Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rains had not ceased since the day she left. Three months, exactly, to the day. Furina had tried her hardest to shed away all the remnants of her old life, but old habits die hard, and this particular habit of counting days had begun when her grand performance as the Hydro Archon had. Old, indeed. 

It had, however, taken on a new meaning. Instead of being a source of hopelessness and foreboding like always, it now gave her a strange sense of comfort, because she could feel the passage of time again, and each increment to the counter felt like it finally was able to mean something.  

Three months ago, after the completion of her duties, she had rushed to her quarters, taken what little possessions she cared for, and ran. She was not proud of her actions in that moment, how the aftermath of the crisis played out, but she could not fend off the voice within her that just shouted at her to leave. It was easier just to listen. It was good to give in, for once. 

After days of aimless yet determined traveling, she had settled within a small, nameless village at the edge of Fontaine’s borders. There was a part of her that longed to leave the nation behind completely, to leave behind the source waters of all the pain she had endured, but she never had the heart to carry through with the idea. 

There were still anchors tying her to this land. 

Neuvillette was the first to come to mind. He had been the closest thing she had to a friend these past centuries. 

And yet, she couldn’t ignore the sharpness in her chest every time she recalled his face from when he delivered her verdict, even though she knew, deep down, he acted with the best interest of Fontaine at heart. She couldn’t erase the image from her mind, especially how he pointedly, purposefully avoided meeting her eyes as he pronounced her guilty. He had never done that to any of the other defendants he had condemned. 

Perhaps that was why she left without offering him a proper goodbye — and in such a hurry as well, afraid that she would risk facing him again if he managed to find her somehow. 

As much as her decision to leave was made and enacted in haste, she rather liked the new life she had stumbled across and haphazardly carved out for herself. She had found refuge in a humble, abandoned cottage that she managed to make her own. Not having daily, demanding obligations was also a strange and new experience, but not an unwelcome one, and she soon learned to fill her newfound free time with hobbies. 

She learned to bake desserts, specifically the ones she had been so fond of from the city that she could no longer easily procure. She cultivated a garden, and soon rainbow roses and various local vegetables began sprouting from the backyard. 

And whenever she grew restless, she would take a leisurely walk along the edge of the waters, always with an umbrella in hand. 

It was also during one of these walks that she spotted two familiar figures off in the distance. She had come across people before along her strolls, usually villagers who lived nearby, but she had always adjusted her path accordingly in an attempt to avoid conversations and the scrutiny of their gaze. There was no telling if she would be recognized or not, even with all the changes she had made to her appearance, but better not to leave the situation up to chance. 

But she was a hair too slow to turn around this time. 

“Furina!” Paimon’s voice rang out. 

Reluctantly, Furina stayed put as Paimon and Lumine approached, both soaked to the bone in the storm. 

“You look so different now,” Lumine remarked with wide eyes. “And your hair, you’ve cut it short.”

“You two look — well,” Furina struggled. 

“As well as we can be considering we probably look like wet dogs,” laughed Lumine. “We’ve been in the Sumeru desert for the past few weeks and only came up here to complete some commissions for Katheryne.”

“Yeah, it kind of made us forget about, well, all this water, so we didn’t prepare for the rain,” Paimon added. 

The two companions joked and bantered easily, but Furina could see a kind of wariness behind their gazes whenever they glanced in her direction. Lumine and Paimon were just as uncertain about how to navigate the conversation as herself. Of course, how could they be certain? Last they saw each other, the traveler had deceived her and then proceeded to stand in a courtroom and tear down her centuries of work in the span of a short trial. They ruined her reputation, irreparably. 

Still, Furina was able to admit that she missed having some semblance of company around after these last few months of solitude. 

Despite all the complicated feelings that hung in the air, she also knew that Lumine was as good a candidate for the role as she was going to get. After all, Lumine alone witnessed the exact details of her five-hundred-year plight — though she knew not how, she had felt the traveler in her head as Furina herself was also forced to relive every single one of those long, interminable years — and that meant Paimon had to know as well. 

So there was a chance they saw her as more than just a liar who deceived Fontainians and robbed them of a true Archon for centuries. Even if Furina struggled to see herself beyond that light.  

So reluctantly, tentatively, she asked, “Would you two like to dry off at my place? I also have some cake I made recently that we could share.”

Paimon’s eyes lit up at the mention of food and agreed without a second of additional thought. 

Lumine also nodded, despite the decision having already been made. 

The trio made their way back to the cottage squeezed tightly under Furina’s singular umbrella. As they dried themselves and each began devouring a slice of crêpe cake, Lumine said, “Do you suppose this storm will let up soon? Maybe we can shelter in place here and wait it out.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Furina gave an almost imperceptible smile, expressing genuine amusement for the first time in a while. “It’s been raining for three months straight.”

“What!” Paimon exclaimed, brows frowning in consternation, mouth still half full of pale blue frosting. 

Lumine chuckled, “What’s got our Hydro Dragon all worked up?” 

Furina’s expression fell instantly at the mention of Neuvillette. She shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know.” 

“Oh, I thought if anyone knew, it’d be you,” Paimon said, head tilted to the side with bemusement, not one for mincing her words. 

“We haven’t spoken. Since the trial.”

Understanding seeped into Lumine’s eyes as she quietly asked, “He doesn’t know you’re here either then, I’m guessing?”

A curt nod of confirmation. 

Lumine and Paimon shared a look that could only be described as pitying, and Furina felt an uncontrolled yet unwanted sense of bitterness welling up within her. 

Why?

Why would they feel that way?

Was it because everyone else was able to move on with their lives but she alone couldn’t? Because she was still paying the price?

“I — I just remembered I have some things I still need to attend to,” Furina murmured. 

Lumine nodded, hearing the implications clearly. “Right, it’s about time we head out, Paimon. There are still more commissions to finish. Do you mind if we borrow the umbrella, though? We’ll return it as soon as we’re able to.”

Furina gestured to it openly. 

As the two companions walked off, Lumine hesitated and turned her head back to give a small wink. “Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone you’re here. Not until you say you’re ready.”

“Wow, you really weren’t kidding when you said the storm wouldn’t let up any time soon,” Paimon shook her head in disapproval. 

She had returned a week later with Lumine, knocking on Furina’s door with the borrowed umbrella in tow. 

They returned again the next week, and the next, and the next. 

Some of the visits lasted mere minutes, just an exchange of greetings and gifts and goodbyes. Some were hours long as Furina sat listening to their vivid stories of faraway lands, of love and loss and experiences so foreign to her. Lumine and Paimon had both been careful to avoid any more mentions of mutual friends or acquaintances, especially Neuvillette, but it was eventually Furina herself who brought up the topic.  

“How is he doing?”

Lumine paused, uncertain how to answer. 

“I’d like to know,” Furina said in earnest. 

“Oh, you know, how he is,” Paimon jumped in, laughing in an attempt to conceal the nascent strain in her voice. “Not the type to talk about his feelings at all, the same as always. He’s —”

“— not well,” Lumine cut in. 

Paimon’s eyes widened as Furina’s own narrowed. 

“He’s sick?”

“No, no, nothing like that.”

“He must be angry, then.”

Puzzled, Lumine scrunched her brows. “What makes you say that?”

“This,” she waved her hand at the brewing storm outside her window, “and the fact that he never got to see justice for my crimes of deceiving the people. I never answered for it properly. I’m sure he’s got plenty to be upset about.”  

“Oh Furina,” Paimon reached out and touched her shoulder lightly with a hand. “Fontaine is safe. That’s justice enough.”  

“I’m not quite sure he’d see it that way.” 

The two companions fell quiet. They shared that look again with each other, but Furina chose to ignore it this time around for her peace of mind. Lumine finally ended up being the one to break the silence. “He’s hard to read, but I am certain he’s not angry. It’s more like...he’s off-kilter somehow. I understand if you don’t want to just take our word for it, however. Feel free to go and see it for yourself.”

The idea was unthinkable. “I can’t.”

And yet, the thought refused to leave her mind. 

This was the first time Furina had walked through the streets in the City of Fontaine in relative obscurity. She had taken care to sport a large, wide-brimmed hat that easily covered her visage and a long, flowing dress that hid any semblance of her figure from the view of unsuspecting onlookers. Even her room reservation at Hotel Debord had been made ahead of time for her by Lumine, under Lumine’s name. 

When she had informed the traveler of her plans to pay a brief visit to the city, Lumine surprisingly offered no opinions on the matter, nor expression of shock, and only asked if there was anything she and Paimon could possibly do to help. 

Furina had been grateful for their presence as they tagged alongside her for the past two days, but as soon as they had stepped within the vicinity of the city walls, she had found that Lumine and Paimon’s renown drew them more attention than she would have liked. Her companions did seem to take note of her tension and together, had hurried to the hotel without any detours. 

Sleeping did not come easily to her most nights, but she had been so drained from the trip that she collapsed into a dreamless slumber as soon as she laid down on the bed. 

She had woken that morning bright and early, and yet, it was not until noon that Furina finally managed to leave the sanctity of her private room and started making her way to the Opera Epiclese. 

This last leg of the trip she knew she had to face alone. 

The walk along the promenade down to the Fountain of Lucine was simultaneously one of the longest and shortest ones she had ever had to withstand in her life. The rains were only a drizzle today, but even bad weather was not enough to deter Fontainians from idling around the fountain and the court. She passed them by, unnoticed. 

She heard the sounds of the court proceedings just before she slipped into the main auditorium through the back, silent as a shadow. Most of the seats were filled already, with audience members who were too transfixed by the ongoing trial to pay her any mind as she gingerly sat herself down in one of the cushioned seats in the very last row. 

The defendant appeared to be in the middle of a retelling of some engrossing tale, but she hardly listened as her eyes gravitated immediately to the reason she came. 

Neuvillette’s face was settled into its usual placidity, but after centuries of having seen every one of his expressions, she could tell there was some darkness hidden behind the mask, even from such a great distance. Everything else was as expected. He was neatly groomed and dressed in his typical uniform, posture straightened, commandeering, composed. Lumine had been right to a degree. He wasn’t angry, and he betrayed almost no hints of being unwell, but there was something slightly off with his presentation. Thankfully, as she studied him, his gaze never broke away from the accused, taking in each of his words with careful consideration. 

She appeared to have arrived right at the tail-end of the trial, because after the plaintiff shot back a final counterpoint, all parties fell silent, and Neuvillette raised a hand to his chin in contemplation of the facts presented. 

A low buzzing began in her ear, drowning out the quiet murmurs of the crowd and Neuvillette’s voice as he began speaking again, presumably to deliver a final verdict. The scene laid out in front of her felt too familiar, too reminiscent of —

With her chest constricted and her breath fast and shallow, Furina could not stop herself from rushing out of the courtroom in a flurry. 

A few opera house employees looked at her questioningly as she stumbled past them towards the grand entrance, but she paid them no mind as she pulled the brim of her hat down lower, further obscuring her face. Only when she stood in front of the fountain did she finally manage to calm herself enough to slow her breathing. 

She lowered herself onto the edge of the fountain and forced herself to focus on the bubbling of the water and the tinkling of coins that a pair of children had just tossed in after making wishes. Anything to drown out the flashing imagery of her own trial that had invaded her brain just moments earlier. After a continuous while of this exercise, she was left feeling almost normal again, or as close to it as she could be, and so she was able to notice when whispering picked up in the crowds idling around her.   

She didn’t dare look up.

“Lady Furina.” 

There was no escaping it. She finally raised her eyes to meet those of the Chief Justice. “It’s just Furina now, did you forget?”

“Furina,” he corrected himself at her behest and sat down beside her on the fountain’s edge, though careful to maintain a distance between them. The whispering intensified further even as the bystanders all tried their best to come across as nonchalant. 

Furina could feel her palms beginning to sweat, but Neuvillette’s presence helped somewhat in staving off the distracting surroundings. She spoke before he could. “How did you know it was me?” 

“Your presence was enough.” 

She wasn’t sure what he meant but decided not to pursue it. Instead, she rose to her feet. “Sorry to cut this short, but I do have to get going now.” 

“Will you be more free tomorrow, then, perchance?” 

“I —”

“It would...provide me a great deal of joy if we could speak, at your availability.”

He was terribly awkward, and he made Furina’s heart hurt a little. After a moment of pause, she found that she didn’t have the resolve to refuse. “I can come to your office tomorrow at the end of the day.” 

He remained unmoving as she walked off, and in her bewildered state, she hadn’t even noticed that the rains had stopped.

Chapter Text

“Lumine, Paimon. I did not expect a visit from you two at this odd hour of the night.”

“The rain stopped, Neuvillette.”

“That it did.”

“We stopped by to see if something had happened.”

“It sounds to me that you two already believe that something had.”

“You saw Furina, didn’t you?”

“For the briefest of moments, though she did agree to have a more substantial conversation with me tomorrow. You are well-informed of her return, then?”

“Not so much a return as just a visit, but yes, we know.” 

“She intends to leave again?”

“Last we heard. I think it would do her good to stay but don’t think it’s in our place to try to change her mind, considering our history and the current state that she’s in.” 

“And what do you make of her state?”

“Hmm, how should I describe it  — you two are much alike. Just like how your powers were ripped away from you in the past, she’s also had something so tantamount to her existence violently taken, and that has made her very...lost. Looking within herself for a reason to be. Desperately wanting out of the spotlight. I think the most adept comparison I can make would be to you from back before Focalors had invited you to the opera.”

“I believe I understand. There’s much I need to think about.”   

Furina dreamt she was drowning but could not die. Her lungs were burning like they were on fire, the irony of which made her let out a giggle because enough water enveloped her that she couldn’t even see sunlight breaking through at such depths. Any minute now. Surely any minute now she would fade to nothingness and be relieved of the pain in her chest, but that release never came. She remained, unable to see, unable to swim, and unable to tell which way was up and out. 

This was no fun. She forced herself awake. 

A peek outside her window told Furina the day was early enough that dawn had not even properly broken yet, but even in the half-light, she could tell the scenery in front of her was peculiar. She frowned in concentration, trying to place her finger on it, and gasped when she finally did. 

The sky was cloudless for once, with no threat of rain in sight. 

How long had the weather been like this? Come to think of it, in her scramble to put distance between her and Neuvillette, she hadn’t thought to open up her umbrella, and yet she returned to her hotel room dry.  The latter half of the day she had spent cooped up in the room, internally replaying her conversation with Neuvillette over and over, so she hadn’t cared to look out the window until now.  

Why had she run away in such a hurry? She went to the opera house to see how he was doing, after all, even if she could never articulate that intention out loud.

A groan escaped from her mouth as she buried her head in her arms. Stupid, stupid.

She wanted, no, needed a distraction. There was a distinct lack of pedestrians out and about at this hour, which gave her a rare confidence to step out of her room and head to the shoreline that lay just beyond the city walls. She had even felt comfortable enough, knowing the unlikelihood that there would be anyone around to recognize her, to wear an outfit more akin to the styles she was used to and preferred, what she had donned as the former Hydro Archon. However, she soon came to regret that fashion choice when the wind began to nip at her legs. 

Still, she soldiered on, goosebumps and all, because she saw blubberbeasts in the distance. They were one of the things she had missed most during her time away since none had frequented the areas near her cottage. 

The family of them that lined the water’s edge all appeared to be resting, but none protested her as she bent down and gave each one a pat on its head. That was what she had always liked. They never minded nor cared what she did. They were also decent conversationalists, despite never talking back. 

“What should I even say when I see him again today? ‘Sorry for running off yesterday, how have you been?’” She cooed to them. “No, that doesn’t sound quite right.” 

As she continued to utter sweet nonsense to the blubberbeasts, a particularly strong wave snuck across the sand and caught her unaware, completely drenching her pants and shoes. She drew in a sharp breath but did not immediately move. The frigid shock of the water was unpleasant, but not entirely so, and something tempted her forward until she was submerged all the way up to her chest. 

The colder her body grew, the more she felt like it belonged to her. She waded out farther until her feet no longer touched ground and let herself float on her back, hair and ears covered by the sea but her gaze turned to the sky, the edges of which were now tinted with the warm orange glow of the emerging sun. She signed internally. It would not be long until she had to return, but for now, she would close her eyes and allow the darkness and the biting cold water to shield her from the choirs in her head. 

Her body became numb more quickly than anticipated, but she bargained with herself for just a few minutes more. She rarely had a rest as peaceful as this, even in her sleep. 

Her eyes shot open when she suddenly felt her arm being violently pulled, causing the sea to briefly engulf her in her entirety. She sputtered and coughed out salt water as she resurfaced, now in an upright position with a familiar face staring right at her in incredulity. 

“Clorinde?”

“Respectfully, Lady Furina, what the hell are you doing?”

Furina opened her mouth to explain, but Clorinde shook her head in disapproval and began pulling her to shore, eager to cut their swim short. By the time the two of them finally reached land, the sharp wind from earlier had ceased. Nonetheless, both stood shivering as they attempted to squeeze as much water out of their hair and clothes as possible. 

“You’re turning purple all over,” the duelist remarked, appraising Furina with her lips pursed and brows furrowed. She turned to retrieve her jacket that was lying crumpled on the beach, presumably tossed aside earlier to keep dry and placed it across Furina’s shoulders. 

“Oh, thank you.” Furina pulled the coat more tightly around herself. “I didn’t expect anyone to be out here this early.”

“I always do my morning runs at this time. And just my luck today, I thought I spotted a corpse floating in the water.” 

“It was just a swim,” Furina insisted. “To take my mind off things.” 

Clorinde still did not appear entirely convinced by the explanation but didn’t push any further. “Well, it’s still good to see you again, even if it had to be like this.” 

Furina arrived at Palais Mermonia right as the sun went down wearing another one of her nondescript, shapeless dresses. 

Sedene was sitting at her usual post outside of Neuvillette’s office, and upon seeing Furina, gave a wave in greeting. “Lady Furina, I was told you would be coming to see Monsieur Neuvillette. Go right on ahead. His time slots were surprisingly free today, so he’s been in there for a while.” 

She was grateful nobody was around the Palais to hear her name being called out so clearly. After a smile of acknowledgment and a quiet thank you to the Melusine, Furina gathered all her wits and courage and pushed through the door, which felt much heavier against her hands than she recalled. 

His office, however, was exactly as she had remembered it, with not a single book or piece of paper out of place, standing in distinct contrast to the chaos that had always decorated her old apartment up the stairs. Of course, she realistically had not expected much to change in the span of a few months, but perhaps it was also another reminder that everyone else had carried on as usual despite her world being upended. 

Neuvillette looked up from the paperwork at his desk the instant he heard her enter. Furina’s muscle memory took control, and her feet brought her automatically to the couch situated in front of him. How many times have they run through this same song and dance before? Must’ve been thousands. However, the boldness she usually carried with her when barging into his office was distinctly absent on this occasion.  

She sat and focused her vision onto his long and slender fingers, afraid of what he might see if she were to catch his eyes instead. She fiddled nervously with her own hands but did not speak, because there were so many ways she wanted to start the conversation but no right way. 

He bailed her out. “Have you eaten? I could ask Sedene to bring you something if not.”

“Yes, I have.” She had no appetite.

“Good.” He gave no indications that he saw through her lie. “Clorinde informed me of the rendezvous you two had this morning.” 

“Oh?”

“You should be mindful. The water can be dangerous as it is alluring. I was told you looked half dead after she dragged you out.”

“I’m fine, the sea was just a bit cold. You don’t have to chastise me.”

“That wasn’t my intent.” He looked almost wounded. 

Maybe she was being too difficult. Much more than what he deserved. She knew he didn’t care for formalities like small talk, so he must be attempting it for her benefit. Using a softer tone, she jumped ahead and asked, now for his benefit, “Was there something specific you wanted to speak about? I’m guessing it’s not just about my morning meetup with Clorinde.”

“I wanted to ask for your help.”

“What?” Her eyes shot up to his face, as she was certain she misheard or he misspoke.

“I wanted to ask for your help,” Neuvillette reaffirmed. When he saw that she was no less puzzled than before, he continued, no doubt having rehearsed his words ahead of time, “You know, more than anyone, that I pride myself on my ability to remain impartial in all things, both inside the court and out. However, as of late, I have witnessed parts of my resolve slipping.” 

“Slipping? You?” The thought was hard for her to come to terms with. He was a bastion of stability. 

“I’m not infallible, as much as everyone would like to believe otherwise,” he said with a soft smile. “You’re aware of all the rain. I’ve heard all manner of complaints about it these past months, but it provided me comfort, and in this case, I’ve chosen to let my personal selfishness supersede objective decision-making. However, a transgression of this nature cannot be allowed anywhere near the courtroom, and so it is my duty and responsibility to ensure there would be no risks of that happening.”

 “How’s that something I would be able to help with?”

“I would like for someone to judge me, in a sense. Keep me in check.”

The proposition sounded comical at best. “You’re asking me to sit in the audience and rate your performance? Give you a score out of ten?”

“No, no, nothing dramatic.” He folded his hands together. “Rather, I would like for you to review the verdicts I hand out for each of the cases and assess if you believe reconsideration is needed on the basis of bias, given the hard facts presented by both sides. You needn’t be in the courtroom at all, in fact, since all of this can be done on paper. Unless you choose otherwise, of course.” 

“Why ask me?”

“You’re more comfortable than anyone else at challenging me —  you’ve done it plenty before. Others may defer too much to me for their assessments to be of any use.”

Furina shook her head. “That may be, but I’m still probably the worst choice for the job. I’m nothing if not biased. Emotional. Immature.” She glanced down at her hands in her lap, now clenched into fists, to stop her lips from trembling. 

“Is that you or is that the former Hydro Archon?” He waited but received no response. “And even if you believe yourself to be so, then that means you would know very well what being biased and emotional looks like in others and can call it out if I were ever to make that mistake.” 

Even with the outlandish nature of the proposal, Furina did relent that he had a point there. 

“I also don’t expect an answer right away, of course,” Neuvillette continued. “But I do hope I’ve earned the privilege after our years of knowing each other to request that you consider the offer genuinely.” 

They sat wordlessly facing each other for a while until Furina couldn’t help but ask, “Was that all you wanted to speak about?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to ask me why exactly I lied to everyone for centuries? Where I ran off to? Why I’m back? I’ve been preparing, you know.” 

“Lumine has already informed me of the curse that had plagued you, and I have spoken to Focalors as well before she —” He stopped himself. “Anyhow, all that’s to say is I reckon I may have more context than you at present regarding why you had to lie, which we can discuss in more detail if you’d like, but I didn’t want to reopen any old wounds.” 

Furina could feel her nails digging into the palms of her hands. Her vision grew blurry. 

“As for everything else,” he said, “I trust you would tell me in time, should you want me to know. Did — did I say something to offend you?”

“No.” She had been too preoccupied to notice the fat tear rolling down her cheek until now, but once she did realize, all the willpower she had to resist broke down, and more and more tears followed until she was rendered into a blubbering mess. She couldn’t speak clearly, but even if she were able to, she still could not manage to articulate exactly what she felt. 

Neuvillette approached her and reached a hand out towards her face cautiously, afraid she would draw back, or perhaps leaving that option open for her. When she did not move, he gently wiped away the drops that had collected at the base of her chin, his finger lingering for a fraction of a second that was both too long and not long enough. He looked like he wanted to speak but held himself back as he studied the wet spot on his glove where her tears had now taken residence. 

Their momentary contact brought Furina back to her senses, and she brought her sleeves up to wipe her eyes until they were dry again. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, her sentence punctuated with an uncontrolled hiccup. “It’s nothing. Everyone is so kind.”

Chapter Text

“It’s dark out. I can accompany you back.”

The offer was simple, yet Furina was hesitant to accept. She had regained her composure by now, but the fact that she had lost it so openly in front of Neuvillette made her want to crawl into her bed and bury herself under all the blankets, hidden away from everyone and especially him. 

He doesn’t understand feelings. She suspected he might not even experience them himself, so she must’ve been causing quite the unprovoked disturbance from his perspective. 

She also wanted to hide because she was sure her cheeks were tinted pink. 

Neuvillette never initiated physical contact. Everyone was well aware that he was unsettled by touch and only tolerated it at best from others if absolutely necessary for the occasion or somehow unavoidable. She had witnessed his figure visibly stiffen many times to be convinced of that fact, which meant she had to have looked like a real mess for him to attempt something so unlike him. 

His expression remained inscrutable like always, but she suspected he felt sorry for her just like the rest of them, but to no fault of his own, because she was pitiful.

She had been reduced from the Hydro Archon to someone unrecognizable even to herself. The small sliver of pride that was left of her old self, on the other hand, was enough to force her to reject Neuvillette even if, deep down, she would have appreciated the company. 

“You don’t need to trouble yourself with it, I’ll be fine.”

Instead of letting her go like he was supposed to, like she was expecting, he frowned and said, “It’s no trouble, and you are fearful of the dark, are you not?”

Ah, he knew more than what she gave him credit for. Ever since the Knave’s unsuspecting attack on her, she had remained wary of the night and tried her best to avoid traveling by herself late after sundown. Even though she knew that the risk of anything posing a threat to her was extremely low, she still could not dispel the sense of apprehension that settled over and clung to her each time she stepped out in the dark. She was surprised he picked up on it. 

Above all, however, his comment meant that she misread his motives. He wasn’t pitying her after her crying spell. This was just...unrelated friendly concern. That was a reasoning she could bear. 

So, Furina acquiesced, and the two of them set off from the Palais at a leisurely pace. 

Although they had walked together countless times before, she had never been quite as aware of his presence as she was now. She couldn’t help but glance in his direction every so often, but she was convinced that it was because she was easing herself of her anxieties about the night by seeking these small doses of reassurance. 

Still, on more than one occasion, she caught herself studying Neuvillette for longer than she would be comfortable admitting. 

He had always been tall and stately and dignified for as long as she had known him, but four months away was long enough for her to feel like she was learning all of this information anew, except this time, he also captivated her with the way his pale features glowed under the soft moonlight. She could not deny the sight was ethereal. 

He must’ve felt her eyes on him after perhaps the third time because he glanced over at her questioningly. Quickly, she shifted her focus back onto the sidewalk and let her hair fall like a curtain to obscure her face. 

A bit afraid of the questions he might ask, she struck first to rob him of the opportunity. “How did you know I was scared of the night?”

“The Harbinger,” he replied smoothly. “She had informed me and the traveler of what had transpired between the two of you, and that timeline matched with when I noticed you stopped attending events at night.” 

“Maybe I wasn’t as discrete with it as I thought, but, um, thank you for trying to help me be more comfortable with being out.” She pressed her lips together and was reminded of an earlier comment he had made. “You mentioned the rain before, how it gave you comfort.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you need it?”

“I —” He started then stopped.

This wasn’t like him, Neuvillette, who was always eloquent and never at a loss for words. She waited for him to continue, albeit unsure if he planned to, but before he could make his intentions clear one way or the other, her attention was stolen away by the appearance of a thin streak of light in the inky black sky. She let out a gasp and without thinking, tugged roughly on Neuvillette’s sleeve to stop him in his steps and pointed with her other hand.

“It’s a shooting star! Quick, make a wish.”

She soundlessly verbalized her wish and didn’t dare to blink even once until the meteor finally disappeared into the horizon. After letting out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding, Furina grew acutely aware that she was still grasping Neuvillette’s jacket so tightly her knuckles shone white. She withdrew her hand with remarkable speed. 

Was he bothered? She wasn’t sure, but he didn’t comment on her overstep, so neither did she, opting instead to ask, “Did you make a wish?” 

“Yes, it sounded quite important that I did.”

“Oh no, you didn’t have to just because I said so. It’s just what I’ve heard others say you should do. I haven’t actually seen a shooting star before and may have gotten slightly too caught up in the moment, because that was —” She paused, feeling she may be sounding too childish, rambling on the way she did. “Well, nevermind that. What did you wish for?”

“For your wish to come true.”

She laughed nervously at the ease with which his words came out. “Come on, what did you really wish for?”

“That is what I really wished for.” He seemed puzzled by her line of questioning.

A red flush washed over Furina’s face, which made her grateful for the cover of darkness. Her hands were also trembling, though she suspected that was moreso a residual symptom of the adrenaline rush from earlier. 

Because she really shouldn’t be flustered. This was Neuvillette speaking. It was possible he didn’t even understand the exercise, or he wasn’t able to come up with a wish for himself quickly enough in the moment, because despite what he tried to claim earlier about being capable of selfishness, she still saw him as someone who was generally devoid of personal wants.

So, she laughed again and said airily, “Don’t waste your wish like that next time. For all you know, I could’ve wished for your downfall or something like that.”

“Did you?”

“No, no, that was just an example.”

“Well, what did I unknowingly give my support to, then?”

She supposed it was only fair for her to divulge. “I wished for time.”

“What do you mean?”

Wistful and a little reticent,  Furina explained, “I did a lot of thinking while I was away, and one thing I thought about quite a lot was mortality. I think it scares me. I’ve witnessed so many lives end during my time here, and the one thing everyone wanted at the end was more time. What if that’ll be me, too, before I manage to find my happiness in life? I’m no different from anyone else now.”

“I’m sure you will have enough time,” Neuvillette said. 

You don’t know that , she wanted to say but bit her tongue because her troubles were her burden to bear. 

They soon found themselves at the front entrance of Hotel Debord in the aftermath of their exchange, and as she turned to face Neuvillette to tell him goodbye, she discovered she had no idea how. What to say? A simple goodnight or see you later felt like it would hardly do. Besides, will she even see him later?

She wasn’t sure, but she realized she did want to and that perhaps she had the answer within her all along. “The job you talked about — I’ll do it, I’ll be your Oratrice.” 

Neuvillette had never believed in the fates that humans ascribed to trifling things like stars and constellations.

Still, that night, as he bore witness to Furina’s face full of wonder and delight, he couldn’t help but temporarily suspend his disbelief, something he previously thought himself incapable of.

Reality dawned on him once more soon after, however, and he knew the stars would give her no response, no deliverance. But perhaps he could. 

For the first time in ages, Furina woke not to nightmares but to the sounds of rough knocks against her door. Still delirious from sleep, she didn’t even think to glance through the peephole before swinging it wide open. 

Luckily, her mistake was not costly, as Lumine and Paimon made their way into the room before she had time to process what was happening.

“Have you read The Steambird this morning?” Paimon blurted out with no warning.

Furina blinked slowly at her visitors, confused and struggling to keep her heavy eyelids open. “Hm, no. Why?”

With a much calmer demeanor than her counterpart, the traveler handed over a copy of the paper she had in hand, and all of Furina’s grogginess dissipated in an instant. She brought it up closer to her face to examine.

There was no doubt about it. A faraway shot of her and Clorinde from yesterday, both still drenched, was splayed across the front page. Lady Furina returns after previously abandoning post during aftermath of national crisis , read the headline. She didn’t dare read any more beyond the caption just below the photo, which failed to give away the photographer’s name and simply stated they were “an anonymous source.”

Wordlessly, she handed the paper back to Lumine, who hesitated before saying, “Whoever took the picture must’ve followed you back as well, because the article reports that you’re staying here at the hotel.”

“Oh.” Furina could feel her legs turn into mint jelly. She was well aware that there was a high likelihood she had already been recognized by a small handful of Fontainians, perhaps even on her first day back, when she met Neuvillette out in public. But those occasions were always a result of her actions, inside her control, and her appearance had been concealed just enough to give others a shred of uncertainty regarding her true identity, especially from a distance. 

To have everyone know at once via such a publicized ordeal was an entirely different beast. 

Upon seeing Furina’s reaction, Lumine laid a hand on her shoulder and firmly said, “It’ll be fine. We can go talk to Neuvillette and see what he thinks.”

Without protest, because she thought of no better alternatives, Furina followed the footsteps of Lumine and Paimon as the three of them left the room behind. Unbeknownst to them, a group of people had begun to congregate in the hotel lobby, and as soon as they saw Furina make her appearance, the clamoring began.

“Lady Furina, where were you?”

“Lady Furina, why are you staying here instead of the Palais?”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Your hair! Why’d you cut it so short?”

Lumine took ahold of Furina’s forearm and did her best to push through a crowd that accosted them at every turn. 

This amount of attention should’ve been par for the course for Furina, but her time away from the spotlight had made her weak, and instead of coming up with a witty or even petulant response to the interrogation, she let herself be led away, wordless and expressionless. She was met with a light drizzle outside, but neither she nor her companions noticed as they made haste towards Palais Mermonia. 

They discovered Neuvillette’s office to be a busy affair when they rushed in. Clorinde was positioned at the corner of his desk, engaged in some sort of discussion with the Chief Justice, while Navia sat on the couch in observation with her arms folded. All their attention promptly locked onto the newcomers as the door was pushed ajar.

“Navia, Clorinde. I’m guessing you are here about the Steambird article as well?” Lumine asked, her brows raised in surprise.

“Ah, not me,” Navia said as she shifted her position on the couch to make room, which Lumine took advantage of while Furina remained standing with her shoulders slumped. “I was making a delivery as a favor for Monsieur Neuvillette when Clorinde bulldozed in with the news and looped us all in.”

“Yes,” Clorinde said, sounding vexed. “If you were planning on inquiring about whether what the paper did was legal, it is. Apparently.”   

“Can’t you just create a law to make it illegal then, Neuvillette?” Paimon asked. “You have the power, don’t you?”

Neuvillette answered with more deliberation than was typical. “It is not quite that simple.” 

“Why not?”

Despite having been quiet the entire time thus far, Furina was the one who spoke up now to answer. “It’s my fault. As the Hydro Archon, I had put in place a law stating that no restrictions shall be placed upon the reporting of celebrity news. It was meant as an incentive for the papers to start writing more about the topic — about me — without fear of retaliation. That had served my purposes well at the time, but now...”

“It is as she said,” Neuvillette confirmed, “and the path to overturning an existing law is much more arduous.”

Paimon frowned. “Well, what should we do now then?”

While the question was not explicitly directed, Furina could feel everyone’s eyes turn to her in anticipation of a reaction or decision. “I, ah, I guess the first thing for me is probably finding a new place to stay. I don’t think I can go back to the hotel.”

After hearing Lumine briefly recount their harrowing experience, Neuvillette stated, “That can be arranged easily. I’ll have Sedene set you up with an apartment nearby shortly.”

One problem was resolved, at least.

“A whole apartment!” Paimon exclaimed with her mouth agape. “Paimon is quite jealous. That’s much more upscale than the places Lumine and I have stayed at anywhere on our trips.”

Lumine, conversely, heard the implication much more clearly. “Wait, does this mean you’ll be staying longer term?”

“I decided to prolong my visit,” Furina admitted. “Indefinitely for now.”

“Oh, we didn’t know.” Navia clapped her hands together eagerly. “But if that’s the case, we should have a welcome-back party, shouldn’t we? That’ll get your mind off all this unpleasantness.”

Before Furina could respond with a polite rebuttal, Clorinde cut in, “Let her get settled first, at least. I do agree though. Lady Furina, there’s not much we can do aside from living our life as normal and waiting for this to blow over, which I’m sure will happen in a few days. Gossip doesn’t tend to have a long lifespan.” 

Furina could only hope that those words were true. 

Chapter Text

The gathering within Neuvillette’s office dispersed as suddenly as it had convened, with Navia and Clorinde being the first two to set off, each with her own set of errands to complete. 

Neuvillette then followed suit, leaving for some scheduled business at the Opera Epiclese, but not before instructing Furina to stay put in the office for just a while longer as he briefed Sedene on the situation. Lumine and Paimon also remained, stating they would keep Furina company in the meantime. 

After just a few minutes, the melusine entered the room and gestured for the stragglers to follow her while appearing wholly excited by the duty she was entrusted with.

“First order of business is for us to get your belongings, Lady Furina, so we can take them to the apartment,” Sedene instructed.

Furina looked stricken at the prospect. 

Lumine exchanged a knowing glance with Paimon and stepped in. “Actually, let us two handle the luggage retrieving. It’ll make things faster for everyone. Just give us the address to where you’re taking Furina, and we’ll bring everything there.”

Thus, the plan was set in motion, and Furina was brought to her new home with Sedene by her side. As Neuvillette had promised, the place was indeed close by, merely a few blocks away from the Palais and tucked neatly into a quiet, unassuming alleyway. 

Sedene demonstrated how to work the front door before handing the keys over to Furina, who hesitantly received it with both hands, stepped inside, and gave the apartment a once-over. The space was certainly not as glamorous as her room at Hotel Debord, nor as spacious as the housing she once had at Palais Mermonia, but the plainness of the one-bedroom reminded her of her seaside cottage, and the privacy granted by its location was worth more than anything additional square footage could offer her. 

“Anything else before I head back, Lady Furina?”

“Well, about the rent. How much would that be?”

“You needn’t worry about it.”

“That’s not right,” Furina protested. “I shouldn’t live here for free. It’s not like I’m still the Archon.” 

“If you have any objections to the matter, please work that out with Monsieur Neuvillette,” Sedene said, firmly but gently. “That also reminds me, I was supposed to ask you when you would like to start your employment. This way, I know when to get all the paperwork and your office ready for your first day.” 

Right, the parting promise she had made to Neuvillette. Caught up in the frenzy of this morning, Furina had afforded little thought to the logistics of the matter, which meant she had not considered the possibility that she might have to navigate through the same formalities that an official employee of the Court would, despite hardly classifying herself as one. Her original interpretation was that she would just be informally helping out. 

With no deliberate answer at the ready, she instead gave the first one that came to mind. “I’ll be ready after three days.”

Furina wasn’t sure why, but even though the three days were meant to be a reprieve to get herself more settled, she found herself incapable of unpacking her suitcases. 

They sat, collecting dust in her living room day after the next, mostly untouched except for the couple of occasions when she needed to change out her clothes.

She also failed to purchase any new furnishings or decorations to customize her apartment, because the only times she allowed herself outside each day were brief escapades each morning to look at the newest print of The Steambird. 

She saw no more photos or articles about herself. And of course there wouldn’t be, because she gave no openings to the mysterious photographer, being sequestered away at home. Still, she couldn’t shake the anxiety and anticipation each time she flipped roughly through the pages of a copy of the paper. 

Doubts also began to resurface alongside her heightened apprehension, or perhaps because of them.

How could she be prepared to do something to the magnitude of assessing Neuvillette’s judgment when she couldn’t even muster up the conviction to unpack her luggage? The same luggage that Lumine and Paimon had spent their valuable time and energy hauling over all the way from the hotel, all the while dealing with a messy crowd, no less. 

And here she sat, hopelessly squandering their efforts...everyone’s efforts.  

She hoped that finally organizing her suitcase would help alleviate the ensuing guilt that crept in and lingered. When that had little effect, she wracked her brain for more ideas to suppress the feeling and came away with just one. She had to somehow repay those that she had inconvenienced so far. 

Lumine and Paimon were not too difficult of a case. They would likely be receptive to a hearty meal of some sort. Furina would treat them to one soon enough. 

But Neuvillette — she didn’t know how to start with him. 

So on the morning of the fourth day, she woke at dawn with a new fire dimly lit from within and set off for Palais Mermonia, propelled forward by a newfound mission.  

Sedene was at her usual post and handed over a pile of papers upon seeing Furina for her to review and sign. 

“All the employee policies and details about your compensation, Lady Furina,” she explained. “You’ll have plenty of time later today to look over everything, but for now, please allow me to show you your new office.”

Furina nodded, and the two made their way up the familiar grand staircase to a small room on the second floor. She was quite glad to discover that it was situated on the opposite end of the floor plan from her former residence. There were also no signs or plaques identifying the room from the outside, but once Sedene opened the door, Furina saw a small golden plate sitting atop her desk that bore her name. 

At the center of her workspace was also a small, white cardboard box. 

“What’s this?” Furina pointed to it. 

Sedene was as perplexed as she was. “I don’t know. I haven’t been in here since setting up the room yesterday.” 

Curiosity piqued, Furina approached and delicately lifted the lid to the box. She was greeted by the sight of a slice of cake and a disposable fork. 

All cakes were lovely, but some were more lovely than others, and this particular one she immediately recognized as one of her personal favorites, La Lettre a Focalors. 

“How interesting,” Sedene mused with her head tilted slightly to the side. “Not a bad way to start the day of work for you humans, I suppose.”

“Not bad at all,” Furina murmured under her breath, knowing both who the culprit responsible must be and that the debt she was incurring with him was growing larger still. 

Unfazed by the disruption, Sedene continued with her orientation agenda, no doubt following some sort of mental checklist she had created. “Well, just return the papers to me once you’re finished with them, and that should be all. Monsieur Neuvillette will be handling the rest of your onboarding. He was caught up with some work this morning, but he should be coming back in a bit, according to his schedule. Feel free to wait for him here or in his office.”

Furina chose his office, figuring it would be the more convenient of the two options for him and that she could take advantage of the opportunity to perform some reconnaissance. She brought the cake with her, uneaten in its container, and set it down on Neuvillette’s desk for temporary safekeeping while she painstakingly scrutinized the room. 

Each part of it was just as it had always been, and nothing betrayed any clues on what might be a fitting token of gratitude she could give him. 

She was ashamed to admit that in the centuries she had known him, he was still as much a mystery as ever. Sure, she may have more knowledge about him and his mannerisms than the average Fontainian, but his personal interests and desires continued to elude her. 

The cake he picked out conveyed in no uncertain words that he did not share the same struggles she harbored. 

As she continued her survey of the office, Furina’s attention was caught by an unexpected glint of light. On the lowest shelf of a bookcase was a large flask she hadn’t seen before, partially filled with some water that reflected the sunlight in a way she found unusual. Without thinking, she reached out and picked it up to examine. 

The color and consistency were off, however, as she turned the glass this way and that in her hands to examine. 

She wasn’t sure why Neuvillette would be keeping primordial seawater in his office. Perhaps it had to do with his strange yet fitting fascination with water, but water would be a lousy gift to give in any situation, let alone one in which she was trying to compensate for the troubles she’d caused. She placed the flask back in its original position and moved onto the next bookshelf. 

Her index finger explored the spines of more law books, history anthologies, and encyclopedias. Impersonal. 

“Hm, was this not to your liking?”

With a yelp, Furina leaped back in surprise and collided with a stolid Neuvillette, who steadied her by the shoulders before she could fully lose her balance. 

Heartbeat still facing, she turned to face him with a hand over her chest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“My apologies, I tend to forget that’s the case for many.”

“Were you talking about the books?”

“No, the cake.” He looked at his desk. “I presume that’s why you're returning it?”

“No, no.” She was mortified by his interpretation but couldn’t correct him by telling the truth — that she had been too preoccupied with snooping around to start enjoying the treat. “Actually, I brought it down to see if you wanted to share. Cake’s not meant to be enjoyed in solitude, you know.”

To really sell her story, she bounded over with renewed vigor to pick up the pastry box to set on her lap as she lowered herself onto one of the couches. She gestured at the empty spot next to her for him to sit as well, and Neuvillette briefly paused before complying with unexpected willingness.

The first bite Furina took of the cake made her eyes widen, and she immediately returned for a second one before realizing she was meant to be sharing. 

“Here, it’s good.” A bit embarrassed to have forgotten herself so easily, she scooped up another piece with the fork and offered it up in Neuvillette’s direction.

Instead of taking the utensil from her hand as she had intended for him to do, he reached out and lightly grasped her wrist, pulling the cake to his mouth and swallowing. 

“You should have the rest,” he said easily and rose from her side to walk over to his usual spot behind the desk. 

Even though she was sure the pounding in her chest was audible even from across the room, she did her best to appear unaffected, as the old Furina would have. The old Furina likely would’ve found this whole scenario to be an amusing spectacle, not something to blush about. Neuvillette behaving unconventionally at times was the convention. Her being flustered by him was not. 

She did have enough self-control to resume eating, albeit with unsteady fingers, as Neuvillette began to explain the details of her new job. Her responsibilities sounded simple enough and mostly consisted of looking over court transcripts and files, which worked in her favor, as she found focusing on his words to be a more difficult task than usual. 

“Any questions?”

Furina snapped back to reality. “I guess I’m a bit surprised at a lot of this being so formal. I thought me helping out would be more of a casual arrangement.”

“Humor me on this, if you can, as I prefer to follow the official avenues and procedures to avoid being seen granting anyone special treatment, so to speak.”

She turned her gaze to the now-empty cake box in her lap and pretended to ask in an off-hand manner, “Would this not be considered special treatment?”

“Do you see it that way?” 

Feeling a smidge of disappointment at his nonanswer, Furina responded in kind, “I guess interpretations can vary.”

The corner of Neuvillette’s lips curled to give away the ghost of a smile, though he did not press her for more, instead glancing up to the clock on the wall. “I’m sorry to have to cut this short, but I do have a scheduled appointment coming up if you — ”

Understanding her cue to leave, Furina sprung to her feet. “Of course, I have to go look at all the papers Sedene gave me anyway.”

As she opened the door to leave, she found Clorinde standing by, leaning against the wall in waiting with her arms folded. 

“So it was you in there, Furina. Couldn’t have been better timing.”

“Oh, were you looking for me?”

“I was going to ask Monsieur Neuvillette to give this to you in case I didn’t manage to find you, but here, from Navia.” Clorinde slipped an envelope into Furina’s hands before smiling and disappearing into Neuvillette’s office, no further explanations given. 

Furina didn’t wait before tearing the envelope open. She drew out a card perfumed with a flowery scent and written over with a calligraphy script. 

She was invited to a formal dinner party a week from now. Although the invitation made no reference to the welcome back party that Navia had mentioned before, stating only that the event was a chance for friends to dress up and share a meal, Furina suspected there to be a connection, which made her wary. 

She turned the card over, expecting to see a section to accept or decline, but this one lacked anything of the sort. She wondered whose doing this was.

Chapter Text

Neuvillette had always thought Furina to be an enigma. 

The first time she confounded him was during their initial meeting when he introduced himself to her as the Hydro Sovereign, having come to answer her letter and call. 

“Neuvillette the Hydro Sovereign,” she had repeated after him, slowly and deliberately as if to test out how the words tasted on her tongue. 

Her eyes had flashed with a hint of something he did not recognize for a fraction of a second before she continued on smoothly, in the same dramatic manner befitting the reputation that even he had come to know of. “Yes, I’ve been expecting you. An Archon as busy and popular as myself does have a need for a reliable Chief Justice to properly carry out justice among my adoring subjects. I look forward to seeing what you can do.” 

From then onward, he found himself inexplicably coming back to that moment every so often in his mind, wondering what that look on her face had meant, cursing his keen observation and inability to interpret. 

He didn’t understand his persistent fascination with a topic so mundane. 

Ultimately, he had no choice but to settle on the one explanation he could accept — he was simply curious. That expression of hers was a reaction to his introduction, and it was more than natural to have a baseline desire to know of the first impression one makes on others. On a god, no less.

He also thought that the meaning of that look would inevitably come to him as he slowly learned the intricacies of human emotions, but time only served to raise more questions. 

There was a moment when he had considered asking her directly, but he had his doubts that stopped him in his tracks. 

Everyone else he saw wore their feelings openly, and he had a sense Furina wanted people to believe that of her as well, that her pompousness and grandiosity were genuine, but there were always small indicators that gave her away. Sometimes it was a minor and almost imperceptible shift in her tone, sometimes it was a darkness that descended on her when she thought nobody else was watching, and sometimes it was purely what his intuition told him from years of being by her side. 

He realized quite quickly that she had something akin to an outer persona, though he was never able to guess to what degree that had been true. He didn’t fault her for it. After all, he had a side to himself that he seldom showed except to his Melusines, so why should the Archon not have a side she showed to her subjects and one that she reserved for herself? 

But as a result, he knew that if he asked her anything directly, the outer Furina would be the one giving him an answer, but hers wasn’t the one he wanted. 

And now, the knowledge of her inner self and humanity provided only fuel to think and rethink centuries worth of interactions. Each time, like clockwork, he would always return to that first meeting of theirs. 

How daunting it must’ve been for a mortal, to not only be subjected to the presence of a dragon but to know of it. 

He wondered if he would ever know how she truly thinks and feels. 

Yes, he had always thought her to be an enigma. 

Furina received letters aplenty, from people wishing to flatter her with reverence to those seeking advice, but it was a few years after he took up the position of Chief Justice when she first received a letter of that nature. 

“To look into your eyes, Lady Furina, is to still a longing in me that had previously known no end,” she read the penned note in hand with a sigh while sitting atop his desk with her legs crossed and hanging off the edge. “It’s from someone named Pierre. I believe I’ve spoken to him a few times before at the opera house. What do you make of this, Neuvillette?”

He paused his paperwork. “Of the love letter?”

“Yes, he wishes for a chance to meet me for coffee and dessert privately.”

“Well, I have yet to see you deny an audience with someone who’s requested it, even if the letter was not exactly written to your liking.” 

“The letter is lovely,” she shook her head.

“Then? Is the problem that you don’t think you will enjoy his company?”

She propelled herself off his desk, landed on her feet, and turned to face with a strange sort of intensity. “No, the problem is what if I do end up enjoying his company?”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“I don’t think I fully do, either, but it feels to me that it would be for the best if I denied him.”

Decades later, Neuvillette was further puzzled when he witnessed her shed a quiet tear after learning of Pierre’s passing in the obituary section of The Steambird. He could not figure out why she would respond in such a way to someone she was unable to bring herself to even meet. 

It was also after that point that she began to hire assistants to handle her fan mail. 

At this point in time, Neuvillette had also started to receive letters of a similar nature from men and women alike, and he had followed in her example in dealing with them, though his rejections mostly came from a place of disinterest in such matters. However, even with the first-hand experience he gained, he could not imagine any of his self-proclaimed admirers inspiring the same intensity of emotion in him that he saw wrack Furina that day. 

In fact, he could hardly imagine himself shedding tears for anyone at all.  

Furina was difficult to decipher, but there were a few rare moments when he was certain her reactions belonged to her unadulterated self and not the image she propped up for others.

Whenever she ate cake, her face would transform like it was brought to life for the first time. The sight of it was, admittedly, a delight to see. 

And so, he had felt strangely honored when she showed up to his office that first day of working at the Palais, his gift in tow, asking to share in her slice of joy. 

Although he would never admit the fact openly to her, he was impartial to cake. He found the taste of sugar intense, sometimes bordering on nauseating. Believing that she did not deserve to lose a considerable portion of the treat to someone who could not appreciate it in the same way she could, he dared not take too much from her, only enough to satisfy her request on a technicality, which she seemed appeased enough by. 

Much to his surprise, however, she returned the next day at lunchtime with another bakery box in hand. “Would you like to have some cake together again?”

He obliged, of course. He stood no chance against her. 

By the fourth day of her continuing their daily ritual, he began to anticipate her arrival. However brief, it signaled a break from work, a respite from monotony. 

Each time she came, he would play his part by taking a bite before allowing Furina to devour the rest. And devour she would, until she was left with nothing but a look of such longing on her face while she stared down an empty box devoid of even crumbs, as if wishing for more.

He finally asked at the end of the first week, when she entered his office at noon like usual, “Would you rather have the whole slice to yourself? If so, then please be my guest. Don’t feel obligated to give away something you enjoy because of my earlier gift to you. I’m not one to expect repayment.” 

“No, no, I just prefer it this way,” she said, quick to reject his claims. “I think it makes the cake taste better.” 

Previously, Neuvillette had been swallowing his share of each piece without taking the time to actually taste it, but upon this particular occasion following their conversation, he decided to take a different approach and attempt to savor the bite. 

She was right, it did taste better this way.

Chapter Text

On the sixth day since starting her employment at the Palais, on what was designated a rest day, Furina headed to her office in the morning all the same.

According to the policies outlined in the documents given to her by Sedene, she was meant to have two days of break after every five days of work, with the exceptions of any holidays and additional requested vacation time. The schedule was standard for court employees, but she also knew Neuvillette and the Melusines did not follow the principles of work-life balance that they themselves were eagerly prescribing to her. 

Similarly, Furina saw it more as a recommendation than a commandment.  

Her tasks so far had not been terribly scintillating or demanding, since her days mostly consisted of pondering over reports and writing down her thoughts. Regardless, she felt the seeds of attachment forming and growing within her. 

There was something about engrossing herself in the details of the lives of others that made her forget the state of her own. 

This love for stories was not new and had begun when she first came across the tale of Mademoiselle Crabaletta, which spoke of a humble servant working to earn her keep. However, Furina had turned jaded toward that love after it became evident that stories could no longer serve as her means of escapism. Every story in Fontaine grew so tightly interwoven with her own that they just became constant reminders of the character she was forced to play to dutifully move the plot along for everyone else. There was no respite from her life. 

But now, with the role of Archon and Savior lifted from her, she found this passion rekindled once more on that first fateful day of working when the hours flew by without her usual worries and anxieties manifesting themselves. She lost herself like sugar in water. 

With this discovery, she started to bring work documents home with her, and whenever her thoughts became too much to bear or the memories of her past became too painful, she would throw herself into reading. 

The strategy had served her well so far, even if it did consume much of her free time. That was the intended effect, after all. 

Of course, there were always those pesky stretches of time both before sleep and after waking when she would have to face the world alone, but those moments would always pass quickly, cut short by her reaching for the documents she kept on hand right on her nightstand. 

That was, except on this particular morning, when she discovered she had in fact run out of new court materials to read. 

She felt momentary panic until she managed to reassure herself with a promise that she would simply head to the Palais and retrieve more from Neuvillette, despite having the day off. 

Conveniently, this visit also served as a satisfactory substitute for their newly established lunchtime appointments. Though she wasn’t exactly sure what he thought of them, given he always wore his usual expression and spoke with his usual even tone, she was filled with a strange sense of disappointment at the thought of going a day or two without. 

Their conversations were always unexpectedly calming, even though they usually spoke about nothing of importance. 

And so, this secondary, ulterior motive pushed her steps steadily along. 

Even in spite of all the benefits of her position, she was still not without her reservations. The main one she held had been regarding the daily walks she would have to endure in the public eye in order to get to and from her office each day. 

Stepping out that first day of work had been nothing short of insurmountable, only overcome in the end by the perfect storm of self-deprecation and sense of obligation. 

But as the days went on, while she never became entirely comfortable with leaving her apartment, it turned into more of a daily chore than something to dread. 

The proximity of her apartment to the Palais was close enough that she never had to be outside for too long should she not desire it — whether this was by design or not, she didn’t know. What also worked in her favor was that tended to leave early and returned late enough that the crowds outside were typically sparse and consisted of the same familiar faces, who soon grew used to the sight of her as well. 

Clorinde’s theory proved itself correct. The whispers and pointed glances she would garner had steadily died out as the public found newer and more interesting topics of conversation to ruminate over, especially when she continued to present them with the same drab, unchanging appearance time after time. 

The world moved on quickly. 

As she made her way past the grand entrance of Palais Mermonia, she spotted Sedene at her post, as she suspected she would. 

“It’s your day off isn’t it, Furina?” Sedene had finally stopped addressing her with any titles, upon Furina’s repeated insistence. 

“I just wanted to get something from Neuvillette. I won’t be too long.”

“Monsieur Neuvillette isn’t in.”

“When will he be back?”

“I believe he’s actually out for the whole day.” 

“Oh,” Furina said with a voice slightly higher in pitch than normal. “Well, thank you nevertheless, Sedene.”

Her steps felt heavier during the walk back to her apartment. She would have to find another source of distraction for today at the very least.

When she turned the corner to her alleyway, Furina heard the bantering of two voices that she had no trouble recognizing at this point, no matter the distance. 

“Lumine, Paimon, what are you two doing here?”

“Furina!” Paimon exclaimed, waving as she made her way towards her. “How lucky are we? We were going to knock on your door and ask if you’d want to get ready for Navia’s party together.”

The mention of the party made Furina blanch. 

“Hmm, you haven’t forgotten, have you? It’s at seven.”

“Ah, no, of course not,” Furina said, waving away the claim. In truth, after she had received the invitation, she made a mental note to herself to find a way to let Navia politely know that she wouldn’t be able to attend. 

She didn’t know the young woman well outside of the times they’d met at the Opera Epiclese, having only really heard details about her from others like Neuvillette and Lumine. There was also no telling how large the event would be, or who else would be present, contributing to her reluctance. 

But, she had made the mistake of leaving the invite on her kitchen table, where it was promptly buried under pages of The Steambird she would skim through and carelessly toss aside each day, which meant she soon forgot all about its existence. 

“Well in any case,” Lumine jumped in, “we were planning on dropping by the Chioriya Boutique right after this. Would you like to come along? That is, if you don’t already have an outfit picked out for tonight.”

“I don’t,” Furina admitted sheepishly. 

“Great, then we can get something for you as well. Paimon has been begging me to visit for a while now.”

“Do they have anything in your size, Paimon?” Furina raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“No, but this outfit is suitable for any occasion.” Paimon spun around once in the air to demonstrate, which led Lumine to roll her eyes at the display. “Besides, Lumine lost a bet yesterday, so now her outfit will be personally selected by yours truly, as per the terms we agreed upon.”

“I could’ve lost on purpose, you know,” Lumine teased. “You’ve wanted to dress me up since forever, so maybe I figured tonight’s event would be low stakes enough to give you a trial run of it.”

“Well, the end result is what’s important, and don’t you worry, Paimon has a very good grasp on the fashion trends of Fontaine.” She turned to Furina. “In fact, if you’d like, Paimon would be more than happy to pick out something for you as well.”

Caught off guard by the offer, Furina pondered it for a moment before her thoughts turned to the emptiness that awaited her at home and the absence of her usual diversions. “Actually, that does sound like a good idea.”

“Then it’s settled.” Paimon raised a fist in triumph. “Rest assured, you’re both in good hands.”

Chiori herself wasn’t present when they arrived at the boutique. Instead, they were greeted by a shop assistant, a stylishly dressed young man, who proceeded to hide his flustered expression with a deep bow. “Lady Furina, traveler, please let me know if there’s anything I could help you two with during your visit today.”

“We’re fine looking on our own,” Paimon retorted with a scowl, no doubt miffed at being blatantly forgotten about, and turned away to examine the expansive aisles of clothing in every possible color and design. 

Both Lumine and Furina suppressed a laugh and gave the assistant a thank you before following after their companion, who proceeded to bark out orders on which exact dresses and shoes to try on. 

The next few hours for the three were a flurry of fabric, changing rooms, and accessories, all under the watchful eye and direction of Paimon. Furina had never seen her be quite so serious, like their very own conductor commanding over her tiny orchestra. 

In the middle of the madness, once Furina finally had the chance to take a brief intermission, she decided this would be as fitting a time to ask as any, “Would you two like to share a meal with me at some point, maybe a week from now? It’ll be my treat, and there’ll be pastries, of course.” 

“That’d be fun, what’s the occasion?” Lumine asked, standing in front of a full-body mirror and holding up a breathtaking white gown with lace details in front of herself. “I think this one could be it.”

“It’s beautiful,” Furina commented. “And there’s no occasion in particular, but I did want to thank you and Paimon for helping me with moving the luggage to my apartment and all the other burdens I’ve placed on you two for the past few months.”

“Paimon and I would never turn out good food and company, but we don’t see the things we did for you as a burden.” Lumine’s eyes met hers through the mirror briefly until Furina looked away abruptly. 

She had also been intending on asking Lumine if she had any ideas on what she could do to thank someone like Neuvillette, given she had failed to make much headway in that area even with their lunchtime meetups, but Lumine’s words made her hold her tongue. 

“Yeah, we do things for friends because we want to,” Paimon cut in as she flew over from the accessories section and pushed a pair of gold earrings into Lumine’s hands. “Now quit dawdling around. If we don’t finish up soon, we’re going to be late!”

Their entourage made their way to Café Lutece with little time to spare. 

“The owner apparently owed Navia a big favor after the Spina helped him resolve a delivery issue, so he’s letting her use their private indoor space for the night, free of charge,” Lumine explained, leading them past the outdoor seating area, which had already been closed down for the day. They walked through doors that eventually led them to a room that was small enough to feel intimate, yet sizable enough that you would struggle to hear a conversation happening across the other end. 

Navia was the one closest to the entrance and the first to notice the arrival of the newcomers. She fluttered over with a wide grin. “Welcome, welcome. All of you ladies look so lovely. Lumine, the white suits you perfectly, and Furina, you look like you’re radiating with the blue and gold. Oh, and of course, Paimon — fabulous as always.”

“We had a good stylist,” Lumine responded. Furina smiled in agreement as her fingers fiddled with the chiffon fabric of her skirt unknowingly. 

“I’ve never seen you with straightened hair before, Navia,” Paimon said, eyes transfixed. “It

“Well, I’ve always wanted to try it at least once.” Navia used a hand to brush through her distinctive golden locks, now falling even longer down her back with the curls gone. “Everyone else has already arrived and are just socializing for now, but there are activities planned for later. I’m actually in the middle of finishing up some preparations, so if you can excuse me just in the meantime. Now, please make yourselves comfortable and get some refreshments.” 

They split away from Navia to stroll farther inwards, and while Lumine and Paimon fell into a wayside conversation with Clorinde who approached them, Furina had the opportunity to take in her surroundings and the feast present for all of her senses. 

There was a faint scent of sweet vanilla filling up the space, likely being emitted from the candle centerpieces adorning several round standing tables scattered evenly throughout the room. Each table was also set up with a display of finger foods, baked goods, and drinks, advertising an open season for the guests to help themselves. 

Furina soon came to realize that the event was a much more intimate affair than her original anticipation. There were maybe only fifteen or so people present, and each person she had seen before in some capacity or other. Wriothesley, Chevreuse, Charlotte...everyone had ditched their usual styles and hairdos for something grander. 

When her wandering eyes finally landed upon Sigewinne from afar and the figure she was speaking with, Furina did an unwitting double take. 

His face was turned away and obscured, and he looked uncharacteristic in a dark suit vest and his hair pulled back and tied up, but despite it all, she knew it was undeniably Neuvillette. 

The sight was puzzling. 

She had always been the public face for Fontaine, and he the private one. Notorious for his avoidance of social engagements in the past and not because of a lack of invites, he had only attended one or two that Furina could recall from memory, so to see him here was an anomaly she had not been prepared to see. Perhaps he also ended up here more due to circumstance, like she had. 

As though he felt someone’s stare drilling into his back, Neuvillette turned his head, and as though he knew she was the culprit, his gaze landed directly on her. She froze, and they stayed like that for the briefest of seconds, the room empty except for them, until Sigewinne said something that made him break away in order to respond.

“Furina, you’re turning red,” Paimon whispered in her ear, having taken a pause from her conversation with Lumine and Clorinde. “Maybe you should get something to drink to cool down?”

“Ah yes, I’ll do that,” Furina said whilst quickly casting her eyes downwards and reaching up to her hair to tuck a piece of it behind her ear. A convenient excuse to use her hand to conceal the pinkness in her face. She threw one last surreptitious look at Neuvillette before making her way towards a table with drink options. 

Curious, Paimon also glanced in the direction Furina had been looking in. 

She tilted her head, caught sight of Neuvillette, then smirked.

Chapter Text

The drink Furina picked up was sparkling, fruity, and irresistibly delicious — so much so that she urged Paimon to indulge in one of her own as well. 

Although the little description placard next to the spread had listed alcohol amongst its ingredients, Furina was hardly able to tell with the sweetness and acidity that masked any sort of bite the whiskey could have had. 

While Paimon nursed her glass, she began to tell of a long-winded tale about an incident that irked her from the day before, which turned more and more incoherent as time slipped by. Something about a young man from Sumeru who wore a large hat and made it a habit of his to make fun of her. 

Partway through the retelling, Paimon trailed off, stifled a hiccup, then shoved the rest of her half-empty drink into Furina’s hands. “Paimon thinks if she drinks any more, she’ll no longer be able to fly.”

Furina swallowed a laugh at her companion’s slurred words. “Let’s get you back to Lumine in one piece then, before you fall to the ground.”

She led Paimon, still babbling while struggling to remain balanced in the air, to Lumine. It was Lyney, however, who noticed them first, having been locked into a conversation with the traveler, facing their direction. 

“Paimon, you’re so red someone might mistake you for having a Pyro vision,” he teased.

Lumine whipped around to witness the scene and apologized profusely to Furina before dragging a protesting Paimon away with her to retrieve some water. Lyney gave Furina a shrug and a smile, then followed after the departing pair with the pretense of wanting to help, though the amusement twinkling in his eyes betrayed his real intentions.

Left to her own devices, Furina quickly realized that she had stuck by either Lumine’s or Paimon’s side this entire night thus far. And now, when presented with the opportunity to mingle, to walk up to others, and to be like anyone else, she was struck by her distinct lack of knowledge on how .

Furina the Hydro Archon had always been the one being approached in any crowd. Although her inexperience in the roles being reversed was mostly an unintended side effect of her prior celebrity status and not by design, she still cursed herself for her incapability. 

How should she spark up a conversation first when she knew not what to say? When she was clueless as to how she might be perceived?  

At least in the past, she had the luxury of being certain that her people adored her, of knowing exactly how she was expected to act and talk. 

She was capable, however, of tossing and turning over every idea that came her way.

While she knew everyone here at least peripherally, she had no depth of knowledge for most, so any personal topics would be hard to broach. 

Nothing she had done lately could be considered particularly interesting, so she doubted that would be a suitable entryway to a lively discussion either. Popular culture and entertainment was another potential candidate, but it had been months since she had personally attended any shows or concerts at the Opera Epiclese, and thus, she crossed that item off her list as well.

To avoid appearing lost and aimless while lost in the throes of her internal debate, Furina finished up the remainder of the drink that Paimon had pawned off to her and made her way to the table to grab another, and before she knew it, she had downed two more servings of the cocktail with hardly a break in between.  

She didn’t remember the last time she had a drop of alcohol, let alone in public. She had seen the transformations people underwent in the aftermath — how it made them weep, lose their inhibitions, or lower their guards — and she wanted no part in it. She had an image and secrets to keep, after all. With all of that weight now lifted, however, she let herself be spurred on by her curiosity.

Instead of the debilitating side effects she had been fearful of, she was mostly overcome by a feeling of soothing warmth spreading its tendrils throughout her body while she struggled more and more to keep up with the speed of the world. 

The most dramatic of surprises came when the storms in her head quieted down to barely a murmur. Thinking too hard about any specific subject took a great deal of concentration that she found she could no longer sustain, so she gave up on it. 

Making conversation wasn’t so bad. How she would be perceived didn’t matter. Even that look she shared with Neuvillette, which she had been agonizing over in the back of her mind, hardly had any deeper meaning. 

He could very well have just meant it as an invitation for them to speak. 

Yes, starting a conversation with Neuvillette was especially not so bad, Furina thought, not so much landing on that conclusion as stumbling and tripping into it. 

She set off in his direction, her steps a tad wobbly yet resolve unwavering, but this seemingly simple plan was immediately thwarted when Clorinde intercepted her path. 

“Furina, perfect timing. I was just about to ask Charlotte about that picture of us on the paper to see if she knew anything.” 

“Is that right?” Not even the mention of the tabloid photo could dampen her spirits at the moment. 

Charlotte stood beside them with some awkwardness. She wasn’t sporting her usual eyepiece tonight but still made a practiced move to attempt to adjust it with her fingers until realizing its absence. “Ah, I do apologize for that, but I unfortunately don’t know much about it, let alone had a say in the decision to publish that. The only thing I managed to gather after the fact was that it was sent to Euphrasie, our editor-in-chief, anonymously through the mail.”

Clorinde folded her arms together. “I suppose there’s little chance of tracing where it came from, then?”

Charlotte shook her head. “I did tell Euphrasie after learning of it that I didn’t think it was the best idea for us to be printing something like that, but she was more focused on what it could do for our readership numbers.” She lowered her voice drastically in volume. “Don’t spread this around, but Steambird sales have been in a pretty big downturn in the last month or so.”

“How come?” Furina asked.

Charlotte glanced around them quickly to ensure nobody was in a position to eavesdrop. “You know our editorial columnist who goes by the pen name of Monsieur Desjardins?”

It was Clorinde who nodded enthusiastically in response. “I’ve enjoyed some of his articles from time to time. I don’t think I’ve seen one recently though. Is he on break?”

“There was actually an, ahem, incident that made him quit The Steambird. Creative differences, I was told — I’m not clear on the details since he left in such a hurry. But ever since, a lot of his loyal fans and readers who mainly read our entertainment content have stopped purchasing copies.” A quiet sigh of consternation escaped from Charlotte. “We did recover for a week or so after that sensational headline, but we’ve begun to dip again, and everyone’s a bit worried.” 

“Why not replace him?”

“We are trying to but haven’t found anyone yet with that same flair in their writing. I’ve also given a shot at covering some of his content, which you might’ve seen in some of the issues, but it’s…not my area of expertise.”

“What are the application requirements?”

Furina thought Clorinde uncharacteristically intense in her line of questioning.

“Hm, he mostly wrote reviews for shows and restaurants or personal opinion pieces on pop culture, so we’d like a writing sample on one of those topics. Then an interview.”

“Furina, maybe you’d be a good fit? I’ve seen some of the letters you’ve written. You’d have a knack for it.”

Charlotte perked up. “Wait, that sounds like a wonderful idea. What do you think, Furina?”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Well you likely don’t have the best impression of us at The Steambird, understandably so,” Charlotte replied, and Furina did not feel compelled to correct the misconception on the real reason for her refusal. “I do think you’d be a strong candidate though, so if you change your mind, please let me know!”

Furina gave a response of noncommitment, which satisfied the present party enough for the time being, and their conversation jumped to several other meandering topics, during which she failed to find a suitable timing to excuse herself away. 

Neuvillette will have to wait. 

She was listening attentively to Clorinde excitedly explaining the intricacies of her newly discovered hobby, Genius Invocation TCG, when they turned towards the sound of Navia clinking a fork against a wine glass.

“If I can have everyone’s attention, please gather around the stage over here and grab a seat. We have an exciting performance in store.”

The stage she spoke of was a slightly raised platform against the back wall of the room, just large enough for a string quartet or in this case, an unoccupied table set up for two.

A few rows of cushioned chairs, which Navia had been moving around just moments earlier, were set up to face the arrangement, just enough for every person in attendance.

Furina was pulled along by Clorinde and ended up sandwiched between her and Lumine, newly returned from her expedition of sobering up Paimon, who was now looking much more lucid in the air.

She did not settle fully, however, until she peeked left and right in succession until she spotted Neuvillette’s figure a few seats away, half-obscured by Sigewinne. 

After all the guests save two had claimed a spot in the audience, Navia beckoned Lyney and Lynette forth onto the stage. “As a special treat, we have something exciting prepared from our resident magician prodigies. Take it away, you two!”

“Thank you, Navia,” Lyney said, taking the lead. “Lynette and I have been working hard to develop a new act, and we wanted to showcase it in front of a smaller group first to gather some initial feedback. So please sit back and enjoy with a critical eye.”

Lynette gave a small, reserved smile and pulled out a deck of playing cards from behind her back. “First we need a volunteer.”

Before anyone could, Paimon pushed Furina’s hand up in the air. Too late to retract the offer made in her stead, she laughed awkwardly at the scrutiny that immediately came her way.

“Lady Furina,” Lyney called out with mild surprise. “We appreciate your enthusiasm. Please come to the front and pick a card from Lynette’s hand.”

Furina silently thanked the drinks for having eroded away her capacity for stage fright at least temporarily.

Pushed along by the rising encouragement of everyone around her, she stepped up, looked through the shuffled deck, and plucked out the king of hearts. Upon being prompted, she obligingly showed its face to the audience. 

“Next, we are in need of a second volunteer, but this time, you get the honors of picking, Lady Furina. Look through your choices, take a second to think about someone you might cooperate well with onstage, then go up to them.”

As everyone observed her with a deafeningly quiet intensity, each person eager to be the first to catch a whiff of some sort of magic, Furina’s feet brought her forward, forward, until she was face to face with the only one among them that she had considered for the purpose at hand. 

Up close for the first time tonight, his familiar visage and moonlit hair were a welcomed sight. He fixed his gaze evenly on hers, but his eyes, which she long suspected could pierce right through her, now betrayed a hint of his being caught off guard by this development.

He recovered quickly, in time for Lyney to call out, “Excellent decision. Now, Monsieur Neuvillette, if you’re fine with participating, please reach under your chair and see if you might find anything of interest.”

As directed, Neuvillette knelt beside his hair, reached a hand to its underside, and fiddled around briefly before producing a playing card. He stood and extended it towards Furina, face-up. A small smile danced at the corner of his mouth.

“They match,” she breathed, then let out a laugh of wonder.

A similar sentiment rippled through the crowd, with some even attempting to search underneath their own chairs on the off chance they found a gimmick of some sort, all to no avail.

“Seems like fate is telling us that you’ve made the right decision, Lady Furina. I think we’ll have a spectacular show ahead of us indeed. Now, I’ll ask that you two take a seat up here at the table we’ve set up on the stage.”

With Neuvillette close behind, Furina returned to the front and sat down at one end of the table while he did the same across from her. Lynette produced two more decks of cards and dispensed one to each of them. 

“Shuffle them however you’d like, but keep them face down so nobody can see,” Lynette instructed. 

Neuvillette was quick to complete the task, but Furina took a bit more time, her fine motor skills slightly impeded. 

Lyney then directed them to randomly select a card but wait to reveal it until both were ready. Furina observed Neuvillette making his decision and made sure to pick from the opposite end of her deck. After a countdown from Lynette, they both flipped the cards over at the same time and turned them toward the spectators, bringing forth ever more mumbling. Again, their cards matched exactly. 

“No way!” Paimon verbalized what Furina had been thinking herself. “What if that’s just a coincidence?”

Playing along, Lynette mirrored Paimon’s concern to Lyney. “That’s true, brother. What if that was just a stroke of pure luck?” 

“An understandable concern. To prove our skeptics wrong, let’s have our volunteers try again, but this time, I’d like to also invite Paimon up to choose a card as well from Lady Furina’s deck.”

Paimon was excited to be included and flew to Furina’s side, watching as they repeated the shuffling process. When the time came to pick, Paimon first held herself back, scrutinizing every move Neuvillette and Furina made with squinted eyes, making sure she could see no funny business occurring. 

This time, while Furina’s and Neuvillette’s cards matched again, Paimon’s was completely different in both color and suit. 

Lyney shrugged, feigning innocence. “Seems like you don’t have that same level of connection as our other volunteers.”

“Don’t tease Paimon like that,” she huffed and crossed her arms as a scattering of laughs sounded from beneath the stage. 

“You’re right, you’re right. As an apology, how about you be our volunteer for the next set of tricks? You can take your pick of partner as well.”

Appeased, Paimon eagerly called for Lumine to join her, and Furina took that as a convenient cue for her exit. While stepping down from the side of the stage, however, she let one of her heels strike the ground at an odd angle in a moment of carelessness. Her arms flew out in search of something to steady herself against, but it was Neuvillette’s hand catching her around her waist that ultimately stopped her from toppling. He released his grip as soon as she found her balance again.

Thankfully, their movement appeared natural enough that the audience, with its attention elsewhere, failed to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Thanks , she mouthed to him.

“You’re a bit unsteady tonight,” he remarked, quietly enough to ensure only she could hear. 

“I might’ve had one too many to drink,” she admitted sheepishly.

“I see,” he said in acknowledgment, then offered up his arm for her to take ahold of, which she did without a second thought as to how odd of a gesture this was for Neuvillette to make or for her to accept from him. She was spurred on by the pure and simple desire to not risk falling again more than anything else. Nor was she fazed, in her tipsy and amenable state, when he escorted her back to her seat and planted himself down in Lumine’s now-vacant chair. 

What finally gave her pause — or perhaps a moment to reflect — was the blatant refusal of her brain to process the remainder of the performance, even as her eyes drank in every illusion and sleight of hand put on display. She was sure she would be utterly incapable of summarizing any part of what happened. 

On the other hand, she was certain she would be able to recount each movement Neuvillette made beside her with no trouble at all.

Chapter Text

The grand finale of Lyney and Lynette’s performance was met with thundering applause and cheers. 

If Paimon and Lumine were surprised to see that their seat was now occupied by the Chief Justice, they made no show of it when returning from the stage, instead opting for an open chair a row behind.

When the twins finished their bows, Navia took to the front of the audience once more, this time carrying a contraption in her arms. “Thank you all for being so engaged and lovely! The entertainment for the rest of the night will be courtesy of this —” she gave the object an affectionate pat and set it down “— Euphonium Unbound device. Lumine has kindly lent me a large collection of spincrystals from her travels throughout Teyvat, so we’ll be in for a real treat.”

The crowd dissipated, with some individuals approaching Lyney and Lynette to offer their personal thoughts on the show. Others began to spread out on an open section of the floor to dance along to a particularly upbeat song ringing out from the Euphonium. 

Energized by the sight of a new activity, Paimon pushed Lumine towards the dancers to the best of her small-statured ability and called out to both Furina and Neuvillette with a pout, “I better see you over here, too, Furina! You as well, Neuvillette. It’s the least you can do after stealing Lumine’s seat.” 

“I suppose I must,” Neuvillette said, turning to Furina. “Would you care to join?”

“I didn’t know you could dance,” she said, surprised he was so willing to comply with Paimon’s throwaway request.

“I can’t, but I trust you have enough expertise for the both of us.”

A morbid curiosity overtook whatever reservations she may have held. She and many others had long wondered what Neuvillette would be like when he danced, a sight that had never been revealed before, given how scarcely he attended any socials.

His confidence in her was not unfounded, as she was indeed practiced at the skill as part of her past engagements as Archon. Furina adopted a didactic tone as she stepped up to the monumental task he entrusted to her, carefully describing how he should step with his feet and respond to her cues. Her expression managed to betray none of the nerves she felt deep in her stomach, nor the burning emanating from her waist where he rested his hands.

“You’re a natural at this,” she observed after their first song came to a close. He had followed her directions with astounding ease.

“You move like water flows,” he offered in return as if it were all the explanation that was needed.

A song later, when Neuvillette found that dancing no longer required the totality of his concentration after Furina’s movements settled into comfortable predictability, he chose a different thread of conversation. “I didn’t expect to hear from Sedene that you came by the Palais earlier today. Was something the matter?”

“No, no, I just came by to ask for some more case files.”

Uncharacteristically, Neuvillette arrived a beat late to his next step, which also threw off Furina’s rhythm, requiring them both to take a moment to gracelessly realign themselves. After the ordeal, he remarked, “What you accomplish on your working days is more than enough. There’s no need to overextend yourself in your leisure time as well.”

“I don’t find it tiresome. The reading and writing has been a nice change of pace.”

“Rest is still a grave necessity to humans, I’m told.”

“I do rest. Like now, for example.”

Her defense was met with skepticism, but before he could level an argument against her, Navia appeared beside them, smiled at Furina, and asked, “Sorry to interrupt, but could I steal you away for the next song?”

No protest came from Furina, despite being caught off guard, and Neuvillette stepped aside for Navia to take his place. 

“Monsieur Neuvillette dancing, huh? I never thought I’d live to see the day,” Navia grinned with self-satisfaction as she took Furina’s hand and began a choreography they were both familiar with, accompanied by a Fontainian ballad. 

“I had the same thought,” Furina replied, good-natured enough but still hesitant and uncertain why Navia had sought her out for their first ever tête-à-tête.

Navia did not let her wonder for long, and her eyes grew solemn as she said, “I wanted to talk alone, actually, so I could apologize to you.”

“Apologize?” Now Furina was the one to mess up. “What for?”

“For how your trial went down. I know you might not have the most positive impression of me for my part in it, but I do regret how it ultimately played out.”

Furina remained quiet.

“Everyone’s still not sure what the entire story is with you and the Hydro Archon, but Monsieur Neuvillette did his utmost to instill in everyone that you were crucial to Fontaine’s salvation despite refusing to reveal any details, saying it wasn’t his tale to tell.” Navia took a moment to catch her breath, then went on, “Despite all that, there are still many who’ve held onto their doubts about you due to the events of the trial and my actions, which I am very sorry for. That, and for also having had misgivings of my own about you.” 

“Thank you,” Furina said genuinely after finding her words again. Navia appeared relieved, even more so when she followed up her statement with, “I’m not one for holding grudges, and I know you had the best intentions for Fontaine at heart.”

She hadn’t spoken about the trial with anyone, not even Lumine or Neuvillette, both of whom had respected her desire for space and privacy regarding the matter. Navia’s innocent candor in the present moment, however, had a much more freeing effect than she could’ve ever guessed.

Their dance concluded on a high note, and Navia bore a wide smile on her face as she said, “I’m glad there’s no bad blood between us despite everything, and I hope we’ll see each other more frequently in the future. I won’t keep you any longer, but make sure to eat up and drink up!”

They parted ways, with Furina feeling a modicum lighter on her feet. 

She scanned the room in search of Neuvillette and spotted him off to the side of where he had been standing, speaking with Sigewinne once more. Slightly disappointed but unwilling to interrupt them, she made her way to Lumine and Paimon again, resolving to catch him once he became unoccupied again.

But, that situation never arose, because the next time she peered in his direction, she witnessed a young woman approaching him as Sigewinne took her leave. Furina wasn’t familiar with her, but had seen her out and about with Navia and presumed she was likely someone from the Spina. 

In response, Furina redirected her focus back to her companions, but couldn’t help but glance over every so often to the same scene each time — the woman blushing furiously while speaking to Neuvillette.

After the third time, Furina decided she had to break herself of this habit, which was doing nothing for her aside from contributing to a growing unease. Knowing she couldn’t guarantee total control over her compulsion if she stayed within earshot, however, she made an excuse to Lumine and Paimon that she was feeling a bit too warm in the room and would return shortly after a quick break outside. 

The crisp night air did wonders at numbing the sharpness of her emotions, just as the frigid sea waters had once before. 

She knew what the pang was — disappointment verging dangerously on envy. Neuvillette and her had been like ships in the night, always just barely missing each other throughout the event. Logic told her, however, that she had no more claim to his attention than anyone else in the room.

So then why did she want it?

Silly, silly, Furina, she uttered to herself. When her mind finally settled, courtesy of the sharp breeze brushing over her bare arms and shoulders, a familiar voice interrupted her meditation. “I was told I’d find you here.”

She turned to see Neuvillette, now with a suit jacket slung over his shoulder.

“Were you tired of the festivities?” He asked.

“Something like that.” She gave him a wan smile.

His gaze took her in, and he said matter-of-factly, “That doesn’t seem to be true.”

“No,” she confessed, finding herself lacking the energy to lie but also having no desire to elaborate on the truth. “It’s nothing, really. The real reason would probably sound quite frivolous to you.”

“Why do you suppose that?”

“Because nothing fazes you.”

“Nothing fazes me?”

“What I’m trying to say is, ah, it’s because —” She stopped herself, realizing she may have made matters worse, then continued, realizing it may be too late to backtrack, “You don’t get very affected by things, you know? Always reacting calmly and taking everything in stride, no matter what the circumstances are. Unlike me.”

He looked at her with an odd expression that made her avert her eyes. 

“Sorry, ignore what I said.” She laughed nervously. “It’s late, and I’m not thinking straight, which makes me think it’s about time I start heading home. I’ll go in and say goodbye to Lumine and Navia.”

“I can see you back to your apartment.”

Relieved that he was willing to forgo his pursuit of the previous subject matter, she jumped ahead and asked, “You’re leaving as well? You should also let them know, then.”

“I already have, so I’ll wait for you here. If I step inside, I fear it may be a while until I can manage to extricate myself again.”

She returned to Café Lutece as cool as can be, secretly glad that as it turned out, their ships were destined for the same harbor. 

“Are you cold?” Neuvillette inquired shortly after they set sail for Furina’s apartment. Seeing that she was unable to deny the allegation, he shrugged off the suit jacket that had been draped over his shoulders and handed it over. “I was unsure why Sigewinne had insisted I bring it, given I have no real need for its protection, but I suppose there was a use after all.”

“Thank you. And Sigewinne.” She retreated into the protection of the blanket and allowed herself to indulge in the guilty pleasure of a single deep breath, taking in the faint yet pleasant scent of petrichor that accompanied the warmth.

Their journey progressed along smoothly under the watchful eyes of a full moon. After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Furina brought up what she had been mulling over in her head ever since her dance with Navia, “Something Navia said to me at the party made me remember how you’ve told me before that you knew why I had to lie to everyone about who I was. How much do you know, exactly?”

She listened, attentive and silent, as Neuvillette looked into the distance and began to methodically recount what exactly had transpired between him and Focalors in the aftermath of her trial. 

When he finished, she took a minute to collect her thoughts and said, perhaps under the influence of Navia’s openness towards her prior, “I was fully prepared to feel ashamed after getting the confirmation that you knew everything.”

“And do you?”

“I’m more relieved than anything else.” She paused. “It’s strange, isn’t it?”

“That you’re relieved?”

“No, that in spite of all this time we’ve known each other, we so rarely talk about ourselves like this. Maybe we should do it more often.”

He pondered and replied, “Tell me more, then, what you think.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“Right now?” Furina laughed, even though Neuvillette did not have the air of someone who was joking. “I think the macarons from tonight might’ve been the best ones I’ve ever had. I think I like it when there’s light rain outside, but not so much torrential downpours, and I think I might want to try traveling outside of Fontaine one day. Should I go on?”

After he nodded encouragingly, she rambled about her thoughts on nothing and everything until they reached the entrance to her apartment in much too short a time. She handed his jacket back and was given a question in return. “Do you really believe that I’m unfazed by everything?”

“I, ah, didn’t mean it in a negative way,” she said, all of a sudden quite bashful that he hadn’t forgotten about their previous exchange as she’d hoped. The desire to correct any misunderstandings won out, however, and she pressed on, “You do need to be like that when the responsibility of an entire nation is on your shoulders. People feel reassured when they’re in the hands of someone reliable and unchanging like the sea.”

“I don’t think that’s entirely fair of you to say.”

That was not the outcome she intended for, and wanting to reintroduce some levity after seeing his knitted brows, she hurriedly followed up in a more lighthearted tone, “Actually, unchanging is probably the wrong word to use, since I used to think the one thing that could break your composure was when people touched you, but you seem to be fine with it now.”

She reached up to brush aside the strands of hair framing his face and let her hand fall gently downwards to trace the contours of his jaw. Upon realizing the gravity and impulsion of what she had just done, she retracted her arm with alarming speed. “I’m sorry, I —”

“Do it again.” His voice was a low murmur, a half-whisper.

“What?”

“Your hand.”

Tentative but sensing his insistence, she complied.

Tenderly, almost as if he were afraid, Neuvillette took her other hand and placed it on his chest where, even with barely any pressure, she could feel the steady thump of his heart grow in strength and tempo. 

“Was that sufficient evidence?”

She was faced with an ample amount of it, that was for certain, all trying to prove that she had been mistaken. His heart, which she had within her grasp moments ago, twisted in the same manner as hers. Yet, none of what she was witnessing felt possible or right. His physical reaction ran completely contrary to the view she held of him in her mind. 

He was the Iudex, the benevolent Hydro Sovereign who commanded more respect and power than she could hope to hold, a distant star beyond her reach. And yet, he now stood, purporting that she was enough to shake him. She had to be sorely mistaken.

Her countenance must’ve betrayed her thoughts to him. “You don’t look entirely convinced.”

The evidence was sufficient enough, however, to unlock a desire within her that had remained dormant until now, when it burst forth and possessed her to breathe out, “Then show me more.”

Did he take her words as a taunt, a request, or even a desperate plea? She hardly knew which she had intended in the first place. Nonetheless, she held herself utterly still as he drew nearer, with her hand still laid atop irrefutable proof that conveyed in no uncertain terms Neuvillette was, in fact, not unwavering. Not untouchable. 

None of Furina’s insecurities or decisions and indecisions mattered when he was close enough for her to inhale. With her mind erased cleanly by him, she was the one who ultimately chose to rid herself of the distance between them, brushing her lips against his and becoming his undoing.

Chapter Text

For a blissful few seconds, all that occupied Furina’s mind was the faintly sweet taste of Neuvillette on her lips and the peacefulness of surrender.

The trouble soon began, however, when she pulled back to release the breath she didn’t know she was holding. As drunk on him as she was, the expression she saw him wearing was enough to snap her out of her reverie violently. 

His eyes were unreadable, but the rest of his face was troubled. Distracted. Lost in thought.

Her stomach dropped to her feet, and her head, so calm just a moment ago from the haze of happy chemicals, was overtaken with a distinct rush of dread.

What had she been thinking?

She was aware of the invisible prison that had confined them both. While they never spoke of it, she was sure he was also well aware of the restrictions they faced, which were just the natural price they paid for the heavy responsibilities they bore and the fact that they could not die; they could be amiable with others but never too much or too attached. They spoke with others often but never too personally. They viewed people as important but never special.

Now, with Focalors’s curse and Furina’s position of power taken away, she was freed from the chains that bound her, free to feel for others as she wished. He alone remained tethered, farther away from her than he had ever been. Behind a line she could no longer cross, for both of their protection.  

But cross it she did, with all her presumption and impulse when all he had done was convey that he was still affected by her touch. Not that he was okay with it, or even wanted it. 

He wasn’t the type to openly rebuke her for overstepping, but she should know better than anyone that he could no longer reciprocate.

Reciprocate...reciprocate what, exactly? What had she intended for the kiss to mean?

She couldn’t place what it was that she felt for him, but mired deep within the jumbled mess of a situation, she sensed there was something within her. She had liked the kiss and wished for more, but that was certainly not an option she should entertain. 

Instead, she feigned coolness and offered him a weak smile. A route of escape. “We don’t have to speak of this.”

She could’ve sworn he looked strangely relieved.

“Okay,” he finally responded, forming the syllables with care like he was handling glass. “Goodnight, Furina. Sleep well.”

Quietly, she returned the sentiment, not waiting to see him leave before retreating into the safe haven of her apartment. 

She proceeded to lie in bed wide awake the entire night, the sedative effects of the alcohol long gone by now from her system. She turned over every thought in her head, and by the time sleep found her in the wee hours of the morning, she came away with more questions than answers.

Still, one thing was for certain. Inadvertently, with every gesture he made, Neuvillette had stuck into her heart and lingered. She was a stranger to love, but she had witnessed enough couples coming together and breaking apart in her long lifetime to recognize the burgeoning symptoms within herself. She would be foolish not to.

The fire he lit could not be extinguished by sheer force of will, but if she kept it in check, maybe it would slowly burn out on its own. 

That was the unselfish outcome and the one that would benefit them both. It was what she should be hoping for, but nevertheless, she struggled.  

Despite running on empty the next morning, Furina still observed her usual ritual of purchasing the daily edition of The Steambird. The news stall she frequented usually had a steady supply of at least a few dozen copies, but on this particular occasion, its stock was running oddly low. 

Intrigued and still anxious from the hours spent fretting, she didn’t wait until she returned home to start flipping through the paper’s contents. Methodically, she skimmed through page by page, finding nothing of interest until she reached the tabloids section.

Instead of seeing any traces of herself like she had been fearing, Furina was met with a full-colored shot of Neuvillette walking in the city, his face angled away from the Kamera, likely not privy to the fact he was being photographed. His outfit, hairstyle, and lighting in the background setting all pointed to the time around when Navia’s party would’ve been starting the day prior. He must’ve been on his way there.  

Neuvillette had always been somewhat of a celebrity in his own right, but he neither cared nor gave it even a sliver of his attention. If he were to see this spread, she knew he would easily toss it aside without another thought, but she found herself unable to look away. 

He was very eye-catching in the picture, she admitted with guilt, coming to understand the paper’s sudden surge in popularity. 

Part of the allure could be attributed to the rare sight of him in public without his typical judge’s garb. Reasonably so, as seeing him the way he was must’ve been quite the novelty. Hell, even she was susceptible to its charms.  

With some conscious effort, she turned her eyes away from the picture and down to the article accompanying, curious. The text started by recounting some well-known factoids about Neuvillette. It then proceeded to sing him praises for his actions in handling the flood and the marine beast that appeared in the courtroom. In the middle, buried within the paragraphs, she spotted herself being mentioned.

Monsieur Neuvillette’s actions that day secured the safety of Fontaine and its people, standing in stark contrast to the inaction of our former Archon.

It was no more than a passing thought in the midst of the grand tribute, probably meant to provoke, and Furina knew she should not take it to heart. At least, that was what Lumine, Paimon, and everyone else would tell her if they were here.

But she would be lying to say she was numb to it all. The words stung no matter how true or false they were.

What hurt more than falling from the public’s graces, however, was that The Steambird gave even more credence to the rift she felt growing between her and Neuvillette. While not new knowledge, it was somehow more visceral coming from an outside source. 

She had what she wanted — to be mortal and normal, just like anyone else, but she hadn’t quite anticipated the collateral damage that came with it. 

That night, the few hours that she was able to close her eyes were spent experiencing the same recurring set of nightmares of her being stuck underwater, plus a surprising new addition. 

Neuvillette was there, his back turned to her. Her feet were stuck to the ground, sinking into it, and no matter how much she yelled for help, he kept walking away without turning around, giving no indication whatsoever that he heard her cries until she was fully submerged once again. 

Then, when she would invariably wake to relieve herself of the dreams, she would worry over what was to come tomorrow at work. Should she continue with her regular lunchtime rendezvous with him, going on as if nothing had happened? She had essentially communicated to him that was her intent and desire, but perhaps he would prefer to be rid of her completely. 

Or, for all she knew, he barely thought anything of the incident in the first place. Maybe a kiss was just a kiss to him and nothing else. She wasn’t sure which would be worse. 

On and on her thoughts would run, and when the morning finally came, she felt the toll that two consecutive days of little rest had on her body. The one thing she had been looking forward to was receiving new reading materials again to keep her mind busy and quiet, but now that she had them in hand, she could hardly keep her eyes open, let alone process any of the words printed on the pages.  

The light, rhythmic pattering of rain against the window panes in her office was also dangerous, and it eventually lulled her to an uneasy, dreamless sleep around lunchtime.

She didn’t rouse herself until hours later, but when she did wake, she noticed the weight of a thick blanket around her shoulders. A single slice of her favorite cake and a sandwich sat in front of her, untouched, inviting. 

There was a briskness in the afternoon air brought on by the lack of sun, but she paid no mind to it as she pulled the blanket off her back and into her lap so that she could bring it up to her nose. Her head filled with the distinct scent of rain, though the soft, woolen material itself was bone-dry. 

She buried her head into her arm and felt the flame in her chest flicker and grow.

Chapter Text

As the days progressed and turned into weeks, the eyes of the public turned to Neuvillette more and more to fill the void left by Furina’s departure from the spotlight. 

The adoration for him grew, so much so that Palais Mermonia had begun to restrict entry during working hours to only allow employees and those with special approval. The decree was set and readily enforced by Sedene, who despised the ruckus caused by the recent influx of visitors hoping to catch a glance of the Chief Justice outside of the opera house. 

On the other hand, Furina finally allowed herself to let go of any residual fears she had of stepping out in public, knowing she lost her status to Neuvillette as an object of scrutiny.  

The Steambird’s readership steadily increased after they discovered the most effective way to pander to their audience, even as the quality of its content strayed further and further from its former glory. 

Furina began to forgo her habit of purchasing the paper, which freed up time in her early mornings, and she stopped working quite so late each day, which spared her evenings as well. The latter part, however, was not of her own volition. 

Ever since the night of the party, Neuvillette had restricted the number of cases she was given to review each week. Whenever she would request more after finishing them at home as usual, he would refuse, citing she’d hit the weekly quota and should consider relaxing with her remaining days. 

No matter how much she opposed the decision, he was unswayed. 

So, with reluctance, she forced herself to stop working so late and to space out her work more evenly throughout the week so that she wouldn’t be left with nothing to do for days on end. With her newfound availability, she started reading books once more and even visited the library on occasion, where she came across Navia multiple times by happenstance. 

On the third such occasion, they struck up a conversation that lasted for well over an hour. By the end of it, Navia had asked Furina to join in on a biweekly card game night that she hosted with Clorinde in Fleuve Cendre, wanting to expand the roster of players. Furina accepted her invitation with far less reservation this time around. 

Even with all these new engagements and changes in circumstances that were thrown her way, Furina was still hit periodically by reminders that much of her life still remained the same. 

For one, her nightmares persisted. They often woke her at odd hours, but she slowly became accustomed to their disruption, and her ability to fall back asleep gradually saw improvement. During the times when she couldn’t, when she was too restless to lay awake all night, she took to visiting the beach and blubberbeasts once more. She felt an inexplicable draw to the cold water that kept her mind happily empty, and the darkness, for all the dangers it could hold, also provided protection against prying eyes and Kameras.

Meanwhile, during the day, she would carry on with Neuvillette like they always had. They continued sharing lunches all the same and spoke to each other all the same, with neither bringing up her overstep. 

She tried to keep her feelings in check — refrained from thinking of him too often, intentionally avoided any physical contact — but he never failed to stir her heart with one small act or another. Sometimes it would just be a look from him that lasted longer than it needed to, or a door he held open for her, or just the attentiveness with which he listened whenever she spoke of anything. 

All her caution was thrown to the wind, however, the day he showed up at her apartment unannounced. 

She had woken up that morning unwell. All of her attempts to walk more than a few steps resulted in lightheadedness, which meant heading to Palais Mermonia for work would certainly be a lost cause. She chose to return to bed and did her best to endure the pressure painfully pushing against her skull. The hours passed slowly and painfully, with no signs of symptoms alleviating. 

When the knocking came in the late afternoon, she dragged her unwilling body to open the door without even caring to check the peephole to see who it could be.

With her hand pressed against the wall for balance, she barely made out Neuvillette’s figure, fuzzy and marred by static, before her vision faded completely to black. 

She woke to see herself back in bed and Neuvillette pacing back and forth a few steps away. “W-what happened?”

“You were passed out for a few minutes. Are you okay? How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, just a bit dizzy. Sorry I wasn’t able to come in today and didn’t let anyone know. I’ll probably be better tomorrow. Is that why you came?’

Instead of answering, he started to lift a hand to her face then stopped himself after a second thought. “May I?”

She assented, and he placed the back of his hand briefly against her forehead. His frown deepened. “You’re feverish. I’ll ask Sigewinne to come and take a look.”

“No, no, I’m okay.” She pushed herself into a sitting position using her elbows to demonstrate. Then, more quietly, she added, “I don’t really want anyone to see me like this. You included.”

“Would you like me to leave?” He didn’t give her an opportunity to respond. “Regardless, I don’t think I can do that in good conscience when you’re in this state, so please do not ask me to. I don’t want to put you in any more distress by having to go against your wishes as well.”

She averted her gaze and murmured, “I’m fine with you staying.”

Satisfied, he glanced over to her kitchen area. “Have you eaten today?”

“No, I haven’t left the bedroom.”

He thought for a moment. “Will you be alright if I step out for a short while?”

“Of course — I’m okay, really. I’m not an invalid.”

Although not entirely convinced by her assurances, Neuvillette left her apartment and soon returned toting various boxes and containers. She watched, stunned, as he laid them out on her nightstand. He opened them all to reveal an assortment of colorful foods.

“I wasn’t certain what would be best, so there is a bit of everything,” he admitted. “Nourishment is especially important if one is ill, I’ve been told.”

Furina didn’t have the heart to tell him that she had little to no appetite, so she leaned over, gingerly tore off a small piece of a sandwich, and popped it in her mouth. She swallowed, but rather than being fulfilled, the food only induced nausea. 

The feeling was subtle enough for her to ignore at first until it bubbled upwards from her stomach and grew so overwhelming that she was forced to throw up what she had just eaten and then some. 

To her horror, the floor was not her sole victim. 

“I — I am so sorry about your jacket,” she croaked. Her lips trembled, and the back of her throat stung. 

“Nothing a bit of water can’t wash off,” Neuvillette replied calmly and slipped out of his soiled coat, dropping it to the ground without a care. He approached her. “I’ll help you to the washroom.”

She could fear tears welling up and a lump forming in her throat, but she swallowed her pride and looped an arm around his for support, recognizing that she would cause more of a scene if she tried to rush away by herself to clean up. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment the entire while the two of them wobbled awkwardly to the bathroom side by side. He left to give her privacy, which she used to rinse her mouth, change into a new set of clothes, and compose herself again. 

By the time she returned, the mess in her bedroom had completely vanished without a trace. She made no inquiries about it. 

Her queasiness had gone as well, but the sharp, debilitating pain in her head lingered.

He must’ve gathered as much from her expression, because as soon as she sat herself down again, he asked, “What can I do to make you feel better?”

His simple question was enough to shatter any remaining pieces of her tough exterior. She was too tired, too disoriented, and too desperate for comfort to fend him off. The promise she made to herself to maintain some distance between them faded away to a distant afterthought. That would be for tomorrow, and this was today.

Overtaken by her want for relief, she inched closer to the edge of the bed, to where he was kneeling, and rested the side of her head on his chest. His heart, at the perfect height against her ear, rang with the familiar beat she had wanted to hear again.

He remained absolutely still, reluctant to disturb her.

Eyelids drooping, she mumbled, “Can you run your fingers through my hair?”

“Whatever you wish,” he whispered in response.

She tried to keep her eyes open until she couldn’t anymore. Her consciousness held on for a little while longer — relishing in the soothing, tingling sensation brought on by Neuvillette’s methodical movements — until that, too, was stolen away by sleep. 

Her new dream was strange. Her vision was blurry, and her head was foggy, even though she was supposed to see and feel everything more acutely than when she was awake. Neuvillette was in a chair beside the bed where she lay, even though he was supposed to be walking away with his back turned. When she sat up and called for him, he responded immediately, even though he was supposed to ignore her. 

Despite the oddities, it must be a dream, because the real Neuvillette wouldn’t let his hands tremble the way it did as he brushed it against her forehead; his hand would never be this cold. He wouldn’t sound afraid the way this one did while saying the words “your fever’s worsened” to her, because he doesn’t get scared.  

But this alternate self of his wasn’t so bad. He smelled just like Neuvillette, dressed just like him, and sounded just like him. She just wasn’t sure why he looked so upset with her. 

Worried that the course of this dream would shift into a nightmare, or that he would leave her once more, she tried to placate him. “I’m sorry I threw up on you.”

He was visibly confused. “It was just an accident. There’s no need to apologize for it.”

She must’ve guessed wrong about why he was angry. After racking her brain, she knew what it had to be. “You must still be mad about being kissed that night. I’m sorry for that, too.”

“What?”

She blinked. “Is that not it either?”

“I’m not mad at you, Furina, especially not about that. I had —” he struggled “— enjoyed it.”

It was a nice change of pace for a dream to evoke some joy for once, to serve her what she wanted to hear. She wondered how far she could push her luck, given there were no consequences for doing so. “Does that mean we can do it again?”

“You would like to?” He appeared as though the thought had never occurred to him before.

“Yes.”

His expression turned soft at her answer. “We can, as much as you’d like.”

“Then...” She trailed off, finding herself shy all of a sudden, and tugged hesitantly at the corner of one of his sleeves.

A shiver rippled through her when he touched his icy fingertips to her chin, lifting it towards him to bring her lips to his. 

For a second, she almost began to question if he were real after all. He felt too lifelike to be a mere figment of her imagination. She had to abandon that train of thought, however, after he flooded her mind so completely that there was little space for anything else.

She was practically buried in him. 

When his thumb grazed her cheekbone, she parted her lips to let out an uncontrolled, contented sigh. As if he had intended for her to respond this way, Neuvillette opened his mouth to fit the new contours of hers. Pieces of a puzzle coming together. And once her tongue had a taste of his, she knew she wouldn’t be able to find anything sweeter in this lifetime or the next.

His hand continued to explore each part of her face, careful yet persistent, clumsy but endearingly so. He traced the length of her jaw to the nape of her neck, then all the way down to the small of her back.

Upon realizing she wanted even more, Furina pulled herself away. 

Her eyes took in the sight of him. How perfect he looked even now, with his breathing more heavy than usual and his cheeks a shade darker. She was there in his shadow, always being greedy, never being the one to give back.

The question slipped out before she could think to stop it, “Neuvillette, how will I ever be able to repay you for everything?”

“What would you need to repay me for?”

“A lot of things. Like this apartment, or my work at the Palais, or the food you’ve gifted me, just to name a few.” For being okay with us kissing, even if only in a dream .

“It’s the least you deserve after all you’ve given to Fontaine.”

His actions and kindness suddenly made sense. He was the one trying to pay her back all this time. “But still, what I did wasn’t for you personally.”

“What difference does it make?”

“How can I explain it...” She pursed her lips in thought. “How would you describe us? Our relationship.”

He hesitated for longer than she would have liked. “I’m not so sure.”

Having been ready to hear him say they were friends or colleagues, Furina faltered momentarily before recovering. “Well, ah, what I was trying to say is that I’m not in a position where I can just take and take from you all the time and not feel guilty about it. It wouldn’t be fair if you never receive anything in return, would it?”

“I suppose,” he acquiesced, though she suspected he did so only to appease her.

“What can I do for you then?”

“If you insist, then allow me to ask Sigewinne to come take a look at you and administer any treatments.” 

The name Sigewinne was familiar, but she couldn’t quite conjure up the face to match, nor any reasons why such a person would want to see her. But, she had already planned to agree to whatever he asked of her. “Okay, she can. Anything else?”

“Promise you’ll get better.”

“I promise.”

“And that you’ll rest some more now.”

That one sparked objections. “I don’t want to.”

“Why not? You sound exhausted.” He reached over with his hand again, except this time to push the hair away from her face so that he could start combing through her curls once more.

“That’s cheating,” she protested, already struggling to fight against its sedative effect. The dream couldn’t be coming to a close this soon, because if it did, then that would mean — 

“It’s because when I wake up, everything will just go back to how they were again.”

“It won’t.”

She was certain he didn’t understand all that her words meant, but maybe because she couldn’t delay sleep any longer, she chose to cast aside her doubts for once and trust in his rhetoric.

Chapter Text

“She’s been sleeping the entire time you were gone.”

“But her condition has improved?”

Were they speaking about her?

“Yes, she’s much more stable after I’ve administered some medication. Her fever is almost completely gone, so no more need for cold compresses as well.” 

Ah, they must be speaking about her. She remembered something about a fever. She cracked open her heavy eyelids and looked in the direction of the familiar voices. After taking a moment to adjust to the light, her eyes finally focused on the outlines of two figures standing just beyond her bedroom doorway in the kitchen. 

“Thank you for all your help, Sigewinne.”

“It’s no problem at all, Monsieur Neuvillette, though you should’ve called me over much sooner than you did. It could’ve saved Lady Furina a bit of suffering.”

Furina recalled Neuvillette being here when she fell asleep, but she couldn’t quite place why Sigewinne would be here as well.

“My apologies,” Neuvillette replied to the head nurse with a curt bow of deference. “I had a lapse in judgment.”

“No worries, all’s well in the end. Since you’re here now, I must be heading back for an appointment with a patient, but when Lady Furina wakes, make sure to instruct her to drink the medicine twice a day for at least a week, as much as would fit in this glass each time. She should rest plenty, and take care to avoid any unnecessary stressors. I’ll come and check in after a few days.”

“I’ll accompany you on your way.”

Both Neuvillette and Sigewinne disappeared from Furina’s field of vision, and she allowed herself to fully sit up once she heard the sound of her door being opened and closed.

The pain in her body was still present but much subdued, and the temperature of her room no longer felt capable of freezing her to her core. 

She wasn’t entirely well by any means, but her mind had recovered enough sense to desire an explanation for the Melusine’s presence. She had explicitly told Neuvillette not to call her over. Had he blatantly disobeyed her wishes? He wouldn’t unless he was pushed to desperation, but she hadn’t felt like she was in a bad enough shape to warrant such a thing. 

Then it hit her. A sneaking suspicion. A distant, nebulous memory of a dream that may not be a dream at all.

If it really was not a figment of her imagination, then...

Her face turned hot at her dawning realization just as she heard the cadence of Neuvillette’s footsteps approaching from outside her apartment. Not knowing how to handle this new piece of information, she laid her head back down with her face turned to the wall, shut her eyes, and dared not move a muscle.

The door opened, and the sound of his footsteps grew louder and closer until it stopped, right next to her bed. She was convinced her plan to bide time was working until he spoke. “Do you not wish to talk to me?”

Her eyes snapped wide open, and she whipped around to face him. “How’d you know I was awake?”

“Your breathing pattern was different.”

“Right,” she muttered, not quite meeting his eyes. “Sorry, I just didn’t know what to say. I was embarrassed to face you again.”

“Why?”

“I really thought I was dreaming before, so I was just spouting all those things about fairness and wanting to kiss you — but not that they weren’t true, I just wouldn’t have been so shameless about — or I mean — ” She stopped her rambling, aware of its incoherence, and took a moment before speaking more slowly, “What I’m trying to say is that I did some things I wouldn’t normally do, and now I’m unsure how you’d react to all of it.”

“I didn’t think you were shameless,” he remarked, head slightly tilted with obvious confusion written across his face. “And you already know how I’d react, don’t you? You saw it.”

“Yes I guess so, but it wasn’t — I, I don’t know, haven’t you been embarrassed before?” She shot back, eager for the line of questioning to be over with. 

“No,” he said, eliciting a laugh of incredulity and unexpected amusement from Furina. He pressed on, “But if you don’t know what to say just yet, then how about I speak?”

She gestured for him to continue.

“I will admit I’m not entirely sure how to begin either, so forgive my scattered thoughts, but I do want to confess that I’ve lied to you.”

“About what?” Color began to drain from her face. She braced herself for the worst.

“Your job. I’d asked you to help me not because I needed reassurance that my judgments were sound,” he said, and she let out a deep breath. “It was to help you find purpose again. To use your words, it was only fair after everything. At least, that was what I told myself and what I had believed.”

Furina had no idea what Neuvillette would sound like when he was nervous, but this seemed a close enough approximation.

“But lately, for some reason, I’ve been riddled with much more self-doubt than I’d like, and it’s led me to think maybe I had some ulterior motive. One that I hadn’t been willing to admit to myself.”

“And did you?”

“Yes, I wanted you to stay, so I sought to give you a reason for it,” he said plainly. “That wasn’t so hard for me to accept compared to what followed.”

Despite knowing some sort of catch would inevitably come, Furina was moved, especially when he reached a hand out towards hers until his index finger was barely brushing against her pinkie. She accepted his bid and fully took his hand into hers. 

“I couldn’t stop questioning if I were allowed to feel that way. Was it okay to wish not to be parted from you? And to like your touch, even something as simple as this?” He brushed his thumb over hers. “I don’t think I’m supposed to. When I asked myself if I would act this way for anyone else, the answer was a resounding no, and that’s the very definition of being biased, isn’t it?”

She didn’t refute him.

“The moment you kissed me for the first time was when I realized I had lost the ability to judge you. If you were to stand before me in trial one more time in the Opera Epiclese, I’m certain it would tear me to pieces.” He smiled at her weakly and chuckled, which made her chest ache. “How can I call myself fit to judge a nation if I can’t even do it for a single person?”

“I promise to stay out of trouble so you won’t have to.”

Neuvillette laughed as she had intended, but the moment quickly passed, and his voice grew serious once more. “Even if you do, that still doesn’t absolve me. Wouldn’t it still mean the Iudex is as selfish as anyone else? That his decisions can be swayed by emotions like anyone else?”

Knowing he wasn’t directing the question at her this time, Furina remained quiet.

“I was thankful, frankly, when you chose to ignore what happened between us, which meant I could as well. I tried to resume normalcy and to mend my perception of myself to the best of my abilities. For a while, it worked.” He sighed softly, his resignation made clear, but the timbre of his voice finally evened out as he said, “When you asked to kiss me again, almost every part of me screamed for me to say no, but I also knew if I didn’t give in, you would’ve haunted me for the rest of your life and mine.”

Unwittingly, she grasped his hand so tightly with hers that her knuckles glistened white. Only when she realized she must be causing him physical pain did she loosen her hold.

“I’m so practiced at hearing other people reason over their feelings and beliefs in the courtroom, and yet I cannot properly reconcile my own,” he mused. “Is this what embarrassment feels like?”

She searched her mind for something to say that could possibly ease his mind, only to find all her witticisms gone. 

“Well, I can’t say I enjoy it,” he said, taking her silence as affirmation. “But still, despite all that I feel, I cannot easily forsake my duty and responsibilities to Fontaine, nor to the person I thought I was. So, what am I to do?”

Furina’s own worries began to seem small rather under the grandeur of his. There was much she wanted to convey in return, but she knew no words could do her justice in the moment. But, they would come in time, so for now, this would be enough, “Maybe we can figure it out together.”

Her sentiment was unfortunately diluted by an unceremonious sneeze at the end, but Neuvillette’s gaze and stiff posture softened nonetheless. “I should’ve asked earlier, but how are you feeling? Much better, I hope?”

“Yes, to the point I can manage to beat Paimon in a fight now.”

“I’m glad,” he replied, relief palpable. “It hadn’t occurred to me before that you were now capable of becoming ill. And that you could...leave so soon, just as I’d begun to put that thought aside.”

Furina sensed he was dancing around the word death like it were a jinx. With the most lighthearted tone she could usher up, she said, “I won’t though. I’ve realized there are too many things keeping me here.”

A shadow fell across his face. “But it may not be within your control.”

She faltered. “Well, ah, I did wish on that shooting star for me to get enough time to do everything I want, remember? And I do want to stay for a while, so maybe that counts for something.”

“What if wishes are nothing more than fluff?”

“That could be true,” she finally relented. “Then I suppose like you said, I might not have a choice in the matter.”

He started to speak, then stopped himself, only to change his mind again and asked with an intensity she didn’t expect, “What would you do if, say, you did have a choice?”

Chapter Text

“Furina, your turn,” Clorinde nudged gently.

“Right, I’m sorry,” Furina snapped out of her daze and assessed the cards Navia and Charlotte had just placed down. She shook her head. “I pass.”

“You’ve been distracted this whole night,” Clorinde remarked and took her turn next. “Did you want to play something else?”

“No, no, I like this game,” Furina insisted. After the round was completed, she asked the group just as everyone started analyzing their hands for the next one, “If you were given the chance to extend your lifespan, do you think you’d accept?”

“Why do you ask?” Clorinde raised a brow, ever so astute. 

“Just out of curiosity,” Furina said. Thankfully, questions of this nature were not uncommonly posed during their card game nights, so everyone present accepted her explanation without much additional scrutiny. 

“I think I would,” Navia enthused. “For a little while, at least. I’d love to be able to witness the Spina growing and expanding in the longer term, but I’d miss everyone else too much to stay forever without them.”

“It’d be nice,” Charlotte said wistfully. “I’d be able to live through so much history. That’s so much I could report on. Maybe then I’d be able to actually establish myself as a world-renowned journalist.”

“Hmm, I wouldn’t. I’ve no reason to.” Clorinde shrugged, her tone as firm as her answer. She looked expectantly to Furina, who knew she had to say something.

“In the past, I would’ve quickly said no, but lately I’m not so sure what I want anymore. I really can’t say.”

It was a nonanswer, though not as much as the one she gave to Neuvillette the day he directed the question at her. She had initially thought he was being facetious — as much as someone like him could be — until his further elaboration made it obvious that he meant it as more than just a mere thought experiment. 

The inspiration apparently came to him a while back from Sigewinne, who had been testing different brewing methods. She had grown particularly interested in the usage of primordial seawater in the preparation of her medicines, now that it was perfectly harmless. After noticing her patients’ markedly improved prognosis, she had written of the water’s curious restorative properties in her regular correspondence with Neuvillette. 

“Here and there, I started doing some research into it myself after you told me of your wish,” he had said. “It’s not worked as I intended so far, but I’m hopeful there may be a way.”

For some reason, hearing that the scenario was still more hypothetical than real had come as a relief to Furina, even as it brought forth a barrage of questions from her. 

“When did Sigewinne tell you?”

“A few months back, while you were still away, though I had thought naught of the information at the time.”

“Who knows about this?”

“I’ve not spoken about it to anyone else.”

“Why tell me now?”

“To be honest, I didn’t think I had a right to bring it up when it’s all still just talk, so I was originally planning on asking you whenever I’m ready to present you with something tangible.”

“What changed your mind?”

“The prospect of time running out became much more real, and in turn, speaking the idea aloud made the solution to that problem feel more real. So at the end of the day, I suppose it was my attempt to ease my mind more than anything,” he had said with a tinge of guilt in his voice. “My apologies.”

She accepted his words with grace. 

The one question she dared not touch was, why are you doing this for me? It wouldn’t have been fair, for there was the answer she wanted to hear and the answer she knew he’d give. 

To his credit, he had sensed correctly that she was holding something back. “You look troubled. Is it because I brought this up?”

“No, I’m glad that you did. I just have a lot to think about.”

And think she did. Much more than she anticipated she would have to.

It was a simple question, really, and if this were just a short time prior, she would’ve had a simple response. That Furina would’ve told Neuvillette to abandon the project immediately. 

But the current version of herself balked.

Would some extra years truly be so bad? Especially as she’s begun to feel content with parts of her life. Not entirely satisfied yet, but content. 

If nothing else, having more time meant that she wouldn’t be leaving Neuvillette behind so soon. 

She had never forgotten the overwhelming comfort he brought her when they first met, because he had been a shining promise that she didn’t have to spend the unrelenting years ahead of her alone. There was no doubt her throne, her opera seat, would’ve proved unbearable without his presence on the stage as well.

Yet here she was, happily considering relegating him to the same fate she once feared.

At the same time, Furina had also spent the entirety of her existence wishing for an ending and normalcy and everything that came with the two. Even now, that mindset was shackled to her, and she couldn’t rid herself of the thought that to live without death would mean she would never truly be human. 

Thus the pendulum swung back and forth throughout her recovery from the fever. 

She had hoped that the answers of others might help shape her own, but the reasons offered by Navia, Charlotte, and Clorinde gave her no additional guidance, and she resigned herself to playing out the rest of the games that night with half her mind elsewhere.

Luckily, none of her friends called out her bizarre behavior a second time because there was someone else present who was acting even less like her usual self. 

“Charlotte, what’s the matter?” Navia inquired with a look of concern.

“And don’t say it’s nothing,” Clorinde said firmly, “because I’ve never seen you be this glum before, even after winning two rounds in a row. The normal Charlotte would’ve been over the moon.”

“I guess you caught me,” Charlotte grumbled and laid her head down on her crossed arms. After a moment of silence, she mumbled into the fabric of her sleeves, voice muffled and barely audible, “I quit The Steambird.”

Even in her distracted state, Furina joined in on the choir of surprised gasps.

“What?”

“Did something happen?”

“Why’d you do that?”

“I was just so fed up with the direction it was going in, and Euphrasie kept disregarding any suggestions I made for change, saying that the readership numbers have been recovering, which meant we must’ve been doing the right thing.” She groaned. “How can I improve when I’m forced to write that sensationalist drivel all the time? I started to feel like I couldn’t even claim to be a serious journalist anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Navia covered Charlotte’s hand with hers and gave a sympathetic rub. “We all know you are a serious journalist.”

“For what little it’s worth, I agree with you about The Steambird needing change,” Furina said. “It’s really gone to shit recently.”

Unexpectedly, Charlotte choked out a dry laugh in response. “I never thought I’d hear you say something like that, Furina, but thank you. It does make me feel a bit better.”

“Besides, this could be the perfect chance for something new,” Clorinde jumped in. 

“I guess so, but I don’t know what I should do with myself anymore. It feels like I’ve hit a slump.” Charlotte sighed. 

Not too long ago, Furina could’ve pictured the very same words coming out of her own mouth, and it was at this moment that she finally understood Neuvillette’s reasons for lying to her. 

Though she had no lies of a similar nature to offer Charlotte, she did have an idea. 

The very next day, Furina showed up at Neuvillette’s office at lunchtime with a sealed envelope in hand. Despite being so determined just a second ago, she had to take a deep breath to steady herself before placing it on his desk.

“What’s this?”

He looked tired, and his hair was not tied back like usual.

His state reminded her of the time she must’ve taken away from his work the past week and a half. She couldn’t be sure exactly how long he had spent by her side while she was fading in and out of consciousness in her feverish state, but it had to have been significant enough to make the pile of paperwork in front of him much taller than usual.  

After waking, she had been insistent that she was well enough to manage her treatment plan according to Sigewinne’s instructions, but he still stopped by her apartment at least once each day, if only for a few minutes to watch her take her medication and then leave.

All that made what she was about to say much more difficult.

“This is my resignation letter. I know it’s only my first day back from sick leave, so this is probably the worst time to be telling you this, but please let me explain.” She sat herself down on the couch.

To her surprise, Neuvillette offered no words of protest. Instead, he sat down beside her and waited for her to continue.

“This isn’t because I’m upset about you for lying to me about the job,” she began again, “because I understand why you felt it was necessary. I’m grateful for what you did and for my time here, since I was able to find a sense of direction again after being lost in the dark for so long. Where I’d like to go now is somewhere where I’m needed, not just wanted like here at the Palais.”

“Oh?”

“Charlotte left The Steambird recently, and I suggested that she start her own paper to write what she wants to write.” Furina blinked. “She asked me for help.”

Neuvillette took a second before saying, “Well, I’m glad you’re doing this.”

“Quitting?”

“No, finding what you want to do in life.” His smile briefly masked his fatigue. “Being selfish.”

She responded with a soft smile of her own and instinctively reached her hand out in search of his and messily intertwined their fingers.

Still not quite able to dispel the nerves that accompanied his touch, she exhaled and wondered when her awkwardness would cease. Learning that there was a mutual fondness between them did little to clarify their situation, as neither side knew for certain what they should be doing with these feelings. 

Their dance was one to which no one was told the choreography. Each move was a test to figure out what the other would be okay with. 

Maybe practice was the key, because what had become easier was speaking her thoughts around him. “I’ll miss these lunches.”

“You’ll be kept too busy, I presume?”

“No, it’s more because non-employees aren’t allowed in here anymore, so we’d have to meet elsewhere.” She glanced over again at the pile of papers on his desk and frowned. “Demanding that the Chief Justice leave here in the middle of the workday when he has so much to do would be a pretty big ask.”

“I see, and what if I were the one to make the offer instead?”

“I wouldn’t say no,” she said, lowering her gaze to her feet, secretly pleased.

He nodded, considering the matter resolved. “When will your last day be?”

“I was going to ask you actually, to see if there were anything remaining you’d like for me to do, since I felt bad about springing this on you. So whenever that’s done with.”

“Then for your final set of tasks, how would you feel about accompanying me to Sumeru in a week’s time?”

Chapter Text

They met in the early hours of the morning to set off for Sumeru by sea. 

“Talochard, you know how to handle boats?” Furina exclaimed at the unexpected sight of the Melusine greeting them by the waters. Neuvillette had mentioned to her their means of transportation, but not who would be shepherding them there. 

“Oh yes,” Talochard responded. “I decided to take up boating ever since my services were no longer needed on the aquabuses after the Callas Line shut down. The two are similar enough, and I mostly just supervise while the machine does the majority of the work. There’s a big demand for it nowadays.”

Talochard led them into the boat’s passenger compartment before instructing them to make themselves comfortable. “Let me know if you ever need anything, but otherwise, I’ll be out there on the deck. There’s more fresh air, and I find my riders usually prefer I leave them be.”

Furina quickly settled down directly next to the window, eager for them to embark. Neuvillette followed suit but passed over the seat directly next to hers. 

She needed no explanation for the respectful distance. This was how they had always conducted themselves, and neither had the desire nor impetus to make Talochard, who was only barely out of sight, question if the dynamics of their relationship had shifted. 

There was always the chance for such a story to grow beyond their control. 

The boat’s engine sounded, and Furina watched the shoreline be gradually swallowed by the boundless blue of the water.

“I hope I don’t get seasick,” she said to herself as a passing thought.

“You won’t.”

She smiled. He alone could promise that.

They each took out the entertainment they had brought along for the duration of the journey — he, a stack of documents he started to sift through, and she, some books and a journal she intended to use for ideas for her pet project with Charlotte. 

With all this free time at hand, Furina decided the first order of business would be to brainstorm some names that would befit a newly established newspaper, but no matter how long she pondered or stared out at the seascape, no inspiration came. She couldn’t deny that The Steambird had a certain charm to it that was difficult to replicate. 

In the end, she set down her pen and let out a quiet huff of frustration, which caused Neuvillette to look up from his reading. “Do you feel seasick?”

“No, sorry about that. I’m trying to think of name ideas for the paper I’m creating with Charlotte, but nothing sounds right.”

“Ah, unfortunately, I don’t think I can be of much help in that regard. I’ve been told that creativity is not a forte of mine.”

“Who would say something like that to you?” She said with disapproval.

“I believe it was you, many years back.”

“Oh. Right.” Her face flushed. She peered down at the papers on his lap in the hopes they would offer her an escape route. “What, um, are you reading?” 

“Information on the Dendro Sovereign, Apep.”

“What for?” Then something clicked inside her head. “Wait, is this somehow related to what you’ll be doing tomorrow and the day after?”

Days earlier, they had already mutually agreed upon a plan for their stay in Sumeru. The first two days she was to spend on her own, exploring the city as she liked, while Neuvillette attended to some matters by himself with the Dendro Archon. The trip was, after all, more business than leisure for him. She had assumed it meant he’d be caught up with diplomacy and politics and matters of that sort — things she no longer had a place or interest in. But maybe that wasn’t entirely the case.

He confirmed her suspicions. “Partially, yes. I had agreed to the Dendro Archon’s request to meet if she facilitated a conversation between myself and Apep.”

“Here I was, thinking you came because you had a sudden change of heart about the Archons.”

“I have not, although I had not refused the Dendro Archon outright because I do view her in a slightly more favorable light than the rest.”

“But why do you want to talk to Apep?”

“There are questions I want to ask. She knew my previous incarnation.”

Furina deemed the explanation sufficient and tried to recollect what little information she had on the Dendro Dragon. Most of it stemmed from recent stories she had heard from Lumine. “Doesn’t she live in the desert? Are you going there?”

“No, I’m not sure if I’ll ever bring myself to step foot in a place like that, which is why I needed help. From what I was told,” he explained, “there is an entire world contained inside Apep’s mind and body that the Dendro Archon has a channel into.”

She frowned. “But I’ve also heard Apep can be hostile.”

“She may not be friendly, but I don’t think she’d cause me harm.”

“Still.” Furina’s mouth twisted to one side. “Just — be careful.”

“I will be fine, though as for you...” He trailed off absentmindedly before picking up again, “Say, in my absence, would you care to have a tour guide?”

“A tour guide?”

“If you aren’t against it, I can request Lesser Lord Kusanali send someone from the Akademiya to accompany you during the days that I’ll be occupied.”

She thought about it and accepted. Spending so much time with a complete stranger wasn’t ideal, but being with someone who was a local and a knowledgeable scholar would no doubt cancel out the potential downsides. 

Neuvillette was satisfied. “Then I will leave you instructions on when and where to meet them.”

The rest of their journey at sea continued without a hitch, and as Neuvillette had predicted, Furina experienced no symptoms of seasickness. 

Night had fallen by the time the three arrived at Lambad’s Tavern in the heart of the city, their luggage in tow. 

“This is very different from Hotel Debord,” Talochard piped up, “but I like it well enough.”

“And what do you think?” Neuvillette directed the question at Furina while he held the front door open.

“It’s lively for sure,” Furina said as they passed by a group of patrons near the entrance who were shouting cheerfully within their ranks, their table piled high with food and drinks. The air was thick with loud laughter, the delicious scent of spices, and an inexplicable warmth that seeped right into her bones. “Strangely enough, I feel like I’m home even when everything here is all new to me.”

“I will treat that as a compliment. This place came as a recommendation from the Dendro Archon.”

Talochard was the first to bid the group goodnight after they were shown to their rooms, which were conveniently situated adjacent to one another. “I won’t have a chance to say goodbye tomorrow since I’ll be leaving bright and early to ferry my next set of passengers back to Fontaine, but I’ll see you both in four days.” 

Once they were left alone, Furina turned to Neuvillette. “Thanks for bringing me along when you didn’t have to.”

“It’s nothing. You’ve spoken many times of wanting to travel outside of Fontaine.”

She waited because he looked like he wanted to say more, but he cast a quick glance towards Talochard’s closed door and, in the end, only followed up with his usual, “Sleep well, Furina.”

The next morning, Furina found a note from Neuvillette slipped under her door. The writing directed her to meet her tour guide directly in front of the tavern, but with an hour and a half to go before the designated time, she was in no hurry as she readied herself for the day. 

After completing her morning routine and dressing herself properly, she ordered a quick lunch and polished it off in the indoor dining area before stepping out of the tavern with time to spare. 

She then stood and waited. And waited.

When nobody matching the description on the note came after an entire half hour, she began to wonder what could’ve happened. This had to be the right location, because Neuvillette was not the type to make a careless mistake like that, which meant the only plausible explanation was that this guide of hers either forgot their appointment or ended up not being able to meet. 

No matter. She had no qualms about wandering the city alone. After ten more minutes of waiting in vain, just to make sure, she gave up and set off by herself at a relaxed pace to take in the various sights and sounds of the city. A happy haze settled onto her. 

It had been much too long since she could mindlessly disappear into a crowd.

She relished in the feeling of her newfound obscurity — practically throwing herself in it. It was her signal to act without care as to how anyone else might perceive her, so she indulged in all the snacks she could ever want and spoke easily to all sorts of strangers, from whom she learned of an event called the Sabzeruz Festival that was to take place in two days. 

There were so many vendors she visited that she lost count, and the hours flew by until the winding road she followed ultimately led her outside the bounds of the city. 

Instead of turning back, she carried onwards, pulled in by the lush greenery that lay ahead of her, having never seen trees of this density or height in the forests of Fontaine. 

She ventured farther and farther inward, taking care along the way to remember her path so that she could retrace it later.

The wildlife she encountered on the trail was also distinctly different, with her favorite being the colorful singing birds.

A particularly bold one landed on a branch barely an arm’s reach away from her, but when she tried to step closer, the creature hopped to another branch and began to perform a song that sounded suspiciously like a long laugh. Taking it as a challenge, Furina walked towards it again, and the same thing unfolded. 

Their little game went on for several rounds before the bird grew bored and took off to the air, leaving Furina in the dust. She decided this was as good a time as any to return to the city, but before she could turn around, she heard voices slipping through the cracks in the foliage.

Thinking they may be friendly locals, she drifted towards the source of the noise, curious as to the type of people who would live in forests like these. 

“Hello there,” she called out, pushing aside low-lying branches and brushes to make her way into the clearing where she was certain the people must be, “I’m —”

She broke off at the sudden sight of a projectile flying directly at her.

On instinct alone, she dove to the ground and only narrowly avoided contact with a sharp piece of rock that was aimed directly at where she was mere seconds ago. Breathing heavily with shock, she followed the original trajectory of the attack with her eyes and spotted two men glowering at her.

They were across the grassy field from her, standing in front of a large, fuzzy beast hitched to a cart piled high with wooden boxes. Their clothing was indisputably Fatui. 

“How did you find us?” The smaller of the two growled. He was the only one with a weapon in hand, a Geo staff that was still pointed directly at her, so he must be the one she had to look out for. “No one was supposed to know we were meeting here.”

“I, ah, think I might’ve taken the wrong turn. Sorry, gentlemen.” Furina got back up and brushed the dirt off her legs as calmly as she could, afraid that any sudden movements would spur her assailant into action again. 

Neither of the men appeared convinced by her explanation.

“I don’t know who you’re meeting here, and I don’t care either way. So, if you’ll excuse me...” She forced herself to give an aloof smile and slowly backed away while still facing the men, for she dared not take her eyes off the staff for even an instant. 

As she did so, the two exchanged a look that didn’t ease Furina’s mind in the slightest.

The agent with the staff began to approach, and she was reminded of the way a cat might stalk its prey. She grew more frantic and quickened her pace, only to be stopped by her back colliding with the trunk of a massive tree that stood in her path. 

Realizing that running may no longer be viable, she was left with lying as her only feasible defensive option. She raised a palm towards them. “I have a vision, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

He didn’t register her words in the slightest.

Maybe this was the end.

She was ready to shut her eyes and accept her fate when a strong gust of wind swept past her, hitting the man in his shoulder and knocking him and his staff to the ground. He recovered quickly, but his face turned unexpectedly fearful. Instead of returning the attack, he retrieved his weapon and shouted for his partner to run. The two scampered away, pulling the bumbling beast and their cargo along with them.

With her back still pressed against the tree for support, Furina looked down at her hands, turning them this way and that. They felt no different, but were they somehow responsible? 

As if in response, a quiet laugh echoed from high above her.

She spun around, her eyes darting up the length of the tree to find a figure perched all the way up in the sprawling maze of branches and leaves that covered the sky. She squinted and barely managed to discern what looked to be a young man wearing a peculiarly large hat. 

Just as she was contemplating making a break for it on the off chance he was another unsavory character, he jumped. She froze with disbelief when he landed impossibly lightly on his feet right in front of her, with no broken leg in sight, barely even making a sound.

Furina gawked wordlessly at him for a moment before noticing the Anemo vision pinned to his chest. “You were the one who did that?”

He crossed his arms and smirked. “Took you long enough.”

Chapter Text

“Hydro Dragon, you use the name Neuvillette now, is it? So it’s as they say — you are in the body of a human. I had heard rumors of such a thing, and yet it surprises me no less to witness.”

…

“I know not the reason for your inferior form. What reason is there for anything? Like you, why do you stay in Fontaine and play your little games in the courthouse when it’s beneath your dignity?”

…

“Your attachment to humanity shines through clearly, but such a thing will only weigh you down. Do you think they cannot manage without you? That they would reciprocate a fraction of your devotion, even with all the thankless labor you provide them?”

…

“Well, as much as I struggle with your perspective, I can’t say it’s not fitting. The previous Hydro Sovereign was always the most sympathetic to humans out of all of us.”

…

“How he brought forth life? The techniques have long been lost to the spoils of time, but maybe that was for the best. His pursuit of it contributed to his ultimate demise.”

…

“Creating life from water alone is no small endeavor. Do you think such a thing comes at no cost? He was long known as the weakest of the seven dragons, and I’ve heard many wonder how he was capable of such a sizable feat despite that status when in truth, he was made that way because of it.”

The young man’s headwear resurfaced a fuzzy memory within Furina. “Are you the one they call Hat Guy?”

“ You can call me Wanderer.” Though his tone was dismissive, Furina saw that he perked up ever so slightly when he asked, “Did Lumine tell you about me?”

“It was Paimon, and from what I remember, she didn’t say very kind things.” She watched as his face fell once more into a disgruntled expression. 

He had pale skin like snow, dark bangs that fell down to his eyes, and half a head over her in height. She narrowed her eyes and called to mind the description in Neuvillette’s note from earlier. Every aspect matched, and although Neuvillette had made no mentions of the hat, she was well aware of his proclivity for omitting key details when describing people to others. She was certain this young man had to be the one. 

“You were supposed to be my tour guide, weren’t you?”

“I think ‘chaperone’ would be more appropriate.”

“You never showed up.” Her accusation was searing. 

“I did. At precisely the appointed time. It’s not my fault you didn’t notice.”

She blinked at him in disbelief. “Then why didn’t you come up and say something?”

“Why would I? I had no interest in making conversation with you,” he said as though it should’ve been obvious. 

“I —” Suddenly, all of Paimon’s complaints about him made sense. Furina could feel her frustrations bubbling up. “You’ll find that a large part of being a tour guide is making conversations.”

“In case you didn’t hear me the first time, I’m not your tour guide. My top priority, as was told to me, is to ensure your physical well-being today and tomorrow. Everything else is a bonus.”

She pursed her lips. He must be purposefully twisting Neuvillette’s words for his own sake, but she couldn’t bring herself to be too upset with him, considering he had just intervened on her behalf.

He mistook her reaction for reluctant acceptance and continued, “I’d say I’ve done a pretty satisfactory job so far, all things considered. So feel free to carry on your merry way.”

He looked up, no doubt preparing to ascend the trees once more, but before he could move, she called out to him, “You’re here now anyway, so why not just walk next to me like a normal person instead of following me around like a creepy tabloid journalist?”

“Why?” He challenged. 

“It’s less effort for you, not having to jump around up there, just to avoid having to talk to me,” she offered, but he only raised a brow in response. She tried again, more genuine this time. “I don’t like the feeling of secretly being watched. It makes me uneasy.”

“It’s not much of a secret. Anymore, at least.” 

“That’s not the point,” she said, gritting her teeth. With her appeal not working at all, she resorted to more questionable tactics. “I could just plop myself down and not move until you give in. Then we’ll both be stuck here.”

“I’m sure you have more reasons to be back in the city tonight than I do,” he said coolly. 

She saw it in his face at that moment — amusement that was growing with each failed attempt she made at negotiating. Realizing she was fighting a losing battle against him, someone who had nothing to lose, she resigned herself to his terms. “Fine, have it your way for today, but I’ll be fine on my own tomorrow. You don’t need to come along.”

“No can do. I’ll be the one held responsible by that judge of yours if anything were to happen to you.”

“I’ll be careful. Nothing will happen to me,” she retorted, put off by the thought of having to endure his antics for another day. 

“Right, careful like how you were just now.” He stifled a laugh. “After your little stunt with the vision didn’t work, what were you hoping to happen? That Lumine might miraculously pop out of the blue and bail you out?”

Eager for the conversation to be over with but unwilling to let him have the last word, she crinkled her nose at him. “That’s none of your business. And who’s to say...Lumine comes by Sumeru often enough.”

“Not anymore.”

The way he spoke caught her off guard. She caught the emergence, the trace of some vulnerability buried beneath all his thorns and sarcasm. A softness she couldn’t quite describe. The semblance of a defect in the armor he wore. 

She jumped on it. “Why, do you wish she would?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scowled, all the while dipping his head to allow the brim of his hat to conceal his face. 

“Now that I think about it, that’s the second time you’ve brought her up in the span of one short conversation.” Taking care not to overplay her hand, she coaxed him, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell her that you have feelings for her as long as you at least try to act agreeable when you’re with me.”  

He lifted his hat to give her a death glare before lowering it once more. “Fine. You lead the way.”

Glad their back-and-forth was finally done with, Furina began to retrace her path with Wanderer trailing right behind her. His footsteps were so quiet that she would look back every so often just to make sure he was still there. No wonder she had failed to notice him for so long. He seemed a natural at disappearing. 

To pass the time on their return trip, she peppered him with questions, both about parts of Sumeru she had seen that day and about himself. To his credit, he was cooperative enough to oblige her with curt answers about the former, but he remained staunchly tight-lipped about the latter. She did, however, get a glimpse into his studies at Vahumana after she inquired if he really was part of the Akademiya, seeing as how his combative nature contrasted starkly with her mental image of a scholar.  

By the time they reached the edge of the city, her view of him had shifted, if only slightly.

He was extremely cynical, that much she had discerned already, but he was also capable of being well-spoken and reasonable when he wanted to be. While all of that couldn’t make Furina want to befriend him, it made her feel bad enough about her ultimatum that she turned to him and said, “Listen, I wouldn’t have actually told Lumine. You were just getting on my nerves.”

Wanderer’s eyes were still hidden, but the corner of his lips curled. “I figured. Your blackmailing could use some work.”  

“Don’t lie,” she said. “You wouldn’t have walked with me if you knew I was bluffing.” 

“I was going to even before you threatened me,” he shrugged. “I never said no when you asked, if you can recall, since watching you from a distance ended up being much more boring than I’d thought. Even more than making unbearable small talk with you.”

She changed her mind about him once more. “Then what about tomorrow?”

“What about it?”

“I want you to show me around properly tomorrow instead of whatever this was today,” she said with a glare. “Or I really will tell Lumine this time.”

“I’m sure you will,” he scoffed but relented all the same. “I’ll be there, same time, same place.”

Neither spoke another word the rest of the way to Lambad’s Tavern, where Furina caught sight of a familiar face sitting at a table outside. 

“Neuvillette.” She peeled away from Wanderer’s side, leaving the blizzard for the hearth. “I didn’t expect you to be out here.”

“I wasn’t sure when you would return.” He set down the cup of water in his hand, and his neutral expression turned disconcerted. “What happened to your legs?”

She lowered her gaze. Having been kept busy by all the earlier commotion and Wanderer, Furina had failed to notice the minor scrapes adorning both her knees. She felt no pain, but small bits of dirt and dried blood were stuck to the broken surface of her skin, making for quite an unappealing sight.  

“Oh, that. I —” She hesitated.

He had spoken disapprovingly of her swims in the cold and anything else he deemed reckless, especially since her bout of illness, so there was no telling how he might react to hearing about the Fatui agents. Or her roaming around in the wilderness. But there was no need to make a big deal out of nothing. 

“— I accidentally tripped,” she finished. “I’m fine. I don’t feel it at all.”

She glanced back to shoot Wanderer a look to warn him not to contradict her, only to find the young man already gone without a word. She shouldn’t have expected anything different. 

“Come with me,” Neuvillette said.

It was rare for him to give her such a direct command, and she complied without any resistance. He led her through the entrance of the tavern, past the tables of regulars, all the way to his room. Its setup was almost identical to hers, with only some variation in the placement of decorative plants and furniture. 

“Please sit,” he said, gesturing to his bed, its blanket and pillows completely undisturbed. He disappeared into the bathroom and reemerged with a wet towel before kneeling so his hands were level with her knees. “I presume you would’ve protested me bringing in a physician for something like this.”

This was true. For anyone else, she would’ve also insisted on doing it herself, but at the moment, she was content to stay still and watch as he methodically wiped away all the debris on her legs. 

When he was done, she expressed her thanks and took his hand, pulling him into a sitting position right beside her, close enough for their legs to brush. She asked, eager to prolong their moment alone together however long she could, “What happened with your conversation with Apep? Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Unfortunately not, but it’s about what I had expected.” His reply was measured, but she could tell he was somehow displeased with the outcome. “And you? How was your day of exploration?”

Picking up that he preferred another topic, she described to him the events of the day, save for the incident in the woods. He mostly listened and offered only intermittent commentary, but as the time passed, the heavy air around him seemed to gradually lift. 

At the end of her retelling of all the good parts, she was compelled to ask about the one sour note of the day. “Why was Wanderer chosen to accompany me? He didn’t seem to be the most enthused about it.”

“That’s a surprise. Do you wish to have someone else?”

“No, no, I was simply wondering.” Better the devil she knew than the one she didn’t, Furina figured, especially after she finally made some progress with him. Wanderer’s personality aside, he at least made her feel that her safety was never in question. There was always the possibility that his replacement may have twice his spite but half his fighting ability.

“He was there when I raised the request, and he volunteered himself,” Neuvillette explained. “I agreed after the Dendro Archon personally vouched for him.”

He had to be using it as a way to get out of doing something else, Furina concluded.

It was hard to fathom anything else.

Chapter Text

The following day, Furina found Wanderer sitting cross-legged at a table directly outside the tavern. The same spot as Neuvillette the night before.

“You’re three minutes late,” he tutted. His eyes skated across her still-damp hair and landed at her knees, where scabs were now forming where the scrapes had been. 

“What’s the plan for today?”

“The Palace of Alcazazaray. It’s right outside the city.” He jumped to his feet and began to walk away without a glance back to see if she would follow. “Tourists go crazy over it. I’ve no idea why.”

She ran after him. The two set off, with Wanderer at a pace that was slightly too fast for Furina’s liking. While indignant about the fact, she refused to cause a fuss about it, as she was sure that was what he wanted her to do. 

However, by the time they came across a slow-moving river blocking their path, Furina was clearly winded. She could handle slow promenades of up to hours with no problem, but Wanderer’s speed combined with the uneven topography of the land proved a formidable challenge. 

“The bridge is this way,” he said, hearing her panting but electing to show no concern over it.

Rather than continuing, she plopped herself down onto a boulder. The jig was up. “I need a minute.”

“It’ll be sundown by the time we get there,” he said, sarcasm dripping. 

“I’m not in a rush,” she replied evenly, ignoring his attempt at irritating her. Keeping her cool was not so tough an endeavor when the majority of her focus was elsewhere. She concentrated on keeping her breathing steady, in and out, and the burning in her lungs dwindled with each slow exhale. “What’s the hurry?” 

“The sooner we finish for the day, the sooner we can part ways.”  

“But aren’t you the one who volunteered yourself for this?” She threw back at him.

“Ah, so he told you about that.” He was unfazed and said, shrugging, “Well, I already got what I came for.”

“What, an opportunity to skip class?”

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “No. I was curious about you.” 

“Very funny.” She rolled her eyes. “You purposefully avoided me for the better part of the day yesterday. You call that curious?”

“I wanted to see for myself what sort of person could fool a nation into believing they were their Archon. I didn’t need to get close to you to do that.” He expelled a laugh. “Turns out you are utterly unremarkable. Maybe it speaks to how gullible humans, or Fontainians, are.”

Furina blinked, and the traces of humor drained from her expression. She hadn’t expected the topic of her past to come up. The trip had been an opportunity to leave it all behind in Fontaine — to experience what life was like as an ordinary person with no notable feats or crimes to her name — but maybe that had been too much to ask for. 

Not knowing exactly how much Wanderer knew unsettled her further. 

“Fine, let’s get going then. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can part ways,” she said, clipped. She started in the direction of the bridge he had indicated earlier.

Wanderer must’ve caught that his comment went a touch too far, for he opted to match her pace this time around after catching up to her. Slow and steady. 

He spoke after a long pause, with some discomfort and more sincerity than she thought him capable of. “Don’t take to heart what I said. I’m well aware I can be...difficult.”

It was a roundabout apology, but still one nonetheless. 

“Right,” she said in acceptance, and they continued along.

Much to her surprise, the initial gut punch she had felt from his crass comment didn’t linger, especially as she gave his words more thought. He had intended it as a jab at her, but for once, she wasn’t depicted as either a villain or a hero. It was oddly refreshing.

Everyone else who was even vaguely aware of her past had treated her differently as a result of it. Like she were a spectacle to gawk at. Or glassware to be handled much too delicately. Wanderer, on the other hand, never strayed from the way Paimon had described him, and she had no doubt he’d act much the same to anyone else. Unpleasant. 

Still, she made no moves to convey any of this to him. 

They soon left the river behind and went on to follow a well-tread path etched into the rolling green hills. The lush vegetation on both sides shielded them from the midday sun and gave her a feeling of serenity that the scenery of Fontaine couldn’t manage. 

And finally, at the end of the path, she saw it from a distance.

Even before stepping foot into its premises, she could tell, the palace was —

“Beautiful,” Furina breathed, picking up pace as the ground beneath her feet sloped gently downward, leading her directly to the premises. “I wonder what sort of architect could’ve dreamt this up.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“You know who it is?” 

“He’s a bit of a character.”

The dirt trail gave way to a short stone bridge, which she crossed with eagerness. The structure was surrounded by a shallow stream in the depths below like a moat, which reminded her vaguely of a storybook castle, but the buildings’ visuals were nothing like she’d seen before. 

The motif of green was ever-present — in the landscaping, the forested backdrop, and the buildings themselves — and provided a cohesion that was definitely by design. Every inch of the palace exuded quiet luxury rather than screaming it aloud.

“What’s this place used for?” She asked.

“It’s a private residence, but the owner hardly ever uses it, so now it’s been taken up by people looking for some peace and quiet away from the city.” Wanderer gestured to an unassuming pavilion off to the side that she hadn’t taken notice of until now. “I’ll wait over there.”

There were indeed several other people around, but nobody paid Furina any mind. A young woman with short blonde hair was tending to some roses, while an older gentleman trimmed a group of shrubs nearby. Keepers of the estate, Furina assumed. Further away, someone who looked to be a scholar was scribbling away furiously in a notebook.

Unwilling to disturb any of them, Furina meandered around by herself, accompanied only by the low chirping of birds and the gurgling of water. 

With the serenity provided by her surroundings, Furina’s mind drifted aimlessly, and she began to wonder once more what really happened between Apep and Neuvillette the day prior. After her injury had been dealt with, Neuvillette had suggested dinner, during which she had tried to gently probe at the subject to little avail. His responses had consisted mainly of observations and harmless commentary about the Dendro Sovereign without revealing anything of real substance. 

It was certainly a possibility that Apep had said nothing of note, but Neuvillette’s demeanor had suggested otherwise.

Unsuccessful in the end, Furina had reluctantly shifted her conversation with Neuvillette to other matters, like the Sabzeruz Festival which she insisted they both attend on their last full day here. 

She now debated to herself if it would be worth the trouble to ask Wanderer his thoughts, to see if he had ideas on what Apep could’ve done to offend Neuvillette so. She doubted, however, that he would share even if he did. 

When she finally completed her circle around the residence, Furina stumbled upon a peculiar sight. She was used to Wanderer being on high alert all the time, so he appeared like a whole new person sitting alone in the pavilion, gazing into the distance. Lost in his daze, he took no notice of her presence when she approached. 

She turned her eyes in the direction of his and came upon the blonde gardener, who had moved on from the roses to a new patch of florals. 

From such a distance, her looks reminded Furina strongly of a certain traveler.

Furina chuckled to herself before stepping up directly behind Wanderer and asking, “Have you told Lumine that you love her?”

Startled, he whipped around to face her. When he registered who it was, he scowled but didn’t fight the question.

“Why don’t you?” She pressed him.

He didn’t look pleased with the line of questioning as he retorted, “Why don’t you tell the judge that you’re in love with him?”

“Because I’m not,” she responded easily, confident that even if she were somewhere within the vicinity, to firmly call her feelings love was a step too far. It was much too big a word, like that cliff that meant no return if she were to let herself fall from its edge.

“Forced to lie to everyone for so long that you’re lying to yourself now?” His words were biting but his tone was muted, pensive.

Something about his sentence felt off, which stopped her from firing back a response straight away. Her eyes narrowed when she managed to pinpoint what it was. “You knew...”

“Of course, I saw the way you looked at him.”

“No, not that nonsense.” She shook her head. “You knew I was forced to lie to everyone, but that was never publicized. How much are you aware of, exactly?”

“The basics. That you were a pawn of the prophecy and cursed by the real Archon, your counterpart, to play her role for centuries until it all fell apart.”

“But how?” Her frown deepened. “The only confirmed fact that came out of the trial was that I impersonated the Archon. Only those closest to the story should know the why and how.”

“When I first heard news from Fontaine about your Archon being a fake, I wanted to get to the bottom of it. That is my area of study, after all. So I did some field research.” 

“What sort of research?”

“I talked to people and read a lot — the Fatui keep very meticulous records, by the way — and in the end, whatever I couldn’t piece together, I supplemented with information from Lumine and Paimon. Admittedly, Lumine was much more tight-lipped about the whole affair, so I had to rely on Paimon’s more sharing nature.” He let her read between the lines. “There are still some things that elude me though.” 

“Like?”

“Why do you not tell everyone the full story?” He demanded. “You do know what the papers say about you, don’t you? But you do nothing to silence the critics.”

Furina gave him a dry smile. “I’ve heard it all. Some think there was no Hydro Archon at all after Egeria and that I jumped in knowingly to fill the vacancy, all because I wanted the fame and power and luxuries that came with the position. My personal favorite is that I was an aspiring actor with no experience who was looking for a way to showcase my skills. Until things got out of hand.” 

He snorted. “And you seem okay with it all. Why? Do you enjoy feeling like a martyr or something?”

She thought about how much to tell him. Unlike his usual boundary-pushing, his queries came across as genuine.

“If I do tell the full story, I’d rather it be one that I can be proud of. Besides, it just confirms what they already think of me. That I didn’t do enough.”

“What more could you have done?”

“I just saw there and looked pretty for five hundred years. Neuvillette was the one who did anything useful for them. People died, Wanderer, and countless more lost their homes or possessions in the flood.” She grew quiet. “I know I had my image to maintain, but I could’ve ordered them to evacuate earlier. Or to seek high ground. I should’ve done something, anything, to make the outcome better than what it was.”

“It’s useless to think about things like that. Your ineffectiveness was part of the plan.”

“Do you think people would feel any less devastated about the loss of their family or friends if I told them I was purposeful in my inactive rather than negligent? It doesn’t absolve me. I’d rather they assume whatever they’d like about me. Whatever helps them cope better.” Realizing their conversation was starting to draw looks from others in the area, Furina added, “Let’s head back to the city.”

The air around her was somber as they commenced their return trip, but Wanderer was relentless. “I think you’re better off telling people the truth.”

“How would you know what you’d do in my situation?” She peered at his face. His youthful features were more beautifully crafted than most, but otherwise, he looked like any normal person. And yet, Furina felt with the weight of his words that he was much older than his appearance suggested.

“Because like you, I was made to be useful by the gods and tossed aside when I was no longer. In hindsight, it’s quite funny,” he said in a way to suggest it was anything but. “I was meant to be a tool created in the image of humans but marked as defective when I began to act like them. At least it means I’m left to do whatever I want now.”

The implication that he was not entirely human was lost on Furina, overshadowed by the profound sense of sadness she felt radiating from him.  He was drenched in it, and even as his expression remained stoic, his eyes betrayed him.

The only thing she could think to offer was a whispered “I’m sorry.”

“Save your breath,” he quipped. “I’m not looking for pity.”

“What are you looking for then?”

“I’m not — ” He stopped himself. She could almost visualize the pieces falling into place in his mind as realization dawned. Furina was sure she heard a hint of self-deprecation when he finally said, “Maybe even someone like me wishes to know they aren’t alone in their circumstances.” 

Fearing he would interpret whatever she said as pity, she reached out and grasped his hand instead, to give a quick squeeze. He flinched at their brief contact like a skittish stray cat but didn’t send a biting comment her way.

They strolled onward, side by side, until Furina chose a lighter topic for both their sakes. “Listen, for tomorrow —”

“I’m not showing you around tomorrow. My obligations end today,” he cut in.

“Let me finish,” she said. “I wanted to ask about the Sabzeruz Festival. What’s there to see? Where should I go?”

“Just follow the crowds.” He dismissed the question with a wave. “I don’t go to these things, so I know as much as you do.”

Seeing the heaviness lift from him and Wanderer reverting to his usual self filled Furina with more relief than she anticipated. 

They returned to the city without speaking too deeply of anything else. There, Wanderer showed her the House of Daena, a most magnificent library, but their visit was cut short when he laid eyes upon a group of younger students from halfway across the expansive room.

“Who are they?” Furina asked, out of breath from being rushed prematurely out of the building. She had hoped to spend a bit more time among the books.

“Peers. They like to bother me,” he explained through gritted teeth.

“By doing what?”

“Talking a lot. Asking me to do things with them.”

“Maybe they’re trying to be friends with you.”

He rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers, miming a headache. “If that’s the case, they should start by being less annoying.”

Furina held in the urge to laugh. Instead, with the extra time Wanderer freed up for them, she asked him to take her to the shops where she finished out the day by purchasing a set of clothes for herself and Neuvillette befitting local fashions. The outfits would do nicely for tomorrow, and as souvenirs. 

When she was nearing the tavern with Wanderer in tow, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and spun on her heels to face him. 

“What?” He lifted a brow.

“You don’t seem to like goodbyes, but I’d prefer something over nothing. So how about a handshake? That’s not too sentimental, right?”

His eyes, skeptical, flickered between her face and the hand she extended out toward him, but when she didn’t budge, he reluctantly placed his hand into hers. She gave it a singular solid pump before letting go. Satisfied, she closed the last stretch of distance to the tavern without looking back, knowing he wouldn’t be there the next time she did. 

Neuvillette was sitting outside like the day before, and he rose to greet her before suggesting dinner.

While they ate, she spoke of the attractions she had visited, and he spoke of the discussions he had with the Dendro Archon. There were new policies established, plans made for increased trade between the nations, and even a proposal laid out for a new exchange program between the Akademiya and the Fontaine Research Institute.

At the end of their drawn-out meal, she suggested they both turn in early for the night in preparation for a long day ahead of them at the festival. 

It was only when Furina laid herself to sleep and had a moment alone that she realized she was bothered by what Wanderer had said in their personal exchange. 

Until now, everyone she knew personally had respected her decision to not expose the details of her role as the fake Archon, but somehow, Wanderer challenging it was sufficient to incite doubt in her mind. Maybe she had been mistaken and was causing more heartache for everyone involved. 

But there was no telling what kind of ripple a story like that could cause. There was also no guarantee she would even be believed after such a prolonged period of silence. So maybe this was still the best course of action.

Maybe Wanderer was wrong. 

She wanted to believe that was true because if he were right about this, what could it mean for his other claims, like her being in love with Neuvillette?

Chapter Text

When Furina met up with Neuvillette again on the morning of the festival, they were dressed in the outfits she had purchased the day before. She had only approximated his size to the merchant, but no great precision had been needed due to the loose-fitting nature of the robe. 

She appraised her handiwork with satisfaction. As she had intended, the blues and greens of the dyed cotton and the accents of gold threaded into the fabric complemented him well. The style of the robe was common enough, but he wore it to a much different effect than the half a dozen people she had seen around the city in similar attire. 

There was a gravity about him that all the others lacked. Even in plain dress, he could be easily mistaken for an esteemed member of the Akademiya, or perhaps the patriarch of some wealthy family in town. 

Furina hadn’t spent nearly as long picking out what to buy for herself, and the results showed. 

Her white tunic shirt and thin, brown jacket were comfortable and well-made, but she was sure the pieces would’ve looked more flattering on someone without her set of features. 

Nevertheless, the novelty of trying out new fashions and her excitement for the day ahead reined in any worries she might’ve had over her appearance.

Once they stepped outside the tavern, she spotted Neuvillette fidgeting with one of his sleeves. 

“Sorry, you’re probably not too used to dressing like this,” she commented. “Thanks for agreeing to it anyway.”

“No, it was a good idea. Since we’re visiting, we should try to do as the Sumerians do. Besides, I’m not picky.”

She knew the last part was indeed true, but only superficially. While he didn’t care to keep up with the fickle trends in the world of fashion, he was conscious of how formally he presented himself in public. And so, his judge’s uniform had remained the centerpiece of his everyday wardrobe all this time. 

This meant Furina’s request was no trivial ask, but she suspected his agreement was due largely in part to them being away from Fontaine. Much like her, there were no expectations to uphold, no image to maintain. 

When they stepped foot onto Treasures Street, Furina found that Wanderer’s flippant advice turned out to be quite apt. Following the crowds led them to a large congregation in front of a stage in the heart of the Grand Bazaar. There, she saw more people gathered than she had in the past two days combined. 

The space was abuzz with conversations from every which direction, and groups of kids chased each other with glee, energized by the jovial atmosphere of the crowd.

Furina confirmed with a woman standing nearby that this was indeed where the opening performance was to be held, and before too long, a man took to the center of the stage, which caused a hush to fall over the audience. 

He introduced himself as the manager of the Zubayr Theater, the place where they all stood, and said some words of welcome before diving into a brief overview of the programming for the day. 

“And before I forget,” he added at the end, “we also have an especially exciting surprise prepared this year. At sundown, please make your way out to Treasures Street or the riverbank — somewhere so you can get a clear, unobstructed view of the sky.” 

Murmurs and speculation started sweeping through the audience at the mention of a surprise, but everyone quieted once more as a troupe of five dancers took to the stage. At the center of their formation was a stunning girl with an ornate headpiece and a white cloth veil that covered the back of her head. 

The background music started slow, and right when it transitioned into an upbeat melody, she was drawn to motion. Her body moved with control and elegance honed over years if not decades of practice, and her hair swayed like it was a planned part of the choreography. 

The group proceeded to showcase multiple dances in succession before finishing out the performance with a round of bows from everyone in the production. After the cheers and applause tapered out, the crowd drifted away from the stage toward the vendor stalls set up around the rest of the Grand Bazaar. 

Furina was about to suggest to Neuvillette that they do the same when she heard a familiar, animated voice cut through the air, its pitch half a tone higher than everyone else’s.

“Well, Paimon thinks that —”

She shared a glance with Neuvillette, who had the same realization.

“Is that...?”

“Paimon and Lumine, it seems.”

They made their way toward the voice, weaving through clusters of people until Paimon and the traveler came into view. When Furina called out to catch their attention, however, three pairs of eyes turned to her. 

Her smile dropped at the unexpected sight of Wanderer standing arm-crossed next to Lumine. He, in contrast, showed nothing more than his usual nonchalance upon seeing the newcomers. 

Blind to it all, Paimon flew up to Furina and exclaimed with vigor, “Furina! Neuvillette! What are you two doing here?”

“To see the performance,” Neuvillette replied.

“No, silly, ‘here’ as in Sumeru.”

“To that end, work and leisure. The Dendro Archon and I had arranged a meeting.”

“Well, whatever the circumstances, it’s always lovely to see you both, especially in those outfits. I’ve been meaning to pick up something new to wear for me and Paimon.” Lumine grinned and gestured to Wanderer. “Ah, I should introduce you all, this is —”

“We’ve met,” Wanderer cut in.

While Neuvillette told an abridged version of the past few days to a puzzled Lumine and Paimon, Furina tried to catch Wanderer’s eyes as a means to ask why he was here at all. He avoided her gaze, which cemented in her mind that Lumine’s presence no doubt played a part.

“Since we’re all friends here, why don’t you two join us?” Paimon offered after Neuvillette concluded his explanation.

“The more the merrier,” Lumine said. “For now, we were planning on walking around and seeing what’s on sale. There should be a lot of good food on sale, specially made for today.” 

Furina tried to gauge how Neuvillette felt about the proposition, only to find he was doing the same back at her. 

“We’ll tag along,” she answered for them both after a pinch of hesitation. Her desire to catch up with Lumine and Paimon clashed with her original plan to enjoy the festival with Neuvillette, just the two of them, but there would still be time later for the two of them to break away. She could find some excuse. 

Their group strolled lazily from vendor to vendor, perusing the wares and listening to Lumine recount stories of her recent adventures in Natlan with Paimon. 

Instead of a real lunch, they ate their fill of the various snacks and candies being sold. Neuvillette abstained from this activity for the most part. When Furina tried out a charcoal-baked cake in front of him, he couldn’t help but grimace and admit that the lack of liquids and sauces in the dishes didn’t suit his palate. 

At one point as she waited for Lumine to finish a piece of baklava, Furina brought up the topic of the surprise that the theater manager had mentioned. “Any guesses as to what it is?”

Paimon smiled knowingly and leaned in closer to whisper, “Don’t spread this around, but we brought over a shipment of fireworks from Inazuma. To finish out this year’s festival with a bang.”

Furina then promised that she wouldn’t miss it for anything. 

Once they’d seen everything there was to see in the Grand Bazaar, their group turned back out onto Treasures Street, where Paimon’s eyes were caught by a storefront with a large spread of jewelry and accessories. She practically teleported to the table of sparkling stones and silver and gold, leaving everyone else behind in the dust. 

When the rest of the group caught up, she urged Neuvillette to come up for a closer look at a display of rings. “Paimon thinks this one would suit you quite well. What do you think, Neuvillette?”

Both he and Lumine stepped up to examine the piece in question, which left Furina and Wanderer by themselves a few lengths back.

Her last real interaction with him had ended on a note of such finality that, for a moment, Furina wasn’t exactly sure how to pick things back up with him. She didn’t have to dwell on the uncertainty for long, however, because he was the one who broke the festering silence. 

“And how was your night last night?”

“Huh?”

“You look like you want pointless small talk.”

“I don’t,” she refuted, not entirely truthful. “But it was fine. Good, even.”

“Mine as well, thanks for asking.”

He was messing with her, she could tell. She pursed her lips and matched his tone. “Well, now that you mention it, I do recall spending a while last night thinking over what you said. And I came to the conclusion that you’re still wrong.”

“That’s a bold accusation to make, but do tell. What am I wrong about?” His mask of indifference faltered.

“You said I should tell everyone about my story.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and tacked on, “And, ah, the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

“You know.” She couldn’t tell if his cluelessness was just for show, but nonetheless, she shifted her eyes in the direction of Neuvillette and back. “About him and I.”

He snickered, finally understanding, and proclaimed at the same volume as before, “Oh, about you being in love —”

Before he could finish, Furina pounced forward, rushing to cover his mouth with her hand. They both froze in place, each as startled as the other by her instinctive reaction, only to have the spell be broken by the sound of Neuvillette’s voice. “Is everything okay?”

Wanderer grabbed ahold of her wrist and pulled her hand roughly off himself. Without missing a beat, he sighed with exasperation, “Stop freaking out and hold still. I was just trying to get something out of your hair.”

“Right, right, sorry,” she muttered and gave an embarrassed smile to their spectators. Lumine was beyond amused by the whole scene whilst Paimon was glancing back and forth between Furina, Wanderer, and Neuvillette. At the same time, Neuvillette’s expression mainly betrayed confusion as he fixed his eyes on Wanderer, who was now in the midst of pretending to examine Furina’s hair. 

When Wanderer leaned in to mime plucking something out, he whispered to her, barely audible even at such quarters, “How wrong am I really, when your mind’s still stuck on these things?”

She pulled back with a scowl. Evidently, he did know how to be discreet.

Perhaps as a way to diffuse the tension, Paimon flew to Furina’s side and nudged her forward. “Well, uh, Paimon was going to ask if there’s anything in the shop that looks good to you, Furina.”

“I’m wounded that you’d ask for everyone else’s opinions except mine, Paimon.”

She spun to face Wanderer and stuck her tongue out at him. “You don’t care for these things anyway.” 

He chuckled. “I never knew you paid that much attention to me.”

Furina, glad nobody was openly questioning what had just transpired, peeled away from Wanderer and Paimon’s bickering and browsed through the selection of jewelry under the watchful eyes of Lumine and Neuvillette. Her fingertips trailed over the different trinkets on display and paused when she reached a necklace with a pale, almost-translucent amethyst pendant that bore a striking resemblance to Neuvillette’s eyes. 

However much she wanted to pick up the stone, which was encased in a silver filigree setting, Furina also didn’t want to risk inviting questions like, why that one in particular?

She tore herself away. “They all look so pretty, but I don’t think anything stands out to me.” 

That was sufficient to make them move on. 

Wanderer resumed his act of ignoring Furina, but Neuvillette would steal glances at him on occasion.  

Furina was wondering if he had somehow overheard Wanderer’s babbling from earlier and what misconceptions she should be prepared to correct when she almost stumbled into Lumine, who stopped dead in her tracks without warning. 

“I’d almost lost track of time,” Lumine exclaimed to Paimon. “We’re meeting Nahida and the others in less than half an hour.”

“Shoot, that’s right.” Paimon snapped her fingers and explained to Neuvillette and Furina, “We planned a get-together with some friends from the Akademiya and Nahida, so that we can personally show her the surprise later. I’m sure you two would be welcome…”

“Don’t let us keep you from your original plans,” Neuvillette said, polite yet firm. 

Furina echoed his sentiment, having been ready herself to gently turn down the offer. 

“Well, in that case —”

They said their farewells, all except Wanderer, and Lumine swore to take Paimon and visit Fontaine again very soon. 

“Don’t forget, make sure you have a clear view of the sky later! Sundown!” Paimon gave the remaining duo one last wave and disappeared into the crowd with her companions. 

“We still have a bit of time until then, so was there anything else in particular you’d like to do?”

Furina considered Neuvillette’s question as she scanned the streets for options available. She pointed to an older gentleman who was set up with a pile of art supplies and perched atop a stool in front of a group of teens striking ridiculous poses. The man’s hand, holding a piece of charcoal, moved with practiced strokes across a piece of parchment, capturing the kids’ likeness with astonishing accuracy without full-out realism. 

“Getting a live sketch done looks interesting if you wouldn’t mind a wait,” Furina suggested.

“Lead the way.”

They joined the line, which shuffled along at a slow but steady rate. The artist always exchanged a few words with each customer before starting his sketch, and Furina listened in a few of the conversations until she tired of it and turned to Neuvillette. “How about we play a game to pass the time?”

“Did you have one in mind?”

“Let’s see…” She scanned the area around them. “I’ve done one in the past where you pick out a stranger in the crowd and try to guess something about their life or what they’re going to do, purely based on first impressions.”

“I’m not too great at speculating, but I’d be happy to give it a try.”

“Don’t worry, there’s no pressure to be right. It’s only supposed to be for fun. We can start with that person over there.” She pointed to a tall, older man with salt-and-pepper hair standing a fair stretch away from them, picking out clothes from a storefront together with a young, stout woman.

He fished out a pair of pants from a rack and showed it to the woman, who pursed her lips at the selection.

“This should be straightforward enough,” Furina said. “From looking at him, I’d guess he’s shopping for clothes with his daughter, and they have pretty different opinions on what looks good.”

Neuvillette shook his head. “I don’t think they’re related. Maybe they’re friends? Or a couple?”

“That’s unlikely, I’d wager. They’re so apart in age and have the same color hair and eyes. Their brows are also nearly identical.”

“Yes, but their facial structure and build are distinctly different,” Neuvillette remarked. 

Just as he finished his sentence, the stranger placed the pants he held back onto the rack and gave his companion a quick peck on the lips.

“I —” Furina stopped. There wasn’t much else to say on the matter aside from her being sorely mistaken. “Okay, for the next round, maybe that little boy in the green shirt there?”

He was no more than five or six years old and clutched at his mother’s hand tightly while gazing longingly at a pita pocket stand nearby. When the tantalizing smell of the bread intensified to the point that Furina had to stop herself from drooling, the child pulled his mother down to his level. They spoke a few sentences to each other, and he broke into tears.

“He must be frustrated because he wants a pita pocket, but his mother’s saying no,” Furina said sympathetically. “Poor boy.”

“No, his tears —” Neuvillette frowned and studied the boy for a while longer. “They don’t reek of personal desire. It’s more akin to pity, which makes me believe he wants to give the food to someone who may not have the means to purchase it.”

She had overlooked Neuvillette’s advantage over her this round with his ability to sense emotions through water, but she wasn’t wholly convinced by his interpretation. “The pity could be directed toward himself, couldn’t it? Maybe he’s feeling sorry for himself that his mother won’t buy him one.”

He considered her counterargument. “That I do concede.”

The child’s sniffling and whining escalated, drawing in more onlookers, until his mother ultimately gave in and handed him Mora. Immediately, his tantrum ceased, and he sprinted toward the food stand, curly hair bouncing with each energetic step he took. He came away with an extra large pita pocket stuffed to its limit with mean and threw the whole thing to the ground.

Dismayed, Furina was ready to declare both herself and Neuvillette wrong when the boy yelled out a name she couldn’t make out. On cue, a shaggy dog with dirt-coated fur and prominent hip bones came into view. Dodging between the legs of pedestrians, it bolted to the pita pocket and inhaled the entire thing in a single bite.

“Ah, you’re right again,” Furina announced weakly. 

“Partially at most. In my mind, it had been a person.”

She made Neuvillette pick the next subject, and after the third round of his analysis being spot on as hers fell short, he suggested to Furina, whose incredulity showed more and more with each successive round, “Maybe it’s beginner’s luck?”

“Maybe today’s not my day,” she laughed to conceal her embarrassment. “Let’s try doing something else.”

They were nearing the front of the line, so she needed an activity that would allow her to make up for her poor showing without taking too long. Surely acting was a safe bet.

“How about we improvise?” She saw his perplexity and elaborated on her idea, “The artist seems to make conversation with everyone before he draws them. If he asks us about ourselves, we should answer like we’re not Furina and Neuvillette.”

“So we lie about our identities?”

“No, no, think of it as play pretend, and the fun part is preparing a backstory and imagining an alternate version of yourself, then bringing it to life. Haven’t you ever wondered how you might’ve turned out if you were born completely ordinary?”

“I can’t say I’ve thought about it, but I’ll give this improvising a go. Ordinary, you say?”

“Yeah, to keep our stories at least somewhat consistent, I want to use a common starting point, which is us being ordinary people in Sumeru. Feel free to be as creative as you want, but it can make things easier to sprinkle in a bit of the truth if you’re trying it out for the first time.”

“Understood,” he said and fell into a contemplative silence. 

She did the same. 

The first role she tried to fabricate for herself was that of a dancer, much like one of the girls at the Zubayr Theater, but for the first time in her acting career, Furina struggled to get into character. None of her usual tricks worked. In fact, the more realistic she tried to make Dancer Furina by building out the world around her in excruciating detail, the less inclined she was to become her at all. 

She attributed her mental block to dancing being the choice wrong and made a second attempt, this time envisioning herself as a teacher. Then again as a pastry maker. But no matter what she picked, the scenarios all felt wrong in their own way. Flat.

A bit alarmed, she abandoned her preparations altogether. She would have to figure out the reason for her troubles later, but for now, she was confident enough in her acting experience to be ready for whatever got thrown her way. 

They were soon called up by the artist from the front of the line, and Furina took a few steps toward him before noticing Neuvillette hadn’t done the same. 

He was still looking off into the distance, lost in thought, so she took his hand, pulling him toward her and snapping him out of his daze. “It’s our turn.”

“Oh, my apologies.”

“Aren’t you two a cute couple,” the artist said in a cheery tone. “How long have you two been together?”

She was not, in fact, ready for whatever got thrown her way.

She blanked for a second, dumbfounded by the opening question until she realized she was still grasping Neuvillette’s hand, which no doubt accounted for the misconception. She tried to release her grip, but he held on.

“A few years, though we’ve known each other for longer. Much longer, isn’t that right?” Neuvillette answered and met her eyes, head tilted slightly as if to ask her, isn’t this what you meant by improvise ?

“R-right.” She scrambled to make up a believable lie and took her own advice of sprinkling in the truth. “We met many years ago, sitting next to each other at an opera. I attend shows regularly since I’m a composer myself, and he went for the first time because he was gifted a ticket.”

“An opera? How interesting,” the artist mused. “I’ve never attended one, but it must’ve been quite a show for you two to hit it off. Do you remember what it’s called? I ought to go see it myself.”

“I don’t recall, unfortunately,” Furina said. “Probably because I didn’t think too highly of it.”

“She was muttering to herself unhappily throughout much of the show,” Neuvillette chimed in, thoroughly impressing her with how well he played off the story. “We started talking, or rather arguing, because I asked her to be quiet, which she didn’t appreciate. We were escorted out soon after, which is where we got to keep talking.”

She feigned a scowl, which drew a hearty laugh from the artist as he said, “Well, if you do end up remembering the name of it, don’t hesitate to let me know. Now then, is that the pose you two want to do? No need to be shy!”

“This is fine,” Furina answered with a smile to mask the nerves that sprung forth.

Her hand was still linked to Neuvillette’s, but the distance they kept otherwise didn’t look entirely natural for the narrative they told. Still, being in public like this was already a leap on its own for her, even if nobody they knew was there to see them. Even if they were pretending. 

The artist studied them for a moment through squinted eyes then lifted his hand to paper. Furina did her best to remain motionless, her relief palpable that everything had gone over so well despite the rocky start.

She noted, curious enough, that she had been much more willing and able to lose herself in this particular story than all the other ones she tried to dream up. 

What was so unique about being a composer? Not much, as far as she could tell. 

Neuvillette being there was the only other difference she could discern, but his presence should’ve made the scenario less realistic and less immersive. After all, if she were completely ordinary, their paths would’ve never crossed. 

She should’ve let the thought go, but the paradox of it bothered her.

Acting was sacrifice. She had to give up her current self to become someone else, which meant leaving behind her personal dreams, history, and attachments. Naturally, that should include Neuvillette, too, but her subconscious had rebelled against her at the mere thought of it. 

But why?

Ah, she could practically hear Wanderer’s voice taunting her in response, isn’t it obvious that you fell for him ?

To that, she’d argue the feeling Neuvillette stirred in her didn’t knock her off her feet. There was no torrential downpour. At worst, it was a soft, gentle rain she’d happily welcome after a dry season gone on too long. 

But when it came time to fully deny the notion that she loved him, she found she was no longer capable. 

Crap.

She was wrong yet again.

Chapter Text

But what was Furina to do with this feeling, now that she knew of its existence?

She wished time would pause, if only to offer her a moment of respite to ponder, but no such luck was granted. The artist carried on sketching, passersby carried on chattering, and Neuvillette carried on holding her hand like it were the most natural thing in the world. 

A part of her wanted to shout aloud her realization of love, but her sensibilities held her back, and the ridiculous impulse was quashed as quickly as it rose.

The answer to her question of what to do should be simple, really. There was only to tell or not to tell. Yet, despite the limited options available, she was paralyzed by the thought that whatever choice she made could turn out to be the incorrect one.

Her life up to this point had consisted of her going along with events set in motion by others — the centuries of acting, her public trial, the job offered by Neuvillette, and this trip to Sumeru. Even her resignation to Neuvillette was owed, in part, to Charlotte’s fervent insistence that the idea to start a new paper was a great one that she needed Furina’s help with. 

Furina wasn’t sure if she was ready to face a big decision that would be entirely her own. 

Thankfully, before her thoughts could spiral into anything more, the artist spoke again and informed them that the sketch was completed. 

Brought back down to earth, she stepped forward in tandem with Neuvillette to retrieve the finished product. There would be time later to agonize over her situation, but for now, she wouldn’t let the rest of the festival be consumed by it. Not when there were no conclusions to be had at the moment. 

Neuvillette handed the man some Mora in exchange for the drawing, and they vacated their spots for the next group in line before taking a closer look at the parchment that held their likeness.

He had captured their essence well, with a few stylistic liberties taken here and there.

Her hair, for one, was more poofed, and her nose more rounded, while Neuvillette’s features were sharpened to give off a starker contrast between their caricatures. There was a quiet intimacy in the way he made their gazes meet, a small smile drawn across their mouths like they were in on some inside joke. Which, in a way, they had been.

“I reckon he believed us,” Neuvillette commented, brushing a thumb over the coarse texture of the paper. “Though my acting left much to be desired, I’m sure, compared to a seasoned professional like yourself.”

“No, no, you did remarkably. I have no critiques. If anything, I was the one struggling after I was caught by surprise.” She lifted her eyes from the picture. “Can I hold onto this?”

“Be my guest, you have more rights to it than I do. This was your idea, after all.” He watched as she carefully folded the page, taking care that the creases didn’t touch any of the charcoal lines, and tucked it away into a pocket. “I will admit I once believed that people who would commission portraits of themselves must be self-absorbed.”

Furina laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have made us do this if that’s what it’d make you think of me.” 

“Ah, I had brought up that thought to retract it. This experience was quite good fun, so I do understand the appeal now. It wasn’t to call you self-absorbed.” He stopped, then further clarified, “I don’t think of you like that.”

“But have you thought of me like that?”

Her question was asked in jest, but Neuvillette didn’t interpret it so. “In all honesty, yes, for a while in between everything, but I hope it didn’t show. Or get in the way of how I had treated you.”

“Don’t worry, you were well-mannered to everyone, even when I did my best to get a rise out of you, like that one time I secretly took all the chairs out of your office for a day.” She suppressed a giggle at the face he made to her confession. “Besides, I don’t fault anyone for their initial impression of back then. It just goes to show I did my job.”

“Right. You know, I’ve always wondered...” He trailed off, and Furina thought he was going to say something about the office chairs incident until he picked up again, this time with less hesitance, “I’ve always wondered what your initial impression of me had been when we met.”

“Oh.” She blinked. With time, many of her memories have faded away into some tone of sepia, blurry around the edges, but this particular scene she could recollect with certainty, in full color. “You were shelter to me.”

“Shelter?”

“Because I no longer had to weather the storm alone. Out in the open.”

She wasn’t sure if the answer made sense to him, but Neuvillette appeared satisfied and glanced at the sky above, which was beginning to darken into rich shades of orange and violet.

“Sundown’s coming soon. We should find somewhere to sit for the surprise,” he suggested.

It seemed that much of the crowd had the same exact idea, because every bench they came across on the street was occupied, and every open chair they saw in outdoor dining areas filled up faster than they could lay claim to it. Other festival goers around them were met with the same issue and circumvented it by opting to sit on the ground. Some people had even come prepared with picnic blankets, which they laid down along the hill that connected the city to the riverbank down south.

Furina and Neuvillette followed their example and plopped down onto an open stretch of grass overlooking the river. Just in time, for the first explosion sounded as soon as they settled themselves.

Furina had read descriptions of these displays before  — especially in those romance novellas released by the Yae Publishing House that have had a recent surge of popularity in Fontaine — but none of them had prepared her for how loud the real thing was. 

Each splash of color in the air was followed by a delayed boom that caused a dull vibration to spread through her core. Then a split-second reprieve until the next one was released. 

At first, the patterns consisted of simple spirals and symmetrical shapes, but as it went on, the designs evolved in complexity to include motifs tied specifically to Sumeru. They saw native flowers, animals, and even a series depicting fungi. 

As enthralled as she was, Furina still tore her eyes away in order to catch a glimpse of Neuvillette’s reaction to the show, a spectacle in itself. 

His eyes were pointed to the sky, which cast its dazzling reds, greens, and blues onto his pale hair and skin, the perfect canvas. His sitting posture was relaxed, one of his knees drawn up with an arm draped over it, and their shoulders would’ve touched if either of them shifted in the slightest. 

That all-too-familiar feeling reared its head again, and just like in those Yae Publishing House books, now should’ve been the picturesque moment for Furina to tell him. Swept away by the atmosphere, she opened her mouth as if to do so, “Neuvillette —”

But the rest of the words died on the tip of her tongue when it came time to speak them into existence. 

Stronger than the desire for him to know she loved him was the fear of what would happen once he did.

She would have to hear his response, and while she knew he held at least some affection for her, there was no telling if it extended as far as love. That would be the ultimate betrayal of his partiality from himself, wouldn’t it?

And if he didn’t reciprocate, she’d risk changing everything there was between them right now, but that alone wasn’t enough to properly scare her into inaction. There was also the possibility that he did reciprocate, only for nothing at all to change. 

If he simply rejected her, she’d be hurt, but she could move on. She hoped. But, if he said the same words back, she couldn’t fathom a way forward for them. There was little chance they’d get to have something resembling a normal relationship, free and out in the open like she would want. What they pretended to have for the briefest of moments today was only allowed because they were away from home, where he had a break from being the leader of Fontaine. 

So there, she had her answer. Out of all her options, she’d rather for Neuvillette and her to remain just so and no different.

Maybe he felt the weight of her internal conflict or its resolution, for he turned and saw her eyes still fixed on him. 

He leaned in, and for a split second, Furina thought he was going to kiss her out in the open, but he only put his mouth near her ear and spoke in a raised voice, struggling to be heard over the thundering fireworks. “Sorry, did you say something?”

She smiled and replied back in his ear, “It’s nothing.”

Once the show ended, the crowd disbanded, and the street merchants all started to clean up their stalls. With the festival having reached its anticipated end, Furina and Neuvillette were also on their way back, chattering about the day, when she spotted Wanderer by himself on a bench. 

He was faced away from them, illuminated directly overhead by a streetlamp that formed his own personal, lonely spotlight. His whole figure was slouched in a way that made Furina want to check if he was okay.

“Would you mind if I talk to him quickly?” She asked Neuvillette. He gave her the go-ahead and said he’d wait for her a little ways off, at one of the few remaining vendors still open for the night. 

Wanderer straightened up his posture as soon as he heard her footsteps approach and spun his head around. Upon seeing her, he scowled. “If you’re looking for Lumine, she’s meeting up with other people at the Sanctuary of Surasthana.”

“Always so busy,” Furina remarked. “But no, I just wanted to see how you were.”

He responded with a scoff of disbelief. “No, really.”

“It’s true,” she maintained, but when he didn’t let up, she gave him something he’d be more inclined to believe. “You were also right about me and Neuvillette.”

That perked him up slightly. “Took you long enough.”

“That’s all, I guess,” she shrugged. “I’ll leave you be then, hope you have a good —”

“Will you tell him?”

“No,” she answered without missing a beat at his sudden interruption. Seeing him raise a brow at her, she offered him her crude summary of why. “It feels like things will go wrong no matter how he might respond.”

“Hypocrite,” he said, but there was no vitriol behind the word. “After you gave me grief about Lumine.”

“I know,” she said, exhaling a faint laugh. “Though you still haven’t told me your reasons for it.”

“She deserves someone less insufferable.”

“There’s no way that’s all.”

Wanderer rolled his eyes. “That and I’m just a transient passerby in her life. She’s destined for more than I can hope to contend with.”

Though their situations were similar, she couldn’t help but think that his situation was somehow much, much worse. “Will you be fine?”

“Eventually.” He jumped to his feet and glanced over at Neuvillette, who was presently speaking with the owner of the pita pocket stand from her guessing game. “It’s rude to keep people waiting for too long.” 

“Kind of you to let me know. I’ll be off then.”

“Later.”

Before she could express her surprise that he actually said something resembling a goodbye, he was already gone. When she finally returned to Neuvillette’s side, he placed a wrapped, steaming bundle into her hand, its aroma irresistible. 

“A pita pocket,” he explained. “I saw you eyeing them earlier and figured you might be hungry since there wasn’t a chance for a real dinner.”

She exclaimed a heartfelt, thank you , and was already several bites into it when she thought to ask, with her mouth stuffed, “Are you hungry as well? Would you like some? Or we can get something somewhere else?”

Neuvillette chuckled and shook his head. “It’s all yours.”

Furina finished inhaling the pita pocket in no time at all. In her happy and tired state, she couldn’t stop a long yawn from escaping. A tear streaked from the corner of her eye, and Neuvillette brushed it aside with a fingertip before she thought to. He dried his hand on a pant leg with unusual quickness. 

Unaware, she picked up where they had left off before she went to check on Wanderer, speaking her thoughts on the grand finale to the night they had witnessed, wherein the sky had been showered in enough bursts of light that they could’ve mistaken it for daytime. 

The day had been extraordinarily long, but when they reached the doors to their rooms, Furina wished that it wouldn’t end so soon.

As such, she was glad when Neuvillette spoke up again before they had to separate, “I’m not sure how exactly to bring this up...”

“What is it?”

“Furina, the thing that you held back from saying when we were watching the fireworks —”

She braced herself. This hadn’t been the direction she expected.

“— was it that you’ve fallen in love with Wanderer?”

What? Unsure if she heard him correctly, she sputtered out weakly, “Wanderer? Love?”

“My apologies, the feeling had jumped out at me so strongly when I touched your tear that I wasn’t able to disregard it. You had just come back from talking with him, so I made the connection.”

She only stared back at him, mouth slightly ajar.

Taking her reaction another way, he rushed to say, “I didn’t mean to pry. Still, I figured it was best to be transparent. I don’t want you to mistakenly think that I don’t know when that wasn’t the case, especially since you had difficulty broaching the topic — were you afraid of how I’d react, perhaps? Regardless, you’re free to pursue him as you wish —”

She cut off what she could best describe as his version of rambling, “You’ve got it all wrong.”

He quieted. 

Furina hadn’t thought it possible, but she had stumbled upon a situation that was worse than telling him the truth. His wild conclusion, so very strange for someone who usually relied on facts to jump to, had to be corrected. “It’s not him. It’s you.”

Now he was the one left trying to make sense of what was said.

Meanwhile, she was once more made to deal with the aftermath of things happening outside her control.

Desperate to hold onto the one remaining piece of control she had in the situation, she hurriedly followed up with, “I know it’s selfish of me to ask, but please don’t say anything right now.”

“Okay,” he breathed out, hushed, then realized that it might count as saying something. “Sorry.” 

“And please don’t give me a response to it until I’m ready.”

She wasn’t sure if he even understood the full extent of what had just happened, but she didn’t want to wait around to find out. 

She gave him a clipped, “goodnight,” shut the door, and dove onto her bed. Burying her face into the pillow, she found it difficult to dispel the feeling that she had gone about things all wrong again.

Chapter Text

Talochard was late to pick them up.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but this particular morning was the exception. Neuvillette was noticeably taciturn, which made each second pass by at a snail’s pace for Furina, but there was no blame to be had. 

She didn’t expect him to pretend like everything was normal between them just because she did her best to — not that she proved to be particularly skillful at it.

There was only so much she could prattle on about before she exhausted all the mindless, low-stakes topics she could think of with him, after which they resorted to waiting at the port in silence. A quiet tension hung over her as she tried to guess what might be going on in Neuvillette’s mind, but the more she tried, the more he confounded her.

His replies to her had been brief but not curt. He had said enough each time to show he was listening but not to continue the conversation. He seemed to avoid looking directly at her, purposefully or not, but on several occasions, she swore she’d catch his eyes rest on her momentarily before flitting away to their destination, be that the seabirds squawking at them from the sky or the rich blue sea that lay in front of them.

His stiffer-than-usual mannerisms would suggest that she made him uncomfortable, and yet, after Talochard finally arrived with her boat in tow, he didn’t hesitate to steady her with a hand when she nearly stumbled on the steps while boarding. 

At least he wasn’t upset with her. That much she could ascertain.

Furina could feel the dreamlike effect of the past few days lift as soon as Talochard navigated them out to the open waters. Nevertheless, she kept her face pressed against the window by her seat, trying to make the landscape of Sumeru last as long as she could until it was swallowed up by the horizon. 

“Perhaps you should consider a nap.”

She startled for a moment at Neuvillette’s sudden remark, then answered with more calm than she possessed, “How come?”

His eyes lifted from the papers he was reading and met hers steadily for the first time that day. “You look tired. Your eyes especially so.”

She refrained from telling him that she doubted she was capable of falling asleep here and now when she had struggled with it all night long in the comforts of her bed at the inn. He didn’t need to know that; he was being polite, and she should, too.

“You’re probably right. A nap’s a good idea.”

She planned to humor him and try for long enough to claim she’d put forth a valiant effort, but once she shut her eyes, the thought of opening them became unappealing, then difficult, then outright impossible. Maybe it was the monotonous hum of the boat engine or the soft crinkling of paper in Neuvillette’s hands that put her in such a daze, but she only became conscious of the world again when she was roused awake by the sound of the passenger compartment door creaking open. 

“I should really get the hinges fixed,” Talochard said apologetically, peering in from the deck. “There’s some rain coming, so I hope you don’t mind me coming in here to wait it out. The wheelhouse is so dreadfully tiny that I always feel cramped if I stay in there.”

“Of course.” Neuvillette gestured to the open spot between him and Furina. “Stay as long as you wish.”

Talochard was short enough that her legs dangled off the edge of the seat, but she didn’t seem to mind.

True to the Melusine’s predictions, the downpour started only a few short minutes later, and the loud pattering of raindrops against glass and metal echoed loudly throughout the cabin. Despite the conditions, the ship’s automation kept them cruising along at a smooth, steady speed. 

“The rain won’t delay us?” Furina asked.

Talochard was much more talkative than Furina could’ve guessed, and she embarked on a long-winded explanation of the physics of water, the ship’s engineering, and several other things Furina didn’t understand — all of which boiled down to the answer being no. In fact, with the current helping them along, they may even arrive an hour or two faster than their journey to Sumeru. 

“You’re so knowledgeable,” Furina said, impressed. “How long have you been doing this type of work?”

Talochard put a hand up to her chin in thought. “Hmm, there were the aquabuses before this. Before that, I had operated fishing boats for some decades, and then before that ...well, you get the point. I don’t remember the exact number of years, but it’s for basically as long as I can recall.” 

“You must enjoy this quite a bit then.”

“Not really,” she replied. “I thought I would, but it’s actually pretty boring, and most of the people I’ve ferried around are nowhere near as pleasant as you and Monsieur Neuvillette.”

“Why don’t you try something else?”

“Well, I’ve been working on boats for so long that it’s hard to see myself as anything else.” She shrugged. “So I’ve just accepted it’s who I am. Or maybe all that I am.”

Talochard’s response came so easily that she had to have practiced it before.

“That’s not true, I’m sure you’re much more than that,” Furina refuted, all of a sudden emboldened by the topic at hand and Talochard’s frank demeanor. She was met with visible skepticism and reframed her argument in a way she hoped would appeal to Melusines. “Take Monsieur Neuvillette —”

Neuvillette ceased his reading once more at the mention of his name.

“— many would agree it’s hard to envision him as anything but the Iudex, maybe himself included, but that’s not all he is. For example, I’d argue he has the makings of a great actor. Among other things.”

“An actor? Monsieur Neuvillette?”

Neuvillette coughed.

“Ah, it’s a long story,” Furina quickly followed up, not wanting to get into the weeds, “but my point is that not even Monsieur Neuvillette can be defined entirely by a single role, despite how all-consuming it is to be the Iudex. So you don’t have to be, either, if that’s not what you want.” 

Talochard contemplated Furina’s words for a while and conceded. “Even so, I’m still not sure what I’d want to do besides boating.” 

“Never too late to start thinking about it.”

“Well, I’d want to do something where I can be outside a lot, since that’s the one part I do like about this job. I’d hate to be cooped up inside, in the same room everyday. And it has to be exciting. And unpredictable, like the weather today...”

Neuvillette forfeited his position as an audience member to their exchange and piped up, “Have you thought about joining the Marechaussee Phantom, Talochard?”

Talochard shook her head.

“There’s no guarantee it’ll be a perfect fit for you, but detective work may satisfy much of what you’re looking for.”

“That’s an interesting idea...oh!” Without warning, Talochard sprung to her feet. “I didn’t realize it had stopped raining already. I’ll have to mull this over some more, but thank you both.”

She headed for the deck with a slight spring in her step, leaving Neuvillette and Furina to their own devices again.

For the rest of the ride, Neuvillette abandoned his work to look out the window in an attempt to make sense of some new, unspoken conclusion, a fact that Furina was oblivious to as she drifted in and out of sleep, still exhausted. The tranquil atmosphere lasted until Talochard broke it by popping in to announce their arrival. 

Still groggy, Furina followed Neuvillette out of the boat and said her farewells to Talochard, who stayed behind to perform some much-needed maintenance on the door hinges.

Late afternoon was a busy hour for the port, though the dockworkers they encountered paid them little mind, each busy with their duties or vessels. 

It took a few steps for Furina to regain her land legs after so long at sea, and a few more for Neuvillette to speak.

“Would you want to get food? You haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I’d like it if we could talk. Without interruptions, if possible.”

The feeling of stepping on solid ground again was nowhere near as jarring for Furina as the shift in his voice. His tone was a little too serious, and his expression a little too reminiscent of the night before. Before she could think up an excuse, however, a small crowd gathered farther down the dock took notice of their approach and descended on them with a flurry of exclamations.  

“Monsieur Neuvillette, can you tell us about your trip to Sumeru?”

“Monsieur Neuvillette, what came of your talks with the Dendro Archon?”

“Monsieur Neuvillette —”

They were reporters, made clear by their notepad scribbling and voice recorders in hand, and the sight of them made Furina stop dead in her tracks. Neuvillette took steps forward as if to shield her from view, but in doing so, gave the journalists their opening to surround him.

“Furina —”

By the time he turned around in search of her amidst the chaos and confusion, she had already slipped away, overlooked by a crowd that had eyes only for him.

Three whole days passed in which Furina neither saw nor spoke to Neuvillette. But she did hear from him.

He had sent her a letter to pass along yet another invitation to share a meal, this time on a day and hour of her choosing, and she had left it on her dining table for the past two days, unanswered. What he wanted to talk about was obvious, and she wasn’t quite ready. Not yet. She needed more time, and then she would apologize to him for the wait and face him head-on. To discuss whatever they needed to discuss. 

He would understand. Maybe he already did. She had warned him of it, after all, and he had left the burden of choosing when to meet fall on her.

With the temporary grace period she gave herself, Furina prepared for the worst case scenario, which involved getting used to a new normal with him no longer being a part of it. She went about it the only way she knew how, which was keeping busy.

Completely free of work from the court to occupy herself, she gave her apartment's interior an overdue makeover, finished reading the two latest releases from the Yae Publishing House, and scheduled a meetup with Charlotte for tomorrow to officially kick off work on their new publication.

And for tonight, she was headed to Navia’s biweekly game night, ready to learn a new game they’d spoken of during their last session.

At their usual table hidden away in a corner of Fleuve Cendre, she came upon a peculiar sight. Charlotte sat with a newspaper propped up in her hand and Navia and Clorinde on either side of her, their chairs pushed together as close as they could be so that all three women could read along.

“What’s that?”

Charlotte shot up in her seat at the sound of Furina’s voice, her eyes wide.

“What’s that?” Furina repeated more firmly.

Clorinde cleared her throat, which made Charlotte let out a groan of consternation before admitting, “The Steambird.”

“Oh?”

“It was given to me.” Charlotte paused and exchanged looks with Clorinde and Navia, who both gave encouraging nods for her to continue. “I was just having dinner with an old friend who still works there, and we were venting about Euphrasie’s leadership and how ridiculous it was that sales are higher than they’ve ever been. Before leaving, he handed me an envelope with an advance copy of tomorrow’s print and asked me to give it to you, since he knows about these game nights. Said it was something you should know about. I got curious, so I opened it up, and...”

“What?” Furina laughed. “Another article badmouthing me?”

“It might be best if you take a look yourself,” Navia said gently and pushed the paper toward her, face-down. 

Furina peeled it off the table, flipped it over, and saw herself featured on the front page once more, but not alone. Unlike before, there was a series of photos, all depicting a single scene of her and Neuvillette upon that grassy knoll in Sumeru, their figures set alight by the fireworks that were completely cropped out.

They weren’t the intended main subjects. In fact, Furina doubted that the photographer, name uncredited, had even noticed their presence when they were first captured, given the poor resolution of the images, which had to have been blown up to many times their original size.

The timing, however, was impeccable in the worst way possible.

To an outsider, the awkward Kamera angle and pixelated picture quality told an undeniable story of Furina leaning in to give Neuvillette a kiss, but she knew it as the moment when she had to shout directly into his ear to be heard over the explosions.

Morbid curiosity led her down the rest of the pages.

She had to give the paper some credit for covering its bases. Instead of spinning up a written exposé that could’ve been construed as libel or pure speculative fiction, for which Furina may have had the grounds to retaliate in court, Euphrasie had gone the route of asking everyday Fontainians for their personal thoughts on the photos. She went through the pull quotes, some more measured than others.

I hope this doesn’t mean that our ex-Archon’s work ethic, or lack of it, is rubbing off on our Iudex.

Was Monsieur Neuvillette’s diplomacy trip just a cover story so he could get away and indulge himself in these unseemly affairs? Actually, no, that doesn’t sound like him. It must’ve been Furina’s idea.

Is she trying to use her charms to take advantage of him? To make him go easy on her in the courts? To fund her lifestyle? Whatever it is, something has to be going on.

I guess not even Monsieur Neuvillette is incorruptible. How will this bode for our justice system if he’s willing to entertain a romantic relationship like this? Imagine if Furina wrongs someone. Will he truly be able to punish her as fairly as she deserves? I hope so, because his judgeship should be stripped if that’s not the case.

There were some nonsensical ones, too. Someone who went by the pseudonym White Lily had simply said, when will it be my turn?

And buried within the mountain of criticism, a lone stranger had said, what’s the big deal? It’s just a kiss. You don’t live for centuries and centuries without kissing a person or two here and there. Anyway, they’ve always looked happier when they’re around each other, so this makes me happy for them.

“I know it’s not any of our business —” Clorinde started hesitantly.

“It isn’t true. There was no kiss. We’re not together like that,” Furina interjected, answering the question that her friend didn’t get the chance to start. She went on to explain what had actually happened, though taking care to omit any irrelevant details like her true feelings toward him.

“We believe you. We didn’t think it was true,” Navia said.

“But even if it were, there’d be nothing wrong with it,” Clorinde chimed in. “I think they probably cherry-picked the most sensational quotes to print, not the ones that reflect what the majority of people think.”

“Besides, it’s not too late to fix this,” Charlotte said, taking her shot at reassuring Furina as well. “I can go and try to talk some sense into Euphrasie first thing in the morning. Get her to reconsider. She can’t possibly think this is even close to proper journalism, the ethics of it aside. Clorinde, will you come along? You can provide the intimidation factor.”

Furina didn’t give Clorinde a chance to answer. “That won’t make a difference. The news is out there already, even if we somehow manage to stop her from publishing the copy. There’s no way everyone who was interviewed is going to keep quiet about this, and if even a single one of them speaks, it’s only a matter of time before everyone knows. And who’s to say the story won’t get distorted much more like that.”

Charlotte frowned. “Then what? I don’t think this is something you can just wait out. Not like the last time.”

For an instant, Furina had trouble shaking the feeling that she had hardly moved forward in these past months. That she was out of her depth, just as she had been while reading the first headline about her return to the city. But this situation was much bigger than just herself, and so she had to deal with it. There was no other way.

“I’ll do something about it,” because it affects him, too, “but I need some time to come up with a plan.”

“If there’s anything we can help with...”

“Don’t worry,” she said softly, “I won’t hesitate to ask.”

Chapter Text

The next afternoon, Charlotte appeared at Furina’s apartment doorsteps per their prior arrangement.

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure if our meeting was still on for today considering everything that’s going on, but I figured I should show up just in case.”

“No, no, thank you for coming,” Furina replied, stepping aside to invite her friend inside. “I should be the one apologizing since I left in such a hurry last night without making things clear. And please, ah, excuse the mess in here.”

In addition to pages of The Steambird strewn about the living room, Furina’s recent home renovation project she used to fill up time also left its marks. A half-put-together coffee table was laid out in her living area, its legs yet to be attached to the body, and several landscape paintings rested in a corner, waiting to be put in their rightful places. She suspected they’d be remaining in that state for a while at least.

Charlotte laughed her off and managed to find an unobstructed path to the dining room table. “Don’t worry, my place has gone through worse, depending on how many deadlines were coming up.” 

Furina doubted the substance of the statement even as she appreciated its sentiments. “How do you like your tea?”

“No sugar, please,” Charlotte said, and as Furina stepped into the kitchen to prepare them drinks, she blurted out, “I saw Monsieur Neuvillette earlier today.”

“Is that right?” Furina replied, her voice a pitch too high to pass for nonchalance. 

There was nothing more for a while as the water boiled and the tea brewed, but when she reappeared with a teapot and a stack of cups in hand, Charlotte elaborated, “I know you said me going to see Eurphrasie won’t do much to help your cause, but considering how long I’ve worked under her, I wanted to for my own peace of mind. It was when I stopped by the office that I saw him coming out.”

“Did you go up to him?”

“No, I was too far, and he slipped away before I could. Trying to avoid being caught by a crowd, I imagine. From what I could tell, he looked unfazed, like he usually does, though I’m sure he’s heard the news by now.”

“I see, and what did Euphrasie say to you?”

“When I went in to meet with her, I was told by her assistant that she was going to be out of the office for the rest of the day and to come back another time. Strange, right? Monsieur Neuvillette had to have gone in to speak with her, too, so she must’ve been in.” Charlotte scrunched her nose. “I wonder if she’s trying to avoid me on purpose after I quit.”

“Or maybe he said something to her,” Furina muttered, frowning at the revelation. “I hope it doesn’t interfere...” 

“With what?”

“Actually, it has to do with what I wanted to talk to you about — I’ve decided on what to do.”

“About the article?” Charlotte’s eyes glistened as she leaned in closer with interest. “Already?”

“Well, the answer turned out to be more straightforward than I thought. If I want to prevent Neuvillette’s reputation from being tainted by these rumors, I’ll simply have to set the record straight.”

“But that’s the hard part, isn’t it? How do you go about proving the lack of something going on between you two? I suppose you can try to explain the truth behind the photo, but I’m not sure how convinced people will be. They might think you’re making up excuses. Or they’ll be more inclined to trust their own interpretation, especially with undue influence from all those quotes Euphrasie printed.” Charlotte sighed. “This would’ve been much easier the other way around.”

Furina nodded. “You’re right, the truth isn’t exciting enough to be believable. People love a spectacle, so if I want to convince them of something, I need to make a show of it?”

Her friend’s expression darkened. “So what are you thinking, then?”

“I’ll give them a story they’ll like that puts the blame on me instead of Neuvillette. That way, when they try to point fingers, I can make sure it’s all directed at me,” Furina said, circling the rim of her teacup with a fingertip. “Maybe there really was a kiss, but I was the one to force it onto it. Maybe he rebuffed me right after, saying he sees me like anyone else. You get the idea. I’ll have to work on the details a bit and get it written down, but once that’s done, I’ll have The Steambird publish it as an exclusive. There’s no way they’ll pass up on a scoop like that. What do you think?”

Charlotte hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t doubt it working, but it feels a bit scorched-earth, if you know what I mean. You’ll be leaving yourself little room to come back from this, even if you wanted to. And what for? Isn’t it a bit...unfair?”

“It’ll be fine,” Furina doubled down. “Of course, I’d love it if we can both come out unscathed, but if one of us has to take a hit, I’d rather it be me. Fontaine needs Neuvillette as he is.”

Charlotte was quiet for a while, sipping at the rest of her tea that had since gone cold, but her expression of concern remained. “I guess it doesn’t matter what I think in the end, but if nothing else, shouldn’t you at least make sure Monsieur Neuvillette is on board with it?”

“I should, shouldn’t I?” Furina said, mainly to herself, having been so caught up in her idea that she had failed to consider the role he’d have to play. No matter how unappealing the thought was of bringing this plan up to him, she did require his cooperation, at least in part. He would just have to take some convincing. “I will once I’ve fleshed out a draft, but as for you, I told you all this now because of our project.”

“What about it?”

“Given my plans, I’m not sure how good of an idea it would be for my name to be attached to our newspaper. I don’t want to kill it before it has the chance to even take off, especially with how important credibility is in this business and —”

“Let’s hold off on that for now,” Charlotte interrupted. “It’ll be better to discuss this once the situation settles down, don’t you think? I don’t want us to rush into any hasty decisions.”

“Okay, later it is.” Furina acquiesced in the moment, knowing Charlotte was merely intending to delay the inevitable. 

Her public statement took the course of three sleepless nights to compose. It was, to her surprise, an unexpectedly difficult task to work out a coherent narrative that exactly suited her agenda. More than once, she would wake up not having remembered falling asleep at her dining table where a collection of paper scraps grew, each one filled with sloppy paragraphs and abandoned sentences. 

On one such occasion, she was roused by a knocking at her door that she almost senselessly flung open, but the logical, still sleepy part of her brain took hold and piloted her body to look through the peephole. The sight of Neuvillette standing outside awoke the rest of her faculties, more effective than an ice bath could ever dream of being.

Her hair was a mess, her clothes were unchanged for more than half a day, and most of all, she had no idea yet how to broach the topic of any of the past week’s events with him. With guilt and yet another promise to herself and him that she would soon seek him out, she pretended no one was home.

After a third round of unanswered knocks, he finally left.

One more day slipped away in a blur before she penned the last word of the final, final version of her story. In it, she told of an unrequited, foolish love that spanned decades. 

It had begun most innocently, at the one and only salon party that Neuvillette had ever hosted. He had shared his passion for water-tasting with all its attendees, and she had started to see him, for the first time, as a real, whole person and not an emotionless conduit designed solely for delivering court judgments.  

While her feelings had started small, they soon consumed her, spurred on by a few scenes she recollected most ardently through her writing. His actions were depicted as nothing more than his usual gentlemanly manners, but she made sure her interpretation of them came across as wishful thinking at best, and mistaken delusions at worst. 

Right before the prophecy had come to a head, she had relayed her sentiments to him, and he had dismissed them. Without much tact, but unmistakably.

Leaving Fontaine had been her attempt to leave behind her attachments to him, but instead, her time away had left her reeling in a different direction. He had turned down the Archon Furina, not the person she was now. Perhaps this time around, if she were more forthcoming...

She could still win him over. She was sure of it.  

Her new epiphany had caused her to return to the city, and his work trip had provided her with a long-awaited opportunity. She had followed him to Sumeru of her own accord, and there, she had sought him out with some difficulty, with him being preoccupied with work and all. However, she found her way to him at the fireworks show, and the rest was history. 

At the end of her essay, Furina made one last fervent plea for him to reconsider his harsh rejection of her kiss and love, which would allow him to repudiate her once and for all in response. Publicly. And then the matter would be dealt with, right?

Surely.

The three pages of careful storytelling were tucked into the front of her jacket for safekeeping, and Furina left her apartment for the first time since Navia’s game night. 

By a stroke of luck, the morning was perfectly stormy, filled with the kind of gloom that would make any reasonable person hide away indoors. Had the weather not been so, her footsteps would’ve been dragging, and her eyes would’ve been anxiously scanning her surroundings, wary of any sort of sign that she needed to make a run for it. Again. There was no telling how people might react to her first public appearance since the scandal broke, but for better or worse, she had no need to worry over such trifles today as she made the short journey to Palais Mermonia.

Her white curls were buffeted about violently by howling gusts of wind, and her legs were made victims of stinging raindrops that slipped past the defenses of her umbrella, but she carried on.

At a minimum, she owed Neuvillette this conversation that shouldn’t be put off any longer. Hidden, however, was a secondary motive. Ever since he had disappeared from her everyday life through no fault of his own, a dull ache had persisted in her chest. She wanted it gone. 

Nobody else was desperate enough to brave the conditions outside, which made her walk an uneventful one. Even Palais Mermonia was emptier than usual on the inside. In its expansive hallways, Furina came across the usual roster of Gardes on patrol. Although seeing her gave each of the Melusines pause, none did anything more than offer her a short, polite greeting before continuing on their way.

The chances were slim to none, but Furina could only hope that the rest of Fontaine would extend the same level of cordiality to her after the publication of her statement. 

Her shoes clacked against the hard tiled flooring until it turned into a blue patterned carpet that laid out a direct path to Sedene’s post.

“Oh, Lady Furina! It’s been a while since you’ve come by,” Sedene exclaimed in her typical cheery tone, like nothing at all had changed between them. “Are you here to see Monsieur Neuvillette? He’s not in his office right now, but if you’re willing to wait, he should be back in about five or ten minutes.”

Furina stumbled.

Out of all the things that could’ve gone wrong, the one hitch she didn’t anticipate was Neuvillette not being here when she arrived. Despite how trivial and easily rectifiable this nonproblem was, its suddenness threw her for a loop and snapped her out of her trance. The high ceilings above, so freeing and spacious moments ago, now only served to make her feel small, and before she knew it, her resolution dissolved like it was sugar dropped in water.

The voice that spoke was not entirely hers to control, “No, not today. Sorry, I’ll be off now.”

She didn’t stick around to witness Sedene’s confusion. Her feet took her away from Neuvillette’s office, away from Palais Mermonia, and away from her apartment, only stopping once she reached the sandy shoreline that had become a source of comfort during her nights of insomnia. 

Lying on the wet, squishy sand nearly touching the water was an especially fat blubberbeast that she recognized from several of her prior visits — one she had decided to nickname Macaron.

“Why did I chicken out back there?” She cooed at the creature and squatted down next to it, giving her tired legs much welcomed relief while avoiding direct contact with the ground. “Why can’t everything be easier?”

Macaron grunted and turned away from her.

The rain had lightened to a faint drizzle, but Furina kept the umbrella propped up as she took out the writing she had worked so hard on, not wanting to risk soiling the paper. A read-through could help strengthen her resolve. It could be the push she needed to return to Palais Mermonia. 

She turned her full attention to the text and didn’t register that, by the time she was a third of the way through, the tip-tap of raindrops on her umbrella had turned into the sound of footsteps drawing near.

“Furina!”

Hearing her name being called out in Neuvillette’s voice caused her to jump like she was struck by lightning. The wind, which hadn’t let up like the rain did, eagerly snatched the pieces of paper away from her the moment her hands inadvertently loosened their grip. The pages launched into the air, and she watched helplessly as they fluttered about in some bizarre dance before plunging into the sea, where they were promptly swept away by the current. All her blood, sweat, and tears from the past days, gone in an instant.

“Sedene told me you had come by, and I thought —”

She burst into tears.

Chapter Text

Even as Neuvillette came up directly behind her, Furina was determined to remain crouched with her back to him, as if that would somehow hide the reality that she was a sniveling mess. Her vision, blurry from the tears pouring out of her, was fixed to the sea, which showed no remorse for having stolen away her writing so thoughtlessly. 

The waves kept on crashing, and the currents kept on flowing.

Undeterred by Furina’s lack of response, Neuvillette stepped around her figure and stooped down so that they would be level, and that she would have no choice but to look his way. His judge’s robe was nowhere to be found, and the navy vest and ruffled shirt he wore were completely dry despite the earlier spell of rain. Peering at her were eyes of his that were inquisitive and yet, at the same time, filled with a quiet restraint that held him back from voicing the number of questions he must’ve had. 

After taking in her state and countenance, he produced a handkerchief from an inner pocket and reached out with it in hand, only to stop short before making contact with her face. “Ah, can I?”

No doubt, his reservations stemmed from what had happened in Sumeru.

Instead of letting him, or even grabbing the handkerchief from him to use by herself, Furina took him by the wrist and pulled his outstretched, ungloved hand to her, pressing the back of it right up against her cheek.  

She must’ve sensed that comfort was within reach and was desperate enough to be unable to resist. Or perhaps it was the effects of seeing Neuvillette so close in person after more than a week straight of envisioning what the future would be like without him near. Whatever the reason was for her compulsion, it mattered little to her as she braced herself. She was ready for him to jerk back or pull away at the very least, all the while admonishing her for behaving like this out in the open, but he didn’t. 

His eyes widened slightly, but nothing more. His hand remained unmoving but relaxed, like that of a mannequin she could manipulate to her liking. Somehow, his compliance only made the pain in her chest more acute, even as it helped her tears dry up. 

She was ultimately the one who dropped his hand and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said simply and stood back up. His eyes drifted back to the city behind her. “Will you walk with me?”

Furina rose to her shakily and glanced down at the ground. “I don’t know. It’s a bit risky.”

“If you’re concerned about being seen, rest assured. I think you’ll find that everywhere else in Fontaine continues to storm heavily.”

She scanned their surroundings and verified that indeed, overcast clouds hung over them, allowing no sunlight to penetrate, and rain continued to pummel outside what seemed like an invisible barrier surrounding their vicinity. With her worries addressed, a walk was the least she should grant him after making him go through the troubles of seeking her out. She didn’t even have the decency to meet him at his office.  

She let him dictate their path and kept her umbrella at the ready, in case she ever needed to shield herself from view at a moment’s notice. 

She was unsure where they were headed, but his steps were steady and calculated, so he had a destination in mind. Perhaps he was leading them back to Palais Mermonia. She couldn’t think of a better place for them to converse in private than his office.  

As they made their way into the city once more, with water splashing under their shoes with every step, Furina could feel fatigue creep up on her. The burst of energy she gained from finishing her article was long gone, as was the shock she had from losing it. Her blinks slowed, and her steps lagged. Neuvillette adjusted his speed accordingly upon noticing, but he did not stop. 

She paid little mind to the route he picked out until she started to recognize her neighborhood, her block, and then her apartment. It was certainly private here, but she hadn’t been expecting this place out of all the ones he could’ve picked. “Why here?”

“So you could rest.” He gestured for her to open the door. “You have that same tired look again.” 

He was being much too accommodating. Much more than she deserved.

“I’m a little sleepy, but nothing that’d get in the way,” she rebutted and remained in place. “I’m sure you’ve already had enough of me running away, haven’t you? Wouldn’t you prefer to talk rather than wait around some more? It’s what you came for, right?”

Though she saw that he was tempted to agree, he ultimately dodged her questions. “A bit more of a wait isn’t the end of the world.” 

She shook her head. “I went to Palais Mermonia today to see you so that we could talk, up until I lost my nerve, that is, but we can do it now, so we should. I’d like to hear your take on the Steambird article. Along with...everything else.”

Sensing her determination, Neuvillette said, “We should go in and sit down at least.”

However, upon entering the apartment, he immediately requested something at hand to drink. Hydration was important, after all, if they were to have a productive conversation.

“What would you like?” She listed out a handful of options, including water, but Neuvillette was partial to none of them and insisted that he’d figure something out by himself in the kitchen. When she tried to follow him in to help, he gently redirected her toward the living room. There, he saw her coffee table that was still lying face-down with its legs unattached, which he chose to ignore despite it giving him a moment of pause.

“You should stay put. I can manage on my own.” He nudged aside some screws on the floor with his foot to clear a path for her to the couch.

Too tired to protest, she complied and took a seat, opting not to explain her partially constructed furniture out of mild embarrassment. Neuvillette disappeared into the kitchen, but whatever he was doing in there, it took long enough that she was unable to say exactly how long, because by the time he came out, she was already fast asleep.  

The world had turned completely on its side.

It took a second for Furina to figure out that, in reality, she was the one who was sideways on the living room couch, curled into the fetal position. Her head was resting atop a throw pillow, and the rest of her was covered by the blanket from her bedroom, whose warmth and heavy weight were enough to convince her to stay right where she was for now.

What had happened?

She tried to piece together the story.

Just a second ago, she had been upright. Just a second ago, her coffee table had been in pieces, not standing proudly on its four securely fixed legs at its rightful place in front of where she lay. 

Her eyes skirted to the other end of the couch at the sound of pages turning. Just a second ago, Neuvillette had been in the kitchen, and yet here he was now, sitting on the cushions just far enough away so that she could not graze him.

He didn’t notice her attention, as his focus was directed at a book in his hand that was opened to its halfway point. She recognized it as one of her Yae Publishing House romances that she had forgotten to put away. It was so far removed from the kind of literature Neuvillette kept in his office that she had to fight the urge to sit up and snatch it away from him. 

In the end, she restrained herself, because she didn’t have the heart to disrupt the scene in front of her in spite of the blemish left by her guilty pleasure reading choices. Who knew being around him like this, where everything was simple and ordinary, could almost make her believe that all was right in the world. She wanted the image burned into her mind.

Neuvillette’s voice cut through the illusion like a blade. “It was lonely being without you. I wasn’t even aware I was capable of feeling that way.”

His eyes didn’t lift from the book, and his manner of speaking was calm but hushed, barely above a whisper, which gave Furina the impression he was talking to himself. Or reading aloud. She didn’t remember any lines sounding like that from the novel, but quite a few days had already passed since she’d sped through it.  Whatever his words meant, she was likely not supposed to hear them. He must’ve thought she was still asleep. After all, she never gave him any indicators that she wasn’t.

He carried on in the same manner as before, but this time with a sigh, “And it’s probably not right of me to say, but it is true that I wish you wouldn’t keep running away.”

She tore her gaze away, fearing it was a further invasion of privacy for her not to. Surely it wasn’t too late to reveal she had been listening. She should, before this hole could be dug any deeper.

“But really, what I came to tell you is that I think I’ve loved you for much longer than I realized —”

Her throat constricted, and she simply stared at the coffee table, not daring to move or speak. 

“— and if somehow I’m mistaken, and you aren’t really awake right now, then I’ll repeat the same things to you again when you are.”

Furina shot up with the speed of someone who had a response ready despite having none. After her brain had a chance to catch up, all she managed to come up with was, “What if I’m awake but I still want you to repeat it?”

He set the novel down and turned to her. She studied him intently as if trying to discern whether he was real or not. His expression was slightly strained, his breaths were a touch too fast, and he was looking the closest to flustered she had ever seen the Iudex of Fontaine. She began to suspect this was why he was facing away this whole time, up until now. 

She wondered if his heart was beating as fast as it had been the night they returned from Navia’s party.

“I can,” he finally replied.

“Then can you tell me again,” Furina mumbled, “but tell me the truth?”

“I’ve loved you, which is the truth, but I don’t know when it started, which is also the truth.” 

While that was more than enough to satisfy her for now, “What if I want to hear it again, over and over? I’m an insecure person, you know, especially when it comes to what others think of me. There might be times when I overthink and doubt you, and days when I wonder if all of this is just a fluke.”

“I can repeat it as many times as you want.”

“What about your duties as the Iudex? And needing to remain impartial?”

“Do you recall when I said long ago that being the Iudex is just one of the hats I wear and one phase of my life?”

She nodded. “The tabloids had a field day with that quote.”

A faint smile played at the corner of his mouth. “I meant what I had said, but I seemed to have forgotten my own words somewhere along the way. You did good, though, to remind me.”

“That you have other hats?”

“Something like that. I’m the Iudex and someone with hopes and dreams and feelings, too. I thought I had to discard one or the other when the two sides inevitably clashed, but that’s not true. I should’ve been trying, all along, to find the right way to piece them together.” His hand slid towards hers on the couch, stopping short of their fingers touching. “That’s all to say, you can be an exception to me but not the justice I represent. At least, it’s what I’ve decided.”

She refrained from closing the distance fully, and her tone intensified as she asked, “But how? You were the one who told me that you can’t judge me anymore. How’s that justice?”

A soft, bemused laugh escaped him. “Are you trying to get me to change my mind?”

“Maybe I am.”

“Why?” Neuvillette tilted his head. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Because I love you.” She couldn’t stop the sentiment from slipping out, despite it having agonized her for so long. “So I don’t want to see you walk into an open trap, which you will be if I don’t warn you away. You’ve read what people said in the papers, haven’t you? Me being around will make things difficult for you.”

“You don’t make things difficult.”

Her face flushed, but she refused to let him steer her off course. “The rumors alone can make things difficult, even for someone like you. I know first-hand. There’s no reason for you to compromise the trust people have in you, which is why I came up with the idea I did. I’ll put out a story where I take all the blame and —”

“It feels like you’re trying to run away again,” he said.

She couldn’t deny the allegation in good faith. 

He shifted closer and clasped her hand. When she didn’t resist, he brought it up against his cheek just as she had done to him. “The situation involves me, too, and I’ve given it a lot of thought. If nothing else, please hear me out first, before you decide on anything.”

She gave in, her fervor temporarily soothed by his coaxing. “Then what did you have in mind?”

“Let me take you to court one more time.” 

Chapter Text

Neuvillette saw apprehension creep into Furina’s expression at the mention of another trial and hastily followed up, “Apologies, let me start from the beginning so it makes more sense.”

Furina retracted her hand into her lap and waited for him to continue, her posture rigid. He didn’t press her and preserved the bit of distance she put between them on the couch. 

“As you know, I steer clear of the papers and what they say, but even I was somewhat aware of the backlash you were facing. I didn’t understand it, though.” He sighed, wistful. “I didn’t try to, either, because it was baseless. Like all other baseless rumors and gossip, I assumed it would die down and fail to be of any consequence, but of course, I was sorely mistaken, and I hope you’ll forgive me.” 

“What for?”

“I should’ve realized sooner it wasn’t going to disappear on its own.”

“I was also hoping it’d blow over. So did Lumine and everyone else when the first photo of me and Clorinde came out. You didn’t do anything wrong,” she countered.

“I should’ve paid more attention to how you were being affected by the talk and how much fear the media had instilled in you. It only fully hit me after our return trip from Sumeru, when I saw your face as the reporters swarmed us.”

“It’s only because I care too much about what others think. I should do better to tune out the noise. Like you.”

“Stop blaming yourself and blame me at least a little, will you?” He said, cracking a slight smile that was more resigned than amused. “If nothing else, I should’ve tried to better understand why people thought what they did about you if I had any hopes of remedying the situation. It’s why I went to see Euphrasie that day, after Clorinde urged me to read the latest smear piece about you.” 

“Why Euphrasie?” The editor-in-chief’s name left a bitter taste on Furina’s tongue, but she had been curious about their meeting at The Steambird’s office ever since Charlotte had mentioned the occurrence. 

“I wanted to talk to you before anyone else, but I had a sense you didn’t want to see me, so that wasn’t an option.” He spoke without accusation. “Say what you will about Euphrasie, but given she’s at the forefront of the criticisms, I figured she’d offer me some insight. You may already know most of what she told me, but I had catching up to do.”

“What did you learn?”

“That humans are too fond of jumping to conclusions.”

Furina exhaled a laugh, though he meant it in all seriousness.

“After your trial, I assumed people would give you grace rather than assuming the worst of you, especially when they knew nothing of your reasons for lying about being the Archon, or the part you played in Focalors’s plan. According to Euphrasie, some of her interviewees went as far as to say that not having a true Archon these years was what made the prophecy come true in the end. It’s unthinkable.” Neuvillette lifted a hand to his temple, pressing his middle and ring finger against it like the words had hurt his head to say aloud. “I want to correct the record.” 

“With a trial?” She questioned weakly.

“Yes. I want to ask Euphrasie to gather a formal list of grievances the public has and bring them against you in court, where you can tell your truth in the highest forum we have,” he said with conviction. “It would right everyone’s wrongful perception of you, and you won’t have to fear bringing anyone else down by association, let alone reading another article that portrays you in such a manner.” 

Her subsequent refusal, firm but cordial, caught him off guard. She relayed to him exactly what she had told Wanderer in Sumeru. She could’ve done more. The people deserved someone to blame for the very real losses they faced, and she was fine with it being her. 

Rather than letting it go as Wanderer had, Neuvillette argued back, “It doesn’t have to be you. No duty comes without an end, not even my position as the Iudex, and you’ve done more than enough already. Don’t you deserve to move on, too?”

“Maybe I do, but it feels wrong. What people lost is bigger than me shouldering a bit of blame for the rest of my life. Like Navia losing Melus and Silver.” 

“Is that really how you see things?”

She nodded.

“Then why not go along with my idea all the same and plead guilty to Euphrasie’s charges? Your verdict will be written into the official court records, and you can be assured that your penance will carry on in perpetuity,” he challenged. “Or does the thought of that make you hesitate because deep down, you’d hate living like this forever?”

She should’ve known better than to engage in a debate like this with the Chief Justice of Fontaine. 

Seeing her reaction, Neuvillette carried on more softly, “I don’t mean to sound harsh, but my opinion is that you’re not being fair to yourself.”

“What about being fair to everyone else?” Furina mumbled and glanced away from him, afraid that her resolve would weaken. The sight of her barren living room walls proved to be an uninteresting alternative.

“Judging yourself on their behalf isn’t fair to them, either. We both know Navia harbors no ill will towards you. I don’t deny that you’re free to feel guilty, but let the people decide if you truly are after hearing your side of the story in court.” 

“Let them decide?” Her eyes narrowed and swung back to his face. “You’d be the one deciding.”

“I should’ve clarified sooner. I will be recusing myself as judge, and for this case, I’m proposing that the final decision be deliberated upon by a jury. I meant it when I said I could no longer judge you.” After a pause, he tacked on, “Of course, there will be another judge present to oversee the proceedings.” 

“A jury...” The reservation was evident in Furina’s tone. “Will that hold up? It’s not been done before.”

“The trial will be conducted with as much formality as any other,” he reassured her, “and a jury was most fitting for the special circumstances. They’re a stand-in for the public, just like Euphrasie herself is. You can ensure your story reaches the right audience when you tell it, and I can ensure that concerns of bias are adequately addressed. I assumed, also, that a verdict from them would mean far more to you than one rendered by me or any singular judge.” 

“You’ve thought this through.”

“Yes, I have,” he said, “and it’s a lot to take in, I know, but I don’t intend to leave you to fend for yourself. I will guide you and Euphrasie through the process as its architect, and — if you’re willing — I’d like to appear as a witness in your defense.”

His offer to testify was not made carelessly. Furina could tell he meant it as a sign of trust in her and as a show of confidence in his idea.  

In all truth, his plan sounded much less absurd than many of the laws she had passed as Archon. Or her plan of writing a hit piece against herself. As tempted as she was to accept, a shred of doubt remained. There was one more thing left she had to check for herself. “Can I have some time to think it over?”

“Of course.” He rose from the couch. “I’ll leave you with some privacy to consider it without feeling pressured. I do have to be on my way anyhow, to attend some scheduled hearings, but once you’ve made up your mind, please come see me. Whenever that may be.” 

“I will. For sure this time.”

She stood as well, intending to accompany him out, but was blindsided by him asking, “Can I borrow this?”

He pointed to the half-finished Yae Publishing House novel he had set down on the coffee table earlier. 

“That? Oh, ah, sure,” she stuttered. “I didn’t think you’d like these sorts of books.” 

“I’m open to all sorts of reading material,” he replied with a small shrug, overlooking Furina’s sheepishness as he bent down to pick up the paperback. “This one intrigued me since I have little knowledge of its subject matter. I’ve also noticed its popularity as of late, even among the Melusines.” 

He must be trying to take part in the Melusines’ interests, she reasoned, much like a father would. 

The rain outside hadn’t ceased, only lightened, making certain that their goodbye would be a private one when he headed to open the door. In the middle of her entryway, Neuvillette stopped dead in his tracks and tilted his head up at the sky. Furina contemplated asking if he’d forgotten something in her apartment until he said in a quiet voice, “You can also come see me, even if you haven’t decided.” 

“How about tomorrow? For lunch?” She blurted out and immediately sensed her cheeks turning pink. Unable to properly see his face from behind, she went on with hesitation, “I haven’t responded yet to the meal invitation in the letter you sent. If the offer still stands.” 

He turned back at her with a small smile, one she hadn’t seen before. “It does. Tomorrow it is.”

The memory of the last time she stepped foot inside the Opera Epiclese was clear as day. With it in mind, Furina scavenged her apartment for anything edible that would fill her empty stomach, as she was going to need energy for what she was about to do. Inside her fridge, she found a pot that she didn’t recall putting away, with a note atop its lid written in Neuvillette’s handwriting.

Reheat & serve , it read. Opening the pot revealed a fragrant onion soup made solely from the limited ingredients she had in her kitchen. She would have to thank him later.

For now, she did as the instructions told, then ladled a large portion of the soup into a bowl. It was quite watery, which was a known feature of Neuvillette’s cooking from the rare occasions she had seen him do it before, but the dish was a delicacy nonetheless, especially in comparison to the fruits and cheeses she had survived on in the past couple of days. 

After she cleaned her bowl of every last drop, she got to work. 

She pulled her hair back into a low knot on one side, changed into a long dress she hardly ever wore in public, and donned a straw hat to hide her face. All before heading in the direction of the Opera Epiclese. 

The sun had set, but her route was a familiar one, and the streetlamps were plenty sufficient for her to navigate to the aquabus station. 

A few others were already standing in wait at the hub when she arrived. Their clothing suggested to Furina that they were tourists, or perhaps students, from Sumeru. They were engaged in a lively discussion amongst themselves. Nobody paid her any mind, and she kept silent while keeping the brim of her hat pulled down low. 

No more than five minutes passed before Elphane arrived to take them across the Navia Line. With her short stature, the Melusine was the only one out of the group capable of meeting Furina’s eyes from below, and as she boarded, Elphane noticeably stilled upon seeing her. Furina didn’t doubt she easily saw through the disguise, but she trusted Elphane not to blabber or talk much at all, from the thousands of rides’ worth of experience she'd had on this line. 

True to her predictions, Elphane said nothing of what she saw and proceeded to shut down any attempts made by the Sumerians to start a conversation with her. Otherwise, the ride was perfectly dull and passed by quickly. 

After stepping off the aquabus, Furina discovered no crowds she needed to dodge, so she made her way openly into the opera house, and then its main auditorium. Although Neuvillette’s hearings had started earlier, Furina was certain they’d be ongoing, as they tended to run late into the night due to Neuvillette’s habit of scheduling them back-to-back, for better or worse. 

She had chosen the right time to come. The audience was sparse due to the late hour, boasting only a dozen or so people, and it allowed Furina to easily find a seat in the corner of the very last row, where she blended into the shadows cast by the bright white light that spilled off the stage.

Placing her hat on her lap, she set her eyes on Neuvillette in his judge’s seat and waited, just as she had done during the only trial she attended upon her return to Fontaine. 

It was like she was watching a completely different person from the one who had stood in her apartment. Decorated in his robe once more, he was in the midst of questioning a businessman over the evidence brought forth in a breach of contract case, and even as the prosecution side devolved into incoherent protests, Neuvillette pressed on, his tone never wavering and his stern expression never faltering. 

To anyone else, he appeared the same as he ever was, but to Furina, he made her understand for the first time, truly and fully, what he must’ve meant when he said he could no longer judge her; she could no longer feel judged by him, even in a setting such as this.

When he presented his decision to dismiss the case at hand, she was prepared for flashes of her trial to inevitably come to mind. This time, however, there was no rush of panic or primal surge of fear accompanying the images, only a deep-seated sadness that didn’t overwhelm. 

She had a hunch that she’d associate this feeling with her recollections of the event from then until the end of time, but instead of running away, she gave herself to it and remained in her seat through the next hearing, and the next, until there were no more left for the night. She remained, even as the lights dimmed, the audience cleared out, and Neuvillette came up to take the seat directly next to hers in the empty auditorium, as she guessed he would. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you here,” he remarked.

She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, breathing in the faint scent of rain he always had about him. “Neuvillette, do you know why I left the city after my trial?”

“Because you thought that you had failed everyone?”

“That alone wouldn’t have been enough. It’s because I felt there was no longer a place for me here.”

“Fontaine will always have a place for you. I’ll see to it.”

“That may be true now, but during and after my trial, all I knew was that everyone in my life had turned against me. Even you, the one person who had stood by me for so long. I was slow to come around, but thank you — and Lumine, Navia, Clorinde, and Charlotte, too — for showing me that you’ve changed your minds about me.” She sat upright to peer directly at Neuvillette, whose eyes were soft with concern. “So I’ll do it. I’ll go to trial and change everyone else’s minds about me.” 

Chapter Text

Neuvillette had insisted that he accompany Furina back to her apartment when they left the Opera Epiclese, meaning it just took a long, long night’s sleep until she was able to see him again for lunch. Although he’d suggested they convene somewhere convenient to them both, Furina was adamant that she would go to him at his office. 

“For old time’s sake,” she had said. And it’d be least disruptive to your workday .

As thanks for the soup he had made her, she promised that she would take charge of their meal for the occasion, and true to her word, she came to Palais Mermonia with glass containers stacked several layers high in her arms. 

In his office, Neuvillette was scribbling away in a notebook, which he promptly placed aside to make space on his desk upon hearing her arrival. 

With some trepidation, she unveiled what she had brought. Each item, personally handmade that morning, was far from perfection. Her inexperience in the kitchen showed. The consommé soup was not as clear as she would’ve liked, the croissants were not consistently flaky, and the sliced pieces of baguette were lacking their signature crunch.

No doubt, someone well-versed in the art of cooking like Escoffier would’ve made the foods taste twice as delicious in under half the time, but Furina had hoped that Neuvillette would see the meaning in the gesture and not in the end products. 

Thankfully, his reaction told her that it was indeed the case.

Relieved, she pulled up a chair and took a seat across from him at his desk, but as they continued eating, she caught sight of something hiding beneath all his smiles and gratitude. 

“You look tired,” she remarked.

“I don’t get tired,” he replied with a light chuckle in between bites. 

Though his body was less high-maintenance than that of a human, she doubted his statement was entirely true. “You look it.”

“Perhaps it’s because I spent a considerable portion of last night finishing the book you lent me. Ah, that reminds me.” He reached down into a drawer and retrieved the novel, which was somehow in a more pristine condition than before. 

“You finished fast.” She blinked, incredulous. The five-hundred-and-then-some pages had taken her three whole days to get through at her usual pace, and by no means was she a slow reader. “What did you think?”

“I can see why it’s so popular. I liked it well enough, and there was much about Inazuma’s history that I learned, but the story itself had some parts I couldn’t quite make sense of.”

“Like what?”

“The plotline of the side characters, for example. Especially regarding the princess and the ronin. It seemed strange that she was blind to his love and devotion until his death and beyond, despite it being obvious to all the outside observers of their relationship, like her servants and our main lead,” he mused. “I admit her regret confounded me, after she discovered the open secret too late.”

“I think they’re meant to be a tragedy,” Furina said, straightening her posture. Having had the same initial impression as him, she was eager to share the conclusion she reached after much thought. “The ronin expressed himself through his loyalty and servitude, going as far as to give up a life of wandering to stick by her. The princess grew up so accustomed to being served by everyone around her, so she didn’t know to interpret his actions as love, which she expected to be said with words that he didn’t know how to give. It’s no one’s fault, really. Their expectations were just too different to be reconciled in time.”

“Different expectations...” Neuvillette pondered her analysis, his brow tightened in concentration. “Then what are yours?”

“Mine?”

“Your expectations.”

She was at a loss. “Oh, I — I don’t know. It’s...all good.”

Unfazed by her sheepish reply, he moved the conversation to the other aspects of the novel, and they continued bantering over the characters until the food ran empty and Furina was certain she’d overstayed his lunch hour. 

However, after she suggested that she take her leave to allow him to work, he urged her to stay a while longer.

“I said that I would follow up with you on the details of the trial when they were finalized.” He retrieved a folder with her name across the front from the same drawer as her book. “I’ve created a write-up that outlines the jury selection process to you and Euphrasie. For you, I did not bother with the trial itself, since I assume you already know the procedures better than most.”   

She nodded.

He began to explain all that she should expect in two weeks’ time. The more he spoke of the court and juries, the more real her situation felt — that she had agreed to what could possibly be humiliation, of her own volition. She allowed a smidgen of doubt to creep in. What if they don’t believe me even when I tell the truth ?

Her hand slid towards him on his desk, and upon noticing, Neuvillette covered it with his own without a break in his speech. 

She pushed the thought away. 

The subsequent days for her were a whirlwind of trial preparations, featuring a number of guest appearances.

Furina had broken the news of her impending trial to Navia, Clorinde, and Charlotte the same day as her meal with Neuvillette, after he had warned her of Euphrasie’s intent to publicize the event in The Steambird. She had expected it from the editor-in-chief. Her being taken to court for the second time was bound to become an ordeal, and she suspected therein lay Euphrasie’s motivations for readily agreeing to bring charges against her. 

Navia and Charlotte were stunned by the revelation, while Clorinde took it in stride and attempted to lighten the atmosphere in the group by advising Furina not to take the option of dueling her. Their board games were then completely disregarded as Furina spent the better part of their gathering fielding questions from her friends and assuring them that she was not participating in the trial under duress. 

One afternoon, having heard the news from the papers, Lumine and Paimon appeared at her doorsteps without warning. Upon being brought up to speed on Neuvillette’s plan, Lumine offered herself up as a witness in support, and with heavy encouragement from Paimon, Furina accepted. She had no reason to pass up an additional piece of credible evidence. From someone with Lumine’s reputation, no less. 

Neuvillette, too, did his part in visiting her apartment, mostly at night, after he had completed his day of work.

They spoke of the trial insofar as to work out his testimony as a witness, but beyond that, they observed a silent, mutual agreement to avoid the topic. He borrowed more of her Yae Publishing House books, working backwards in the catalogue, and she taught him some of the card games she learned from Navia’s soirées, which he easily overtook her in skill. From time to time, they would simply enjoy the other’s company while absorbed in their individual tasks. 

But regardless, whether his visit lasted a few minutes or hours, he’d always leave, and each time that he did, Furina would be filled with an emptiness that didn’t quit for hours. 

On one such occasion, after they had already exchanged their farewells, as she stood in her entryway to see him off, she started to say, “Do you —”

She then floundered, having not known where her sentence was headed before she impulsively called out to him, and played it off by asking if he had cases to oversee the following day. 

Only later did she find the rest of what she’d wanted to ask. Do you have to leave ?

She was glad she didn’t. What a silly question. What else was he to do at the end of the night? 

Jury selection was a spectacle in itself. Being that it was the first of its kind and open to the public like any trial would be, the auditorium within the Opera Epiclese was packed to the brim, full of audience members and the press alike. Under the harsh stage lights, Furina knew that Neuvillette and her friends would be among them, despite being unable to make out individual faces in the sea of darkness. 

The turnout surprised nobody in the room except for perhaps the presiding judge, whom Furina didn’t recognize. He must’ve been a recent inductee into the Maison Ordalie, given he was not used to such a crowd and looked to be no more than forty years old, but his voice remained firm and measured as he commanded for Furina, Euphrasie, and all the candidate jurors to be seated so that they could begin. 

Fifty chairs exactly were laid out in formation on stage for the men and women summoned to appear that day, who were told that they were the lucky few chosen at random from the registry of tax-paying Fontainians. Each person was identified solely by a number pinned to their chest and seat, and Furina stood watch from the defendant’s viewing box above as one by one, the jurors were called to the stand by their respective numbers. 

The selection process aimed to narrow the pool down to seven, and as part of the first stage, each candidate was asked by the judge to give a summary of their background and declare any reasons that would make them unfit to participate. 

One candidate was dismissed for having worked at The Steambird in the past, and another for passionately proclaiming that she would vehemently refuse to participate in any trial that “Monsieur Neuvillette was not in charge of.” A handful were excused for unmissable work obligations, and more still for those who thought the whole thing a waste of time — as Furina had obviously done wrong, no deliberation needed. Wriothesley was the only juror that Furina recognized from afar, and he, too, was quickly dismissed once the potential conflict of interest came to light. 

Once the first phase concluded, the ranks were reduced to half their original size. 

As part of their break, the defense and prosecution were directed by some Melusine Gardes to a private area behind the stage for a chance to eat lunch. The sunlight streaming through the room’s singular window illuminated the dust particles in the air and along the surfaces of the desks and chairs scattered about, but Furina didn’t mind. There was more than enough space for her to keep a wide berth from Euphrasie while reviewing her notes, which was all she needed.

After a lengthy, tension-filled silence, and although Furina strictly avoided looking in any direction aside from down at the papers in her hands, Euphrasie piped up from all the way across the room, her emerald eyes bright. “Furina, I know you must not be the biggest fan of me, and it probably won’t make any difference for me to say, but it truly isn’t anything personal.”  

This was the first time Furina had interacted personally with Euphrasie, outside of the context of interviews she had granted to her in the past. She had expected the blonde woman to be all passion and ire, as her articles would suggest, but her voice was soft, calm, but decidedly calculated. 

“Then why do you write what you do?”

The answer was fast and honest. “In large part, readership.”

“You’re forsaking your so-called journalistic integrity for some numbers?” Furina demanded.

“I wish it weren’t the case, but the numbers are what determine life and death for an agency like ours. We especially needed all the numbers we could get after our expensive printing equipment and office spaces were destroyed in the flood. Replacements and repairs proved to be quite costly.” Euphrasie gave her a somber smile, looking more pitiable than Furina would’ve liked. “And a good parent would do anything to ensure the survival of their child in crisis, would they not?”

Furina frowned and pressed her lips together, saying nothing.

“Without the numbers,” Euphrasie continued, “I also wouldn’t be able to support the good work that my other journalists do, like Charlotte. I hear that you see her often. I trust that she’s well?”

“Yes. She is.”

“It’s a shake, her leaving. I hope she'll consider returning one day. She was truly the best of them. A purist at heart for good, proper journalism. Maybe I should’ve told her what I’m telling you now when she gave me her resignation, but who can say if she would’ve been swayed by it.” She sighed. “What’s done is done. I don’t regret my decision to release my articles about you, but I know it’s not fair to you, either. I suppose my participation in this trial is my attempt to make things right with you, in a way that I can.”

Furina came away from lunch uncertain, but there was little room in her mind to make sense of her conflicting feelings towards her opposition when the second round began.

It came time for both the defense and prosecution to take turns interrogating the remaining jurors, and Furina had with her just one question. “What is justice to you?”

“I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that. Shouldn’t it be left to a judge? Preferably Monsieur Neuvillette.”

“Justice is weighing all the evidence and coming to a decision without mixing in any personal opinions. Or at least that’s what my law textbook had said.”

“If the end justifies the means. Lying isn’t necessarily wrong, for example, if it’s to spare someone’s feelings. I do it all the time to my sister.”

“Whatever the majority of people believe is probably justice...right?”

Should there be a valid reason, Furina was able to ask that the judge dismiss a juror, which she requested sparingly. She and Euphrasie were also allowed three strikes that they could redeem at any time, no explanations needed, which she used not at all. On the contrary, Euphrasie came on strong with her laundry list of questions, challenging every juror whose answer wasn’t to her total satisfaction.

“Juror Three, were you present during Lady Furina’s first trial? What did you make of it?”

“Juror Thirteen, do you believe Monsieur Neuvillette is corruptible?”

“Juror Thirty, how were you impacted by the prophecy and flood?”

When put together with the claim that she wanted to make things right, Euphrasie’s conduct was perplexing. Still, try as she might to stack the jury in favor of the prosecution, she only made Furina more determined to win them over.

Chapter Text

The day before Furina’s trial, Neuvillette received an invitation from her to meet for a walk by the sea on the west end of the city. He accepted, of course, after reviewing his evening schedule and asking Sedene to move his existing appointments to earlier time slots. Also attached to the invitation was an addendum that he should bring along some pieces of raw fish, and so he set off shortly after sundown to a fishmonger near Palais Mermonia, who was equal parts perplexed and thrilled by the Chief Justice’s sudden patronage.

With the sea bass fillets acquired, Neuvillette arrived at their prearranged meeting location and found Furina already there, her back to him, sitting criss-crossed by a pair of rotund blubberbeats. Another bag of fish rested beside her. 

This must be why.

The waning crescent moon above imparted a soft glow on Furina’s silvery white hair. The ethereal lighting, combined with the presence she always had about her, was enough to evoke in him a passing thought that somehow, she was not of this world.  

When she heard the sound of footsteps stop right behind her, she spun around with a subdued smile that didn’t quite reach the rest of her face. That was how all her smiles had looked to him as of late, ever since the trial was set in motion. Her mind must be on the subject even now, for he spied restlessness behind her eyes and wished that he could shake her of it. Sometimes, she had the unique ability to make him feel powerless.   

Her voice was perfectly controlled and chipper, however, as she said, “Oh! Thanks for bringing the fish like I asked. The blubberbeasts usually hang out here en masse during low tides, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to bring enough by myself, but turns out there’s only these two today. Sorry for misjudging.”

“I don’t mind.” He dropped down next to her on the sand. One of the blubberbeasts gave out an undignified snort at the appearance of a brand new visitor. “Do you come to feed them often?”

“Yes, but it’s thankless work,” she huffed for dramatic effect and took out a piece of fish, dangling it toward the blubberbeasts with an outstretched hand. “They can be picky. And very unappreciative. Like right now.”

The bigger of the pair blinked at her with its ink-black beady eyes, sniffed at the fish, and lowered its head back down on the ground in a display of disinterest. Its companion followed suit. Furina shrugged at Neuvillette as if to say, what can you do , and suggested, “Maybe you’ll have better luck.” 

He indulged her whims, as he was apt to, and brought one of his fillets toward the blubberbeast closest to him. The creature flared its nostrils and snapped up the offering in a single, ravenous bite. Taking notice of the activity happening, its friend awkwardly ambled in Neuvillette’s direction, took a whiff of his hand, and let out a whine of disappointment when it found that there was nothing left except a few drops of slobber.

Furina watched the entire scene unfold, unmoving.

Taking her lack of a reaction as a negative one, Neuvillette did his best to give an inoffensive explanation for the difference in their reception. “Perhaps they prefer the type of fish I brought over yours?”

“Here, try it with one of mine.”

That piece, too, was eagerly consumed.

Rebuffed but not dejected, Furina laughed the most genuine, unclouded laugh he’d heard from her in a while. A symphony for his ears. “Well, that makes things pretty clear. I guess you’ll have to keep coming here with me then, Neuvillette, to make sure these ungrateful guys stay nice and plump.”

The next day, when the trial commenced, an eerie hush settled over the audience.

“The prosecution may proceed with opening arguments.”

“Thank you, your honor.” Euphrasie, in a dark blazer and long, black pants that were much like what Furina wore, stepped to the edge of her balcony box, right up against the railing, and fixed her gaze on the first row of the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury...”

She started with Furina’s previous trial, working to remind everyone of what had transpired less than a year ago. When she started to list out her charges, Furina expected her ugly anxiety to rear its head, but there were no traces of it. Not since last night. The only thing she could feel was a weight lifting from her shoulders and heart. 

“...jeopardizing Fontaine, its people, its founding principles of justice...”

She had anticipated Euphrasie saying something like this. 

“...why would she deceive us like this? Could it have been for attention? Government funds? Some ‘greater good’ that eludes us all? To be frank, it doesn’t really matter. She might try to say that the ends justify the means, but there was no happy ending for many of us, so what’s there to justify? We have offered her our unwavering trust and support for so long, yet we’ve received little in return aside from floods and damages.”

This, too.

“...and had she not robbed Fontaine of a real Archon, we may very well have avoided disaster altogether, which I hope to convince you of today.”

After Euphrasie’s strong finish, the judge gestured for Furina to take her turn. 

She took a long, deep breath and said, “I struggled for a long, long time to figure out how I should present my case here. If this were any other trial, I’d be up here arguing my innocence. But how can I, when I still question myself, wondering if I made the right decisions in handling the prophecy? I can’t, so my aim today is not to persuade but to tell the story of what happened, and I implore you, the jury, to give me the answer that I’ve been trying to find — did I do the right thing? Would you have done any different?”

Furina yielded her time, and it came Euphrasie’s turn once more to present her side of the argument. With confidence, the prosecution called upon her roster of witnesses, who were all gathered in the second row of the auditorium, directly behind the jury. The first among them was an older man with a mustache and sunken eyes. His formal clothes hung loosely over his body, indicating that they were not fitted for him. Or perhaps it was that his frame had shrunk considerably since their purchase.

“Would you please identify yourself to the court?” The judge asked as a formality, his face softening upon seeing the physical state of the witness.

The man introduced himself as Cannes. “I live — or rather lived — in Poisson.”

“Can you tell us, Monsieur, about the day when the Primordial Sea encroached on Poisson?” Euphrasie said. 

“The water came out of nowhere that morning. It caught everyone by surprise. My daughter Desyree and I were slow to react, having just woken up. We were separated in the ensuing stampede from everyone trying to escape all at once, and when I searched for her, I —” His voice cracked, recovered, and cracked again. “I saw her being dissolved in front of my eyes. I’m sorry, I wanted to share her story, and I thought I could, but I don’t think I can...”

Euphrasie was quick to reassure him. “Please don’t push yourself, you’ve done more than enough. Thank you for coming today, and I’m very sorry about your daughter.”

He descended the stage, but the atmosphere of despair remained, and Furina had to force down the lump that grew in her throat.

Next, Euphrasie brought on someone who worked in the field of disaster recovery named Yvette. “Madame, what’s your estimate of the damages that were incurred as a result of the flood?”

“Not accounting for human casualties, I estimate no less than a hundred million Mora’s worth of property and valuables have been lost.” The woman went on to detail what went into the calculations of that sum, listing the sorts of people she had spoken to and the field surveys she had conducted on damaged areas within the city. “As for the things that can’t be easily quantified, who can truly say?”

Once Euphrasie was certain that she had drilled in her point of the suffering that had taken place, she moved on. “Going forward, I’d like to remind everyone of the stone slates that were resurfaced in Lady Furina’s previous trial, which had foretold the course of the prophecy. Including the trial itself. Now, I can’t say for certain if the outcomes they described were inevitable, but I can say that if Lady Furina had been an effective leader, her people wouldn’t have felt the need to bring her to trial in the first place. We wouldn’t have been pushed further along the path of the prophecy.”

She welcomed a pair of witnesses, brothers who had been part of the crew dispatched by the Spina di Rosula to harass Furina as part of Lumine’s plot to bring her to the Opera Epiclese.

“Under normal circumstances, we would’ve never agreed to a job assignment like this,” one brother said.

“It’s true. I can speak for everyone else in the group as well,” the other agreed. “We all thought what Lady Furina needed was a reality check, and that’s what the trial was meant for. We wanted her to stop pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t.”

“Thank you.” The pair left the stand, and Euphrasie continued, “Finally, I’d like to speak on the defense’s personal relationship with our Chief Justice, which was brought into question when the photograph of them together was released. Lady Furina’s level of proximity to Monsieur Neuvillette is an overstep. Any attempt to unduly gain his favor could be read as an attempt to subvert the justice system that he represents. Her actions were...inappropriate, to say the very least. With that, the prosecution rests.”

Furina didn’t hesitate. “I’d like to address the prosecution’s last point quickly. Monsieur Neuvillette receives hundreds of letters a year, to no one’s surprise, from critics to fans to secret admirers. Must they have charges leveraged against them, too, for whatever personal feelings they may or may not have for him? If I say I am close friends with him, or colleagues, or anything else, it should make no difference. Are we not in this courtroom right now carrying out justice, despite whatever it is you think is going on between me and him?”

Her questions were rhetorical, so she didn’t wait for a response before pivoting from her ad-libbed statement back to the one she had carefully crafted ahead of time, which was, at its essence, the story of her life.

She spoke of the misery and occasional joy of the last five hundred years. And the role entrusted to her by Focalors without an accompanying explanation as to its purpose. Her helplessness and utter lack of powers. The hopelessness that came from wishing she could do more but being unable to. Her humanity. 

Once her soliloquy ran its course, she asked Lumine to step forth from the third row in the audience, which had been specially reserved for her and Neuvillette. It was one of those rare occasions when Paimon could not be seen by her side. 

Lumine corroborated the lengthy tale by relaying her journey through Furina’s memories. At the tailend of it, unprompted, the traveler issued an apology for having jumped to conclusions before the truth could come to light. Furina’s flustered reaction all but guaranteed that it was in no way scripted.

She was then followed up by Neuvillette.

His appearance as a witness incited whispers, which Furina attributed to the novelty of his presence as a witness, but he paid it no mind and set about his testimony. His goal, as he would describe it, was to emphasize the necessity of Furina’s deception, and he accomplished as much by delineating Focalors’s plan with clinical accuracy. The whispers grew louder when he recounted their true Archon’s death.

“Some may fail to see the justice in having to pay the ultimate price to atone for your predecessor’s sins,” he said, taking care to explain in a way that made sense without having to mention his identity as the Hydro Sovereign. “But, at the very least, her sacrifice meant that Fontaine’s people could be declared innocent and be spared from having to face that same cruel fate.”

His monologue came to an end. When he headed for the stairs beneath Furina’s balcony box, his eyes found her, but he did not deviate from trial procedures to verbally address her. Brief as the interaction was, she saw in him a heartfelt promise that everything would be okay. 

With renewed certainty, she went on to wrap up her defense.

“Earlier, the prosecution implied that I might’ve lied for selfish reasons, but it was because there were no other paths forward for me.” Hoping to end on a lighter note, she tacked on, “That’s not to say I was a stranger to selfish thoughts. I will admit that I was often tempted to put an end to the act prematurely. I was tired. I still am, but I hope I’ll soon get the chance to rest.”

After her closing remarks, there was only waiting left to be done. The lights came on in the audience, and the jury was whisked away by Gardes to deliberate in private. In order to make themselves readily available to return at a moment’s notice, Euphrasie and Furina were instructed by the judge to stay within the bounds of their break room or the auditorium. Almost immediately, the latter choice proved itself impossible.

Now that the show was over, even if temporarily, the opera hall swelled with conversation, and members of the audience surged toward the stage. Thankfully, there were more Gardes at the ready to keep them from getting too close, but that didn’t stop them from calling out to Furina and Euphrasie from behind the line of Melusines. Furina slipped away backstage, hoping to avoid their shouted questions and solicitations for interviews. She prayed that Lumine and Neuvillette were able to do the same, having lost sight of them moments earlier amidst the commotion.

She had no more commentary left in her.

As soon as she had peace and quiet in the break room, Furina sat in front of a desk, laid her head down on its cold wooden surface, and shut her tired eyes. Relief came, now that she had no more eyes on her. Being watched has gotten easier, but never easy.

The next thing she recalled was a voice urging her awake. “Lady Furina, wake up. It’s time to go back.”

She shot up in her seat and blinked away the blur in her vision. “Oh, it’s you, Sedene. Where’s Euphrasie?”

“She stayed in the auditorium.”

“How long have I been here?”

“A little less than an hour. The jury sent word that they’ve reached a verdict, so Justice Dupont asked that I fetch you.”

Sedene led the way back, and along their walk, did her best to keep Furina’s spirits high. As high as can be, considering the circumstances. By the time Furina navigated back to her boxed seat, the chaos from earlier had settled. However, the tranquility cast over the courtroom was tenuous, barely held together by trial etiquette and the people’s shared desire to drink in every second of the upcoming scene. No one dared to move a muscle, lest they somehow miss out on the moment of judgment being delivered.

After Furina and Euphrasie indicated their readiness to Justice Dupont, he requested that the forewoman of the jury stand and announce their verdict.

An extremely tall, brown-haired woman rose from the first row. She exchanged a quick look of confirmation with her peers, cleared her throat, and started to read from the piece of paper she held, clear enough to be heard from every corner of the room. “We, the jury, reached a unanimous decision on this day and find the defendant, Furina of Fontaine —”

Furina scanned the audience restlessly, all of a sudden wishing to see Neuvillette’s face but unable to locate him before she was made to hear the end of the woman’s sentence.

“— not guilty on all charges leveraged against her.” 

Furina exhaled shakily, Euphrasie ducked her head down to hide what looked to be a smile on her face, and noise erupted from every which direction.

Uncertain of what to do with herself and what feelings were exploding in her chest, Furina was motionless until she caught a glimpse of a tiny but unmistakable speck of light descending slowly in front of her. She reached out, captivated by the strange sight. In her cupped hands, a blue gemstone materialized that bore the mark of Hydro.

Chapter Text

Almost immediately, Furina retreated backstage to examine her vision, almost dropping it in the process. Making direct contact with the stone’s polished surface sent a prickle of warmth coursing into her body, which started in her fingertips and spread until she was completely enveloped in its embrace. The sensation was poignant but not unpleasant. It was a smell and taste and color all at once, and without rhyme or reason, it brought with it the thought of Neuvillette. 

He had something to do with this, she suspected.

It made sense. He was the one with authority over all waters, was he not? Then would that make the vision...a piece of him? A gift from his heart? Or perhaps, a gift of his heart. 

She squeezed her eyes shut. The darkness made her mess of feelings easier to unravel and sort through. There was a disorienting rush of what must’ve been Hydro energy. A vague impression of the sea and rain. And entangled deeper within, she discovered a tiny, invisible string that tugged at her from out in the auditorium. 

The force was not nearly strong enough to physically move her, but at its other end, she was certain she’d find Neuvillette. 

Spurred on by her desire to see him, Furina slipped silently into the courtroom once more, onto the stage, then down its stairs to the ground level. All the while, she clutched her Vision so tightly that her hand stung in the places where its metal casing dug into her skin.

While the crowd near the front of the audience section had cleared out, heavy congestion was building up in the back. People spilled out into the narrow aisles, all of them eagerly swarming to the limited number of exits, where Gardes were now gathered to perform crowd control. Progress proved slow. 

A few stragglers waiting out the commotion noticed Furina’s unexpected appearance and greeted her with polite smiles and gave her space out of respect, but one among them broke rank. The teenager approached her bluntly with his well-meaning but much too enthusiastic questions, drawing more attention to her presence, and like moths to a flame, others copied his example. 

“I’m sorry, I just want to get through.” Furina was still slow on her feet from all that had happened. She took a step back, then another and another in an attempt to put some distance between herself and the dozen or so frenzied pursuers closing in. “Excuse me —”

Her protestations were drowned out. Only when her back hit the rise of the stage with a thud did she realize she had no more room to retreat from the clamoring voices and jostling elbows fighting for her attention. 

“Hey, hey, everyone,” Euphrasie’s voice rang out from above. She stood at the edge of the stage directly behind Furina and crouched down to be better heard by everyone below. “Give Lady Furina some breathing room, will you?”

Two people heeded her words and began to back away, but the rest were excited even more by the prospect of being able to speak to both parties in the landmark case they had just witnessed. Having unintentionally exacerbated the situation, Euphrasie cursed inaudibly under her breath and extended an arm out to Furina.

“Come on,” she urged.

Furina came to her senses, grasped the hand of salvation, and let herself be pulled onto the stage. As she hurried away without another thought, she heard Euphrasie announce behind her, “If there are any questions, feel free to direct them towards me.”

She couldn’t help but wince at the lambasting that followed. 

It wasn’t until she escaped to the labyrinthine hallways connected to the backstage that Furina regretted not thanking her rescuer before the opportunity was lost. There, she paced back and forth and wondered how long it might be until it was safe to head out again. 

With only her Vision to keep her company, she turned it this way and that in her hands like a compulsion. Now that she had gotten over the initial shock of its existence, it felt surprisingly ordinary. Shouldn’t there have been some physical manifestation of her newfound powers already? Like the ability to conjure up and manipulate water at will? Or some way of channeling it through an enchanted object? But so far, nothing.

She tried to shut her eyes again, which seemed to have helped before. Maybe if she concentrated harder this time.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She nearly jumped out of her skin. Though she could ascertain she wasn’t in any sort of immediate danger, she wasn’t sure what to make of the scene that awaited her. Three sea critters made entirely of Hydro were zooming wildly about in the air, and a few steps away from her stood a young man. His hair was damp, and though his getup was unfamiliar, his face was undeniably —

“Wanderer? Is that you?” Once her initial disbelief wore off, she chided, “You have got to stop sneaking up on people.” 

His dry snort was confirmation enough. In response, one of the Hydro animals, an armored crab, shot a ball of water directly at him. He deflected the attack with a careless swipe of his hand, redirecting the water at the wall instead, where it ran down to form a small puddle at their feet. “It’s not my fault you decided to meditate in broad daylight for no reason. And you’ve got to learn to control your pets better.”

When she realized that the creatures were somehow linked to her, all three disappeared into thin air. She’d have to revisit this new development later. For now, she squinted at Wanderer and pursed her lips. He was dressed strangely, like a Fontainian would, in a navy suit jacket and matching formal pants cut above his knees. “What are you wearing? I’ve never seen you without your hat.”

“They don’t allow hats in the theater,” he said disapprovingly. 

“More importantly, what are you doing here?”

“I was curious about parts of the opera house that aren’t publicly accessible, and it took little effort to sneak past your security guards. Something the courts should work on, might I suggest.”

“You know what I really mean.” She rolled her eyes. “What are you doing in Fontaine?”

“You can thank your chief justice for that. After he negotiated that student exchange program with the Dendro Archon, she strongly suggested that I participate for a semester. Strongly.” He twisted his mouth to one side in distaste. “So here I am. But the part about wanting to see inside this building is true, and I also figured if I somehow caught you in here along the way, I could tell you ‘I told you so.’ You know, since you disagreed with me so vehemently about sharing your story.”

“Ah, that’s more like it.”

“Well, that’s all. I’d better be getting on with the rest of my self-guided tour.” He stuck his hands in his pants pockets and spun around gracefully on his heel.

Furina called out to him in an effort to disturb his facade of nonchalance, “I’ll see you around then?”

He lifted a hand, his back to her still. “Maybe.”

She shook her head, smiling, and watched him saunter away. With Wanderer’s visit cut short, she tried to replicate the stunt with the water creatures, but when she focused on her Vision, she sensed the mysterious force again from earlier. Its pull had grown stronger, and it told her to walk to the end of the hallway. She listened and was then told to turn left, and right, and right again. Just as she started to question her decision-making, she spotted Neuvillette coming around the corner, all the way at the other end of the corridor. 

“There you are, Furina. I was looking for —” He stumbled backwards on his feet as she threw herself into his embrace. With one hand braced against the wall for balance and the other at her waist, he asked in a hushed tone, “How are you feeling?”

She buried her head into his chest and replied with a muffled laugh, “Not everything’s sunken in yet, but I’m relieved. I think.”

Neuvillette brought his free hand against the small of her back, causing a pleasant shiver to race down her spine. They stayed that way for a moment, not speaking, until he broke the silence. “Lumine, Paimon, and everyone else are waiting for you outside.” 

She let out a quiet sigh. She had been wondering about them, but the thought of having to pull away was disappointing nonetheless.

“But,” he continued, “maybe having them wait a little longer would be okay.”

Nearly everyone Furina spoke to recommended that she take a nice, long, relaxing break, but she was not one for idly sitting by and twiddling her thumbs. Not anymore. Therefore, she ended up spending the days after her trial figuring out the peculiarities of her Vision.

The sea creatures made a reappearance, but they were temperamental little things. More than once, she was awakened in the morning by the three of them wreaking havoc in her apartment, leaving her to mop up their mess. Taming them was an arduous task, but when worst came to worst, she would rely on the ultimate failsafe of chasing them out of her apartment and locking the door, which resulted in them fizzling out of existence. Usually.

Still, as difficult as it was, she learned to gain a modicum of control over them.

Now left with more time than she knew what to do with, as there was a limit to how frequently she could see Neuvillette and her friends when they had their responsibilities to attend to, she was eager to finally kickstart her project with Charlotte. When Charlotte suggested that they grab a cup of coffee together at Café Lutece, Furina assumed that she must’ve had the same thought in mind. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

That afternoon, after they purchased a sampler plate of pastries to share and found shade beneath a wide parasol at an outside table, Charlotte started, “I talked to Euphrasie recently, at her request.”

Realizing they were not in fact on the same wavelength about the purpose of their meeting, Furina hid her surprise. “What’d she say?”

Charlotte picked up a bite-sized fruit tart and studied it a moment before popping it into her mouth. “She told me she’s planning to step down as the editor-in-chief.”

“What?”

“That and other things. She went into more detail than this, but apparently, The Steambird came close to shutting down after the flood due to trouble with finances,” Charlotte explained. Furina pretended this was her first time hearing such a thing. “Turns out, the decisions I disagreed with her about were her efforts to turn the ship around. I still don’t like what she did, but admittedly, their situation is more stable now. Recently, she’s been receiving a lot of flak for your trial, so she doesn’t want to risk bringing the paper down with her after so much work had gone into keeping it afloat.”

“But who’s going to replace her?”

“That’s the thing. She asked if I’d be willing to,” Charlotte replied. There was no more eating or drinking to be done by either of them. “I said no and mentioned our plans to work together on our own publication.” 

“You sound conflicted,” Furina commented. “Are you sure?"

“I am sure that I don’t want to be the editor-in-chief of a big paper. It comes with too many duties I don’t care for, like managing personnel. On the other hand, Euphrasie is right; bad publicity could be a killer. Yet, I don’t think there’s anyone who can properly fill her shoes right now. No one else has the same level of passion for The Steambird as she does. As for me, well, I do genuinely want The Steambird to thrive, too. I learned a great deal there and had lots of good memories. It’s just...hard when there are no good options.”

The circumstances were convoluted, as were Furina’s thoughts about Euphrasie, but the solution to Charlotte’s woes didn’t have to be. Furina’s idea wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. “Charlotte, is there a time when all three of us can meet? I feel like we can work something out.”

Furina saw Wanderer regularly despite his hermetic nature, especially once the semester began at the Institute. He would barge into her apartment at least once every few weeks without warning, stay for a couple of hours to complete his assignments, and leave. The reason for these visits, which she had to pry out of him after the first one, was his randomly assigned roommate named Sethos, who was much too extroverted for him to handle at times. 

She’d usually leave him be at her dining table, surrounded by his books and scrolls, which was how he preferred it. Once in a while, if he’d been heads-down for way too long a stretch, she would pop in with a frivolous question or two as her way of forcing a break onto him.

During one of these occasions, she asked, “What’d you think of Fontaine so far? Everything you’ve dreamed of and more?”

Having grown used to her antics, Wanderer stopped writing, feigned mild annoyance at the disruption, and answered, “It’s changed since I was last here decades ago, but I can’t say it’s been for the better.”

“Decades?” She looked him up and down but couldn’t pick out a single wrinkle or blemish on his skin. “How old are you, exactly?”

“It’s rude to ask an immortal being their age, you know?” he said, sardonic. “But I have been told I don’t look a day over five hundred.”

“You don’t.” She had an inkling back in Sumeru that he wasn’t a normal human, but it hadn’t remotely crossed her mind that he might be someone who could not die. Or that he had experienced nearly as many years as she had. “Immortal, huh?”

“You aren’t jealous, are you? Because I’d give it up in a heartbeat.” He skillfully twirled the pen in his hand, stopping when it was pointed directly at her like an accusatory finger. “Count yourself lucky. Being able to have an ending is a gift.” 

His words sharply brought back the buried memory of a hypothetical Neuvillette had once proposed. In the wake of the craziness that had descended onto her life, she had shoved aside the thought of there being a possible avenue to extend her life. Even if it weren’t a hypothetical, she wouldn’t have known what she wanted. She didn’t expect to have found more clarity since, but somehow, she had. 

“I think so, too.”

During her shared lunch with Neuvillette the next day, she revived the topic. “Do you remember when you asked me if I wanted to be given more time in life? Something along those lines.”

He stopped mid-chew, resumed, and swallowed. “Have you given it more thought?”

She nodded. “The idea was enticing at first, I won’t lie, but not for the right reasons. I saw it as a crutch because I wasn’t satisfied with my situation, and because I was scared things wouldn’t get much better. But now that I do have the life I’ve been wishing for, I’d say no even if immortality were offered. I don’t want to be made an exception anymore, or to feel less human than everyone else. And if I had to keep outliving everyone, I wouldn’t be half as willing to grow closer to the friends I have now. It’s held me back long enough.” 

“You’re...certain?”

“Yes.” Furina spied something amiss in his expression despite his speech being deliberately neutral. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. I’ve told you before to be more selfish, so I am glad you’re doing what makes you happy. It’s just —” he faltered and cleared his throat, struggling for the right words. “— the years can slip by so easily when we’ve been used to the scale of centuries.”

Though not completely understanding what he was trying to convey, Furina found his concern strangely endearing. She reassured him, “They won’t slip by. I won’t let them.”

The tension between his brows stayed.

Chapter Text

Love was a daunting new world for Neuvillette.

One that he wasn’t sure how to navigate. How could one person stir up such a storm in him? What lengths would he go to for her? Was it okay for him to desire more — to want to have more years together, to hear more of her meandering thoughts on every little thing, to do more than just exchange kisses that never last long enough?

For the most part, he took his cues from Furina, following whatever pace she set. When it became clear that she was as new to this as he was, he resorted to supplementing his knowledge, or lack of it, with her books.

His reading of the first one had been more of an accident, borne out of curiosity about how she spends her time. However, as they sat discussing its plot in his office, he had the realization that there were valuable insights to be gleaned from these books. He began to borrow more from her until he decided to start his own subscription to the Yae Publishing House for convenience’s sake.

Every few weeks, they mailed him a brand new release. As his collection slowly expanded, so did his crude understanding of how human relationships were supposed to work. But love, for all its goodness, also had a way of making him uncomfortable. It was vulnerability. It introduced him to a new breed of fear. 

It made him selfish, too, and he didn’t know how to deal with that.

The next time Lumine and Paimon returned to Fontaine for an impromptu visit, Navia had the bright idea of extending the guest list for her weekly game night. In addition to the two travelers, she also tasked Clorinde with sending out verbal invites to both Wriothesley and Neuvillette.

When the day came, Furina arrived at their usual spot in Fleuve Cendre and saw only Clorinde, Paimon, and Lumine present. The three were locked in a heated verbal altercation, but as soon as she drew within earshot, close enough for them to notice her presence, the arguing ceased.

None of the three appeared particularly angry upon second glance, only impassioned, which added to Furina’s confusion. Fearing she was stepping into a potential minefield, she said tentatively, “Is everything alright?”

“Yes, yes, we’re all good,” Lumine laughed away the question with a wave of her hand. “Just a minor disagreement between friends.”

Clorinde confirmed that it was indeed the case and gestured for Furina to take the empty seat across the table from her. “Come sit. I think Navia ran off to who-knows-where to find more chairs for our increased headcount today, so it might be a while until we can get started.”

Furina made herself comfortable and decided it was probably best to stay out of whatever had been going on between them. There was an assortment of game pieces laid out on the table, presumably meant for the night ahead. She reached for a deck of cards to occupy her hands, but before she could ask about what games were planned, Paimon shot to her side and asked, voice brimming with intrigue, “Did Neuvillette not come with you?”

“Should he have?” Furina tilted her head.

“No, no,” Paimon backtracked quickly. “We were, ah, just wondering, since you see him often. Right?”

“Well, when there’s time. You know how his schedule can be, and lately he’s been more preoccupied.” So it’s not been nearly as often as I’d like.

“That’s true, work seems to be far busier than usual. I’ve noticed how tired he looks on some days,” Clorinde jumped in to corroborate. “Navia insisted, but I felt guilty about inviting him to this event when he probably should be resting. Thankfully, he readily accepted, which was a stark contrast to the amount of persuading I had to do to get Wriothesley to leave his beloved Fortress.”

“And speaking of work,” Lumine leaned forward in her chair, a sly smile tugging at her mouth like she was privy to a juicy piece of gossip. “Furina, I saw that you and Charlotte are now writing for The Steambird. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the articles, but how did that happen after what Euphrasie did? I thought you two were going to do your own thing?”

Her reasons were manifold and difficult to list out in their entirety, but Furina gave the highlights, touching on Charlotte’s attachments to the long-standing paper and her evolving opinion of Euphrasie as someone put in a difficult situation. 

“I say that Furina and Charlotte are both too forgiving,” Clorinde commented disapprovingly, choosing to hold onto the grudge in her friends’ stead. “But it is what it is.”

“What do you mean, I’m too forgiving?” Charlotte dropped her hands onto Clorinde’s shoulders, having crept up behind her unsuspecting victim after motioning to everyone to keep quiet about her arrival. After getting the jump of surprise she wanted, she giggled and said, “Don’t worry, we’re both getting something out of the arrangement, so it’s not done purely out of charity. We negotiated with Euphrasie, and she agreed to us having complete creative control over what we write. Within reason.”

“This also took away the logistics of starting an independent publication, like needing to find a printer, grow readership, et cetera,” Furina added. “And if worst comes to worst, we can always leave.”

They went on to discuss Charlotte’s latest piece while waiting. Soon, Navia returned with extra chairs, snacks, and Wriothesley in tow, having crossed his path along the way. Neuvillette was the last to show up. Once he was directed to the seat directly next to Furina, which had been left conspicuously open despite others filling in, Navia stood from her spot at the head of the table. 

“I hope everyone is ready, because I have a lot prepared for tonight. The main theme is competition,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. Everyone around the table sat up straighter. “We’ll keep track of the winner after each game we play, and at the very end, the top scorer will be gifted the grand prize of three dozen macarons, baked by yours truly. To be delivered at a later date, in whatever flavor you request.” 

Paimon and Furina took in an audible breath. 

As Navia explained, their first game involved the players racing to discard every card in their starting hand, which required a fair bit of lying to be successful at. Against all odds, Paimon came out on top in a majority of the rounds, despite normally being so expressive that she was an open book. Furina supposed that the thought of macarons was enough to keep her stone-faced the entire time.

However, much to Paimon’s ire, Neuvillette managed to secure decisive victories in their next few games. To the group, he gave off the image of a quiet, unassuming contestant learning the rules for the first time, but Furina alone knew, from their experiences in Sumeru, how lethal he could be at these lighthearted games. And he proved her right, having no trouble dealing the killing blow when it came down to it. 

His points accumulated steadily throughout the night. Not without difficulty, Paimon somehow managed to keep up with him in score, whether it was by luck, skill, or sheer force of will. During the occasions when he barely eked out a win over Paimon, his eyes would briefly seek out Furina at the table, and she’d return a heartening smile even as the grand prize slipped further and further away from her reach.

She was equally as tempted as Paimon by the promise of pastries, but Furina’s performance landed her solidly in the middle of the rankings. Rounding out the bottom was Wriothesley, who was more invested in the intensifying rivalry than his own placement. More than once, he’d make deadpan, offhanded comments in an attempt to egg on both Neuvillette and Paimon, with the latter growing more emboldened as the competition went on.

In the end, after announcing that there was a tie, Navia offered Neuvillette and Paimon a choice. “How about this, the two of you can have one dozen macarons each, or we can hold a tiebreaker round, with the winner of that getting the full three dozen.”

“Tiebreaker!” Paimon proclaimed without hesitation.

“Tiebreaker,” Neuvillette echoed calmly.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t pick that because I’ve used up all my game ideas,” Navia chuckled and turned to the roundtable. “Does anyone else know anything quick and easy for two players?”

Wriothesley was the one to step up. He snatched up a dice from a pile in front of him and presented it in his palm. “This is a popular one down in the Fortress. You both will take turns rolling a dice, and for each turn, you can keep rolling until you choose to stop or you land on a one. If you stop on your own terms, you’ll gain the sum of all your dice rolls during that turn as points. If you land on a one, your turn ends immediately, and you gain zero points. The first player to a hundred wins. Since there’s luck involved, might I suggest you both play for best two out of three rounds?”  

“Sounds easy enough.” Paimon gave a singular, forceful nod, took the dice from Wriothesley, and grabbed pieces of paper for herself and Neuvillette to track their sums. Upon noticing him scribbling something down before their game even began, she flew up to his shoulders, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What are you writing?”  

“Just working out a strategy,” he explained, not bothering to hide his scratch work of calculations.

Having lost interest after seeing the numbers, Paimon huffed and crossed her arms. “Paimon trusts that her intuition will work better than whatever strategy you can dream up.” 

“I find that hard to believe.”

A hush fell over their audience as the match commenced. Paimon was aggressive from the get-go, pushing the bounds with how high a sum she could amass each turn, while Neuvillette displayed much more conservatism with his stopping points. For their first round, her gamble paid off handsomely, and she gapped him by more than thirty points to the finish.

“You can always forfeit early, you know?” She quipped at Neuvillette. “Save us the time and let Paimon win right here and now.”

“Why should I?”

“Because the situation’s looking bleak for you. Besides, Paimon’s a big fan of Navia’s baking. Bigger than you, by far. You don’t even like sweets, do you?”

“I don’t.”

“Then —” Her gaze flickered over to Furina across the table, who interpreted it as a request for encouragement and gave her a thumbs up. “Ahem, nevermind why, as long as you’re prepared to lose.”

For all of Paimon’s talk and confidence, her luck faltered in the second and third rounds with several unfortunate rolls in a row, allowing Neuvillette to take the lead and become the undisputed recipient of the macarons. As they exchanged a handshake for good sportsmanship that was suggested by Wriothesley, she begrudgingly conceded that her intuition had not held up as well as she’d hoped.

After their tournament came to a blazing finish, Navia enlisted the help of Neuvillette and Wriothesley to move the borrowed chair back, leaving Furina to reorganize the mess of game pieces alongside Lumine, Clorinde, and a defeated Paimon. She and Lumine worked efficiently to turn all their playing cards in the same direction and return them to the proper decks. Meanwhile, across the room, Clorinde and Paimon stopped their cleaning efforts completely several times to whisper to each other. 

Lumine glared in their direction periodically to keep them on track, but when that stopped working, she strode over, spoke to them sternly in a hushed voice, then led them both towards Furina.

“These two,” Lumine shot a look of exasperation to her left and right, sighing, “want your help in settling a dispute but were too stubborn to ask for it.”

“Oh, of course.” Furina paused her sorting of the last deck of cards and turned her attention to them, having held herself back from meddling despite being curious the whole time. “What is it?”

Lumine nudged Clorinde to speak.

“Ah, well, we’ve been arguing about this all night, but neither of us has been able to figure it out...” Clorinde looked at Paimon as a cue.

“Please don’t take it the wrong way.” Paimon leaned in. “But we were wondering if you and Neuvillette were together?” 

“Together?”

Paimon leaned in more and mumbled, as if she were relaying a secret reluctantly, “You know, in that way. Is he your boyfriend?”

“What?” Furina snorted. Wasn’t that the term people used nowadays for someone they weren’t sure they loved yet? For someone they weren’t sure about spending their lives with? “No, I wouldn’t really call him that.”

Clorinde couldn’t entirely suppress the smugness in her words. “See, Paimon, I told you it wasn’t like that, but you —”

Paimon cut her off to press Furina more intently, “What would you call him then?”

“I’m not sure.” Furina hadn’t considered that there was a need for a label to be slapped onto Neuvillette. Whatever she chose would hardly do him justice, but the three pairs of eyes staring at her in the moment seemed to indicate that it was somehow imperative she find one. She struggled to recall the phrase an author she liked had used a while back. “I guess if I had to pick, I’d say he’s like my heart and soul?”

A stunned silence followed her declaration, then Paimon started cackling. 

Furina had grown used to Neuvillette accompanying her back home whenever he could, but never the feeling that came with it. Tonight, she attributed the unusual intensity of the fuzziness in her chest to the past week, during which they’ve had little opportunity to meet outside of their regular meals together.

Being late as it was, the city streets were empty under the cloudless, moonless sky, but she was in no hurry to reach her destination.

Hoping he shared her sentiments, she reached out to give his hand a squeeze, which prompted him to say, “By the way, I had informed Navia that I wished to transfer my prize to you, so whenever you’ve decided on the flavors of macaron you’d prefer, please let her know.”

His statement caught her off guard. She had been planning to ask, once he received the macarons, if he’d be willing to part with one or two pieces out of the lot. That would’ve been more than enough to satisfy her. “You won it fair and square. I don’t want all your effort to be wasted.”

“It’s not,” he replied firmly, “and I’d much prefer to see you enjoy them.”

How could she argue with that? She squeezed his hands more tightly.

At the beginning, Furina had worried that she’d continuously overthink every bit of her relationship with Neuvillette. Knowing herself, she was sure she’d wonder at times if his feelings were ephemeral, or something she dreamt up. Yet, although he was not someone who loudly professed his emotions at every turn, Furina had not had such doubts. It was a strange experience, not to have to question.   

That wasn’t to say she was completely free from uncertainties. As they came to her apartment doorstep, the thought of him having to leave brought forth a greater pain than usual — but how should she convey what she wanted to?

“Would you like to come in?” Would he read too much into it? Maybe she wanted him to.

“Sure, if you’ll have me,” he said, giving no indication he saw her offer as anything out of the ordinary.

He followed her inside, where, thankfully, she had tidied up that morning. Somewhat. Because her apartment naturally tended toward chaos, there were random knick-knacks scattered about, including several pens Wanderer had left behind. The small casualties aside, she had been diligent in removing all her crumpled-up drafts of a detailed patisserie review she was planning for The Steambird and any traces of half-built furnishings.

It was a work in progress, but her ability to control her messes had improved by leaps and bounds, in part due to Neuvillette. He had a habit of leaving her apartment cleaner than he found it. When he continued doing so despite her assurances that he didn’t have to, she resorted to doing what she could to make his life a little easier.

After directing him to her relatively spotless living room, Furina headed to the kitchen to grab a drink for them both.

“How’d you get to be so good at games anyway?” She called out conversationally, drawing two glasses from her cupboard. “Without having played them before.”  

“I can teach you some of the heuristics I was using,” he responded from the other room. “It largely depends on the game, but you can do well in most of them with some basic math and memorization.” 

“So I can’t blame my losses on bad luck then,” She sighed for dramatic effect.

“And with some luck, of course,” he tacked on quickly, causing Furina to laugh quietly to herself. A moment later, he asked, “What have you been reading lately? Is it this on the coffee table? It’s a different publisher than usual.”

His inquiry was accompanied by the sound of turning pages. She struggled to recall what she could’ve possibly left out. When the title came to her, she set down the pitcher of water she was holding and bolted in Neuvillette’s direction. He was reclined on the couch, already flipping through the book in question, but she refused to believe she was too late and swooped in to snatch it away from him.

His confusion was expected and obvious, and for a second, his hands remained in the same pose, outstretched to hold what was no longer there.

She set the book back down on the coffee table, firmly shut. “I know you said you’re open to reading all kinds of things, but I really don’t think this one is to your tastes.”

“Why not?” He asked just as she hoped he wouldn’t.

Her face burned. “There’s a scene or two that’s a bit questionable.”

“Is there violence?” He blinked. “That’s no issue for me.”

“No, not that.” Embarrassed, she looked away, but he took her wrist and gently drew her to him, maybe in the hopes that proximity would make her more willing to answer in full. She stepped closer upon his urging, stopping when her legs knocked against his knees. “It’s more so the lead and the love interest, ah, sleep together.”

“Furina, I’m well aware what sex is, if that was your concern,” he said in all seriousness, not letting up his hold on her.

“That’s not — I didn’t think you’d be interested. In the subject matter.”

“But you are?”

Her face burned more fiercely. Evidently, they were no longer talking about books. “Maybe.”

“So what makes you say I’m not?”

“I don’t think it’s that unreasonable of me to think,” she protested weakly. A slight pressure formed around her wrist from Neuvillette’s grasp, inviting her to come closer still. She could’ve broken free easily, but she yielded to its suggestion and let herself fall into him. The momentum carried her forward, and she landed in a perched position above his lap, her knees pressing into the fabric of the couch on either side of his legs to support her weight.

In response, his hands rose to her waist, coaxing her to sit. “It is.”

His face was close enough for her to count each of his lashes from her slightly elevated vantage point. “I mean, you’re the Iudex, and the Hydro Sovereign, and you’re always so refined, composed. I guess a part of me just assumed you’d consider yourself to be above something like that.” 

The end of her sentence was punctuated by a quiet gasp as he pressed a soft kiss against her throat. His reply came as a whisper, barely a puff of air against her neck. “You’re terribly wrong.”

“How?” She murmured, closing her eyes to fully savor his touch. The strange sort of thrill he ignited in her made any distance between them a distance too far.

“It’s a little difficult to explain.” He painted another kiss onto her neck, directly beneath her jaw where her pulse was beating wildly. “Since I often have trouble finding the right words to express all that I feel for you. Like now, for example.”

“Then...show me instead?”

And he did.

Chapter Text

In the aftermath, a comfortable silence stretched between them as Furina lay facing away from Neuvillette, her head resting on his forearm. Neither of them was in a hurry to move, much less retrieve and put on the clothes that had been haphazardly tossed aside onto the floor beside her bed. His chest, pressed against her back, betrayed every breath he took with its rise and fall.

When he brought his free hand up to idly twist a lock of her hair around his fingers, she caught her consciousness slipping. Not willing to give in just yet, she blinked and rubbed her eyes to clear away the creeping drowsiness.

“You don’t have to fight sleep, Furina,” Neuvillette remarked.

“I’m not tired,” she said, successfully stifling a yawn that threatened to emerge.

“You don’t have to lie, either,” he chuckled.

She spun around and met his half-lidded eyes. His pale hair was in slight disarray, splayed across her pillow and sheets, and his cheeks were tinted with a residual pinkness that hadn’t completely faded from earlier. He had always been beautiful to look at, but especially now, in his unguarded, undressed state that surely no one but her had witnessed before. “Fine, I admit I’m tired, but I don’t want to sleep just yet. Morning will come too quickly. Besides, you’re awake as well.”

“I don’t need sleep in the same way you do.”

“I know, I know,” she said, “but you could try to make a habit of it. You look so tired lately.” 

“Do I?” He sounded surprised.

“Very much.” To demonstrate her point, she reached over, laid a palm against his face, and brushed her thumb over the faint shadows under his eye. She recalled a similar darkness in his countenance during the weeks leading up to the climactic conclusion to the prophecy, and again when she returned to the city after their time apart. “Has your case load been too heavy? Is that why?”

“Work has been the usual.” Prompted by her expectant expression, he tacked on after a brief pause, “Perhaps it’s because I’ve been spending a lot of time on research.”

“Research?” She had been bracing for a far more unusual explanation than this. He was known to probe extensively into any topic that sufficiently piqued his interest. While this tendency was what made him such an effective judge and investigator throughout the years, it also extended beyond the justice system into niche areas of history or the sciences. Reassured that his fatigue was little cause for concern, she inquired, “Is it related to the game heuristics and math you were talking about?”

“No.”

His terse, evasive reply dredged up the suspicion she had but buried seconds earlier. 

“Oh, then what have you been looking into?” She tested, pushing herself up and propping her weight on an elbow. “Is it something confidential?”

“Not exactly. I...I had my reasons for keeping the matter to myself, but in retrospect, none of them are sounding particularly good to me right now.” His eyes strayed from her to the ceiling. “I’m still trying to find an elixir that could extend life without side effects.”

“What? You mean with primordial seawater, like you’ve mentioned before?”

“Yes and no. My previous experiments with it reached a standstill. It’s a stubbornly inert substance, and any attempts at refining it failed, no matter what reagents I used. I was hoping my conversation with Apep in Sumeru would’ve guided me in the right direction, but alas, it proved futile.” He let out a sigh of resignation. “Maybe I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am, since primordial seawater predates the sovereigns and our powers. Ever since we returned from our trip, I’ve been exploring other potential leads.”

“Why do all this?” Furina frowned.

His fingers found and interlaced hers. The clear, unspoken answer hung in the air.

“But I’ve told you before that I want to live as normal a human life as I could,” she said.

 “You could change your mind,” he suggested. “In which case, I’ll have wasted no time in the interim.”

“I won’t change my mind. I’m sure of it.” She lowered her gaze to their hands, her frown intensifying. “So wouldn’t your time be better spent with people you care for, on things you enjoy? Using it to chase after the hopes of an impossible outcome seems to me to be the true waste. There’s no guarantee that a life elixir like what you’re describing exists, is there?” 

“You’re not wrong,” he relented. “I suppose the research was also comfort, in a manner of speaking, for the times when I felt a deep unease at the thought of you no longer being here one day. Even if my experiments lead nowhere, at least I felt I was doing something to prevent the future from turning out that way.” 

The heaviness in his words, contrasting with the soft manner of their delivery, left Furina searching for the right response.

His tone shifted when he spoke again, giving her the impression that he was somehow disappointed in himself. “All this must sound a little ridiculous. I didn’t mean to burden you with my baseless worries.”

“They’re not baseless,” she blurted and pushed herself upright into a full sit while he remained recumbent. “This unease you’re talking about — I have it, too. It’s not exactly the same, but you could also be taken from me at any moment, without warning. For all we know, the Heavenly Principles could descend tomorrow and strike you down in vengeance. A war could break out that destroys all of Fontaine.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Neuvillette interjected.

“I’m trying to say that anything can happen, so it’s within the realm of possibility,” she explained. “My bad example aside, I’ve had my fair share of letting my fears of the future control what I do, so I know what you mean. But in the end, after five hundred years of anxiety swallowing me whole, all I was left with was wasted time. There are so many dishes I wish I’d tried before the recipes were lost, places I wish I’d visited before they were destroyed, people I wish I’d gotten to know better, you included. I don’t want you to have the same regrets.” 

Upon seeing her lips quiver, he drew himself up and wrapped her in an embrace. “I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

“I’m okay.” Furina choked out a laugh. When the mild sting in her eyes subsided, she lifted her chin from his shoulder and murmured into his ear, “Seeing you wear yourself out so much purely on my behalf does hurt a little, though. You don’t need to do so much. Just love me, that’s more than enough.” 

“I do.” Neuvillette’s arms tightened around her. After a beat, he added, “I might be starting to understand why you were reluctant to sleep.”

“Does this mean you’ll stop commenting on me being awake so late?”

“Just for tonight,” he replied, sinking back down into bed and taking Furina along for the ride. 

She landed softly with his body beneath as a cushion to break her fall. Nestling against him, she thought to herself that if someone were to ask her what her favorite moment was in life thus far, she’d point to right here and now. Yet, had that question been posed earlier, she might’ve brought up the conversation where Neuvillette first spoke of his love for her. Or their day together in Sumeru. Or the first kiss they shared. Or any of their regular lunchtime meetings.

Was she fickle for changing her answer at every turn?

No, she decided. If anything, she was blessed to have someone who made every moment in the present her best one yet.