Work Text:
"Daddy, daddy, who is that?" The little blonde girl pointed at the statue in front of the Opera Epiclese. It looked like a very imposing man, tall, long-haired, with a stylish cane, though in Navia’s eyes, his expression seemed somehow... sad. She could see it even in monochrome. It didn’t match the rest of the image.
"That’s Monsieur Neuvillette, piccina. Years ago, he was the Iudex of Fontaine, our nation’s Chief Justice."
"But he isn’t anymore?" the girl asked, her eyes wide as she gazed up with wonder. Couldn’t really explain it but felt drawn to the person carved in stone from the moment she set foot into the square.
"Well, no one has been chosen to replace him, so in a way, he is still our Iudex," her father patiently explained, clearly accustomed to her curious nature. "But one day, he simply vanished, and to this moment, no one knows what happened to him. This statue was the only thing Monsieur Neuvillette left behind."
"What?!" young Navia exclaimed, outraged by the unexpected turn of events. "And no one went looking for him? That’s so sad!"
Besides, making a statue of himself, leaving it in front of the Opera House, and then embarking on a mysterious journey? Even to a seven-year-old, that seemed like a strange sequence of events.
"What can I say, biscottina, the Marechaussee Phantom probably tried, but if someone as capable as Monsieur Neuvillette doesn’t want to be found, there’s nothing you can do about it."
*~*~*
As the years went by, Navia frequently returned to the lonely statue standing in front of the Opera House. Sometimes, she would go there to think, other times to sit in its shade, and occasionally, she would shout her troubles at its face in the middle of the night. Yes, she understood it was just a statue, and couldn't possibly offer any advice, but oddly enough, sharing her joys and sorrows with it had a magical property of easing her heart.
After all, there was no one else she could turn to for comfort.
Her mother passed away. Her father died in some ridiculous duel accused of a crime he didn’t commit.
At the tender age of sixteen Navia found herself alone in the world – in a way her teenage mind blamed Monsieur Neuvillette for that.
"It was your law that took papà away!" she cried one night, her trembling fist feebly striking the base of the statue. "If you were here, you could have stopped it! But now...! Now... my whole family is gone..." the girl sobbed, her tears soaking into the stone.
However, despite her supposed hatred, the blonde didn't stop visiting the enigmatic statue in front of the Opera House.
*~*~*
Dragons are used to loneliness.
When you live so long that centuries pass in the blink of an eye, the passage of time becomes a trivial concept. What difference does it make if something takes an hour, a day, or a month when such durations are mere drops in the vast ocean of life?
People come and go, nature grows, dies, and evolves, but water remains unchanged. It flows forever, altering its form, continuing its journey, yet always returning to its original source to begin the cycle all over again.
It’s both a constant and a monotony.
In this way, water was the greatest comfort and truest companion to Neuvillette, the Hydro Dragon.
Only water could understand his struggles and only water walked the same path – their relationship was as perfect as it could be... If only he could see. Witness the beauty of the endless blue, praised in poems or songs of old – then their bond would be complete, and understanding shall be reached, for can you truly claim a companion without witnessing all their sides and accepting them regardless?
Neuvillette might have been one of the strongest beings in Teyvat, but that didn’t exempt him from the curse borne by this world.
The vibrance of life
Will only come to light
When you cast away strife
And let your soul take flight
When your counterpart
Shall grant you what you lack
What you wished for deep at heart
And repair what has cracked
The dullness of the sky and earth
Will fade and disappear
Fate will bring rebirth
And colours become clear
The power of two will drive away your fear
No one knew when exactly the song was created, but the curse itself existed since the dawn of Teyvat. Some legends even went as far as to call it a blessing instead – its weird properties were honestly hard to classify. The inability to see colours didn’t seem like such a big deal, but at the same time, those who had their curse lifted all claimed that living in monochrome was incomparable to experiencing the true vibrancy of the world. Only meeting your fated soulmate could free you from this predicament and the profoundness of this whole endeavour made the bonds between newfound soulmates all the stronger.
If the first colour you ever see in your life is the colour of someone’s eyes or hair, it leaves an impression. Becomes an experience you never forget.
The thing is, Neuvillette simply didn’t consider he, too, shall suffer from the effects of the curse. That meant he also had a soulmate somewhere out there and that sounded utterly ridiculous. He didn’t need any other creature to feel complete! He, the Hydro Dragon, would bend the knee before no one, not Celestia, not Archons and most certainly not before any human.
However, as years passed by and the youthful rebellion dissipated from the Iudex's veins, he came to realise his mistake. Humans, who so passionately searched for their other halves and strove to better their lives were not to be resented or ridiculed – instead, they deserved admiration.
They should have been given a chance – even if his beloved friends ended up destroyed by their traitorous hands.
Yet knowing something and feeling it didn't necessarily coincide.
So on that fateful night, when the harsh reality sank in, and Neuvillette acknowledged he lost Carole and Vautrin for good, the man left the Opera Epiclese to allow himself a moment of grief. He cried and cried and cried some more, tears flowed incessantly down his cheeks as he gazed at the lonely moon. Unaware that losing this much water could prove fatal for a Hydro Dragon.
Before the sky clouded over and his sorrow brought rain upon the earth, ancient magic flashed to life called upon by the self-preservation instinct. His body instantly petrified. Water turned to stone.
And the Iudex of Fontaine was no more for years to come.
*~*~*
Neuvillette sometimes wondered: which would be the greater torment? To slumber for centuries unawares, or to witness everything yet remain powerless to act? There were moments when he yearned for oblivion – unable to break free from the spell and forced to watch life go by. But... the day a young curly-haired girl started visiting him, things began to change. Cogs, standing still for years and years, once again began to move.
She was a coward, but she got brave.
She was a brat, but she gained class.
She was powerless, but she seized strength.
She was happy, but she fell into despair.
Every time she visited his world expanded and grew. His thoughts cleared, his sealed magic stirred, and his eyes could finally see.
Briefly, only to be plunged back into monochrome to the sound of her departing footsteps, but he didn't care.
He collected these experiences like shells on the beach and tucked them away in the safe confines of his heart. A hint of green, a flicker of red. A burst of yellow and gold—each mesmerizing in its radiance. But never blue. The colour he longed for the most remained elusive – couldn't be free from the curse just as he couldn’t step down from the stone pedestal and offer comfort to the girl who filled his existence with tales, laughter, and woes.
Showed all sides of humanity the Hydro Dragon always struggled to grasp.
His heart wept for her, as often did the skies of Fontaine.
But that was as far as his solace could go.
*~*~*
"What's it like to see colours?" Navia sat on the stone stairs, gazing at the dancing figures of Coppelia and Coppelius. Their metal "armour" shined in the setting sun - in her eyes with piercing, blinding white; it was painful to watch. She caught Clorinde off guard with her question. The woman frowned in response.
"What?"
"I already asked Lumine, but she got embarrassed and ran away."
"Miss Lumine sees colours?" The duellist arched an eyebrow sceptically.
"Of course she does," Navia snorted, as if her friend asked a silly question. A friend, huh? It felt good to call her that again. To solve the case and finally clear her father’s name. If there is a heaven, you can rest now, papà. Take mamma on a date, enjoy the sights, indulge in good food and wine and don’t worry about me anymore. Because strangely enough, deep within her soul, the blonde felt that eventually, everything would be fine. "Why do you think that Harbinger didn’t destroy the whole Opera House after we sentenced him without any evidence and just let himself get captured the second Lumi came on stage?"
"Now that's quite a twist," Clorinde whistled, leaning against the railing.
"She calls him an 'idiot carrot' when she thinks no one's listening, so it's not all that surprising," Navia chuckled. "So? How is it for you?"
The hunter fell silent for a moment, focusing entirely on the dancing robots, before letting out a sigh and finally speaking up.
"When did you notice?"
A-ha!
Well, Clorinde wasn’t as sneaky as she thought herself to be. In the way of the hunt? Certainly. But when it came to social situations? Not so much.
"It was just before... everything happened," Navia hesitated, still finding it difficult to speak openly about her father's execution, but noticing that the topic didn't quite leave her as breathless as before. “I was still young, they sent you on some errand to the Fortress of Meropide, and you complained about it like no tomorrow, but don't think I didn't notice you came back completely changed. Your movements became smoother, and your instincts got sharper – everyone watching your duels wondered how you managed to improve so rapidly, but it was someone you met down there, wasn't it? You suddenly started seeing the world as it was supposed to be – and that made you ten times more deadly." Deadly enough to kill Callas without breaking a sweat.
"Wriothesley, he... He wears so much black, at first I didn’t even realise colours returned to me. He, on the other hand, noticed right away. Stared at me with such wonder I considered challenging him to a duel out of annoyance," Clorinde laughed. It was an unexpectedly endearing response from someone many viewed as cold and impassive.
"No way," Navia gasped, amused.
"Luckily, we settled on a cup of tea. But the colours... when I returned to the surface that day, seeing the sunset over the water took my breath away. After you get your colours back the world is never the same again, and the draw you feel towards the person that made that happen is irresistible. They are your miracle, after all."
Miracle...
"Miracle, huh?" Navia pondered quietly, resting her chin on her knees. "Maybe that's what I need. What we all need right now."
A helping hand to save Fontaine from the prophecy. They couldn’t just leave everything to the outsiders, could they? Lumine was a force to be reckoned with, but who knew what she would do if anything were to happen to that missing Harbinger...
The girl suddenly sprang to her feet and slapped her cheeks. The hit left red marks, but she paid them no mind – she needed that energy and confidence boost.
"Where are you going?" Clorinde called after her, but Navia only shook her head, already marching towards the Opera Epiclese.
"I'm off to find a miracle!" she shouted without glancing back.
To test a theory up till now she was too scared to verify.
*~*~*
Navia lied most of her life.
Whenever her friends and other people she was acquainted with spoke about soulmates and colour blindness the girl feigned ignorance and showed nothing but polite interest.
No one suspected a thing, not even her late parents. How could they? She never mentioned the mysterious power of the statue in front of the Opera Epiclese—one that, as she noticed, seemed to affect her alone.
Because when she drew near, Navia occasionally glimpsed something else amongst the blacks, whites and greys. The gold of her parasol, the blue of the sky, the pink of Rainbow Roses. These brief moments of colour clarity never lasted long, inevitably thrusting her back into the monochrome world, but one thing she knew for sure: it wasn’t normal.
You either see colours or you don’t, you either have a soulmate or you don’t - there’s no in-between. And that realisation could only lead to one conclusion.
Now, as a determined grown-up, the woman stood in front of the statue, her gaze fixed on the stone figure of a man. She had every detail, every line of his memorised: the long flowing hair, square shoulders, chiselled jaw and noble stature. He watched her change, listened to her troubles and remained a steadfast presence through her moments of uncertainty, burdens of responsibility, and the pain of losing loved ones.
She hated him for it.
And yet, she cherished him for it.
More than ever, she wanted to finally look him in the eyes and ask what he thought witnessing her story unfold, observing her triumphs and tribulations, all the while unable to intervene.
Was she merely a source of amusement to him?
Or was she someone worth fighting for?
"Let’s meet Monsieur Neuvillette," the girl murmured, clutching a bottle of some sparkling water-like liquid in her hand. "We owe that to ourselves."
A confrontation that will either mark a tragic end or a hopeful beginning.
*~*~*
Neuvillette watched the bottle in Navia’s hand. His black-and-white vision couldn't distinguish between different kinds of liquids because they all looked the same, however in this case the Iudex sensed a mysterious power contained within the water.
How she obtained the Primordial Seawater he had no idea – neither did he know what she planned to do with it.
Certainly not drink it?
The very notion made everything inside him scream in protest.
She couldn't possibly have come here to end her own life, could she?
That didn’t fit Miss Navia's character. She brimmed with lifeforce and was no quitter – would never end up sealed in stone because of her own weaknesses. This girl was the kind of person who always found a way to rise after every setback and over time, Neuvillette began to wish he could be there to help her stand up too. Even the strongest sometimes needed a hand.
A familiar, friendly face.
A sturdy back to lean against.
A shoulder to cry on.
When did he start entertaining these foolish thoughts? The absurd idea that if he weren’t in this impossible predicament, he’d offer her all that support and even more?
The chance to confront these unknown emotions was about to present itself sooner than he anticipated. Before anyone could react, the girl swung and hurled the bottle at his face!
The glass shattered with a loud crack, shards flying in all directions, scattering around. Some cut Navia’s arm, but she didn’t even flinch. Stared at the statue with quiet anticipation.
Only ancient water could awaken an ancient dragon. She wasn’t aware of this, of course, nor of its power or Neuvillette’s heritage, but smartly deduced it was worth a try.
If something could turn a human into water, perhaps it could also transform stone? It was an educated guess—one that could either give her a soulmate or destroy the most prominent figure in Fontaine for good.
Her lip trembled, and she clenched her jaw.
Would something happen? Would nothing happen?
Neuvillette didn't need to ask these questions—he knew. The Primordial Seawater resonated with his magic in a way he had never felt before.
Something indeed happened. There was a bright flash, and storm clouds quickly gathered in the sky. The next second it was raining. Pouring down like no tomorrow. And amidst the droplets no longer stood a statue, but a man.
Navia blinked, trying to clear the rain from her eyes, and took a hesitant step back. Wasn't sure why, but she suddenly felt nervous and afraid.
Monsieur Neuvillette...
In a way, she knew him.
In a way, they were nothing more than strangers.
"Miss Navia..."
His voice was calm and deep—just as she had imagined, but even better. It was strong yet polite, providing a sense of security she hadn’t experienced since her family left her for good.
And he called my name.
He knew her name, that alone was crazy to consider.
"Hello," Navia replied uncertainly, water streaming down her hair and clothes. Suddenly, the girl felt self-conscious. It was a big day. A big moment. And she looked like a drowned rat. She averted her eyes, embarrassed, but before anxiety consumed her, the rain stopped. Literally.
She gazed in wonder at the droplets suspended in the air all around her, as if frozen in time. Glittering like pearls. Unable to contain her childlike amazement, she impulsively spread her arms and spun around, a beaming smile on her face.
That’s when their eyes finally met.
And a bond between soulmates clicked into place.
The world around them burst into colours more vibrant than ever before. The trees were green, the flowers pink, and the water blue.
Neuvillette stepped closer and, with a sense of awe, touched her hair—it sparkled in the rain like gold, thanks to the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.
He had once believed that seeing the blue of water in its myriad shades would help him achieve the ultimate satisfaction, yet now Neuvilette noticed the flaw in that reasoning. Perhaps the colour he needed to reach true fulfilment was yellow all along.
"Miss Navia, I sincerely thank you for freeing me from my curse," the Hydro Dragon said, bowing. "I couldn't have done this without you."
"No need to thank me!" she quickly waved her hands, but then regained her confidence and grinned, crossing her arms. "Don't think Spina is that selfless, though. Fontaine needs you again, Monsieur Neuvillette. It has needed you all this time," her voice trembled, tinged with suppressed resentment and condemnation. The man flinched. "But now it needs you more than ever."
And you? Do you need me too? The question hovered on the tip of his tongue but couldn't quite make its way out.
She was his soulmate—she had brought colour back into his life. Ever since she started sitting under his statue and sharing stories of her life, Navia had filled his resigned existence with curiosity, interest, and purpose, rekindling his desire to be a part of Teyvat once more.
But she was right. His absence had caused many disasters, with her father's death being one of the worst.
In another life, in another reality, where colour blindness didn't exist and his grief hadn't turned him to stone, could their relationship have taken a different path? Maybe in that imaginary world, they could have grown close from the beginning, or would his role as Iudex have driven them apart even more?
But even so, Neuvillette wanted to believe that even plagued by pain, sorrow and guilt, there was a way for them to overcome their differences and watch a dazzling sunset together.
Just like right now.
Navia glanced at the pink-orange sky, finally free of clouds, and sighed with reverie.
She shyly extended her hand and, without taking her eyes off the beautiful view, tugged on the man's sleeve. Didn’t let go.
They had much to discuss—a myriad of feelings to work through and a nation to save—but they allowed themselves a moment to breathe. To bask in the colours brought about by each other's presence.
For now, that level of closeness had to be enough. In time, though, it might just become what Clorinde described: a miracle.
Neuvillette gently took her hand and pressed a faint kiss on her fingers. They were much more calloused than he expected, a mysterious and endearing detail that made his lips curl into a tiny smile.
"Then let us go and solve the crisis, my lady. But... if we emerge victorious, perhaps we could share a cup of tea together? I... missed hearing your stories."
The blonde blushed and this time couldn’t resist looking straight into his clear blue eyes. They were disarmingly honest.
"If... if you let me bake some macaroons to go along with the tea, then I might just agree."
A barely concealed excitement twinkled in her expression, and the man simply nodded, still reverently holding her hand.
Yes... no matter the world, reality, circumstances and tragedy trying to divide them and tear them apart, these two would always find their way back to each other – that was simply fated to be.
Tied with a blue and golden string at the juncture where the earth meets the sea.