Chapter Text
First meet.
The first time she sees him is in the courtroom, Furina feels a tremble course through her body as she watches the harbinger standing at the podium, it’s just another court case, like the thousands of other ones she has watched. The same judge and almost always the same outcome. So why does she feel so peculiar? Like theres something drawing her to her toes, and she feels the undeniable urge to speak, to say something other than the pesky comments and not just watch with her body glued to her seat.
He’s called childe, his name is meant to be tartaglia-the business name, yet he insists to be called childe instead by the traveler, and now that she knows the name she can’t let it go, he looks young, just twenty perhaps, and his orange hair sways as he speaks with neuvillette from the audience. There’s this snarky arrogance in his tone as he groans about having to go on the podium, he looks carefree and slightly cheery, but beneath that furina can see the way his body tenses and untenses, sagging with relief. He goes up on the podium, and his hands are on his hips as he waits, he’s shifting ever so slightly, impatience rolling off of him in droves. Furina wonders what he could possibly have to do after this, no wait- that’s a stupid thought, any harbinger would probably always be busy, she curses herself a little. She ignores neuvillete’s voice as she squints at tar-no childe’s face, then she realises, his eyes have no light, not a single spark, they are just blue smudges with various shades mixed in between, a darkish void concealed beneath his eyelids. Furina shudders.
She glances back at neuvillette, and he looks normal-stern and still, too still, theres something uneasy about the way he glances at the oratrice after receiving the verdict. He hums, neuvillete never hums after receiving verdicts, furina shuffles uncomfortably in her seat.
‘According to the judgement of the oratrice mecanique d’Analyse cardinale, Mr tartaglia is- guilty.’ The whole courtroom quiets, in the way people quiet at the sight of a dead body, or perhaps at the sight of first snow. (It doesn’t snow very often in fontaine, she muses) Furina blinks once, then twice. She almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but if she feels this way…Furina snaps her gaze back to childe who stares wide eyed at the machine and neuvillette, he’s trembling, just slightly as his eyes glaze over the whole courtroom. And when their eyes meet, he stills-and then the mask slips back on, his eyes curve into cattish slits, as a grin curves along his face. She watches numbly as he argues with neuvillette over the verdict, neuvillette’s retort never reaches her ears beyond the ringing and when chi-tartaglia swings his arms and charges at neuvillette she looks away like a frail maiden. Because she knows if she looks any longer she would be running to the fortress afterwards, springing into his jail cell so that she can talk to him about acting, the intricacies of playing a role, but she can’t, because that would be a sin against the very role she has been playing for 500 years, a gravely sin. And mistakes made from impulses are always harder to bear anyways, so when tartaglia is knocked out on the floor by neuvillette she nails it onto her head that he is the bloodthirsty, merciless vanguard of the Tsaritsa. Actors have to respect each others' roles after all.
Even after tartaglia had been dragged out of the court furina still hadn’t recovered from her shock, the scenes remained in her head like snapshots, rolling repeatedly like cassette tapes as she sat on the chair. The soulless eyes, the flickers of shock, the mask, the mask. Her thoughts were crawling over her like chains, strapping her to the chair as she stared at the empty court seats. Furina would laugh at the absurdity of it all if she wasn’t in public, sitting on her throne atop the court, like the ‘archon’ she was. She groaned internally, how could she let this happen? After all there was a possibility chi-tartaglia wasn’t never even a ‘actor’ in the first place, maybe he was just composed, or diplomatic…but she couldn’t help but think there was more… ugh-how could she let this happen? Wasn’t her mask perfect, hadn’t she burned down the longing, the constant loneliness that came with the role she played and the yearning that it birthed ,for someone, anyone to share this role with her, so they could dance together on the stage, weaving the lies and masks into their identities, hadn’t she stamped that all down? Shoved it so deep down her throat she could feel it with every swallow, every word she recited.
Suddenly she felt the most burning of gazes on her body, right the traveler, their companion and neuvillette. She trembled as she shifted on the seat, pushed her legs of each other, and stood up carefully. ‘Ah…Wh-Why are you looking at me?’ Gosh her voice was trembling like a leaf in the wind; she quickly cleared her throat before speaking again. ‘I had nothing to do with it…’ The traveler and their companions needed to leave her alone, actually everyone needed to leave her alone, she needed more time to stew in her thoughts. Oh, but how would that be a fitting attitude for an archon? Especially one of fontaine, known for its elegance and extravagance, it wasn’t even worthy of a mere fontainians thinking. ‘I-I don’t know what happened there, either…H-Hey, stop staring at me…’ Furina’s mask was slipping, the fabric suddenly felt all too uncomfortable against her skin.
She could hear her panicked tone reverberating around the courtroom. Hushed whispers spring up from the crowd as people got up to leave, the doubts tasting bitter on her tongue…but that was okay! She just needed to put the mask back on, okay breath in…breath out. Furina slowly walked forward with confident strides to the edge of the podium, she just needed the mask to come out smoothly and easily. (Like childe’s mask.) she shook the thought out of her head as she spoke ‘Ahem… My dearest citizens, did you really think we’d allow an incorrect verdict to be handed out in this court?’ Everything she said after felt like a blur as she slipped like water into a cup into her role, it melded into her like knife against skin as she waved her arms and changed her tone. An actress perfectly scripting out her role. She watched as the doubt faded from the faces of fontainians into shock then morbid amusement and praise the more she spoke, the lies pouring from her tongue like molten gold as the fontainians gobbled it up like starving peasants, how stupid.
‘Toodle-oo~’ Furina proudly exited the stage with a cheeky wave and pretentious grin after satisfying the fontainians with her performance as clorinde trailed behind her.
Furina could feel her shoulders tensing and her breaths becoming laborious, but NO! She couldn’t let the mask slip like that. Furina straightened her back and willed the calm into her body as she walked towards the bathroom. ‘I need to go to the bathroom for a bit, wait for me here alright?’ She said with a cheery grin to clorinde, she grimaced at clorinde’s lack of reaction as she bowed lightly and responded quickly ‘yes, mam.’ Clorinde’s lack of reaction always unnerved her. Furina walked into the bathroom calmly and slowly, and when she finally made it to the mirror furthest from the door, she cupped a hand over mouth, bent her knees slightly, and silently screamed.
In the days that followed the court case, furina stopped hearing about chi-tartaglia, the rumours of an auspicious court verdict rang out throughout the nation like a gnarly bell, yet mellowed out like firefly lights when summer crossed to autumn than winter once furina made a reassuring speech to a news reporter. Her mask never slipped once ever since the court case, now that she thought about it, that was the worst mask slip she had ever had, she cringed at the memory of her yelling and tone, how could she be so stupid? Yet now whenever her mask slipped in her room as she sunk into a pool of her tears… she couldn’t help but think about that harbinger, those soulless blue eyes…
As the days passed, furina could feel the unease seeping into her life, she could hear the ominous bells tolling her ears as the clock ticked on, neuvillette was getting more distant, and the knave was closing in…did he really think she wouldn’t know? She could see it in the way neuvillette glanced at her and how the conversations muted down to small talk, the way him and the traveler exchanged knowing glances…she could only hope that this would all play into Focalors plan, that fate would weave itself together. She had gone way to far to fail.