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"Mr. Tartaglia, where were you on the tenth of last month?"
The young Fatui Harbinger yawns and stretches, leaning back in his narrow metal chair. Impassively, he surveys the man sitting across the table from him, his eyes not giving any hint of his inner thoughts. "Haven't the foggiest, Your Honor," he says after a few long moments. "You'd have to ask my aides back at the Northland Bank. I don't pay much attention to little details like that."
"We did ask them," the Chief Justice of the Nation of Fontaine replies. He slips a sheet of paper out of the folder in front of him and slides it across the table—an itinerary written out in a neat, clean hand. On closer inspection, though, one would see that the timeline of events laid out therein contains a number of wide gaps. "They maintain that you regularly sneak off on your own business with no warning. It seems that this particular day was one of those where none of the bank's employees can positively identify your whereabouts."
Neuvillette pauses to let that sink in, and then continues steadily, "This day also happens to be when the main culprit Mr. Vacher's notes record the receipt of a long-awaited shipment of experimental supplies."
"Oh?" Tartaglia replies, in the manner of someone being told an entertaining story over tea, rather than that of a prisoner being interrogated in the depths of Teyvat's most renowned penitentiary. "What a strange coincidence."
"Indeed," Neuvillette flatly replies. He clasps his gloved hands in front of him, threading his fingers together. "So I ask you again, where did you go on that day?"
"And I tell you again, I haven't the slightest idea."
The way the Harbinger shrugs and smirks at him makes Neuvillette want to return to behaviors he'd left behind centuries ago, like bare his teeth and snarl. He reins himself in with a put-upon exhale. "By refusing to cooperate," he tells Tartaglia, "you are making it very difficult to prove your innocence."
Tartaglia's grin only grows wider. He leans forward, placing one elbow on the table and resting his chin on his knuckles. "My innocence, huh?" he repeats, with a vicious sort of amusement. "Between the two of us, Your Honor, you should know you're the only one who gives a crap about that."
Neuvillette feels himself sit up even straighter in affront, but Tartaglia doesn't pay him any mind, just keeps talking. "You know that your precious machine was wrong this time," he says, "and that if it was wrong this time, that means it might have been wrong some other time before, and that it almost certainly will be wrong again. You've realized now that you can no longer place your trust in the so-called Oratrice. In fact, you've finally realized you never should have done that in the first place."
Tartaglia opens his hand and rests his cheek against his palm. He has the air of an apathetic student answering a professor's question in class with sarcastic scorn. The contempt in his eyes makes Neuvillette itch for the protective shield of court proceedings to hide behind—wishing in particular for the ability to threaten charges should respect not be shown.
But, this is not a courtroom. And, who more deserves the right to show contempt than a man innocent of the crimes he's been accused of, facing the embodiment of the institution that has failed him?
Tartaglia is scrutinizing him carefully with those sharp blue eyes. Neuvillette silently lets him look, unsure what it is that he's searching for.
After a few moments longer, Tartaglia just sighs and says, "Look, what I'm trying to say is… honestly, I think you've got it worse off than me at the moment."
At Neuvillette's nonplussed blink, he deigns to elaborate. "You've just learned that the judicial system you've invested so much time and energy into and had so much faith in is built on a foundation of sand. That terrifies you. I can tell."
Tartaglia's piercing gaze doesn't linger any longer than that on Neuvillette, though. It slides instead down to the paper Neuvillette had slid in front of Tartaglia earlier. The Harbinger reaches for it, picks it up, and in the moment before he flicks it back across the table to Neuvillette, his eyes seem to pause on that missing day.
"It doesn't bother me, though. So why should I cooperate, exactly?" Tartaglia looks back up at Neuvillette's face with half a smile. "I've got no investment in whether this house of cards ends up working itself out in the end. I'm getting fed, watered, and every few days I attempt a breakout and get a nice little fight out of it. Eventually, I'm sure I'll get bored, but the Tsaritsa will get me free before too much longer I imagine, one way or another."
"The Fortress of Meropide is impenetrable and inescapable," Neuvillette manages to bite out.
"And the Oratrice's judgment is infallible," Tartaglia replies.
Neuvillette can come up with nothing to say to that. His fingers clench into fists beneath the table.
Tartaglia surveys him for a little longer, before saying, with a thoughtful air, "You know… the longer it takes you to prove I got locked up for a crime I didn't do, the worse the vaunted Fontaine justice system will look in the end. If it takes much longer… people aren't going to want to let that thing dictate their lives anymore."
It rings like a threat, and Neuvillette can't help the way his body reacts to it, tension jolting through him and Hydro energy gathering beneath his ribs.
Laughing, Tartaglia lifts up his hands in mock surrender. "Whoa there, Your Honor," he says. "All I mean, by all of this, is that… if you're trying to prove my innocence… just know that you're doing it for your own sake, and not for mine."
Neuvillette takes a deep breath, forcing his shoulders to relax. "I… will give your words the consideration they are due," he says. He stands, gathering up the papers he'd brought with him in a single smooth motion. "And I will find out the truth of this matter. If when that truth emerges it is proven that you have no involvement with these crimes, I guarantee that you will be duly compensated for your trouble."
With that, Neuvillette turns towards the door. But before he can take a second step, Tartaglia jumps also to his feet, reaching out an arm across the table.
The boy is fast, but Neuvillette could have easily sidestepped his grasping fingers. He could have, but he doesn't. Tartaglia's hand catches hold of the trailing fabric of Neuvillette's sleeve.
"For what it's worth," Tartaglia says, "if you really want to make it up to me… I'd rather have a rematch. I didn't really get a chance to enjoy the last one."
Tartaglia winks boyishly after that remark. And then he lets Neuvillette go.
Neuvillette nods once, slowly, not quite sure himself if he's agreeing to Tartaglia's demand or merely acknowledging it. By the widening grin on Tartaglia's face, he suspects the man is assuming it's the former. He wonders if Tartaglia will try to issue a formal charge against him if this stipulation fails to be met.
Strangely enough, as the interrogation room door shuts behind him and half a dozen Gardes salute his way, Neuvillette finds that he is… looking forward to finding out.