Chapter Text
97 Years, 2 Months, 11 Days
“You cannot make anyone like you; you do realize that, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say I wanted people to like me,” Carole said, tongue sticking out between her teeth as she tried to tie her ascot. “I said I wanted to help.”
Despite his unique talent for being a wet blanket, Neuvillette took no pleasure in taking the wind out of the little melusine’s sails. He and his Archon were both idealistic pessimists, always yearning for things to go well and always prepared for when they inevitably didn’t. Too much enthusiasm was a warning sign, and the cheery, almost bullheaded way Carole insisted on inserting herself into the Marechaussee Phantom only added to Neuvillette’s anxiety.
“To help…and one day convince our human subjects that the melusine are trustworthy,” Neuvillette said.
“Well I guess that’d be nice too,” Carole said cheerfully. “First thing’s first; can’t go counting my melusine before they hatch.”
It was hard to tell where the line between naivete and optimism was with Furina’s new subjects; the melusine surprised Neuvillette with how readily they weathered the looks of suspicion, the sneers and jeering taunts hurled at them by the humans they served. He had borne all the scorn Fontaine had to throw at him for decades, though with considerably less grace and goodwill. Where Neuvillette became withdrawn and taciturn with humanity, the melusine only seemed to try harder to win their new countrymen’s support. Admirable, to be sure, but the Fontish were quickly learning that the melusine weren’t going to be chased off by a few hard words or thrown stones. Athena hoped this meant the Fontish were warming up to them; Neuvillette knew humanity too well to hope for that.
“First thing’s first; you will have to learn to tie a proper tie,” Neuvillette sighed, crouching down behind Carole and taking the ends of her ascot in his hands. “Here; watch me.”
Carole’s eyes followed Neuvillette’s careful knots, taking in none of it as she studied his reflection. “...do you think I’ll be able to keep up with M. Vautrin?”
“Of course,” Neuvillette said. “Our detective force needs observant agents; so much of the actual police-work has very little to do with combat, so I imagine you will keep up just fine.”
A dark thought occurred to Neuvillette as he finished affixing the miniature cravat. “...speaking of which, we’ll need to fit you with a very small firearm.”
“What for?” Carole asked. “I don’t plan on shooting anyone.”
“Well…of course not, but you have to have something to protect yourself with,” Neuvillette said.
“How does shooting someone make me safer?” Carole asked.
“If someone attacks you, you have the right to protect yourself,” Neuvillette said. “Or…rather you will; I’m confident that the bill to allow melusine some expanded privileges will pass and then-”
“I thought you said we couldn’t make people like us,” Carole asked, a glimmer of mischief twinkling in her eye.
“Whether or not people like you should have no bearing on the rights you are afforded,” Neuvillette clucked. “Even if humanity never fully accepts the melusine, you still deserve to be treated with civility. With the same liberties and protections as anyone else.”
“And how does having a gun help with all that?” Carole asked, leaning back with a sharp-toothed grin. “Besides, if I end up shooting someone, I would have to help them with the injury; seems like I could just save a step and not shoot anybody!”
“Would you really help someone who tried to kill you?” Neuvillette asked. “Why?”
Carole shrugged, examining her reflection in the mirror. “Would shooting me mean they deserve to be hurt back? That wouldn’t make me feel any better and would probably just make them angrier…besides, I don’t think even M. Vautrin would feel comfortable with an armed melusine walking the streets.”
How can anyone seriously feel threatened by these creatures? Neuvillette wondered for what must have been the thousandth time. His initial hesitation about adopting the melusine melted away as he came to spend more time with them. They reflected the best parts of humanity; clever, brave, and kinder than their human countrymen. Furina might have teased him for his sudden ‘preference’ but it was hard not to prefer a people who wanted nothing but peace and offered nothing but help.
“Well…M. Vautrin will protect you,” Neuvillette reassured her. “You needn’t worry…I’m sure this will be the first of many fruitful partnerships between our people.”
99 Years, 6 Months, 13 Days
For a man that valued peace and order, the smoky chaos of the streets was hell. Rain had already started pouring down onto the scattered fires by the time Neuvillette reached the Maison’s forward station, coating the garde uniforms in slick mud as they rallied to their positions. Distant cries of anger and pain could be heard over the din of rain on metal rooftops, and with each step into the chaos, Neuvillette’s hope grew fainter.
“Get the fire department down here and start a medical bay for the injured!” Sergeant Marius called, issuing orders to half-dressed, half-drunk garsem*n as they carried injured people into the station. “Where’s the captain?!”
“Not at home, sir; we rang his flat and-”
“Knock on his damned door then!” Marius barked, straightening up as he saw Neuvillette approach. “Sir! Riots are breaking out all over the city; word is-”
“Captain Sana has appraised me of the situation,” Neuvillette said, counting the handful of gardes who had answered the muster call. “Any sign of Vautrin?”
“No sir; riots started between shifts so the day shift is running back from the taverns and the night shift is struggling to get their legs under them,” Marius reported, watching as Neuvillette approached a large brassy console. “Half the city is in flames…if I didn’t know better, I’d have said that this was all planned.”
“An interesting hypothesis...I'm inclined to agree,” Neuvillette said, pulling a brass key from a chain around his neck and inserting it into the panel. Green lights hummed as he flicked the switches on the panel, arkhe energy pulsing through transparent tubes in the ceilings. In their alcoves on the walls, half a dozen gardemek units stirred, lurching to life and stepping forward to await further instructions.
“Sergeant, the Third Gardemek Battalion is yours,” Neuvillette said, passing the key to Marius. “Deliver the command to Captain Vautrin once he arrives but in the meantime, use nonlethal tactics to disperse the crowds.”
“Y-Yes sir,” Marius said, weighing the key in his hand as the gardemek turned to look at him. “Though the mob ain’t exactly using nonlethal methods themselves; we already have a few officers down from bricks and bats.”
“We do not rise to meet violence with violence; use the meks as shields while you get the crowd under control,” Neuvillette asked. “I am told an officer has been accused of murder; where is Detective Carole?”
“H-Haven’t seen her, sir,” Marius said. “Word is she was holed up somewhere in the western districts but-”
“Then I shall go and…arrest her myself,” Neuvillette said. Like it or not, jail was probably the safest place for Carole until the riots got under control.
“Uh, w-with all respect sir, we got pushed back from that district not half an hour ago,” Marius said, rubbing an ugly bruise on his forehead. “The crowd's mean tonight; I’m not sure it’s a good idea to go down there by yourself.”
“Then by all means join me!” Neuvillette snapped, bursting out of the front doors of the garde station and storming down the rainy streets. The gardes struggled to keep up with his long stride as crowds of terrified and confused people rushed past him. The rain came down in sheets as Neuvillette’s heart thundered in his chest. Cracks in his placid facade grew deeper as he charged to Carole’s rescue.
The smoke grew thicker as he ran past shattered storefronts, a sharp glare and the sight of the gardes behind him parting the crowds as he approached a thick din of protestors. Someone shouted something incomprehensible, but whatever it was seemed to whip the crowd into even more of a frenzy, screaming obscenities into the damp night air.
“Enough!” Neuvillette called, but his command was drowned out by a hideous cheer as someone raised a battered effigy of a melusine on a long pole over the crowd. It dangled from a thick steel cable wrapped around one wrist, swaying as the crowd turned to see the gardes and the Iudex bearing down on them. \
“Now you show up!” One of the crowd cried. “But when your little pets kill one of our own, you’re nowhere to be found!”
The crowd roared in agreement, lobbing jeers and bits of brick at the gardes that cowered behind gardemeks and riot shields.
“Settle down!” Neuvillette called, his voice getting drowned by a tide of hatred that flooded across the street. “You are citizens of Fontaine; this behavior is-”
“Get all the vermin out of the city!” The crowd shouted, appearing like a teeming mass of angry, scowling faces in the broken streetlights. He had seen the worst of Fontaine for decades, passed judgment on killers and thieves and worse kinds of criminals. But never before had the ugliness of humanity been on such a gruesome display in one place. And for once, Neuvillette had no idea how to answer it.
“This is a flagrant violation of-” Neuvillette’s admonishment died on his lips as he looked up to see the effigy lashed to the pole. From a distance, it looked like a stuffed animal or some kind of straw dummy. But now he could see the fur matted by rain and dark blue blood, the way the little garde uniform had been rent and torn, and the cold, glassy expression that had once held so much life.
“You…what have you done?” Neuvillette snarled, his eyes transfixed on Carole’s body as it swung lifelessly at the end of a pole like a fish caught and held up as a trophy.
“We protected our own!” The man holding the pole cried to the savage cheer of his comrades. “And we’ll do the same to any other rat that forgets their-”
The rain stopped. Not gradually, but all at once as though someone had turned a faucet off. The crowd’s furor died as they found themselves shivering in the street lit by torches, the steady drum of raindrops falling silent as Neuvillette’s terrified glare hung on what remained of Carole. Even the boldest of the crowd began looking uneasy, a few halfhearted jeers dying in the deafening silence that followed the storm.
Then Neuvillette’s glare fell on them and they all suddenly remembered something. They remembered a sensation that was baked into their bones, beaten into their souls by the collective trauma of a thousand generations of humanity that lived in fearful adoration of their primordial masters. They remembered that they were small, easily breakable things that great and powerful creatures used for sport.
They remembered that they were prey, now facing their natural predator, even if they didn’t recognize him as such.
Then the rain started again, hard, stinging drops lashing the cheeks of the crowd as they struggled to cover themselves. The breath left the rioters and even the gardes who swarmed around Neuvillette fell back as a potent sense of terror washed over them. No one knew what was going to happen; the look of hatred that darkened Neuvillette’s eyes promised all kinds of atrocities if the crowd didn’t obey him as quickly as possible.
“Release her,” Neuvillette said, his voice heavy with eons of authority. “Now.”
The poor, stupid person that had attached Carole’s body to the pole fell back, landing with a splash in a puddle as he promptly lost consciousness. The furor that had possessed the crowd scattered as they fell back, nearly tripping over each other as they threw down their makeshift weapons and ran into the night. Neuvillette caught the fragile, broken body of the melusine before she hit the ground, brushing her hair back and hoping against hope that she may still be alive.
It was only after standing in the torrent, hand pressed against her cold motionless chest for a full two minutes, that his hope died and any compassion for his fellow citizens died with it. And all that remained was a cold, sickening disgust that painted the face of every human around him. Even the gardes, men and women he had trained and worked with personally, were indistinguishable from the animals that had battered Carole to death; gawking, ignorant apes that threw stones at anything they didn’t understand.
“S-Sir?” Marius mumbled, flinching as Neuvillette’s glare fell on him.
“Ensure the city is safe,” Neuvillette commanded, wrapping his cloak over Carole and tucking her body close to his chest. Marius didn’t know quite what he was so terrified of, only that something in the pits of his soul told him that Neuvillette would eat him if he failed to obey.
“Y-Yes sir,” Marius stammered. Irrational though it may have been, Marius was not eager to push his luck or irritate the Iudex any further. “Sir, what should I tell the Palais…sir?”
Neuvillette couldn’t hear anything over the rain on the pavement as he marched slowly through the streets, disappearing into the night and leaving the Court behind him.
Furina woke to a gray and dreary dawn, her face pressed against the window in Neuvillette’s study as rain drizzled down the windowsill.
“Neuvi…lette?” Furina muttered, pushing herself up with a wince. She hadn’t intended to fall asleep; she expected Neuvillette hours earlier and must’ve nodded off as she waited. The fact that it was morning and there was still no sign of him sent Furina’s fears roiling as she scrambled across the hall to dress herself as quickly as possible.
“Captain Sana!” Furina called, barging out of her suite as she tugged her jacket on. A small pack of guards stood arrayed in front of the door to Furina’s apartments, led by Captain Sana who looked as though she had been up all night standing guard.
“What happened last night?” Furina demanded, running her hands through her messy locks. “Neuvillette…M. Neuvillette did not return to his quarters last night. Is he…”
The thought of Neuvillette torn apart by an angry mob nearly took her legs out from under her.
“The Iudex is currently directing the gardes from the Opera,” Captain Sana said softly, reaching out to steady Furina as she breathed a sigh of relief. “Trials have been suspended for the day as the Maison tries to figure out what happened last night. A state of emergency has been declared and the clankers are out in full force.”
“He mobilized the gardemeks ?” Furina said, growing pale as she realized things had gone further than she anticipated. “Are the riots still happening?”
“No, they dispersed as soon as the Iudex arrived on scene,” Captain Sana said. “Several people were killed in the confusion, including the poor woman whose murder set this all off.”
“Please do not tell me you think that Carole is somehow responsible for this,” Furina huffed, incensed that such a sweet creature had become the target for such hatred. “I have half a mind to bring charges against these rabble rousers myself! Upending civil peace, slander, libel and…”
One of the other gardes was crying, consoled by a friend and even Captain Sana looked crestfallen.
“What?” Furina asked, glancing between her gardes. “For the love of blessed Egeria, will someone tell their Archon what everyone else already seems to know?!”
“I’m…I’m sorry, ma’am,” Captain Sana said, her voice heavy with emotion. “I always did like Miss Carole…she always was-”
Captain Sana kept talking, but Furina stopped following her as soon as she said that Carole was.
“...was?” Furina echoed, summoning all the composure she could muster to avoid breaking into a fit of sobs or a fit of rage. Either was likely at this point, but neither was befitting the dignity of a goddess.
“By all accounts she surrendered herself to the mob to prevent more bloodshed,” Captain Sana said, her lips twisting in disgust. “Of course, that barely slowed the rabble down; the melusine all seem to have fled underground to avoid the worst of the crowd’s wrath. No one’s seen them since the bricks started flying.”
If they never come back, I won’t blame them, Furina thought. “And Neuvillette?”
“M. Neuvillette has barricaded himself inside the Opera,” Captain Sana reported. “Hasn’t let a single living soul in since last night…he had a mad look in his eye according to-”
“Take me there,” Furina snapped, her ears still ringing from fear and fury. “I need to confer with him and determine an appropriate course of action to secure the city.”
“Ma’am…the Iudex asked that you stay in the Palais until the city was made safe,” Captain Sana said, rubbing her arm.
“Well he may ask whatever he likes,” Furina scoffed. “Whether or not I give it to him is a different matter entirely!”
“He has a point,” Captain Sana said. “There are still dissidents at large; the gardes have yet to put out the fires or-”
“Captain…are you a member of the Marechaussee Phantom?” Furina asked calmly. “Or are you a member of my personal garde?”
Sana sighed through her nose. “Ma’am-”
“The last time I checked, you take orders directly from the Archon and your Archon is ordering you to escort her to the Opera,” Furina said firmly, for once barely needing to act. “Or she will walk there alone!”
Tension and mist hung heavy in the air as Furina made her way through the city, looking over the edge of the gondola at the streets below. The brassy shells of the gardemeks stood out against a palette of gray, the last embers of the riot sizzling in the rain. The Court of Fontaine had been designed by Egeria’s own hand and had stood in pristine condition for centuries; now, under Furina’s watch, it had become scarred.
“Those dicks burned down my favorite coffee shop,” Fantine murmured to Eponine as they watched the city pass below them.
“Betcha Miss Sauvegothe’s office is miraculously untouched though,” Eponine murmured back. “Oh, look, M. Thibert’s law firm is spotless as well. Convenient, eh?”
Thibert. That name made Furina’s skin crawl; she doubted that he actually harmed Carole himself, but he and his ill mannered friends had a hand in her death all the same. Furina could see their grubby little fingerprints all over this sordid affair, conveniently on the parts that were barely legal.
“Doesn’t help that the Hydro Dragon’s crying,” Eponine sighed, holding her hand out to catch a fat drop of rain outside the gondola’s covered awning. “Must be bawling his eyes out-”
“What?” Furina blurted out, head snapping up and startling the poor guard before she could stop herself. “Er…forgive me, Miss Eponine, but did I hear you say something about the Hydro Dragon?”
“Oh n-nothing important, ma’am!” Eponine said quickly, avoiding Captain Sana’s irritated glare. “I-I was just saying the rain seems to have come out of nowhere…my granny used to tell me that sudden storms were because the Hydro Dragon was crying.”
“Just gossip, ma’am,” Captain Sana interjected, glaring at Eponine. “Focus, ladies; let’s save the chit-chat for the dock-”
“Please don’t be angry; I did ask,” Furina said, turning her attention to Eponine. “So…the skies weep when the Hydro Dragon is sad? Is that how the legend goes?”
“Y-Yeah, but…it’s just a kid’s story, Lady Furina,” Eponine stammered. “We used to run out in the storms and say Hydro Dragon, Hydro Dragon, don’t cry to try and get the rain to stop…i-is that just a Poisson thing?”
“I believe I heard something similar when I was a child,” Captain Sana interjected. “Have you never heard that expression, Lady Furina?”
Had she not? She would have remembered if she had…surely. Neuvillette was typically even-keeled and hard to read on the best of days. She couldn’t remember if she had ever seen him shed a tear but-
“No…although a goddess’ childhood is anything but typical,” Furina laughed airily, covering her unease behind a smile. “How funny…to think the world would weep when a dragon cries.”
Furina’s eyes remained fixed on the sky as the gondola left the city, crossed the waterway above the lake and wound towards the Opera Epiclese. From the waterway, she could see the border of the storm a few dozen kilometers out where the rain stopped and sun spilled on the hillsides. The deluge seemed to be concentrated on the Court of Fontaine, and the closer they got to the opera, the heavier the rain on the roof above them. It hissed on the pavement as they docked, darting from the gondola station to a small line of tents just before the Fountain of Lucine. Packs of gardes huddled under waterlogged awnings, clustered together around pots of coffee bubbling over makeshift campfires. One of the sergeants looked up as they approached, braving the rain to greet their train.
“Lady Furina?” Sergeant Marius asked, ushering the party under an awning. “What are you doing here?”
“Never mind that, what are all you doing outside in the rain?” Furina asked, wringing her hair out. “Where’s the Iudex? I was told he came here after the mob dispersed last night.”
“As far as I know, he's still in his quarters,” Sergeant Marius reported, nodding behind him at the Opera. “No one’s been up there to see him since he arrived; said he wanted to be left alone. He didn’t shout or anything, but-”
Marius paled. “...he had a dark look in his eye, ma’am. No one felt brave enough to cross him or second guess his orders. And…s-since we haven’t been invited back inside, we’re taking up our posts here and awaiting further orders.”
Furina shuddered, staring up at the Opera’s rain-slick walls. “Have the riot’s organizers been identified?”
“The Maison made some arrests; mostly for vandalism and disturbing the peace,” Marius said, rubbing his arm. “We have a suspect in custody for Miss Carole’s murder as well, but the instigators of the riot are still at large…and frankly, there seems to be little concrete proof to tie the more prominent suspects to last night’s events. Most either have airtight alibis or are out of town in Miss Suavegothe’s case.”
Of course not, Furina thought bitterly. The gentry always killed with borrowed knives and sniped at one another through little proxy wars that were just on the right side of the law. Carole’s actual killer might have been caught, but he was an unwitting pawn in a much larger game. Forces in the capitol had lined up against the melusine since they arrived and now it seemed they were finally making their move.
I let this sneak up on me; I should have been more proactive about nipping this hatred in the bud, Furina thought. But how was I supposed to know they would take things so far so quickly?
“So am I to understand the bravest soldiers in the capitol are standing in the rain because of a look the Iudex gave you?” Furina huffed, grabbing an umbrella from one of the gardes. “Fine; you are all very welcome to freeze outside, but I have business with the Iudex.”
“Ma’am, are you sure you want to go in there?” Marius asked, looking to Captain Sana for help. “M. Neuvillette was very clear that no one should enter before he- Lady Furina!”
Furina marched out into the rain without waiting for the sergeant to finish. Even as the rain intensified as she grew closer to the Opera, Furina drove forward, ignoring the stinging lash of the water against her face until she could duck under the awning and wrench the towering front door open with her shoulder. Inside, the usually bustling opera was silent, the hammering of rain on the roof the only sound she could hear.
“Hello?” Furina’s voice echoed back to her as she left her umbrella out by the door. “Neuvillette?”
The lights were only half on and dim amber bulbs wreathed the halls in shadow as she went looking for her Iudex. The Oratrice sat silently on the stage as she passed by the Opera floor, and even Neuvillette’s office was empty as she poked her head in. His coat lay draped over a small bundle on the desk, and Furina’s stomach lurched as she approached, dreading what she might find beneath it. She didn’t have to look; the way it was delicately laid out on the hardwood left no question as to what was underneath, but Furina’s misguided sense of duty compelled her to lift one of the coat-tails.
A decision she almost instantly regretted as she saw the state Carole was in.
A small cry uncorked the well of tears Furina had kept in check since hearing of the little melusine’s fate. Now alone, where no one would judge her all too human display of grief, she broke down, hand pressed to her mouth to stifle her sobs and leaning on the desk for support.
I should have never brought them here, Furina thought, feeling sillier and more powerless than she had felt in years. Neuvillette had been right; even if the melusine were gifts from Celestia Herself, her people were too clannish and fearful of change to accept them for what they were. And now, one of them had died; a girl barely a few years old who only wanted to help make Fontaine a safer place. Furina, like all humans, had days where her own species disgusted her, but never before had she been so revolted by such a naked display of cruelty.
“I’m s-sorry,” Furina hiccupped, rubbing Carole’s head through the damp overcoat as if that would bring her back to life. “I’m so sorry…”
No amount of sorries would undo what had been done; all there was left to do was try and find a path forward. Collecting herself, Furina wiped her nose, delicately patting Carole’s head one final time before leaving the office, making sure to close the door behind her before she went looking for Neuvillette.
Thunk! A heavy thud came from the law library a few doors down. Through the crack in the door, she could see Neuvillette scouring the ransacked shelves with piles of books haphazardly strewn about his feet. She watched him pull a book down, page through it for a moment, before chucking it aside with a disgusted snarl only to turn to the book on the shelf next to it.
“Neuvillette?” Furina called softly, trying her very best not to startle him but still flinching as he whipped around. She caught the flicker of a truly terrifying glare in his eye until he recognized who had crept up on him, his gaze softening as she slowly inched around the library door.
“Furina…what are you doing here?” Neuvillette asked.
“You didn’t come home,” Furina said, taking a hesitant step forward.
“I told Miss Sana to keep you in the Palais,” Neuvillette sighed.
“Unfortunately I am the one person in this country who you can’t order around,” Furina chuckled nervously.
Neuvillette’s lips twisted, but he said nothing, merely turning back to the bookshelf and pulling down another book.
“I heard what happened to Carole,” Furina said, her voice cracking as it came to the melusine’s name. “Neuvillette, I-”
“I have spent the entire night looking for some way to pin charges on the people who are actually responsible for this witch-hunt,” Neuvillette muttered, flipping through another book with a sharp eye. “I am clearly missing an obvious charge…there has to be something we can use to put these lampreys under the water where they belong.”
“You mean the gaggle of aristocrats that have been whipping this city into a froth for months?” Furina asked, picking a thick, dusty tome off the floor. “The Maison already arrested someone for carrying out Carole’s mur-”
Furina swallowed. “...murder. But if I know our little blue-bloods, I’m sure they’re either out of town or otherwise have so many alibis that no one will be able to charge them with anything.”
“There has to be something,” Neuvillette insisted, chucking another book aside. “Miss Suavegothe’s articles might barely avoid libel charges, but M. Thibert was heard riling up the crowds against the melusine after Carole was supposed to have killed that woman.”
“Him and a hundred other people,” Furina pointed out. “Who’s to say he’s in charge?”
“You know he is.”
“I do…but can you prove it?” Furina challenged.
“I have to,” Neuvillette muttered. “I just need the right charge and the right evidence and I will send him and everyone who even spoke to him to the Fortress of Meropide for the rest of their miserable lives…”
Thesnarlin his voice caught Furina off guard. She hadn't beenintimidatedby Neuvillette for years, but thevenomin his voice made her gardes' fear a little more understandable.
“And…what if there isn’t a charge you can stick them with?” Furina asked, cringing as the rain only intensified outside. Neuvillette didn’t seem to have an answer for this, staring at the nearly empty shelves in front of him.
“Then what good is justice in a country where killers can walk free?” Neuvillette demanded, looking as lost as he was angry as he turned to face her. For decades Furina thought Neuvillette was just incapable of expressing emotions. But just as still waters contained teeming depths, so did Neuvillette’s expression conceal the same passions and fears that she had. They might have presented themselves differently, but ultimately she knew his heart beat with the same feelings hers did…and right now, the subtle strain in his eyes and flash of his teeth suggested he was losing composure in a way she had never witnessed before.
“Carole’s killer has been caught,” Furina said softly, although this only darkened Neuvillette’s scowl.
“We caught the dog that bit her, not the hand that held its leash,” Neuvillette spat, kicking aside a pile of overturned books. “You and I both know it was not him that started this riot; it was not him that inspired so many people to fill the streets…and as long as those people are out there and still hold influence, the melusine will never be safe in this country!”
The force of his voice startled Furina, as did the way he paced back and forth, running his hands through stringy white locks that never dried from the rain the night before. Even in their rocky start, Neuvillette was a source of strength for her, a fixed point that she could use to navigate the choppy waters of destiny. Now, it seemed even Neuvillette was unmoored, drifting about as he grasped at something he could hold on to. But the law, his vocation, profession, and god, had abandoned him in his lowest moment.
“What do you want me to do; order the arrests of a dozen prominent lords and ladies based on conjecture?” Furina asked.
“It’s more than conjecture; the whole city has heard for months how much they hate melusine,” Neuvillette snarled.
“Because our people were so inviting to the melusine before Miss Suavegothe started running her articles?” Furina said. “They didn’t create distrust; they just exploited it. And exploited it in ways that, unless I’m very mistaken, we can’t legally punish.”
“Why not?” Neuvillette demanded, almost pleadingly. “The law is not delivered from heaven; we can change the law to…”
Neuvillette trailed off, scanning the shelves for some kind of legal precedent he could grasp on to.
“To what? Make it a crime to talk badly of melusine?” Furina asked. “We’ll have to build a second Fortress of Meropide just to house everyone we convict of that offense.”
“Not everyone; just the miserable little ringleaders of last night’s mob,” Neuvillette insisted. “Cut the head off the snake and the body will die.”
“The law should apply to everyone equally,” Furina said. “Didn’t you say that once? That no one should be above justice-”
“If we do nothing then they are above justice!” Neuvilllette snapped. “Then we let them murder with impunity and stir hatred against the innocent! Then good, law-abiding citizens have no reason to believe that the courts will protect their interests.”
“So just execute them?” Furina asked.
“I didn’t say execute,” Neuvillette said, holding his hand up. “But exile them; show them and everyonelike them what happens to those who try and cause trouble in Fontaine.”
“Tyranny then?” Furina asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “You want me to be a tyrant? Is that your advice?”
“One slip of procedure does not make you a tyrant,” Neuvillette said.
“Tell that to the friends of the people you want me to imprison without a trial,” Furina said. “We’ll jail ten dissidents and create a hundred more just like them. We can’t just go around arresting people without good cause!”
“And what is this if not a good cause?” Neuvillette asked, gripping the back of a wooden chair so hard it creaked in protest. “An innocent girl has been framed and murdered for the crime of being born a different species; for the crime of being acquainted with me! If the law offers the dead no justice then what good is it?!”
Neuvillette’s voice cracked, but not a tear rolled down his cheek. No matter how tight, fraught, and discombobulated he looked, no tears would fall. Only cold, heavy raindrops that pelted the window from an angry gray sky.
“...you know as well as I do that wouldn’t solve anything,” Furina said quietly. “Even if I ordered their execution for this…the melusine would be in the same spot they’ve been in since they arrived. I would be seen as a mad little god queen that murdered people with impunity and you the butcher that executes my orders.”
“They would murder you if they thought they could get away with it,” Neuvillette grumbled. “Vipers …no, vipers aren’t so greedy.”
“They are people,” Furina insisted. “However much we might hate them —and believe me, you’re not the only one who hates them —they are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. If we deprive people of their right to a fair trial at whim then what reason do people have to believe in justice?”
“What justice is there to believe in?” Neuvillette scoffed. “Justice in this country is a stage production whose end results are generated by a machine. All in service of people who can be persuaded to bludgeon someone to death by tabloid journalists!”
Neuvillette grabbed a book, co*cked his arm back as though to throw it out the door and into the Opera floor…and then just stopped, the fight leaving him and the book slipping from his hands with a weak thud on the floor.
“Are these people even… worth saving?” Neuvillette asked, looking to Furina for answers. “We spend so much effort trying to rescue Fontaine from prophesied doom…is this the country we’re fighting to save? A country of small-minded killers who will turn a blade on anyone who doesn’t look or act as they do?”
It was a question that Furina had wrestled with, mostly when navigating the treacherous world of Fontaine’s political scene. Neuvillette wasn’t the only one who saw the ugly side of humanity in his daily job; Furina had to contend with opportunistic, shallow, manipulative people from sunup to sunset. People who would sell their families out to achieve more prestige or status; people who would claw down anyone who stood in the way of their ambition. If the Primordial Seawater took the Thiberts and the Suavegothes of the world, Furina would have to act sad…and yet-
“I think about that at least once a year,” Furina admitted quietly, crossing the table as Neuvillette sank into a heavy leather chair by a cold, unlit fireplace. “There are plenty of people in this country that deserve the fate we’re trying to save them from.”
The gardes might have feared the look in Neuvillette’s eye, but Furina knew that for all he thrashed and raged at the world, she would be spared any harm, no matter how close she got. Even as he glowered into empty air, she approached, letting her fingers hesitantly grip his bare wrist.
“But…you can’t let the Thiberts and the Suavegothes of the world speak for all of them,” Furina murmured. “All of us. There are good people in Fontaine; people that are worth fighting for. Unfortunately, that means fighting for the people who are better off being eaten by a vishap.”
Neuvillette’s nostrils flared as Furina tilted his head up, fingers tracing along his jaw until he met her eyes. Like the dying fires of a failed riot, the rage in Neuvillette’s eyes was slowly burning out, replaced by soggy and ashen hopelessness that made Furina’s heart ache.
“You have more than just enemies among our people,” Furina reminded him, perching on the edge of his chair. “People are coming to see you as someone fair and impartial…someone they can trust to oversee their cases and judge them fairly. I’m not going to let you throw that all away for revenge that won’t solve our real problems. I am not a tyrant…and neither are you..”
“I was once…” Neuvillette muttered, his heart throbbing as echoes of absolute power flowed through his veins.
“You are not,” Furina clarified, slipping off the arm and settling in his lap so she could better wrap her arms around his neck. “You’re a better man than most actual men I know. Your reign of terror would end at the first sight of a crying melusine…and I don’t think a man who spends all night looking for legal ways to bring down his rivals will be so quick to become a vigilante.”
Neuvillette huffed, eyelids drooping slightly as he leaned into Furina’s embrace. On some level, he knew his murderous thoughts would go unfulfilled; if he wanted blood as payment for Carole’s death, he could draw it himself without going through the courts. Vengeance, retribution, and destruction were his birthrights as a Sovereign…and yet he had been consumed all night looking for a way to do the right thing, only to be disheartened when no way forward presented itself.
“It’s not fair…” Neuvillette muttered into Furina’s hair as she tightened her grip on him. “It’s not just …”
“No,” she sniffed, pressing her watery eyes against his shoulder. “But we can be.”
“All she wanted was to help people,” Neuvillette said, his hands gripping the back of Furina’s jacket. “Is that what good intentions get you in this country?”
“She did help,” Furina insisted. “She helped more people than she ever hurt; not many people get to say that about their lives before they end…and you helped her do that.”
Neuvillette seemed barely mollified by this, but the torrent that threatened to drown the Opera was starting to slow. Out the window, Furina could see the rain turn misty and wispy, lapping at the windows and lightening up enough that the gardes below felt safe enough to emerge from their tents.
“It rains when the Hydro Dragon cries, you know,” Furina informed him, wiping her eyes.
“I don’t cry,” Neuvillette insisted, his eyes dry as they had ever been.
“No, you make the whole world cry for you,” Furina chuckled, a tear transferring from her cheek to his as she kissed his temple. “According to a nursery rhyme, anyway.”
“Is that what we’re taking as fact now?” Neuvillette sighed, leaning his head back against the chair. “...what am I supposed to do now?”
“Your job,” Furina insisted. “The man who was arrested will be tried according to our laws and no doubt found guilty of murder-”
“Animal cruelty,” Neuvillette muttered.
“What?”
“The bill to classify melusine as legally people has yet to pass,” Neuvillette reminded her. “According to the laws of Fontaine, they are still animals at best. The penalty for animal cruelty is two or three years of exile, at most…and then Carole’s killer will be free.”
“Oh…” Furina deflated. She had gotten so used to treating melusine as people that she forgot they legally lacked a lot of the protections her human subjects enjoyed. “I…forgot about that.”
“Justice will have to wait for the law to catch up,” Neuvillette sighed, rolling her gently off his lap as he got to his feet. “In the meantime…I was thinking of taking Carole back to Elynas. I wanted to ask the melusine if they had any funeral customs, but I’m not sure if they’ve ever lost anyone before.”
“Have we really lost none of them before this?” Furina sighed, watching him dejectedly pick up his books. “Let me see to the melusine; I’ll try and round them up before anything else happens to them…unless you’d like me to stay here?”
“What I’d like…do people like us get to do what we like?” Neuvillette asked with a bitter chuckle. “Or do we only do what we must ?”
“I think we can make room for both,” Furina said, giving his arm a gentle squeeze as she passed. “I’ll be back for lunch; don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Neuvillette nodded, waving her off as he sheepishly cleaned up his scattered books. His cheek tingled and he reached up to brush his fingers against the tear that had transferred from Furina’s cheek. As he did, a lingering wave of sadness washed over him…but it was a sadness that had a different flavor from his own. He felt grief over Carole as he ran his fingers down the drying tract of water on his skin, anger for the barbarism of the people of Fontaine…and strangely, a tender kind of compassion for his own suffering that he had never experienced before. It was fleeting; as soon as he noticed it, the wave of emotion passed, leaving Neuvillette rubbing his fingers together curiously.
What was that? Neuvillette wondered, his skin still buzzing as he went about gathering his books.
Much as she didn’t want to be parted from Neuvillette in such a delicate state, Furina could hear gardes milling around downstairs, having finally found their courage. Someone was going to have to put on a brave face and issue direction…and Furina could only be the voice of reason for so long.
She had stopped Neuvillette from taking revenge out of necessity; the country needed a calm figure like him to helm the courts and any legitimacy they had fought for could be gone if they got too aggressive with the aristocracy. But her throat burned with unspent anger as she marched down the hall; animal cruelty. If Carole’s death was animal cruelty, then killing the ringleaders of the riot should have been as well. Thoughts of poisoning Suavegothe’s tea came and went as she found herself powerless to do anything that might improve the situation.
What am I going to do, gossip them to death? Furina thought bitterly.
As she passed the open door to Neuvillette’s office, a flicker of movement drew her attention and against her better judgment, she leaned in a little closer to take a look. The faint sound of sniffling caught her ear and through the crack in the door she saw a man in a garde uniform leaning over Neuvillette’s desk.
Is that…M. Vautrin? Furina thought.
“...I’m sorry,” Vautrin sniffed, shoulders shaking as he rubbed the small bundle of fabric on Neuvillette’s desk. “Gods…why didn’t you just come to me? I would have-”
Furina wasn’t as tight with the gardes as Neuvillette was; part of her role required that she maintain an appropriate distance from people who were trained to sniff out secrets. As much as Furina wanted to share in Vautrin’s grief, she didn’t trust herself to grieve in a dignified way.
“...you’re not going to die for nothing ,” Vautrin sniffed. “I…the people who did this to you aren’t going to hurt anyone else…I’ll make sure of it.”
Gods, how many murderous men do I have to talk down in one day?! Furina thought, noting the crumpled paper in Vautrin’s hand. Who knows though…maybe he’s just planning to arrest them?
“I’m not going to wait for them to be arrested,” Vautrin muttered darkly, much to Furina’s irritation. “No…I’m going to take care of this myself. So your sisters can be safe…I swear.”
Oh Blessed Egeria, Furina thought, clearing her throat poignantly. “M. Vautrin?”
Vautrin’s head snapped up, quickly stuffing the paper in his jacket as he snapped to attention. “L-Lady Furina…I didn’t realize you were there.”
“You seemed to be in the middle of a private moment; I didn’t want to intrude,” Furina said, eyeing the paper sticking out of Vautrin’s pocket. “But you should know that nothing happens in the Opera Epiclese without the God of Justice's knowledge. I believe I sensed something that smacked suspiciously of vigilantism.”
Furina was far from all-knowing, but her subjects didn’t need to know that. In fact, acting omniscient was ironically one of the best ways to get information; people, when confronted by a goddess who they thought knew everything, rarely lied for long.
“I…I was talking in anger, Your Excellency,” Vautrin mumbled, averting his eyes and fidgeting with the paper in his pocket. “I’m not in my right mind…just need a few hours to process the shock.”
“Mmhmm…and are you the sort of man who processes shock by taking justice into your own hands?” Furina asked, watching Vautrin cringe at the accusation as she quietly closed the door behind her. Being alone in a room with an armed, angry young man should have terrified her, but goddesses had nothing to fear from mortal men. Even if Furina’s fingers trembled as she gently stroked Carole’s head, her expression was one of calm, control, and command.
“I named her, you know,” Furina said softly. “I watched her sisters pull her out of her little egg, clean her off, and welcome her to the world. They didn’t have names before Neuvillette and I discovered them; they didn’t need them, I suppose. But Carole was one of the first to pick out a name for herself…she was never afraid to be a trailblazer, was she?”
“No ma’am,” Vautrin agreed, swallowing heavily as tears flowed freely down his cheeks.
“She was kind too; a girl who wanted nothing more than to do some good for the world,” Furina sighed, cradling Carole’s head under the coat. She couldn’t bear to look at her again; not after one look made Furina imagine what had become of the melusine in her final moments.
“...I know what you want to do, M. Vautrin,” Furina said, looking up at Vautrin. “You are having the same thoughts that everyone has when they have to bury a slain loved one. I know that you want to hunt down the men and women responsible for inciting the mob and deliver your own fatal brand of justice.”
Furina knew none of this for certain, but a hundred years in the Court of Fontaine made her very good at reading a person’s intentions; in Vautrin’s case, it was easy to understand feelings that partially resonated with her own. For all her talk of justice, she was only human and tempted to revenge as any person would be when so terribly wronged.
“Should I not…ma’am?” Vautrin said, already content to lose his job and his freedom to avenge Carole. “They’re not going to be tried for anything, are they?”
“That is a question for the Iudex,” Furina said.
“You are the God of Justice, ma’am,” Vautrin said. “You could-”
“I have had this conversation already, M. Vautrin,” Furina sighed, holding her hand up. “There will be no extrajudicial murder in my country; revenge of that kind is not justice and what’s more…Neuvillette has lost one good officer today. I hope you don’t plan on depriving him of two by getting yourself arrested.”
Vautrin’s teeth clenched audibly, his hands balled into tight fists at his sides. “Then…what am I supposed to do? Just sit back and smile at the scum who led Carole to her death?!”
“I don’t think anyone will be smiling for a long while,” Furina sighed. “But think; you are a promising young officer who has the Iudex’s favor. He has spoken of you often; he sees you as a trustworthy man. A man of focus and commitment. A man that can help Carole’s sisters.”
“Carole’s sisters won’t be safe as long as Tibiert and his friends have any kind of influence in Fontaine,” Vautrin muttered darkly.
He was right, of course; if the riot’s ringleaders weren’t suitably quelled, there would be no end to civil strife…and no safety for the melusine so long as they lived in Fontaine. The problem wouldn’t solve itself; united, Thibert’s friends made up some of the most influential members of the court. Removing them from influence without removing their heads from their shoulders wouldn’t be easy…but it wouldn’t be impossible.
“...that paper in your pocket,” Furina said, eyeing the scrap still jutting out of Vautrin’s coat. “Is that our suspect list?”
Vautrin nodded, fishing the crumpled page out of his pocket. “The ones under suspicion for inciting the riot haven’t been brought in yet.”
“And I take it you were not going to arrest them if you found them,” Furina nodded, extending her hand. “Give it to me.”
“Are you going to have them arrested, ma’am?” Vautrin asked, warily looking from Furina’s outstretched hand to her face.
“If there is any hard evidence tying any of them to a crime, I will be very surprised,” Furina chuckled bitterly. “But just because I don’t want to see anyone dead doesn’t mean I’m going to allow them to do what they please. I wouldn’t be much of a God of Justice if I allowed my subjects’ crimes to go without suitable punishment, now would I?”
“How?” Vautrin demanded pitifully. He had never been a praying man and the only faith he had was in his partners. Now his partner was dead, and the flighty, theatrical little goddess he served was looking at him with an expression that he had never seen her wear before. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and tear marks could be seen on her face, but her gaze was firm.
"Do you believe in me, M. Vautrin?" Furina asked.
Vautrin's fingers shook, the list of names rattling in his trembling fingers. Some days it was hard to see Lady Furina as a goddess worth believing in, but the hard, unwavering look in her eye resonated with the spirit of vengeance that Vautrin warred against.
"Give me the list of names," Furina said, gently gripping the sheet of names in his hand. "And I will see that justice is done."
Vautrin nodded, releasing his grip on vengeance and letting the fate of the people on the list pass into Furina’s hands. She took one look at it, bitterly snorted through her nose, and tucked it in her jacket.
“Yes…all the usual suspects are accounted for,” Furina said, fixing Vautrin with a stern look. “You will speak of this to no one; not your friends, not M. Neuvillette. No one.”
“No, ma’am,” Vautrin agreed.
“Upon my honor, as your Archon, the people on this list will be so fundamentally ruined that they will inspire pity instead of riots,” Furina promised.
“In what way?”
“As I said; they will be punished in a… suitable fashion,” Furina promised. “Now, I think we’re finished with any grim talks of revenge for the day. Carole’s sisters are still missing; I would like you to take a small company of officers that you trust, find them, and bring them back to the Palais unharmed. Can you do that for me, Captain?”
Vautrin’s eyes lingered on Carole’s body over Furina’s shoulder. “...yes ma’am.”
With a crisp salute, he turned to leave, leaving Furina alone in the room with Carole’s body. As much as she was unsure of how she would deliver justice to the people whose names rattled around her pocket, she was sure that she must. Fontaine was undergoing some growing pains, and if it was going to survive long enough to be saved, Furina would have to prune some of the more unsavory elements.
“So this is your idea of justice?”
A sudden voice in her ear nearly made Furina scream, grabbing at a heavy paperweight on Neuvillette’s desk and swinging it around to menace…nobody. She was alone in the room as she always had been, with only her reflection staring at her from a mirror over a small washbasin in the corner of Neuvillette’s office.
“H-Hello?” Furina called, her own voice bouncing off the walls and answering her. “Who said that?”
Silence responded, and after a few moments of straining her ears, she dropped the paperweight and stormed out of the room. She was tired…she was burned out. She was grieving, she told herself. She was hearing things…even as she was sure that someone had spoken to her only moments before.
The Oratrice creaked as Furina left through the Opera, the scales tilting for just a moment before righting themselves again.
