Chapter Text
Rain poured.
“Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon, don’t cry…”
“You are a devious one, Focalors.”
Thank you, Furina. For all you’ve done. From this moment on, please live happily… Just as I wished we could…
A beautiful weeping dragon took to the skies to render his judgment for the original sin.
After bearing witness to the sacrifice of one of whom he had only just met but felt as though he’d known for more than a lifetime… The dragon took a breath in an effort to compose himself and thus said these words.
“I, ludex Neuvillette, hereby declare… People of Fontaine, your sins are forgiven.”
Rain poured, imbued with the love, grief, and resolve from the power of the fully restored Hydro dragon sovereign.
Every being in Fontaine felt the rain on their skin and became human, and their fates were changed.
“We… We didn’t dissolve? The prophecy was wrong… The prophecy was wrong!”
As for the one human who who started it all…
Her fate was still being written…
Two Weeks Later…
Furina the human’s daily routine was far humbler than the life she lived as ‘Furina the Archon’.
Wake up, cry, eat day old cake, pick a sauce for macaroni, sleep, wake up in the afternoon, read some whodunit and howcatchem novels, make macaroni, have another good cry, and go to sleep for the night.
Perhaps it was the simplicity of it all that made her new life easier to live…
Every few days Furina would have to leave her abode to get more macaroni ingredients and a few (dozen) cakes from the pâtisserie. The soloist made sure to leave extra early in the morning to avoid being seen and the shop keepers who opened early in the morning thankfully left her well enough alone.
But she still had to be extra cautious to avoid that reporter with the candy floss pink hair that would hound her for an interview if she were discovered.
It was during one of Furina’s little excursions with groceries in hand that she spotted that paparazzi girl situated directly in her pathway home, scanning the streets with her camera.
Furina stifled a groan, it was times like these where she missed her uncompromising body guards Monsieur Neuvillette and Clorande…
Fortunately for Furina, she acted in opera thrillers and films for longer than this mere child’s been alive! Slinking back, Furina hugged the shadows and crept into a nearby ally way…
But of course, she knew the reporter would anticipate her strategic retreat and would be waiting at the end, so she skillfully climbed up the stacks of crates to a windowsill in order to take the (thankfully empty) apartment stairs up to the rooftops so not even a vision bearer could catch up to her now!
Furina ran along the rooftops like a cat thief in the night until she made it back to her home.
After some maneuvering and nearly dropping her groceries more than she wanted to admit, Furina managed to climb back down to ground level right when she saw the reporter’s silhouette in her peripheral vision.
Without thinking, Furina lunged for her front door, while fumbling for her house keys, jammed the key into the lock and flung the door open before slamming the wooden barrier a hairs length from the reporter’s face. Not that a door could stop a steam bird reporter who rapped on the door several times until a kind neighbor asked her to leave.
Sliding to the flood Furina couldn’t help but laugh. Not once had she ever made such a daring escape in her time playing an archon
Well, there was that one time with the Knave but...
Tears welled in her eyes as she picked herself off the floor. After leaving her hard gotten groceries in the kitchen Furina decided to run a bath. While waiting for the water to fill the tub, Furina looked around her closet. Neuvillette and the melusines made sure that her favorite outfits and decor from the Palais Mermonia were moved to her new home and now felt like a good time to try out a new look.
After skimming through her dresses, coats, and hats Furina chose a new costume that she wouldn’t dare wear while she was acting as it was too dark for a ‘Hydro Archon’s' taste and the dark tones of the fabric reflected her current mood.
After changing into a bathrobe, Furina entered the bathroom and for the first time in a long time, she looked at herself in the mirror.
Strange… Furina thought as she looked at herself in the mirror.
Now that my curse is broken , I’d thought my body would change…
In the five hundred and one years, six months, and twenty seven days that she lived, Furina alway stayed the same as any other fifteen year old girl. And in the now fifteen days she became ‘fully human’ Furina would’ve thought she’d at least grown a centimeter or two taller or maybe look a little more like her mirror self…
And yet, here she was. The same old Furina as ever.
Well… it hasn’t even been a month yet… I’m sure before long I’ll get a huge growth spurt!
The second thing she noticed was her long hair disheveled from the running, climbing, and sneaking.
Furina sighed, over the years, she’d grown out her hair in an attempt to emulate her mirror self’s divine image but in the end it was just another burden she placed upon herself.
Sure, having long hair made Furina feel pretty. But it was also a literal weight on her shoulders! For starters, long hair’s hard to maintain and took forever to dry. Wearing her hair down on a hot day felt like her neck and back were trapped in an oven and any attempt to pull the long strands back offered some relief but it still hurt her scalp…
Light shined from the corner of the bathroom counter drawing Farina’s attention to a pair of scissors. Hesitantly, Furina picked them up and brought the twin blades to her neck and closed her eyes…
Snip.
Waves of hair fell to the floor and when Furina opened her eyes she saw am fragment of her true ‘self’ for the first time in… before it all began.
A small smile formed on Furina’s lips.
If life is a show and I’m the main lead… maybe now I can finally play ‘myself’.