Chapter Text
It was the first time Wriothesley would meet the Chief Justice in his official capacity as Administrator of Meropide. Technically, they'd met once before—at his trial, where said Chief Justice had sentenced him as a mass murderer. So that was a promising start.
Given the choice, Wriothesley would have preferred dealing with literally anyone else. It was absurd that there was no intermediary bureaucrat handling Meropide affairs, that everything went straight to the highest judicial authority in Fontaine. Some mid-level functionary would have been far easier to manipulate—to study their weaknesses, learn what made them tick, and carefully position himself as an indispensable ally. But no, he had to charm the one man in Fontaine supposedly immune to charm.
On paper, the Fortress of Meropide remained autonomous from Fontaine. In reality, it might as well have been a locked wardrobe in someone else's mansion. Sure, you could declare independence all you liked from inside your wooden prison, but without the house owner sliding you meals, you'd achieve nothing beyond starving in proud isolation.
The Court held every card. Wriothesley had no illusions—if the Chief Justice wanted him gone, it would take less than a day. Especially because the people of Meropide had to abide by Fontaine’s laws, just as technically any foreign citizen standing on its soil. And with Wriothesley’s gambit of scaring the previous administrator off, a case could be made against him even without digging up some obscure ancient laws.
Which left Wriothesley with one option: winning over the judge who'd condemned him to life in this aquatic hellhole, a man renowned as the incorruptible embodiment of Fontaine's justice.
He didn't buy the reputation, of course. Wriothesley bore no personal grudge—the sentence had been fair—but he wasn't naive enough to believe in saints. At that level of power, "incorruptible" just meant the price was higher. The trick would be figuring out the currency.
He asked Sigewinne, as she was apparently in direct contact with the Iudex, and she had only glowing praise for him. And normally, he valued Sigewinne's opinion a lot, as she was shrewd and pretty practical, but Neuvillette was a kinda special case, because… Well, Wriothesley didn’t necessarily believe the “male melusine” rumors, but you couldn’t deny there was some bond between him and the melusines.
When pressed, Sigewinne had simply said, "We are his familiars." Whatever the hell that meant. The whole arrangement reeked of cultish favoritism—or at the very least, some deeply rooted bias. She’d actually advised Wriothesley not to worry and just be honest, because the Iudex was very kind and patient and he “wishes you well”. If calling the most severe and intimidating man in the country “kind and patient” didn’t show some biased delusion, Wriothesley didn’t know what did.
Which meant he would have to trust his own instincts..
So, the facts were: Neuvillette was over 500 years old, obviously noble, and had the biggest stick up his ass in all of Fontaine. Wriothesley didn't have much experience with aristocrats, but he'd briefly interacted with a few while living on the streets, even managed to squeeze quite a decent amount of mora out of them. They were conservative and haughty, of course, and yes, they saw commoners as so below them that they were barely human, but in Wriothesley's experience, they could be quite generous to peasants who knew their place and played the game. If you were polite and demonstrated you knew you were a lowlife in awe of them, and pretended to be impressed by even the most inane things, they liked it enough to count you as one of the "good ones" and toss you some coins. And you didn't get such an inflated reputation as Neuvillette without having a massive ego.
Wriothesley dressed cleanly, but modestly. Aristocrats hated upstarts who tried to dress expensively like old money. Just a simple black shirt, buttoned up all the way, red tie, and he'd triple-checked there were no random melusine stickers on his clothes.
He walked into the Iudex's office right on the dot. Well, if you could call it an "office" - the place looked more like a goddamn royal reception hall. He'd been in the Palais before, dragged there for procedures and interrogations before the trial, so he was prepared for the opulence, but Neuvillette's office still knocked him off balance. Huge and luxurious, not gaudy rich, but coldly precise, gold used like punctuation marks rather than shouts. It was designed to make you feel like a stain on its perfection.
Neuvillette observed him walk up, statue-still at his desk, eyes drilling into him. Wriothesley had thought his memories of the Chief Justice's piercing gaze were just an overwhelmed kid's exaggeration, but even now, years later, with actual power of his own, the Iudex's stare still made him feel like a bug under glass. The judge looked exactly as Wriothesley remembered - ice-cold, stern and perfect, the living embodiment of aristocratic disdain.
Every angle of that face seemed deliberately engineered to unsettle - a master sculptor's lifelong experiment in rendering austerity regal. Very long, severe face, long nose with an unusually wide and flat bridge and sharp tip, cheekbones sculpted with geometric precision, deep set piercing eyes under heavily slanted eyebrows, tight lipped mouth. Something carved not to please the eye, but to make the viewer reconsider their place in the world.
For this first meeting, Wriothesley decided to play along, absorbing every detail. Neuvillette, for his part, recited the list of required reports in a tone so formal it could have been carved into marble. He penned the requirements and slid the paper across, giving Wriothesley his opening.
"Wow, Your Honor," he said, "your handwriting is so impressive."
Neuvillette lifted his head. He didn’t remember that the judge’s eyes were lilac with a white slit or maybe he just couldn’t see it from how far below he was at the trial.
"You're surprised I can write?"
Wriothesley hesitated for a second, unsure if this was deadpan humor or genuine offense, but defaulted to flattery.
"No, of course not. Just admiring how elegant your script is. Mine looks horrible."
The Iudex's frown deepened. Now his usual haughtiness carried an extra layer of mild distaste.
"While I may not be fully informed about Meropide's internal affairs, it has reached even my attention that your ascension to Warden was... the result of ambitious maneuvering."
Wriothesley kept his expression carefully neutral, though the sudden shift put him on high alert. If the Iudex meant to challenge his legitimacy, why wait until after explaining procedures?
"I would advise you against attempting similar schemes in your dealings with me."
The judge's unblinking stare felt like a knife at his throat.
"Of course not, Your Honor. Wouldn't dream of it," he said with his most disarming smile. Neuvillette held the stare long enough to make the silence uncomfortable.
"Do you have any questions?"
Wriothesley had plenty - the forms were convoluted as fuck - but also wanted to see how Neuvillette would respond. He'd expected terse dismissal if the Chief Justice planned to remove him, but instead received detailed explanations, including points he hadn't even thought to ask about.
"I would suggest structuring the shift schedule to correspond with this timetable," Neuvillette said. Wriothesley nodded; it was sensible.
"Of course, Your Honor."
"I should clarify that these are merely suggestions," Neuvillette added after a pause. "While they represent what I believe to be the most logical approach, Meropide maintains full autonomy from Fontaine. The ultimate decisions remain yours."
Wriothesley felt thrown off balance again. With all the unspoken leverage the Iudex held, why voluntarily relinquish pressure like this? To maintain plausible deniability? But Wriothesley had no means to pin responsibility on Neuvillette regardless. The move made no strategic sense - unless the Chief Justice actually meant what he said, which seemed even less likely.
He prepared his first reports more meticulously than a debutante's dress for her first Court ball, but these were some convoluted centuries old forms with several addendums. So he received a reply with long commentary on his mistakes in Iudex’s sharp cursive. He fixed it, but there were more hidden problems underneath, so this stretched into several iterations. By the end, Wriothesley’s metaphorical debutante’s whites were thoroughly soiled to the point of not being acceptable in polite society, yet he was looking at the approved forms with the Chief Justice signature. By the letter of the law Neuvillette could have used any of these bureaucratic mistakes against Wriothesley, and yet he didn’t. He could’ve also dismissed the reports without any explanation and left Wriothesley to trash beached on the sand, with nowhere to turn for advice. But instead he took time to write up a detailed explanation of what Wriothesley should fix, and let him resubmit it about five times in a row. Naturally, Wriothesley expected a hefty bribe demand for wasting so much of the Iudex time.
The inherent problem with hostile takeovers was the missing unspoken knowledge - like the proper channels for bribing the Chief Justice. Wriothesley combed through the notoriously sloppy ledgers, though he knew better than to expect anything as blatant as "bribe: one luxury yacht for the Iudex." The bribes on that level couldn’t be direct obvious gifts, it was most likely Meropide buying something from the specific vendor at the exuberant prices, and that vendor laundering this money for the government officials. But the frustrating part was that the previous administrator was siphoning money from the Fortress so much that there were quite a few of contracts that could fit the bill. Which one of these was going to Neuvillette and which were just for sponsoring the fifth mansion for the Warden?
The soap contract stood out as particularly egregious. Meropide's soap was notoriously awful - barely lathering, stinging the eyes, smelling like industrial cleaner, Wriothesley could attest that from his personal experience. Yet the ledgers showed payments exceeding those for custom perfumes fit for the Archon herself. If anyone warranted such extravagant tribute, it would be the Chief Justice... But Wriothesley couldn’t be sure, and paying this much more for nothing when he was going to need all the resources he could get was ridiculous. So he had to take the risk.
He severed all of the overpriced contracts and waited. Surely the Iudex would let him know, one way or another, which one he needed to reinstate. Yet instead of the summons from Palais Mermonia, the guard captains were approaching him instead.
They were polite, they were friendly, they just wanted to know what was the problem - was the cut Wriothesley getting as the Warden not enough? It was true, he was getting cuts of something, but it was arranged by the previous administrator and his situation after the takeover was shaky enough that he didn't want to get in trouble with the guards too. But he liked knowing what he was getting into and for what, and well, if there was a possibility of renegotiating these cuts into something even more profitable, why wouldn't he at least try?
But he needed to figure out the big fish first. Until he’s got the channel to the Iudex set up, bargaining over other connections was pointless. So he smiled at the guards and told them that unfortunately, because of the… rocky passing over of the rule from the previous Warden to himself, the Chief Justice personally decided to look into the corruption in Meropide. So Wriothesley dropped all contracts, temporarily of course, until this whole thing passes over… But if you insist, Lieutenant, just for you, I would of course reinstate your specific contract. Do you want me to?
None of them took the bait. All of them paled at the mention of the Iudex's involvement. Immediate offers of additional compensation came pouring in - of course they should all lay low, excellent decision Administrator, and perhaps he might ensure their names stayed out of any investigation? They'd be happy to provide proper incentives for such discretion...
Wriothesley was sincerely surprised. He'd wanted to spook them, but he hadn't expected this visceral fear at the mere suggestion of Neuvillette's scrutiny. He knew the system - guards shook down prisoners who couldn't complain because the captains got a cut, who in turn kicked up to the Warden. This chain had to lead to Palais Mermonia. These operations couldn't exist without the Iudex's tacit approval - so why the panic? Obviously it would be better to offer the additional cut to the big boss himself instead of bribing Wriothesley to keep quiet.
It made no sense... unless the Chief Justice wasn't part of the scheme at all. Which was even more ridiculous - requiring him to believe this starched-collar aristocrat actually was the paragon of virtue as the legends claimed.
Wriothesley stared at the fortune spread across his desk, tapping his scarred fingers against the wood. He'd taken Meropide to reform it, but with this much untraceable wealth... He could vanish tomorrow. Live like a king, never bow to self-righteous bastards again. No more grinding for scraps, no more justifying himself to idiots who couldn't see he was trying to fix things.
He scratched on the insides of his forearms and wrists over familiar patterns and scars, before he forced himself to turn to something else.His teeth closed on his knuckle, biting down until the pain cut through the numbness. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He'd fought like a rabid animal to get here - cheated, bled, sold pieces of himself he'd never get back. For what? To play bureaucrat for Fontaine's unwanted? To beg favors from some gilded hypocrite who'd never had to make a hard choice in his life?
The joint popped under the pressure. Pain flared bright and clean, anchoring him in the moment. Blood welled around his teeth, the sting sharper than any knife. Maybe nothing mattered. Maybe the world was just a meat grinder, chewing people into mora and spitting out the bones.
But then he remembered them - the ones who hadn't clawed their way up like he had. The old man coughing his lungs out in the lower blocks because he couldn't afford medicine. The former mechanic begging for food after the factory mangled his hands. The fools who still tried to help each other in this shithole, even when it cost them.
They weren't weak. Some were smarter than him, kinder than he'd ever be. They just hadn't been willing to become monsters to survive.
And wasn't that the whole fucking point? If someone like him—someone who'd crossed so many lines already —didn't at least try to tilt the scales a little... then he'd just be adding to the world's cruelty. Another drop of poison in a flood already close to crushing Fontaine..
The thought settled in his gut like cold lead. He could take the money and run—become exactly what he'd always hated: just another bastard who saw suffering and decided his comfort mattered more. The weight of the decision settled in his bones—not with relief, but the grim certainty of a lifetime sentence.
"Fine," Wriothesley muttered to the empty office, licking blood from his split knuckle. "Let's play." He reached for the ledger, already calculating how to launder dirty mora into clean bandages and food.