Oceans will rise, empires will fall, and the only constant is change.
Yet, the God-King did not wish to yield to the fortuna. The prophecy where all shall return to the primordial sea– the God-King did not wish for such a fate for his people and thus sought advice from the imprisoned former heart of the primordial sea. His search led him to the Fell Dragon Prince, the warden that guards the prison of the Mistress of Many Waters.
The Fell Dragon Prince mocked the God-King's foolishness. The Original Sin was named as such for the act that gave rise to the sin transgressed the authority of the principles that governed their world. The God-King and the Fell Dragon Prince fought for thirty days and nights until neither party was able to continue. The God-King once again conveyed the purpose of his visit to the Fell Dragon Prince, this time through a symphony, and he was eventually granted an audience with the Mistress of Many Waters who had committed the Original Sin for her people, with her people.
The God-King was surprised that the Mistress of Many Waters wasn't alone in that prison– a human was keeping her company. The Fell Dragon Prince claimed that this human was lost and had chanced upon the prison and had since stayed. It was apparent that both the Fell Dragon Prince and the Mistress of Many Waters enjoyed the mortal man's company, discussing many subjects ranging from philosophical debates to mundane talk.
Naturally, the God-King and the mortal man became acquainted. The God-King was similarly enraptured by the man's views of almost all matters which they discussed. Would you assist me to create a grand symphony– the God-King extended an invitation to the man, a request for the man to aid him with his wisdom. The man hesitated, just like how the Mistress of Many Waters had hesitated when the God-King approached her for advice. The Mistress of Many Waters eventually relented and gave him a goblet that contained the water of the Primordial Sea, the man eventually accepted his invitation to catch a glimpse of a small hope that might provide an answer to overwriting the fortuna.
The man was eventually elevated to be the God-King's fifth harmost and the God-King bestowed upon him a name– Cicero. With the gift he received from the Mistress of Many Waters and the wisdom he learnt from Cicero, the God-King set into motion a primordial plan from the seven-day rotation and the flowing winds of sea and land, and composed a harmonious symphony of prosperity. He created the Golden Ichor capable of containing the souls and minds of his people, creating golems with bodies of stone with Ichor for blood, turning his people into "ascended" beings. The God-King fully believed that this would allow his people to survive the prophesied flood.
The God-King did not expect that breaking the limits of his people's mortal lifespan from flesh to stone would create the dissonance between him and Cicero. Cicero had tried to warn the God-King, to stop the God-King, but the God-King was determined to overwrite the fortuna in the way he deemed to be the most suitable.
Cicero had warned that humanity is a lifeform that is ridden with flaws, that allowing them to transcend by helping them to break the constraints of their mortal flesh and attain immortality with the unyielding bodies of stone would eventually corrupt them with the primal sin of arrogance. Cicero had warned that Remurians' overreliance on the Phobos was also an inherent threat– for when humanity relied too much on the advice of another to walk a predetermined path it will take away their free will and ability to make their own decisions, which in itself is a defining characteristic of humanity. The God-King had failed to see that his creations had ironically stripped his followers' humanity that made them human. By seeking a way to overwrite a predetermined fortuna, he had also taken his followers' ability to write their own symphony, their own fortuna.
The God-King and Cicero eventually fell out. Neither could convince the other. The remaining four Harmosts stood with their God-King and seeing that he was no longer welcomed in the kingdom of gold and music, Cicero left Remuria to seek his own fortuna.
Cicero's departure had affected the God-King, but the God-King remained steadfast in his belief. It wasn't until when the God-King was faced with the reality that his symphony wasn't as perfect as he believed it to be that he regretted not heeding Cicero's advice.
The God-King intended to carry out the final symphony, the Requiem. However, nobody could foresee Boethius' betrayal. The Grand Symphony's self-destruct order created a flood that sought to sweep away the grand civilisation in a great flood– as foretold by the fortuna.
The God-King was fully prepared to answer for his failures with his life, but the flood that was supposed to wash away the sins of arrogance never came. Like time had been stopped, the raging waves paused in their tracks as if someone had put a rest to their original musical score. The melody of a musical palindrome then resounded across the civilisation that fortuna had turned its back upon, and the reversal of the grand symphony's tune generated enough primordial energy for the waves to recede back to where they came from.
Cicero, is that you– the God-King questioned as he shouted in the direction of the vast sea but he received no answer. The only answer he received was the palindrome of his symphony resounding across his kingdom, turning back time, reversing his follies until everything returned to a blank slate, and only then did the melody transition to what Remus had wanted to carry out all along– the Requiem.
The Requiem generated enough energy to return Remurians to their original flesh-and-blood forms. The Requiem came to an end and the flow of time returned to its natural state. The fortuna that Remuria was cursed with could not be averted. The raging waves returned. The prophecy seeked to absolve Remuria of their Original Sin and return all life to the primordial sea as rightfully foretold.
Oceans will rise, empires will fall, and the only constant is change.
A resounding note was played. Some say it sounded like a chime, to others it sounded like a flute, some claim that it was a bell, others insisted it was the lament of a violin– but that note that rewrote the symphony of fortuna was indeed heard by Remuria that day. The God-King stood determined within the Domus Aurea with his instrument and struck a chord, which was answered with another note that sounded so far yet so near.
Remus was ashamed. He had turned his back on Cicero but yet Cicero had never turned his back on him and instead, seeked to rewrite Remuria's fortuna despite having been betrayed. Remus had no idea what he could do to convey his gratitude and apology, and so he let his music do the talking for him.
The Grand Symphony of fortuna, he shall rewrite it.
Remuria was saved that day– the Final Symphony performed by the duet of a God-King and his Harmost that stubbornly resisted fate eventually succeeded. They managed to save Remuria from being submerged under the raging waves as per the prophecy. The God-King had paid a price, exhausting all of his power and returned to the eternal cycle of life and death. Remus' last words led the survivors of Remuria to believe that the other performer of that grand duet was Cicero, but Cicero was likewise never found.
The Mistress of Many Waters was eventually released from her imprisonment when Fontaine became a land filled with strife ever since it lacked a divine ruler. She eventually ascended as the Hydro Archon, just as Cicero once told her she would.
The Final Symphony– a masterpiece which she will never forget, yet could never replicate nor hear again– had succeeded in rewriting fate. The Final Symphony was a sinner's finale, a tune befitting one of Remus' stature and his arrogance for trying to oppose fate. She still does not know how a mortal man held a fragment of the power of the Hydro Sovereign, but it was undeniably that power which Cicero had used to assist Remus in saving Remuria from their prophesied doom.
People of Fontaine, your sins are forgiven– that was the message that the Final Symphony had left behind. That was the mercy that Cicero had fought tooth and nail to leave behind for Fontaine when he composed that fate-defying composition.
Justice had been served with the finale of the Final Symphony.
– Tales of a Hundred Cycles, Vol XXVII
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The Fontaine of today was built upon the once glorious civilisation of Remuria. History spoke of how Fontaine was once branded with the "Original Sin", and how it was only absolved with the Final Symphony performed by the God-King Remus and his Harmost, Cicero.
The tune of the Final Symphony was a subject of much curiosity, debate, and research in Fontaine due to its historical significance. Till date, nobody could come to an agreement on what the Final Symphony really was. All historical records left behind by ancient Remurians who tried to describe or pen the tune down from memory all differed from one another. It was why this topic of discussion could never come to a conclusion.
The remaining living audience of the Final Symphony was their archon, Lady Egeria, but she never answered any queries pertaining to the Final Symphony. The Final Symphony was a Sinner's Finale. Fontaine had already been absolved of our Original Sin and thus, there's no longer a need to dwell on the Final Symphony– Lady Egeria had once explained. That did not stop Fontainians from trying to create their own interpretations of the fabled Final Symphony in their literary works, and Lady Egeria's statement only added a mysterious touch to Fontainians' neverending curiosity for what the Final Symphony would have sounded like.
"Just like how everyone has their own fortuna, and how only they can write their own fortuna, everyone's interpretation of the Final Symphony will be different even if they listened to the same tune," Egeria would one day tell her intended successor, Focalors, a small snippet of what she heard that day where she was an audience to how fortuna could be rewritten. Indeed, no two people would share the exact same thoughts and feelings for a specific work of art, so the discussion of what the Final Symphony really was was a futile and needless endeavour in Egeria's opinion.
The tune of the Final Symphony would sound different to every individual, just like how everyone's fortuna in the world is different from each other.
"But how does the Final Symphony sound to you?" Focalors asked Egeria in her curiosity. As Egeria's successor she was privy to more information than most in Fontaine, but even the Chief Justice did not know what the Final Symphony sounded like. Egeria was the only living being in the whole of Fontaine who had heard the Final Symphony. Only she will have the answer that could sate Focalors' curiosity.
The Hydro Archon who had witnessed the rise and fall of empires like the cycle of the ocean tides, the Hydro Archon who had held onto her seat of power and led Fontaine through the countless fortunes and calamities that befell it, and protected their beautiful nation which they love for her magnificence and purity from the corruption of the Cataclysm five hundred years ago, fell deep into thought as she reminisced the tune that had took even her breath away when she first heard it.
"The absolvement of sin," Egeria eventually replied, "and…"
"And?"
"The ultimate mercy of justice."