Chapter Text
“What else will you have left, besides your crime?”
“Justice.”
– The Two Musketeers, vol. 2 pg. 358
The same dream, almost every single night, for about three weeks now. It always started the same way: after hours of fighting exhaustion, Furina would slowly be pulled into a realm between sleep and wakefulness. It starts with her inside the Oratrice. She’d hear her own voice calling out to her to wake up. She’d replay that conversation with her mirror-self, except this time, she’d be on the other side of it.
“You must begin a never-ending masquerade. You must never let anyone suspect your identity.” She heard the words coming out of her own mouth and thought it strange to be the one saying them.
Stranger still was what came next in her dream sequence: memories she could’ve sworn she never experienced, but felt like secrets she forgot she knew.
“Furina… no. Who are you?” Neuvillette asked in her dream.
“I am Furina!” She wanted to answer, but her dream self recited a different conversation with the Hydro Sovereign as if she wasn’t there. It was like being stuck in her own body, forced to witness a disturbingly realistic scenario over which she had no control. It was terrifying no matter how many times it happened.
“All you’ve done throughout the years…” dream-Neuvillette continued while Furina grew even more frustrated. She wanted to cross the distance between them, to ask him what was happening, but her dream-self was bound by a script, and no will to speak or wake up could change the outcome.
What came next was the worst part of all.
Like how it went every single time, she would dance that familiar dance before him; she’d see the look on his face–a combination of grief and horror. When did he ever look at her like that in real life?
She’d watch him outstretch his hand and falter. Then, Neuvillette’s image would slowly disappear as she was surrounded by a harsh light that impeded the rest of her vision. She’d feel the woosh of the wind as she completed the dance. And just before her execution came to an end, Furina would wake up with a start, clutching at her neck and the ghost of the blade that landed on it.
On this particular day, she woke up to the sound of knocking on her door. She’d been able to keep up a somewhat composed appearance since her recurring nightmares started, though it’s not like she left her house all that much anyway.
Furina scrambled out of bed in a panic, making a last ditch effort to fix her hair and change her clothes. The sight of the mirror brought flashes of her nightmare back, and she quickly set it back face-down on the vanity with a sigh.
“Coming, coming! Seriously… who’s knocking before afternoon tea?” She could only hope that the tremble in her voice was inaudible through the door.
Furina was greeted by an unusual crowd, which only heightened her alertness until she saw the Traveler’s face.
“Did you just get up, Furina? It’s already past noon, you know…” Paimon berated. Furina felt more panic than her usual annoyance, but the Traveler thankfully kept Paimon under control, and Furina was able to come up with a believable excuse. She tried to focus as her visitors introduced themselves.
“So, what are you all doing here?”
Exhaustion came back to her as the man–Xavier–nervously explained why they were there. Though she was skeptical about the whole ordeal, the idea of directing a film adaptation of The Two Musketeers was a timely and welcome distraction. She enjoyed the novel and had time on her hands anyway.
After the Traveler successfully proved their camera skills, she had to agree. She was already imagining the changes she wanted to make in the script. That is, until–
“Hmm… so, in the end, we still have to start by talking to Neuvillette…” Just the idea of having to do that while she was actively avoiding him made her dizzy. Not to mention, she still couldn’t get used to whatever it was that was going on between them—him suddenly showing up at her doorstep, him taking care of her when she fell ill, the Vision she received during The Little Oceanid performance that he didn’t even bother to hide… Not to mention that whole thing during her supposedly secret Romeo and Juliet rehearsal.
Ugh…
Thankfully, they ended up not needing Neuvillette’s help at all. While the rest of the crew was making arrangements, Furina made an excuse to leave to wander around the Court of Fontaine; the buzz of the crowd was at least better than staying alone with her thoughts at home. The sky had darkened, but Furina still found herself restless.
If only there was someone who could tell her what to do, or even just assure her that she wasn’t finally going insane, that her mistakes weren’t catching up to her in some twisted act of karma.
“Maybe I should talk to the Traveler,” she mumbled to herself in the middle of the street, remembering how she confided in them before. Seeing the Traveler today was more than a welcome sight.
Furina’s feet brought her to where she vaguely remembered the Traveler and Chiori were meeting with Chevreuse. Before she could turn the corner, she heard Xavier’s voice.
“I should tell Lady Furina immediately! We start filming tomorrow!”
She quickly hid behind a building. The Traveler was in the middle of a small crowd, as always, and Furina let out a sigh. She shouldn’t have expected any different; the Traveler had always been a busy person. Even after the group broke apart, Chevreuse pulled them aside for a separate private conversation. So much for asking for advice.
Dejected, Furina walked home, suddenly missing Clorinde, who’d taken on other work and was currently on some sort of expedition in the skirts of the Morte Region. It had been quite a while since she paid Furina a visit.
After Clorinde, the next person she could talk to was of course the last person she wanted to see. She was certain Neuvillette was busy as well. With Inazuma’s Yashiro Commission in the film’s cast, she had good reason to think that they also had other reasons to be here; Neuvillette would undoubtedly be on the forefront of establishing diplomatic relations.
All that was left to do was distract herself. And luckily enough, the man named Xavier offered her the perfect distraction on a silver platter. As soon as Furina got home, she opened her copy of The Two Musketeers and went to work: highlighting, annotating, cross-referencing the script given to her this morning until she finally fell into a reluctant sleep, pen still in hand.
The dream this time was different. Her memories and the novel seemed to blur together. The once predictable sequence of dreams took on terrifying new turns. First, she stepped into the role of the maid being murdered. Then, she became the siblings who took revenge on the baron. And finally, she dreamt of the baron’s last moments before the musket was aimed at his head.
As if to really drive it home, she looked up to see Neuvillette’s stone cold face behind the barrel of the gun, taking the role of her murderer. Furina’s previous nightmares ended just before the blade struck her neck, but tonight she could actually feel the white hot pain of the bullet tearing through her. Choking on blood, she raised her hands to find that they were no longer the baron’s hands but her own.
Furina sat up in bed, coughing violently as if she had actually been hurt. It took several minutes for her to calm her heartbeat. She put her head in her hands. It was so much worse tonight. The filming was in a few hours, yet she felt even more tired than before she slept. She heard the early morning birds chirping outside and decided it wasn’t worth it to try going back to sleep.
She flopped back down on the bed and covered her eyes with her arm, but images of her nightmare still lingered.
“Since when did I wear a dress like that?” An elegant fitting dress with sleeves that came up all the way to her fingers, her feet bare except a few accessories. Nothing at all like what she usually wore. Still, she somehow knew her mind didn’t make it up out of nowhere.
“And Neuvillette…” His expression as he killed her was something she would never forget, even in her waking moments. It was Neuvillette’s face, but as if stripped of everything she’d come to associate with him in the centuries they’ve known each other. Instead of his calm demeanor, she sensed heartlessness. Behind the eyes that usually regarded her with respect, she saw his unfamiliar emotions–hatred, pity, disgust–intensifying before he pulled the trigger.
Furina began to doubt the legitimacy of her memories. Perhaps Neuvillette lied to her about ‘Focalors’. She tried to remember what he told her when the prophecy was over. It was true that she was neither happy nor sad about it, but partly because all that was left at that point was numbness. No matter how hard she dwelled on it, she could not consolidate the vividness of dream-Neuvillette with the real one. The way he looked at her in the dream hurt, but it was the thought that he could actually secretly hate her that felt unbearable.
But that didn’t make sense, did it? After all, despite her popularity, there were still people who loathed her for her failures as Archon. She could still sometimes feel peoples’ gazes, or hear them whispering in the street. The people of Poisson, for instance, certainly didn’t hide their hostility towards her. But Neuvillette didn’t treat her that way…
At least, she tried to remember that. But because she hadn’t spoken a word to him for almost a month now, even her memories of him would soon be tainted. If she didn’t find a solution, it won’t be long before her nightmares seeped into reality.