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A woman and a man stood before the Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale who was the sole witness for their union.

There was no turning back to this final desperate act.

The ethereal woman was Focalors, Queen of All Waters, inheritor of the first Hydro Archon Egeria, born from the bloodshed of the Cataclysm. The pristine man was Neuvillette, the Ordainer of Inexorable Judgment, human successor of the Hydro Dragon Sovereign, born from the seafoam of the Primordial Sea.

Four hundred years ago, a vow binded a god and her dragon.

“I, Focalors, solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Archonship of the Nation of Hydro, Fontaine,” Furina announced. “And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Court of Justice.”

Their hands were gently on top of the other, their divine eyes never left each other.

“I, Neuvillette, do solemnly swear I will faithfully and conscientiously fulfill my duties as the Iudex of Fontaine, preserve and defend its Constitution, execute its laws, do justice to every man, and consecrate myself to the service of the Nation,” Neuvillette recited. “So help me Focalors.”

The Gnosis emerged between their palms, shimmering like the bluest of skies during its darkest nights, and the bluest of oceans on its deepest trenches. The scales of the Oratrice, golden and empty, received the core heartily. The Opera Epiclese was engulfed with light as what Celestia forbade, happened right before the eyes of judgment.

This was a decision they both respectively agreed upon: the Hydro Gnosis, another form of Ancient Elemental Authority, would neither be possessed by the Dragon nor the Archon. A declaration of their rebellion to Celestia. No matter their history of the war, peace would reign in Fontaine even if it was against the Heavenly Principles.

The Gnosis would be used to protect its citizens for the sake of justice in this land.

A Sovereign and Archon would work together for eternity.

“From this day forward, we will rule the seven seas together,” Furina affirmed as their powers coalesced from their intertwined hands, revolutionarily devoid of the elemental Gnosis. “Do you promise to uphold this truth forever?”

Neuvillette, without a doubt, answered.

“Yes, I do.”

The following day, the memorandum was posted all over the sand and streets of Fontaine. The City of Waters would be governed jointly by Lady Furina, the Hydro Archon, and Monsieur Neuvillette, the Chief Justice of Fontaine. They would shoulder the worries and woes of those living under their co-leadership.

Since then, Furina and Neuvillette were one and together.

Whether it be official matters, or their personal lives in service of the nation, they would never be alone anymore. The rulers of Fontaine were not often seen without the company of one another, their words always mentioning their partner, their lives intricately woven with each other for the better.

Never separated in their duties, never apart from their beloved Fontaine.

And until death would their hearts only ever part.

Neuvillette never had all of his memories when Furina found him washed ashore on the Great Lake.

There were glimpses of a life before this, his true name, his unearthly vessel, and his sovereignty in Teyvat. There were also the hazy flashes of war in the back of his mind like instinct, the gods that were his nemesis, the dragons that flew with him, the creatures that were slain along as they fought the Usurpers.

Then, a girl, a goddess with blue and blue eyes akin to the ones greeting him when he first blinked his eyes open as a human.

“You are here,” the goddess said, she had hair as white as snow, and lashes as black as ebony.

She stumbled upon him beside Blubberbeasts on land after a few high and low tides. He arose from the depths of the Sea in this mortal physique and let the waves carry him anywhere until the waters spewed him out to the coastline.

Neuvillette stayed there for a while, his retained memories befuddling him. He was once a Dragon Sovereign who lost the war, reborn as a human with a part of him gone. There was a girl whom Neuvillette was certain was a link to his past, and she was asking in a language foreign to him yet he could innately understand.

“Who are you?” Neuvillette asked, speaking in his mother tongue. He was relieved when recognition sparked in the eyes of his finder, the human language was as foreign as this region was to him right now.

Furina introduced herself as the Hydro Archon, her Goetic name Focalors. Something inside Neuvillette whispered: she is one of the Usurpers, yet for some reason, Neuvillette couldn’t find any animosity in himself towards her. Furina said she succeeded after Egeria who perished a hundred years ago in the Cataclysm.

The name Egeria spiked a sense of discomfort to him, but Focalors only brought him peace.

When she offered her soft hand out to him, a promise of the new world behind her, he didn’t hesitate to take it.

His hand in hers was the only thing that made sense out of all the blurry memories Neuvillette had.

Furina taught him the human dialects and the various methods of communication with other species. She gave him lessons on Fontainian etiquette and fashion, history and geography, politics and society. He learned pleasantries and courtesies, tea ceremonies and delicacies, the art and skills of talented human beings.

Furina was a knowledgeable teacher, and his wonder never waned. Soon enough, Neuvillette was donned in royal cerulean garments, leather boots, and the traditional cane for a gentleman. Furina suggested a top hat like hers or even a beret, but Neuvillette disliked the feeling of his head shrouded by an article of clothing. Perhaps, the horns he had in his previous body were still ingrained in his muscle memory.

Soon enough, Neuvillette could converse with Furina in the beautiful language of mortals. Old Fontainian, as Furina foretold what their current vocabulary would be called centuries later, was a prose for the romantics and dramatics. The people of Fontaine had been expressive of their emotions, unlike the people of Liyue and Inazuma who inhibited the principle of stoicism and minimalism.

Not that inexpressiveness itself was bad, Furina elucidated, it just meant that their Nation of Hydro was a bit more unique than the others.

Sooner than later, Furina also mentored him of the events that the majority were not aware of. History of the Ancient Realms, the Primordials, where the Dragons originated from, and where the gods came from. Her stories clicked into place with the sketches of bygone memories from his past incarnation.

When Neuvillette asked about the war between the Archons and the Dragons, Furina did not shy away from the somber topic either. She relayed on how god-kings and entities from Celestia battled to seize the authorities of the Seven Sovereigns in Teyvat. Many of her kind had died, while many of his own were vanquished. (Furina did not note how Neuvillette had likely diminished in the hands of her kind, it was a discussion neither of them were ready for this early on.)

The victors were the gods, who generations later on had their own civil unrest as well, and promulgated the Archon War.

The Seven Archons were established in its aftermath, with Egeria proclaiming to own all the waters in Teyvat, the Ruler of Rivers and Seas. A hundred years ago, the Cataclysm occurred, and Egeria died in the war that decimated the godless nation of Khaenri’ah. Greater Lord Rukkhadevata sowed the Harvisptokhm from the Amrita to connect the consciousness of Egeria to this world. A part of Egeria was still bound to Teyvat in Sumeru.

Hence, the transfer of rulership to Focalors.

But the Archons triumphed over the dragons, so his existence must be an anomaly. A grave mistake.

Neuvillette was ruminating over the tales of his past as he climbed the mountains of Fontaine. This region that was tended and cared for by Furina, this territory that was no longer his, this world where he was nothing and no one anymore. A hollow emptiness caved in his heart at the sense of being lost.

In the seas without dragons, and the skies Neuvillette could no longer fly on, where could he go?

“Mora for your thoughts, Monsieur?” Furina floated by in her bubble, a respectable distance away from him.

Neuvillette stared into the dusky expanse, the splendid architecture of Fontainians, the stunning civilization of Melusines and sea animals, and the serene Teyvat of Celestia. A breathtaking city that Furina could truly be proud of, urging him to travel and view every nook and cranny for himself.

“Many questions have long perplexed me,” Neuvillette picked out his human words carefully, ensuring it was enough to express the emotions welled-up within him. “I neither know why I was born in this form nor do I understand where my long life should take me.”

“So why don’t you try to find the answer yourself?”

Neuvillette halted in his tracks, turning around to the Hydro Archon. Her big bubble had popped out of air, and she was standing across from him. The sunset had soaked her skin in pinks and golds, her light colored hair gleaming like corals. Her curls swayed like waves by the gust of the ocean breeze.

She was truly Aqua Regina of the Seven Seas.

“How, Lady Furina?” Neuvillette queried.

“Let Justice run down like water, as water is both the origin and the denouement,” Furina stated, her gloved hand demonstrating a slice of water between them. “Be my Judge, Neuvillette.”

The dew dropped to the ground, creating a ripple in its pool. The puddle never reached the tips of their shoes.

“This land is riddled with sin,” Furina revealed. “I want to bring justice to our people.”

Our people? “The Archons have subjugated us dragons, Fontaine is rightfully yours as of the moment.”

“Nothing was ever mine,” Furina swung her head in dismay. “I wish the gods never won.”

“Perhaps such sentiments must not be declared in the open, Lady Furina,” Neuvillette bidded. Celestia loomed in the stratosphere above them, a reminder of who was the supreme ruler of this starry world. A warning that they could be trampled under its foot at any given time, if the incident with Khaenri’ah were to be remembered.

“I am in open rebellion to Celestia, you see,” Furina glanced at the holy palace above, then gazed into his draconic eyes after. “Always have been.”

When Neuvillette accepted her proposition, Furina gifted him a blue ribbon in return. She tied his hair in a low ponytail with the lace, and her smile was as precious as the pearls of the sea when she examined his look, her handiwork.

In the following weeks, the mechanical Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale was crafted together with its purpose and plan to convert an energy source of Indemnitium from the people’s belief in judgment. The Hydro Gnosis centralized as its core, and the Oratrice would generate power enough to be utilized in the entirety of Fontaine.

Lady Furina and Monsieur Neuvillette pledged an oath before the magnificent scales of justice, to deliver righteous judgment and emancipation of their adored Fontaine.

Furina figured the installation her Chief Justice into function over the Court of Fontaine would attract issues.

When Furina herself superseded Egeria as the Hydro Archon, she was also a target of these political struggles. Assassination attempts, currying favor, mansplaining and manipulation, the wills of the wicked never rested, Furina wrestled against them day and night.

The recent decades flitted by since the Chief Justice was by her side. Her Neuvillette had warmed over his seat on the Opera Epiclese. The Oratrice was operating without a hitch, the trials were orchestrated without prejudice, and her people misguided by evil were exiled.

There was something regal and impeccable with the way her Iudex led Fontaine in candor. This region was his, right from the beginning, and Furina watched as Neuvillette gained invaluable knowledge from these hearings too. The price of the honest truth, the boundary between good and evil, and the impartiality of crime and punishment.

In particular lawsuits where the proceeding concluded in a bittersweet indictment, the weather of Fontaine seemed to sympathize with a shower of melancholic rain. On such somber trials, even Furina too, was moved by the circumstances to the point she was crying quietly on her dais. Ever since she conducted tribunals together with Neuvillette at the theater, Furina experienced a vivid array of feelings in her heart.

The Opera was teeming with zeal and melodrama, these humans who had a spectrum of characters, each with their own backstory and principles, in the end, were still driven by their emotional and irrational nature.

Their Supreme Judge, Neuvillette, who passed away before as a dragon, was reincarnated as a person yet conflicted by his own existence and humanity.

Neuvillette didn’t have such mundane problems in the past, but he grappled now with his piles of paperwork, his tangled hair and shoestrings, and his missing quill and misplaced items. There was an instance where Neuvillette was unable to work due to his hand cramping. Must be from writing too much.

Coincidentally, on the same day too, Furina could not exert her right hand too much because of an incident. A Melusine had scalded her skin by pouring hot water mistakenly to her arm instead of her teacup. The Melusine apologized profusely and Furina didn’t have much qualms about it since the Melusines were all new to their jobs.

She happily legalized Neuvillette’s bill of integrating the Melusines into the workforce of Fontaine; he was fond of their race and it was only right for the Melusines to be treated as any other Fontainian.

The Melusines still had a long way to go with perfecting their duties and responsibilities, but they were keen to be part of the society. The problem was, unfortunately, the humans who discriminated against these fantastic creatures and didn’t see their worth the way Neuvillette did.

Furina was present when the court trial with the patrol leader Vautrin ensued, the question reverberating fiercely in the auditorium.

“Is this what justice means to you, Neuvillette?!”

Vautrin was convicted guilty of the murder charges, with vengeance for the late Carole, a Melusine, as his intent to kill. Both Vautrin and Carole coordinated in accommodating the Melusines over their nation and lifestyle until she sacrificed herself needlessly. She was lured into a foul play devised against the Chief Justice, a victim of dirty politics.

On the night of the prosecution itself, Fontaine was submerged in a constant downpour of rain.

Furina peered at the storm of the skies above, her heart as heavy as its rainfall, and suddenly, she realized.

The tears she was shedding all this time were not just her own.

The suffocation in her lungs, the pain in her bones, and the wild emotions in her chest.

Not only mine.

Furina chased after Neuvillette out of the Opera Epiclese, skidding to the wet cobbled street, their people had rushed to their homes already. The Fountain of Lucine was filling up with the water from the rain and Furina could hardly scrutinize through the harsh rainstorm, but she’d be even more damned if she couldn’t even recognize the silhouette of her beloved judge from afar.

I know you, the shape of you, regardless of form. I know you, even more than I had before.

“Hydro dragon, hydro dragon!” Furina bellowed through the deluge. “Don’t cry!”

The Hydro Archon yelled the chant again and again, despite how thunder had overpowered her throat. She howled until she was louder than the waters and sorrows of the skies. She cried because the man who caused the rain couldn’t, because the man who couldn’t cry had a god and the heavens crying out in his stead.

“Hydro dragon, hydro dragon, don’t cry!”

When Neuvillette turned to Furina, her mantra tearing through the haze, his eyes were as purple as the lightning above them. Striking and elegant, strong and allegiant.

Furina ran straight to him and only then Neuvillette stirred from his stupor. He crossed towards her halfway, and they collided in the stone bridge between the Opera Epiclese and Marcotte Station. The rain was drenching them both from head to toe, and neither Melusine nor human could possibly be outside of their shelters.

“Lady Furina!”

Neuvillette didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around Furina when she leapt with her aching heart to him. She sobbed terribly as Neuvillette cloaked her figure with his coat, shielding her from the rain. It was so futile, yet very much like her Neuvillette to do.

“Lady Furina, what are you doing here?” Neuvillette beseeched. “Please, stay indoors.”

How could I? When you are out here, crying all alone?

Furina couldn’t discern whether the droplets she wiped from her cheeks were from the rain or her tears, it didn’t matter at the moment. A god could spill more than enough tears for herself and her dragon who couldn't cry.

Furina gulped, “I can feel you.”

Neuvillette could only feel now, but not yet comprehend these humane, irrational feelings. But Furina understood with an empathy that would soon be their curse. And if she was correct in her theory, then her feelings should resonate with his own soon.

“Lady Furina, I do not understand,” Neuvillette genuinely admitted, confusion swarming over his gaze. “But please, I beg of you, let us talk about this later, or inside the Opera—”

“You do not have to tell me anything, my dear dragon,” Furina explained, she stepped back and materialized her steel rapier. She maneuvered the blade to injure her forearm, a thin line of gold blood excreting from her wound.

Neuvillette gawked at her actions, his hand palming over his own forearm instinctively, the sting of her cut ghosting over his veins.

Somewhere along the process of them placing the Hydro Gnosis inside the Oratrice, Furina and Neuvillette had established an unexplainable connection to feel the emotions and sensations of each other no matter the distance.

“I can feel you,” Furina repeated. A god could feel more than enough sensations for herself and her beloved who had yet to fathom his own heart. “So let me soothe your cries, and brighten these skies.”

Furina and Neuvillette were one and together, in their joys and their sorrows, in their sicknesses and health.

And until death could their hearts ever part.

The rain had stopped in Fontaine.

The crack of dawn soared to start the day, with leaves from the bushes beaded with dew. The grass upon the knotty hills glistening with remnants of the rain. The puddles interspersed across the pavement of the avenues drying up. Pets and animals were retreating from their nests, while the mortals and the Melusines folded their umbrellas and tents.

There would be a lot to clean up from the mess the hurricane had induced. But it was fine, this was Fontaine, the elders would herald the waters to be cleansing their nation. A blessing, rather than a catastrophe.

The neverending storm last night was harsh, but the rainbow in the morning was a symbol of hope for the upcoming season.

On the surface of the saltwater above Salacia Plain, this was what the people of Fontaine would never see.

Their Lady Furina and Monsieur Neuvillette who were dancing under the sun, their smiles ever radiant and warm. Furina twirled like a ballerina as Neuvillette spun her around gracefully, their feet steady above the lake and never plummeting below. Tiny bubbles sparkled in their surroundings, the Blubberbeasts and orange fishes swimming underneath them.

They swayed along to the tune Furina hummed, an old Oceanid ballad. Neuvillette was a decent dancer, like any other Fontainian gentleman. She taught him this too, among many things, for dancing was another tradition in their country, an art of connection between their bodies.

Furina would dance for Neuvillette in the spring, the summer, the fall, and even the winter. If it meant the rain would gloss over, and they would survive for tomorrow, for Fontaine.

“You will see much in the human world, from the delightful to the depressing…” Furina began, their waltz slowing to a stop.

She stared at him and Neuvillette listened intently, the Opera Epiclese towering in the background, the clouds sparse as the sun glittered over them. They were almost a picture perfect painting of star-crossed lovers. The kind of romance written by playwrights, sung by actors and actresses, love that was often immortalized.

“And one day, when you have dwelt among humanity long enough, you will be placed to bring judgment over all, as the spokesperson for Fontaine’s past.”

One day, you will judge me too, and I will be imprisoned for the crime of loving you.

This was what Furina and Neuvillette were to the poets:

A picture perfect tragedy of love.

Furina waved her satin gloved hand over the people as the Aquabus sailed towards the Marcotte Station.

She and Neuvillette always embarked together from the Palais Mermonia to the Opera Epiclese in public. A sort of everyday parade to show their denizens how the Hydro Archon was resolute to have the Iudex of Fontaine by her side all the time. He was the only man Lady Furina had granted certain responsibilities and privileges. The authority to rule the Court, enforce the law, and govern their society with her.

The circumstance of their bureaucracy was unprecedented in Teyvat.

Archons had their aides and servants, but never a sovereign partner in equal terms. Their thrones in the opera house were of the same height, head to head, eye to eye.

But whereas the sweet citizens of Fontaine cherished Furina, their treatment towards Neuvillette was blandly the opposite. Their Aquabus was littered with Romaritime Flowers and gifts for the Archon, even the Melusines of Palais Mermonia never had a day where they did not procure treats and letters from visitors for Lady Furina.

“Does it not bother you, my esteemed Iudex?” Furina plucked a Pluie Lotus from the floor of the Aquabus, thrown in earlier by a fisher boy who ascertained their boat cruising nearby. “When the people bother to give their Archon some offerings while you receive none?”

“I do not mind, Lady Furina,” Neuvillette answered. “You are an Archon truly deserving of veneration with how hard you work for Fontaine.”

“Is that so?” Furina pursed her lips. “But you work just as hard as I!”

“I do, indeed, but it is not that I have never received such gifts from the people before,” Neuvillette informed. Furina arched her brow in interest. “I refused them.”

“Oh?” Furina sneaked a glance to the bow Neuvillette wore at the ends of his silver hair. She blushed a light pink dust over her cheeks at the insinuation of his statement.

“I accepted the presents of the Melusines,” Neuvillette added and Furina’s momentary bliss was cut short. Of course, she had to compete with the entire race of Melusines and their fanatic admiration for Monsieur Neuvillette. “But not much from the people, I avoid their attempts to form a personal relationship, as I feel it will only jeopardize my duties for this country.”

Considering the case with Vautrin and Carole, Furina could grasp the line of thinking Neuvillette had. It was saddening, the precarious position Furina had put Neuvillette in his human life. If she was not greedy, could Neuvillette live and explore Teyvat as a free man? Could he befriend other people without consequences?

“Lady Furina,” Neuvillette softened in his tone. Their canoe was arriving at Marcotte Station at last. “Please do not blame yourself. Impartiality is an important virtue I must have as a judge. I deeply honor the authority you have given to me likewise with how you uphold your responsibility as the Archon of Fontaine.”

Except, she was not supposed to be the Hydro Archon. Everything was wrong and she could not hide it any longer from Neuvillette, the closer they were. Her emotions were bare to him, soon, her secrets would be too. She never deserved love and devotion, but here she was, drinking it all like the whore of Celestia she was.

“Thank you, Monsieur,” Furina responded after Neuvillette had extended his arm for her to latch on as they disembarked the Aquabus. The civilians around the station had already bowed to them both in respect, bidding them well wishes for another day of decreeing justice to their land and waters.

The Pluie Lotus Furina seized earlier was forgotten on their boat, destined to wither.

Furina concerned herself less and less over the executive, legislative, and judicial matters in the Court of Fontaine.

Instead, Furina distracted herself with the cakes and macarons the personal chef had baked for the day. She arranged appointments with the seamstress for her outfits and the shoemaker for her boots. She pampered herself in the luxuries she could afford and booked reservations for her favorite stage plays. There was a news article circling around Fontaine on how Lady Furina’s extravagance as of late was because she could relax with her reliable Iudex in charge.

Her plan was effective.

The more the Hydro Archon acted ineffectually, the more the residents of Fontaine appreciated the Chief Justice’s dependability. She could be a figurehead, daresay, a mascot, while her Neuvillette held the true power and command over the Nation of Hydro. Because indeed, none of this was real, and this was Focalors compensating for their mistake from the beginning.

Guilt did trouble her when Neuvillette’s position required more of his energy and time. Neuvillette did not complain even once. The documents in his office never decreased ever since but it was advantageous to Furina. She needed her Neuvillette to be busy.

Regardless, Neuvillette never missed the chance to dine with her, whether it be breakfast or dinner. There were instances he was reading dossiers while eating. Furina insisted on leaving him alone for a working lunch as she didn’t want to be a nuisance and divert his attention away. They were the governors of Fontaine, but even Furina could respect Neuvillette’s individual and work ethics.

It wasn’t a necessity to be together always, now that Furina had proven how important Neuvillette was to their society. Yet Neuvillette was stubborn in having her presence around, despite how Furina was more selfishly indulgent, and less of a brave goddess.

“Have you noticed anything recently, Monsieur Neuvillette?” Furina sputtered out during their breakfast before they rode the Aquabus to Opera Epiclese.

“I had not, Lady Furina,” Neuvillette replied, sipping from his cup and fixing his stare at her. “Has something changed?”

“I bought another coat this week,” while she had just acquired a new one last week. “Does it not concern you?”

“In what aspect does it concern myself, my lady?” Neuvillette wondered. “You are free to use the funds from the Palais, as you are very much the symbol of this country. The people of Fontaine will not accept me if you are not by my side.”

No, that’s not…The people of Fontaine should have revered you from the start.

“The coat looks beautiful on you too, Furina,” Neuvillette complimented after a minute of her uncharacteristic silence. The comment was effective as her thoughts abruptly shut, her cerulean eyes gaping wide at him.

“B-But–but you work even harder now! You should buy yourself some–”

“If you insist on repaying the workload I willingly took,” Neuvillette suggested, dissecting her behavior. “Then, perhaps, you can grant this request of mine?”

“What is it, my dear Iudex?”

“May I invite my lady to a dance tonight?”

Furina was in a contest of emotions internally, while there was her apparent shock, she could also detect the shyness Neuvillette had with his question. Albeit the judge appeared stoic on the outside, Furina could feel his embarrassment through their bond.

“Of course,” Furina couldn’t back out, and it wasn’t like dancing was an impossible wish. It was her favorite culture from the human world. “But why?”

There was the sheepishness of him over the confusion in Furina.

“I may not be adept with emotions as you are, Lady Furina, but ever since we realized the Oratrice had tethered us together, I learned how to discern which emotions I am feeling, and which are yours.” Neuvillette elaborated. “I can feel your distress at times. I will not ask why, but if there is anything I can do to alleviate your worries for tonight, tell me.”

Those were information Furina had yet to digest, with how Neuvillette had known dancing as a way of lifting her spirits, with how Neuvillette had deciphered she was not feeling her best, but also with how Neuvillette had not inquired her problem because he unconditionally trusted her.

“Then watch your Archon, Neuvillette, you need not dance with me,” Furina grinned excitedly. “Watch as I dance for you tonight.”

In the evening, when the courtroom had completed all of its sessions and drama for the day, the Opera Epiclese was barred from any visitors and bystanders. Only the Maison Gardiennage patrolled the amphitheater and all the velvet seats were empty except for Lady Furina’s sole audience.

Neuvillette had a bouquet of Rainbow Roses in his lap, flowers he handed to her earlier before the show and after their work. Her Neuvillette was sweet, sinfully so, Furina fell in love again and again and again.

She coveted many things already in her immortal life, but among her wishes, the desire for the clock to stop ticking at this hour was her most coveted prayer. If only it would always be like this, Furina and Neuvillette in the Opera Epiclese, without anybody else but the Oratrice.

The lovely actress and her loyal patron.

Lady Furina performed for her muse passionately, smiling despite the guilt belied in her stomach.

The Doomsday Clock hovered in the ceiling of the Narzissenkreuz Ordo chamber beautifully and morbidly.

Beautiful for its skillful gears and design, morbid for what it was counting down: the apocalypse. Ever since Furina’s assumption of the title as the Hydro Archon, all that was foreshadowed in her reign was the impending downfall of her nation.

The canary hand of time above was already halfway on striking back from where it started. If this was an hourglass, half of the sand was at the bottom of the glass already. Fontaine was halfway on its path to catastrophe, the sea levels were increasing and only Furina would end up all alone, crying.

The price she had to pay, a secret she could not disclose to her Iudex.

The dome was stacked with shelves of books about the past, the Fall of Remuria, the Cataclysm, the Archon War, and even before. Any research or anthologies that could be related to solving the crisis she was tasked with.

When Egeria succumbed to her death in the Cataclysm two hundred years ago, her final parting to Furina was her regrets and a prophecy. The curse of Celestia to Fontaine. Before the previous Hydro Archon marched off against Khaenri’ah, Egeria caressed her cheeks full of tears with an apology: I tried to protect you, dewdrop, but the Heavens do not know how to love. You are the most human of all the gods, and it is something the divine are most envious of.

“Egeria,” Furina laid her hand on top of her chest, her holy eyes gazing at the clockwork in the center. “He did not want Fontaine back, I am trying to return everything to the way it was. Even if Celestia can strike me down at any moment.”

“Neuvillette doesn’t want his seas nor his authority, he only wants to be by my side,” Furina teared up, her throat prickling with a thousand needles inside. “And I am too selfish, too weak, too greedy, I could neither let go of him nor this country. We love Fontaine and all of its inhabitants.”

They do not deserve to drown.

The grand clock was at a standstill but Furina could foretell that in another half of a century, the hand would be years and years nearer to its last second.

She should wander more, encroach the deepest seabeds and highest mountaintops of Fontaine. Another part of Furina was already at the Oratrice, culling Indemnitium as an energy resource for their nation. She might not be as omnipotent and as omnipresent as before, but she would not be helpless and incompetent in averting the disaster for her citizens.

Her Neuvillette was striving hard together with the Oratrice in reinforcing justice to their city, and protecting their realm. She could rely on Neuvillette with such ministerial matters over the Court. She was busy with the prophecy. As the Archon, Furina would safeguard the future of her denizens.

Because if there was anyone sinful in Fontaine and should be suffering for their choices, it was Lady Furina and not the people.

Two and a half more centuries to prove that the people of Fontaine were innocent, that their mortal sins could never warrant such a tragedy, and only Furina should be condemned.

Furina read the tale to exit the Narzissenkreuz Ordo, materializing to the Institute of Natural Philosophy where the portal was to her secret hideout.

Shockingly, a bandit with evil eyes was in the desolate area, as if hunting for her. He lambasted her with blunt force to the back of her skull. How Furina longed for her godly constitution to be whole again, so that she would never be caught up in such surprise attacks.

Instead, her body lolled to the floor with her head ringing abuzz. The man gagged a poisoned handkerchief over her mouth, with toxins concocted not for ordinary humans. Her limbs weakened as a result and her access to Elemental Energy was blocked for a reason.

Blackness consumed her consciousness as the mortal carried her frail physique. He was also Fontainian, and Furina identified him as the young fisherman before who often sent her Pluie Lotuses whenever she was on the Aquabus at the Navia Line.

Now, he was matured and hardened by the world, with a malevolent hold over her being.

Every person in Fontaine was born with sin.

As Furina drifted in and out of coherence, the lines of the prophecy resounded in her mind. A faithful reminder which contrasted her principles and beliefs.

No matter how the Nation of Justice holds trial after trial, this sin cannot be absolved.

Furina couldn’t even cry out when the Fontainian fisherman carried her to a high ledge in the underground ruins, his arms dropping her body to the almost bottomless abyss.

She would not die, no, but before Furina wilted to the ground from the impact, the last memory she had was of the man from the Navia Line, staring down at her with nothing but unadulterated disdain.

You used to look at me with love, Furina remembered. I am sorry for leaving your lotus behind.

She would not die, not like this, but in the moment, her heart felt like dying at the thought:

How easily love could turn into hatred under the blink of an eye.

Neuvillette was in the middle of a trial when a phantom sharp pain hammered down his nape.

He was lucky that the audience had their full attention captivated by the rambunctious statements of the defendant. Lady Furina was not in her booth because she had a prior engagement, at least that was what Furina imparted to him. It was not like they were privy to the personal affairs of one another.

Neuvillette valued the privacy of his Archon too, but the tumultuous link they had through the Oratrice could not lie.

Neuvillette had his limits as a human, there were times his bones were tired and battered from subsequent large scale proceedings. Even the tea and snacks the Melusines had cooked did not suffice to revitalize him. From such experiences, Neuvillette also mastered how to take care of his own health.

This week, the court hearings were amicable and cordial. The debates in the Opera did not regress into a physical fight. The lawyers were also smartly negotiating their terms for a compromise to their clients. It was, for the lack of a better term, an uneventful season, which may also be the cause of why the God of Justice was not gracing the Opera with her presence frequently as of late.

Neuvillette was not, in any shape or form, weary from work. There was no other reason for the agony splitting the back of his head.

He squinted his eyes and clenched his teeth, his fingers tightly furled around the handle of his cane.

Furina.

Neuvillette stood, drawing all the eyes on him. “Based on the lack of further investigation into the case, I believe a recess is in order. We shall resume the hearing tomorrow. Court is adjourned for today.”

Neuvillette rushed out of the Opera Epiclese, his strides hurried and urgent. There was some sort of discomfort fogging his brain, along with how every muscle of his were strained and diminishing in its strength.

On his route to the Palais Mermonia, Neuvillette impaled his cane to the ground, supporting his balance as searing pain gushed into his spine. The anguish mauled his insides, as if his skeletons were beaten and rearranged. Neuvillette almost collapsed from the invisible blow, were it not for his cane, he would have crumpled like a house of cards in public.

Neuvillette tasted blood in his mouth, his bottom lip wounded by his fang from biting too hard. Every inch of him wracked in tantalizing pain, his vision was switching between black and white, not to mention also the complicated emotion in his heart. Not his, because only an enigmatic feeling like this could be from Furina, the person whose heart was big enough to feel all of the turbulent emotions in this world.

Then nothing.

All the ache and soreness, the throbbing and twinges, fading from his vessel in an instant. Like a put out fire in the wick of a candle after a strong wind. Sensations seeped out of Neuvillette until there was nothing but an empty gaping hole in his heart.

Neuvillette had never been whole, only a fragment of what he was. But this loss was different from when he had no purpose to exist in Fontaine, when he was not yet the Chief Justice, this loss felt like everything he lived for was useless. Like it wouldn’t be so bad if he eradicated everything in his path like the Hydro Sovereign he was.

A loss that beckoned destruction if only to fill the hollowness.

“Furina…” Neuvillette whispered. “Where are you? What happened to you?”

Clouds wormed through the plain blue skies, painting Fontaine in grayscale and dreariness as the Hydro Dragon searched for his goddess.

The Melusines couldn’t trace where Furina was, nor did the Maison Gardiennage. Neuvillette refrained from interrogating anymore, he must prevent inducing panic to the people too with the news of a missing Archon.

Neuvillette channeled the ancient power within him, and his steps had navigated him towards the underwater ruins. Specifically Focalors was in the Institute of Natural Philosophy, only below the Court of Fontaine Region.

What Neuvillette arrived upon was a tragic tale, a Fontainian blubbering before his bleeding goddess.

“Lady Furina, I am so sorry,” the fisherman hoarsely wailed. Furina was in those depraved arms, her skin was pale, her face was porcelain, and her body was marred with cuts and injuries. Ichor soaked through her fashionable clothes, her blue and silver strands, and trickled from her purplish lips. “I love you so much, I even named my pet after you!”

A scan to the crime scene, the evidential ledge meters above, the damage on the victim, and the confession from the perpetrator guiltily, Monsieur Neuvillette did not need the Oratrice for his verdict.

The stalker, not noticing the Chief Justice because of his crazed devotion, only sobbed to Furina. “I only wanted you to look at me!”

Neuvillette was neither the hero nor the prince, he would never save the day. He was a dragon and there was only one thing dragons often do in stories:

Neuvillette, with the rage of the seven storms behind him, roared. “Let the mighty be humbled.”

Neuvillette cradled the Archon to his arms, healing and healing until her stained glass eyes fluttered open. Somewhere above the oceanline, the skies of Fontaine stalled in its hurricane. The dragon and the god remained reticent in the dilapidated buildings of the Institute, almost as if they were a Renaissance sculpture in a museum.

“Neuvi…” Furina murmured, mutual relief washing over them both. “Why are you…”

“Furina!” Neuvillette embraced her close, his nose breathing in her hair. Furina smelled of seabreeze, of home. She did not waste a second to embrace him back, her short arms looping around his neck. “You worried me.”

“It is no big deal, my Iudex, I–” Furina flinched in his hold and for a second, Neuvillette thought she would sever herself from him. There was a hitch of her breath in his ear, a grave accusation in her tone as she deliberately asked.

“What did you do, Neuvillette?”

Neuvillette leaned back a bit from his god, glancing to where her gaze had settled behind him. Her azure eyes were stricken in disbelief and shock over the corpse of her assailant meters away from their place.

“I enacted justice, Lady Furina,” Neuvillette justified. “He dared lay a hand on the Archon of Fontaine. He assaulted you out of his twisted desire to have you.”

“Fontaine never had the death penalty written in our laws,” Furina stammered as she shifted uncomfortably in his lap. She was right, their nation only had exile as the worst corporal punishment. “This is without trial, Chief Justice, an extrajudicial killing.”

Neuvillette tilted her chin with his thumb, his arm securing her waist firmer to his lap. Furina was always a kind and gentle deity, her empyreal face tinted in worry for the creatures who never even deserved her in the first place.

“Focalors,” Neuvillette uttered with undying reverence. “You seem to have forgotten our sovereignty. You are a god, and I am a dragon. Who had ever harmed a god and lived to see tomorrow?”

“This isn’t…” Furina looked down as bitter shame emanated from her heart.

Neuvillette softly knocked their foreheads together, their mouths a second away from closing in proximity. He whispered temptingly, “who will ever know?”

Who could judge them when he and Furina defied Celestia long ago?

In the Inazuman scrolls that referenced the Seven Sovereigns, it was recorded on how a new generation of Sovereigns were currently conceived. Neuvillette was a testament to this fact, and the anecdotes also penned down that if a Sovereign was rebirthed in a human vessel, their purity as an almighty dragon was not maintained.

A lifetime ago, Neuvillette was impure, and hence, his human condition.

Perhaps, Furina was the reason why he was tarnished, why he could no longer sustain his dragon form. The irony was this: Furina was the purest of all waters, but she was his own corruption, his impurity.

Neuvillette would bend the waves and break the skies for Furina. He would bend justice and break order at a single word from her.

Furina stifled a choke as she spoke the epiphany out loud, “in the end, you always chose me over everything else.”

When Neuvillette kissed her, staking a claim on what was his since the beginning, his Furina never pushed him away. Instead, her fingers tightly clasped on his collar, pulling him in as if to quench her thirst, as if to drown Neuvillette forever in her.

Both of them pretended that the salt between their lips were not from her tears.

The water levels of Fontaine had escalated drastically compared to the first century Focalors had reigned.

The analysts from the Fontaine Research Institute of Kinetic Energy Engineering had published statistics and annual reports over the matter. The journals and tabloids were gossiping about the hot topic every quarter or so, and Furina feared the day her Iudex would be alarmed of the dilemma soon.

An inevitable confrontation that the environmental issue over their country was not merely a result of climate change. Rather, it was a prophecy, and one that rooted from the genesis of their era.

As Neuvillette guided her towards their refurbished gondola, she pondered when would Neuvillette’s love revert into hate, the same way the late fisherman had to his goddess.

After the incident at the Institute, her stalker was broadcasted over the bulletin boards as a missing person. Neither Furina nor Neuvillette talked about him again over their meals and conversations, but reparations and safety measures were levied in the aftermath of the crime.

The Chief Justice appended additional laws over their Constitution:

1. The Chief Justice and Hydron Archon shall ride in a separate mode of transportation from the public on this day forward.
2. The Maison Gardiennage shall organize a new branch called the Marechaussee Phantom, a special detective force composed mostly of Melusines under the direct authority of the Iudex of Fontaine.
3. The Hydro Archon shall reside in the topmost floor of Palais Mermonia, with Melusines from the Marechaussee Phantom serving as her bodyguards and assistants. She shall be accompanied in all of her affairs, events, and meetings. Whether it be official or personal.
4. The reserved throne of the Hydro Archon in the Opera Epiclese shall be elevated by a few meters above the bench of the Chief Justice.
5. No pets shall be named after Furina. Nobody shall besmirch the name of the God of Justice.

There were chitchats and blather between the citizens of Fontaine on how Monsieur Neuvillette was functioning more like the Archon than Lady Furina. Furina couldn’t react to such allegations, not when she herself intended for Neuvillette to wield the same authority as hers.

Fontaine was his land, his people, and his waters.

While she was the usurper, the impostor, and the great sinner.

“A Mora for your thoughts, Lady Furina?” Furina resurfaced out of her deep contemplation with Neuvillette’s prompting.

The water vehicle invented for the Archon and Iudex was wider in its space and grander in its design. A glass, transparent roof over their heads, walls embellished in navy blue colors around them, a tea table nailed sturdily to their flooring, and scarlet couches as the cushioning for their seats. The monumental view of Fontaine could still be appraised from their boat, except there was a fence and the people could no longer lavish Furina with flowers.

Egeria, what if I made the wrong decision?

Because Furina was not an idiot in love, she was intimately conscious of the nature of her relationship with the Dragon Hydro Sovereign. Neuvillette was an ancient dragon on the inside, he loves like a monster, he envies like a god, and he might sink Fontaine in his affections for Furina.

Furina bore her crystalline eyes to the sun, she’d rather be blind than regard the ever-growing waves of the sea.

“The sun is beautiful today, Monsieur,” Furina remarked.

“It is,” Neuvillette acquiesced, also ogling at the sun beyond the windowpane above. “I find that the beauty of bright sunlight is best appreciated from the indoors through a window.”

Furina peeped at her judge, there was something new about him today, perhaps the gold and transoceanic brooch pinned to his white cravat. Or maybe it was the happiness and elation beaming from his aura. She could alter those feelings so easily by a few words from her, the heart of a dragon nestled in her palm. They could plunge their country in a devastating flood because of their fickle love. His heart was of dragons, and hers was of gods, it was in his nature to destroy even with the lightest swell of emotions.

“I prepared a gift for you, my lady,” Neuvillette collected a jewelry box from the inside of his robes. He approached her, kneeling before Furina in the room of their sailboat, and Furina tamped down her nervousness before Neuvillette could feel it too.

Furina unfolded the luxurious box, and the brooch glinted incandescently under the sunshine.

“Oh, Neuvi…” Furina fawned over the accessory. “This is so beautiful.”

A gem brooch in the shape of a teardrop, gilded in gold while the sapphire inside reflected the hues of the seven oceans.

“It is imbued with a bit of my magic,” Neuvillette said as he fastened his gift to her frilly jabot. “Similar to mine, we will always know where each other are.”

Neuvillette was as greedy as a man, but Furina could not count herself to be better than him.

I couldn’t help myself now that you are reborn, maybe you will not love me like before, maybe Fontaine will be back to you, and I can be yours without any consequences at all.

Celestia had cursed Furina for loving, and Neuvillette had lost everything before because of her. Egeria was unequivocally true to the prophecy, the people of Fontaine would sin because of her.

No matter how the Nation of Justice holds trial after trial, this sin cannot be absolved.

Until one day, the water levels in Fontaine will rise, and the sinful people will slowly be drowned.

Neuvillette kissed her fingertips at the privacy of their ship, the jewel adorned around her neck, his songstress in a birdcage.

Neuvillette was in his third century as a human when he was acquainted with the ominous prophecy over their City of Waters.

There was something wrong over the waters and currents of Fontaine as of the past few decades, Neuvillette had a gut feeling. He chalked it up as a consequence of the Cataclysm, but never in his wildest assumptions had he speculated that the rising sea levels were associated with Furina.

He hated how it was as if he was the last to know.

Even the Melusines had an inkling of idea as to what the lines were about, the final words of Egeria to Furina before she had deteriorated over this world. If he had not browsed over those conniving tabloids, Neuvillette would have no insight about it.

The notion of Furina impeccably obscuring this grave concern to him poisoned his mind. She appointed him as the Chief Justice, how could she not trust him about this?

Especially when the epilogue of the prophecy cited Furina and her future as the Archon of Fontaine.

When Neuvillette brooded over the entire text of the revelation, buried memories scampered to light from his subconsciousness. Snippets of his life as a dragon, fragments of his time in the war against the gods, pieces of his past encounters because his first meeting with Focalors was not by the shore of Fontaine, and his last memory as Hydro Sovereign was Egeria ruthlessly slaughtering him.

Neuvillette strode inside the private bedchambers Furina had at the highest floor of Palais Mermonia. He dismissed the Melusine assigned by her door for tonight, as routine, on the moment Neuvillette accomplished his goals for the day and withdrew from his work. The Marechaussee Phantom was trustworthy enough to classify the shared living arrangements of the Archon and Iudex of Fontaine.

Furina was not in the room, but the sapphire brooch he bestowed upon her was at the haphazard sheets of their mattress. Neuvillette was dismayed, but not surprised. This was not the first time, and he mulled over whether tonight would be the night of confrontation for such discreet disappearances.

Instead, when Lady Furina joined him in their quarters minutes later after discarding his robes, his first question was this:

“Lady Furina, do you love me?” He perched by the lip of their bed, dressed in his white shirt and black pants, his violet eyes centered on the brooch Furina unclasped herself.

Furina rummaged through her closet of expensive apparel. She stripped her layers of clothing off, each garment heaping on the carpet. She was wearing her onyx silk nightgown when she answered, “Neuvillette, my love, without a doubt, yes. What brought this question upon you?”

As Chief Justice, Neuvillette developed the skill of detecting lies and fabrication. Furina was not lying in her declaration.

“Then why have you never told me that we were in love during the War of the Archons and the Sovereigns?”

A killer silence slithered between the co-rulers. The twinkling skies were clear, the gibbous moon was at its peak. Furina locked the doors of her closet with a thud. There wasn’t enough light in the area except for the dimmed night lamps, but the expression Furina had was palpable even amidst the darkness.

“...You remembered,” Furina froze before him.

This was a discussion they had delayed for centuries, as the truth was something they had to brace for.

“Only dregs and vestiges, never the entire picture.” Neuvillette confided. “Tell me the truth, Focalors, who are you to me?”

“I am an usurper, a liar, and an impostor,” Furina treaded towards him, step by step, confession by confession, like a bride on the aisle of the church. His black bride. “When you were born again as a human, I was overcome with greed. I longed to be with you in Fontaine even if there is a chance you might not remember us, even if you will not love me back."

Neuvillette slanted his stare towards her, and her cryptic words hundreds of years ago echoed again to his mind. ‘I am in open rebellion to Celestia, you see. Always have been.’ Neuvillette surmised the clues, “the Heavenly Principles were not pleased with our union. Is this why Fontaine has a prophecy right now?”

Neuvillette predicted she might flee from this conversation when Furina budged again, but Furina bravely sauntered to him after the shock of his inquiry. “So you knew about that too. Fontaine was the nation Celestia favored the least from the Seven because of what I did.”

Always never the straightforward answer from his Archon. Neuvillette rose from their bed, he mounted rigid and tall over Furina. His handsome face was shadowed by the moonlight on the window behind him.

“You were disappearing from the Melusines and leaving your brooch,” Neuvillette heatedly accused. “You have been working over the prophecy all this time."

All this time without telling me, without letting me know.

“And I was fruitless! I thought if I returned everything back to you, I could stop the prophecy.” Her lips and shoulders were trembling when Furina argued, her tone was pitching higher and higher in decibels. “I fervently hoped the people of Fontaine would not be born with sin, but no matter what I did in the past four hundred years…Dedicating the Gnosis to the people, handing your rightful sovereignty in Fontaine, the waters would not stop rising!”

Furina cracked after inferring the prophecy, she wheezed as tears flared from her snow blue corneas. Despair, hopelessness, anguish, and frustration ebbed in the lucid empathy they had with each other. Neuvillette almost clutched his chest in pain at the overwhelmness of her negative emotions.

The feelings Furina kept to herself, never divulged to him.

“In my darkest nights I thought…If I died,” Furina cried. “Will we save Fontaine from its doom?”

Something inside Neuvillette snapped. The storm after the calm.

He ceased the distance between them, his hands gripping her shoulders, his words shouting out of its darkest trenches, “I own you, Furina! You cannot die for this nation! The power you have as an Archon is something I gave to you, for you to live. Why must you sacrifice yourself for everyone?!”

Furina glared as she screamed at him, “I let you control every piece of me, my country, my people, my laws, my justice! Would you care to at least let me solve this prophecy, or am I also incapable and untrustworthy to you too?"

She was diverting the topic, baiting him out of the real problem. Yet she had not swatted his hands away from her shoulders.

“Why did you not tell me about the prophecy, Focalors?!” Neuvillette raggedly asked. “Why are you keeping this from me?”

Furina hissed as he struck through her defenses, her body shook with fright, and her scrutiny darted off to everywhere else if only to evade him. The tears were cascading over her cheeks as he was assailed by her hurt over his acrimony.

Neuvillette was hurting her.

The scary truth whenever the rulers of Fontaine fought was that they could feel the emotions of each other transparently and irrevocably. Behind the resentment, the helplessness, and the anger, there was love. All of these complex and perplexed feelings were derived from love.

Furina crashed to the floor, heaving as the truth streamed from her. “Because that prophecy is a curse, and it is my fault that the people of Fontaine were born with sin."

Neuvillette crouched to her level, his emotions clashing with Furina’s in their bond. The sensations were staggering, Neuvillette was breathing just as hard as Furina. As if both of them were under the sea, despairing for oxygen.

“What do you mean—?!”

“I was the reason you died in the war and lost everything!” Furina clamped her fingers over the collar of his shirt, hauling him close until their foreheads melded against each other. Her eyes were glowing cyanic blue, as if venomous as she spoke the secret in the air between their mouths. “You and I, we were traitors to our brethren, I loved you and you loved me too. We were never a happy story, only a tale of treachery.”

The forlorn memory of their ancient love flowed seamlessly to him: I betrayed the Seven Sovereigns for the God of Justice.

I told her about our weaknesses which the gods exploited after, our abode which they attacked in the war.

I was impure and in love.

“Do you fully remember now, Neuvillette?”

“The reason why the Sovereigns were vanquished by the gods was because of my duplicity,” Neuvillette dreadfully realized. “I helped you win the war.”

“I may have won the war but as a result, Egeria killed you,” Furina wept to his neck. “Celestia cursed Fontaine and condemned our nation as punishment of my love and loyalty to you.”

Neuvillette squeezed Furina into his arms, lamenting the past, the present, and the future they were damned with.

“So you see, Neuvillette, this is why I never told you anything,” Furina cupped his cherubic face between her palms, her thumb smudging the tears on his cheeks away. “Because you will look like this, broken and devastated by our love. I only wanted you to be happy, I only want you to remember love in its purest form.”

But love was never pure, was it?

Both Neuvillette and Furina had lost an irretrievable part of themselves because of this relationship. Both of them trying to piece themselves together and whole with what remained in the wreckage of their love.

A woeful storm drizzled below the moon and over the streets of Fontaine, the sun did not shine the next day.

Time was fleeting for exalted individuals like the Hydro Archon and the Iudex of Fontaine.

Engineering and architecture were innovated, the towers and skyscrapers constructed with better foundation over the seabed and the skies. Economy was in capricious incline and decline in the global markets, and there was a famous Inazuman dressmaker in the Court who was iconic to Teyvat as of late.

Tourism was not bad either, an increase of immigrants from other nations to their city. Politics were overhauled as Fontainian regulations were modernized, society was restructured with lesser discrimination towards other races like the Melusines. Their culture of the arts was as vibrant as before, but with diversity and development as well.

Fontaine was not the same as five hundred years ago, but there were some things that never changed.

“Lady Furina,” Neuvillette peeked at the array of confectionery desserts in their table behind his newspaper. “I sincerely hope a sugar high will not occur to you again in the middle of a murder trial.”

“You wound me, my beloved judge!” Furina enthusiastically articulated after a bite of her blueberry mille-feuille. “Our cases in the Opera have been thrilling over the past quarter, ‘tis the season of justice.”

Neuvillette did not cater Furina any attention as his vulpine eyes were occupied by the contents of the latest Steambird issue in his hands. Furina pouted and snatched her own copy beside her sugar and tea, her lackadaisical eyes dilating over the headlines.

“So Buer has been freed,” Furina smiled in relief. The other nations had their own perils and challenges to affront. Barbatos with his tainted dragon in Mondstadt, the death of Rex Lapis in Liyue, Baal’s lockdown of her islands at Inazuma. “How atrocious for the Sages to imprison their God of Wisdom! Can you imagine the people of Fontaine locking their Archon in a tower?”

Neuvillette glanced at her ironic question before revisiting the newspaper. “It seems the Traveler is involved again.”

“Indeed, they are,” Furina sang as she ate her sponge cake. Frosting smeared over her glossy lips, Neuvillette inched forward to rub the stain off her mouth. Her cheeks reddened over the gesture and proximity, how unabashed of her Neuvillette early in the morning!

“You are excited,” Neuvillette pointed out. He pecked a kiss on her lips, sampling the sweetness of their breakfast.

“The Traveler is coming to Fontaine,” Furina had gleaned over after judging the of evidence in the Traveler’s adventures. Based on their character and behavioral patterns, their next destination should be the City of Waters. “I must prepare an extravagant welcome for them!”

Three rhythmic knocks rapped behind the door of their breakfast suite. A low feminine voice disturbing their privacy, the day was jampacked with court proceedings after all.

“Monsieur Neuvillette, Lady Furina,” the Champion Duelist, Furina’s newest bodyguard, greeted. “The vehicle is ready for your ride to the Opera Epiclese.”

“Of course, Clorinde, thank you,” Neuvillette acknowledged. “We shall head down and embark in a few.”

Neuvillette and Furina freshened quickly after their meal. Another ordinary day in the Nation of Hydro presided by the just and fair co-rulers. Fontaine had transformed over the generations, with new people over the same responsibilities, with new verdicts over the same issues, and with new buildings over the same land and waters.

But if there was anything constant over the churning waves of their country, it was their Archon who had a flair for the dramatics, and their ever-stable Chief Justice who balanced out their supreme goddess. Their everlasting dedication to warrant the safety and future of their citizens.

Even with the incoming change the Traveler would produce like a tsunami, or the impending disaster Celestia had prophesied over their oceans and people, Neuvillette and Furina would never falter in their duties and positions.

They swore an oath before the scales of Justice.

This was their atonement for the countless Fontainian lives they had jeopardized out of their selfishness.

The arrival of the infamous Traveler at Fontaine stewed wave after wave of raucous events in their Court.

The presence of the Harbingers in their territory did not bode well either. The case with Navia’s father illuminated several discrepancies and inconsistencies of the investigation years ago. When the truth about the Primordial Seawater was exhibited in the Opera Epiclese, everyone had a natural reaction of bewilderment except for one person.

Lady Furina was errorless in her performance, fooling everybody else in the concert hall with her bravado and theatrics. Neuvillette was almost strung along by her act, even apprising to the Traveler that Furina knew nothing about the disappearances from the waters, and the opposite verdict of the Oratrice from the Chief Justice.

But, their four hundred years of companionship nagged to differ.

Neuvillette might be a tad late in perceiving whether his Furina was portraying a character as the charismatic Archon, or if this was her real self. But there was a sliver of strangeness and oddity lately in the atmosphere between Neuvillette and Furina when it was only the two of them.

Or maybe it was the stress, parts of the prophecy were turning out to be true with what the recent trials had unearthed.

So, the Iudex had coordinated over the past few years with selected people he could entrust Fontaine with. He had just attended a meeting with the Champion Duelist Clorinde and the Duke, Wriothesley, at the Fortress of Meropide. The gauge at the basement of the penitentiary was a single stroke away from erupting the Primodial Sea beneath.

Neuvillette had just ascended to the aboveworld at the Fountain of Lucine when razor-sharp burn stung his chest. As if someone drove a claw over his chest, tearing his ribs, and ripping its muscles. As if a hand was probing through the cavern of his heart, scouring for something.

The Melusines who were in patrol around shrieked as Neuvillette was forced to his knees by the scorching agony over his veins. At least, there weren’t any bystanders around at this time of the night. Amidst the pain and the panic, a name singled out over the debilitating sensations and thoughts Neuvillette had.

“Furina is in danger,” Neuvillette stated, sweat over his brow, fear in his blood at the memory. The Melusines soothed his phantom fatigue with their magical healing, grilling him on what was happening.

“Monsieur Neuvillette!” The Melusines howled as he dashed towards the Palais Mermonia where Furina was located by her brooch.

Furina was in their grandiose chambers, safe and sound, a plethora of desserts plated on the coffee table at the corner. But she was not eating, she had obviously gone out and was attacked earlier at the Vasari Passage. Her hat was on the floor, her blazer had its buttons popped open, her neckwear was also loosened and her hands were peeled off its gloves, with her fingers quivering terribly.

“Furina,” Neuvillette scampered to her, his hands seizing her arms. “What happened?”

“Neuvillette…I…” Her lips were jittering, her eyes unable to meet his stare. “You were near the Oratrice, did anything happen?”

“I am fine, tell me, my ocean,” Neuvillette demanded. “Who did this to you?”

“I…I-I can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry,” Furina gazed at him, her bare fingertips skimming over his jaw and cheekbones. “You are safe, I am safe. The Gnosis should be safe.”

“Furina, please.”

There was terror in her coastal eyes, not the dread she had with the prophecy. Something unspeakable and unfathomable that shook her to the core.

“Too much is at stake. I can’t, I can’t…”

(You cannot go to war for me again, Neuvillette.)

“Tell me something, Furina,” Neuvillette pleaded, rain glooming the evening sky again. “About this, the Oratrice, or the prophecy. Tell me what is going on.”

Instead of words, or the truth, Furina kissed him. She kissed him with those tear-stained lips again, she caressed his face as if he would die tomorrow again. Furina kissed him as if she was apologizing, compensating, as if she was not enough for him. When truly, Furina was enough reason for Neuvillette to annihilate the entirety of Teyvat if only it would bring her happiness.

When they lapsed from the kiss, Neuvillette surveyed Furina with all her masks dismantled, all her defenses crumbled, and all her walls down.

Everything was crystal clear, as pure as the waters of springs.

“You knew about the Primordial Seawater…” Neuvillette bridged the clues together. Furina wrenched herself away from him, or rather attempted, as he tightly trapped her wrist with his fingers.

Thunder cackled outdoors, bright and blinding like the ire in his eyes.

“I did not, Neuvillette, I—”

“You are the God of Justice, Focalors!” Neuvillette boomed. “The truth is as clear as the rivers to you, you knew how those women disappeared in the first place!”

“I thought I was wrong!” Furina exclaimed, fury intensifying in her glare. How easily love could turn into hate in the blink of an eye. “I did not wish for the truth to be real, I had a hunch that they disappeared because of the Primordial Seawater but I did not know our people were using it to commit sin!”

Every person in Fontaine was born with sin.

No matter how the Nation of Justice holds trial after trial, this sin cannot be absolved. Until one day, the water levels in Fontaine will rise, and the sinful people will slowly be drowned.

“Also stop! You’re hurting me, Neuvillette!” Furina propelled a sluice of water over the fingers he entwined over her wrist. “You are hurting your Archon!”

Neuvillette was careened back by the unexpected control of her powers. The last thing he had seen before the doors slammed was her small frame, wailing by the window as the storm rampaged outside.

In the end, all the people will be dissolved into the waters, and only the Hydro Archon will remain, weeping on her throne.

Furina would feel how much Neuvillette loathed himself that night.

Only then will the sins of the people of Fontaine be washed away.

For Neuvillette too had sinned, and left the Hydro Archon crying alone in the topmost floor Palais Mermonia.

Neuvillette had descended to the hellish Fortress of Meropide while Furina withstood against the Knave together with the Traveler and Paimon.

Furina played perfectly, according to the script, as the weak-willed, incompetent, and incapable Hydro Archon. She’d bear the brunt of her denizens, or former if referring to the Knave, if only her secret with Neuvillette would be concealed forever. Both of them were scourging for solutions, day and night, until their eyes were bagged, and their strengths were sapped.

But there was only so much they could do if both the Hydro Dragon and God of Justice were shells of their former divinity. When Egeria disintegrated in the Cataclysm, parts of Furina as an Oceanid had scattered all over Teyvat, her sisters had also isolated themselves from her. All this time after the war against the Sovereigns, Egeria had glued Furina together when the Heavenly Principles ordained for her to be splintered apart.

As Furina’s own comeuppance for loving their enemy.

Because her beloved Neuvillette dying as a dragon was not enough, her organs fractured across the world was not enough, her innocent Fontaine sealed with a fate of disaster was not enough. Not enough for Celestia to forgive her, because Focalors had learned what it was like to love, the most human emotion of all gods.

Furina was feeble in her steps after the diplomatic meeting, Neuvillette had successfully desisted the Primordial Sea from spouting its dangerous waters. She commanded the Maison Gardiennage to prohibit any personnel or visitors entering the Opera Epiclese. She exited the grand theater and prowled towards the tunnels.

Neuvillette spotted her from the Fountain of Lucine but he was entrenched in a conversation with the Traveler. The Traveler had helped them both, it was only right of the Iudex to proffer their gratitude. Furina was pleased at the scene, her Neuvillette was maturing more and more with every human interaction.

She only hoped he would find his answers not too late.

Furina trekked the lower inaccessible zones of the Opera, unbolting the lock of the gateway where the magician Lyney must have trespassed. The concentrated levels of Indemnitium were flocking and smothering the enclosed space already.

Furina trailed to the core of Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale, its golden judging scales steered by the Hydro Gnosis.

When Furina reached her hand out to the device, her fingers flickered in translucence.

“How long…” Furina slumped lifelessly as the heavy realization hit her. Before she ever touched the ground, a pair of strong arms caught her body.

“Furina…”

“I wonder…” Furina convulsed in her query. “Just how long had the Oratrice been eating away our lifespan, Neuvillette?”

They slowly fell to the floor, the truth dousing them in grim silence. The truth was: Furina would fade soon with Neuvillette only tethering her form. The Fatui Harbingers had managed to injure them both, she and Neuvillette were lesser than the divine now, and perhaps the mortals were also stronger than before.

The Oratrice had taken respective parts of their powers for the Gnosis to be catalyzed, channeling their hearts and emotions together. Fontaine had taken so much from them both, the sacrifice they did because of their sin. To pay a debt that was never owed. 

Furina was a celestial god despite her being the most human, she loves like a martyr, she bleeds like a woman, she begs to be destroyed, and she would save Fontaine and Neuvillette even if she had to give up her life.

“Maybe you should take your Authority back. The Oratrice may be powered by a Gnosis but we were never whole, Neuvillette, we were always torn.” Furina conspired. If Furina surrendered all of her almighty possessions, her divine authority to Neuvillette, then maybe Neuvillette could regain his original form and salvage their country. “There is always a part of us missing.”

Neuvillette was rattled, his viperous irises tottering at her suggestion, this option that motioned her life as the price to pay for their sin.

“You fill that part, Furina. Do not ever suggest this ridiculous—”

“Did I?” Furina whimpered, her voice howling in the underground of the Opera. “Was I worthy of your betrayal to the Sovereigns? Was I worth fighting for against Celestia? Was I worth the emptiness you had to feel in your rebirth as a human?”

Furina gripped his lapels, staring strikingly, head to head, eye to eye, ruler to ruler, and divine to divine.

“'Is my worth enough to see our nation drowned in tears?”

Neuvillette secured the back of her head with his palm, kissing her succulently in the shadows of the Oratrice. She was drunk on his yes, yes, yes, in their kiss because to Neuvillette, Furina was worthy enough to defy the heavens and the earth for her. She could never find another man like him.

Furina gasped and he slipped through the gaps, his tongue tangling with hers in a dance because which way could they be together more? She breathed in his mouth, she suffocated in their kiss. She clung to him as he was her anchor, and she was his seas.

“Focalors, breathe,” Neuvillette cautioned in their miniscule distance. “You are drowning.”

“I will drown with you. We will save Fontaine.” Neuvillette assured. “We promised, did we not?”

Deep inside, they both knew if either one of them cared to let go of the other, then perhaps one of them would be whole enough to save their nation.

But this was their heinous curse, their greatest sin, their gravest crime, and their most atrocious punishment.

Treachery to everybody else except the other, this love which served as their immortal sentence.

There had always been another person in their relationship, someone they could not ignore and both love just the same — Fontaine.

For she was his anthem, he was her song.

And Fontaine was a melody of the tears they have cried.

The rain was nonstop in Fontaine these days.

The sun did not enrich the dawn with its presence, instead puddles and floods of the hurricane were all over the grassy hills and lush leaves. The pavement at the Court of Fontaine was swamped with deluge, the canals were overflowing with rainwater. Dogs and animals bunked beneath the available sheds, while the mortals and the Melusines appealed to their deities for the safety of everyone.

The rain today did not feel like a blessing, it felt more like a curse.

Neither Lady Furina and Monsieur Neuvillette could be found anywhere in the Court that drizzly day. Whether it be in Palais Mermonia, or the Opera Epiclese. On the surface of the saltwater above Salacia Plain, this was what the people of Fontaine would never see.

Their Hydro Archon and Dragon in a slow waltz under the hailstorm, their bare feet walking on water.

“Judge me, —---,” Furina whispered his real name amidst the downpour. “As the spokesperson for Fontaine’s past…Was I guilty or innocent, Your Honor?”

The storm was cold, but Neuvillette was warm. Neuvillette could feel, but not yet understand the complexity of his own emotions. Neuvillette had died, but he was rebirthed. Neuvillette was supposed to hate her, but he loved.

And in this love, they hopelessly shattered to irreparable pieces.

"You are guilty as much as I am."

Because a man with a dragon heart like Neuvillette could only ruin everything he touches, and a woman with a godly heart like Furina could only beg to be destroyed.

“This country does not love us, Focalors,” Neuvillette mourned to the skies above, droplets of torrential rain splashing on his cheeks.

And if the waves devoured them whole, what could they do about it? They could save Fontaine but never themselves.

“Neither does Celestia, nor the Sovereigns,” Furina answered. “But we do love each other, and that is enough, yes?”

“Yes,” Neuvillette responded. "I do." (I do love you, and the rain will never be enough.)

Furina and Neuvillete danced above the Great Fontaine Lake, not a single melody could be heard except for the beat of their love and the teardrops of the rain above.

Even until death, their hearts would never part.