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It’s raining again.
It’s been getting worse, lately. The humidity has been making her hair frizzier, she thinks, brushing a hand through her sleep-mussed bob. Wash day is tomorrow.
A knock sounds on her door, rings through the house. Her feet are cold against the ground as she steps out of bed, makes her way to the door as she muses. Anyone could be looking for her at this hour. Wriothesley, Navia, Clorinde. Traveller.
It's always Neuvillette.
His visits have only become more frequent as the concern of everyone around her grows. It only makes her want to stay inside more; what could she want for outside that she doesn't already have inside?
Her groceries have been prepared by Neuvillette, sent right to her door weekly. Her friends visit her whenever she plans a get-together or a tea party, though she doesn’t do it often anymore. Neuvillette is here every week to visit. Every few days. Every other.
Everyday.
All that she could want is right here already. There's no reason to leave her house when she's certain that half of her– this nation still condemns her for her lies. Inside, there's only her and Neuvillette, and of the two of them, there's only one that condemns her the same way the people of Fontaine do.
(It's not Neuvillette.)
“Good evening,” she says, though she's unsure if night has even fallen yet. Day and night have been interchangeable for her. It was dark under the constant rainstorm no matter what time she awoke.
“Good evening,” he responds, holding out a white box to her. “I brought you cake.”
The downpour worsens when she doesn’t take it immediately. The skies darken like it’s moments away from swallowing the world whole. Furina reaches out, letting Neuvillette hand it to her like an offering.
“Thank you,” Furina says, and turns to make her way to the kitchen. Neuvillette smiles, shrugging his coat off. Hangs it on the rack by the door as he steps in. The door clicks shut behind him. She’d let him in once, and he’d never asked again. A stray she'd fed once that kept coming back.
Furina still hasn’t said anything.
“Have you eaten yet, My Lady?” He asks, padding after her. Furina bites her tongue to keep herself from correcting him about the title. What’s the harm, anyway? No one is here to hear him but her.
“No,” she says instead, taking a slow breath. Neuvillette hums disapprovingly, scrounging through her cabinets for anything to cook. It doesn't take him long to find the macaroni and pasta sauce she'd stored away.
Furina doesn’t ask how he knows her favourite food recently has been macaroni, though she’d never once touched it as an Archon. Too plebeian, too beneath her. None of that matters now, she supposes. She doesn't ask how he knows where she keeps her ingredients, even if she switches the location in her kitchen every week her groceries arrive, either.
Neuvillette makes himself at home in the kitchen like he has a dozen times before. Furina watches him, taking a seat at the counter. The marble is cold beneath her skin. She shivers, brushes her now cool hand against her face. Rests her elbow on the countertop and perches her head on her palm, eyes half-lidded.
Water pouring into a pan, a fire set to medium hums. Macaroni tips in, sends ripples in the water. Pasta sauce being cracked open – canned, because for all Neuvillette's competence, he has never been quite so skilled at cooking anything other than his consomme, and even then it was vaguely diluted, as though he'd only meant to make spiced water.
“What did you do today?” She asks.
“...There was a murder case,” he answers dutifully, staring down at the garlic he's crushing beneath the gleaming blade of one of Furina's knives. It's dull, she’s sure. The sight makes her stomach churn anyway. “The culprits are yet to receive their verdict.”
Furina knows he's lying about something. She doesn't ask. “I'm starving. Will you be done soon?”
“Soon,” he says without looking up. That, too, was a lie.
***
It’s sunny today.
She recognises the face on the front page of the newspaper. He’s one of the people who’d stood on the steps of the Palais Mermonia calling for a second trial against her before Neuvillette put an end to that. They'd learnt later that he'd organised it. A ringleader, of sorts.
He’s been murdered, the paper says. A shame, when he was so young. No parents to grieve, but his wife and children weep.
The trial is shorter than any Furina can remember being a part of. The evidence is heavy against a few other familiar faces as the culprits. They were there with him when demanding another trial, and they were there in the streets sneering at her the few times she’d left her house. They’re trying to flee now that they’ve been proven guilty, still proclaiming innocence all the way. She knows Neuvillette won't let them find a chance to run. Her eyes skim down to the bottom of the page; there, a short statement from Neuvillette.
“We will find them, and they will be brought to justice,” Chief Justice says.
Furina looks up and watches Neuvillette hum one of the songs she’d sang years ago under his breath, darting around the kitchen to find pots and pans and strainers. Risotto for dinner today. She doesn't know where he's got the recipe from, but she knows she’ll eat it because Neuvillette very, very rarely makes something too unpalatable for her.
His apron is tied at the back with a bow, courtesy of her assistance. It’s loosening a little as he moves, the bow drooping sadly. Furina will have to retie it soon.
She looks down again. The face of a dead man stares back at her, and beneath it, the laments of his wife and his children. She flips the page. The patisserie down the street that she likes has a new flavour of cake they're releasing, apparently. Neuvillette will surely be at her door with a box of it the next time he comes in.
***
Neuvillette has started letting himself in.
She’s half-asleep on the couch the first time he does, or so she’d like to think. He wakes her with the knock on her door. She recognises, distantly, that she ought to greet him at the door like what has become the norm, but she can’t bring herself to.
The doorbell rings. Another series of knocks. Repeat.
The sun warms her in rays of golden light coming in through the windows. Furina curls into herself, stares listlessly at the thin layer of dust on her coffee table. She’ll have to clean it up soon. She closes her eyes as a key is fumbled into the lock and the door clicks open.
So that’s where her copy went. She’d had it left in a dish by the door in case she forgot the one she usually brought with her. When she’d finally invited her friends over for a housewarming party, it was gone the next day. Everyone she asked had no idea where it went.
She wonders why she never asked Neuvillette, suddenly.
Furina keeps feigning her sleep, keeps her breaths even; she’s been acting for centuries, it’s not difficult to pretend anymore. She waits for him to find her. It's not as if there’s anywhere for her to hide. His dress shoes continue to clack against her hardwood floors, a little frantic.
It doesn’t take him long, but all Neuvillette does when he sees her is release a slow breath. When he pads over to her, he brushes a hand along her cheek. Slides down and rubs the fine bones of his inner wrist against the side of her neck. Back and forth. It tickles a bit. A rustle of clothes, and then a heavy coat thrown over her in place of a blanket. More footsteps, growing softer and softer away from her, in the direction of her kitchen.
Furina lets him go.
She’s been starving, anyway. Under the heavy weight of his coat, and the sound of his breaths and movements in the kitchen, Furina finds her eyes growing heavier, finds herself dozing off. She doesn’t fight it.
By the time she awakes, the evening sun has set, painting the world in shades of blue. The coffee table has been wiped clean, a mug of tea still steaming set in front of her. It takes too much effort to push herself upright and reach out for it, but she manages to curl both hands around the mug, letting the warmth seep deep into her bones. It hasn’t rained today, but the chill still hasn’t escaped her house.
She takes a sip.
It’s not good. Neuvillette couldn’t brew a good cup if he tried. Too many tea leaves or too little. Never bagged tea leaves; Wriothesley would burn her at the stake for the mere idea. Steeped in water too hot for so long it becomes too bitter for her palate or so short the taste only lingers in the back of her mouth. An excess of milk and sugar to mask it.
It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?
Furina lays Neuvillette’s coat across the armrest of the couch and makes her way to the kitchen to find him, mug still cradled between both hands. Like she’d thought, he’s there at his usual place in her kitchen; in front of the stove stirring a pot of bubbling water.
“Hello,” she says, yawning wide.
“Lady Furina,” Neuvillette says, turning to face her. His apron is new; Furina doesn't recall seeing it before. “Did you sleep well?”
They won’t talk about this, she supposes. They’ll leave it unsaid between them like the other thousand things, a guillotine blade over their necks. The coward’s way out.
She doesn’t mind. She never has.
“I did,” she answers, then jerks her head at his new article of clothing. “Is that apron new?”
Neuvillette smiles, fond as he stares down at said apron. He brushes a spot of sauce and frowns when it smears, red against beige, browning at the edges as it dries. Butcher-esque. Red doesn't suit him as much as blue does. “A gift from Sedene.”
“Has she been well?”
“Of course.” Conviction in his voice. Neuvillette turns around and shuts the fire off. Stirs the pot once, twice, and asks, “Dinner?”
Furina peers over his shoulder; macaroni with pink sauce. Her favourite.
“Yes, please,” she says, taking a seat at the counter.
***
It’s raining again.
It’s been raining more and more lately. Neuvillette hasn’t been at her door in days, possibly weeks. He'd warned her that he might not be able to visit for a while when he was getting busier. Privately, she thinks that he was the one who could have used a warning.
Every passing day gets worse. Winds howling, venting their rage to the world through banging windows and clattering blinds. The chill seeps in from the cracks beneath her door.
The Steambird claims that the end is nigh. She wonders if they’re right, and almost laughs at the irony of it all.
She spent centuries in a never ending play to save Fontaine from its fate, only to be the very reason it drowns in its Sovereign’s tears. Maybe she should visit him first; it would stop raining if she asked him. This would all be over if she asked.
She doesn't.
She doesn’t want to have any more lives to become her responsibility. She wants to live, unburdened, free of a noose that has hung loosely around her neck for centuries. She wants Neuvillette at her door every evening, a box of cake held in his hands.
Such is the selfish nature of humans, she supposes.
***
It’s earlier than usual when Neuvillette arrives at her door, a boxed slice of cake in his hands. The sun has only just started to set, for once not hidden behind tufts of angry grey clouds. Everything is hued pink and orange. Painted golden.
“I brought you cake,” Neuvillette says, holding out a box to her.
She smells it through the plastic. Saccharine sweet. Strawberry and cream. Automated, like a puppet on strings, she takes it from him. Practised smile, and a smooth turn. Footsteps following, the door clicking shut.
“Have you eaten yet?” He asks her, though he must already know the answer. She shakes her head, murmurs a soft no. A pleased noise this time, as he bends down to rummage through her pantry.
Today, she sets the table while Neuvillette cooks. Plates clatter, set across from each other at her tiny dining table. Furina arranges the silverware neatly; forks at the left, knives then spoons on the right.
Behind her, a kettle squeals. Neuvillette was the one who put it on, but Furina takes the mug from him before he can make another attempt at brewing tea and dances out of his way when he blinks bemusedly at her. She pours a decent amount of tea leaves into her infuser, setting it atop the rim of her mug and pouring the boiling water into. A drop splashes out from the cup and lands on her hand. An ephemeral flash of pain.
She hisses.
Neuvillette is at her side in mere moments, bringing her hand up to his face for him to inspect. His gaze burns more than the water did. Dazedly, Furina twists her wrist and interlocks their fingers together, marvelling at the prominent blue-green veins beneath his thin skin.
When she tilts her head up to meet his gaze, his ears are burning hot, thin lips pursed. She muses on the sheer surrealism of this domesticity when there's a thousand unsaid things between them that could shatter the illusion at once if they found their voice.
“Neuvillette,” she says, blinking blearily. Furina squeezes his hand once. Neuvillette squeezes hers back before he responds.
“My Lady?” Tentative. Is the sound of his name off of her tongue that strange? How long has it been since she’s called him Neuvillette? Furina steps a little closer, into his space.
Her free hand feel like lead at her sides as she brings it up to wrap around his waist. She presses her cheek to his chest, hears his thundering heart beneath, quick like a hummingbird’s wings, heavy like waves crashing violently on the shore. A dancers’ embrace. She can feel his surprised smile in her hair.
Is she imagining the press of his lips against the side of her head, the heady breath he takes in before he speaks?
“Furina,” he says, pleased. His hands are cool against the small of her back, or perhaps the silk of her nightgown is cold as it presses into her flesh. “I missed you too.”
She hums. Her feet are still cold against the hardwood floors. Her eyes droop. “Will you stay tonight?”
And Neuvillette does not hesitate as he answers, “Yes.”