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“I love you”
Three words. Said with such a sickening sincerity Arlecchino fears she may throw up. It wasn't her who said them but they were directed in her direction. And it sickened her, no one should love a woman like her. Blood stained her hands and tainted anyone she touched. Yet the man behind her spoke the words as if she meant something. As if she wasn't a cursed woman and was in fact a blessing and it had her pausing where she was.
Body tensing with a click of her heel as she placed her foot down from where it was initially stepping. It took her a moment to completely process the words spoken to her before she turns.
A blur of white and black as she turned to stare at the body that housed the voice she had become so familiar with. Her body acts on instinct, lunging forward to grab at the white neck piece of the man. Her nails tore the fabric as the distance between them closed.
Through gritted teeth she spoke, “Take that back unless you wish to die with a lie on your lips”
Silence follows. Thickened by one sided tension as the man, Neuvillette, stood with a serene calm. It frustrated her. It wasn't meant to lead to this. The situation they had been in had been mutually beneficial and wasn't meant to form into anything outside of casual. Even a high ranking fatui member knew when to indulge but it wasn't meant to lead to those three words so why now.
The longer Neuvillette stays quiet the more unwanted feelings pool into the base of her throat as she searches those eyes for something. Arlecchino isn't sure what she's searching for. Regret? Fear? She doesnt know but what she doesnt want is the sincerity that is at the forefront of them.
“I mean it. I understand that I shouldn't, anyone with any semblance of a brain would realise the same but I find myself at your whim. You hold not only power and blood on those hands of yours, not anymore, it's up to you what you do with it.”
Arlecchino wasn't a fool. She understood what his words meant. Those hands he speaks of loosen on the fabric of his clothing, unexplainable emotions weakening her joints and her mind. For maybe the first time in years Arlecchino finds herself at a loss. Such simple words spoken with such a serious tone and no fear over who she is.
A step is taken before she can even process her own actions. The gentle ‘tink’ of her heel on the ground is what makes her realise she's the one that created the space between them.
“You can't.”
“I have.”
“Then stop it.”
“I don't want to. I understand your hesitance. And I do not wish to initiate anything further between us. I just needed to share my own thoughts with you before you left fontaine.”
She hadn't said anything about leaving. That was information only she needed and only she required, how he could possibly know is beyond her. Her eyebrows furrowed in ever growing frustration. Not only at Neuvillette but also herself.
How those three words had shook her to her core, left her unstable and irrational.
“The way you held me last night, if you could even call it that. You handled me like you were trying to stuff yourself full. I am no fool, Arlecchino, I know the hold of people as well as the next. That was not the hold of a woman simply scratching an itch, that was fueling a fire, one of prolonged separation.”
He had grown too close to her it seems. She allowed herself to indulge in him for too long and too many times and now he understood her shape and her ridges. This was brought on herself. She should have kept it bedbound. How foolish of her to assume someone who's been alive as long as he has to be stupid to the habits of humans.
Almost defeated, she stands up straight. Clearing her throat but not yet speaking. Allowing silence to lap over them. Thick and still uncomfortable, at least for Arlecchino. To ease her mind further she moved towards the railing that separates her from the floor below. Her gaze fixes to the fountain below.
“You are a dumb man. The dumbest man I have ever come across.”
That seems to make Neuvillette falter. She heard it in his steps, the way they fall out of pattern for a second before they resume their pace to join her at her side.
Her hands find themselves on the coolness of the railing. A welcome freeze on her palms compared to the heat of her body.
“If that is what you would like to believe.”
“You cannot, you know that.”
“I do.”
“To love me is to betray your country.”
“.. yes”
There's a breathlessness to the way Neuvillette replies there. He's aware of her words' truth, had been before he even faced her, but to have them out in the air was a completely different reality.
“My country is very dear to me.”
“Then you cannot.”
Silence lapses. That should be the end of it. Is the end of it. Nothing else will come from their ‘bond’. Whatever love Neuvillette had in his heart will have to burn out and rot while she herself wouldn't step foot in Fontaine again until the tsaritsa calls for it.
“Do not die. Wherever it is you have to go. If ever you need it my house, and my bed, are open. I cherish our time together. I do hope it's something more than just seeking something indulgent in your heart someday.”
And that truly marks the end of it. The rhythmic tap of heel and cane carry off into the still morning sunrise as Neuvillette departs. Arlecchino stays where she stands. Staring down at the fountain still as nails dig into railings, leaving a scar of today into the pristine metal. Pushing herself away from the metal she departs. Fontaine would be left alone for a while and so too would be whatever happened between the hydro dragon and the knave.
Back turned to the city of Fontaine it rained hard against Arlecchino's back. Though the rain does not carry its usual sorrow, instead those pellets of water are laced with rage.
The rain soaked into Arlecchino's skin. And only then did she reply to what Neuvillette said before he left.
“Maybe in another life, my hydro dragon.”