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In hindsight, perhaps Clorinde should have suggested that she and Neuvillette go elsewhere to talk about these... emotions. Perhaps then, the archon she was bound to serve wouldn't have waltzed in to Neuvillette's office to bother him and stumbled upon Clorinde spilling her feelings.
"Lady Furina!" Clorinde hastened to her feet and bowed her head.
"Oh, don't stop on my account!" Furina's voice was gleeful, terrifyingly so. Clorinde was starting to get a sinking feeling in her stomach. "What was that you were saying about Navia and her 'eyes like shimmering water'?
This was perhaps one of the worst outcomes Clorinde could have imagined. Furina could be capricious, but she took her job seriously. She just happened to take it more seriously proportional to the amount of drama in the case.
Clorinde did not want her embarrassing crush on Navia to become a case.
"Please pay it no heed, Lady Furina." Clorinde ducked her head once again as she took a step towards the door of the office. "I'll leave you to chat with Chief Justice Neuvillette now."
Furina threw out an imperious arm, stopping Clorinde from leaving. This was bad. "No, but I want to hear more!" Clorinde would not ever accuse her archon of whining, but the tone of her voice came rather close. "It was just getting interesting!"
"My lady... how long have you been listening?
Furina's sheepish smile said everything Clorinde needed to know.
"Right..." Clorinde brought a hand to her forehead and sighed. There was no getting out of it now, not when Furina was determined to have her way. "What do you want to know?"
"I believe that's my cue." Neuvillette rose from his chair and headed towards the doorway. "It's time for my lunch break. I hope your conversation is a productive one."
Clorinde wisely didn't think about the fact that she had never, in the five years she had worked as a Champion Duelist, seen Neuvillette eat lunch.
"Well now!" Furina wasted no time as soon as the door clicked shut. "Bring me up to speed, will you? Today's cases are all so boring."
"There's not much more to tell," Clorinde said, "at least, if you've been listening the whole time like I suspect you have been."
"I suppose so," Furina pouted, "but I still want to know more! I can't believe you came to Neuvillette, of all people, over me! He's still got that friends-with-benefits thing with the warden of the Fortress of Meropide but he's too chicken to confess. He's the last person who should advise you about this!"
Clorinde did not, in fact, know that. She misses ten seconds ago when she didn't know that. There's a reason she tries not to overhear office gossip.
"Well, no matter." Furina perched herself atop Neuvillette's desk, knocking some of his paperwork aside in the process. No doubt Neuvillette will reprimand her later, and Furina will just brush it off. "You like Navia, right? And by the way, this is a direct examination. A yes or no answer will suffice."
"Yes." Clorinde had never made a habit of lying to her archon, and she wasn't about to start now. Even though this was one of the most embarrassing moments of her life, right after the time she fell off the aquabus when she was twelve because she was too busy staring at Navia. She wondered if her 'yes' counted as a lie of omission, since it couldn't possibly contain the depths of her feelings for the girl she'd been orbiting around her whole life.
Furina grinned. "Good, good! Do you remember last month, that civil case with the guy who was stiffing his workers? The one with the proposal for an extension of the aquabus system?"
"Yes? My apologies, Lady Furina, but I don't see what that has to do with the situation at hand."
"I was the reason that trial wrapped up so elegantly, so I believe that I am an expert in transportation!" Furina's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I can help you... ride the Navia line, if you understand my meaning." She wiggled her eyebrows.
"Please stop." Clorinde was sure her face was bright red as she covered it with her hands. Furina cackled, a bright sound that echoed off the walls of the room.
"Seriously, there was so much tension when she burst into that harbinger's trial! And you're telling me you didn't work it off?"
"We worked it out, as in, the situation. We didn't... work anything off." Clorinde did not sputter. But if she did, the sentence would have definitely been sputtered.
"Then why can't you work this out?" Furina grumbled, kicking her feet up on the armrest of Clorinde's seat. Clorinde pretended not to notice the way she almost fell backwards. "I just want to see a happy ending, is that too much to ask?"
"It's not going to work out, okay?" Clorinde let some frustration bleed into her voice. "We had dinner one time, and we were able to reconcile. But that doesn't mean Navia would want to be anything more than acquaintances. I-" She huffed out a sigh, ignoring the look of pity in Furina's eyes. "I would be a fool to ask for more."
"And who, exactly, are you calling a fool?" A familiar voice rang out.
That voice didn't come from Furina.
"Navia!" Clorinde's face burned. She felt like she had just run a hundred miles. She wasn't sure if she wanted to run another hundred far, far away. "How long have you been listening?"
"Mmm, long enough." Navia leaned against the doorway, smug and bright and brilliant and Clorinde had to hold herself back from doing something stupid like kissing her. "Ride the Navia line, Lady Furina said?"
"I am never telling anyone anything again." Maybe dissolving into water wouldn't be such a bad fate.
Navia hummed, clearly not believing that. For all of Clorinde's carefully crafted cold front, she was surprisingly open to telling people she cared about... well, about the things she cared about. That was what got her into this mess in the first place. "Well, I think we can come to an arrangement, friend."
"Friends. Yes." Clorinde nodded her head jerkily, feeling like an actor on a stage who forgot her lines. Half of her was bursting with joy to be considered Navia's friend again, while the other half was slightly disappointed.
She could work with friends.
"For this arrangement..." Navia strode closer, Clorinde's heart setting off more fireworks in her chest in response to the decreased distance. A hand wrapped around her cravat and pulled her close until Navia's lips were only an inch away. "There's a hotel I stay at in the city. We could... ride the Navia line back there, what do you say?"
Clorinde's mind was wiped completely clean. She shut down more thoroughly than an off-duty Gardemek.
Really, all she could think to do was close the distance.
"Ew! Gross!" Furina complained as they broke apart a second later. "I'm standing right here, you know!"
"Oh, but your whole thing is putting on a show, isn't it?" Navia said innocently. "You were the one who asked me to wait outside while you... what was it, cross-examined Clorinde?"
Clorinde's eyes widened. "You were both listening in?"
A faint blush painted Navia's cheeks. Clorinde couldn't look away. "I mean," Navia said, this time taking her turn to be the shy one and fidgeting with the brim of her hat (that she had pushed back when she leaned in to kiss Clorinde). "You admiring my eyes could have been platonic."
"Platonic." Clorinde's heart thumped like gunfire against her chest.
"I know!" Navia's face grew pinker. "My intuition said you liked me, but it's always best to verify the facts."
"Well, we've established that it was not platonic." Furina piped up. Clorinde had almost forgotten that the archon was there. "I believe this trial is concluded! And according to my absolutely infallible judgement, I declare Clorinde and Navia to be guilty of being disgustingly in love with one another."
Navia gave a round of applause that was clearly sarcastic, but Clorinde couldn't help but add a few scattered claps herself.
"Now please," Furina begged, and this was the first time Clorinde had ever seen her archon beg, "please go somewhere else." She didn't even give her signature 'Toodle-oo~' as Navia pulled Clorinde through the doorway of the office, giggling like schoolgirls.
The Navia line was ridden several times that night, in more ways than one.