Chapter Text
Cold.
That was the first sensation that registered - an all-consuming, biting cold, like needles driven through her damp skin. Not the crisp, bracing chill of Fontaine’s misty mornings, but a raw, needling cold that gnawed at her bones.
It dragged her from the dark depths of unconsciousness with brutal insistence.
She lay sprawled on rough cobblestone, cheek pressed against something slick and vile that stank of rot. Her eyelashes fluttered, her breath hitching as rain battered her prone body. Slick cobblestones pressed against her cheek, filthy water pooling beneath her, and somewhere distant thunder grumbled like an old god nursing a grudge (maybe not Raiden Shogun, but another god).
Furina de Fontaine awoke with a gasp, her white-blue clothes soaked and clinging to her trembling frame. Her heterochromatic blue eyes — one light, one dark — fluttered open, struggling to focus through the haze of exhaustion and pain.
The world that greeted her was dark, smothered by storm clouds. The air was thick with the scent of decay, a far cry from the crystalline waters of Fontaine.
A sob tore at her throat, unbidden.
She tried to sit up, but her limbs trembled violently, her fine clothes — once symbols of grandeur — clinging to her skin in cold, clammy folds. The tailcoat and slash of her suit were stained dark by mud and who-knew-what else. Her long white hair, usually styled into perfect cascades adorned with delicate strands of blue, now hung limp, tangled, plastered across her shoulders.
Where was she? This wasn’t the Opera Epiclese. This wasn’t Fontaine.
This wasn’t home.
It struck her then, how achingly silent her chest felt. A thin, hysterical laugh bubbled up. It died quickly, choked by the lump in her throat.
Fontaine.
She had been its Hydro Archon, the radiant star upon which all eyes gazed. The paragon of justice. The adored, feared, scrutinized, worshiped god.
For five centuries she had danced upon that gilded stage, her every smile calculated, every tear a deliberate flourish to keep the citizens enthralled. She had worn her crown with practiced pose, recited her lofty speeches about the sanctity of judgment with unwavering conviction. She had become justice’s very avatar.
And yet, in truth, she had always been acting.
She curled in on herself on the filthy Gotham street, hugging her knees to her chest.
The rain didn’t relent. It pounded her shoulders, needling through the holes torn in her once-impeccable finery. Each drop seemed to hiss: Fraud. Charlatan. Fool.
Her mind recoiled from the memories, but they surged forth, relentless.
She had wandered the echoing marble halls of the Palais Mermonia after each trial, her footsteps the only sound. She would press hands to grand windows and watch the fountains of Fontaine dance far below, lit by countless lights, while her people celebrated outside. They thought her aloof, divine, that she preferred solitude.
In truth, it was all she had left. No confidant. No lover. No friend who truly knew her, not the role she played.
Then came the day when everything shattered.
Her breathing quickened. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will the memories away, but they flooded in sharper than ever.
She stood again in the Opera Epiclese of Fontaine, beneath chandeliers that blazed with thousands of droplets of light, each glittering like a promise. Common folk packed the stalls below, eager for the next dramatic turn. All of them — every last person in that vast hall — had their eyes locked on her. Murmurs swelled beneath the gilded ceiling as eyes turned toward the dais.
Normally, it was she who presided there, rendering judgment with practiced grace. But this time, Furina was not the orchestrator of spectacle.
She was the condemned.
“According to the judgment of the Oratrice Mecanique d’Analyse Cardinale, the Hydro Archon is guilty…"
“... To be punished via the death sentence.”
Neuvillette’s voice, cold and final, pronouncing the verdict. Clorinde’s sword, gleaming with betrayal, poised at her heart. The Traveler’s indifferent gaze, their priorities elsewhere, luring her into a trap she couldn’t escape. The trial — Fontaine’s grand stage, where she had played the Hydro Archon for 500 years, only to be unmasked as a fraud.
No, not a fraud. A sacrifice.
Focalors’ voice echoed faintly in her mind, her divine mirror confessing the truth: a 500-year charade to deceive Celestia, to protect Fontaine, to bear a burden Furina never asked for. And then, the end, Focalors’ final act, a blinding light, and… this.
Her breaths came in shuddering gasps. The rainfall blurred into needles against her scalp.
A hysterical giggle almost escaped — five hundred years of endless masquerade, of sparkling speeches, of teetering atop a throne made of glass — and now look at her. Huddled in a reeking gutter in some foreign city, with no crown, no court, not even an enemy who bothered to name her.
Furina’s gloved hands clutched at the pavement, her nails scraping against the grit. Her chest heaved, each breath a struggle against the weight of betrayal.
“Regina of All Waters, Kindreds, Peoples and Laws,” she whispered bitterly to herself, the title tasting like ash. “Hydro Archon. God of Justice. What a cruel jest.”
She had worn those titles like a mask for centuries, performing for a nation that turned on her when the curtain fell. Now, they were chains she longed to cast off, yet they clung to her, heavy and unyielding.
So it is. She is now somewhere new. Somewhere utterly foreign.
She pulled herself into a crouch, rain pattering off her shoulders, and forced herself to look around. Was this her punishment, then? To awaken alone in this wretched place, stripped of all she knew?
No.
A faint warmth bloomed in her chest, fragile as spun glass.
Focalors. The other — the true divine half of her fractured soul — had stood firm. She had done this for her.
“Thank you, Furina. From this moment on, please live happily as a human.” Focalors’ final words echoed.
“Just as I wished we could.”
In her last act, the true divine half of Furina’s soul had sacrificed herself, pleading with a cosmic force to help her.
The cosmic entity had answered Focalors’ plea, plucking her from Teyvat’s grasp and dropping her here, in this rain-soaked purgatory. Was it true mercy? Or another stage for her to falter on?
Then suddenly, knowledge flooded her mind, unfamiliar yet precise, like a script thrust into her hands before a performance.
Earth. Justice League. Gotham City. A world of heroes and villains, technology and chaos, so different from Teyvat’s seven elemental tapestry.
She knew somehow how to speak these people’s language, how to decipher the alien shapes of their signs, how to navigate machines that would have baffled her mortal court.
But it was all meaningless in the face of this loneliness.
She staggered to her feet, her legs trembling under the weight of her mortal body.
Mortal. That was the truth Focalors had revealed to her — Furina was no god, only a human cursed to play one. Yet now she can feel the hydro powers lingered, a faint pulse in her veins, a reminder of the divine facade she could never fully shed.
Gotham loomed around her, its towering spires and flickering neon signs casting jagged shadows. The alley was a maze of overflowing dumpsters and rusted buildings, the air heavy with the threat of danger.
Furina’s heart raced, her performer’s instincts screaming to hide, to vanish from the spotlight.
Her trembling fingers brushed the delicate, ornate charm at her waist - a parting gift from Focalors, a shimmering relic of Teyvat’s fading light. The Hydro Vision nestled there pulsed faintly, its soft azure glow a bittersweet echo of everything she had lost.
Next to it hung another keepsake: a small, curious vessel gifted in those final moments. It seemed simple enough at a glance, yet carried the quiet promise of shelter — the power of the Adepti woven into its heart. How it worked, even Furina could scarcely guess, only that it would answer her when she needed refuge most.
A flicker of light rippled at her fingertips, born of instinct rather than will. Her hands traced a shaky sigil in the damp air, and slowly, a doorway of luminous water unfolded before her, delicate as spun glass.
She fell through it.
/////
The Serenitea Pot unfolded around her, a tranquil haven of soft blues and golds, reminiscent of Fontaine’s elegance. A small pavilion stood at the center, surrounded by a gentle stream that sparkled under an artificial sky. Plush cushions and delicate curtains invited rest, but the air felt sterile.
She stood, pacing the pavilion, her damp gown dragging against the floor. Then she tried to summon a table spread with Fontaine delicacies — glistening Fricassee de Poulet, delicate Blubber Profiterole, steaming teas that smelled of lavender and sea salt. Nothing appeared.
So the Serenitea Pot doesn’t work like that, she thought.
She staggered to the edge of the largest pool and sank to her knees. The water, usually so clear, seemed dim, almost sullen.
Her reflection gazed back at her — pale skin smudged with grime, eyes reddened and hollow. Her long hair hung in wet ropes, the delicate blue strands dull against her shoulders.
Not the luminous Hydro Archon. Just a broken girl.
She reached out as if to touch the girl in the water, then let her hand fall. It splashed weakly under her touch, responding to her Hydro Vision, but the connection felt fragile, like a thread ready to snap.
Five hundred years of dazzling crowds. Of swirling dances and proud proclamations about the majesty of judgment. Of crushing loneliness no one ever saw. And in the end, it had all come to this — exiled to a foreign world, stripped of godhood, with not even a meal to summon.
“Five hundred years…” Her whisper was barely more than a breath. “Five hundred years I tried to be what they needed. I laughed for them, danced for them, let their judgments stand even when they cut deeper than blades…”
The water didn’t answer. It only trembled slightly under her breath.
“I thought… I thought if I just kept going, it would all be worth it. That someday, someone would look at me and see more than the Hydro Archon, more than a convenient figurehead for their trials…” Her voice cracked. “But all they saw was a mask. And when it slipped, they turned away.”
A fresh sob ripped through her. She hugged her arms around herself and rocked slightly, the motion instinctual, something a child might do in a storm.
“Listen to me, listen to me, everyone...” her past voice trembling with despair. “Please don’t give me such cold and disdainful looks…”
Silence swallowed her words. There was no Neuvillette to weigh her on the scales, no Clorinde to stand at her side, no Traveler to feign loyalty. Just Furina. Alone. In the shadow of everything she once was.
She stayed there for a long time. How long, she didn’t know. Time inside the Serenitea Pot was slippery. The rain might have still been falling outside. Gotham would be waiting, grim and indifferent.
Eventually, her tears slowed. Her breathing evened. Her stomach growled, a stark reminder of her new reality.
The Serenitea Pot was a sanctuary, but it was empty of food, clothes, or the mundane necessities of life. No bread, no towels, no soap to wash away the grime of Gotham’s alleys.
Furina’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Even a god… a fraud god, must eat,” she muttered, mocking her title as God of Justice.
Somewhere, deep within, a spark of her old defiance flickered.
She was Furina de Fontaine, once the Hydro Archon, once the Regina of All Waters, Kindreds, Peoples and Laws, once the God of Justice. She had survived 500 years of lies and a trial that broke her. She would survive this, too, even if it meant stepping into the shadows of a city that felt like a grave.
She couldn’t hide forever. The Teapot’s beauty was a lie, a temporary escape from hunger and cold. She needed food, clothes, and a way to survive.
The cosmic entity’s gift - knowledge of this world’s ways - whispered in her mind: markets, currency, survival. She could barter, perhaps, using the Mora tucked in her gown’s hidden pockets. Fontaine’s golden coins might pass as curios in Gotham’s underbelly.
But the thought of stepping out, of facing eyes that might judge her as Fontaine’s had, filled her with dread.
So for now, she would rest, gather her strength, and brace herself for the world beyond the Teapot’s fragile safety.
One day more, she promised herself. Just one day more to gather my courage… and then I will brave this cruel new stage.
Tonight, she was simply a shattered star, curled tight around the remnants of a heart that had given everything to a people who had never truly loved her.
And in the gentle, eternal dusk of her hollow domain, Furina wept.
/////
Updated: I got a 5-mins-craft cover for this fic