Work Text:
The loss of the god Focalors had weighed heavy on Neuvillette's heart. He hadn't known Focalors, he shouldn't have taken it as hard as he did, but he knew why it was actually as painful as it was. When Focalors was lost, he had also lost Furina. Furina was still alive and well, as alive as she ever had been, in fact. Yet, Neuvillette mourned that she was no longer in his sights so easily.
Furina lived on, happy and beautifulーand without him. Neuvillette could take a stroll and see her, or even see a performance of hers at the opera house, but it was never the same now. Every time he looked at her, he could only be filled with sorrow and the knowledge that he could never have her again. He couldn't request a meeting with her for the business of Fontaine, and he had to continue working without her.
Neuvillette would live on, too. He would oversee trial after trial, read loads of paperwork, keep Fontaine safe from harm and anything else he needed to in his somewhat new position. What he wouldn't do every day as he used to was see Furina's face, hear her voice or deeply sigh at her antics. He could no longer watch her eat cake with a sparkle in her eye, or hear her laugh so loud and fake.
Neuvillette can't help but feel robbed of the chance to truly know Furina despite the five hundred years they had spent overseeing Fontaine together. She had been putting on an act the entire time, and Neuvillette had seen through it and all the while he loved it. He loved her, and now she wasn't gone, but she was.
That was the worst part of it, really. To know that she could be here right now, begging him to attend a meeting with her or rushing to get a slice of her favorite only sixteen slices a day cake, and Neuvillette was not there to witness it, nor was she present to do it. She had left and she was living her own life in the city, still interacting with the other people of Fontaine, but not him.
She could be announced to be in the biggest opera show of the century and he would hear about it, but it wouldn't be from her, nor would he get an invite from her. It was as if the years they had known each other had been erased for her and now they were nothing but strangers. In Neuvillette's eyes, he knew everything about Furina and she held his heart without knowledge of it.
He had never had claim over her as anything but his archon as every other Fontainian did, and everyone had now lost that, but he felt like he had lost so much more. For so long she had been the only person he had connected with and stayed connected to. As years went by, plenty of people were lost, but Furina was always there as one of the only constants he had when it came to anyone who wasn't a Melusine.
He was also left wondering what she felt towards him now that she was gone. Did she hate him for the trial? Would she ever truly heal from everything she had been through? Maybe she appreciated that he had made new arrangements for her? There was no way to tell if any of that was true because he no longer got to see her and hear how she felt. There were already few times she'd shown how she truly felt.
Neuvillette could not regret saving all of Fontaine according to Focalors plan, but he resented that he had to lose Furina in the process. At that point, seeing her around the opera house or the city was more painful than anything else, even when he longed to be close to her again. If he could never truly have her again, why should he fool himself by seeing her at all?