Chapter Text
The essence of the past 182376 days was getting the world and the heavens alike to believe in a lie.
What they saw was not real; but an act that “she” had carefully controlled.
The right times.
The right places.
The right “people” .
Yes, Focalors controlled these three things as surely as the moon controls the tides, and with as much diligence as a cresting ship upon mountains of salty sea foam spray.
Her best laid plans and sleight of hand were all necessary in order to deceive the eye in the sky.
After all, why should the people of Fontaine be doomed to pay for the sins of the long-dead Egeria?
Focalors remembered it all too well.
The sight of her body, broken and contorted beyond the wildest of horrors, ivory skin peeled open while the wolves from hell lay drowned in her blood.
That should’ve been the end of it.
She had paid the price, with her very life, dying to protect Teyvat from those abominations.
Was that not the will of the divine?
To eradicate all that was not within their own dominion?
Focalors had slowly grown a distaste for this quality in the heart of Celestia, and she had seen its effects time and time again.
The crying boy with white hair.
The newest member of a long-damned race.
A king of a dynasty that burned beneath the island in the “sky”.
The Lochfolk who longed for land.
The agony in their blood and veins as their bodies twisted and changed.
Not all of them had survived the process of becoming human.
Some were poisoned by the very primordial water within them and fell cold instantly before their “human” form was even complete.
Some couldn’t withstand the pain and perished right there and then.
But Focalors had always believed that it was the survivors who suffered the most.
The pain that they suffered in their transformation…
It wasn’t enough.
Because, for the price of fulfilling their dream of humanity, they would forever be marked with an unforgivable sin, like a fruit picked from Celestial gardens becoming lodged in one’s throat.
The original sin is the fairest.
Everyone sinks.
That’s what Egeria had said, in those brief days of joy when the mimics of water began their bizarre performance that would one day be titled, “Fontaine”.
It was akin to something out of a fairytale.
Some soon fell victim to the classic heartthrobs of humanity; choosing to dissolve into the ocean again after being rejected by lovers, or friends.
Others began to perfect their act, building a nation that would never be questioned by “true” humans.
Betrayal.
Love.
Heartbreak.
Drama.
An epic opera on the stage of an idyllic and sinful paradise.
What a joke.
Yes, Focalors hated Celestia.
She hated taking their disgusting and vain throne from the hands of her friend.
She hated knowing that one day, they would destroy everything that she had fought so hard for.
Everything that they had dreamed of.
She had sat for many days and many nights in the very ocean that they would be cursed to return to in the end.
The algae and fish treated her like nothing but the water she was.
She didn’t want to be a god, or an Oceanid, and she didn’t want to sink beneath the waves after everything she’d been through.
She wanted to live as a human.
And so, when she emerged, a newfound determination was born within her.
And the plan was set into motion.
A caricature of a god to distract the Heavenly Principles.
A dragon to take her authority, and forgive the original sin.
A machine, to destroy Focalors, and everything the Hydro Throne stood for.
Yes…it was all going so smoothly.
And yet it wasn’t enough.
~
The Oratrice Mechanique D’analyse Cardinale gave its final judgement at that moment.
500 years of Indemnitium all lead up to that instant.
The blade fell.
Focalors danced.
Somewhere, Furina did the same.
Neuvillette reached out.
And then, that frozen moment melted into water again.
The pain lasts for merely a moment.
Let me savour the mangled pleasure of it.
And let it be enough.
Her world faded into white.