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91 Years, 4 Months, 20 Days
Subject Lohefalter has made contact with one of the agents from the Tsaritsa's new state department. A heated (pardon the pun) battle was anticipated, but Subject Lohefalter appears to have left the area shortly before or at the same time as the Snezhnayans.
Will monitor the situation closely, but Subject Lohefalter may have found a new allegiance with the Snezhnayans.
Awaiting new orders,
- A
Neuvillette ran his fingers over the note thoughtfully, disappointed that it raised more questions than it answered. Egeria had once sent the Oceanids throughout the world to keep her informed on the other nations; Furina had to make due with maintaining a spy network of mortal ex-soldiers and intelligence officers. Not as stealthy as Oceanids could be, but at least the mortal spies could follow orders.
The Witch is going to Snezhnaya, Neuvillette thought, leaning back in the window seat overlooking the dark waters below. What does this mean ?
It was close to two in the morning when the messenger bird rapped on his window with a scroll attached to its leg. Against his better judgment, he took the note to decode in his private study next to his bedroom rather than save it for the morning. Of course it wasn't good news; Neuvillette had rarely heard anything but bad news where the so-called Crimson Witch of Flames was concerned, but her new connection to Snezhnaya was particularly troubling. The Tsaritsa had been assembling a small army of monsters for years and Neuvillette was no longer convinced that she was as peaceful as she claimed to be. Though he could never tie the assassination attempt a few years earlier to the Snezhnayans, it was hard to imagine who else would arm a man with an elemental blade and send him running at an Archon in the middle of the street.
This is going to be a problem, Neuvillette thought, rubbing his eyes as sleep seemed to be far out of reach.
"What's all this commotion?" Neuvillette snapped out of his musing as a soft voice called from the doorway. Furina's hair was still tousled from sleep, sticking up in odd angles as she pulled a dressing gown over her thin blue nightgown and stuck her head in the room.
"I don't believe I said anything," Neuvillette said, pushing himself up as Furina entered his study.
"Then you must've been thinking so loudly that you woke me," Furina chuckled, wiping her nose on the corner of her dressing gown. The closer she got, the more he could see her red, puffy eyes and tear-tracks dried on her cheeks
"Is something wrong?" Neuvillette asked.
Furina waved her hand dismissively. "Oh…just a stupid dream; nothing all that exciting."
Liar , Neuvillette thought. Furina hadn't heard anything; she just wanted to come to him after a bad dream but needed a plausible reason first. As much as he made himself available to her, she still took the effort to concoct reasonable excuses to conceal any hint of neediness whenever she asked something of him. He had been pulled into plenty of “late night strategy sessions” that turned out to be thinly veiled asks for company after an unsettling dream or challenging day in the forum. Neuvillette didn’t particularly mind…he just wished she could afford him a little honesty by now.
Furina acted for everyone ; Neuvillette just happened to be the one she acted the least for. But she still acted fine when she very clearly wasn't; she still acted like each setback and heartbreak they faced in their rebellion against destiny didn't affect her. He was beginning to see the toll it took; the optimistic spark in her eye had melted away over the years until he could barely see a glimmer. The human heart was only built to be strong for so long, and Furina was quickly reaching the limits of its intended design.
"Mmhmm," Neuvillette hummed. "Bored you to tears by the look of it."
"Ha ha," Furina deadpanned, wiping her cheeks. "Kindly stick to practicing law; the Opera is not prepared to host a comedian of your biting wit."
"Every genius is underappreciated in their time," Neuvillette said. "I'm sure history will judge me more kindly than you do."
"Archons write the history of their nations; don't count on it," Furina said, her smug smirk dropping as her eyes drifted to the opened wax tube on Neuvillette's desk. "Did we hear from Mondstadt?"
Neuvillette held the note between his fingers as Furina quietly locked the door and shuffled over to the window seat. "Good news?"
"... news," Neuvillette said, tucking his legs up against his chest as Furina took her seat on the opposite side of the window seat. He watched her hold the note up to the light to read it, moonlight reflecting off her still dewy cheeks. It felt almost cruel to add to her unhappiness, but Furina had no patience for being coddled or treated with kid-gloves.
( "I will be one hundred years old before the decade is out, Neuvillette," Furina huffed, channeling Focalors in all her indignant fury after she discovered that he had softened a casualty report out of concern for her reaction. "Do not think I am so fragile that you need to hide things from me !")
It wasn't that he thought her fragile; it was just that watching her eyes droop as she read the note stung him terribly. He detested being the cause of her shoulders sagging, responsible for yet another chip out of Furina's battered heart. Furina was going to bounce back; she always did. He just hated that she had to fall in the first place.
"Oh…how fabulous ; the scary fire witch has disappeared and might have joined the northerners," Furina sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Although...who knows; maybe we got lucky and she's gone for good?"
"That's as likely as Rex Lapis going broke someday," Neuvillette said. "...how long have you been awake?"
Furina shrugged. "A little while…I tried to go back to back to sleep on my own but I just can't get comfy anymore."
"Would pillaging my chamomile stash help?" Neuvillette asked, rising from his seat and making his way over to a minibar near the fire. "There's still a few hours before sunrise; you ought to rest."
"Too much on my mind," Furina grumbled.
"Which is why you need to rest ," Neuvillette said, bending some water from the pitcher into a tea-kettle over the wood-stove.
"I'm sorry, who was up at two in the morning answering spy-mail?" Furina asked, rifling through Neuvillette's tea chest and fishing a pair of cups out of the side bar. "Perhaps you ought to heed your own advice, monsieur , before you start pawning it off on your Archon?"
"Oh, has our Archon arrived?" Neuvillette asked. "Good; I was wondering when she would finally show-"
Thunk!
Furina's divine retribution came swiftly and mercilessly in the form of a tea carton whipped at the back of Neuvillette's head.
"If you insist on being funny, I can always add a jester's hat to the Iudex's regalia," Furina said, perking up a little as she carried the cups back to the window seat. "I have barely abused my unquestioned authority; by all means, give me a reason to be a petty little god-queen."
"Our justice system is teetering on the edge of being a farce enough as it is," Neuvillette said, adding tea leaves to a pot as he waited for the kettle to boil. "What will you tell A? Are you going to put her on the witch's trail?"
"Seems like that trail is heading north," Furina sighed, staring out the window over the lake. "...and into danger."
"All of our agents' trails lead to danger," Neuvillette reminded her.
"What else is there for her to do except chase that hag into Snezhnaya?"
"We're going to have to get someone into Snezhnaya," Neuvillette said, pulling the hissing kettle off the stove and tipping it into the teapot. “It’s the one nation we still don’t have solid information on.”
"Poking the Tsaritsa seems like a fast track to an early curtain-call," Furina said, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins.
"She's going to poke us before too long," Neuvillette said, tipping tea into each cup and setting the pot down on the table next to the window-seat. "If we install one of our people in Snezhnaya, at least we might get some early warning."
"Mmm," Furina hummed, lips pursing as she blew on her cup. "...there really is no way to get around getting some of our people killed, is there?"
"Not in matters of state it seems," Neuvillette said, taking a sip of his tea with a wince. "I suppose all we can do is make sure we're getting people killed for decent reasons."
"Decent ," Furina snorted bitterly. "I wonder if they would be so eager to give their lives for their Archon if they knew the truth about her."
"Let us trust that our professional soldiers understand the risks of being professional soldiers," Neuvillette said, shifting as Furina stretched her legs out across the length of the window seat next to him. "Even if you were a god, you couldn't prevent everyone from dying."
"And yet…that's what I have to do, isn't it?" Furina murmured, sipping on her tea as she leaned against the cold window next to her. "Prevent everyone from dying."
"Ah, so it was that dream again," Neuvillette sighed. It was a nightmare they both shared; visions of a grim prophecy that only they knew the gravity of. Aquatic doom was an unfortunate regular in their dreams, and unlike garden-variety nightmares, dreams of Furina's doom were harder to bounce back from.
"I don't know why my brain needs to keep reminding me," Furina grumbled, bonking her head against the window in retribution for the nightmare. "Like I would forget my only reason to exist…"
"That's not your only-" Neuvillette trailed off, unsure what he could say on the subject of her worth that he hadn't said before. "Well…we're working on it. I'm sure at some point your mind will come to share your optimism and stop badgering you."
"Of course it will…it'll just take another ninety years," Furina chuckled, glancing across the bench at Neuvillette. "Speaking of which, we're going to have to start planning the centennial celebration.”
“Can we not pay someone to do that for us?” Neuvillette sighed, already dreading the spectacle that would celebrate Furina’s one hundredth birthday. “That’s in nine years.”
“I know,” Furina groaned. “We really ought to have started last year-”
“You need a decade to plan a party?”
“Parties,” Furina said, already looking exhausted by the prospect. “Galas, luncheons, meet-and-greets…gods, diplomatic meetings with representatives from other Archons.”
Neuvillette glared up over the rim of his cup. “...no.”
“Afraid so.”
“You want to invite the representatives of the Seven to Fontaine?” Neuvillette said, scarcely believing what he was hearing. “To our home?”
For ninety years, they had abused every diplomatic stalling tactic to prevent any kind of meeting between the Seven. Fortunately, after the Tsaritsa's break with her fellow Archons, relations between gods were chilly all around. Still, the last thing Neuvillette needed was for an actual Archon to lay eyes on Furina. For all he knew, her mortality was obvious to anyone legitimately divine and one glance could end their whole performance for good.
"I don’t really want to, but we're finally running out of polite excuses," Furina sighed. "A hundred years is too long to go without making myself known to others. It's borderline suspicious that I've been standoffish this long."
"They are the biggest threat to our secret," Neuvillette said. "Inviting them here is inviting their scrutiny."
“Well, we can either invite them or very publicly snub six gods that rule over our neighboring nations,” Furina said, looking back at him. “Which is riskier?”
Neuvillette growled under his breath, mostly in frustration at how trapped they had become without him realizing it. Of course Furina understood the implications better than he had; her ability to read a social situation was unparalleled and she often covered for gaps in Neuvillette's understanding when it came to the murky waters of social politics.
“It’s not that I don’t understand your point, but-" Neuvillette sighed. "We cannot risk them discovering your identity."
“We can't ? So I shouldn’t introduce myself as the charlatan that’s sitting on Egeria’s empty throne when I receive them?” Furina asked, covering her mouth in feigned shock. “Thank you so much for reminding me; I was about to sign the invitations as Furina the Great Human Deceiver.”
“Let me send the invitations to those...nosy creatures,” Neuvillette grumbled, already dreading the legal and political rigamarole that awaited them. “...we really should have started planning this last year.”
“Best we can do is get started now,” Furina said, sipping on her tea. “In between running the country, averting the end of the world, and keeping our regular appointments, we'll also have to concern ourselves with planning a party .”
“Parties,” Neuvillette shuddered. “I think I'd rather take six murder trials in one day.”
“Because trials are easy for you; all you need to do is sit there looking stern and regal until it’s time to render the verdict,” Furina teased. “We even have a machine that renders the verdicts for you; you have the easiest appointment of any judge in the world.”
“I'm glad you think so highly of my legal skills, Lady Furina,” Neuvillette grumbled, ignoring the light prod of her toe against his stomach.
“It’s not your legal skills I value,” Furina said. "You have…other uses."
“Like teamaking ?”
“Gods no; you couldn't get a job at any respectable tea-house in the city,” Furina chuckled, smirking against the rim of her cup as Neuvillette rolled his eyes. “You’re very lucky that I managed to get you that Iudex position; you may have been destitute were it not for the benevolence of my patronage~ ”
“I was happily destitute before I met you; I can be happily destitute again," Neuvillette said.
"I didn't see you smile for the first five years of our partnership," Furina insisted, the side of her foot lightly smacking him on the hip. "I'm beginning to think I introduced you to the concept of happiness."
Neuvillette's lips twitched as though he wanted to say something but he seemed to think better of it. "You have introduced me to the concept of… patience ."
"And cooking fish before you eat them."
"Raw fish is a-"
"- delicacy in Inazuma ," Furina said, voice dipping into a baritone impersonation of her Iudex as her expression grew stern and detached. " Best enjoyed with a carafe of water from the Narukami Shrine's spring which has strong notes of cherry petals and copper. Forgive me, but there is a fine line between eating sashimi and standing in a river eating salmon with your bare hands like a grizzly bear. "
"Salmon, at least, is reasonably healthy to eat," Neuvillette chuckled. "Perhaps I should just stuff my face with tea-cakes and pastries like a proper Fontaine lady."
"Don't act like you're above eating tea-cakes," Furina hmmphed , smacking his elbow with the side of her foot. “I’ve seen you eat a quarter of a gâteau aux trois laits by yourself.”
“Because you had already consumed the other three quarters and told me to stop you from eating the whole thing,” Neuvillette said, taking the throw-pillow she chucked at his face as a sign of victory. He took a little too much pleasure teasing Furina; he just found it interesting to see her pale cheeks flush with color whenever he slipped her verbal jabs.
"That happened once," Furina grumbled, her foot brushing against the smooth patch of scales that ran from his wrist to his forearm in her search for a new topic. "Have you…always had these?"
"As long as I can remember," Neuvillette said, rubbing his arm a little self-consciously.
"And…how long is that?" Furina asked, tipping the last of her tea down her throat and reaching for the pot.
"Only a few months before I met you," Neuvillette said. "You know I don't remember much before I was reborn."
"Yes, but…do you think you had a normal life before this and just lost your memory?" Furina asked. "Or do you think you were just…born the way you are now?"
"What would a normal life for a dragon reborn look like?" Neuvillette scoffed. "Primary school under the water?"
“Well, you can read, can’t you?” Furina asked. “Where do you suppose you learned that?”
“...not sure,” Neuvillette said honestly. “I’ve had more important things to think about since I met you.”
For some reason, his offhanded remark caught Furina off guard. “More important about where you come from?”
“Where I’m going is more important to me than where I used to be…especially seeing as how we’re both going towards inky oceanic doom if we don’t do something about it,” Neuvillette pointed out.
"I just find it…odd that a person can't remember how they became the person they are," Furina said softly. "You would think a person would understand where they came from…but I suppose that isn't always the case, is it?"
"Is that how it is for you?" Neuvillette could see her tense as he asked the question. "You've never spoken of your life before we met, yet you must've at least lived twenty or so years before you found me."
"...must I have?" Furina said, head tilting to the side thoughtfully. "Yes…I suppose that makes sense. I'm human like everyone else so I must've grown up somewhere…right?"
Her uncertainty surprised him; he didn’t know why, but he just assumed that Furina had been a regular person like everyone else before she mantled Focalors. She seemed to understand people in a way that suggested that she had spent a lifetime living amongst them…but the uncomfortable silence seemed to tell a different story.
"Can I tell you something?” Furina asked before her courage could desert her. “Something I'd like to stay between us?"
"What's one more secret?" Neuvillette shrugged.
"I don't know if there is a limit to secrets two people can share," Furina said, tugging her robe around her shoulders a little tighter. "But I don't…I don't remember what my life was like before all this either."
A cold lump settled in Neuvillette's chest, a familiar ache that constantly asked who are you when he looked in the mirror. It was a disquieting feeling that Neuvillette did his best to put out of mind…but now it seemed Furina had the same foggy perspective on her past as well. At least he had a past to fall back on (even if he didn’t remember it); his former incarnation had ruled the waters of the world and that inborn authority gave Neuvillette a place in the world. It was one of the things that let him cope with their uncertain future…and apparently Furina had been robbed of her heritage as well.
"I see…" Neuvillette said, famously inept with his words in matters of the human heart. "Your first memory was-"
"Standing on the stage and talking to myself in the mirror," Furina said, looking out the window. "Which is odd, because…I felt like I had been alive for a few decades at least. I must've learned to read and write and I know I heard about the prophecy before all this started. I just don't know where ."
Furina only revealed herself to him in little glimpses shared sparingly over the years. Trust was built between them at the pace of immortals who could afford to take their time evaluating each other. Furina wouldn't have dared appear so human in the beginning of their partnership but much had changed between them over the years. She was growing more comfortable sharing her bruises with him, allowing herself to be seen as silly, unpolished, and unrefined when it was just the two of them. He didn’t know if this was the real Furina or just another layer of her performance; he didn’t know enough about people yet to know if the lost look in her eye was genuine.
Why would she lie about this? Neuvillette thought.
"Do you think you have any family?" Neuvillette asked.
"If I did, they would have reached out to me by now…wouldn't they have?" Furina asked. "I mean even if they didn't care about me before I became the 'Archon', wouldn't they want to be known as an Archon's relative?"
Or maybe they were conveniently disposed of to conceal her heritage, Neuvillette thought with a shudder. "Even if you didn't have family, surely someone you used to know would have recognized you."
"Maybe, but...sometimes I'm not sure if there is anyone I used to know," Furina said, chewing on her lip. "And sometimes I wonder if you and I just appeared one day when it was our time. Like actors taking the stage on our cues. The pasts we had before taking our roles are just…backstories that don't have any bearing in the plot itself."
"This whole country is one bloody theater so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case," Neuvillette said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Does that trouble you?"
"I'm troubled by a lot of things," Furina said. "I don't think I can afford to be troubled by this too…and the longer I think about where I come from, the more this sense of dread takes over me. Like I wouldn't like the answer to the question if I found it."
"Is that your voice telling you that…or someone else's?" Furina didn't seem to have an answer to this, sucking on the dregs of her tea thoughtfully before shrugging her shoulders.
"I just think you're not the only one who is missing a few details about themselves," Furina said with a sad, forced smile. "Although, who knows; maybe we can't remember our pasts for the same reason."
"...are you suggesting you are also a Sovereign reborn?" Neuvillette asked, watching Furina's smile grow a little less forced.
"Maybe I'm actually the Hydro Dragon and you're only pretending to be him," Furina said, raising an eyebrow. "Have you ever considered that ?"
"What am I then?"
"An Oceanid, clearly," Furina said through a yawn. "The only loyal one, I might add, so thank you for that."
"Spying on the Tsaritsa would be easier if I was," Neuvillette said, glancing over at the clock on the wall. "Are you sure you don't want to try for another few hours of sleep?"
"You first," Furina insisted, leaning back in the window seat stubbornly. "I will not be sent to bed like a disobedient child while you conduct the business of running my country."
"I have to pen a response to A," Neuvillette sighed. "Ten minutes; I'll be right behind you."
"Then I can sit up with you until you fulfill that promise," Furina said, folding her arms across her stomach and leaning back against the window seat's cushions. "Hurry up; your t-t-tardiness is depriving me of my much needed beauty sleep and Fontaine of a well-rested Archon."
"Then help me write the letter while you're here at least," Neuvillette chuckled. "Dear A-"
"No no no," Furina sighed. "At least try to sound like me. To my most esteemed and loyal informant; your Archon greets you most…most warmly."
"You have gathered enough information on Subject L; return to Fontaine as quickly as you are able," Neuvillette continued. “Is that good enough or shall I be more effusive with my praise?”
"That will do, I suppose,” Furina sighed theatrically, watching his back through drooping eyes as he wrote. “We are eager to hear tales…of your…most magnificent triumph…”
"By the hand of the Regina of All Waters, Kindreds, Peoples and Laws of Fontaine, Lady Furina de Fontaine, the Hydro Archon Focalors, Her Most Imperious and Aquatic Eminence," Neuvillette said, squeezing the last of Furina's titles in the margins of the tiny note. "You need to stop accumulating so many honorifics; they’re getting longer than the messages they’re attached to."
A soft snore answered Neuvillette and he turned to see Furina already nodded off, hands folded peacefully on her stomach and clutching a throw pillow tightly like a stuffed animal.
Stubborn woman, Neuvillette thought, tucking the message into a wax tube and sealing it before returning to the window seat. Part of him wanted to let her nap in his office, but he knew her neck would be absolutely twisted in the morning. Tucking her robe around her waist, he bent down to scoop her up in his arms. Furina cut such a larger than life figure that Neuvillette was always surprised at how light she felt whenever he had to carry her to bed. Furina had burned herself out on enough late-night projects that he was accustomed to bundling her off at one in the morning after she fell asleep at her desk.
A lock of Furina's soft hair tickled his neck as he carried her through the door to his office. He froze halfway through his bedroom when Furina stirred in his arms, waiting until she stopped moving before daring to move again. His half-slept in bed was only a few paces away, and rather than navigate her back to her suite, he elected to gently lay her in his bed. He tucked the blanket up around her cheek, lingering for a moment longer than he should have as he looked down at her.
Seeing Furina in his sheets stirred a warm, strangely protective urge in Neuvillette that he didn't fully understand yet. There was a growing need to wrap himself around Furina like armor, to bare his teeth at her nightmares until they fled for good. It wasn't an urge he trusted yet; there were draconic instincts that confused him and no one to tell the young dragon what they meant. He was the last of a long forgotten species, estranged from his culture, his past, and even his own instincts. Even now, he wanted to lie close to her, if only to satisfy the urge every dragon had to lay with its treasure. But he managed to pull himself away after a few moments, electing to sleep in his office where the sight of her gently snoring couldn't keep him awake.
Had he looked back, he might have seen two tired blue eyes looking after him as Furina tucked his sheets tightly around her shoulders. Furina was a great actress; she could even pretend to be sleeping while Neuvillette gathered her in his arms and held her against his chest. She had long stopped feeling guilty about her little deception; the infrequent trips to her room in Neuvillette's arms were the only times that her basic human need for affectionate touch were met. She gave up the idea of taking a love a few decades earlier after an exhausting series of stilted courtship attempts; the thought of having to perform as Focalors in her private life made her stomach twist. She couldn’t imagine being able to be fully and completely vulnerable with someone that didn’t know who she truly was.
To be adored for an act was fine in small doses, but she didn’t want to have to pretend to be a goddess in her own bed every night as well. She didn’t want to be worshiped as a pure, untouchable idol that bore the expectations of a nation with every breath; she wanted room to be the small, needy thing she tried so hard not to be. And sadly that meant she had to content herself with surreptitious touches with innocent explanations and midnight trips to her room in Neuvillette’s arms; brief contact that only increased her appetite to be truly loved .
It was a selfish desire and Furina knew it; pursuing her personal happiness as something that would have to wait until her nation was safe. But she could still dream as she settled into the divet in the mattress where Neuvillette usually slept. Faint traces of his warmth still lingered in the sheets and for a moment, Furina allowed herself to imagine a possibility that seemed as far out of reach as the end of the prophecy.