Chapter Text
Furina likes it. The way Neuvillete touches the teardrop on his neck sporadically throughout the entire time she observes him in his office. He doesn’t seem to know he’s doing this, it reminds her of when they were both younger, new to humanity, and exchanging vows as if they were silly promises passed between children.
Now though, those vows carry weight and as she watches him fiddle with it for the twentieth time that hour, she feels a pang in her chest. If she closes her eyes and pretends just for a bit, it’s almost as if he’s constantly checking if it is still there. That it is precious. But that can’t possibly be. For what she gave him was simply a replacement for his heart she had no right to hold. An equivalent exchange made years ago when she unsealed him from that watery prison.
But…for now, she indulges in her whims, in the fantastical stories of love and affection in her mind. It is all she has now. A ticking clock on the far wall reminds her of the time she barely has left. The prophecy is rapidly approaching. Her time…her time is soon to come. The solution to the prophecy had always been obvious. For how can she remain crying upon her throne if she ceases to exist? But it had never been the right time. Not until she had seen the traveler’s arrival with her own eyes. Watching as her dear Iudex opens up to another even if the action is all too subtle. He is ready, to take on all that she will leave him and he wouldn’t be alone now.
There is Clorinde, there is the traveler, there is Sedene…he would be alright now and Fontaine, her beautiful, lovely, Fontaine. It will survive. Her maudlin thoughts were pierced by a cough. A sharp gaze that she knows does not see through her but comes close anyway.
“You are…subdued today Lady Furina.” Neuvillette looks like he is waiting for something, yet the reason why escapes her.
The giggle that leaves her is one he has heard all too often lately. “Oh my dear Iudex, it’s nothing, I am merely indulging in reminiscing. Remember when you tried cooking for the first time and the steak was–”
She enjoys the pink flush taking over his face. She wants to remember this moment. “Lady Furina please…”
This time her laughter rings clear and true like windchimes.
He is one hundred and forty-three steps from the primordial sea when he feels their heart shatter. It feels like a vice is crushing his lungs, wrenching it from his chest until nothing is left but an empty void. The traveler and Wriothesley's cries echo in his ears as he collapses onto the floor. A shrill ringing tune out all other noise, as a piece of his soul that was jostled out of place is being replaced by something new and unfamiliar. His clawed hands rip off his glove as if it burns to the touch, frantically reaching for the teardrop around his neck. His fingers meet air.
It is not there.
It is…not… there…
“Lady Furina she is–” He forces himself to stand, to follow the trailing strand of pink and blue that is zipping away from where it had once been stored and back towards where it belongs.
They find her standing in the middle of the sea. Eyes turned upwards at someone they can not see. When she turns to them and smiles, Neuvillette feels himself shatter. Her smile is sweet, it is kind, it is resigned - the kind of smile one wears when saying goodbye forever. As each fragment of her recedes from his soul, he suddenly realizes that something within him has broken beyond repair.
The waters that bypass the cracks run as dark as the depths of the sea.
Furina prays and wonders. Has Celestia forgiven her for her transgressions? Has her death mollified them? Has she done well, has she saved her people? She gets no answer, floating through the ether. It is quiet here in the afterlife or what she assumes it is. She is unsure of when she arrived here in this emptiness but she can not say it is entirely unpleasant. Sometimes she dreams, sometimes she thinks, and most of the time, she talks to the empty skies. Asks them, for a little hope. That they would grant her wish of one day being able to be reborn in her Fontaine. To see the beauty of what it had become.
If Celestia is so inclined to be kind anyway. She does not think they would answer her but it gives her something to do in this between.
But Celestia is not kind. Never could be.
Furina falls asleep to silence and wakes up to the tick-tock of a clock. No…not a clock. A scale? It is a familiar sound and when she opens her eyes she wonders if this is a nightmare. She is back on her throne, the smashed remains of her beloved opera house frame the broken scene. Rain leaks through the roof and joins the water that is breathing back her limbs. Piece by piece she becomes whole.
It is quiet here. An unnatural echo that tells her that the land is empty. The rain is bitter, its water almost salty. It feels wrong. She stumbles off her seat to land in a pile of broken machinery and…
And…
Human clothes? Old and new, littered all the way from the steps up to her balcony. Full sets that are now empty…as if their wearer has been—
“A-ah…” This was just a bad dream. Or maybe they simply stopped watching the Opera now? There had to be a logical explanation for this, this mess!
Furina's feet stumble in agony, yet her body is still cradled safely within arms that feel like home. But when she lifts her head to meet his gaze, a chill seeps through her and her joy withers away. His clawed hand grazes her face but there is nothing gentle about the look in his eyes; she finds no warmth left in his gaze. Instead, it conveys something else altogether - a chill so deep and intense that it sends shivers down her spine.
“You’re finally home…Furina.”
She hears them scream in her head, a loud cackle of happily given divine damnation.
'Silly, silly little girl. Did you not know, you were his human heart?'