shipwrecked || furina & neuvillette

🫧 5 🫧

"Furina," a voice hisses my name through the darkness. "You can tell me what's been going on."
The voice is familiar, I've heard it before. Where, I can't quite put my finger on it. But I know this voice. I'm standing in Poisson, standing there waiting for the voice to appear in front of me.
"You don't have to handle it all on your own."
Do I tell the darkness? Do I spill the secrets? The things I have held to my chest for five hundred years? It's so lonely, it's exhausting.
"Tell me, it's okay."

But it might not be okay, I think to myself.
"Tell me!" The voice is louder now, they're screaming at me. I falter, moving backwards a few steps. My foot catches on something and I trip, falling over the ledge. There is water beneath me, it is rushing and gushing around me. I scream, hurling towards the water that is rapidly rising.
There are so many people that are going to be swept away - so many people that are going to die because I am not good enough to stop the water.
I plummet into the water, the liquid filling my mouth, and I feel like I'm drowning. My lungs are tight and my heart is bursting. I thrash around, but I am full submerged. The water is everywhere, and I can't breathe.
"This is what happens," the voice echoes through me, "when you fail to fool the heavenly principles."
I scream, but no sound comes out. There is only the feeling of water in my mouth. I try and swim, try to reach the surface. But it's useless, I am powerless. Not even my vision will be enough to save me, Neuvillette doesn't even know I am here... I am going to die. I accept it. Perhaps this is my fate. To fail at the task set for me by mirror-me. To fail and let everyone around me down. My lungs feel like they're going to explode, darkness is all around me. No one is coming to find me. No one cares-
"Furina," a voice calls my name.
"Furina, wake up." Wake up? I am awake and I am drowning and I can't breathe-

"Furina, it's just a dream." There's a hand on her shoulder. A hand that pulls her from the terrible nightmare. "It's not real."
It feels real. It feels like she's still drenched, like he's just pulled her from the depths she'd been drowning in. She sits up, still on his couch. It's dark outside, the moonlight drifting onto Neuvillette's face.
He's kneeling down in front of her, concern written all over his face.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Neuvillette asks, standing up.
Furina shakes her head, trying to catch her breath. She glances around the room, reminding herself that she is not in Poisson, she is not drowning. She is here, she is very much alive.
Neuvillette stands up, and Furina swings her legs off the couch, her head in her hands.
"How long was I asleep for?"
"It's just past midnight," Neuvillette tells her.
"I... I was drowning." Furina speaks quietly. "Someone was speaking to me... I was in Poisson and the water was rising and I fell in and the voice said 'this is what happens when you fail to fool the heavenly principles.'" Her voice shakes. She doesn't know why she's confiding in him, not when she was so quick to shake her head when he asked if she wanted to talk about it. "I keep forgetting that I'm human... I... I can die now. I could have been dead now. Before now... I... I didn't have to worry. So long as mirror-me, I mean... Focolars was alive, then I couldn't die." Furina brings her knees up to her chest. "But now... now..." she trails off, shaking her head.
Neuvillette sits down beside her, his face forlorn.
"I'm sorry, Furina." He hangs his head. "No one has apologised to you for what... for what we did."
Furina leans her head on her knees, watching him. Watching how he hangs his head, watches how he refuses to look her in the eye.

Furina doesn't think she will ever be able to forget that moment. In front of everyone, thinking she had failed. She'd given up everything for five hundred years, only to fail at that moment. Nothing will ever dull that pain.
"Looking back now, I think that maybe if I had just..." he pauses, shaking his head. "If I had just come to you in the first place, if I had just been honest with you... perhaps it would have unfolded differently."
"I wouldn't have been honest," Furina murmurs. "No, possibly not. But I'll never forgive myself for essentially trapping you on that stage." He finally looks at her.
"After five hundred years, a human life suddenly seems so small." Furina pauses as she wipes tears from her eyes. "Anyway, it doesn't matter now." She clears her throat, pulling herself together. "I... I could probably find somewhere else to stay if you would prefer that."
"No, of course not. You are welcome to stay here - I feel it may be the safest place in Fontaine for you."
Furina nods. "Sometimes, I would climb onto the roof," she smiles. "And I would sit there in silence for hours under the stars." Furina can still remember the feeling of the wind in her hair. "I would count the shooting stars when they passed me. I... I would look down over Fontaine and I would know why I was in so much pain. It gave me purpose, to keep going, to wake up another day."