Chapter Text
“The sea is nothing but a library of all the tears in history.” ― Lemony Snicket.
Part of her has always ached as if missing something. She didn’t know why she bled. But it was her first companion. It never lessened or gained. It simply existed: never leaving her throat despite the constant lies and assurances slipping through her teeth and off her tongue, never leaving her chest that merely is empty, or her limbs that wished for fins long gone. It surrounds her until she drowns in it.
For a brief moment once, all of her is filled to the brim. But that was only once. She remembers that moment well, if only because it was the first time she became conscious, when she was given a purpose despite knowing nothing and everything about Fontaine or the lands beyond the surrounding seas. Except for the ㅐ୧વ⋎၉п|γ 卩гįብငịየ∣ලຣ
Those deities she knew enough about.
Those memories of the time then and before slipped through her fingers like water. No amount of power holds them in her palms.
“Furina… Furina…?”
It wasn’t the influx of information or the fact that she knew anything despite remembering nothing that filled every aching part of her. It wasn’t that part of her knew that knowledge came from a lifetime of knowledge that was not hers. No, it wasn’t her.
“What's... going on? I can't seem to remember... anything clearly. The only thing I know for sure is this prophecy…”
It was her knowledge once
It was her past, too
It was the deity on the other side of the mirror that soothed her now unassembled soul for the first and only time.
"The people will all be dissolved into the waters, and only the Hydro Archon will remain, weeping on her throne. Only then will the sins of the people of Fontaine be washed away."
The only one with memories was in front of her. She instinctively knew that the person on the other side of the mirror looked just like her, was part of her once, despite not knowing her own reflection in the water. The irises of the one before her were too familiar, just as the called-out name “Furina” is. Like she had seen and heard them millions of times before.
Why did Focalors ring much more familiar than the name Furina?
Why does the pure, transparent blue of the sea ring even more familiar than the colors on the one before her? Where are the fins she once…
“W—W—Wait a moment! You're... mirror-me? How can this be?”
“Mirror-me.” Perhaps she had instinctively known then. Perhaps she knew somehow that the person on the other side of the mirror was truly a part of her. Or once a part of her. Maybe, but her instincts failed to tell her that this was the only moment that her fragmented soul ever experienced being pieced together.
“Hmmm. “Mirror-you,” huh? You know what? That’s not bad. Let’s go with that.”
Everything is so confusing…
“…Is it not obvious where the scales should tilt?”