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The stone is damp under his cane.
He may have saved the people of Fontaine—absolved them of sin—but the structural damage and wreckage brought about as a result of the surging waters will take weeks, if not months, to cleanse.
Even now, Neuvillette can see Demoiselle Navia directing the Spina di Rosula to distribute emergency supplies. Clorinde twirls her sword like a conductor would their baton, motioning for that group to go there, and this stranded aquabus be moved here. The Duke’s flying ship (and really, Neuvillette ought to ask him about that) hovers over the battered streets.
Fontaine has taken a monumental hit. But it is still standing.
It is still standing, and Foçalors is dead.
It’s an odd feeling. The Archon is dead. Furina is alive; Furina is alive, and Fontaine’s God is dead. Neuvillette isn’t certain where Furina has ended up. It would be prudent to.. check on her, as much as one can check on a human who has been trapped playing a five-century long pretense of God.
Neuvillette lingers. He isn’t sure why—Furina has never made him nervous, and he’s quite sure it isn’t anxiety in the first place. The 500 year lie she told stings, to a degree, but he understands why Focalors needed it and why Furina had no choice but to embody the role.
Eventually, Clorinde shoots him a look, and he sighs. Fontaine has just subverted fate. If not now, then when?
He sets off in the direction of the Opera House, his heels clicking on the damp stones. His robes are soaking. Neuvillette waves a hand over himself to draw the water out, splashing it at a decorative plant that is, in retrospect, already quite well hydrated.
The fountain plaza is empty; the halls of the Opera are devoid of life. The audience had fled at the first attack of the All-Devouring Narwhal, and anyone else is out on disaster relief.
Or dead. Neuvillette isn’t quite optimistic enough to believe that every Fontainian survived the meters-high surge of seawater. The initial violent waves, any medical complications. A child trapped, weighed down, unable to swim. The nation has not taken as large of a hit as it could have, but it has still suffered.
He pushes open the doors to the Opera proper. It’s soundless. Lady Furina always made sure—makes sure—that the room is polished to perfection, as important as it is in justice.
The rows of velvet seats are soaked. Neuvillette is certain the wood will warp under the water damage soon enough, and it will be a chore to replace. But, for now. A strand of blue-white hair curls over the arm of a seat in the first row.
Neuvillette summons his cane, thumping it into each step as he goes. To let her know that he’s here, without.. being blatant. Without making Furina think that he believes her suddenly faulty. Human she may be, dramatic she may play, but he has watched her for centuries. She has not faltered as the supposed Archon.
It doesn’t matter, really, as she doesn’t as much as twitch by the time he reaches the front row. Even when he settles—kneels down to be level with her face—there is barely a flicker of recognition. She stares into Neuvillette and past him. Her mismatching eyes are blank and glazed over. A trail of tears drips languidly down her cheeks as she blinks once. Twice.
“Lady Furina,” he whispers into the oppressing silence. She doesn’t move from her position, knees curled up to her chest and body slumped into the back of the chair. Her usual eccentric hat is nowhere to be seen. She looks like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Furina,” he tries. “I..” what? He’s sorry? He can’t imagine the burden—500 years— nobody to confide in, nothing to do but sit and wait for the end?
She’s dry, but the seat is soaked and cold, so he waves a hand over it to pull the water out. That garners a twitch, which. Is better than nothing, better than the blank stillness of someone who isn’t entirely here. Would moving to the Palais be helpful or harmful? A reminder of her charade, yes, but better than a damp theater in which her own death sentence was declared.
“Lady Furina,” he starts again. She doesn’t acknowledge him. He doesn’t expect her to. “Would you allow me to move you to the Palais Mermonia? It seems a more.. comfortable choice.”
Nothing, for a minute. Two minutes. Neuvillette shifts to stand, dismissing his cane in favour of taking the seat beside her. But, eventually.
Her eyelids drift closed, and her throat clicks as she swallows. “Please,” she whispers.
Furina’s voice is raw. He’s expecting it, even as she curls further into herself. Slowly, slowly, he rises back to his feet, kneeling down to get one arm under her knees, the other behind her back. Her own arms unfold to clasp around his neck, and she buries her face in his robe.
The shaky sobbing isn’t muffled in the slightest.
“She told me,” Furina says, muffled. “She thanked me for, for all I’ve done. I don’t- she’s dead. That’s what the Oratrice- ‘The Hydro Archon is to be punished via the death sentence’.”
Neuvillette stares at the opposing wall. The floral wallpaper is lifting ever so slightly as a result of the water damage. Furina had left her bedroom window open; many of the Palais Mermonia staff, himself included, had tried to gently encourage her to keep it closed. “Lady Furina,” Neuvillette had chided, 70 years ago. “The security will be of no aid if there is a direct route to you.”
“My dearest Iudex,” she had proclaimed. “Who would dare attack their beloved Archon? Besides, am I not a God?” and he had conceded that yes, as the Hydro Archon, she was well within the ability to defend herself from common thieves in the night.
Now, he wonders why she had made that claim. To sell her performance, perhaps.
“—and, and I thought- I thought I failed, that everyone was going to die—“
Human emotions have never been his speciality, and Furina, truly, is human. She shakes like a leaf against his side, head buried in her knees, socked feet trembling against still-damp covers. There’s a shaky gasp of breath that she chokes on, and Neuvillette doesn’t know what to do.
He rests an arm around her shoulders, pressing a steady beat into her opposing arm. Tap, breathe in. Tap, breathe out. She folds into his torso, a ball of crumpled fabrics and inhumane willpower.
The room is silent, save for Furina’s slowly steadying gasps for air. Isn’t that a fickle thing, a mortal thing; needing for air?
Tap.
Tap.
Neuvillette waits until the trembling reduces to an exhausted shudder.
“Fontaine is safe. Fontaine is safe—you have played the most unimaginably difficult role in the longest Opera in history—and you have succeeded.” He exhales. “Furina de Fontaine. Your resilience and willpower is unparalleled. You have saved everyone.”
There’s a few sniffles, and he can sense the hydro of a tear leaking down his coat. Foçalors may have been the one executed, but he thinks—perhaps selfishly—that Furina is the one who has suffered.
The sky is gray outside the drenched curtains. He can hear distant shouting as the city reorganizes and rebuilds itself, but the prophecy has been diverted. Fontaine is safe. Furina is safe. The citizens, the melusines; everyone will continue to live on.
Furina sobs into his side.
(He hopes that someday, the world will be kind enough to lend her a drop of justice for what she has suffered.)