Chapter Text
His first day as Chief Justice of Fontaine, Wriothesley walked into the cacophonous front hall of the Palais Mermonia. He greeted Sedene, his brand new (very old) secretary, who kindly smiled at him and wished him a good morning, before informing him—
“His Grace the Duke of Meropide is in your office to see you, Your Honor.” When Wriothesley didn’t move, her expression grew softer, her smile wider. “He almost never comes up to the Court. Please be nice to him!”
“Thank you,” Wriothesley replied, his tongue leaden and thick in his mouth. His heart felt like it was beating from inside one of Furina’s thickest treacle tarts. “I will... do my best.” He looked toward the shut doors of the Iudex’s office—of his office—and tried not to sweat through his shirt. His Grace the Duke of Meropide. In his office. In Wriothesley’s office. Him. Street kid from nowhere.
He straightened his shoulders, girded his loins, and walked in like he owned the place.
When Wriothesley opened the door, he didn’t look inside. He opened them, turned around to lock them, pushed his shirt flat and grimaced when the buttons strained, took one last deep breath, and finally faced the legendary Lord Incognito of the Murky Depths.
What he found was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen in his life, standing in the middle of the room, holding Wriothesley’s favorite teapot up to his face, bent over to peer inside it. He was tall—nearly as tall as Wriothesley—and slender, almost willowy despite the straight, demarcated lines of his Fortress of Meropide uniform. His long white hair was pulled back into a high, tight ponytail, and his face was made up of the kind of angles and planes that carpenters busted their nuts over. Probably. Wriothesley had never been a carpenter, but if he was a carpenter, he would have busted a nut over it.
The man did not look up from the teapot as he said, in a clear, deep voice, “This does not smell like sugar.”
Nonplussed, Wriothesley returned, “Good morning?”
Rather than reply in a normal way, like a normal person, His Grace asked, “This teapot is very well used, but does not smell like sugar. Is there a particular reason for this?”
Wriothesley took a few steps into the room, like he was approaching a skittish blubberbeast. “You’re not really supposed to put the sugar directly into the pot. It can damage the porcelain, and ruins the flavor of the tea.”
His Grace the Duke of Meropide took a moment to consider this claim. “Lady Furina insists upon sugaring her tea as it steeps. Otherwise, it tastes like only hot leaf water.”
Unable to stop himself, Wriothesley said, “Yeah, well, Furina is wrong, so—“ and His Grace finally looked up.
His eyes were the color of opals, and the pupils were slits, and Wriothesley had known the Duke of Meropide wasn’t human, but it was one thing to know and another thing entirely to see. He blinked, and it was with an inner pair of horizontal eyelids. “You know her well,” he finally said, and it was hard to tell if it was a comment or a question with how little his voice inflected.
There was no reason for Wriothesley to lie. “Known her for years.”
Those inner eyelids flickered again. His Grace the Duke of Meropide set down the teapot. “What do you think of Lady Furina?”
“It’s usually considered polite to introduce ourselves before we get to talking politics.”
“Is it?” The question seemed genuine. “I do not often engage in pleasantries. The Melusines tell me that it can be disconcerting. I apologize for overlooking human niceties. I am unfamiliar with them.”
“I mean, you aren’t...” Wriothesley hesitated. Was it considered rude to say to a man’s face that he wasn’t human? Only one way to find out. “Human. Are you?”
There went that inner eyelid again. He hadn’t blinked with the outer, human, set once since he’d made unerring eye contact with Wriothesley after putting the teapot down. “I am not,” His Grace the Duke of Meropide replied, with easy equanimity. He folded his hands behind his back, which unfortunately for Wriothesley’s attention span, framed his chest in the well-cut cloth of his uniform, making it adhere to the narrow, tapered lines of his torso. “I am Neuvillette, Administrator of the Fortress of Meropide. Most humans call me His Grace. You are free to call me whatever you wish.”
Wriothesley put on his best and most charming smile before he crossed his office and stuck out his hand. Neuvillette didn’t shake; he stared at it with a vaguely confused air, even if his expression remained entirely unchanged. “I’m Wriothesley. It’s nice to meet you, Neuvillette. Would you care for some hot leaf water, free of sugar?” When Neuvillette still didn’t reach out to shake, Wriothesley gamely added, “Many humans shake hands when they meet, myself among them.”
“I have seen this custom.” Neuvillette turned that considering, slit-pupiled gaze to Wriothesley’s outstretched hand. “I have never taken part.”
“First time for everything.” Wriothesley wiggled his hand. Neuvillette eventually reached out took it, very loosely, in his own. Wriothesley had expected his gloves to be leather—instead, they were plain cotton, unadorned but for a very slight bit of embroidery on the palm. Under the cloth, his hands were cool, his grip awkward, and Wriothesley didn’t doubt for even a moment that what he said was true—he had never shaken hands before. Wriothesley shook, but Neuvillette didn’t let go. “We let go now.” The other man dropped his hand almost immediately. “If not tea, can I get you something else? You came all this way to meet me. I assume we need to talk, and you should have something.”
Hands once more folded behind his back, Neuvillette lifted his chin and stood there in silence for a good thirty seconds before he said, “If Miss Sedene still has the Mont Esus glacial runoff water from the three hundred and eighth year of Lady Furina’s reign, that would be amenable.”
Wriothesley peered at the man. At Neuvillette, Duke of Meropide, and his perfectly statuesque face, his opalescent eyes, his firm, thin lips and strong jaw, his uniform that looked like it had been pressed on his body. This was the man who had ruled over the Fortress of Meropide, the exile of exiles, for over two thousand years; the man who had brought Melusines to Fontaine; an immortal legend in his own right even though nobody knew who or what he even was. “You’re not what I expected,” he finally said, when he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
The long blue... antennae, perhaps, that ran down Neuvillette’s back from the top of his head perked slightly upward, like the tail of a cat would turn into a little question mark when it was interested. “You are first Chief Justice of Fontaine to say so, but I suspect the nineteenth to think it. I thank you for your candor, Your Honor.”
Wriothesley thought that might have been a compliment.
In the ten minutes it took for Sedene to locate the water Neuvillette had requested, Wriothesley first attempted to get him to have a conversation (“I am not adept at small talk,” Neuvillette had replied, which, well, okay) and then had asked about what made the water he’d asked for so particular, which had caused Neuvillette to immediately launch into a long, drawn-out treatise on all the weather patterns, mineral deposits, and other factors which had made the water he’d requested so enjoyable.
It hadn’t meant a damn thing to Wriothesley, but it had been interesting. Watching Neuvillette talk about something he cared about in extensive detail, Wriothesley was able to deduce two things: First, that Neuvillette’s antennae definitely did perk up when he was excited, and, second, that Wriothesley would have listened to him talk about anything in that smooth-as-butter deep voice of his. He would have listened to this man read an ingredients label aloud.
When Sedene returned with the bottle, Neuvillette thanked her politely, pulled free the glass stopper, and plucked a water goblet straight out of thin air. He poured part of the bottle into the glass, then gestured at Wriothesley’s teapot. “If you would like to try with your hot leaf water.”
“Sure.” Wriothesley held his hand out for the bottle. “I can put it in my kettle.”
A look of vague, indescribable horror passed over Neuvillette’s face. He pulled the bottle back towards himself. “Your Honor, there is doubtless a calcium buildup within your kettle. That will ruin the consistency of the water. Allow me.” Not sure what else to do, Wriothesley took the lid off of his teapot and held it out.
He then watched, utterly perplexed, as the water, which had been clearly chilled before as it was already causing perspiration down the side of Neuvillette’s goblet, poured steaming hot out of the carafe. “That’s a neat little trick,” Wriothesley said. “I wish I could do that. Do you have a Pyro Vision?”
“Do not insult me so, Your Honor.” Neuvillette’s eyes had narrowed slightly. “I bear no such taint upon my form.” Wriothesley winced, resisting the urge to pat his own Vision where it hung from his coat as if to apologize for the insult. “Heat requires only exciting the molecules appropriately.” Which was a totally normal thing to say, sure.
“Still.” Wriothesley smiled. “I think it’s pretty impressive. I’ve been trying to figure out how to use my Vision to pull the cold out of my water to make tea without needing a kettle for years. Never managed to make it work, though.” Before Neuvillette could reply, he pushed himself to his feet. “Let me get some tea leaves and we can get down to brass tacks.”
“I am not here for tacks, be they of brass or any other kind of metal,” Neuvillette said, once Wriothesley had sat down and started brewing his tea. “The material productions of the Fortress of Meropide and their sales are handled entirely by the Union of Exile Production. You must be aware of that.”
“It’s an expression.” Wriothesley swung the tea ball back and forth in the water, watching the infuser work. “It means something like... let’s focus on the important, specific details.”
“The metal composition of tacks is an important detail?”
“I mean, if you’re designing furniture or something, yeah. It has to look right, to match the fabric and the wood, and be able to hold up to the weight of whoever is sitting on or using it.” Wriothesley shrugged. “I’ve never really had an opinion on it one way or another, but one of my sisters is a furniture designer. She has some strong opinions.”
“I would never have considered that.” Neuvillette took a long, thoughtful drink of his water, savoring it. “Perhaps it is not so unlike my water preferences,” he continued. “Each detail has to itself a time and place.” Wriothesley pulled out his tea leaves and poured himself a cup. “So then, as you said, to brass tacks.” He set his cup aside, leaned forward on Wriothesley’s couch; long, slim legs crossed at the thighs.
He wore the highest boots Wriothesley had ever seen. Even higher than his own big stompers. They reached Neuvillette’s thighs, and the leather was incredibly tight, moulded to every bit of skin they could fit.
He really needed to stop staring at Neuvillette’s legs.
“As Chief Justice of Fontaine, there is certain information that you must now become privy to.” Neuvillette spoke slowly, unpretentiously, precisely. Wriothesley stopped staring at his legs and started staring at his mouth instead, because the way he enunciated was... “That which is mine to share I shall, albeit not at the present time. You are expected at the Fortress of Meropide in three days. I will meet you at the entrance behind the Opera Epiclese at dawn.” He pulled out a large folder and sat it at the center of the table, beside Wriothesley’s teapot. “Herein are the present budgetary needs of the Fortress of Meropide, as well as what information or investment is required from the Palais Mermonia for support purposes. The nature of our autonomy is spelled out within, including an itemized list of what is or is not appropriate behavior on the behalf of the Chief Justice in regards to the maintenance of Meropide.”
Wriothesley took the folder and flipped through it, drinking his tea the whole time. It was exceedingly clear cut. Neuvillette wrote with all the precision that a career lawyer usually lacked—it was all straightforward. No vacillation or unnecessary detail. Only when Wriothesley closed the folder and set it aside to look over more carefully later did Neuvillette continue, “You are aware I possess the right to commute all sentences handed down from the bench, be they from mortal justice or the Oratrice Mechanique d’Analyse Cardinale.”
“I’m aware.” Wriothesley had actually kept that as a backup plan when he’d stood in court himself, a lifetime before. Fortunately, it had never come to that. “But that rarely happens.”
“I have made it a habit to warn your predecessors, as some have been less than pleased by such a turn of events.” Neuvillette’s eyes narrowed slightly. It wasn’t a glare, but it was something, even if Wriothesley couldn’t read it. “The justice by which exile is defined and the justice upon which the Court of Fontaine functions are neither the same nor interchangeable. If a sentence within Meropide is commuted, I will inform you personally.”
“I was going to ask about that, actually.” Wriothesley refilled his teacup. “Sedene said you rarely come up into the overworld, and I’ve certainly never seen you before now. How will we be communicating?”
“There is daily post between Meropide and the Palais. In addition, my deputy, Carole, will have weekly meetings with you every Thursday at half-eleven.” Neuvillette brushed imaginary dust off of his boots at the knee. “If, for some reason, there is a need for us to meet face-to-face with urgency, I will attend your office here, or you may accompany Lady Furina on her weekly visits to the Fortress on Mondays at three in the afternoon sharp. In the event of an emergency, I will find you.” Wriothesley opened his mouth to ask how Neuvillette would do that, reconsidered what very little he knew of the man, and closed it again.
Instead, he said, “I assume all of this is already pre-existing in my schedule?” Neuvillette nodded, and Wriothesley snorted. “There’s not much for me to do here, is there? The Oratrice makes all official calls on decisions from the bench, you run the Fortress of Meropide, and the Councils run Fontaine. Really all I am is a neat figurehead.” Neuvillette had gone very quiet, but Wriothesley couldn’t stop himself. There was something about the man, about his expressionless face or his distant eyes or the way he looked so damn perfect, practically untouchable, his clothes tailored and starched and formed to his body, his hair without a single strand out of place, his boots polished until they shone, that made Wriothesley want to find out what it would take to rile him up into...
He didn’t know what.
“I sign off on laws and listen to cases argued by better lawyers than me and pray that maybe I don’t fuck anything up and condemn an innocent, as if that decision even rests with me. I deal with everyone and everything because our Archon is desperately trying to save our nation and inevitably I’m going to do it all wrong. I’m one mortal man.” A pained laugh wrung itself out in his chest. “I’m just one man, Neuvillette. I’m just a guy. How can I possibly claim to have any authority to arbitrate over this nation? Hell, I’ve killed people.” He clenched his fist. “I have blood on my hands and I get to decide if other people are guilty or not when I’m guilty and everyone knows it and I still walk free. It’s a fucking farce.”
It was dead silent in the office. Wriothesley swallowed. Neuvillette said nothing.
“I’m... sorry,” Wriothesley finally breathed, staring at his hands to keep from looking at the immortal sitting on the other couch. He could feel Neuvillette watching him. “I don’t know what came over me.” When there was no response, he opened his mouth to keep going, to dig this hole deeper, only—
Neuvillette laughed. At least Wriothesley thought it was a laugh. It sounded more like the wheeze of some kind of asthmatic dog, but when he looked up, he found those antenna raised again, just as they had been while Neuvillette had talked with such excitement about his water. “I can see why the Oratrice selected you as its Iudex,” he said, after Wriothesley had spent several long breaths blinking at him.
“Well, please.” Wriothesley gestured between them. “Share with the class, because I sure as shit don’t. I tried asking Furina, but she did her high and mighty ‘do not ask of the gods for their reasons are inscrutable and their logic ineffable’ shtick, which answered zero questions.”
Neuvillette gave another one of those wheezy, single laughs. His pupils had widened slightly, out of narrow slits to something more almond, like a cat’s eyes. “I am unsurprised. Lady Furina does not enjoy being beholden to the whims of outsiders.” He uncrossed and recrossed his legs the opposite direction. “If I am to assume that you are the ‘class’ I am meant to share my thoughts with, I believe you were chosen for the very reason that you find yourself to be so lacking. You did not wish for this title. You find yourself unworthy of your position. You have no pretensions, Monsieur Wriothesley. You do not want to be Iudex. That is a rare thing indeed, as many humans desire prestige and titles and power.”
“I just...” Wriothesley tangled both hands in his hair and tugged. “I just want to take care of people.”
“And you shall,” Neuvillette agreed. “For humans have the right to choose their own path to destruction.”
Wriothesley couldn’t say anything to that.
Three days later, Wriothesley found himself behind the Opera Epiclese, standing on the long, thin bridge that crossed the waterfalls, watching the sun rise over the eastern horizon, streamers of the dozens of red-golds of dawn cutting through the clear blue sky.
“You are early.” Neuvillette’s deep voice startled Wriothesley so bad he took a reflexive step forward and already had ice riming around his fist before he caught himself and breathed out, plastering his best smile back on. He turned to see the Duke of Meropide standing just behind him, arms folded behind his back, expression impassive, hair and uniform perfect. “This is early for most humans.”
“I don’t really sleep much,” Wriothesley said, once he’d gotten his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth. He flexed one bicep. “Gotta get up early to focus on these bad boys.”
Neuvillette’s head tilted almost imperceptibly to the side, one brow slightly furrowed. “That is your arm, Your Honor. Not a ‘bad boy.’”
Laughing, Wriothesley shook his head. “You don’t really do expressions, do you?”
“They do not come to me with facility, no.” If Neuvillette meant facial or rhetorical expressions he didn’t define, but given how flat his affect was, it was both. “Miss Sigewinne, our head nurse, often reminds me that narrowing at the edges of the eyes means a human is smiling when in concert with the baring of teeth. Have I done something to entertain, Your Honor?”
“No. I mean, yes, but—you’re just interesting. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“I should think not,” Neuvillette agreed, folding his hands behind his back again. “As I am the only one of me in the world.”
“If you were anyone else, I’d think that was a joke.”
The antennae perked up again. “It was a joke.” Wriothesley’s smile widened. “I am glad you understood it.” He resettled himself, antennae smoothing back down. “Now, we must be going. I prefer not to move about within the internal portions of the Fortress during Production Hours.” Neuvillette turned, walking at a steady clip that was fast enough it took Wriothesley several steps to match his pace.
“You don’t walk around the fortress during the day?” They were under the overhang now, where there were usually guards standing on court days, by the elevator that led down into Meropide. Wriothesley had walked back here with clients before, but he’d never been further than where the guards cut him off. Now, he followed Neuvillette down those stairs, the heavy stomp of his boots echoing beside Neuvillette’s own, softer footfalls.
There were no guards today, only two low-burning torches and the open sea.
“I do not make a habit of it, no.” Neuvillette stopped beside the lift and pulled a key out from within his uniform cuff, unlocking the door. He let Wriothesley inside first, then joined him, putting the key into the interior lock instead.
Wriothesley felt a sudden, terrifying moment of claustrophobia. He tried not to let it show, shifting his stance instead, letting out a slow breath. “This lift requiring a key for basic functions is in violation of the FSHA.”
“Shall you be fining me, Monsieur Wriothesley?” If it was anyone else, Wriothesley would have thought that was also a joke. With Neuvillette... “There is no need,” he added, after a moment had passed, still holding the key turned all the way upside-down in the lock as the lift descended. “The key is required only for access to the sub-maintenance tunnels, which are uninhabited. For security reasons, keys are limited. The lift itself runs without them.”
“Oh.” Wriothesley felt the tension drain out of his shoulders. The lift was still going down. Not sure what else to do, he started watching Neuvillette.
The further down the lift went, the less Neuvillette moved. Wriothesley shifted from foot to foot, impatient—Neuvillette remained perfectly poised, shoulders straight, spine upright, free hand folded behind his back. Wriothesley tugged on his cuffs or tried to smooth his hair—Neuvillette’s hair didn’t even shift. Wriothesley scratched his chin, or breathed a little too hard, or looked around; Neuvillette stared at the key in the lock, and did not blink his outer eyelids. From the angle Wriothesley was standing at, all he could really see was the curve of the man’s jaw, knife-blade sharp, and the pointed tip of one ear, the top of his slender neck above the buckle of his collar. They were almost close enough to touch. If Wriothesley had leaned only a little ways forward, their shoulders would have brushed.
He caught himself before he did. Cleared his throat. “So is that where we’re going? The sub-maintenance tunnels?” Neuvillette nodded. “Any particular reason?”
Those inner eyelids blinked again. “You are aware that I have been the Administrator of the Fortress of Meropide for two thousand years.”
“Uh, yeah.” Wriothesley hoped his laugh didn’t sound too hysterical. “Kind of hard not to be. You’re older than the stones of this place.”
Neuvillette sounded consternated when he replied, “The Fortress of Meropide is built of metal, not stone.”
Wriothesley tried not to make a face; failed. “It’s an expression. But—yes, I know that. Always sort of wondered what the whole immortal guarding a prison thing was about, but... none of my business, I suppose.”
“It was beyond your purview,” Neuvillette corrected. The lift coasted to a perfectly silent, steady stop. Neuvillette pulled out the key and the door slid open, revealing a small room directly in front of a large double sluice door. The ceiling was low enough that Neuvillette had to duck as he stepped out, Wriothesley following. The lift thunked back shut. “As Iudex of Fontaine, as I said in your office, there is information to which you are now entitled, including the nature of my identity.” Neuvillette raised his hand and the center of his palm began to glow a clear, steady blue; the pure, undiluted blue of Hydro. As Wriothesley watched, the sluice gate shifted, metal thunking as bolts and locks opened, and the two halves of the door slid back and into the wall, revealing a tunnel ahead.
It was entirely full of water, which was held back by some kind of barrier, pulsing the same bright blue as the light from Neuvillette’s hand.
“I am the Hydro Dragon Sovereign of Teyvat,” Neuvillette said, and he looked Wriothesley dead in the eye as he said it. Up this close, it was impossible to ignore that his pupils were white, not black. Next to the indescribable luminescence of his irises, his eyes made Wriothesley... think things he really shouldn’t have been thinking right now. “Beneath the Fortress of Meropide rests the Primordial Sea, source of all life on Teyvat. It is my duty to guard it until such time as Fontaine floods, erasing Fontaine’s original sin.”
“Oh,” Wriothesley croaked. “Okay. Sure. Cool. Yeah. Gotcha.”
Fuck.