Work Text:
Loch Urania is calm that afternoon—not even a single ripple scatters the mirror-like reflection of its surface. Furina stands on the bank, gazing down upon herself in the lake, under the shadow of her muddy boots.
This is the best lead we have, she says to the Furina in the lake. Vishap sightings have been reported in this region. Surely one of them must be our Sovereign Dragon.
The Furina in the lake looks back at her unconvinced. This wasn’t her first foray into the wilds of Erinnyes, it wasn’t even the first trip she had made that day. Her curls were limp thanks to the humidity and what once was a blazer from the trendiest designer in Fontaine was now splattered with mud. If she couldn’t find the Hydro Dragon here, she wouldn’t be finding it anywhere else. Then she was going to have to come up with a different way to pull off the grand trial her divinity had promised her.
Furina clears her throat. “O, Hydro Dragon, Font of All Blessings, Lord of the Riptide, I come to your domain seeking an audience.”
Nothing. Furina eyes the clear waters with a grimace before stepping in. It is as cold as it looks. She suppresses a shiver, squaring her shoulders and pushing out her chest. Focalors would not be phased by a little cold.
“Hydro Dragon, O, Hydro Dragon. I, Focalors, successor to Egeria, have not come here without purpose. It is for the good of my people that I prostrate myself before you now.” Was she really going to lower her face to the water? If nothing else, Furina was at the end of her rope. If holding back now meant denying her subjects their one shot at salvation, she would go as far as she had to to call upon the Hydro Dragon.
Taking a small breath, so as to not betray her inability to breathe underwater, Furina plunges her head beneath the frigid water.
Immediately her skin goes numb and she’s barely able to see her nose in front of her face. But she stays, planted in the water, until her lungs begin to burn.
She rises with as much dignity as she can muster after such a display, but even taking in deep gulps of fresh air would have shattered her hundred year long charade.
Breathe slowly, shallowly, don’t swallow your air.
“Lord Dragon, the Fontainians do not ask for your aid without recompense. Should you decide to seek answers to your questions, I will be waiting for you at the Palais Mermonia.”
With that Furina pulls out a small bottle, stoppered with a cork enchanted by her other self. She places it in the water, and remains rooted in place as she watches the currents carry it away from her.
Only when it is out of sight does Furina gingerly climb back onto the bank.
She spares one last look at the bottle disappearing into the distance before she produces another wax tube from her person. Unfurling the map inside, she draws a huge ‘X’ over the lake.
Someday, Fontaine would have cartographers skilled enough to map out every corner of Egeria’s domain. But for now, her little hand drawn map would have to suffice.
Furina counts five attendants, all hovering nervously around the door. They have in their hands food trays, some warm and straight from the kitchen, and others that have been cold and untouched for some time.
One of them hears her heels clacking against the marble tiles of the Palais Mermonia and nearly trips over himself to greet her.
“Madame Furina! We have tried every means of coaxing him out of his room, but the doors have been locked from the inside.” The attendant looks like he’s about to cry. “He’s turned away all the tutors you’ve summoned for him and he refuses to eat. He won’t let anyone in.”
Inwardly, Furina sighs, but on the outside she’s nothing but sunny, emphatic smiles.
“You have done well to show our guest Fontaine’s finest degree of hospitality. Let your Archon handle the rest. Oh, and return this food to the kitchen while you’re at it. If my charge doesn’t want to eat, then it should feed someone who understands the true artistry of Fontaine’s cuisine.”
“T-thank you, my lady!” The attendant bows low then scurries off, tray in hand, the other four following close behind.
There was a palpable gloom in the air, the kind of humidity that demanded just an extra bit of effort from her to stay in character; likely due to the rain, for it had been raining for days on end since the Hydro Dragon first took up residence in the Palais.
Getting the hydro dragon into Fontaine had only been the first of Furina’s challenges. Now she had to get him out of his room so that he didn’t drown her people prematurely.
Furina had had a pretty good day up till then, so she decided she would grant him the benefit of knocking first.
She raps the door with her knuckles. “My Lord, would you please open the door? Your humble servant would like a word with you.”
No response. This was bringing back memories of her day in the wilds, futilely shouting at the freshwater fish of Loch Urania. Furina gives him 30 more seconds to answer of his own accord, then she produces a spare key and opens the doors herself.
Furina gives the room a cursory glance. She half-expected to see the room in complete disarray, only to find that it barely looked lived in. So where was her dragon hiding?
“Now, if I were a dragon out of water…” she muses. She could spy no obvious hiding places for a creature of his size, nor had there been any indication that he had used the bed, or the window seat to lay his head. However, there was one place someone missing the sea would be drawn to…
Most apartments in the Palais had an adjoining bathroom, and this one was no different. She gives the handle a cursory twist. The door opens with a ‘click’.
“There are better places to take a nap in than the bathtub, Monsieur.”
The dragon is seated in the tub, knees folded into his body and all the way up to his nose in water. He stares at her with his strange iridescent eyes.
“I did not summon you to my court for you to waste away in the bathtub,” she snaps. “Now, stand.”
The dragon continues to watch her without blinking.
Furina briefly considers manhandling him. Sure he may be older, more powerful, and taller than her, but the way he regarded her with those snake-like eyes, as though assessing her worthiness to stand before him, irked her. It made her question her own worthiness, and Focalors had no time for self-doubt.
“I promised you a grand seat, did I not? One that overlooks not just all of the Court, but all of the drama within it. What can you really see from your place in this tub?”
Slowly, the dragon blinks. Then almost languidly, he raises his head out of the water and says, “I see a godling. A usurper who’s head would be severed from her neck if justice really existed in this world.”
His threat comes out almost mechanically, without any intonation, but even this causes a shudder to run up Furina’s spine.
She squares up her shoulders and steels herself. After all her effort, all that time spent digging through archives and scouring through ancient ruins herself, she wasn’t going to let a soggy lizard intimidate her.
“So your idea of justice involves seizing that which no longer belongs to you? Would that make you better than the ones who stole your power from you? Can you really bear the responsibility of ruling over a godless world?”
The dragon snorts. “This world was godless before. It can be godless again, and nothing would change.”
Furina sees her chance.
“And how do you know that for sure, Monsieur? I would happily lay my head under the guillotine for you if you could assure me my people would be protected. But you do not actually know, do you?”
The dragon has no response.
“Have you actually lived during the time before gods?”
The dragon is listening now. Glaring at her, certainly, but he was drinking in every word.
“Many of our folktales tell of the Hydro Dragon’s deeds. Of how he split the seas and speared rivers into mountain sides. Yet you appear before me with neither tail nor horns, and expect me to believe you are the same being as he? Was your reincarnation interrupted or did you choose to forget your own legend?”
Furina isn’t nearly quick enough to duck out of the way when he lunges at her. The dragon pins her against the wall. At his full height, he easily stands a full head and a half above her.
“How did you know?” He growls.
Remember what you’ve been through. Remember why you’re here. Furina schools her face into indifference.
“It is obvious, Monsieur. I have spent decades collecting every myth ever told about you and your kin, all for this moment. Tell me, are the Vishaps in the custom of passing their history down to their next-of-kin?”
“We have no need for such crude methods. Our history is worn into our bones.”
“And yet your bones look very un-Vishaplike.”
The dragon leans in uncomfortably close. So close that Furina can make out all the colours of his eyes. It wasn’t just lavender, as she had initially thought, but a mix of reds and blues that gave the impression of purple from a distance.
If he wasn't about to rip her throat out, they would have been spellbinding.
“Haven’t you come here in search of answers?” Furina gasps. The dragon rests the palm of his free hand on her throat, not squeezing, yet. “I have a proposal for you.”
He blinks.
“In the tradition of humans, history is passed down through word of mouth from mother to son and father to daughter. Though those who were alive during the time of the dragons have long passed, their stories persist to this day. In listening to them, you may come to learn more about yourself than you know.”
Furina smiles. “Compared to where you’re at, that does sound like a pretty sweet deal, does it not?”
The dragon pulls back, all hostility replaced with a cautious curiosity. “I will have no way of knowing if your stories are entirely fictitious.”
“Every story, even embellished, starts from a morsel of truth,” she says. “But I concede, that is indeed a fair concern. How about this then, on top of recounting the tales of your kind I have amassed over the years, I will grant you a portion of my time each day to teach you how to read our language, and you yourself will be able to glean the truth of my words.”
Finally, the dragon averts his piercing gaze. His eyes settle on a spot in the distance, searching. For what, he may not even know. But Furina knows she’s won him over when he steps away from the wall and asks, “And if I find that you are lying?”
She grins, “Then I will happily hand over my crown to you, most noble of Vishaps.”
The dragon snorts again. “We have a deal.”
Before Furina had stepped into the dragon’s chambers, she had a rough plan sketched out in her head. There was a list of objectives she had to complete—one, getting the dragon out of the bathroom, two, introducing him to the rest of human society, three, making him care about said society.
The words her other self left her during their last conversation still rang in her head.
Win over the Dragon Sovereign. He will be the most crucial actor in our play.
How? Furina protests, what if after all we’ve done, he doesn’t care about Fontaine?
Well, he is a dragon after all. Give him something to covet. Something to possess. Something to protect. A treasure.
“A treasure,” Furina mutters to herself. She’s rehearsed this particular tale backwards and forwards all afternoon. Now standing in front of his bathroom doors (the minute she left, he had plopped back down into the tub to continue doing…whatever it was dragons did.), she hoped that he would be convinced to do something about the prophecy before she ran out of stories to tell him.
She wasn’t lying about her veritable trove of folklore. She had searched everywhere for any mention of the prophecy, going so far as to hire proxies to acquire stories of dragons and world-ending cataclysms from the four corners of Teyvat so that she would have multiple sources to reference.
There must be something. Her first memories involved her talking to herself in front of a mirror, but there had been a mirror, and there had been a stage set up for her. Someone had to have put it there. History didn’t start the minute she opened her eyes.
Yet no matter where she looked, she couldn’t find any historical texts dating beyond a certain year. It was like there was some cosmic force rewriting the history of the world, erasing the bits of it that would actually help her save her people from their imminent doom.
No time for that right now, she tells herself. Right now she had to impress a dragon with her storytelling skills.
Furina pushes open the bathroom door. Her gaze is instantly drawn to the bathtub where she finds the dragon sitting where she last left him.
“Good evening, Monsieur. Before we start, could I, ah, offer you a change of clothes.”
The dragon slowly blinks at her.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then,” Furina says, award-winning smile never faltering for a second. “Make yourself comfortable, Monsieur. Today’s tale comes from the records of Sir Jean-Claude Raymond, recalling the rampage of the Basilic.”
It takes Furina five days and one water-sodden ancient manuscript to finally convince the dragon to move their nightly storytelling sessions somewhere drier.
The Palais staff had set up a small sitting area by the hearth so that she could keep herself warm as she regales him with tales of his kind. It had taken great effort to reassure the frightened staff members that it was perfectly safe to come in and no, the dragon would not bite or breathe fire at them as long as they kept a wide berth from his bathroom lair.
Would a Hydro Dragon even breathe fire? Furina looks over to the bathroom where she sees a single violet eye peer curiously through a crack in the door. If all went according to plan, she would (hopefully) never have to find out.
The dragon perches awkwardly on the velveteen sofa, as though uncertain how to present himself on land. When he had first come clambering into the Palais Mermonia, Furina had put his awkwardness down to inexperience. It had been nearly two weeks since then. If she wanted to introduce him to the rest of Fontaine she would have to figure out how best to get him accustomed to living on dry ground.
She meets his wandering gaze, then, certain she has his attention, she crosses one leg over the other and straightens her back.
He stares at her, the look in his eyes unreadable. Then he lowers his legs to the floor and waits for her to begin.
“Today’s tale is not technically about a dragon, but of a great and terrible beast that once plagued the Gevaudan region.”
Furina studies his posture between lines. She would have to work on that slouch, but the rest of it was acceptable for the time being. He was still far from willing to be seen by any human apart from herself. But he would have to be for her plan to work.
We will need actors of the highest calibre for our opera, and who would be better suited to judge the heavens than an Elemental Sovereign?
“Our tale begins on a dark and stormy night, 200 years before the end of Egeria’s rule. From the little pastoral region of Gevaudan to the South of Fontaine came rumours of a large wolf-like beast mutilating villagers and sparing their livestock.
“Now Gevaudan is situated high above the treeline, in the mountains, where the climate is arid and cool but the land is too harsh to grow crops. The humble villagers eked out a living by taking their sheep and their crafts to trade with the settlements below.
“It was on one such occasion that the beast first struck. A young boy by the name of Laurent was the first to fall victim to the beast’s maw. He was clawed up and down, till his body was unrecognisable to everyone but his mother who had raised him on her own for 10 years.
“As the days grew colder, the beast only grew more violent. By the onset of winter thirty lives had been lost in this manner and none of the villagers dared to leave their village for fear of being attacked.
“With no sign of the attacks stopping, an old man, regarded as the wisest in the village, sent a plea by dove to the town below, in hopes that news of their plight would eventually make it to the king who would take pity on them and send the royal army to their aid.”
The dragon’s brows furrow, perplexed.
“Is something the matter?” Furina asks.
He hums contemplatively. “You’ve mentioned these people of ‘Village’ across several of your stories now. Am I right to assume that there are multiple settlements across Fontaine named ‘Village’?”
The question catches Furina off guard, but only for a nanosecond. “Ah Monsieur, you have my humblest apologies. I have made the mistake of assuming that other species structured their societies as humans did.
“Allow me to explain.”She continues, “‘Village’, ‘town’, ‘city’, and ‘capitol’ each refer to a different type of human settlement. We differentiate them by the size of their population— villages are typically smaller communes of people who coexist with rural technologies while towns are bigger and more developed and so on.”
Her explanation was shaky at best. She never had to question why society was the way it was. She just…knew.
She wonders if she’s failed when she sees the dragon’s frown deepen.“Why is it important then to make the distinction between a town and a village?” he asks. “Fish make no distinction between lake and sea. What makes creatures of the land so ready to define themselves by arbitrary borders?”
He was far more intelligent than she had anticipated. Furina lets her silence drag out as she ponders the answer to a question she has never asked herself.
She chances a glance at him, only to see him watching her with the same keen gaze. Would admitting her own ignorance endear her to him in some way? A dozen scenarios play through her head, but frustratingly, she cannot see an easy way forward.
“That’s just human nature,” she starts. “As is the case in most species, humans have a tendency to delineate other human beings into categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. I’m sure one more versed in the science of anthropology than myself would be able to better answer your question. But from my personal observations, as their unyielding and devoted Archon, picking a ‘side’ and sticking to it is how human society has managed to survive thus far.”
The dragon looks down to his feet, saying nothing.
“If you’d like, Monsieur, I could summon one of Fontaine’s foremost professors of anthropology to answer your questions.”
“That will not be necessary. Your explanation will suffice. Please continue.”
Still unwilling to speak with other human beings. But she felt a pressure lift off her chest. He was beginning to show interest in other people. That was a start.
Within the next two weeks the dragon had learned, and become quite adept at, his letters.
Furina watches as he studiously copies from a dictionary she had procured for him, inking each letter into his parchment with careful precision. It was still early into their relationship, but she was starting to think things might work out.
At his request, she has books delivered directly to his apartments from the Palais library. And once he has consumed those, she gives him his own key so he may access the library whenever he wishes.
Once he had stumbled across a poaching case, which led them to a discussion on the concepts of property and ownership.
She explained that it was an extension of the human need to make themselves distinct from others. One’s possessions may come to become part of their identity. What was a baker without his bakery or a farmer without her farmland or—
“Think of it as a hoard of treasure,” she says, and his eyes quite literally light up when she does. “As a dragon yourself, you would be more than capable of defending what is yours from thieves, but as more people come together in a community, we can’t have all of them fighting each other on the streets over their possessions. That’s why we have laws and codices, so the Court can decide what belongs to whom in a civilised manner.”
The dragon lets out an amused puff of air, as he’s wont to do when Furina describes one of the more arbitrary aspects of human society to him.
“How does a stranger know any better whom an object belongs to?”
Furina grins. “Why, that’s why we hold trials, Monsieur. To let each party duel with words, instead of weapons, for the right to take back what is theirs.”
“Trials,” the dragon repeats.
Seeing her chance, Furina says, “If you like, the tribunal will be hearing such a case at one of the lesser courthouses in the city. I don’t normally show up for such minor hearings, but I could make an exception for the sake of your enrichment.”
“And,” Furina adds tantalisingly, “I have my own private box, so no one will disturb us.”
“Were all these…frills really necessary.” The dragon tugs at the loose shirt covering his scales and fins. Furina made a mental note to have a full set of clothing tailored for him by the end of the week.
“It’s what our station asks of us, Monsieur,” she replies cheerily, checking her make-up for the seventh time that night.
“And what station would that be?”
“Well, I’m the closest thing to royalty in the Court. And you’re my plus one. So we both have to look the part. Keep your jacket on, I can see your scales through your sleeves.”
The dragon grumbles but does as she says.
They are shown to their private box by a curious attendant. She spends a little too long staring at the tall, striking man with the piercing gaze and hair the colour of moonlight for the dragon’s comfort. Furina sends her off with a smile before the dragon has a chance to snap at her.
“We really should have done something more with your hair,” she mutters, bringing the silvery locks together into a loose braid. “Hold still.” Pulling a ribbon off her hat, she ties the ends together. “There. Now you’re much less likely to draw their attention.”
Both of them knew this was far from the case, so neither of them commented on it.
The trial was as dull as she had anticipated. Such were minor property squabbles. She busies herself instead with watching the dragon, making more notes about how she would hide his more draconic features.
But as dull as the proceedings were, the dragon was enthralled. When the defendant delivered their impassioned defence for the right to own an antique music box, she had to place a firm hand on the dragon’s chest to keep him from leaning too far out of the box.
Is this what we want, other-me? Have we led him down the path to our salvation?
Three weeks later she gets her answer.
Furina looks up from some architectural plans she was supposed to approve of, half expecting an attendant to bring in her afternoon tea and cake, only to find the dragon standing before her.
He’s made an effort to dress himself, she thinks. Though if she were him she wouldn’t be caught dead pairing those slacks with that tie.
“Monsieur, you are early for our daily sessions.”
“I’m not here for that.” He hands her a form emblazoned with the emblem of the Fontainian Academy of Law and Social Sciences.
She looks at it dumbly, then back at him.
“What is this?”
“This…is an application for enrollment in the Faculty of Law at the Fontainian Academy,” he says slowly.
“Yes, I see. But why do you have this?”
“I want to study law?” His voice pitches up in confusion.
Furina leans back into her armchair, wishing she had something sweet to chew on while she tries to process this new turn of events.
“Are you aiming to become a lawyer?”
The dragon shakes his head.
“After witnessing the trial, I have been poring through the Palais archives for other such cases, and in my search I have come to the conclusion that the most glaring weakness of Fontaine’s legal system is the lack of a consistent and impartial judge. I seek to correct that.”
Furina is unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. “You mean to become a judge, no, the Chief Justice even?”
“Yes, if such a position is available. I believe my long lifespan makes me uniquely suited for the part.”
“It is what you asked of me, when you summoned me to the Court. Is it not?” The dragon sounds thoroughly bewildered now.
“I…” Furina trails off. In all honesty she didn’t know exactly what words her other self had written on that letter in a bottle so many months ago, but she was privy of enough to know that the dragon they had spent so many years searching for was now, mere months of his introduction to the Court, willingly asking for the role the goddess had crafted for him. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
What the actual hell, Furina thinks to herself. But outwardly, she tries to project some of her usual bluster. “I see! That’s wonderful to hear, Monsieur. Though if you really wanted the position of Chief Justice, I, in all my power, could simply grant it to you.”
The dragon shakes his head again.
“There is still much about the legal system I do not understand. And even more so about human beings. I appreciate all that you’ve done for me, but I believe that interacting with humans on a more regular basis will be…beneficial in the long term.” He grits his teeth on ‘beneficial’.
“Even so, only the nobility or those with great wealth have access to higher education. Do you have a guarantor?”
The dragon meets her eyes. In sharp contrast to his element, there is a fire burning in them.
“I have you.”
In his words there was not a trace of uncertainty, and why would there be? She muses. He knows he’s where she wants him. Truly, she did not envy anyone who would go against him in court.
Well, he is a dragon after all. Give him something to covet. Something to possess. Something to protect. A treasure.
Was this enough? Would he be willing to play her game for as long as it takes for her to win?
Furina unfurls the plans on her desk, and beckons him to her side.
“These are the plans for the as-of-yet incomplete Opera Epiclese. Lady Egeria had it constructed as a symbol of Fontaine’s resolve to judge all in her lands fairly. But since its inauguration, it has seen centuries of trials, and now is in a state far removed from its former glory.”
She runs a hand over the fine linework, drawing the dragon’s attention to the Oratrice Mecanique D’Analyse Cardinale in the center of the opera house’s stage, then higher to the judges seat. “Should you succeed in your endeavours, this will be the seat promised to you. You will overlook not just the attorneys, the defendants, and their accusers, but all of the jury. All of the drama, the human spectacle, will be in your hands.”
Furina turns away from the plans to look him in the eye. With more honesty than she’s mustered in the past century, she says to him and him alone, “Please treat them with clemency.”
The dragon’s eyes widened a fraction. “I will.”
“Now then.” Furina plants her hands on her hips, mask back on. “You’ll need a human name for yourself for the registration papers. The rest of the administrative work will be handled by my illustrious self.”
The dragon rolls his eyes. Now where had he learned sass. “If you would do the honours.”
Furina balks. “But Monsieur, wouldn’t you like to pick a name for yourself? This is a rare opportunity to define yourself and the journey you’re to embark on.”
He considers her words. “In my reading I’ve come across a children’s story about two mice—one from the countryside and one from a town.”
“And which do you see yourself in?”
“I am a creature who has left every comfort he has ever known to immerse himself in a city where no one knows of his origins.”
Furina feels a real, unrehearsed smile pull at the corners of her lips.
“You shall be Neuvillette, then. The town mouse on his way to become the greatest judge Fontaine has ever known.”
The dragon—Neuvillette—smiles back. “Would that make ‘de Fontaine’, my family name?”
“Erm—well, taking on someone else’s family name bears certain connotations in many nations of Teyvat.” Furina coughs into her fist to hide the blush threatening to creep across her face. “‘Neuvillette’ shall be your family name. As for your given name…”
She gives it a thought, then scribbles something down on the form.
“Voilà! You are ready to be enrolled.” Holding out a hand to him, she says, “Welcome to Fontaine, Monsieur Neuvillette.”
Neuvillette takes it, and bowing low, he places a light kiss on the back of her hand.
“It is an honour to serve you, Madame Furina.”