"Come on Furina, you can tell us!" Said the Traveller from another land.
A conflicted Furina put a hand on her chest, already emotional from her near breakdown at the water in Poisson.
She had been led into a round, rusted shack, supposedly hiding with someone who was attempting to gain her trust.
But she couldn't tell her... telling even one person could ruin everything.
But telling them how you've been feeling may not be as damaging, right?
Lumine looked hopefully into Furina's weary eyes, covered by makeup, tears having caused some of it to smudge.
"I..." she began, the Traveller looking at her hopefully, giving her a nod of approval to continue.
Furina suddenly sighed. She couldn't. The consequences were too severe. She had to endure. But for how much longer? One day? One month? One year? A hundred more years? A thousand years?
There was no end to the prophecy in sight. Furina knew she was on thin ice with everyone, but maybe, just maybe, she could outwit them. Maybe she could fool them. For just a little longer...
As Furina stared into Lumine's disappointed eyes, the shack began to shake again. Her eyes widened. Is another calamity happening?! Maybe she could help the people this time! She couldn't save those who were lost in the Poisson flooding... but she will not let another life be lost to the Primordial Sea.
Suddenly the walls of the shack began to unfold, like a box. A trap. Revealing what was inside.
Furina's eyes widened in horror at the familiar sight she was greeted with. There, a full seated audience, watching her own capture.
'I shouldn't have said anything, I should have run from her!'
For just a moment, Furina wore no mask. Her horror and confusion was on display for everyone to see. She had been betrayed. She had been tricked, deceived. And now she was caught in a trap, like a hunter who had captured a rabbit. She took several deep breaths, adrenaline pumping through her veins.
There was no escaping this. Furina scanned the audience. She saw so many familiar faces. Navia of the Spina Di Rosula, Charlotte of the Steambird, Lynette, Freminet, even Clorinde.
Furina wasn't as stupid as she may seem. She quickly connected the dots. She had been set up from the very beginning.
In the corner of her eyes she saw a proud Lyney take a bow.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes my opening performance!" He announced to the audience, doing his usual card trick with a smile on his face.
"Now, without further ado... we may proceed to the trial of our god."
Furina's blood ran cold. She felt herself stiffen on the spot. She was being put on trial. Of course she was, she had expected it. She hadn't done what was expected of her as a god. To the people, she did nothing at all. No matter how many times she lifts the hopes up of her people, eventually it'll all come crashing down.
Maybe this was the 'trial to end all trials'?
But it couldn't be.
'Mirror-me wouldn't possibly do something like that to me... right...?' She asked herself, unsure.
Looking at the audience, she quickly took a breath. She had to act fast.
"Ah, so this is what it is," she began, shutting her eyes for dramatic effect, "yes... you deserve praise for the effort you took to raise the dramatic stakes."
Furina adjusted her posture to look more confident.
"Do not forget, however, that I am Focalors, the God of Justice — the embodiment of justice itself. Does it not strike you as even the least bit obeyed to bring the very concept of justice to trial?"
Perhaps this may have bought her some time. Who knows? Hopefully this was an unofficial trial - one held strictly by the people.
However the presence of the Traveller from a faraway land gave her cause for concern.
Suddenly a voice shook her to her core. Not to the degree of making her mask fall off, no.
"May I interpret these words... as you refusing to stand trial?" Asked Iudex Neuvillette. Furina noticed a particularly serious expression on his face, but perhaps there was a touch of desperation too.
They wanted answers out of her.
"In that case, you will have the opportunity to defend your honour through a duel." Neuvillette continued as Clorinde walked onto the stage, an unsheathed blade in her hand. She was not afraid to spill blood.
Furina looked at her with a feeling of betrayal and a sharp pain in her heart. However just like the five hundred years before this very moment, she trudged on. Maybe she had already gone beyond her breaking point. Maybe she was already insane?
"Y-you would draw your blade against a god?" Furina asked, shaken.
Clorinde simply held her sword to her throat.
Furina visibly gulped. Silently she wished for the blade to pierce her, and hopefully rid her of this five hundred year long torture session. Maybe she would finally be free.
Maybe...
The crowd gasped and shuddered, talking amongst themselves about what might happen next. How would the God of Justice fare against the Champion Duellist?
Their expectations were thwarted however as Furina slowly held up her hands, surrendering to the court.
She had no choice but to stand trial.
//
Furina breathed heavily, her heart beating a mile a minute. Maybe even a mile a second. She felt like she was about to die, as silly as that statement may be. Any moment now she felt like she could just be sick. Her stomach hurt. Her limbs tingled. Her head spun. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead.
In one final act of desperation, she put her hands on the banister of the elevated platform that was the defendant's stand. Tears began streaming uncontrollably down her cheeks.
"Please... listen to me!" She begged, "I really am your archon!" She pleaded. However nobody said anything. Nobody looked at her. She looked towards Lumine and Paimon, her prosecutors, hoping they would have some kind of sympathy for her. Her knees began to buckle and her whole body began to shake.
The Traveller from afar and her companion however only turned away from her. Furina felt like her heart was being ripped into pieces and stapled on the wall. She had one final hope. The person that had been by her side for over four hundred years. She turned to face Iudex Neuvillette, but he too looked down, shutting his eyes, not wanting to even look at her.
In his mind she was a liar, a fraud archon who had done nothing but sit idly by eating cake while watching the prophecy unfold. He felt betrayed by her. However he still had sympathy for her. Her begging sounded sincere. Her mask was gone. However he still could not bring himself to face her.
Furina watched her already miserable world shatter around her. Her people would hate her. Neuvillette would hate her, the Traveller would hate her.
She stopped trying. She grew quiet, and turned around, facing the wall. Everything around her in that moment seemed to disappear. Her world had gone.
"In my capacity as Chief Justice, I shall now render judgement on Furina's misrepresentation of herself as the Archon of Fontaine. As a human who knowingly deceived her fellow citizens, Furina is - guilty."
Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. The word spun around in her head. Her fear ridden eyes began to water once more as the verdict was handed out. The silence in the room was deafening. Furina at that moment begged for death. Anything. Anything to not have her end up like this, someone who is detested by the people that she loved and cared for.
Oh how she longed to tell everyone the truth... but that would make the prophecy come true, and perhaps even awaken the Heavenly Principles.
Without a single squeak from her mouth. Furina defeatedly took a seat on the throne.
She sat in silence, unable to even speak. Even if she wanted to, her vocal cords were exhausted. All she could do was weep...
In just thirty minutes, everything had been ruined. She had failed. She had doomed her people. Furina didn't care if she was put to death before the court, maybe then she could finally rest. She cared for the safety of her people, and now the prophecy was about to unfold.
"We shall now turn to the Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale to render the final verdict on the charges."
The mechanical machine whirred to life, lighting up the whole courtroom behind Neuvillette in a dazzling display, before presenting a card before Neuvillette. The Iudex took the document and examined it, and his eyes widened in surprise.
Carefully paying attention to the stunned man, Lumine spoke up. "What does it say? Is she innocent?"
Neuvillette shook his head. The words were quick to jumble his mind. It was certainly something he had never expected to see on an official document. It was a cruel verdict... but a verdict nonetheless. And as the Iudex, the Chief Justice of Fontaine, he had to see this trial through. As much as it pained him, as much as he cared for the weeping lady who had enjoyed trials like these from her lonely seat above the audience for hundreds of years prior to this, he had to do his duty.
"According to the judgement of the Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale... the Hydro Archon is to be punished via... the death sentence."
The courtroom erupted with gasps of surprise. To many, they believed the death sentence was merely a myth, something to scare even the worst criminals.
Though her crime could be rendered as 'bad', surely Furina was not deserving of the death sentence, right?
Lumine looked at the empty Furina, a sense of sympathy washing over her. A pit forming in her stomach. She was about to watch a woman get executed.
Of course, Lumine had seen many a deaths during her time in Teyvat. From Teppei to Signora. But now she was about to see an execution on a woman who seemed to genuinely care about her nation - the only crime being that she was a fraud.
Seeing how desperate she was to hide her secret, seeing how willing she was to put her hand in the concentrated Primordial Seawater, seeing the panic on her face.
Did they do something wrong...?
Perhaps not, no. This was definitely the right thing to do. Furina would never have given up her secret no matter how many times she'd beg and plead. This was to save Fontaine.
But, she still needed answers from Furina herself. Why would she fake her role as one of the Seven?
//
For a moment, Furina opened her exhausted, stinging eyes. Not only had everyone figured out the prophecy, they also figured out that by sentencing Furina, by putting her on trial, they had kicked everything into motion.
She could hear the mutterings of Neuvillette and the Traveller below. Listening in, she could hear that they were reconnecting the dots. There was something they had gotten wrong... suddenly, as soon as Paimon announced that Childe had fallen into the Primordial Sea, and met a giant whale, a tear in the fabric of space itself opened within the opera house.
Furina was completely powerless. She didn't even have a vision, let alone any strength. She could only watch as a gigantic whale bigger than any creature she had ever seen before flew through the tear in space-time. Its movements were unnatural. To one, they would expect a whale who had just come out of a portal that lead to the sea to flop pathetically on a stage, like a sad little spectacle. However, this whale seemed to swim through the air.
The Divine Whale took in the scent of the fleeing Fontainians and opened its maw, having a black hole compared to a usual throat. This creature was not from Teyvat, it must have hailed from the Abyss, or maybe even the stars.
The whale roared as it neared its prey.
Iudex Neuvillette jumped to the ground, causing the hungry whale to change its course, almost licking its lips - its stomach rumbling as it set its eyes on one that may satisfy its everlasting, insatiable hunger.
Once more it opened its maw, but was stopped by the Hydro Sovereign creating a shield to defend himself. A shield quickly broken as the hunger of the whale gave it more power. Not wanting to deal with the Iudex, it changed its course once more onto the fleeing Fontainians. To the whale, they were lining themselves up to be devoured.
Furina looked on with worry, hoping something could be done to stop the whale from eating the people. In the corner of her eye, though blurred through her tears, she could see Neuvillette summoning more power to stop the whale.
At that very second, something else flew through the portal at lightning speed. It was quickly revealed to be the Eleventh Harbinger as he began slashing and slicing the whale. His Foul Legacy was slowly crumbling around him but he had to defeat the whale, for this is the promise he made to himself when he first saw the whale several years ago.
Childe struck the whale in its head with his double-edged polearm as Neuvillette fired a concentrated Hydro Beam through its chest. Both attacks however seemed to only annoy the creature, and it retreated back into the rift with an angry roar.
Childe took several heavy breaths, the first break in his fight against the whale in a long time. He turned to face Lumine, Neuvillette and Paimon, who looked on at him with concern. Lumine especially looked at him with a look that said 'are you okay?'
With a small chuckle, he weakly moved his arm out, making a thumbs-down gesture. Suddenly his strength finally reached its limit, and he fell into the rift below.
The Traveller considered jumping into that rift in hopes of maybe saving the Harbinger whom had grown to become her friend, but decided against it, for stopping the prophecy in any way she could was now the main task at hand.