Chapter Text
Ribbon? Hmm.
Ribbon looked good. Furina turned her head left and right to get a proper look in the mirror at the cerulean-blue chiffon of the elegant, droopy bow that tightened around her high ponytail, resting against her head with its ends flowing down along her hair.
Of course it looks good—, she could almost hear Chiori say scoffing, as annoyed as proud. —I made it.
That— and the fact that it was cut from one of the exact same legendary rolls of fabric as her infamous wedding dress... which now stood on display in the window of Chioriya Boutique—right next to Clorinde's dark, starry lace.
To think of that severe woman baring her shoulders save for some little straps in that gorgeous dress with her hair blowing around out on the riverside on that warm autumn day, with that matching choker around her neck and that blush and fluster on her face as Furina slid the band onto her finger...
The brilliant smile that Furina suddenly couldn't stop herself smiling made her dab some of the lip gloss onto her teeth instead, which she had to dig off with her tongue and thumb.
She shook her head a few times quickly to see that none of her loosely-styled curls in front would end up getting stuck on her mouth, then brushed them over her ear and chewed on her lip in the mirror, fluttering her eyelashes and imagining that she were Clorinde instead gazing upon her and what thoughts might cross that woman's mind, given such immaculate beauty.
...
.....Honestly, Furina was just going to stare even worse at Clorinde. Clorinde, with that handsomely devilish short, neat bob of dark hair that bared a hint of her nape and always got tucked over her ear, now that they'd traded. Just thinking about it made her whimper. Was it possible to still crush on your own wife as much as she did? Because she did.
So. so badly.
*
"I'll defer to your expertise, pretty please," Furina said somewhat absentmindedly as she gazed about the myriad colors and bottles on the counter presented to her.
"Is it for your— for Clorinde?"
Emilie was coyly almost smirking at her, but Furina didn't mind it. As a matter of fact, she was absolutely in the mood to bask in the teasing attention of the matter this day.
"Yeah..." Furina said shyly, twirling her hair with her finger. "I'll be wearing it for her. She's returning from a voyage abroad. So, I suppose it's for me..."
"Mmhm. Then... how about this one?"
Emilie picked up a romantic blue and green bottle and spritzed a tiny bit on her own wrist, then raised it for Furina to smell. "It suits the way you look and feel today. 'Glimmer.' Bracing and invigorating, the base is Lumidouce, with a hint of Lakelight Lilies and Bulle Fruit—reminiscent of home and land, yet also familiar waters inland—and might I say, a note of your own regal bearing and legacy, my lady."
Furina daydreamed the scene and scent painted for her with her elbows on the counter and her cheeks in her hands, buying into every honeyed word in as much as they spoke for how Clorinde might like it.
"Wonderful."
The perfumer gave her coy, playful glances as she delicately held Furina's hands to apply it to her wrists for her, then searched for an appropriate box for the bottle.
"—What about you?" Furina raised her eyebrow the slightest bit. "Have you found someone that you wear perfume for, Emilie?"
Evidently this was not something the esteemed artisan had practiced to answer gracefully, unlike anything to do with the matter of her wares, because she was suddenly frozen with an flustered expression.
"Ah- ... wearing any quite interferes with my work, so..."
"And if it were a date? Who would it be?"
"A- a- I-"
Furina confessed it was fun to see someone else for once react in that way she knew all too well herself. Now it was she who was smirking. "May I guess?"
"No you may not!" Emilie had apparently summoned enough gumption to ward her off, if pleadingly.
Only just then, the door banged open, causing both of them to nearly jump.
"Emilie!! The article has been published! Look! —Oh!! Hello, Lady Furina-! I wasn't expecting- oh my- let me get the camera!"
"Good morning, Charlotte," said Furina pleasantly, somewhat rattled by the sudden intrusion yet not displeased. She glanced back at Emilie, who to her surprise, had suddenly a most delectably scandalous blush on her face.
"Miss Charlotte- please don't bother Lady Furina—"
"I'm not!" She snapped a photo. "It's just commemorative! It's good for your store! You have the Lady Furina's personal stamp of approval! —You'll let me keep the shot, right, my lady?" she hastily whispered to Furina, pleading. "Also, what did you just call me, Em?! Miss Charlotte?!"
"Be my guest," Furina said, suddenly on the verge of giggling. Looking back at the perfumer fidgeting with her bottles, she'd seen enough to know now. Do Chev and Chiori know, though, was what her mischievous glance was really saying. "I'm all done here, yes? I'll leave you two be," she said, receiving the box from Emilie and winking as she paid for her purchase.
"Ah- ah, thank you," Emilie said, with a look of absolute surrender. "Have a good day, madame. Please give Clorinde my regards. Tell her I've missed her, too."
"Bye!" said Charlotte, waving with that day's Steambird tucked into her arm. "Buy today's issue if you haven't yet! There's an article about Emilie in it!"
Furina chuckled softly, letting the door close to the jingle of the bell behind her. Good luck, Emilie.
Clorinde grabbed at her hat as it nearly blew up and off her head in the open winds of the cruiser, neatening her messy hair off of her face with her gloved fingers. To the contrary, Neuvillette was simply allowing all of his long, elegant mane to flutter freely behind him as he gazed idly into the waves, lost in his thoughts—a sight that she found amusing enough to laugh softly to herself, and the Iudex almost quite glamorous.
"What is it?" he asked gently, evidently suddenly noticing that she was smiling about him enough to turn and glance back at her seated across from him, her hands demurely in her lap with her hat.
"He seemed quite charming, I think," Clorinde said, closing her eyes to dare enough to tease. "Monsieur Zhongli, was it? Sometimes the two of you were so enraptured with each other that you even forgot I was there."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Clorinde!? I was... simply, entertaining his polite and cultured company for us."
"I'm just saying. You two looked... agreeable to me."
"You have inherited Furina's penchant for mischief, Clorinde."
"Perhaps." That did make her smile more.
"There was something intriguingly unsettling to me about the man, to be honest."
"There may be better words for that phenomenon, you know. —Teasing aside, he quite reminded me of you in that regard. I had a good time with his offer to show us around. Certainly much more than with all the formalities."
"I must dutifully remind you that we are on diplomatic work on behalf of Fontaine, Clorinde, not for leisure. Did you not enjoy the martial exhibition with the Yuheng? You looked quite dashingly exquisite, if I may say so. Furina would have swooned."
"Ah... -hah, thank you. It was fine. If anything, she reminded me a little too much of myself ... which was mildly disconcerting. I would have sooner enjoyed a drink with her than to cross blades. Although the people seemed quite enthralled."
"You did well. I have had much candid admiration for the Lady Tianquan—long even before having met her, but considerably even more now that we have spoken in person. We share many similarities in our circumstances, and the exchange was very fruitful."
Clorinde rose to her feet, slightly unsteadily with the movement of the boat, and crossed the few steps to sit down beside him.
"So. Is she the Geo dragon, who has re-inherited authority from her dead Archon?" It was mildly a teasing, prodding, rhetorical question, and her polite smile indicated as much. At the same time, though, there was a lilt of lament in her voice, and he would know from where it came.
As such, he didn't seem to be in a hurry to answer her.
"I do not believe so," he finally said. That was all. —Rather, he seemed to be waiting for her to say something else, with the way he was glancing at her.
"Clorinde, it was I who relayed to Furina the words and fate of Focalors. I believe it likewise my responsibility to have told you of the matter, as... I do not know if Furina would ever have brought it up herself. I was the only one who ever met Focalors."
Clorinde brushed softly at the feather of her cap in her lap.
"I met her."
Neuvillette whipped his head the rest of the way around. "I beg your pardon?"
She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I just didn't realize until you told me about her and Furina."
Furina. Words and wordless thoughts alike couldn't do justice to what she learned about her very own beloved from the Iudex. Fontaine itself could not do her proper justice even if it knew and tried with all its might.
All this time, she had never pried to ask what exactly happened with the prophecy and Furina's abdication from the throne, as she had seemingly left those painful memories all behind, and the two of them had found a new life into the future together instead.
Part of Clorinde demanded that she shout of Furina's unwavering resolve and sacrifice from the roof of the Palais itself until every last person in Fontaine knew of them. But...
If Furina herself had kept it all to herself, then she simply must've just wanted to move on from it all. Their life together now was living testimony of that.
... All Clorinde could do now was love and appreciate her ever more.
...
—Eventually, Clorinde shook off her introspective thoughts to address Neuvillette having stared at her the entire time.
"So how many people know?"
...
"You. Me. Furina. The Travelers."
Clorinde leaned down and put her cheeks in her hands, elbows on her lap. "Are we talking about Focalors, or you?"
"Oh. Then, those of us, and..... Wriothesley."
That last one came out of nowhere. It immediately made Clorinde's entire face light up with jovial mischief.
".......Oh," she said simply, desperately trying to suppress her smile. He wouldn't even look at her. Now it was his turn to avert his gaze blushing. "So that's why. About Monsieur Zhongli. You felt guilty, did you."
"Cease teasing, Clorinde," he said, looking away, but Clorinde could hear the fluster. "As if you don't know us better than anyone."
"Mm. Familiar, yes. Perceptive... not so much. You give me too much credit. I've assumed one too many things about you that turn out wrong. Like... the assumption that he hasn't reciprocated properly."
Neuvillette sighed. "The last time I saw him, he was entertaining the reporter girl."
Clorinde's eyebrows raised as high as they could go, on such a stoic face. "....Should I ask about it on your behalf?"
"No-!"
She had never seen him respond with such an outburst.
"Please leave well enough alone... although... I confess this seems eerily reminiscent of two women I know all too well...."
Clorinde scoffed, and then laughed softly to herself. He wasn't wrong.
Furina didn't know how Chevy herself happened to be at that very harbor, but she was grateful that their captain was evidently quietly coordinating the Patrol to keep the small crowd that had gathered from causing trouble for her, noticing only when some Melusines stepped forth to stop a few enthusiastic onlookers from shouting and approaching for her attention.
Likely sooner it was that their regent lord of Fontaine was scheduled to be disembarking here and that she just so happened to be in their sights, holding her little bouquet of Marcotte and standing conspicuously by herself. Considering what Fontaine had come to know and celebrate in their own way about Clorinde and her, it shouldn't have been hard to guess that she was not waiting for the Iudex, but their Champion Duelist.
...
—Although, now that she thought of that, Furina suddenly hazarded a wild possibility that the entire gaggle of people could be, in fact, also waiting for Clorinde. Furina chuckled. It wasn't impossible, considering... well. Clorinde was Fontaine's infamous romantic heroine, after all. They really loved to write fantastic fiction about the two of them, and although Furina was the princess in such stories... Clorinde was the knight in shining armor.
As she was for Furina... truly, not fictively.
...
When the cruiser finally slowed to a stop and docked, it was Neuvillette who first stepped off onto the dock before Furina, wearing a manner of an elegant hooded Liyue robe in lieu of his usual garb. He stopped in front of her and nodded politely, exchanging the gaze between them.
"Mo~ve," she whined facetiously. "You're blocking the view of the Champion of Fontaine!"
He scoffed intimately at her, and reached out to pick up her hat off her head, holding it high.
"Hey!! Give that back!"
Instead, he tossed it high behind him, and Furina gasped suddenly with a shock, expecting it to fall into the water if she couldn't run after it quick enough. How outrageous! —And unlike him!
But a gloved hand reached up and effortlessly caught it in the air. Furina's heart skipped a beat.
The severe bombshell of a handsome woman curtsied for her, then replaced the little hat back on her head, adjusting it slightly askew as she liked it. "It's quite windy for hats today, my lady."
Clorinde was... so. gorgeous. Her stunning outfit was reminiscent of what she usually wore, but much more unfamiliarly breathtaking—her skirt, some of her coat, and hat were white and fancy, emblematic of the role of a dignitary. She brushed those light strands and otherwise dark hair over her ear, baring her elegant earring as she leaned down to be face-to-face together, and Furina half sighed, half whimpered.
"Clori," she said. So softly.
"Rina," her wife replied, her voice raspy and laced with intimacy. "You look beautiful. You smell really nice. Thank you for the flowers."
Furina bit on her glossy lip, looking up through her long lashes. She hooked her fingers into Clorinde's corset and pulled her close, then locked their mouths together.