Chapter Text
It has truly been a long day.
Furina had woken up at the crack of dawn from a strange dream of her mirror-self requesting her to visit the Oratrice. Unable to fall back asleep, and wanting desperately to get that dream out of her head, she had started writing the next part of a play she was directing; but it seems her mind refused to give her peace.
Later that day, during a brunch with Clorinde and Navia, the topic of the Oratrice had, somehow, made its way into their conversation.
“Did you hear about the recent story going around?” Navia was the one who started the topic.
“Which story?” Furina hasn’t been keeping up with the new stories spreading around Fontaine nowadays. She has been busy after all.
Clorinde, sitting beside Navia, answered instead. “The scales of the Oratrice was seen tilting slightly during a trial,” she took a sip from her cup of tea, “I saw it myself.”
“Like during the trials before the prophecy?”
“Exactly.”
“Did it tilt on the correct side, though?”
Clorinde nodded.
Back then, Furina had shrugged it off as merely a coincidence. Maybe she was just focusing too much on it. But, during the recital with her new troupe, it happened again.
Neuvillette had granted her full access to the Opera Epiclese a while back, despite her constant attempts at telling him not to — with the excuse that she doesn’t need it. But being able to use the opera whenever she pleases does have its perks. Furina and her troupe are able to freely rehearse in the opera without having to go through a long process of renting the place: it saves cost, and is basically a dream for most acting troupes. And it also means Furina had a front row view of the Oratrice itself.
While Furina was conducting a scene, the scale tilted again, just like how Clorinde and Navia had explained. The sound of the Oratrice’s creaks and her actors rushing off the stage echoed throughout the room. It tilted for a little more before pausing; then, just when everyone thought it was going to stay in that position, it moved back into its original position.
Suddenly it was like nothing had happened. Everyone brushed the situation off as merely a loose screw or something and resumed the act they were on. But Furina’s mind stayed on the incident.
She knew it was no longer a coincidence.
The scale had tipped on the same side as it did during her trial.
______________________
That is how Furina now finds herself alone in the Opera Epiclese. The rest of her troupe had retired for the day while Furina decided to stay back, using some random excuse she had came up with on the spot. She has one goal in her mind: and that was to figure what’s wrong with the Oratrice and why it seems to be pulling her towards it.
The machine is merely a few steps away from her, its ever looming figure stands in the center of room, on the same stage she is on. Now, it’s no longer the scale that presides over the country’s every trial — it had lost its purpose after the flood; now, it is merely an artifact on display.
From an outside glance, there was nothing wrong with the machine; but Furina knew better. She’d spent most of the boring trials during her archonhood studying every detail of the Oratrice. She knew every intricate gold designs, and every gem that adorned it — which, to be exact, had reduced from three to one. And it was the last gem remaining that Furina figured was the cause of its strange behavior.
She has always known that the gems possess some magic in it — but she didn’t know that they could change colors. The center piece was no longer a hue between ocean blue and marine green, it was a shade of light blue that was nearly as white as paper, with dark navy swirls. She could swear it wasn’t those colors when she was with her troupe.
Furina was not an artist, but she was also sure those were the exact shades of mirror-her’s dress.
Like the realization had triggered something, the gem suddenly is gleaming . It only keeps shining brighter and brighter, until Furina could barely see anything anymore, until the light swallows her.
“You can open your eyes now, you know?” A voice, terrifyingly familiar, spoke. And Furina finally opens her eyes.
She’s no longer in the Opera Epiclese, or, at least, the one she was in before. This version of the opera house is brighter, its chairs are floating all around, and there seems to be no doors out. She looks around to see no one… except for a strange blue sphere standing conspicuously in the middle of the stage.
She has so many questions.
“Where am I?” Is the first question to come out of her — she has to stop herself from spilling everything out.
“Inside the Oratrice.” The voice answers, and she’s sure that it’s the sphere talking now, and she’s also sure that the voice belongs to mirror-her.
Furina was about to ask another question when the sphere cuts her off, like it knows what she was about to say.
“I know you have many questions, Furina, but we don’t have much time left.” The sphere begins, “What you’re talking to here is the last of my consciousness, my real self is dead.”
She already knows the latter. Even before Neuvillette came to explain the situation to her, she already knew a part of her had withered — they were part of the same being after all.
“Why am I here?” She does not have a good feeling on where this conversation would go to.
The sphere— well, Focalors— sighs before answering in a voice too pitying for Furina’s liking.
“There was a part of the prophecy hidden to everyone except the Celestia, Egeria, and myself.”
Furina really does not like where this is going.
“Celestia probably had a feeling Egeria would be able to find a loophole in the prophecy; so they added that if anything were to interfere with returning Fontainians to their original form, a second flood would come to drown everyone.”
Oh, damn Celestia.
“So? What’s my role now?” Furina asks. Focalors must have a plan… right?
“I’m sorry, dear. But your role is to find a solution.”
Furina never knew one sentence could make her feel like her whole world’s crumbling, but after recent events, she’s starting to hate the pattern. It feels like she’s back in that damn trial again. When all felt pointless as Neuvillette read out her verdict — which was also in the form of one single sentence, the irony of it makes her sick.
But then again, maybe she should’ve expected it. Everything felt too good to be true, after all. She was born playing pretend to save a nation, why wouldn’t her life be dedicated to saving it again?
But how is she even going to find a solution to this?
“ What do you mean?! ” Furina nearly screamed at the sphere, her self-control kept her back. She might be nice and soft-spoken in truth, but five hundred years of pretense does have its marks on her. And she is angry. “I have not a single ounce of divinity in me and you expect me to be able to prevent a punishment from heaven itself?”
“Please, Furina, listen.” Her mirror self pleads, and so she pauses.
“A while ago, I had put aside a small part of my divinity for you to inherit the moment I die.”
“ What?”
Focalors ignores her shock. “Just like how the Oratrice worked: the people’s faith in you will be converted into power. With the Hydro Dragon’s help, by the time the flood hits, you’ll find away to push it back using the power you’ve accumulated and his power.”
Suddenly the amount of questions she had when she first got here seems mild compared to how many she has now.
“How—“
The sphere shushes her before she can even ask anything.
“Over half a millennia ago, the former Hydro Archon Egeria summoned me.” Focalors begins, “She told me that I was chosen to be the next Hydro Archon once she’s gone. But my happiness was short-lived because she then told me about the prophecy.”
“Like us right now, I demanded her answers and everything, but she already told me everything she knew. She later died during the Cataclysm, and I ascended to archonhood, and the responsibility to save Fontaine was in my hands.”
“Back then, I had not a single clue on what i should do. But I knew Egeria had picked me for a reason: my intelligence. So I spent months crafting a plan, and i made one.” She pauses, then sighs. “My intelligence could only go so far, however.”
Despite Furina’s anger, she sympathizes with her mirror self. They were both born to serve for this nation. And neither of them had much of a choice.
“Since we’re both part of the same being, that would mean I should have a similar level of intelligence as you, right?”
The sphere hums as if to say yes.
“What if I’m not?” How could she be? How could she ever craft a plan that is as complex as Focalors’?
“Doubt is what makes you weak, my dear.”
But it is what makes her human, is it not? Furina doesn’t ask that, because is she even human?
She stays silent for a bit, lost in thoughts. There’s a question looming in the back of her minds, nagging her for an answer she probably already knows of. But she asks anyway.
“Pushing back Celestia’s punishment would cost more than my divinity, wouldn’t it?”
Focalors does not answer, but that is enough of an answer for her.
Furina lets out a bitter laugh. All three of them, succumbing to tragedies. From Egeria to her. She supposed those are the lives of the divines of Fontaine. She can’t even find herself to hate any of them for this. It is Celestia that she loathes. It is the heavens that she blames.
Maybe, in another life, the three of them could live freely, without the weight of a nation on their shoulders, without an impending doom hanging over their heads.
The light from the sphere seems to be dimming by the second, they both know they don’t have much time left.
“When is the flood coming?” Furina asks finally.
“In around two years.” Focalors replies solemnly.
She smiles a tired smile. “I guess I’ll see you in two years, in the afterlife.”
“I’ll save you the most beautiful place here.” An invisible hand reaches out to caress her cheek. She can’t see it but she feels its soft breeze against her skin. She closes her eyes.
And then everything disappears beneath her.
And it reappears.
She’s back in the Opera Epiclese again.
And she cries.
⚖️ ੈ✩‧₊˚💧
It has been a long day.
Ever since her departure, every day felt endless to Neuvillette. No more were her loud comments that made every trial less boring, no more were the click of her heels against the marble floors of the Palais, no more were the times when she’d burst through his doors unannounced. They might’ve felt annoying to him at first, but they had became a pivotal moment in his days.
He kept the things she had left behind: a set of teacups gifted to her by an old Fontaine family, her collection of fountain pens that she used to write out plays, and so many other things. An employee had once asked him if he wanted to throw a few of her small trinkets out since Furina didn’t seem to need it back — the feeling that came over him was… strange, to say the least.
The Palais Mermonia was starting to lose her scent.
After all the events that had happened that fated day, Furina was the first person he had rushed to check on. All the guilt was beginning to crept onto him, taking over his whole being. All those years, and not once did he question those cracks of her true self. All those years of him swearing to protect his goddess, only to be the one to judge her himself.
He forced her into that trial. He made her touch that basin of primordial seawater — what if the water had not been diluted? He refused to imagine it. Her death is something he could never bear.
It’s his fault that he gained his full authority at the cost of the one person that matters. It’s his fault that everything feels so empty now, without her to bring interest to it.
He yearns to have her constant presence by his side again; he yearns for the times when she would silently enter his room and sob in his arms, and he’d hold her without question; he yearns for her.
Neuvillette thinks he might drown Fontaine in his sorrows.
A knock on the door snaps him out of his trance, and he realizes he has been drifting off again — that’s been happening a lot lately. Sedene slowly opens the door and steps in, her face seems urgent, he hopes it’s not yet another dispute with a merchant. He nods, a signal for her to speak.
“La— Miss Furina requests an audience with you, Monsieur. She says it’s urgent.”
The sky of Fontaine lightens.
“Let her in.” His voice barely contained his excitement. After this long day of dealing with disputes after disputes, seeing Furina again is the only thing that could lighten his mood.
His elation, however, was quickly replaced with worry the moment he sees the state she was in.
To most people, Furina might look perfectly fine; but he is not most people . Her eyes are slightly red and are looking at anything but him, and she’s moving with less energy than usual. From his five hundred years of knowing her, he is certain she has been crying earlier.
“Is everything alright, Lady Furina?” Typically, he would just call her Furina , without all the formal titles; but since the few months that led up to the prophecy, many things have changed between them. And he would hate to displease her.
“Oh, hush.” She walks over to his desk. “You can drop the Lady. I’m no longer one, remember?”
“My apologies, does calling you Furina work then?” The sky darkens a little at her comment.
She’s silent for a moment, as if contemplating, “That works.”
“Very well. Is there anything in particular that you came for?”
She nods and takes her usual seat on the couch beside his desk.
“I just had a talk with Focalors.” She stares off into the floor, her voice barely above a whisper. Questions pop into his head, but he stays silent for her to continue.
“She says that a second flood is coming.”
Of course. He should’ve seen it coming. The waters of Fontaine have been rather irritated after all, they were probably trying to tell him.
Furina still seems oddly rigid, he figures there’s still more to the story. Finally, after a moment that felt like eternity, she lets out a long breath and looks at him.
“Focalors saved a piece of her divinity for me to receive after her death.” Her voice is clearer now, “she told me that this power feeds off the people’s faith to grow, and that it’s up to me to find a solution with it.”
Suddenly, Furina’s behavior makes so much more sense. It pains him to see her slowly unraveling before him. It pains him to hear that she’s subjected to having to carry the weight of a nation again, as if five hundred years of pretense wasn’t enough.
He had once sworn to protect her, whether it be mentally or physically. Yet he had failed tremendously.
How is he worthy to be a Sovereign when he isn’t even capable of protecting his most precious treasure?
“I suppose I also play a role in this?” Why else would Furina be telling him all of this then? He knows the answer already, he just wants to hear it from her.
“Exactly.” She gets up from the couch and approaches his desk, but she doesn’t go past it like she used to — he finds himself also missing it. “I need your help to convince the people to have faith in me, I need your help to keep up with the charade, and I need your help to push back the waters when it comes.”
Neuvillette would never refuse her. Hell, he would flood the entirety of Teyvat if she asks for it.
“Of course I will help you, Furina.”
“Thank you, Monsieur.”
Her use of his title to address him did not please him, at all. It only reminds him of the awkward barrier between them.
“You can drop the title as well, Furina.” His voice tries covering how hurt he is over one single word.
A sob leaves Furina, and he fears he might’ve said something wrong. Was asking her to drop his title wrong? Should he take it back?
Out of his own reflex, Neuvillette gets up from his chair and takes Furina in his arms. “Furina, what’s wrong?”
They both know the answer to that. How dumb is he?
She doesn’t answer, instead, she just sobs against his shoulder and holds onto him like she might just unravel the moment either of them let go.
Fortunately, he does not plan on letting go any time soon.
He carries her over to the couch she was previously on and sits down with her still in his arms. Her weeping doesn’t seem to be ceding any time soon, so he just keeps on holding her, like the old times.
He doesn’t say anything, knowing that Furina prefers his silent comfort, and knowing that he has no proper skill to comfort her verbally. He waits until, eventually, no more tears come out of her and her breathing evens out. Neuvillette slowly shifted her to a more comfortable position watches as sleep slowly lulls her in.
“Sorry… for wetting your shirt.” She whispered before falling asleep. She always says that, and he’d always tell her not to worry about it. But, this time, he lets her sleep.
It feels like heaven to be able to hold her again, despite the circumstances. And, not long after her, he, too, relaxes and allows himself a moment of rest. Furina’s presence has always calmed him, after all.
As for Sedene, who wanted to check on Lady Furina and Monsieur Neuvillette, she does not say a word about how she found both of them asleep, holding each other.
She’s rather glad to see the sun again, actually.