Chapter Text
The first time Wriothesley has ever tried to make sense of those blue ribbons Neuvillette always carries in his hair, was when they grew . Completely on their own as they shone a bold, primary blue as it wrapped itself around his wrist with its white tendrils sprouting midway. He had been worried at the time, and his mind and heart were already racing and working overtime when the prophecy had finally struck its final bell as the entirety of Fontaine flooded.
Three things happened that day.
The first was the bright star that seemed to shoot out from beneath the very ground, shining brightly as people squinted through the rain that began to fall not moments before and pointed at the light in equal wonder. It was there when the waters rose from the shores, flooding homes and streets, and it was there when it finally reached the highest levels of the Court House, pulsing in blue light.
The second was when the ship had already surfaced, left hovering above the waters as all of its anchors and grapples were lowered into the water for citizens to climb on board. By the fourth cycle, however, Wriothesley was left confused at the amount of people still floating above the surface in little specks of swimming bodies hoping for safety on the Remurian ship. All he had expected was to find those from other nations that came to live in Fontain, but with each grapple that brought in four or five more people on board, that no longer seemed to be the case.
Most, if not all, of the Fontainian citizens were accounted for. The prophecy seemed to only be half right.
Then, the light flickered, and Wriothesley's attention was drawn to it only when his help was no longer an essential need. There were murmurs, too low to catch the words from the pouring rain, but everyone was intrigued by its radiance, wondering; was it a part of the prophecy? Was it overseeing that the sin of the people was properly eradicated?
Wriothesley himself felt on edge at the thought, but then he was left squinting when the light began to pulse, like a flicker to a dying flame, and the silhouette of a person was there to greet his eye. A dot in the sky, much like the ones painting the canvas of rolling waves below as people continued to board his and various other ships.
The rain ceased, drawn in by the blue light, before exploding in one final drizzle and leaving whatever remains of the person above the skies to cascade down into the waters in a silent, far-away splash. Wriothesleys eyes had widened at the sight, leaning over with the pair of binoculars to see if whomever was up there resurfaced, and cursed lightly under his breath when there was no body.
Only the growing towers of rooftops and bridges.
With one final shout to the others in charge, Wriothesley jumps off ship to swim to the nearest growing surface, and uses his vision to sprint and slide the rest of the way across the receding waters. When he reached the point of the fall, Wriothesley was left searching right where the second highest rooftop of the court house began to peek through, looking around desperately.
“Heeey!” He’d call, hoping his voice carried out far enough to receive an answer, looking out into the sea. He still had time as he was away from the city, where all of the Aquabus lines and dividing walls were slowly showing themselves.
Wriothesley grunts when there’s no echo to his beck, continuing to formulate ice beneath his feet to keep pace and not lose balance along the unforgiving waves.
And then a head- three heads pop up from the waters and Wriothesley tries not to startle before catching sight at the recognizable horns and colorful patterns belonging to Melusines. He only recognizes one of them, placing her face on the front doors of the Opera House.
“Your Grace!” they call, desperate and afraid, and Wriothesley is immediately brought to attention to their panic. “Your grace, Monsieur Neuvillette-”
“Neuvillette?” Wriothesley repeats, a question on his tongue, and the Melusines all nod simultaneously.
“Yes, please, Your Grace, before the water goes down, take Monsieur Neuvillette somewhere safe. He can’t do so on his own in his unconscious state” The Melusine points further out into the water and Wriothesley nods shortly at her.
“Of course. Lead the way.” He watches their forms dive underwater, following their silhouettes from the surface as he now runs to catch up. It doesn’t take long before he sees a swarm of them forming a circle, all turning in his direction before he spots a body - Neuvillette - floating above the surface. Parts of him were glowing, and his eyes went all the way below the water to follow it, illuminating the Melusines supporting Neuvillette from below.
But with the constant movement of waves, water lapped easily over his face and obscured any sense of being able to breathe. Wriothesley was quick in hoisting him up, finding a little difficulty trying to balance over the water's surfaces as he did so.
“Steer clear for a moment!” He calls to the Melusines, a few swimming away to give him room as they kept their worried gaze on the Judge, while others swam deeper into the sea below. With a sweep of a foot, Wriothesley creates a thick sheet of ice below him and creates a makeshift raft, the surface covered in a thin sheet of jagged snow to make it less slippery, and a long bell down into the waters to keep it from tipping.
Wriothesley is careful in rearranging the male over his shoulder, supporting him with an arm wrapped securely behind the Judges knees as he hangs over his shoulder, but something akin to algae sticks to his skin and clothes and he tries to gather the translucent tails extending from under his robes. Each touch makes them glow like bioluminescence, but it makes it harder for Wriothesley to lie him down without the risk of hurting the judge.
Not when the tethers looked to be a part of Neuvillettes body.
When he’s gathered them, slippery and close to sliding out of his grip again, Wriothesley kneels before leaning over to let Neuvillettes body slide, putting him into something similar to a bridal carry just as he lies him down on the ice with a careful hand behind the male's neck and head.
When he goes to pull away, Wriothesley's arm is wrapped in bright blue bandages, tightening and slithering to reach just above his elbow. Lifting the arm, Wriothesley follows the blue algae Neuvilletts body seems to have grown to his scalp, where those familiar bows connected. Like this, they seemed like some kind of antennae, and he looked back down at the unconscious male, pale in the face and covered in water, wondering who or what he really was.
The surrounding Melusines do not leave as the water finally recedes, and Wriothesley guides the raft all the way down until they reach the stretch between the Opera House connecting the entrance of the Fortress. Wriothesley finds himself unable to untangle himself from the tendrils around his arm and takes to lying Neuvillettes head onto his knees as he watches to make sure none of the Melusines go down to the surrounding waters below as they help each other up and away from the edge.
One of them has taken to staring at Neuvillette, blinking slowly as her eyes rake his entire form. By the clothes, Wriothesley can make a guess that she was just a normal Fontaine resident, or wasn’t on duty at the time of the flood, but he feels a little unnerved when she doesn't break her gaze away.
A few others gather too, and for the first time, Wriothesley hears them speak in a language unlike any that he’s heard. He couldn’t even begin to describe the sounds, only the soft voices that their vocals carried in comparison to the loud and hard accented tones they take when speaking a human language.
One of them even goes to touch him, or more specifically, the arm trapped within Neuvillettes grip, with her mitt-like hands closing around the root of the antenna and pinching in certain places. Almost searching as she muttered.
Wriothely said nothing as he watched, and before long, there was a pinch and then a slimy slivering sensation retreating down his arm. It was… strange- weird, he’ll admit, but he watched in fascination as the bold blue and frilled white ringlets retracted, before all was left was white hair and those two blue tentacle-horns atop Neuvillette head.
Not a bow, then. Or even… decorative ribbons.
“Your hand was turning purple.” The melusine goes, taking her mitts away as she looks up at Wriothesley, and he blinks before looking down at his arm, clenching it into a fist to ward off the numbed tingles running down. The feeling was akin to being stung by a jellyfish without the pain.
“Thank you.” He says to her, polite before he looks down at Neuvillette. “How is he?”
Surely he can’t stay here lying on the floor, but… looking at those other parts of Neuvillette that continue to glow and grow from him, he’s not sure if he should take him anywhere else either.
“He should be waking up at any moment.”
Wriothesley looks down, waiting to catch Neuvillette in the act of doing so, and it proves fulfilling when there's a twitch of thin, silver brows and activating the retreating of the glowing limbs sprouting from his back. When they all but disappear from sight, Neuvillette groans tiredly from beneath him and Wriothesley looks over his expression just as his eyes begin to blink, opening slowly as they look up into the skies.
The Melusines all begin chattering around him, whispers and gasps and worries all piling over as they crown around them both, and Neuvillette turns his head to look just as they shuffle to meet his gaze half way.
“Monsieur Neuvillette!” Is a common mantra among the girls before the one he makes eye contact with speaks. “Are you alright? Do you feel pain anywhere?”
“...Ahes?” the male mumbles, brows drawn in confusion before his gaze flickers to the rest of them surrounding him, eyes widening as his head comes to lift slightly off of Wriothesley knees, seemingly unawares of his presence. “What- are you all doing here?”
“You saved Fontaine.” Tristane - if Wriothesley remembers correctly - goes, followed quickly by another he doesn't recognize.
“But then we found you in the waters unresponsive.”
“Yes, and then the Duke came to your rescue just before the current would take you away.”
“Wriothesley?” Neuvillette says, asking, and the man himself raises an arm to wave lightly from above now that he’s finally been given some notice. His legs were falling asleep.
“Right here, Monsieur Neuvillette.”
Neuvillette turns his head, rather quick in comparison to the slow movement until now, and makes eye contact with him, gazing at him wide eyed and mouth agape, unsure of what to say. His eyes flicker down to his chest and stomach however at the close proximity before coming to realize exactly where he was perched.
Going to get up with an audible strain from the way he groans in effort to do so, Wriothesley puts a hand to his back to help Neuvillette sit upright.
“Careful.”
Now sitting close together instead of on top of one another, Neuvillette nods at him in appreciation with a thanks falling from tinted lips, but he does not yet take the opportunity to stand. Instead, Neuvillette takes to looking at the melusines that further migrated to where he now sits, a few standing in front of Wriothesley with tails aflunder and wiggling minimally.
He drowns out their questions flooding the monsieur as he heaves himself off the ground, but he hesitates a moment before making an attempt of going around the group of Melusines.
It’s a comical sight, like the ones in the fairy tales with princesses surrounded by mother nature and its habitants as Neuvillette sits on the stone ground of the bridging, legs to his side with his robes surrounding him.
They weren’t fluffed with frills and silk fluttering in the breeze like the make-believe-tales of children's books, and his admittedly pretty hair was sopping wet as it stuck to his person in difficult knots, strays that dried quicker dancing up above his head a further nuisance when it will be time to wash it. He wasn’t singing as his voice was reserved as he tried calming the Melusines around him, but at the growing crease between his brows, Wriothesley will play the part of the prince and save the one who is obviously in distress.
“I don’t think we have the time to doddle around.” he calls, voice high to reach all working ears, and several heads turn his way, including Neuvillette, and Wriothesley fixes him a look. “It’s safe to assume that Fontaine has been saved, but there is still much to do.”
Neuvillette stares at him from the floor, still looking a little lost and worse for wear as his hair is no longer in its proper place. He almost looked like a woman with the way it parted over to the side to fall over his shoulders with its ends pooling on the ground, but his deep voice sweeped the image away.
“I suppose you're right.” He says, looks down and to the Melusines again. “I’ll have to apologize for now, but we really must get to solving the crises. Or at the very least, deal with the aftermath accordingly.” He says before shuffling up to his feet with another heave.
He stumbles lightly as he steps on his robes, but he’s quick to regain his balance as he looks down at himself. “So heavy.” He mumbles under his breath, but Wriothesely pays no heed as he throws one last glance to those alluring ribbons that brought even more mystery with this centuries old judge, before walking ahead.
--
“Then what about those that come from Liyue. I hear some even live among the human populace.” Wriothesley gestures with a searching hand, face set in a concentrating manner as he sits at his table, leaning back against the velvet of the chair.
Sigewinne is there with him, at eye level with the desk if not a few inches taller to reveal the slope of her nose, and she heaved a great sigh.
“Monsior Neuvillette doesn't like it when people poke and prod in his business, Your Grace.” She chastises, but then her posture changes as she leaned back a little to cross her arms and give him a look. “And why are you so interested in him all of a sudden? You’re usually so cold when it comes to Monsieur Neuvillette, and always comment on his lack of humor and how bad he is during amical interactions.”
Wriothesley laughs, jovial. “I won’t lie and say that I don’t make fun of him at times, but it doesn't mean I don’t like him as a person. He’s just uhh ” He makes a face, pensive as his hand circulates the air, and the gesture speaks volumes as the Melusines eyes now squint in offense. Wriothesley catches her gaze and he gives a grin.
“Cmon, Sigewinne. You know what I mean!”
She throws her head to the side, jutting her chin high as she re-crosses her arms as a show of her displeasure. “I think Monsieur Neuvillette is kind, and he worked his butt off to get you where you are, so I’d be more appreciative if I were you.”
He sighs, dropping the act in seeing that his sense of humor was not contagious this time around, but seeing Sigewinne so attached to Neuvillette in this light, he’s reminded of when he’d saved the Iudex and surrounded by Melusines all the while.
There must be something truly special about Neuvillette. That, or he was perhaps the incarnation of a male Melusine, and all things considered, it wasn’t a far fetched idea.
“Alright, alright, I apologize for talking about Monsieur Neuvillette the way I have. Forgive me?” He asks, not entirely sounding sincere, but it gets the job done when Sigewinne gives him a once over before dropping the topic with a nod.
“And they are called Adepti, Your Grace. Wonderful creatures.” she gives a melancholic sigh. “What I wouldn't give to see one with my own eyes.”
He gives her a sideways glance. “I’m sure.”
--
Wriothesly always thought Neuvillette as a strange man, ‘being’ if he pans out his view of the Iudex for what he really is, but even in his mind's eye the term felt too estranged and dehumanizing to describe the white haired male. Even if human he was not, from how far back records of his existence go.
But poetic locutions aside, Neuvillettes approaches with Wriothesley have always come off a little finicky; always wanting and needing to understand or be understood when it came to more amicable encounters, or when business between them was finished but not yet time to part ways as he tries to fill the silence with what is probably supposed to be friendly conversation.
Wriothesly can't help but ask, how did a man so old, not grow? Surely even divinity learns to be more gouache, more frivolous and easygoing when living amongst human beings, pick up slang or even a sense of humor that was at least a little understandable to the human mind. Neuvillette may be no god, but certainly something of the like if he’s lived for so long, and he certainly acts human-like, but his methodical way of speaking is… outdated at best.
Confusing, most times, and unnecessary all the more.
Still, Wriothesley sees the way Neuvillette desperately grasps on the want of knowledge of human activities and behavior each time they meet. The Duke always has something to say, a joke, a prod, or even questions unrelated to their meets, and the Iudex is always caught off guard by it before innocently prodding for more information on the matter for the sake of learning.
But then it’s always kept at that; a simple learning experience. The only time it became more than that was when Neuvillette gave him a codex because of a bet he had made with Clorande shortly after the first wave of primordial sea spilled forth from the Fortress. Neuvillette was the subject of the bet, but also the one who ended up giving them what he described to be a ‘humorous gift’.
“This is an attempt to join in the banter.” He’d said, and Wriothesley looked down at the codex with a tilt of his head and a shrug of a shoulder.
“It was a very good attempt.” An offhand sigh. “I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. Even your sense of humor centers around the law. That’s an impressive level of commitment.”
Then, “A gift of this significance deserved to be put on display, and I know just the place.” he raises the gift between them a little. “Front and center in the Fortresses showroom!” He calls, tone dripping in sarcasm, but Neuvillette doesn't catch on as his eyes grow a little and his posture straightens minutely to express his likeness to the idea. He doesn't say anything right away, but he regains himself with a small clear of his throat.
“Ah- Surely there's no need for such a grand gesture...”
Wriothesley doesn’t see the embarrassment painting the male's features when he shrugs.
“Ehh-m’ just kidding. I don’t have anything like a showroom.” he goes. “But, we do have a storage room. We can put it next to all the mechanical parts Sigewinne has collected.” Wriothesley tucks the codex on his side as he finally goes to look at Neuvillette, but his face has shifted and is looking a little to the side.
“Ah, right.”
Wriothesley raised a brow at the clear disappointment written on his face. Sometimes, Neuvillette was an easy man to read. Too easy…
Neuvillette coughs again as he looks back at Wriothesley, face schooled as it always has been before nodding and the atmosphere falls back into the politeness that Wriothesly always deviates from.
“That sounds good to me.” Neuvillette nods at him shortly after that and leaves for the Palai. Wriothesley waits a few more moments, gaze boring into the man's back and accessorized hair, before leaving himself shortly after. After, he doesn't quite realize that the following interactions between them no longer hold much salt, and are cut shorter until after he sees Clorande again to show off the ridiculous gift he’d been given.
He felt it was too strong a word for it, but saying it out loud, Neuvillette must have already taken a guess that’s how Wriothesley really felt about it. Looking back, maybe he was a little harsh with the jokes that time around.
He’ll… have to circle back to that and tone it down a little with the jests.