Chapter Text
The first 60 days.
Item one on Chief Justice Neuvillette’s post-Flood agenda.
The matter of the immediate response. Medical aid. Grain shortages.
That, and the hauntings.
One second, Neuvillette is half-stepping, half-stumbling back into the Opera Epiclese. The heavy wooden stage underfoot feels more real than he's ever felt anything to be.
Neuvillette wants to vomit – whether from the ragged, glassy gash in reality he has just stepped through, air thrumming with purple static, or from the roaring ocean waters he can feel like his own blood, bellowing in his ears, or from the world-shaping, primordial power, newly surging through his veins. Whatever the reason, sick is rising in Neuvillette’s throat like the saltwater rising around Fontaine.
But, he has no time for this.
The ocean is coming for Fontaine’s people, so recently deemed innocent of their sins.
Neuvillette will not let it.
Before Neuvillette knows it he's no longer in the Opera Epiclese, but soaring above the raging sea – wind whipping his hair around his face, raindrops hitting like shrapnel, luminescent wings flared behind him like a concertmaster’s coattails.
And what seems like just the next second after that—
—Neuvillette is back in his office. He is reading, writing, and delegating Fontaine’s way through the aftermath.
The ocean has receded.
For weeks after the crisis, water remains in the Court of Fontaine. It rushes through the gutters and sewers, drips off the eaves, gathers murkily and waist-deep in low-lying streets and side alleys.
Fontainians stumble into the city, displaced from all over the nation. They arrive by the hour, on every manner of vessel imaginable – from the odd man haggardly clinging to a wooden roof, to Duke Wriothesley’s gigantic Wingalet, scores of survivors emerging from the safety of its bowels.
Requests for medical supplies and aid file into the Court in tandem with the refugees.
A non-stop line of couriers are queuing out of Neuvillette’s door – some have been camping for days in the Maison Gardiennage, afraid that a simple written missive for aid might not sufficiently attract Monsieur Neuvillette’s attention.
And, Sedene runs to and fro, between the Maison Gardiennage’s newly-reconnected line operators and Neuvillette’s desk – bearing only the most urgent strips of morse code, hastily jotted, translations scribbled.
“A new message, Monsieur,” she announces in this routine, pushing into Neuvillette’s office. She has the message slip in one hand and an assortment of files in the other, all stamped with To Be Approved.
“Thank you,” Neuvillette says, without looking up. “Please read it.”
“Grain silos could not be recovered,” she obliges, sliding the files onto his desk. “Food shortage. Mould sickness. Send aid.”
“Would that we received new information in this office,” Neuvillette mutters.
“Pardon, Monsieur?”
“Nothing, Sedene.” Neuvillette pinches the bridge of his nose. And instructs, after a pause: “I will see where we can divert medical aid at least. Keep us posted.”
He gives Sedene a small smile.
Sedene beams back at him. She clicks her heels, and hops back out the door.
It’s been some days since the Iudex has slept.
“You’re not doing too badly,” Focalors says from behind Neuvillette’s chair.
“Begone,” Neuvillette intones.
He signs a document with a flourish. Then opens the first file folder from Sedene’s delivery, and begins reading.
“Is that any way to talk to the Hydro Archon?”
Neuvillette rubs his eyes, and sighs.
“Begone, my Lady.”
A laugh, a mock clicking of heels, and a flutter of white skirts slipping out the door.
Here is the difficult issue: everything demands Neuvillette’s attention. Time moves like a current, propelling him ruthlessly forwards.
He has not enough resources, not enough personnel, not enough supplies. A damaged Gardemek has been lounging on a front-facing eave of the Palais for upwards of three weeks, weakly waving at passersby, and Neuvillette has not given the order to take the thing down, for god’s sake.
So here he is, inside the Palais Mermonia, accompanied by the smell of damp chaise, damp curtains, damp books, and damp carpet. No amount of perfume or fragrant oils, meaningless extravagances as they are in the first place, would even be able to cover the odour.
In these chaotic days, the brief moments of camaraderie preceding Lady Furina’s trial feel distant to Neuvillette, sealed behind glass. Navia – helping Fontaine. Clorinde – helping Fontaine. Those three brave children from the House of the Hearth – helping Fontaine.
And whatever Neuvillette had shared with Wriothesley—
the Duke resting his hand on Neuvillette's shoulder in a tired bravo after long hours of working side by side;
the Duke, resting on Neuvillette’s chaise, chest rising and falling with his breaths;
the Duke, witnessing glimpses of Neuvillette’s anxiety, and sadness, and guilt, and vulnerability, even as Neuvillette himself hasn’t exactly meant to show it—
—all this has been unceremoniously tossed aside in favour of working alone, with only Fontaine’s national crisis and his own thoughts echoing in his ears.
And, to add insult to injury: Neuvillette’s tea has been plain, black, and far too weak.
But, precious few tins in the Palais’ kitchens have managed to remain airtight. And, right now, milk and sugar feel far too exorbitant.
Fontaine’s chaos aside, however— Neuvillette harbours another problem.
The first night after the receding of the ocean, Neuvillette rears awake from sleep.
He finds himself tangled in his sheets, skin clammy with cold sweat. Mind swimming with the image of Focalors’ last dance, her face illuminated with a smile, the otherworldly guillotine hanging above her silver head.
A few more nights, before Fontaine allows him a chance at sleep again.
And he jolts awake, tangled in his sheets.
This week, it’s happened again. Neuvillette breathes in bursts, and blinks, blearily, through his pale lashes.
He’s sitting up in bed, shaking with adrenaline. He flinches at the feeling of his shirt, wet and cold with sweat against his back.
Neuvillette breathes out, in a slow shudder.
He tries to gather himself.
He pushes his long hair out of his face.
And he reaches for his bedside lamp, trying to still the barely-noticeable tremors in his hands. Tugs on a rope tassel. Calls for a cup of tea.
The Chief Justice of Fontaine sits by his window, bedchamber lit dimly by his lone bedside lamp, and drinks his weak, black tea.
“Does that taste good?” Focalors asks.
Neuvillette breathes in slowly through his nose, and out through his mouth. His shoulders rise and fall.
She's still in his room.
“Not really,” Neuvillette mutters.
“Mon dieu. No tea?” A rustle of fabric, and the sound of bare feet, padding across wooden floorboards. Neuvillette’s chambers are carpeted, but the Opera Epiclese’s grand stage, where Focalors had been executed, is not.
Focalors perches onto the edge of his bed, silk sheets still tangled, coverlets still in disarray.
Seeing his unsettled gaze on her, she winks.
“Seems like you ought to get your act together, Chief Justice.”
If Neuvillette is to understand anything about Focalors, it is that she always had gall.
“You are a justice-minded goddess, no?” Neuvillette deadpans, sipping his subpar tea. “You don't think that haunting me, in addition to everything else, is too harsh a punishment?”
Focalors laughs. “You think this is punishment?” She clasps her hands behind her back, and tilts her head. “You don’t think this is a charming visit from an old friend?”
Neuvillette exhales from his nose. And turns towards her, raising an eyebrow. “Your mistake was leaving Lady Furina alongside me for five centuries, Lady Focalors. Those mannerisms will not move me.”
“Aww.” Focalors grins, and to her credit— it’s far more sly than anything Neuvillette has ever seen from Furina.
(After all, Furina is an actress. Focalors is a trickster.)
Focalors turns on her heel, and prances nearer to Neuvillette.
Close enough to touch, to see the breath rising and falling in her bosom.
“Do we not have a cordial relationship, Monsieur? Did I not invite you to preside over Fontaine?”
“That you did, Focalors.”
“Are you unsatisfied with me, Hydro Dragon?” Focalors is right before his eyes, closer than she had ever been in life. “Even though you accepted the invitation, and witnessed the humanity of our dear people?”
She is as beautiful as Neuvillette remembers.
Neuvillette gazes at her, as steadily as the ocean, and as his circular seal placed over the Primordial Sea, glowing in the depths of Meropide.
“Did you wish me to witness you too, before you died on Fontaine’s behalf?” The Chief Justice replies coolly. “And our ‘cordial relationship’ – that was formed from speaking with me for… what? A mere quarter of an hour, I believe. Before you orchestrated your own death in front of me.”
Focalors pauses.
Then, she begins moving, lily-white in Neuvillette's dark bedchamber.
Neuvillette closes his eyes. He knows this dance well, and hardly needs to see it again.
What are you making that sad expression for? The memory of Focalors says, voice lilting.
Neuvillette sets his empty teacup down.
After the guillotine had smashed down onto Focalors, Neuvillette’s fury had been white-hot.
With that burning feeling in his chest, the Narwhal has been quelled.
Now, he's only angry at Focalors.
Neuvillette looks out the window. From his chambers he can see the docks – a small tent encampment is starting to spring up, doing its best to shelter too many refugees at once. In the light of the moon, Neuvillette can see the flutter of their laundry lines.
He begins stripping from his bedclothes. For a moment he is naked, alone in his room, silver hair cascading down his back.
Then, he shrugs on his day’s wardrobe, buttoning and lacing each garment in turn.
Neuvillette freshens up in his washbasin. He pats his face dry with a washcloth, ties his hair, and daubs a few passes of whitening powder onto his face. A smudge of blush on either cheek. An adequate showing, for a day with no trials, and before dawn to boot.
“You're so busy now,” Focalors says, as Neuvillette strides into the Palais Mermonia.
She has followed him to his office, which only happens on more unfavourable days.
Yes, Neuvillette thinks, raising a hand in greeting to the Gestionnaires working in these small hours of the morning. You have saved Fontaine, Focalors. But the aftermath, again, seems to be mine.
“Because you’re such a good man for aftermath,” She says, laughing. It sounds like the tinkle of a fountain, or the crystalline bubble of an alpine river, coalesced from snowmelt.
Neuvillette carefully steps past the line of couriers leaning asleep against the wall. One man is snoozing on his side, curled around his hat. He unlocks his office, and slips through the door.
He’s alone in his empty office.
It smells like damp chaise, damp curtains, damp books, and damp carpet.
A charming visit from an old friend, Neuvillette thinks dryly to himself.
He sits down, and begins to work.
The rebuilding work that lays ahead of Chief Justice Neuvillette is time-consuming, and requires great concentration and stamina from him.
Making sense of Focalors, the god, and Furina, the girl, is its own kind of rebuilding.
The first realisation is that the companionable presence he has had beside him for centuries has not been the Hydro Archon, but Furina this whole time.
This has not been a distasteful realisation. His admiration for Lady Furina – affection? – has always been predicated on how much feeling she had. To find that she was human was no surprising matter.
The second realisation is what wakes Neuvillette in the night. The pieces of his memory, long and eroded, have turned out to contain very little of Focalors.
Except, as he can remember so very clearly— her last dance.
Maybe the power of the dragons, returned to him at last, is why her shadow haunts him. Neuvillette sees Focalors passing through the Quartier Lyonnais, reflected in shop windows, laughing at how silly the fashion of this time has gotten. He sees her in a little Fontainian girl running to her mother, or in a bird taking flight, or in a stray kitten meandering on the street. He sees her relentlessly at his desk, in every requisition for medical supplies, in every request for building materials, in every performing arts troupe asking for grant funds after the disaster.
Neuvillette hears Focalors’ tinkling laugh in those moments where he forgets himself, and looks up the stairs at the Opera Epiclese, and has his present shattered by the sight of the guillotine.
Grief, suspended—
—like the guillotine, above Focalors. Forever hovering in the moment before death, preventing Neuvillette from simply forgetting her.
He feels her in every fountain, every river, every droplet of rain, in every wave lapping at the smooth sands.
“Requesting urgent supply shipment,” Sedene reads out from Neuvillette’s doorway, startling him from his thoughts. The day is bright. “Fatui shipments due for weeks from now. Shortage impending.”
Neuvillette laces his fingers together and rests his brow on his hands. “Thank you, Sedene. I will see what I can do.”
It is not helping things that recently, a few weeks into settling into her new, much humbler quarters, Furina has stopped meeting Neuvillette at the door.
“Lady Furina,” He hears himself saying out loud, into the Fontainian street. “Please answer your door.”
It's the third time this month that Neuvillette has tried to visit. The first time, he brought her a simple cake from the patisserie on the corner she had so delighted in – nothing fit for Lady Furina, but an exorbitant luxury now, amid the shortages.
The second time, he had brought a selection of teas, some of a precious stock from a merchant who had managed to keep his wares airtight – only to see the box of cake still sitting by her front door, yellowed, mouldy, putrid.
This time, he has known to bring nothing at all.
Standing at the door, Neuvillette doesn't know whether to be stern, or kind.
Receive me, girl, he imagines himself invoking, voice bellowing and crashing like a tidal wave over rocky shores, imbued with all the roaring power now vested in him. Feeling the strength in his body, the brightness in his eyes, fingers glowing with the power that was hers— his— hers—
Neuvillette sighs. And instead, tries to fill himself with all the human gentleness that he hasn't yet figured how to muster.
“Lady Furina,” the Hydro Dragon says again, but finds his mouth dry. His tongue clumsy.
You— You are the only one who might understand.
Neuvillette wants to make sense of it all. But he also knew— that Miss Furina, of all people, did not owe it to him.
Behind the door, a shuffle. She's been close enough to touch this whole time, like he thought she was. A shuffle, and what sounds like a sniffle. Footsteps, walking away, retreating further inside.
Neuvillette turns. He looks away. And he walks away, his own steps echoing against the cobblestones.
In his dream, he stands at Furina’s door. He feels something suffocating rising in his chest – a feeling like humidity cloying the air, before the sky splits apart and flushes it all with rain.
“Lady Furina,” Neuvillette says to the waiting air. “Will you not come out and see me?”
He has hardly been so transparent before in his life. As with all matters of honesty, Duke Wriothesley, candid, genuine, and earnest in his companionship with the Iudex, is likely to blame.
“You were one of my closest companions for five hundred years, Lady Furina. I think of you as such still.”
His own voice sounds strange in his chest, but his mind has never felt clearer.
Alas, Furina does not hear. This is Neuvillette's dream.
When he wakes, sweat on his brow, he sees Focalors’ reflection in his bedroom window.
The tent encampment of refugees continues to flower in the docks. It blossoms, like salt crystals over the Court’s walls and buildings – the water, ever so slowly, is evaporating away.
The crown jewel of the refugee encampment is, of course, the Wingalet. The Wingalet is anchored many piers over, but its gravitational pull is felt.
“It’s docked,” Sedene had announced, and Neuvillette didn’t have to ask what.
Day in, day out, people gather just to gawk at the thing. It's an alien beast, but with striking drama; a stoic brute, with showstopping flair. Grandiose, and bizarre. A leviathan, hidden for – what, months? surely not years? – beneath the tumbling waves.
What could appeal to Fontainian sensibilities more? Wingalet was made by and for Fontainians, it seemed.
The fact that Neuvillette is the Hydro Dragon – his long-kept secret – seems to have gotten somehow less attention than Meropide’s cat, burst from its bag. But he likes that his dragon self, in many circumstances, can still be allowed to nestle somewhere quiet and safe.
And the fact that Neuvillette might not just like seeing the Duke, but that he might want to see the Duke – that feeling is also still illicit, still furtive. Still only on the tip of his tongue. Able to be bitten back, swallowed down, in favour of more pressing matters.
“Are you in love with him?” It’s Focalors, grinning, lounging on his chaise.
Neuvillette flicks a lamp-lit page. It's the small hours of the night again, somehow, though Neuvillette feels like he started working minutes ago.
“Well?” Focalors nudges again.
Just as well that she looks so shit-eating in this moment – otherwise, kicking her feet on his chaise like that, she looks just like Lady Furina.
Neuvillette doesn't reply. He sips at his midnight tea, straight black and too weak.
(How Wriothesley is doing with this particular shortage, god knows.)
A silence, filled only with the sound of pen against paper.
“Don’t you even know if you are?” Focalors eggs a third time, trickster’s smile painted all over her ghostly face.
Neuvillette sets his pen down. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know that,” he says drily, “but you certainly do not either.”
“Can you not even admit it to yourself?”
The Chief Justice glances at the apparition in his office for a moment. Then he turns back to his documents, and keeps writing.
He hears Focalors sigh dramatically.
Footsteps, coming up to his desk. The sound of bare feet on wood, even though Neuvillette’s office is carpet and marble.
“Another subject, then.”
Focalors’ face comes into view, eyes bright and starry. She’s leaning on her elbows on the Iudex’s desk, cramming herself into Neuvillette’s field of view.
“Have you seen that ship in the harbour?”
It’s a change of pace, like lake to burbling creek. Focalors sounds excited – almost giddy.
Despite himself, Neuvillette feels himself leaning back into his chair, a small smile tugging at his lips.
“Yes. Duke Wriothesley built it. He is an aficionado of Remurian history.”
“C'est magnifique.” The goddess looks delighted, elbows still propped intimately on Neuvillette’s desk. "A sight to behold, that wondrous ship."
“I thought you might love it,” Monsieur Neuvillette says softly. He meets her gaze. His Archon’s face is close enough to touch, her hand close enough to kiss.
This time it’s Focalors who averts her eyes first. She stands and spins away in a grand flourish – just like an embarrassed Furina.
“Yes— it’s extraordinary in its grandeur. This Duke Wriothesley is a subject befitting of my glorious rule.” She announces loftily. And then, the shit-eating expression returns. “No wonder you adore him.”
Neuvillette resists the urge to roll his eyes, and settles for looking unimpressed.
Monsieur Neuvillette does miss Wriothesley, very much. Seeing the Wingalet, these days, is like seeing the Duke.
Watching the Wingalet rest in the harbour, Neuvillette has noticed a quirky, coy way about how its gargantuan hull swayed in the water. Because as exhilaratingly sensational as it is, it has a nostalgia about it too – an air of boyishness, laced through metal sheets as thick as a man’s arm and rivets larger than a child’s head.
Duke Wriothesley may have seemed a cynical realist, but that’s the thing – realists don’t make Wingalets. Only the endlessly optimistic do.
A young Wriothesley must have thought he could save the world.
Neuvillette half-huffs, half-smiles inwardly.
A stupid man, with a stupid plan. A subject befitting of Focalors, indeed.
A young Focalors had settled for nothing less than saving every single one of her subjects from the Heavenly Principles themselves. That humans like Wriothesley called themselves Fontainian, even without knowledge of Focalors, must be some kind of divine design.
Focalors coughs. Neuvillette is roused from his musing.
“I should like to go visit the ship,” Focalors speaks again. She’s by Neuvillette’s bookshelves now, face thoughtful, fingers skimming over the wavy pages of tomes left open to dry. But abruptly, she turns, swirling her skirts in a theatric wave. “But alas! Focalors cannot have everything she desires.”
“Why not, my Lady?” Neuvillette asks. He’s briefly forgotten himself.
“Because I’m dead, you silly dragon,” Focalors flits back. She has a smile on her face. Half gentle, half self-mocking.
Ah. Neuvillette thinks. That is correct. I keep imagining you.
He sets his pen down, and stands from his desk.
“I have not slept enough, my Lady.” Neuvillette says to Focalors. She is beginning the first moves of her dance, now. “You will have to excuse me.”
“Goodnight, Hydro Dragon.” Focalors murmurs.
Chassé, petit jeté, pas de bourrée. Her final curtsy is coming.
Neuvillette leaves the room.
Outside the Palais Mermonia, the night is still dark – but the hint of dawn is on the horizon, only a few hours away
Wingalet sleeps quietly in the docks, swaying with the tide.
Neuvillette had no way of saving Focalors. This he knows.
But thinking of the Wingalet, and the stupid man who had built it—
—as a boy, Wriothesley had imagined more for his siblings than the abuses of his adoptive parents. As a man, he had imagined more for Meropide than a stagnant, corrupt system. And as someone who wasn’t even sure of his own origins, but who felt tied to Fontaine’s fate – with a looming flood, he had imagined an Ark.
Wriothesley would have wanted to save Focalors too, Neuvillette muses.
(The thought is more comforting than he realised it would be.)
Monsieur Neuvillette pauses for a long moment. Out in the fresh night air, away from the damp of the Palais Mermonia, he remembers how the Duke smells.
And then he shakes his head.
Goodnight, Wingalet.
Goodnight, Your Honour, Wingalet replies. Somehow Wingalet’s voice sounds gruff, but gentle, just like that of Meropide’s head administrator.
At first, the tent city waxes, growing heavy with new arrivals.
Men, women and children pack into too little space and try to dry too many wet clothes at once. Children from far-placed municipalities of Fontaine find each other suddenly as playmates. Neuvillette tries to visit every few days, no matter his workload – he does not take his role at the head of Fontaine lightly.
“They don't seem very afraid, do they?” Sedene had said during yesterday's visit, trotting alongside Neuvillette's stride.
The Iudex follows her gaze. A group of young shirtless boys are cannonballing into the water off a pier, laughter bouncing off the imposing grey concrete of the great sea walls.
“I would have thought it would take a while longer for them to approach the water,” Sedene says, tone thoughtful.
“I suppose humans are capable of speedy recovery,” Neuvillette murmurs.
As time goes on, the tent city wanes.
The motley gathering of vessels in the harbour turn from rescue operation into transport operation. Boatload by boatload, dislocated Fontainians are escorted back to their towns of origin.
Slowly, the boats and ships return whence they came. The Wingalet, too, disappears beneath the waves.
You take care, Wingalet gruffly says.
You too, Neuvillette replies.
I hope to see you again, the Duke says, an echo in Neuvillette's memory.
I’ll come soon, Neuvillette answers himself.
The line of couriers at Neuvillette's door grows gradually shorter – the morse code strips grow gradually less urgent.
In his office, Neuvillette grows used to the smell of damp carpet, and the smell of books and documents airing out. He grows used to tea without milk and sugar.
Before Neuvillette knows it, Fontaine has somehow already lurched from rebirth, into afterbirth.
“Still so busy.” Focalors says. This time, she is perched on the edge of the Iudex’s desk.
Neuvillette looks up at her. Focalors looks different today – something about her air is different. Maybe he has just imagined her differently.
Today she looks rosy – mortal, even. Blood, under her divine skin. Blemishes, on her perfect face.
“I have some time to greet an old friend,” Monsieur Neuvillette says.
Focalors surveys her Chief Justice, eyes twinkling. She picks up his fountain pen and spins it between her long fingers. “You’ve changed your tune, haven’t you?”
“Hm.” Neuvillette hums. “My resentment for you comes and goes.”
At that, Focalors throws her head back and laughs an earthy laugh.
“Oh wonderful,” Sedene says, one slightly slower morning. She is padding into the office, eyes skimming a missive that has come in. “We may want to inform Duke Wriothesley.”
From his desk, Neuvillette peers owlishly at her. He had slept a few hours last night, ramrod-straight on his chaise lounge, rotating uncomfortably like some toy inventor’s carnival ride. All those times Wriothesley had crashed on that same chaise in Neuvillette's office after a late night working together – coat set to one side, salt-and-pepper hair tousled, one arm slung over tired eyes, breathing deeply and slowly – the Duke had made sleeping on the couch seem far more stylish.
Nevertheless – Neuvillette had slept.
He clears his throat. “What are we telling the Duke?”
“Shipment in Lumidouce Harbour,” Sedene says, looking up from the missive. She's grinning. “A cargo freighter from Yilong Port. Packed with tea from Chenyu Vale.”
Tea. Neuvillette breaks into a smile. His face doesn’t feel used to it.
“A precious commodity indeed.” And because he is feeling so whimsical, apparently – “Yes. Do inform Duke Wriothesley. Please make sure a tin gets to him, Sedene.”
“Of course, Monsieur. Do you want to send a message with it?”
Neuvillette pauses, halfway through turning a page. He contemplates it.
“Say it comes from Monsieur Neuvillette,” The Chief Justice of Fontaine says, slowly.
“Of course.”
“With his regards.” Neuvillette adds.
“Will do, Monsieur.” Sedene turns and goes from the office, a skip in her step.
Neuvillette leans back in his chair.
“You are so stunted,” Focalors gripes.
Neuvillette closes his eyes, and half-smiles.