Chapter Text
“The Chief Justice’s purr-fect new feline friend! Miss Madeleine shows off in new exclusive photos, courtesy of the Steambird’s professional photographers,” Lady Furina recounts dramatically from today’s copy of The Steambird laid out in front of her. “My my, dear Iudex, you’ve been slipping, I see.”
Chief Justice Neuvillette arches a brow, placing his glass of water, crisp and fresh directly from Mondstadt’s Cider Lake, down on the tea table. It narrowly misses Furina’s piling dessert plates. “However so?”
“What’s that you’ve always said? ‘I must reject personal relationships to remain most impartial?’ And yet, Monsieur Neuvillette, here you are, revealing your cat-person tendencies to the world.” Furina can’t seem to wipe the shit-eating grin off her face.
Neuvillette only scoffs. “I took pity on a creature that I determined needed my assistance. I can assure you that Madeleine does not, and will not, interfere in my impartiality.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. But,” Furina goes to continue her sentence, but hesitates.
“Lady Furina?”
“I’m glad you’ve decided to build a connection with someone, my dear Iudex.” She pauses a moment, then smiles genuinely, softly, to him. “Even if that someone is a cat.”
Neuvillette says nothing, only sighs softly. But that’s alright; as far as Furina is concerned, Madeleine’s sudden but positive influence on Neuvillette’s wellbeing is good enough for her.
The two fall silent. Neuvillette takes a sip from his water glass, and Furina takes a bite out of the tiny cake currently closest to her. She glances down to her dessert, then back up at Neuvillette, who is making no effort to continue the conversation. She makes an internal note to help the Iudex with his social skills.
“So,” Furina clears her throat after a while of heavy silence. “Bringing Madeleine home soon, then?”
“Alas, no. I cannot. I have a trial to oversee this evening.” Neuvillette answers after sufficiently enjoy his sip of water. “I will leave her here, at the Palais, and then pick her up when I return.”
“You’re not worried about leaving her alone?”
“Certainly not. The Palais Mermonia is heavily guarded, you and I know that much. I’m confident that the Gestionnaires and the members of the Marechaussee Phantom stationed here will be able to watch over her until we return.”
Furina shrugs. “If you’re sure. Now then, we’d best not be late. Shall we?”
Neuvillette stands from his chair and nods. “Of course, Lady Furina.”
The punching bag makes a satisfying thwack noise when Wriothesley’s fist collides with it, followed quickly by another, and another in succession. Light on his feet, he sidesteps and delivers another hard punch to the side of the punching bag, capped off with a load groan after finally finishing this set of his workout.
He makes quick note of resetting his rest timer, and uses the towel he’s haphazardly thrown over the bench against the wall to wipe the sweat from his brow. He quickly unscrews the cap of his water bottle and chugs at least of quarter of it.
He doesn’t mind, though. This is Wriothesley’s time to let loose, to forget the stresses of running the Fortress of Meropide independent of the rest of Fontaine’s legal system. During these workouts, it’s just him, the punching bag, and—
“Your Grace!”
Ah, yes. What was he just saying about having time to let loose?
He recognizes the familiar clank, clank, clank of someone’s boots on the metal staircase up to his office. Wriothesley turns, half expecting either Sigewinne or one of Meropide’s many guards, coming to inform him of the umpteenth problem in the fortress today.
What he’s not expecting, however, is that it’s not either of those two things. It is, in fact—
“Sedene?” Wriothesley questions, cocking an eyebrow. Now this is an interesting turn of events he can get behind. “Do what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I come on behalf of Monsieur Neuvillette,” Sedene replies, sounding distinctly out of breath. “He sends his sincerest apologies for the short notice. But it is urgent and requires your presence immediately.”
“Consider me intrigued. Of course, I’ll be at the Palais Mermonia as soon as I inform the guards of my absence.” Sedene nods, and with that, makes her way down the stairs with a reverberating clunk, clunk, clunk.
Wriothesley sighs as he stretches his sore arms. As intrigued as he is, he can’t help but feel a sense of worry curling up somewhere inside him. Neuvillette had never directly called upon him in this fashion, and even so, to request Wriothesley’s help when the man was all the way down in the Fortress of Meropide seemed highly unnecessary. Unless the situation was incredibly urgent, which is what Sedene had told him. If that was the case, something in Wriothesley’s mind could only counteract that with the thought that this could only have to do with the state of Fontaine’s national security. That seemed pretty damn urgent to him.
Without further ado, Wriothesley chugs the last of the water bottle and grabs his coat from the back of his chair. If Neuvillette wants an audience with him, an audience he will surely get.
When he and Sedene finally arrive at the Palais Mermonia, she instructs him right to Neuvillette’s office. When he enters, he’s greeted with the fact that’s he’s not the only one Neuvillette called upon.
Neuvillette himself is pacing— pacing around his office in a manner that is uncharacteristically anxious of him.
It does not inspire confidence in Wriothesley’s mind.
Lady Furina is also there, minutely trying to calm Neuvillette’s nerves with fake, anxious laughter that also does not inspire confidence.
Clorinde stands in the corner of the room, facing a group of about five or six of the Marechaussee Phantom, seeming to be instructing them or perhaps informing them of the situation. It’s her who notices their arrival first, and acknowledges him with a nod. He strides over to her.
“So. You seem the like the most reasonable, calm person in this room right now. Is the world ending, or something?”
Clorinde sighs. “It seems like it, doesn’t it? To the Chief Justice, perhaps it is, but realistically, no.”
“What… does that mean, exactly, Clorinde?”
“This evening, roughly about two hours ago, His Honour the Chief Justice’s office was broken into.”
Oh, shit. Wriothesley shuts down whatever snark he was about to reply with. “Archons. Okay, I understand why we’ve all been summoned now. I genuinely thought this was a matter of national security when Sedene came all the way down to the Fortress.”
“Well, technically it is. There are many classified files kept here in Chief Justice Neuvillette’s office, but… we did a sweep of the room, and His Honour declared there was nothing amiss.”
Wriothesley is back to being utterly confused again. “So… it’s okay then? If nothing was taken—“
“None of the files were taken,” Clorinde clarifies. “But the Chief Justice did find a ransom note placed on his desk, along with his dearest pet cat Madeleine nowhere to be found.”
Wriothesley blanks, for a second. “So he called you and I here… for a cat?”
“Yes, I did.” Archons, when did Neuvillette get behind him?! The Chief Justice is standing there, arms folded neatly behind his back with a solemn look on his face. “My apologies, Duke Wriothesley, for the short notice. But I see Clorinde has already informed you of the situation at hand.”
“…Yes, she did. So. You have a cat?”Wriothesley bites down every bit of judgment in favour of not having the Chief Justice smite him on the spot.
“I do. I adopted her recently— her name is Madeleine. I suppose I was unwise to let her get any publicity, and even more so to leave her unattended.” Neuvillette sighs, and hands Wriothesley the piece of paper he’s just noticed the Chief Justice has been holding the entire time. “When I returned to my office from a trial to retrieve her before heading home, she was not there. Furthermore, I found this note on my desk which proved my fears true.”
Wriothesley scans the ransom note as best he can, though he can barely make out some words through the author’s harsh scrawl, but he reads on regardless;
To; Chief Justice Neuvillette
We have broken into your office. We have your cat, Madylene, and if you want her back, you’ll have to pay up.
We will meet you on the south beach of Elynas tomorrow morning at sunrise. You must come alone, with a bag containing one million mora. If we suspect that you are not alone, or have plotted against us, we will kill Madylene with no hesitation.
“This looks like a psychopath wrote it.” Wriothesley comments, inspecting the front and back of the note.
“Of course it’s written by psychopath. They can’t even spell her name right,” Neuvillette wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Luckily, that is why I called for you, specifically. You spend your time corralling these… types of individuals.”
“Okay, ouch.”
After a moment of realization, Neuvillette looks immediately guilty. “Apologies, I did intend to compare—“
Wriothesley snorts. “It’s alright, I’m kidding. So, there’s no way in Celestia that we’re sending you out alone. I trust you have a plan?”
Neuvillette nods and clears his throat. “The letter instructs not to bring reinforcements, but I’m fairly certain that if we bring along a small group, and are adequately careful in our movements, then we should be able to surround them. But I thought it useful to have a few vision-wielders, like Miss Clorinde and yourself, among them.”
“So, you go in alone, but not really alone.”
“Precisely. Miss Clorinde, any objections?”
Clorinde shakes her head. “I’ve informed the members of the Marechausee Phantom I’ve selected to bring along. Granted that we are careful, the operation should be a success.”
Neuvillette nods. “Very well. I’ve prepared rooms for you both here in the Palais Mermonia, so no need to make your own accommodations. We will meet outside the Palais a few hours before the allotted time and begin our journey. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir, Monsieur Neuvillette,” Clorinde replies with a small bow of her head. Wriothesley simply gives him a thumbs up.
Neuvillette does not look amused by it.
A large crack of thunder shakes Wriothesley from his less-than-peaceful slumber.
He groans. This is not the first time this night he’s been woken but the raging storm outside. Something in him wonders if Fontaine can experience hurricanes.
A flash of lightning lights up the room, and Wriothesley decides he may just be a tad worried about tomorrow morning. A short walk and perhaps a cup of tea might soothe his nerves. He picks up his undershirt from where it lies on the end of the pristine Palais Mermonia bedding and throws it on.
Wriothesley would normally have second thoughts about walking around the Palais Mermonia in pajamas, but he banishes the thought from his mind. There’s no gestionnaires, limited members of the Marechaussee Phantom around, and the others are asleep.
Or so he thinks, as he’s strolling mindlessly around, belatedly noticing the lights in Neuvillette’s office are still on.
He must’ve been stressed and left them on by accident, Wriothesley reasons, and decides to do the honourable Chief Justice a favour by saving his electricity.
He enters Neuvillette’s office, and he’s about to nonchalantly turn off the lights when a raspy voice nearly scares the shit out of him.
“Duke Wriothesley?”
Wriothesley swears on his life that no one was in the room when he entered, but there at the desk is none other than Neuvillette himself. Neuvillette stands from his chair, clearly attempting at least some kind of his impeccable impartiality and image, and is failing at both.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
“Ah— I, um, sorry—“ Wriothesley fumbles, still reeling from the miniature heart attack the Chief Justice just gave him.
Neuvillette simply raises an eyebrow.
He takes a breath. “I apologize. I just thought you— left the lights on, I guess? So I just came in to turn them off. Didn’t realize you were still in here. Didn’t realize you were still here in general. Sorry, I’ll—“ He makes an awkward walking-like movement towards the door, but then stops himself. He turns to Neuvillette. “Are you feeling okay?”
Neuvillette clears his throat. “I am— fine. I am alright. Thank you for your concern, Your Grace.”
“Seriously, though. Shouldn’t you be sleeping? We kinda both have to be up in—“ Wriothesley glances at the clock, “a few hours, give or take. You’ll be exhausted.”
“I fear I… cannot find it in myself to rest at the moment.” Neuvillette admits, which is farther than Wriothesley expected to get, actually.
“Nerves?”
Neuvillette lets out a sad, dry laugh. “Something like that.” Wriothesley’s heart hurts a little at the sound.
Wriothesley steps a little farther into the room, closer to Neuvillette’s desk, and to the man in question sat behind it. “This cat— I mean, Madeleine, means a lot to you, huh?”
Neuvillette nods. “We did find some information about who may be behind this heinous crime.”
“Oh shit, really?” If Neuvillette notices his unprofessionalism, he doesn’t call him on it. Archons, they’re not in the most professional situation as it is. Neuvillette continues with a pitch of sorrow that he’s never quite heard from the Chief Justice before. “I have read through these individuals’ case files since they crossed my desk. They are… infamous for being cruel to animals. And they threw around the notion of killing her so flippantly, I—“ Wriothesley swears he hears Neuvillette’s voice break for a moment. The rain only pounds harder on the window. “I am worried that they have already done something to her. I care for Madeleine very much and yet I allowed this to happen.”
“Bullshit, you didn’t allow this,” Wriothesley answers, and Neuvillette looks up from where his head has landed in his hands. “Some group of thugs somehow got into your office, which anyone would’ve thought was safe, by the way, and they chose to take her.”
Wriothesley closes the difference between himself and Neuvillette and grasps one of Neuvillette’s hands in his own. “We will get her back. Safe and sound. Everything’s gonna be alright.”
Neuvillette’s eyes widen at the gesture. But then they soften, and the smallest hint of a smile ghosts across the elder man’s face. “Thank you, Duke Wriothesley. I suppose I… was lost in doubts.”
“It’s no problem,” Wriothesley assures, then takes a seat in one of the chairs in Neuvillette’s office. “You, however, need to sleep. We need everyone firing on all cylinders if we’re gonna pull off tomorrow.”
Neuvillette nods, a bit sleepily. “You’re right. He admits, standing from his desk. Wriothesley looks at him expectantly, almost stands, but Neuvillette seems to hesitate.
Then,
“If I take a rest here in my office, do you mind keeping me company?”
Wriothesley blanks. He swears he just misheard Neuvillette completely. “I’m sorry?”
Neuvillette looks like he wants to smite himself where he stands. But nonetheless, he repeats himself. “I… feel less than safe, knowing that strangers were able to break in so easily. I would appreciate it if you stayed here to watch over.” He sighs, and Wriothesley doesn’t miss the shake in his voice. “It would bring me some peace of mind.”
Wriothesley nods. “Sorry, yeah— if it’ll help you sleep, I don’t mind at all.”
Neuvillette smiles. It’s a soft smile. Somewhere in the back of Wriothesley’s brain, he registers that it’s a pretty smile.
Wordlessly, Neuvillette makes his way over to the sofa and lays across it, shutting his eyes. Wriothesley doesn’t move, just leans back in the chair and watches, keeping his word to Neuvillette.
And finally, Wriothesley is able to sleep soundly that night.