It might be her imagination, but the Palais Mermonia felt a little different than usual today when she stepped through those doors.
"Did something happen today?" Furina cannot help but ask one of the melusines on duty. The melusine in question held a paw to her chin in thought for a brief moment before answering.
"Monsieur Neuvillette brought back an unconscious stranger to his room today, does that count, Lady Furina?"
"Neuvillette did what…?" For a moment Furina believed that she might have heard wrongly but she knew that it is not in a melusine's nature to lie, most of them are too pure for their own good. Neuvillette must have done what the melusine said he had done.
Neuvillette bringing a stranger to his room? Even she wasn't allowed entry into his personal chambers. Just how special was that stranger?
Wait a minute, was that stranger a man or a woman? Could it be… that Neuvillette finally found true love?!
A sly knowing grin quickly formed on Furina's face. Heh, she never knew that it's possible for Neuvillette to fall in love. Now, who might that lucky damsel be?
"What did that stranger look like? Is she pretty?"
"Pretty? I wouldn't use that term to describe a man, Lady Furina."
Furina's jaw dropped in surprise.
"W-W-Wait, so you are telling me… Neuvillette brought a man into his room?!"
"Did I miss that out in my reply earlier? I apologise if that is so, Lady Furina, but yes, Monsieur Neuvillette brought a man into his room."
Furina's jaws opened and closed repeatedly but no words came out from her mouth. She's not going to judge another by their sexual preferences or orientation but… she had known Neuvillette for more than five centuries but she never guessed that he swung that way! She swears, it's always the quiet ones that she has to look out for!
Big news, groundbreaking news! Something big is happening right at her doorstep and no way is she going to miss out on being able to witness the start of Neuvillette's love life first hand! She quickly thanked and bade farewell to that helpful melusine and charted a path directly to Neuvillette's own chambers in the Palais Mermonia. She took a deep breath to calm herself down once she's right outside his door and silently pressed her ear onto it, trying her best to hear what might be going on within.
She heard nothing.
She finally worked up the courage to open the door just a little tiny weeny bit. Huh, that's weird, there's nobody in there. Where did Neuvillette go?
She closed the door with a sigh. She should know better than to get her hopes up. The greater the expectation, the bigger the disappointment. That was a bitter lesson she had learnt ever since the cataclysm turned her world upside down.
She took a slow walk back to where her own chambers are located in the Palais Mermonia, situated at a floor within the building where the entire floor had been converted for her own use. The huge empty hall greeted her when she exited the lift, on the left is a shelf where many different kinds of musical instruments were displayed or hung which she gave a passing glance when she walked past. These instruments are Egeria's personal collection, her predecessor had a great love for music which also played a part in influencing Fontaine's way of life, being the nation of music and song.
"This is a violin, that is a flute, do you want to learn any of those?"
"Urgh, too troublesome."
She didn't want to learn music back then because she was too lazy to do so, finding it to be a chore, but she would always be there to listen when Egeria picked up an instrument and began to play a melody. Her predecessor was a master of many instruments and even Lucine had learnt how to play the flute under Egeria's encouragement, even if he rarely indulged in music. She fondly recalled the times where Egeria and Lucine would play a duet, Egeria with a violin and Lucine with a flute, with her and Neuvillette as their only audiences.
It's just too bad that she cannot return to the past.
On the other side of the hall lies a display cabinet where a duelist robe was being hung. That belonged to Lucine, the robes of the Grand Duelist that he wore whenever he had to represent Egeria in a formal setting. She remembered having the tailors make a new robe for him when she was anticipating his return, waiting and waiting until she finally accepted the fact that he would never return ever again.
She tore her gaze from the items on display after an undetermined period of time. She felt oddly sentimental today. It's still hard to come to terms with reality sometimes even when so much time has already passed.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't immediately register the fact that there was already somebody in her room, giving her a brief scare that made her jump a little when she suddenly found herself face to face with the Chief Justice of the nation.
"Neuvillette!" She exclaimed in partial scare and partial surprise. "Wait, what are you doing in my room?!"
So the reason why she couldn't catch Neuvillete in his room earlier was because he was waiting in her room?
"Lady Furina," Neuvillette greeted his archon with impeccable decorum. "I apologise for the transgression, but I find this necessary as I have something to discuss with you without risking any prying ears eavesdropping into our conversation."
Furina finally caught sight of the unknown stranger dressed in a hooded cloak and that sly smile made its appearance on her face once more.
"Oh~ I see I see~ I can toooootally understand, Neuvillette. You would not need to worry about a thing! I won't judge you for your, uh, ahem, preferences! Love is hard to come by so treasure what you have while you still have the chance, okay? You have my full support!" Furina patted her small hands on Neuvillette's shoulder in a show of support. A perplexed look appeared on Neuvillette's usually stoic face. Why did he not understand what his archon was talking about? Was there some context to their conversation that he was not previously aware of?
"Lady Furina, I-"
"No, it's okay, it really is okay," Furina held up a hand and stopped Neuvillete from explaining himself. She may not be a qualified archon but she is at the very least, an understanding and open-minded archon. Her people are free to love whoever they want as long as it is within the acceptable legal and moral boundaries, really.
"I mean to say that-"
"Certain things do not need to be said so explicitly, Neuvillette. Look, we are old pals now. I mean, even I got a shock when I heard from the melusines that you brought a man into your room but I won't judge-"
"I believe we are having a misunderstanding-"
"No no no, it's okay, Neuvillette, you do not need to explain yourself to me-"
"Focalors," the room suddenly went deathly silent when the only other person in the room finally spoke up and for a moment Furina had a heavy sense of deja vu, her body tensing up slightly in preparation for another of her great escapes because that sounded so much like how Lucine would mention her name whenever she got into trouble again and he was forced to clean up after her mess, much like the calm before the storm.
"Focalors."
"Ah ah ah let me go let me go! I swear, this isn't my fault this time! It's Rhodeia and the oceanids-"
"You have two options. Either you clean up your mess, or, I will give you a spanking right at the front of the Palais Mermonia where everybody can see you and make you clean up your mess thereafter."
She slowly turned her head towards the unknown stranger who she had dismissed entirely until now. Impossible, it cannot be possible, he had been dead for five centuries. What she had heard was probably her own delusion since she had been feeling particularly sentimental as of late, that must be it.
The stranger slowly removed the hood that hid his face and Focalors' breath hitched, her eyes widening in disbelief as a familiar face that she had been pining for five centuries suddenly showed itself once more. Is this a dream? It must be a dream, like, this "Lucine" looked much younger than she remembered the Grand Duelist to be, significantly shorter and she could barely sense any power from that individual to the point that she had mistaken him for a mortal, which was why she had ignored his presence until he opened his mouth. Lucine was so suffocatingly powerful that she used to be able to feel his presence even from the other end of Fontaine, there's no way that this person could be…
"Lu… Lucine…?"
She still found herself whispering his name despite her doubts.
"It's been a long time," the look on Lucine's face softened a little and Furina suddenly felt a little light on her feet and heavy in the head. You can mimic a person's appearance but there's nobody who could ever mimic Lucine's presence no matter how weakened he is. There's something about the way he carries himself that is uniquely his, something which she had never seen in anybody else but him.
"You… You are really Lucine? L-Lucine? You… What… Why…" She took slow shaky steps towards the person who she had grieved and cried for so many years, her vision blurring as she tried to make heads and tails to comprehend what she couldn't understand. The sadness, the fear, the grieve, the guilt, it all suddenly came pouring out once more.
"What happened to you…" She whispered and they finally stood in front of each other just within reach of each other, her hands visibly shaking as she held onto his arms and it was only when she touched him was she convinced that this wasn't an illusion, that he really is here. She finally got a little bolder and began to check him over in worry. This is Lucine, no doubt, but why-
"Why are you so… small? N-No, more importantly, y-your power… Where did they go? Why do you feel almost like a mortal, I can barely sense any of your divine powers until I really focus really hard to do so, what on earth… Just what-"
She had so many things to say, so many thoughts on her mind but all of that was forgotten when he suddenly pulled her closer and caught her in a hug.
"It's okay, it's alright. Everything's fine now, Focalors, I'm home. You've done well, you've done very well."
And just like that, the figurative dam broke. She finally could not hold it in any longer and began to bawl her eyes out, clutching tightly onto his shirt and crying into his chest. She cried, and cried, and cried, the last time she did something similar was when she finally accepted the fact that Egeria and Lucine would no longer return.
"I'm s-sorry, I'm s-so s-sorry, I'm-"
She could not remember how long she weeped in his arms, how long she apologised over and over again to him and how long he whispered assurances to her that it's alright, that she had nothing to apologise for.
That didn't ease her guilt in her heart any less. If anything, she weeped even louder.
For the second time in many years, she cried like a baby once again.
"Feeling better now?" Lucine asked and she nodded wordlessly, her cries now reduced to silent sobbing but her fists still tightly clenching onto his shirt as the sense of touch was the only way she could persuade herself that this isn't a dream, that Lucine had really returned and he had came to find her.
"W-What happened to you… this is not normal, nobody just loses almost all their power like that, a-are you okay?" Furina's worries started to return when she finally had a better handle on her emotions. She injected her own power into Lucine's body for a quick diagnosis and immediately received her answer, an answer which she rather not know.
"A-Abyss, you…"
"It would seem that I am being tainted," Lucine's words were the final nail hammered into the coffin. "I apologise for taking so long to return. Neuvillette and I both speculated that the influence of the abyss that had somehow contaminated me was a reason why I took so long to return this time. As you can also see, I'm now just a small fragment of my past glory."
"W-We need to deal with this immediately. Nothing good ever comes out when the abyss is involved." Furina fumbled around hastily but nothing concrete came to mind in her panic. She cannot imagine losing Lucine again when he had only just returned. She's an archon now, surely there is something that she could do to help Lucine.
"Focalors-"
"T-There has to be s-something that I can do, I-"
"It's fine," she ceased when he hugged her from behind to stop her from acting stir crazy and a sense of calm despair slowly enveloped her. It's like the cataclysm all over again. She could never do anything, could never help out with anything, she could never be of use when people needed her the most.
"H-How is this fine?!" She screamed but all that greeted her was the deafening silence. "It's the abyss, Lucine! The abyss! Can't you feel just how much corruption had been sealed into your body?! It's almost on par with what I remembered Elynas had unleashed upon Fontaine! You are a divine hydro elemental being, the purity of your power is essential for your survival! Contamination can kill you! For good this time! Why else do you think the oceanids exiled themselves?! It's a miracle that you are able to remain alive with how much the abyss has tainted you and you are telling me that this is fine?! This is not fine! Not fine at all!"
"Maybe you are right, that this isn't fine, but at least I had the chance to return after 500 years. I'm sorry it took so long."
"I… I failed you. I failed both you and Egeria," Furina's words came out in a choked whisper, her voice hoarse, as the guilt started to set in once more. "I… I sent people to their deaths, I ran our waters red with the blood of our people, I… I drove out the oceanids, using the very same techniques you taught me, I…"
"And you think you are guilty?"
"Am I not?" A dry mocking laugh escaped her throat. "This is my sin, the sin of ignorance, for not knowing what I should have known until disaster strikes and everything was too late by then. The oceanids left, a handful of civil wars threatened to break out, tainted hydro phantasms were born, there's just… so many things that have gone wrong and I… I…"
Her words were cut off when a hand patted her head, just like how he had done to her before the cataclysm.
"What I think is that you are simply suffering from a serious case of survivor's guilt and imposter syndrome. Yes, what you had done wasn't perfect, but neither Egeria nor I claimed to be perfect either, we made our fair share of mistakes too. I don't know how many times I will need to repeat this until you are convinced but you have done really well, Focalors. Egeria and I are really proud of you, Fontaine couldn't have asked for a better archon."
"L-Liar," Furina choked out a sob. She had done well? Far from it. So many things have gone wrong, so many mistakes that could have been averted, there were so many things that wouldn't happen if Egeria and Lucine were the ones handling it.
"If you had sinned then Egeria and I had sinned as well. We believed we would return, that our departure was only temporary, that what we left you with was enough to handle any crisis in our absence. Clearly, we overestimated ourselves and you were left to clean up our messes, that was our mistake. If you had truly sinned then Egeria and I shall bear that sin too, so let's walk on that path of redemption together, okay?"
"Liar, you liar…" Furina sobbed incoherently but her heart felt a tad bit lighter for once in a long while. He's back, he's really back. It took a little long but he kept his word and returned.
For the first time in five centuries, the dark clouds in her heart had finally parted.
None of them knew how long it took for Focalors to finally stop crying, but the atmosphere in the room felt considerably lighter once they got it out of the way. Naturally, the topic of their conversation eventually steered towards a more sombre direction once they were done briefly catching up with their lives and they started discussing the prophecy that foretold the fall of their nation.
The existence of the prophecy was like a figurative sword hanging over everyone's heads. All three of them knew Egeria well enough to know that she's not one to make a prophecy lightly, which meant that she had foreseen something in the far future that was serious enough for her to warrant sending a runner back to Fontaine to deliver this cryptic message to Focalors before her demise. She must have known that she would not be able to make it back alive when she had made this decision.
"So none of you know why Egeria made this prophecy nor the cause or trigger of what might turn it into reality?"
"We were hoping that you might know," Focalors sighed. She genuinely believed that Lucine's return would mean that they would finally make headway into investigating the prophecy that Egeria left behind. She wasn't expecting for even Lucine to be as clueless as they were.
"Did anything come to mind when you heard of the prophecy?" Neuvillette probed further and the former Grand Duelist fell deep in thought.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my knowledge the prophecy goes something like, all people from Fontaine are born with sin that cannot be absolved and that one day, the waters of Fontaine will rise and the sinful people will all be dissolved into the waters, and only the Hydro Archon will remain, weeping on her throne, and only then will the sins of the people be washed away. Did I cover everything?"
"Correct," Neuvillette affirmed with a slight nod of his head and Focalors looked downcast at the mention of the prophecy.
"What stood out to me was the mention of how sinful people will all be dissolved into the waters. We all know that it is possible for Fontainians to dissolve into water if they come into contact with water of the Primordial Sea. I believed both of you would have come to the same conclusion."
"Indeed."
"In that case, it would make logical sense to believe that the Primordial Sea will be what destroys Fontaine. Maybe the Primordial Sea will mix into our waters, resulting in the rise of our sea level which will eventually drown the nation, maybe there might be a tsunami, I don't know."
"Has Egeria ever told you where the Primordial Sea might be?"
"No, despite our relationship there are secrets that she kept from me," Lucine shook his head. "She said it was for my own good, that knowing too much might cause divine retribution to befall me. Whatever goes on in the island up in the sky was one such matter, anything relating to the Primordial Sea was another, the history of Fontaine or Teyvat in general before she unified the nation was also vague to me at best, the Gnosis was also one of such matters."
"So if even you had no idea what the prophecy meant, it would make sense if the truth to it lies in one of the four matters that you know very little of," Focalors quickly caught on and narrowed down the scope of their search. "I think we can rule out the possibility of the Gnosis being the cause of the prophecy because, um, I am currently using it for other things…"
"You are hiding it under the Oratrice," Lucine flatly pointed out. "I visited the Opera Epiclese once. I sensed a huge amount of Indemnitium stored in the Oratrice, too much for it to be just for supporting the daily energy usage of the nation. You said that my power had disappeared but you are no better, you don't even have enough power left in you to protect yourself from mere mortals from what I can see."
"About that…" Focalors sheepishly scratched her cheek with a finger, her eyes guiltily looking away from Lucine.
"You split yourself, didn't you? It was one of your favourite tricks to escape from trouble back then. You gave away most of your power to your other half, leaving just enough for this current half of you to be able to live normally. What is your other half doing? Where is she? Come to think about it, I hadn't seen her since I resurrected, not even once."
"Um, archon work…?" Focalors uneasily shuffled her feet, her hands held behind her back where she nervously fiddled her fingers, her eyes still shiftily avoiding his stern gaze. How is she going to tell him that she had originally planned for her other half to make use of the Indemnitium generated from the Oratrice to transfer all the sins of her people onto herself, so that the sins of her people will then be finally absolved when she use that same monstrous amount of energy to die by her people's hands? That was her grand plan to save her nation and purify her sins once the right opportunity presented itself, something that she kept from even Neuvillette because she knew he wouldn't approve of it. It's all the more reason to hide it from Lucine because getting spanked by him would be the least of her worries if he learnt of her plans.
"Focalors."
"I-I-It's safe! You just have to know that the Gnosis is safe!"
"You have up till the count of three to be truthful with me. Three-"
Focalors subconsciously clenched her buttocks when the grumpy old grouch started counting down. Oh archons above this is just like the old times again-
"Two-"
She took a quick glance at the door. Would she be able to make a run for it? She probably could, right? After all Lucine is now a small tiny weeny fragment of his past self-
"One-"
Decision made, she spared no hesitation and no effort to make a desperate dash for the exit.
"I just remembered that I have something to do and somewhere to be at I gotta go goodbye- ack!"
Her escape plan ended even before it began when Lucine grabbed onto the back of her collar the moment she lifted her feet to run. Argh, while this brings back some fond memories from happier times some things just don't change even after five hundred years have passed, huh?!
"I don't know the specifics of your plan but I can make an educated guess. You plan to use the power of the Gnosis and the Indemnitium to somehow cause your death, thereby purifying the nation and our waters. You are looking for ways to save the nation through your death."
Focalors' jaw dropped, she looked at him in disbelief. How on earth did Lucine know-
"Judging from the gobsmacked look on your face right now, I'm right," Lucine sighed and to Focalors' surprise, he patted her on the head instead of reprimanding her. "I won't deny your resolve, but let's look for a way that does not require any of us to die, okay?"
Lucine's words gave her a sense of security and comfort that had been missing for the past five hundred years. She had expected him to reprimand her, to berate her for her foolishness, yet all he did was to tell her that he will look for another alternative method together. Focalors had no idea how to respond to that and so she simply looked away, only to catch Neuvillette's disapproving look. Ah crap, her Chief Justice looked so hurt by the revelation and it made her feel so guilty about it. She knew Neuvillette would never approve of her plan, which was why she hid it from him in the first place.
"But the fact that you considered averting the prophecy through the "sin" approach meant that our thoughts aligned," Lucine verbalising his thoughts out loud distracted Neuvillette enough for him to take his attention off Focalors and direct it back to his old friend, allowing Focalors to breathe out a sigh of relief. "All people from Fontaine are born with sin that cannot be absolved. Why is it just Fontainians? Why do only Fontainians dissolve when coming into contact with the water of the Primordial Sea? If being born with sin is the cause of it, what is that sin? And why can this sin be inherited since birth and why can it not be absolved? Why is it that only the Hydro Archon remains and why would then the sins be washed away after the prophecy comes true?"
"I was told that the circumstances of her birth were rather unique, could that be a reason why she wouldn't be affected?" Neuvillette spoke up.
"By unique, you mean that me and the grumpy old man-" Focalors pointed a finger at the downsized younger version of the Grand Duelist as she said that, "-were born from the same source of power. Technically speaking, that would make us siblings of sorts, even if our age is a few thousand years apart."
This was also why they share several similarities, be it in terms of their outward appearances or the power they wield. Lucine's birth had always been a mystery and so was hers. Egeria had come up with several theories as to why they came to be and why Lucine could continuously undergo rebirth, but none of them were able to prove her hypothesis. However, it was kind of agreed upon that whatever coalescence of dense pure hydro energy at the location that gave birth to Lucine, it was so full of vitality and life that despite having its power being drastically depleted after Lucine came into this world, it was still enough to eventually give birth to Focalors over a thousand years later at the very same spot where Egeria found Lucine.
In short, she was born from the remnants of the power that gave birth to Lucine. An unwanted byproduct that happened to be created under the right circumstances, like the unplanned last child in the family. She was the condensation of the lingering power that gave birth to a divine being, which only goes to show just how terrifyingly powerful Lucine was in his prime. He was someone who could easily stand as an equal to the strongest archons and even Egeria acknowledged that should Lucine arrive into the world a few hundred years earlier, the position of Fontaine's Hydro Archon might have belonged to him instead of her.
This overwhelming lifeforce that gave birth to Lucine was probably also the factor responsible for allowing Lucine to continuously undergo the cycle of rebirth. They had no idea if Focalors had the same ability, she hadn't died before and had no interest in testing out if this hypothesis holds true for her, but she honestly doubts she shared this same power with him. Their powers are in totally different classes to begin with. Lucine was created from the lifeforce of the purest water while she was created from the tiny remnants of this same origin. No way in heaven could she ever be compared to him.
"Perhaps only Focalors wasn't born with the sin mentioned in the prophecy, which would mean that she's innocent and thus, the only one that will be left if the prophecy were to come true," Lucine ignored her name calling and carried on with his speculations. "She was born only about a hundred years before the cataclysm and for some reason, she didn't inherit the sin through birth unlike our people."
"Doesn't make me any less sinful considering all the things I had done from then till now…" Focalors whispered to herself just out of Lucine's earshot.
"The thing is, nobody knows what this sin mentioned in the prophecy is, but it did make me recall one thing that Egeria used to say every now and then, that man erred through ignorance but by knowledge man could correct his ways and gain salvation. Egeria did say before that ignorance is a sin in itself, that was her belief."
"So you mean that Fontaine is ignorant of our original sin, which is a sin in itself?"
"Exactly," Lucine affirmed Neuvillette's words. "When I met Egeria the archon war was already over, the Court of Fontaine had already been established and built for a few decades, and she was already acknowledged by Celestia as the Hydro Archon and the God of Justice. There's very little that I do not know about Fontaine from the time period which I joined her until the catcalysm so the fact that I have no idea what she talked about in the prophecy she left behind led me to strongly believe that whatever this prophecy is about, it has to be relating to something that had happened before Egeria established the Court of Fontaine. What we do know about the history of this land that preceded our nation was that Fontaine was originally founded upon by the survivors of a preceding civilisation that had fallen into ruin. It was Egeria that gathered them to eventually build Fontaine and these survivors were from-"
"The civilisation of Remuria," Focalors completed Lucine's sentence with a grim tone. "You mean… this original sin that we are unaware of… it had roots that ties to Remuria? That's… That's so long ago!"
"And precisely why we would be ignorant about it, wouldn't it?" Lucine patiently reminded her, "Because none of us had lived through that time period other than Egeria, who had seen and experienced everything that led to its rise and fall. My guess? Remuria, or more like the God-King Remus who ruled it, must have done something that had spelled doom for his kingdom and Egeria bore witness to it. Whatever had happened or had been done must have been what created this "original sin" that we are all ignorant about and for some reason Egeria had kept it a secret until she had decided to leave this information behind before her demise. This "original sin" also has ties to the Primordial Sea that none of us know where its location is at."
"Remuria, Remuria…" Focalors began to nervously pace about, her mind working fast and hard to try and dig out any information which she might have come across. She will spare no effort when it comes to the matters of the prophecy that threatens her nation. "I… I believe our nation's archives might have a few books that documented the history of that time period, I will send people to bring out every single book about the history of Remuria. I believe we have a few artefacts that descended from that time period as well, we might be able to glean something out from those. What else, what else…"
"Keep calm, Lady Furina, panicking will not benefit anyone," the Iudex reminded his archon to keep her cool when he sensed that she's starting to undergo an anxiety attack again. Furina almost wanted to snap at him and ask if he wanted to try being the Hydro Archon instead. Fortunately, she did manage to refrain from doing so.
"What is your plan now?" The Hydro Archon directed her question to the former Grand Duelist. Now that he had formally made his return it wouldn't make sense for him to continue his facade of being an adventurer. He may be severely weakened due to the Abyss' corruption but his years of experience and skill are still highly valued in her eyes. Furthermore, they also need to urgently tend to the matters of the prophecy.
She needs their Grand Duelist back. Fontaine needs him, their undefeatable Grand Duelist Lucine Fontinas.
"About that…"
"If you are telling me you are going to go back being Lucian the adventurer I will drop the Adventurer's Guild into the sea," Focalors was being uncharacteristically forceful with her threat, her fear for her senior be damned, because now is not the time for their Grand Duelist to keep up with his game of playing house when their entire nation is at stake. There are very few people that Focalors can afford to trust with her secrets and Lucine is one of the few who she can wholly trust and rely on to help save the nation.
She's not shy to admit that she's getting desperate. She really needs his help.
"Lady Furina, I find a need to remind you that doing so would mean breaking at least seventy-two different laws-"
"Oh come on Neuvillette, it's just a figure of speech!" Focalors exasperatedly screamed her frustrations out loud with her hands clutching onto the sides of her head. Damn Neuvillette and his inability to read the mood. "Argh you just ruined the mood! I was being so cool earlier too!"
"Ah, I didn't know. I apologise."
"So, you are coming back to us right? Grand Duelist?" Focalors finally felt like she's a true archon that she rightfully is with how she's pushing her weight around and forcing Lucine into a corner. Hah! Her, forcing Lucine into a corner? Never thought she would live to see the day!
"Maybe not as Lucine Fontinas, but as Lucian," their Grand Duelist eventually replied. "Let's be real, I am really just a shell of my former self and too many complications might happen if I make an official return so long after my last appearance. I'm also afraid that this might paint a target on the backs of the people that are now close to me, especially from my former archenemies that I now lack the strength to defeat."
"It's a valid concern," Neuvillette acknowledged. The return of Fontaine's Grand Duelist would definitely shake the pillars that their nation is built upon. However, as Lucine had pointed out, whether it will be for the better or for the worse remains to be seen due to his severely weakened state right now. He will not be as infallible as the nation believes him to be.
"You mean you are worried for the children that you are taking care of now?" Focalors inquired.
"They are my responsibility now."
"Wow, those poor things…" Focalors muttered under her breath but quickly changed her tune when she spotted the look of warning that Lucine was giving her. "Um, I mean, how fortunate of them to have caught the eye of our Grand Duelist! Ahahaha…"
Damn it, isn't she the archon here? It certainly felt like nothing had changed since five hundred years ago!
Still, it's great to have him back.
It's great to know that he had never truly blamed her for her mistakes.
AN: Genuinely believed that I could have portrayed the reunion better but I didn't want to write an entire chapter of the trio wallowing in guilt and sadness, doing so will be too emotionally exhausting, so I decided to settle for less and this is the result. Also wanted to avoid having haters leaving comments ranting about them reading one entire chapter about angst and whatnot and ruining my day as a result.
I did have my own theories about the truth of the prophecy and the story that will develop, but after completing the latest Archon Quest and Neuvillette's character story quest I'm like… whoa, most of my speculations were kind of accurate?
I actually posted my theory on hoyolab about two weeks ago in a moment of excitement. Didn't really gain any traction there but I am still hoping that I'm actually spot on in my guess so that once the ending of the Fontaine chapter finally drops I reserve the right to revisit my post and leave a comment there telling everyone "hah I told you so!". I think it's fairly obvious to everyone who has done the major Fontaine world quests and the archon quest that the prophecy definitely relates to the history of Remuria and I will be spinning my own version of the events from what we currently know of Fontaine's lore as well. If you are interested in my theory you can read my post on hoyolab, I posted it under an account with the same username as my FFnet account and it only has two posts there, should be pretty easy to find.
Alright, not too sure when I will be updating this story again but hopefully sooner rather than later. See you guys when I see you.