to the nature of Clea’s desired thank you, revealed just moments later by where she pulled her little sister. Any notions that Maelle had about what her sister would and wouldn’t do to her were duly corrected. With cheeks redder than her hair and sulking shoulders, she settled into a kneel between Clea’s spread legs, shyly eyeballing the half-hard and sloppy cock poised before her face. “B-but I’ve never…”

Of the blood, at least, there was no trace. That was all smeared and washed away by the clear leak and cum that remained upon it. Clea lazily used one hand to stroke along it, helping flood it with all it needed to achieve a fresh fullness. “So what?” she asked her little sister with a tilt of her head. “I’ve never had a cock before, nor have I ever inseminated a woman. It wasn’t hard.” Half a beat later, she suppressed a snort but did not address the false double entendre.

“F-fine,” Maelle mumbled, not pointing out that her sister had clearly done plenty of related things. If it bought her a little more time in her Lumière… maybe there was a way she could entrench herself against any attempts to remove her from her heart’s sanctuary. She took a little breath, then steeled her wooden shoulders and leaned in.

It disgusted her, the thought of taking it into her mouth. She could never see herself doing what Clea had done to her, going down there. But in the midst of being the hardest thing she ever did, it was likewise not hard at all, still riding the highs achieved. Clea’s hand fell away as Maelle’s curled around the fat length, and the shorter redhead slowly parted her lips.

Rather than trying to think through her actions or path forward, she simply did what came naturally to her. Like dipping her toes into a cold pool to test the temperature, she ran her tongue over the crown of her sister’s cock. All their intermixed fluids came together to provide a taste at once earthy and sweet. Strange and peculiar and even a little coppery, but not exactly disagreeable. Rather than proceed to take it straight into her mouth, Maelle found herself dragging her tongue down one side, hand only used to hold the pole steady. The texture felt beneath the skin was peculiar too.

But not disagreeable, either.

“There is… a catch to this, shall we say, stay of expulsion,” Clea began to murmur. One of her hands graced the back of Maelle’s head. That gave Maelle pause and she began to glance up, only for a little push to encourage her to continue. So she did, running one more lap of her tongue around the now cleaned-up crown before beginning to take it into her mouth proper. It nestled rather neatly in her small mouth, a little too large to linger. 

What came naturally from there… well, Clea’s cock had been too large to linger in the shallows of her twat too. Slowly, girding her throat, Maelle took her sister deeper into her mouth, in increments far smaller than an inch. Her throat immediately clenched up at the suggestion of something that big and that solid going down the wrong tube, but she did not relent. Slowly but surely, it began to slide past her tonsils.

Clea’s little gasp and then excited inhale provided on-the-spot feedback, as did the briefer squeeze at her tit, tighter, surprised. “You’re taking to this better than I would have expected you to, Maelle.” The slip in name was not missed. It felt like a treat– an encouragement for good behavior, to be referred to by the name she wished to bear. “The first time I sucked cock… haaa, maybe another time…”

Maelle did it all on her own, until inches were in, until she felt a need to withdraw for breath. And that was when Clea began to push down on her head. Gently, but the point was made. “Look at me,” she said after a moment, and her little sister did her best to comply, chin lifting as much as it could with inches of thick cock inside her gullet. Her blue eyes watered from her suppressed gag reflex as she looked upon Clea’s smirking face.

The redhead’s free hand went on a natural-wandering, too, intrigued at the prospect of a little copycatting upon her pussy’s clit. Just as she began to rub at that little nub though, Clea spoke the words that left Maelle petrified, not even feeling the pleasure, or her continued leak upon the floor.

“You’re pregnant, ma chère soeur. I made sure of that while you were cumming yourself silly on this dick of mine,” Clea said with the same smile that first greeted Maelle, upon their reunion. Although the redhead stopped moving, her sister kept pushing, and more of that very same cock eased into her throat. “Painted, sealed, and promised. In nine months… you’ll give birth to our first child. But there’s more for you to contend with than a baby and questions. So long as you linger in this painting, so will I. No longer will Lumière bend and bow to your will. Its true Mistress has returned.”

No. Maelle’s eyes began to water, whether it was from horror or from the gagging she barely felt.

“You cannot paint this problem away, and slowly, all of Lumière will come to realize your manipulations. Those closest to you first, I imagine. It may be weeks, it may be months, but it will happen, and it will happen before you carry our baby to term,” Clea abandoned her sister’s tit, and that hand joined its own sister in Maelle’s hair. Slowly, she rose to her feet, and the redhead found her pelvis dropping to the floor.

Chroma washed over Clea’s face as she Painted Maelle’s throat pliant, and her eyes trapped wide up at her elder sister. Pliant but not perfect; the ravishing of her throat was a rough and uncomfortable thing as the other Dessendre began to thrust. Not nearly as aggressive as it was within her twat, but more than enough to finish the job in due time. 

Yet still, Maelle found herself rubbing her clit. She didn’t think. Without a need to steady Clea’s cock, her hand dropped to begin playing with her throbbing pussy proper, only making a greater mess beneath her spread thighs. The cum within her seemed endless, hastened on and on. She barely felt it, but the pleasure was still there, and the orgasm was still coming on.

Her sister’s pubic hair tickled her nose, and her hefty balls slapped wet against Maelle’s delicate chin as the thrusting hit a crescendo. “Leave the painting… and… you can avoid all of that. Stay as Maelle… and Alicia… this is every night until you come to your senses,” she promised between grunts and groans. 

“Every… damn day.”

“Your friends, too– you know… that I keep my promises, now. I follow through on my threats…!” Clea’s voice grew tenser, tighter. So too did Maelle’s gagging struggle to keep herself from passing out on the thick airway impediment, though that was a battle she was as sure to lose as cumming, prior. And cumming, now.

First, though, first came the thick pulse and growling release from Clea, one final pump of her hips leaving her dick’s base flush with Maelle’s bruising lips. The amount of cum sent sailing down her throat and to her belly felt like much less than what seeded her prior, but still, the amount– would she even have room for Gustave’s pain perdu in the morning?

That farce of a concern disappeared as Maelle, used and sullied and left impure, brought herself to a soul-shaking release. Minute, compared to what Clea had done to her, and yet there it was. More relief. Her eyes clenched, and for a moment she forgot about the dick that she was choking on–

Getting slapped with that same dick, sloppy and fresh from her throat, jolted Maelle out of it with a wanton, haggard exhale. Clea comfortingly stroked her fingers through her sister’s hair. The follow-up claps of cock against her cheek were an interesting partner to match a kinder touch with. Left dazed and panting, Maelle’s tear-stung eyes slanted up to look upon her older sister for something, for anything.

Another smile. “You did well, Maelle. You didn’t even spill or spit up a single drop, and I gave you every ounce this cock had to give,” Clea added. A prolonged stroke of her cock tried to eke out an iota more against the redhead’s cheek. “I’m proud of you. Not as proud as I’ll be once you put an end to this nonsensical sulking… but proud.”

The dick dropped, and Clea briefly bent, pressing a kiss to her sister’s feverish brow. “I’ll be seeing you at breakfast. That pain perdu your fake brother, mmm. Looking forward to trying it,” she chuckled.

… And then she was gone in a flutter of rose petals. Maelle tipped back against the bed’s side and stared down at the puddle of cum continuing to form beneath her hard-fucked cunt, and slowly licked her lips.

She didn’t know what to think of what had just happened, but she knew on the spot that she was not leaving her Lumière.

Not right away.

Not while Clea was there with her.