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Chief Justice Neuvillette's voice could cut through a courtroom like a knife. He commanded hydro like he'd been made for it, as simple and natural as breathing. He was good at deducing guilt, or innocence, based on evidence presented, weighing the facts even as the case turned and overturned itself into infinitum.
For all his blessings, he had a few areas where he lacked. Human emotions were one, both allowing himself to show them, and understanding them. They were endlessly confusing, difficult to traverse, and ever changing. He could never quite tell what others wanted from him. He was an impartial judge, the very symbol of Fontaine's justice.
His empathy was unending. He wished the best possible outcome for everyone in his courtroom, fought for the most grace and honor he could give them, guilty or innocent. It was the least he could do. And it was his job.
Even he knew the waters ever rose, that the prophecy was hot on their heels. Their trials did little to stop the rising tides.
The water took their plains first, the gentle rolling hills. He couldn't stop it, even then. He could pull back the tides for a time, but they would always find their way back, lapping at their heels. Their people began to retreat inland, and they'd erected a platform far above sea level to combat the prophecy, built new homes, new cities.
Year after year, he watched the tide rise. Year after year, the rains came with his moods. Bottling up his emotions, his quiet mourning for their people only ever seemed to make it rain harder.
But he was the Chief Justice. It was his duty to set his feelings aside. But he was the Hydro Sovereign, and he could not save them from the very water he so loved, the tides that ever called to him, begged him to return.
He takes walks, at times when the reality of his nation's plight weighs heavily on his mind, when his heart is full of sorrow after a particularly difficult case, when a family was now left to pick up the pieces.
He often finds himself at a shore, gazing off into the horizon, a silent plea woven into every wave: Come home.
He watches the clouds begin to brew over his home, his grave. His quiet contemplation, his mourning, is broken by the sight of a helmet poking out of the water, dipping back under the waves upon noticing him.
He walks over, closer, the water bending to his will, around him, so that he wouldn't get wet. He'd resisted the call for so long now, he's not sure if he'd ever return to shore, if he let himself feel the water's cool embrace.
"You don't have to leave. You're welcome to stay." He says, kindly, gentle. Speaking into the depths itself.
The helmet surfaces once more, slowly, shy. The boy within removes it, blonde, cropped hair. Freckles.
"I apologise for disturbing you, Chief Justice, sir." The young man says, quiet. Shy.
"You were diving, were you not? I was disturbing you, surely. It was not my intention to interrupt you." Neuvillette says, level, regretful, even. "Freminet, isn't it?"
"Oh, um. Yeah." Freminet replies, sinking lower into the water, most of his face obscured by his hair, the water itself.
"If I may ask… What did you see down there?" Neuvillette's voice is distant, wistful, almost.
Freminet thinks for a moment, shy, cautious. Was the Chief Justice really that interested in what he'd seen underwater?
After a few awkward, quiet moments, he pulls himself up onto shore, water sloughing off of his diving suit. He'd sit on a rock, next to Neuvillette, knees drawn up to his chest, staring out over the cool waters.
Freminet eventually tells him of the seagrasses and weeds, how the light filters through from the surface. The feeling of sand and shells between his fingers as he brushed them along the lakebed.
The younger man's soft voice speaks of the creatures within, friendly, territorial. Giving the Leisurely Otters clams he found, swimming alongside Blubberbeasts.
Freminet regales him of the lava caverns beneath boiling pools, of the great skeletons upon the lakebed, the scavengers that relied on them. The schools of fish that scattered if one moved too quickly. The dark, twisting caverns, the trenches almost too tight to fit into.
As he talks, he notices clouds slowly rolling in, settling over them, dark and heavy. Neuvillette is silent, simply listening. His eyes were intense. Freminet avoided looking at them, as he did with anyone.
Rain begins to trickle down, as Freminet details the currents, some familiar to him, others an adventure in and of themselves. Never quite knowing where he might end up, if he took a chance.
Poor Monsieur Neuvillette's clothing was getting soaked through. Freminet was lucky, he was already in a wetsuit, and had every intention to return to the lake after this. Freminet looks over at him, frowning.
"You should head home. You might catch a cold, sir."
Neuvillette is silent, his gaze is locked onto the horizon, to further waters. Longing for something he couldn't allow himself.
The rain only seemed to pick up, in the meantime. The silence between them is deafening.
"Hydro Dragon, Hydro Dragon, please don't cry." Freminet recites after a few long moments, looking up into the clouds. He feels silly, but. Maybe someday, the dragon would listen.
Neuvillette freezes, eyes snapping to the younger man. Time seemed to slow, just for a moment, heart pounding in his chest. Did. Did he know?
"Pardon me?" The Chief Justice says, voice soft, curious.
"Oh, I'm sorry. It's… Just something my mother told me, a long time ago. I still repeat it sometimes, when the rain gets bad." Freminet flushes, looking up at him again. "She always said that the rain was how it cried, and that if I wanted it to let up, I should call out to the sky and hope that the dragon hears me."
Neuvillette is at a loss for words. His face softens, slowly, and he allows himself a smile. Humans would never cease to fascinate him, draw his curiosity, his adoration.
There's a spark of tenderness, of… something, that begins to make its home in his heart, the approximate size and shape of the young man next to him.
The rain begins to let up, and the sun slowly pierces through the clouds.
"I've never heard that before."