Work Text:
She awakens to yells, screams and language most foul.
“You wretch! You despicable, worthless scum! Free me this instant!”
She opens her eyes. She’s in an empty, lightless opera house. Well, lightless isn’t really true; she’s under the only active spotlight. And someone’s behind a sheet of glass, screaming at her.
It’s at that moment that she realizes two things.
One: She doesn’t know where she is.
Two: She doesn’t know who she is.
And a bonus third: She doesn’t know who’s screaming at her.
She gets up on her feet and mumbles, “What... Who...”
She realizes her voice is the same as the person behind the glass.
The other person notices it too. “So you stole my voice too...” she says with a theatrical gasp. “Planning a perfect act, are we?”
She’s gotten positively sick of her. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want from me, but shut up for a minute! I need to think.”
The lady in glass seems taken aback at this. Then she laughs, a shrill sound that gives her the creeps. “Ahahahahahaha! You forgot? The transfer made you forget? Oh, this is rich! Hahahahahahahahaha!”
She walks up to the glass and punches it. “I said shut up!” That’s when she realizes something else.
It’s not a glass box the other woman’s inside.
It’s a mirror.
The other person is inside a mirror.
“You... How did you get in there?”
The other woman puts a hand to her chest. Now that she notices it, the dress exposes it quite a bit. It’s slightly distracting. “Why, haven’t I been saying it all along? You put me here, you plucky mortal heroine. Overthrew the evil goddess of water like it was nothing and took her image for yourself, for whatever deluded reason you might have had. Except now you don’t remember a thing! Which probably includes the way to get me out of here.”
That... sounds right. She can’t explain why, but the information she just learned feels correct, in a way. Which is, of course, immediately suspicious due to the “goddess” admitting to being malevolent. Crossing her arms, she asks, “Why would you tell me that, then, if you’re so evil?”
“Because you’re not going to survive living as me! Obviously.”
“And what makes you think that?”
She spreads her arms wide. “You’re powerless, baby!” the woman yells out, before lowering her head and staring into the girl’s eyes. She continues with a lower voice, “A mortal can only roleplay as a god until the first wrinkle on their face, or the first prayer for a miracle, or the first challenger to the throne. You’ll be outed in an instant and my loyal followers will put an end to your foolish reign. I’ll just need to wait, and as an immortal, that’s no difficult task.”
The girl understands her point. She’s right. What was past-her thinking? She must’ve had a plan, right? Right. “Well, I’m just gonna trust myself over you. I definitely didn’t jump into overthrowing a god with no plan at all. You’ll be in there for a long, long time.”
In a sing-song voice, the goddess replies, “Longer than you’ll be around? Oh me, oh my~”
“Rot for all I care. I’m outta here,” the girl says, before getting up and walking towards the opera’s exit.
The goddess laughs at her until the spotlight turns off and takes away her voice with it.
----------------
She finds the god’s quarters after some stern words to the workers. From the way they cowered, it was at least an acceptable performance. She got a good enough gist of how the god acted from their brief interaction; hopefully it’ll suffice for the act she seemingly has planned.
Why is she doing this anyway? If she’s imprisoned the goddess, why not yell it out in the streets and let the people rejoice that the tyrant is gone? What was her plan? She can understand being unable to kill a god and imprisonment being the second-best option, but she doesn’t understand this one bit.
She finds it out after she enters the room that is to belong to her for centuries to come. Supposedly, anyway.
The goddess was onto her. Diagrams and charts on how to imprison a god (an Archon, apparently, whatever that means) based on the power of people believing that they aren’t actually imprisoned. Said god remains trapped in a reflection while a perfect physical copy acts out their role in the public eye. It will only keep hold as long as her act of impersonation is pitch-perfect to how the goddess truly is.
So it’s being a tyrant for who knows how long, unless she somehow convinces the goddess to change her ways, finds a different method of sealing her, or...
Or the third option, which seems more logical at the moment: finding a way to kill her.
How hard can it be? After all, she couldn’t find a better method when she had her memories, and she’s completely blank now! Piece of cake.
She doesn’t even have a name and here she is, achieving divinity out of absolutely nowhere.
It could be worse. The room is cushy.
Is there room service?
Probably. She’s a god, after all.
Do gods eat?
Well, even if they don’t, it’s not like anyone has the courage to refuse her.
Then again, that’s not the best thing in the world...
Whatever. She’s going to give it a shot.
----------------
Time passes.
She finds a name for herself; Furina. It’s apparently what the god was going with in public, and considering research revealed her true name as something else, she decides this name belongs to her.
Furina also learned Focalors, the god, hadn’t been around for long; she reigned for mere months before she was replaced by her. The previous god had ruled for a few centuries, but gave away her mantle for reasons no one particularly understands. The people she bothered asking expected her to know more than them, and their terror gave way to raised eyebrows during the questioning, which naturally led to her calling it off.
She’s also had the mirror moved to her room, hidden in her closet. Every time she’s checked it, though, it’s been empty, not even reflecting Furina’s own image. It’s a relief. She doesn’t want to move to the rehabilitation plan quite so soon.
She’s had a few public outings, but since the goddess didn’t have much of an established personality beyond being an all-around douchebag, she’s not really expected to go out much. It’s a blessing, for now, since she hasn’t brushed up enough on what her specific duties are; every Archon she’s researched seems to act completely different from one another and she hasn’t found any guide book around the room.
All in all, it doesn’t seem like an insurmountable task, being a god.
That is, until she starts visibly aging and gives herself away.
Immortality doesn’t seem like something mortals have discovered quite yet. Unfortunate.
----------------
It’s been sixty years.
Furina hasn’t aged a day.
She assumes it’s related to the ritual that stole Focalors’s appearance for her. She doesn’t think too deeply into matters, these days.
She’s passed a few laws to further increase class conflict, banned a few random stuff she thought of and overseen some rebel executions. She still sees those rebels everywhere. She even heard one of them talk to her, once, but it didn’t happen again after that.
The mirror remains empty.
She’s found at least one way you could kill a god, but it involves having them physically impaired by Abyssal energy, and Furina’s not going to let her out if she can help it. She’s done too much to keep her in there.
Also, apparently she’s the God of Justice.
What a fucking joke.
----------------
On the eighty-second year, the mirror finally has a reflection inside of it.
“Are you dead yet?” drawls Focalors.
Furina doesn’t respond, instead she remains dazed, staring ahead into nothing as she drowns in a chair too big for her. Much like everything else in this building, and everyone’s expectations of her.
“Hey, it’s rude to ignore people. Then again, what do I expect from mortals...”
“You’ve got that part wrong.”
“Pardon?”
“Look at me. Do I look any different?”
Focalors puts a hand to her chin and ‘hmm’s. “Well, apart from having a drastically worse fashion sense than yours truly and horrible makeup skills... No. How long has it been, two weeks?”
“Eighty-one years, six months, two weeks and four days. Twenty-nine thousand, seven hundred and sixty-nine delightful days of being you.”
“...Oh. That isn’t a normal mortal lifespan, is it? You lot age much less gracefully, I’ve heard.”
“Yes, apparently I did, somehow, discover the secret of immortality. Would’ve made a profit if I could share it with anyone, or knew what it is.”
Focalors spreads her arms wide, her irritating smile still plastered on her face. “Look on the bright side! It’s not immortality if you can still kill yourself!”
That’s an idea, isn’t it?
Except Focalors isn’t saying anything she hasn’t said to herself before. She even tried, once. But she doesn’t want to feel physical pain. She’s terrified of hurting her body.
How ridiculous. Putting herself through all manners of mental torment and yet afraid of a small blade. Surely that’s a flaw of her act; gods aren’t afraid of anything. Maybe when she works that out of her system, the act will be more convincing. And if it doesn’t, well, maybe she can finally end it all without fear.
But until then, the show must go on.
So she replies, “Yeah, I guess. You’ve still got something over me, then.”
Focalors’s expression changes for a split second into something unreadable, but it’s gone just as quickly before Furina can decipher it. Then the Archon speaks once more. “So, figured out a way to kill a god yet?”
“One or two. None of which I want to try yet.”
“Whatever would be stopping you?” she chuckles. “I thought you’d want to be free of this. Are you enjoying the executions that much?”
The comment doesn’t faze Furina. In the same flat tone she’s used from the beginning of the conversation, she replies, “Shut the fuck up.”
“Ooh, did you pick that one up from the other mortals, or is it a residual memory?”
She doesn’t know. She doesn’t reply.
After a few seconds, Focalors, clearly disappointed, crosses her arms and whines, “Pah. You’re no fun.”
“Sorry, but I’m not here to entertain you, mistress. I’m here to put on an act for everybody else. So why don’t you go back to whatever the hell you were doing for eighty-two years and leave me be? Hmm?”
“Ah, the first comeback. You know, you were much feistier back then. I quite liked it. Where did all that spunk go?”
“Same place all the dragons went. To hell.”
“Well, that’s certainly not true. I know at least one is around, these days.”
She’s heard of it too. The Sovereign of Stone and Rock, all buddy-buddy with the Geo Archon. It won’t last. Everyone knows it won’t last. But it’s cute that the two try to leave behind their differences. “Rex Lapis is a damn fool.”
“Rex Lapis?” the god says, surprised. “He’s fraternizing with a dragon?”
“What, you didn’t know?” Wait. “Then what were you talking about?”
With an unsteady tone, she stumbles over her own words. “Oh, silly me, said too much already. See you in another eighty-two years!” With that, she vanishes from the mirror, clearly in a hurry.
What was she talking about? Another dragon? Not a Vishap or a Saurian?
She needs to look into this.
...At some other time. Most definitely not now. Another rebel’s giving her the stink-eye from that one corner of the room. She doesn’t like doing things when that one is watching.
----------------
Turns out there is another dragon. One that doesn’t quite look like typical dragon descriptions.
He’s human, for one.
After Focalors’s slip-up, she sent out search parties all across Fontaine to look for a supposed dragon. She knows of the Anemo Archon’s familiar who isn’t truly a dragon, Inazuma has no news and doesn’t welcome outsiders, the Dragon of Verdure is dead and Rex Lapis’s little boyfriend was obviously not the Hydro Archon’s point. And considering Natlan’s status as the nation of Saurians and Snezhnaya’s turbulent political relationship with practically everywhere else, all she can do is search her own country for this supposed dragon.
After ten years, he’s found in a hidden underwater village living among a race of creatures described as looking like bipedal candy people. The sole surviving scout said every other member of his group drowned on solid ground as a white-haired man stared them all in the eye, radiating a terrifying sense of protectiveness.
She knows a Hydro Vision can’t manifest water in someone’s lungs. She thought of it as an execution idea a while back, but the allogene executioner she found told her it was impossible. She threatened to kill him by the exact same method if he didn’t comply, and he offered a dozen other ways he could execute in a manner unique to their nation to excuse his error. He also mentioned that he had tried doing it himself, but the water can’t quite manifest that far from the wielder, or inside an object they can’t see. He was jailed for refusing the Archon’s will, but in reality, she just thought it was insanely messed up that he had tried killing people in that way before. He wasn’t even a soldier.
So if this person can do that... their control over Hydro must be at least somewhat comparable to an Archon. And it can’t be anyone other than a dragon. It also lends itself well to an old myth about the Dragon of Life reincarnating as a human who is, despite his appearance, a pureblooded dragon.
There are pros and cons to having found the dragon. Pro: he hates Archons, like the rest of his race, so he’d love to be involved in a scheme that will lead to killing one of them. Con: she’s literally pretending to be an Archon, which means he won’t listen to her.
What to do...
Hmm. Perhaps... adopting another role would be beneficial.
----------------
A small-statured, white-haired girl is chased by soldiers.
Conveniently close to the undersea village.
She “stumbles” across it in her mad dash.
The soldiers follow her inside, to their doom.
Of course, they were hand-picked from the vilest, most degenerate officers, who in their delusion believed their Archon valued them enough to nominate them for a top secret assignment.
The man looks over the girl with distrust. But she’s far too small, far too afraid to be considered a threat. There’s a strange aura around her, but the man has never sensed a curse before. He dismisses it as the scent of fear.
In reality, he doesn’t believe someone this beautiful could ever bring harm to anyone.
In the Court of Fontaine, the citizens are informed the Archon has ascended to Celestia for important matters, and it is unknown when she will return. The person left in charge of the country’s affairs is most ruthless, however, enforcing punishments far stronger than the Archon ever did for misdemeanor.
She’ll deal with him when she’s back. After all, if everything goes well, she’ll be returning with a replacement for him.
----------------
The Melusines are adorable, incredibly helpful, and consider the man their elder brother. Despite this, none of them know his name. They say he washed up on shore one day and one of their number found him and nursed him to health. They were also the ones to teach him human speech; seems they are friends with quite a few children and learned their tongue that way. They hope to be able to communicate with humans in a more open nature.
But the Hydro Archon can’t quite allow that, can she?
The man himself doesn’t want her here. Every action of his makes that fact clear. He doesn’t cross her path unless he has to, never speaks with her, and she’s seen him glare at her a few times. She has a suspicion that he would’ve had her meet the same fate as the soldiers if the Melusines didn’t stop him.
She’ll need to change that if the plan is to go anywhere.
It helps that he’s attractive, even in the rags he’s dressed in.
What doesn’t help is that he can’t comprehend Furina’s hints that she’s interested in something more than glares. Every slightly seductive comment, slips of her robe, even randomly hugging him from behind, every single thing goes over his head.
She’s beginning to doubt if the man is truly the age he looks he is. He feels woefully inexperienced in practically everything related to living life.
But then again, she isn’t the age she looks either, so it doesn’t really matter.
----------------
It takes two years until Furina builds up the courage to enter the dragon’s room at night, disrobe herself and get into his thick skull what she desires.
During said two years, her mental health exponentially improved, as she didn’t need to act like a tyrant. She hopes the enchantment considers this to be her acting as the Archon acting as a timid girl, and not simply Furina putting on a personality more aligned with who she really is.
But no effect on her mental health is comparable to what the man did to her that night.
What inhuman passion. What good fortune. The plan will surely succeed now.
----------------
At first, she tells him he could kill the Archon.
He bitterly says his power won’t compare to her at its current level. He doesn’t have his Authority, after all, and could never take on an Archon at his current state.
She had anticipated this. So she tells him of a plan. A plan to infiltrate the Court, slowly get close to the Archon, and assassinate her at the opportune moment.
He likes the plan.
So later, she tells him that she’s the Archon.
He laughs. It’s a rich, beautiful sound.
So she repeats herself.
So, what, should I choke you this instant?
Wasn’t that what you were doing mere moments ago?
I don’t understand, Furina. If you want the Archon dead, yet you’re the Archon, what do you want from me? To kill you here and now?
To infiltrate the Court and kill the Archon at the right moment.
Why not now? Isn’t the point to kill the Archon?
Yes.
Why can’t I do it here?
The Archon is at the Court.
But you’re the Archon!
Yes.
...You’re not the Archon, are you?
I am.
You can’t say it, but you’re not. That aura... it’s a curse. You’re forced to be her. And you need my help to kill the real Archon.
Yes.
Of course I’ll help, Furina. How could I not?
Wonderful. Now can we get back to choking me?
That night, she learns his name.
----------------
Neuvillette’s arrival to the city is met with all-around disdain.
“He’s a savage, Your Holiness! He’s unfit to be your right hand!”
“The aura around him is... displeasing, Your Holiness. Please reconsider.”
And the most amusing complaint of all: “I saw him sneak a lecherous look in your direction. He cannot be trusted around you.”
As if all of Fontaine doesn’t have fantasies about her.
He’s chosen as the Supreme Iudex despite the complaints. The old one, the man running the city during Furina’s absence, is executed thanks to a law Furina makes up on the spot: the mantle can only be passed on by death, now.
----------------
It takes around a week for her mental health to plummet back down.
It takes two months for Neuvillette to question how she handles the masquerade.
“Surely you don’t need to terrorize as she did?”
“I am her. I do what I do because it’s what I would do.”
“Everyone is prone to changes in their personality over time. I am the perfect excuse to utilize for an attitude change.”
That’s a valid point. However... “I haven’t changed. I still behave the same.”
“Have you checked?”
So she checks.
Focalors laughs at her when she asks if she’s learned her lesson. “It hasn’t even been a century yet! It’s been a delightful vacation, if anything. Keep it up!”
So that’s that. Tyranny continues, and Neuvillette does his best to mitigate her commands. As the Supreme Iudex, he has some authority on overriding her orders, and he does his best. But acting like Focalors comes with a need to prove her power over him, and it always comes at the cost of more lives.
Focalors’s role comes easier to her, these days. She doesn’t know if she’s gotten better at it, or simply become just like her.
But either would help the masquerade, so she doesn’t care. Not anymore.
----------------
Neuvillette worries about her one year in.
“You can’t keep going like this, Furina. You’ve become a husk of the woman I met in Merusea Village.”
“That’s what I need to be.”
“But it’s not what you should be.”
“A lot of things aren’t what I should be. It’s not up to me.”
“But it is up to me. I’ll go inside the mirror and kill Focalors right this instant. I can’t keep watching you tear pieces out of yourself bit by bit.”
“You can’t defeat her.”
“Then I’ll die and won’t have to watch you destroy yourself. Maybe once you have no contingencies, you’ll realize what you’re doing to yourself and quit it. After all, what’s the difference between your rule and hers? Might as well give up and let her take over. You’re not making any effort or progress as it is.”
He has a point.
Furina doesn’t admit it for three days.
----------------
Her rule changes.
Softer, kinder, less executions.
Less bloodshed.
It’s the talk of the town for years after it’s recognized. Her popularity grows, and so does Neuvillette’s. He never takes public credit for it, but everyone assumes it’s his influence.
Focalors remains sealed, even as the Melusines slowly integrate into society, easily accepted thanks to Neuvillette’s personal endorsement.
With them comes another outlet for harsh punishments: whomever harasses a Melusine is met with the highest prejudice in court.
She doesn’t know why she wants to deal out harsh punishments anymore. She thinks it’s just who she is, at this point.
Or at least, she thinks that whenever Neuvillette isn’t around. He makes her think there’s hope for her, at the end of it all.
He makes her feel like the blood on her hands can be washed away one day.
----------------
Focalors makes her next unprompted appearance on the second century of Furina’s ascension to the throne.
“Yoo-hoo! Still alive, little usurper?”
“Yes, little usurper.”
Focalors laughs daintily. “Someone’s been talking to a forbidden presence. How does he like all the executions?”
“There haven’t been any for the past seventy years.”
She’s shocked. “But you can’t stop acting like me!”
Furina smirks. “People grow. People change. What matters is everyone else having a reason to believe it.”
“Pah! The power of belief. What a joke. My power certainly doesn’t stem from believers. I could smite them all with a thought and not lose any of my strength.”
“And yet it’s what keeping you sealed, isn’t it?”
That’s when she realizes.
If faith can seal her, faith can kill her.
She ignores Focalors’s response and dashes out of her room, calling to Neuvillette.
She misses the god’s soft, fond smile as she disappears from the mirror.
----------------
The Oratrice Mecanique d‘Analyse Cardinale is constructed. A machine to give out judgments in court and supersede Neuvillette’s authority without requiring Furina’s constant presence.
At least, that’s its public purpose. In truth, after studying Natlan’s Sacred Flame, Furina and Neuvillette managed to construct a machine that extracts people’s belief in the justice system into tangible energy.
It helps that Neuvillette convinced her to change her method of governing, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any faith to gather.
----------------
The next three centuries are spent gathering enough energy to fashion a murder weapon with, and Furina practices how to use it when the moment arrives in the meantime. The energy would’ve been enough to power the Court of Fontaine for years upon years; the Research Institute has been looking for a reliable source to power their inventions with. But Furina refused to let anyone know about the Oratrice’s true purpose. What if the energy wouldn’t be enough at the time it was needed most? What if the people stopped believing in her and she couldn’t accumulate any more energy? They couldn’t afford to waste a single drop.
During this time, there’s news from the Fortress of Meropide: a strange purplish water flooded the undersea prison, killing many of the inmates. No body was found. Furina, in truth, doesn’t really care; anyone imprisoned in the Fortress deserves it. She only sentenced people she deemed execution-worthy to there, after all. There was a different, kinder prison established not too far from the Court for more minor offenses, and that one was perfectly safe. Who cares if a few rapists and serial killers die? Certainly not the worst murderer in Fontaine’s history.
She did send Neuvillette to investigate, but it wasn’t fruitful; he got lost in the Fortress and no one could guide him to the source of the flood, as the warden had died in the incident himself and took the prison’s secrets with him. Phooey.
----------------
“At last, our hero reaches the castle. Welcome, welcome to my humble abode! How do you like it?”
“It’s repulsive, much like its sole inhabitant.”
“Hate yourself that much, do you?”
“I’m not you.”
“You’re me in every way that matters! Don’t tell me you haven’t adopted at least a few of my traits as your own, after five centuries of acting?”
“Shut up.”
“In fact, I believe we’re similar enough that if I were to kill you here and take your place, not even your dear Iudex could tell the difference! Do you think he could, or would he just get overjoyed that ‘you’re’ finally reciprocating his affections the way he wants you to instead of wallowing in self-pity?”
“I said shut up!”
“Make me, then.”
And she does.
Focalors fights with no weapon but her words. Furina fights with her blue ethereal sword, made out of five hundred years’ worth of hopes and dreams that aren’t hers. It’s hard to tell which is more cutting in the heat of battle.
She wonders if her own lack of faith makes the weapon less effective. Whether all of this would be easier if she really believed there was a better life waiting for her, after all of this.
But it doesn’t matter. After all, if she doesn’t succeed, she’s spent five hundred years for nothing at all. So she has to win, even if she doesn’t care about what happens to her afterwards.
And she wins. A lunge separates Focalors’s head from her body, and that’s that. An unceremonious death for the only god that deserved to go this way.
She leaves the mirror’s internal space as it begins to shatter, not looking back once. She leaves the sword behind; it’s worthless now, after all.
What use is faith in a godless world?
----------------
Neuvillette steps into the mirror’s internal space, finding it in perfect condition.
He’s greeted by a face he’s known long enough to discern every emotion from its owner, and realizes he can’t read it at all.
“Focalors.”
“Sir Iudex. You figured it all out, as I expected you would.”
“She really was you. That’s why it didn’t matter if she changed her methods; it would simply be you changing yours. You separated yourself into two beings so that you could die, yet leave a version of yourself behind that has nothing to do with your godhood.”
“Wonderful deductions, even if they’re based on the false clues I left for you. I never needed to remain sealed; I could’ve walked out of here at any given time. This entire scenario was constructed so that Furina would ‘figure it out on her own’. And for your sake too, of course. After all, you’re my true executioner, not her.”
“Why did you do all of this? If you truly are Furina, you’re no tyrant. Why create this false image?”
“So that you’d strike me down with no regrets, and to give Furina a tangible goal. I’m the one who forced your beloved to live such a terrible life. I’m the villain of this story. I deserve death more than anyone in the history of Fontaine. So go ahead, pick up the sword and reclaim your Authority, Sovereign of Hydro. Become who you were meant to be.”
“And why didn’t you kill yourself? Why the ruse? Why make me kill you instead?”
“To tell the truth, Iudex... I’m terrified of the idea. Hurting myself, ending my own life... It’s a terrifying concept to me, more than any other kind of torment I could go through. After all, I can trust no one but myself, and if I turn against myself in that way... There would be no one left for me in this world, would there?”
“You’re just as disgustingly cowardly and pathetic as all the rats and cockroaches populating your nation.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just like a human to throw what’s rightfully mine in my face and pretend I should be grateful for it. You made everyone else suffer for your sake and pretend it was for their own good. The false benevolence of a false god. Once the Primordial Seawater razes Fontaine to the ground, Furina will have no ties to this wretched nation, and after I join my other dragon brethren and burn the Heavenly Principles to the ground, I shall remake her into a true dragon and rule alongside her. The humans don’t deserve her. I will kill you, Focalors, and I will do it gladly, but it’s in no way because of your ‘plan’ that sentenced Furina to such torment.”
“Oh dear, I knew I forgot something. You didn’t get lost in the Fortress, did you?”
“Of course not. Everything relating to the prophecy was there, no doubt another part of your ‘master plan’. You didn’t consider how delightful it would be for me to see humanity perish like the worms they really are.”
“I should’ve known this plan was terrible.”
“Yes, you should’ve.”
“Another samsara ought to do it, then.”
“Wha—”
The world fades to white.
----------------
She awakens to a voice softly calling out to her.
“Furina... Furina...?”
She opens her eyes. She’s in an empty, lightless opera house. Well, lightless isn’t really true; she’s under the only active spotlight. And someone’s behind a sheet of glass, calling out to her.
“Huh? Who’s that? Who’s calling me? Where are you?”
It’s at that moment that she realizes two things.
One: She doesn’t remember how she got here.
Two: The other person is inside a mirror, not behind a sheet of glass.
And a bonus third: She looks and sounds just like Furina does.
Her expression is calm, serene, divine. “Be not nervous. Be not afraid. I am before you.”
“W—W—Wait a moment! You're... mirror-me? How can this be?”
“Hmmm. ‘Mirror-you’, huh? You know what? That’s not bad. Let's go with that.”