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He had not wanted to become human - not exactly. What he had wanted, back then, when he had been called Fontus and was primarily known as one of his mother’s children more than anything else, was to read and write human script, and to converse with human speech, and to be able to turn the pages of their books or unfurl their scrolls without getting the corners wet. Also he had wanted to converse with adepti and youkai and angels - all those capable of philosophy and advanced thought.
However, there are many more humans than there are adepti and youkai and angels he can speak with, so naturally his thoughts center on them.
As an Oceanid, his own shape is never a fixed concept to him, and he regards his work towards gaining human form more akin to gaining a new tool or skill than anything else.
He does not understand how fundamental a change he had undergone, even before his mother uses the primordial sea to seal the change in them, until Celestia threatens to take humanity away from his smaller, weaker brethren - until his own humanity is drowned in the greater truth of his divinity and his Archonhood.
His sisters abandon him, bitter and resentful; his brethren who had chosen human form, lesser in power and scope to him and his sister Oceanids, had long since perished in the human fashion, dissolving into the leylines, leaving behind human-shaped and human-blooded offspring who know nothing of their Oceanid ancestry. As he begins his reign as the Hydro Archon, he has never felt so alone.
He meditates as he leads the remaining (so pitifully few remaining) Fontainians in rebuilding their nation. He will need to find a way to avert the prophecy; he will need to do it without letting Celestia know; he will need to keep the people alive long enough for the prophecy to even matter, which in the aftermath of the Cataclysm is no easy task. Leadership comes easily to him but not companionship or camaraderie; he is worshipped but not loved.
When he splits himself, into the god who lives in the machine and the human who will pretend to be a god, he gives his human self a new surname, and wishes for a new life for him. Fontus de Neuvillette, he names his humanity, because he is building a new place for himself and for his people.
Neuvillette does not remember many things, but one of the few things he does know is that it is important - very important - critically important, to lure the Hydro Dragon to their side.
He throws the letter his mirror-self had left him, sealed with the sigil of Hydro and impervious with magic he no longer knows how to use, into the sea, and wonders how long he will have to wait for a reply.
It takes about a hundred years for the dragon to reply.
She appears in front of the Palais on a warm summer night - a small, fae girl, with hair like the moonlight and mismatched eyes that glow. She is dripping with water, forming a small puddle where she stands, even though the trail of puddles behind her shows that she has been walking on dry land long enough that she should have dried off.
And she is naked, with all the natural ease of a young beast with that fact.
“I have come here to see what you’ve made,” she announces grandly, while Gardes and Palais staff wring their hands and try to avert their gazes.
Neuvillette suppresses a sigh and sweeps his justacorps around her.
“You may call me Furina,” the dragon tells him, with the air of a ruler granting a favor. The humans around them gasp and mutter, but Neuvillette only nods and repeats the name to fix it in his memory.
“Thank you, Furina,” he replies politely. “I am very pleased to meet you.”
“Of course you are,” Furina says.
Neuvillette sees the silver lining in the time it has taken the Hydro Dragon - no, Furina - to reply to his invitation. Fontaine’s government and infrastructure is now established enough that he can leave the day-to-day rulership to his deputies and assistants, and focus on her integration and education.
Furina learns quickly, but has very clear preferences. She picks up reading and writing within days but is lackadaisical about table manners and modes of address. (She does, however, find dress codes interesting and hilarious) She learns to read musical notation within hours and by the next day she is already reviewing the Palais’ books on diatonic tonal harmony, and asking Neuvillette his opinion on “integrating the vertical and horizontal perspectives”. (He refers her to Mme. Juilliard, who works as the Palais liasion to the textiles guilds, but is also a virtuoso amateur musician.) She will learn Fontainian history as long as Neuvillette tells it to her as a story, but visibly loses interest as soon as he pulls out anything written down. She learns math with the same speed Neuvillette has observed in the more intelligent children of the Palais staff, but will only agree to study such topics for about an hour at a time.
And she is bored to tears with Fontaine’s legal code.
“But Furina,” Neuvillette pleads with her. “If you are to become Iudex....”
“Who wants to become Iudex? Let Leon - “
“Monsieur Leon.”
“Ugh, monsieur, yes fine - well let him keep being Iudex! I don’t want to review cases or appoint the judges of the lower chambers or have to arrange the benches for the appeals...”
Neuvillette notes to himself that her complaints prove that she has a firmer grasp on the duties of the Chief Justice than he had thought.
“Monsieur Leon is human and will, thus, unfortunately, die eventually...”
“So get a new one when he does! That is what you have been doing, is it not? He has not been your Chief Justice since the beginning of your reign...”
“No, but...”
Furina stamps her foot. “I don’t want to be Iudex!”
“But you will get such a good view of Fontaine’s justice - its people - by being the Iudex.”
“Boring!” Furina proclaims, stamping her foot again. This time, the pipes in the walls of the Palais rattle as the water in them rushes forward. “Who wants to watch humans when they’re being their most formal, and when they’re always nervous and in trouble? They’re much more interesting when they’re doing things they like.”
She glares at Neuvillette. “Unfair! My brothers don’t need to do such busywork when they’re with their Archons...”
Neuvillette stiffens. “Your -- your brothers?”
“Yes! Dvalin and Azdaha! Their Archons don’t make them do stupid boring things like be judges. Of course,” she relents, “Az and Dvalin aren’t human-shaped like me, so I don’t think the buildings there are built for their size, but still.”
There is silence for a moment.
“I’ll be your familiar,” she tells him. “That way you can tell the other Usurpers I’m under control, and I don’t have to do anything but what I like, and I’ll watch you and your humans like you want me to. Everyone gets something they want.”
She puts her hand on his arm, and Neuvillette staggers as a feeling of coolness rushes through him, as if the all-too-human blood in his veins has been replaced by clear water, flowing through and back into his heart.
Furina is tapping her chin with her finger in thought, and Neuvillette thinks this must be something she picked up from the humans around her. “In exchange, you need to sing for me,” she tells Neuvillette.
He blinks. “I’m not very good at that.”
“You’re a god,” Furina says. “I want to hear a god sing for me.”
Barbatos, Neuvillette thinks, has a lot to answer for when it comes to the popular understanding of what a familiar does, since “You’re free to do as you like” is a remarkably Anemo-Archon approach, and one that Furina has adopted whole-heartedly.
“Today,” she reports, triumphantly, as Neuvillette looks at her over the multiple stacks of paperwork on his desk, “I tried every type of macaron flavor at Café Procope. The best --- is the white truffle flavor, with roasted hazelnut slivers!”
Neuvillette finds the Melusines and tries to integrate them into Fontainian society, seeing in their eagerness to learn about human society a mirror of what had driven the Oceanids to adopt human form themselves and sympathizing greatly with them. Furina seems to regard them much as she regards humans - novel and amusing.
He is saddened beyond measure when instead of welcoming them as fellow creatures striving for similar ideals, Fontainians regard the Melusines with fear and suspicion.
And then Carole dies. Seconds later, Furina crushes the mob who had murdered Carole with a single sudden tidal wave, killing more than half and leaving the rest broken under the pressure of the driving water.
Furina does not seem very bothered by either the human dead or by Carole. “Well, they’re all yours, the humans here and the Melusines, but you told them not to attack the Melusines,” she replies to Neuvillette’s agonized questioning later. “So they shouldn’t have.” She yawns and rolls her shoulders while Neuvillette stares at her with foreboding.
“I’m hungry now. Tell them to bring me some soup.”
TBC