Furina

It is unlikely that travelers from other nations will understand why the god of this land is regarded as a "superstar" unless they set foot in the Opera Epiclese.

Whether at performances or trials, she will always be in the seat reserved for her above the audience, laughing, scolding, falling into hysterics, to the point where more often than not she makes a stronger impression than the action onstage.

People buy tickets to indulge in new sensory experiences, and in this regard, Furina is by far more popular than the absolute justice that Neuvillette represents.

The forms respect can take are not limited to just lifting one's eyes up to a being above, and the unique form of respect Fontainians have for Furina is perhaps described better as "affection and fondness."

She is not perfect, and may not even be very powerful, but while onstage, she is the personage the people trust the most, for she never disappoints.

Among Fontainian literary circles, there is a popular saying that Furina is a memory of spring never-fading, present in the hearts of all. And who does not wish for an eternal spring?

Spring is transient, but she is ever there — follow the stage lights, and you shall see her.

As the icon of the Opera Epiclese, Furina has the right to speak freely during all stages of a trial.

Most of her questions are born from her curiosity and often have tenuous logical connections with the case at best, which at times can provoke raucous bursts of laughter from the audience.

But just as one might begin to suspect that Furina is just there for laughs and gags, and lacks even the capability to grasp the case in its entirety, she throws out opinions worth their weight in gold.

Of course, there are also times when she will express little interest in the whole process due to having earlier eaten snacks ill to her liking or missed some parade, but it is said that audience members lucky enough to be there are still pleased with this, as a god who speaks in anger is equally enchanting.

There is but one circumstance in which she will not appear to act quite so willfully, and that is when she takes the stage as an actress in a musical.

Fontaine has a great many musical theater classics passed down from antiquity that are, from time to time, performed at the Opera Epiclese, with key roles being played by the most popular actors of the day.

Before such productions are put on, there is a phase during preparations that resembles nothing so much as a lucky draw, where the troupe will send Furina an invitation. Should the mood strike her, she will agree to appear, resulting in a stage shared by a god and humans.

Once Furina has agreed to participate, the performance date for that show becomes a Fontainian festival in its own right, so popular that the Opera Epiclese couldn't possibly meet the fervent demand even if they sold nothing but standing tickets and were filled to capacity.

And when the music sounds and a god takes the stage, the audience will see not their lovable deity, who does as she pleases, but the character in the script.

Whether majestic or valiant, conniving or covetous, Furina is a dab hand at playing them all, perfect down to the last gesture, as if she were born to act.

And it is because of her record of wondrous performances that she very much deserves to be called "superstar" by her people.

Even a famous reporter from The Steambird who had barely squeaked their way backstage was completely awestruck, such that it was a long while before they remembered the interview questions in their notebook.

"Lady Furina, might I ask how you were able to attain such great mastery acting as an Archon, though no one has ever seen you practice?"

Furina's reply was proud, albeit uncharacteristically simple. "Why, because I am a god. Next question!"

Cases and performances take up a great deal of Furina's time, and even without these two things, she still shows up for all kinds of social activities and dinner parties related to government business and diplomacy.

Of course, social engagement is usually the limit of her remit, while the real behind-the-scenes work, and sometimes even certain important speeches made during these interactions, are handled by others.

Furina is quite thankful for these proxies, for she has heard that her life of leisure is a rare privilege in a world where most other gods have an endless parade of duties large and small to attend to.

She once considered that it might be right to set a... godly example, so to speak, and so she attempted to take part in the Palais Mermonia's day-to-day work when she had an excessive amount of free time on her hands...

However, her offers were respectfully yet consistently declined by both humans and Melusines, who insisted that "there are no great duties at present that need to be handed over to our god."

Though these words did make her glad, of course, after a few attempts she quickly realized how impractical it would be to use the work of the Palais Mermonia to escape her boredom.

Furina actually has another hobby, known to very few, and that is playing with little animals.

Fontaine's waterscapes are vast and beautiful, as well as blessed with innumerable adorable creatures. For one who always finds herself interacting with humans like Furina, this serves as an excellent change of pace.

However, animal habits are inconsistent and unpredictable, and Furina's carefree attitude always seems to rub them the wrong way. As in the "if she's not being blasted in the face by Hat Jellyfish, then she's being pursued to the ends of the ocean by Hunter's Rays" kind of wrong way.

It can be argued that the underwater world is more primitive and wild than the surface world, considering how little respect the animals here give a god on account of her status alone.

Nonetheless, Furina did eventually discover the animal for her ministrations — the sunbathing, beach-loving, horizontal alignment-enjoying Blubberbeasts.

Cheek squeezes, belly rubs, and even flipping them over, then over again, gets at most a turn of the head and noiseless protest.

"Hmm? You like it? Hehe, so do I!"

A few mild miscommunications aside, they have since become the best of friends.

Although Furina does tend to give people the impression of one prone to wandering thoughts and only tangential concern for the rules, she does have strict standards — in certain circumstances, anyway, especially before or after performances.

Everything must be to her satisfaction, be it the make or color of the props, the timing of the brightening and dimming of the lighting, or the pace and rhythm of the music.

As such, sharing the stage with a god is not some shortcut to glory, but one paved with blood, sweat, and tears, to the point where even the stories of a hard-to-please superstar prima donna fond of shows and with theatrical swagger to spare has reached even the lowliest street stalls.

Indeed, there was once a famous troupe that won the chance to perform with her, and pretended to agree to her exacting demands, only to default to methods they were more accustomed to during real rehearsals and performance prep.

The troupe director was confident in this method, believing that given Furina's personality, she would be most willing to back down on said demands if she were appropriately flattered and saw that everything was already complete and thus too late to change — a most excellent way to save effort and trouble.

But when the director began moving their props to the Opera Epiclese, he found Furina there, directing another troupe as they set up the stage rigging.

"Why, hello. You didn't seem interested in my opinions, so I arranged to perform with a different troupe."

The director was stunned. He had planned for Furina to discover the "flaws" in her view only after setup was complete.

But he could already tell that the stage sections that had been constructed precisely in accordance with her directions were significantly superior. Ordinary audience members couldn't necessarily tell, of course, but to professionals, the difference was always in the details, and these were obvious at a glance.

Still, this director was unwilling to simply turn back, criticizing Furina for not adhering to the spirit of contractual obligation by not informing them beforehand of her contingency arrangements.

Furina would not let this villain cast the first stone, instead scrunching her face into an expression of disbelief.

"You don't really think I'm that much of a gullible fool, do you? Guards! Send them on their way."

Round and round the interminable performance went, the day of the curtain call ever beyond reach, but so long as the prophecy loomed, the tale of this god must go on.

Though Fontainians found no real reason to doubt Furina over the years, she knew that the collapse of trust could begin with a single crack. No matter how small, once it appeared, it would be irreversible.

And the consequences of being exposed would be to reduce all her long years of work to dust, to allow Fontaine to fall — that was unconscionable!

So she did her best to laugh loudly when she should be glad, and weep bitterly when she should grieve, and display the divine bearing of an Archon when it was time to show off, all without fail, all without rest.

She knew that this was a performance. If she could endure until the danger had passed, she could finally take off her mask and regain the freedom to express her feelings.

Yet, she slowly began to realize that the godly role she was playing was eating into her.

A horrifying doubt began to creep up on her — how should she react when glad, if not to laugh loudly?

Perhaps she was once a girl who did not much enjoy laughter. Perhaps she had once been the sort to give up on herself at the first sign of difficulty, but such emotions had already slipped away, bit by bit.

Those in the performance arts often say that one must become a character to play them.

From that perspective, Furina's performance as the Hydro Archon has been flawless. Her painstaking perseverance produced the perfect product.

But no one has ever spoken of what might transpire once the last light had dimmed, for to them, the stage is fleeting.

For one such as Furina, who has acted for far too long, even the path back offstage has faded into dust, buried by the sands of time.

The crisis of original sin was resolved, and Fontaine came under a new order. The affected areas were gradually rebuilt, and the people held high hopes for the future.

Furina was the only one with no place in this new world. She was quick to pack her bags and leave the Palais Mermonia, nor did she return to the Opera Epiclese.

She simply wanted to leave the memories that brought her so much pain as far behind as possible, and she was uninterested in the debates surrounding her — the Hydro Archon's tale was over, as it should be.

But where should an actress who had finished her part and fulfilled her duty go? None could say, and the concept of "freedom" rang hollow.

Furina's luggage remained piled up in her new rental apartment, and she lacked all will even to tidy up or get moved in. All she could do was lie in bed and stare at the bare ceiling.

Those she knew had very quickly found their place in the new order. Whether due to their strength, duties, or friendships, their importance made them irreplaceable.

In circumstances such as these, didn't "free" simply mean being someone who no one needed?

Just as she had reached this conclusion, her new residence received its first guest — Clorinde the Champion Duelist.

The duelist was shocked at Furina's living conditions, quickly expressing her willingness to pay for better accommodations, a notion Furina expended no small amount of effort disabusing her of. Despite this, she was dragged, however reluctantly, into at least properly unpacking and tidying up the room.

Clorinde then explained that she was here to invite Furina to a gathering. The duelist rarely took part in social events, but this gathering was one of old friends, who, as it happened, also knew Furina, and whom Clorinde had not seen in a while, anyway, so she thought she'd extend an invitation.

In days past, Furina would certainly have refused, for the greater the intimacy of her association with others, the more difficult it would be to conceal her true identity.

The duelist smiled as Furina guiltily lifted her eyes, having seemingly already guessed the latter's feelings as well as her old reasons for snubbing such events.

"I don't suppose you have any reason to refuse now, do you?"

"Well... I'm not very good at this sort of thing, so, um... Don't you think I'd, you know, be a bit of a wet blanket?"

That night, Furina finally got to experience what it was like to revel and drink with friends. In truth, she was cautious at first but was restored to her normal self within two cups — indeed, so much so that at one point Clorinde had to restrain her from leaping onto the table.

For someone as reticent as the duelist, the real Furina's explosiveness was quite the surprise.

As for Furina, she still knew not where to go, but if nothing else, she now knew that "freedom" did not mean solitude.

Furina once found a relatively unknown book in a library of Fontaine, and the story's main character was a servant working in an opulent mansion.

The idealistic young Mademoiselle Crabaletta, following a newspaper advertisement, came to a remote manor in the mountains to apply for employment, and despite her clumsiness, became a maid there all the same.

The Master of said mansion did not appear often, and though his loquacious surintendante and etiquette-minded gentilhomme managed it in his absence, she led a carefree life there.

None of the manor's attendants had been to the city in quite a long while, and so the maid taught them to sing the latest songs, play the latest tabletop games, and thus the servants grew closer and enjoyed one another's company.

There was but one ironclad rule, which was that none should approach the heavy wooden door that led three floors underground, behind which was locked a secret that only the Master of the mansion was privy to.

Though the maid was curious, she treasured her vibrant life there too much to pry. Time passed quietly, and one day, they were told by the gentilhomme that the Master was about to visit, and so the servants hurriedly began to prepare.

The banquet was akin to a festival, and laughter and cheer filled every corner of the mansion — at least, until the Master was late the second day, and upon investigating, the maid was to discover his already-cold corpse.

The Gardes narrowed the suspects down to the servants, but the maid, convinced that the Master's death had something to do with the mansion's secret, at last decided to open that forbidden gate.

To her surprise, what awaited her on the other side was the mansion's main hall, upon the central stairs of which stood the all-too-familiar surintendante of the house. The words she spoke, too, were bizarrely known to the maid.

"Ah, you must be our newest applicant. Crabaletta, I believe?"

Furina was quite dumbfounded when she read that, for the story here recalled similar events in her memories.

She admired the happy lives of the maid and the other servants, and the maid's courage in facing down the ancient secret to defend that life.

Later, Furina dreamt of that same mansion. In her dream, she was Crabaletta, huffing and puffing as she ran to that door of secrets, and, with one deep breath, pushed it open.

Behind it was a torrent of seawater that drowned the mansion in an instant, dissolving all in its wake — the Gardes, the surintendante of the house, the gentilhomme, and even herself.

Furina woke with a start, looking around her to gather her wits, and the rest of the story sprang to her mind, unbidden...

Crabaletta made use of the time loop triggered by opening the door to solve the mystery of the Master's death and discover the mansion's secret, freeing all its inhabitants from an ancient curse.

"Thank you, Crabaletta."

She thanked the brave, stalwart girl for giving that tale a happy ending.

And as for several vivid figures from the story, they would eventually be given lovely forms, that they might be by Furina's side.