Chapter Text
“Clorinde.” Furina’s voice reverberates with light authority across the open space between them. Clorinde gradually raises her head in silent acknowledgment. She glimpses Furina's countenance as she does, although she cannot decipher much from her relaxed features. Furina nods her head to the door as she rises from her chair, beckoning Clorinde to follow. “Walk with me.”
Furina treks down the marble floor, Clorinde on her heels, an arch of darkness that covers the skylights overhead. Shadows flicker over them. In the soft light of the moon, they are illuminated, before they pass from under the veil, and are swept by the dinghy lights that crisscross the victorian walls, until they step into pure light again.
“A stroll?” Clorinde asks. They turn into another long hallway, where wood fades into carpet, the crunch of fabric provided as ambience.
Furina hums. “Let us appreciate the presence of the full moon for this little occasion,” she chirps, raises her hand in a dismissive gesture. “It’d do us well to walk off the meal.” Her voice fluctuates, loud, then soft, as if she cannot find which part of actress or backstage she plays better. Answering silence is emitted from the shadow that bears on her own, to her relief.
Her heels await her, pristine where they are placed upon a cobalt Victorian pillow. The black material dips comfortably under her fingertips as she slips into the shoes, and she hovers by Clorinde’s side as she waits for her to do the same with her ankle high boots. She takes a moment to do so, fingers unusually fumbling. When she rises, they push open the heavy doors of the Palais Mermonia, careful to close it, and descend down the marble steps, greeted by a sharp gust.
"You do not want your coat?" Clorinde muses.
"I want to feel the wind," she replies. It sounds like it is all she has ever wanted.
Clorinde falls into step beside Furina, and collides with the scratch of her sleeve as she does, bristles, and Furina can hear the way the hairs on her nape prickle. Furina's face breaks into a delightful smile, and she laughs breathily, so different from the ones she offers her crowds, outstretching her hand to dust at Clorinde’s shoulder lightheartedly. “Must you be so modest, dear? It’s just me,” she says with a touch of fondness, near pinching Clorinde’s cheek with the way she handles her like a child. Clorinde furrows a brow, shrugs her hand off at the same time she inches closer, shoulder to hat with Furina, who responds with an amused noise.
When did they turn from acquaintances to friends, from command to question, she does not remember. Her barrier has melded over time, brisk touches turned lingering and tender, voices sweet and mellow across the dinner table, between each other in cold sunrises, rainy afternoons. They have grown, individually, and together. They are what Furina calls a question, an assumption. She wants to ask Clorinde if she, as Furina does, wants to be something—more. Something not so uncertain, frightening, albeit exhilarating—something. She needs to hear that what they have is true, not a mirage, not a magic trick, nor trickery, truth.
She is afraid of asking. Asking will not bring them closer together but rather apart.
She settles for uncertainty as they walk close, side by side, brushing arms and the backs of their hands. Furina outstretches her fingers, a lazy, shiftless attempt to connect their hands, and smiles at the idea of them walking hand-in-hand during hours of daylight, their strolls no longer secret, nor limited to the eyes beyond the dark windows when everyone is under sleep.
Her smile falters when her mind skims to the countenances that have been burned to memory, the words she has been relayed: Is she truly the Archon of Justice, that fool of a girl? Thank the Seven Neuvillette is standing in for her. Scowls, sneers, as if her presence were as sour as the taste of lemon. Furina's nails bite into the flesh of her palm. Nothing they say is true, she tells herself, but her anxiety shows through the ministrations of her eyes, the tightening of her fingers.
Clorinde, may Celestia bless her heart, senses it with unnatural speed. "Lady Furina?" Furina turns toward Clorinde and braces herself for a bitter expression. Instead, she finds the loose line of a frown that harbors no anger but rather a benevolence—worry, that she cannot put into words. "Lady Furina?" Clorinde asks again, voice pointed with concern. “Are you … feeling unwell? Shall we head back?”
Furina's mind is slow to catch up, and she takes several seconds to stammer a curt response, “Ah, I am well, thank you, there is no need," but her words shake like waves at sea, and all over again her mind meshes, unscrambles, mixes again into a brew of gnawing anxiety.
Clorinde’s frown deepens, and she blows words between her lips until she puts sound to a few. “Lady Furina, if there is anything wrong …” She seems to lose grip of her thoughts again, and peers at the cobblestone beneath her soles. Furina registers Clorinde's posture, the rigid lines of her arms, to the tremble of her steps.
Her eyes blur out of focus and stray. Her companion raises her head, higher than before, and continues. "If there is anything wrong, tell me. I will do everything in my power to fix it. No matter what it is, I will support you." Her eyes flutter. "That's what I'm here for."
Furina's eyes refocus, widen, soften, and she flexes her hand to lightly tug on her Clorinde's cuff. The sensation vibrating within her is tingly, igniting little pinpricks of nerves in the nodes of her body. "Thank you, Clorinde. I am okay." Her heart pangs with guilt at the lie, but she is not ready to tell yet. Perhaps, soon, but fibs will suffice, as they have for centuries before. "I suppose I am feeling rather ..." she exhales deeply, "pensive, tonight." She offers another laugh, an undertone of hoarseness. The skin of Clorinde's throat draws tight, although Furina can feel her shoulders relax.
Clorinde gnaws her lower lip, releases it with a soft pop. “I understand what you mean. When everything is okay, yet there's a guilty feeling wedged inside your stomach like a heavy, immovable rock," she says, nodding in reassurance. Furina tilts her head against her shoulder, a sweeping motion with no weight, reenacting the couples she watches with vigor. She doesn’t catch Clorinde’s expression when she crooks her head away to drench in the moonlight, pivots to glide her hand over the bushes of Rainbow Flowers they pass, picks one with a gentle tug and breathes sunshine when she brings it to her nose with a soft smile, flicks the petals gently, thumbs the stem.
Clorinde lowers her head to peer at Furina, gives the corner of a smile at the affection in her eyes. “You fancy flowers. I see you look at them whenever we pass the florist's."
Furina gaps, recovers with an incline of her head, a sheepish tuck of a strand of hair behind an ear, “Oh, yes. Dainty little things, they are.” Her heart quickens, and she takes a deep breath to recover. She knows that whatever she wants that isn't put into words, Clorinde will find anyway.
Furina glances to her right to see Clorinde staring at her, waiting for her elaboration. The Archon stifles, then realizes this is Clorinde; vulnerability has no home when they are together, and that is wonderful, wonderful she thinks. She sighs wistfully, eyes creasing as she talks, “Flowers, I feel,” she says sweetly, raises the flower to the moon, casts shadow over her eyes, “speak louder than most of us do. I love—I love how ambiguous they can be, the way they put feelings to words ... and how pretty they are. So pretty," she muses, tucking the flower into the crook of her neck. Vaguely she registers her stutter, relaxes when along accompanies the thought Clorinde says nothing about it.
Clorinde observes the scenery beyond her, and they share a beat of comfortable silence. They walk alongside the streams that encircle the Palace, enjoy the trickle against their ears. Clorinde clears her throat. “Would you like me to purchase you one?” She ducks her head as she asks. "A—flower, I mean."
The Archon withholds her lighthearted laugh. “That would be lovely.”
Quiet, like fog, condenses between them again. There is something heavier, Furina thinks, to Clorinde's tender gaze, more than just a thoughtful observance. She can sense Clorinde’s earnesty to ask something, a question she knows will sit with her. She yearns to know, and so she waits, waits for Clorinde to give in, as she usually does.
Clorinde opens her mouth, and Furina’s breath hitches. Clorinde’s lips curve around a letter, but then close. “I will see it fit.” Furina nearly frowns. She decides she will continue to pester, because in the way Clorinde cares for her, she will return the notion, because that is what a true relationship is—it is not all give, it is not all take, it is a balance of both.
Furina unclogs her throat. "Clorinde," she says. When Clorinde’s eyes find Furina’s own, understanding and patient, she straightens. "If there's anything at all you want to say, you can say it." Clorinde bites her lip again. Furina lays a gloved hand on the one next to her. "'No matter what it is, I will support you,'" she relays.
Clorinde wretches her hand away as if burned. Furina stiffens. "Nothing's wrong. Don't worry about me," she grits, words sharp.
And all of a sudden, the fantasy cracks, and Furina thinks that perhaps vulnerability is still here, that perhaps her reputation and ugly personality scares Clorinde off too.
Clorinde half rolls her shoulder. "There is no need for worry."
"No need?"
"Rest assured."
"You know I worry about you, too."
Clorinde tilts her head and huffs through her nose. "I will inform you if anything is wrong."
Wrong. Nothing is wrong, of course. Furina's imagination plays her, makes her think that there are always sides to the words she is told when all along it is the faces that hold the duality. There was no real warmth to the envelope of any sweet nothings, just pathetic illusions Furina finds in everyone and no one all at once. She drops her hand with a muted thump.
"I am sorry."
Clorinde is fixated on something before her attention is moved to Furina, clearly caught off guard. "Whatever for?"
Clorinde watches Furina when she throws the flower to the ground in front of her and steps on it. Her easy gait turns inconsistent, with undertones of aggravation. Clorinde's mouth hangs. "I have offended you," she deadpans.
Furina scoffs, blinks away the fog in her eyes. "No, you have not."
"I have."
"You have not."
Clorinde reaches out and Furina creates twice the space between them. "We need to head back. It's cold."
"Would you like my coat?" She is already removing it, and Furina engraves marks into her palms.
"No. Enough." Her pace turns hurried, and Clorinde lags slightly behind Furina when the change becomes evident. With every step Clorinde takes closer, Furina takes two.
"Lady Furina, you need to slow lest you stumble—"
"Quiet," as sharp as she means it to be.
Furina does not care when her dress snags on a passing bush, nor when her heel scrapes against the ground, leaving little scratches in the smooth navy. She thinks to what everyone says when they even so much as breathe her air: I am honored. Honored. What an awful word, Furina thinks with a grim smile, skin turned cold as leather. Everyone is honored, she thinks, to accompany the Archon of Fontaine, even as they spite her.
That’s not who she is. She is not Focalors, she is Furina, and she is sickened by the thought that there will never be anyone who will see her as anything other than the cruel title she bears, will not accept so much as her comfort because they think that she simply cannot give.
"Lady Furina!" Clorinde calls, several paces behind her.
"Just Furina will do," and Furina laughs with all the freedom of a caged bird, clenching at her sleeves and overcome by the cold that breaks through the warmth of her lost comfort. She steadies herself, determined to move forward, forward, forward until all she knows is the ache of her feet and the wind.
It does not take long for Clorinde to reach her. "I am sorry, Lady Furina," she asserts, and Furina's heels clack together in her frustration.
"There is nothing to apologize for, Clorinde."
"But—"
"Clorinde!" Furina whips around, and as she does, her ankle catches behind the other and she slips with a gasp. Her eyes close, and she instinctively braces for harsh impact, dusty ground, unable to process fast enough to save herself.
She only registers what has happened when the falling has long ceased. Susceptible but bewildering nonetheless, when she cracks her eyes open, her sight is enveloped of Clorinde and the feel of her sturdy arm, strong around her waist. Their noses are close enough to brush, and Furina can see everything from this angle: the hard line of Clorinde's cheekbone, the black striations weaved within the midnight of her eyes, the dark rift of deep purple hair that hoods her right eye, silky as it soft, she thinks, when it sweeps against her cheek. Her eyes drop to Clorinde's lips, full and pink. Soft.
They hold each other under the starlight, the swish of water, the wisp of air that they share in small, uneven breaths. Furina closes her eyes and leans, not to connect them, but for the warmth she seeks, not from the cold, but from her need of comfort. She rests her head on Clorinde's shoulder, and can see the flush form on the tip of her ear from this angle. “Furina," Clorinde breathes. Pauses, regathers herself with a deep breath. She pulls back, and Furina trembles. Now, it is the cold.
"Ah, you are shivering—" She is stopped from shrugging off her jacket a second time when Furina tucks her head in the crook of her neck and sluggishly drapes her arms around her neck.
"Clorinde," she whispers. "Please carry me home." She is shocked into silence at her own words. Disgusted, to realize she is acting like the drunkards she occasionally finds prowling the streets in search of further intoxication.
Delighted, to hear Clorinde shuffle her sleeves on, and begin to walk with Furina cradled safe in her arms.