Chapter Text
“I’m going to get drunk!” This was Furina’s declaration half an hour ago. Clorinde had thought it unwise, but before she could say anything to that effect, Furina continued with: “I’m sure you’ll keep me from hurting myself, right Clorinde?”
The way she had asked, like the assumption was a given, made Clorinde hesitate in admonishing her. Of course she would keep Furina safe. It was no longer her contractual obligation, but Clorinde wouldn’t falter in her duty. If anything, Furina was more in need of protection now that she wasn’t divine. And given the depressive state she had been in following her trial, Clorinde would much rather Furina abuse alcohol under her watchful eye than alone.
That was the other aspect of why Clorinde let Furina pursue her goal of getting drunk. During one of Furina’s more hopeful moments, as they unpacked the boxes of her possessions in her little apartment, Furina had confided in Clorinde the many things she wanted to try now that she was a mere human. Things like going grocery shopping, cooking her own food, or taking the aquabus. She was excited about those mundane little parts of life Clorinde took for granted.
Furina wasn’t one to ask for help, even when she needed it. Her pride and trauma prevented her from appearing weak. But Clorinde had worked alongside Furina for enough years to read between the lines. “I already have a shopping list of what ingredients I intend to buy, but out of curiosity, what do you put on yours, Clorinde?” Furina sought Clorinde’s help in roundabout ways. Her current experiment with alcohol was no different.
Thus, Clorinde let Furina drink a third and then a fourth glass of wine before catching Furina’s wrist as she reached for the bottle again. “You’ve had plenty.”
“I think I should have one more, just to be zhure,” Furina argued. Already her speech was slurring.
Clorinde didn’t release her. “Four is more than enough for someone of your body size.”
One of their friends from across the table, a tall man with a curled mustache, lent her his support too. “I’ve only had three glasses, and I’m feeling a bit impaired. Don’t make yourself sick, Lady Furina.”
Furina wagged an accusing finger at him. “It’s Miss Furina now.”
“Ah! I apologize. Force of habit.” The man laughed easily and Furina smiled. She was soon drawn into an enthusiastic discussion about a recent opera and left her empty wine glass forgotten on the blue tablecloth.
Clorinde watched on with placid satisfaction. Her plan to get Furina out into the world again was turning out to be quite a success. Furina was afraid no one needed her anymore, so Clorinde had organized a small party with some mutual friends at the Hotel Debord. Seeing them smile and talk with Furina, showing genuine interest in what she had to say, avoiding the subject of Focalors and the prophecy- Clorinde couldn’t have hoped for any better.
The night was growing late. The candelabra in the center of the table dripped with wax. The food had come and gone, and so had many of the other guests in the restaurant. All that remained was wine and pleasant conversation. Clorinde had never been a night person, but there were exceptions to every rule. If Furina wanted to stay longer, that took precedent. Now that she was drunk, Clorinde couldn’t very well abandon her either. She would not be going to bed until she made sure Furina was safely in her own.
A woman off to Clorinde’s right drew her attention away. “Clorinde, whatever happened with that thief who hid a throwing knife in his boot when he dueled you? I missed the trial.”
The man next to her chimed in with equal interest. “Surely they added another charge because of that, no?”
“Yes, I had to testify.” Clorinde nodded and explained further, answering their questions. Even without Furina in the equation, it was always nice to talk to one’s friends.
They were interrupted halfway through their discussion by the scrape of a chair being pushed back. Clorinde turned to find Furina with a knee on the lip of the table, about to climb up on top of it. A fifth, half-empty wine glass trembled nearby. Clorinde cursed her own negligence.
“I’m going to sing you all a song!” Furina exclaimed. The men and women around the table exhibited a range of reactions. Some were shocked, some amused, some steadied the drinks as the surface shook beneath them, and some encouraged Furina to get down. Clorinde was fully in that final group, more panicked than the rest combined.
She grasped Furina by the hips as she tried to lift her other leg. “Furina, sit down! You’re going to fall and hurt yourself!”
“Don't worry! You’ll keep me safe, Clorinde.” She said it with complete certainty as she struggled to pull away. It was touching the amount of faith she had in Clorinde’s abilities, but Clorinde was not a miracle worker. She was also a lot stronger than Furina.
Furina tumbled back into her seat. Clorinde swiftly moved her hand up to the back of the chair to stop Furina’s head from colliding with the wood frame. “I’ll keep you safe by not letting you put yourself in danger,” Clorinde chastised. She took Furina’s wine glass and moved it out of her reach. “Why did you drink more?”
“Cuz it makes me feel happy!” Furina groaned. The way she spoke made it seem like Clorinde had just committed the very height of betrayal. Furina pouted petulantly, sticking out her bottom lip and furrowing her brow in anger. It was impossible to take her seriously.
Clorinde glanced around. Their friends were tactful enough to at least pretend to be interested in their own reinitiated conversations. She doubted they would judge Furina harshly regardless. Even so, it would be better if Furina’s first outing wasn’t a thoroughly embarrassing one.
“Furina, it’s time we call it a night. I’ll walk you home.” Clorinde stood and pushed in her chair.
Furina sank lower in her seat and crossed her arms. “I’m not tired yet.”
A few of the others at the table also started the farewell process, finishing their drinks and getting up. “Miss Furina, it is getting late,” one woman said. Clorinde shot her an appreciative look.
“But I wan-ed to sssing,” Furina mumbled. Her eyes flicked about, watching everyone else leaving their seats. She glanced up at Clorinde again, unspoken anxiety in her mismatched eyes. Her next words were spoken softly, such that Clorinde had to bend down to hear her. “Do they not want me to sing?”
Clorinde was at a loss. She felt that if she gave the wrong response, Furina might cry and then the entire night would be for nothing. But Furina had looked to her for reassurance, so Clorinde had to find a suitable answer. “Everyone’s tired. It wouldn’t be fair to your beautiful voice if you sang now, because no one could fully appreciate it.”
Furina squinted at her, not fully accepting the lie. Clorinde quickly offered a compromise. “You can sing to me as we walk back to your apartment. How does that sound?”
That made her perk up immediately. “You still appr-eeshiate my voice, Clorinde?”
“I do.”
It wasn’t a lie either. Clorinde had always liked listening to Furina sing. No one in Fontaine could rival her, though in their defense, no one else had five hundred years of practice. Sometimes, when the wind carried just right, Clorinde could hear Furina’s lilting voice drifting down to the sparring grounds from an open window in the Palais Mermonia. It made her duels feel a little more like dances- a welcome variation.
Furina hopped up from her chair and nearly lost her balance. Clorinde caught her in her arms. “Mn, thanks,” Furina hummed absently. She repositioned herself to wrap around one of Clorinde’s arms, hugging it close to her chest. “Clorinde,” she murmured into her shoulder, “Clorinde, I love you.”
“I shouldn’t have let you drink so much.” Clorinde sighed, lamenting her own failure. “Now you’re just saying whatever random thing pops into your head.”
Furina didn’t reply, apparently content to be silent. Clorinde rather wished she would spout off another ridiculous statement to prove her hypothesis correct. Because if it was just the one… then a person might start to wonder.
--
The walk down the Vasari Passage wasn’t as difficult as Clorinde feared it would be. Furina stumbled along, but she was so firmly latched on to Clorinde that there was never much of a risk of her falling. It was also late enough that very few pedestrians were still on the streets to be distracted by their former archon drunkenly serenading the city.
The nearly full moon cast its pale light down from high overhead. The shops the two women passed by were closed up, their interiors dark. A cat bounded across the cobblestones at one point, distracting Furina from her song, but it vanished into a dark alley and Furina just continued on with a slightly more mournful tone to her voice.
Even intoxicated, Furina’s singing would put most professionals to shame. Her pitch varied more than it should, and she placed emphasis on certain syllables for no discernable reason, but her sheer talent still produced a sweet melody. Furina had chosen to sing an obscure ballad about a magician’s apprentice and a little fish. Clorinde found herself not just tolerating it, but enjoying it, such that she was almost disappointed when they arrived at Furina’s building and the last few verses were cut short.
Clorinde let them in through the front door and later into the specific apartment down the hall with the keys Furina had given her. Then it was just a short journey through the cramped little living room to the equally tiny bedroom. Furina’s bed took up most of the floor space. A small mountain of plush marine animals took up the rest. A giant blubberbeast pillow, lumpy from years of love, gazed down from its place on the bed like a monarch surveying its subjects. Clorinde carefully stepped between an octopus and a seahorse and deposited Furina onto the mattress.
“I’m going to go now, okay Furina?” Clorinde attempted to gently tug her arm free, but Furina dug her fingers into the sleeve.
“Clorinde, my head hurds,” she moaned, still not letting go. Her differently colored eyes watered with unshed tears.
“That’s what happens when you drink too much,” Clorinde replied. “Sleeping will help.” She tried to peel Furina’s fingers away, but as soon as she removed one hand and moved to the other, the first would latch back on. Why was she being so difficult? “Furina, you have to let me go.”
“I wan you t’stay,” Furina protested.
“I’ll come in the morning and make you breakfast.” Clorinde was finding the notion of just yanking her arm away more and more appealing.
Furina shook her head vehemently and then whined in pain, screwing her eyes shut. When she recovered from her discomfort, she clutched Clorinde’s arm even tighter. “You should zhtay. Then you c’n make breakfast fasder.” Furina’s words were growing more and more incomprehensible. “You c’n even hold Lord Bubbles if you wan…”
Clorinde glanced at the blubberbeast. Even if she did want to hug the pillow for some reason, she wasn’t about to rob Furina of what was clearly her sleeping companion. Though she supposed the offer did show just how serious Furina was about not wanting her to leave. Clorinde sighed and stopped fighting her futile war against Furina’s fingers. “What’s wrong, Furina?”
All the energy seemed to leave Furina’s small body now that she was being called out. Her shoulders drooped and her grip weakened. She stared down into her lap, her bangs covering her eyes. “I don’t wan to be alone,” Furina whispered. “I have nightmares.” She sniffed and let out a quiet whimper. “I’m scared.”
For the second time that night, Clorinde didn’t know what to do. She had always had an inkling that Furina didn’t sleep well. Every once in a while, when Furina was still the archon, Clorinde would dash to her room in the middle of the night, having been woken by a panicked scream. But Furina always wore a smile when the door opened, or more often, just pretended to be asleep. Finally receiving the admission made Clorinde’s heart twist painfully, thinking of all the times she hadn’t been able to help Furina in the past.
“How can I help?” she finally asked.
“Zleep next to me,” Furina said. “I feel safe wiz you.” She retracted her hands and hugged herself tightly. Her frame shook. With a start, Clorinde realized she was crying. “I won’ do anything weird. I promize.” She sniffed again. “I love you, but I’m… I’m not like that.”
Clorinde deeply regretted letting Furina drink. There was no conceivable way to brush her words off as just intoxicated ramblings. This came from deep inside of her, an uninhibited honesty she would never let anyone see were she sober. It felt like a violation of her trust to even hear it. Even more unforgivable was the question that slipped through Clorinde’s lips. “You love me?”
Furina nodded, curling even more into herself. “You’re zo pretty and ztrong. And I don’ have t’worry when you’re with me. And-“
“You don’t have to keep going.” Clorinde quickly cut her off, ashamed it had taken even that long for her to do so. She shouldn’t have asked for clarification. She should have ignored it and pretended she hadn’t heard. She should have blotted it from her memory. But Clorinde didn’t do any of those things, and now she knew. Furina was in love with her.
That… complicated many things. Most importantly, it complicated the present moment. Clorinde didn’t mind staying the night with Furina. She was actually surprised by how quickly she had given in to the idea. But it would be irresponsible of her to do so given that Furina was drunk. The admission of her feelings might also make anything Clorinde did seem like a reciprocation. Anything other than exiting the situation would leave the door open for misunderstandings and hurt.
“Clorinde, please.” Furina finally looked up at her then, eyes full of fear and vulnerability. Her cheeks dripped with pearly tears in the darkness. Clorinde was instantly reminded of the trial- of Furina weeping alone on her throne. How dearly she had wished in that moment that she could carry her out of the courtroom and at the very least let her cry in peace. She had felt rather useless then. She didn’t have to be useless now.
“I’ll stay.”
Furina nodded and turned to crawl further onto the bed, grabbing her blubberbeast to drag along with her. When at last she collapsed onto the pillows with a shaky sigh, she wrapped her arms and legs around the giant plush, squeezing it in a death grip. Clorinde had barely stretched out and gotten comfortable beside her before the sounds of light snoring filled the room.
Sleep did not come so easily to Clorinde. She lay awake for another hour. Maybe two. She stared absently up at the ceiling. There was suddenly a lot on her mind.