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Five hundred years. She’s stared into the mirror for five hundred years, and the reflection that meets her eye is not her own — yet in many ways, it is. Her eyes, her hair, yet… not. This mirror-version of her, this ethereal divinity that is everything she isn’t.
Everything she pretends to be.
The world is her stage — every minute, every day, every week, month, year, decade, century — and she is a pawn, a piece in the plan, a tragic hero; suffering for sins she’d never been able to understand. Sins she can’t absolve. On the throne she sits, smiles and laughs and confidence. Appearances. Adoration.
For she is the lead actress in the opera; the star of the show. Lady Furina, Hydro Archon. Focalors. Divinity and power, all knowing. All she is not, and all she hopes to never be.
One day, Furina prays to look in the mirror and see herself, to be herself. She craves quiet, she craves rest. She aches for the time to come for her to take her bow, that promised trial to set her free, to end this horrid suffering bestowed upon her.
She finds herself wondering if this is the truth of humanity; to suffer. To put on a show, to present as if she knows everything, whilst in actuality, she knows nothing at all. Acts and practiced steps, desperation to hold the nation’s love and support. To please her reflection in the mirror, to end it all. To end the pain, the sorrow, the loneliness.
It’ll all be just in the end, she promises herself. When the prophecy fails, when there is no more death, no more suffering. When she’s free. When she can be human, like all the others. When this curse can be lifted.
Furina longs to be human more than anything.
She watches, she hopes, she dreams. She sees support, she sees love, and the question always lingers on her nearly-mortal tongue: will I ever be loved, the way they love one another?
Time and time again she’s had chance after chance. Neuvillette, the Traveler, that damned Harbinger, in some twisted way. She could have laid herself out — could have confessed, could have uttered the truth. But she couldn’t, she wouldn’t. There’s too much at stake, and Furina has no way to know just how much longer it will be for.
The trial can’t come fast enough.
She’s certain that over time, she’s shed enough tears to flow through the seas and rivers of Fontaine. Every night, alone in her room, knees tucked against her chest as she mourns the empty spot within her heart that she wishes she could lend to somebody else.
What does she look like, truly? Beyond the fame and the feigned confidence, beyond the lies that flow from her mouth like the waters of her nation.
Furina isn’t sure in regards to who she is. All she knows is what she is. A fraud. A pawn. Lonely. So, so, lonely.
Interminable. Lonely. What will it be — days? Months? Can she even go on for years — centuries? Just how long will she suffer, bearing a weight she’d never been prepared to comprehend, nonetheless wield?
The people love Focalors, Lady Furina. They don’t know who she is, they don't love the lonely girl behind the facade, behind the stage. When the curtains fall — there is no applause, no ovation. Not for her.
There will be nobody left to even consider such a response, should the prophecy come to fruition as fate foretells.
Everybody she’s enlisted has been unable to make a single effort to hold it at bay. The Institute hasn’t found a way to mitigate the rising water levels, her informants have died off as time passes; leaving her with nothing but aching despair and dwindling hope.
Hope. Furina once had so much of it. A naive being, eager to begin a new life, joyous to exist. Slowly, that hope has dripped from her fingertips like rain, washing away, eroding. Leaving nothing left.
She is nothing.
Furina is nothing.
Giving up — it’s all so tempting, so curious. But alas, she can’t bring herself to do it. To be selfish and doom the people who’ve she’s done it all for. At the end of the road, the suffering should end. It will end.
At the end of the road, Furina will see her reflection. At the end of the road, she will know who she is.
And she will be that person. That human. She’ll have friends, explore, experience the simple joys and pleasantries of simply being alive, being mortal, being human. No longer will she cry rivers, drown in her sorrows.
Her judgment shall come. And she will be freed.
All she’s known is suffering. She can keep going, she can extend beyond her limit, hide her tears, hold her head high. She can laugh, she can pretend. She can play the part, remain the lead, and sing the song.
The show must go on.
It must.