Chapter Text
“You made me happy, Neuvillette.”
It could be some of the things Neuvillette wishes to hear from Wriothesley’s lips and using his voice. He receives it, as it was the main drive that made him approach the Duke, to make His Grace happy. It was a soothing calm night. The Duke retired from his position of the head administrator years ago. Spending his hard earned relaxing time with a man he could trust his feelings, memories and life to. The sentence was said as he rests his head on the ever-youth Iudex’s shoulder.
In the corner of Iudex's sight, he notices the fluttering strands of all gray hair, swaying softly from the gentle touch of the night wind, the biological response as Wriothesley’s body grows older and older. The wrinkles on his hand, who is now recommended to not do anymore boxing by Sigewinne, holds Neuvillette’s hand, embracing the warmth of each other. Such a small and short sentence, but it is as delightful as the freshest water Neuvillette has ever tasted in his immortal life.
He made Wriothesley happy. Shouldn't it be enough? Such rewarding words may not come out from many couples. Some may not hear it in their own lover’s voice. While gazing on his beloved sleeping face, Neuvillette may realize the rising muzzy feelings inside his chest. A sense of greed. A sense of shame to know it can be considered greed.
He made Wriothesley happy .
But had he made the one before the name Wriothesley happy even once?
There was one time, where Wriothesley said he was born out of his foster parents’ dripping blood on the cold floor of the night. A figure of speech to say he only chose the name out of surviving that day. He can’t longer and doesn't want to use the name his foster parents previously gave to him. If he didn’t survive that day, there would be no Wriothesley.
Many have expressed how they wish they could help Wriothesley in the past. To forbid or prevent him from suffering through such a tragic past no child or even anyone should experience. But, as every time of many, Wriothesley always jokingly said that he wouldn’t exist now then since the only reason why he is sent to the Fortress is because he did the deed. It was a dark joke. Some understand where he comes from, some couldn’t even laugh at the distasteful joke. Those who couldn’t laugh, disgruntled over the fact it was a response with an underlying statement that happiness will change who he is.
Another implication is that he doesn’t deserve it.
Walking to the ever busy street with new unfamiliar faces as a new generation has come into Fontaine, the Iudex remains the same, using the same suit and the same outfit for his Iudex duty. Some things haven’t changed, such as the stand where the Steambird newspaper still goes from one hand to the other hand, in exchange for a couple of Mora. The headline news caught his attention, further by the whispers behind him about the news.
Therapy using dreams.
Sumeru’s Dendro Archon—Lesser Lord Kusanali—has publicized her wish to try therapy using something called dreams , very much unique to the mortals. She is open for anyone, anything, so long as they can dream. Neuvillette has read some discussion papers regarding this indescribable power of dreams . Fontaine researchers choose to not pursue the matter as they deemed it as a waste of time and resource after trying researching for years. The last sentence of their paper was finished with a single sentence,
“It is impossible to differentiate dreams and memories. Memories may appear as dreams, and dreams may appear as memories.”
An interesting ending to years of research. He doesn’t blame them. Sumeru isn’t also known for researching dreams as they also deemed it impossible to find one conclusion since humans are ever evolving every second, therefore it’s impossible for them to have only one stagnant dream. The Archon figure even let her personal information, even though the letters have to pass the Akademiya first but addressing it to Nahida will let the staff forward the letters to her directly.
How does Neuvillette see the act of changing memories? Immorale . A breach to a life’s right to live, to experience, to remember. But the past can’t be changed, not that he desires to. He understands well where Wriothesley came from. As it’s painful, it’s a past Wriothesley chooses to embrace for eternity.
“What is your stance in the act of changing memories ?” Iudex asked.
The young girl with white hair and green like leaves accents opens her dreamy eyes and replies with the most confidence of her mind and thoughts, “Something I would never dare do. There is no price or exchange equivalent to changing humans’ memories. It may be awful memories but bad and good, it’s what shapes them into life.”
Apep was not telling lies about the Dendro Archon. Her sense of devotion and benevolence did not change throughout history since thousands of years ago. Though the matter of why he sent the letter to the God of Verdure is not about his trial to her, he will push back the lingering thoughts of judgment for now. She shares the similar position of the question.
“Fontaine researchers once studied dreams, am I right? I read their papers in my spare time.” She continues, rephrasing some of the lines in the paper enthusiastically.
“Do you agree with their thoughts?”
Nahida hums. Putting one word into another to make a coherent sentence to reply to the question. “It is when another person tries to filter which are dreams and which are memories is when I will agree on their close statement. If we are talking about their own individual memories, I trust they know the difference between memories and dreams.”
It’s another way of saying, even if there are changes to the dreams or a third party puts their hand to make the dreams either bad or the sweetest, they will perceive them as dreams. Neuvillette doesn’t have the best advantage of understanding this. Dragons, much more elemental dragons, don’t dream, maybe they do but not in the way of humans. Dreams for him are usually in a form of playback of the memories in the water, and not in a lifetime he would be able to see them all as it continues to remember new memories and emotions.
“Is it for someone?” The God of Verdure asks curiously. Neuvillette suspects the young Archon has already known the idea of who he is, taking into account the history she had met with the Dendro Sovereign, “From your expression, I feel it’s not meant for you?”
Neuvillette comes to a silence for a moment, the everlasting typing noises outside the office from the Gestionnaires working to make Fontaine live for another day came into the office when they both halted their conversation. “I wish to make someone from the past happy. The someone I know thinks pain and suffering is what shapes him in the present. However, the only thing I wish is to make him feel happiness in both past and present, but I can’t encourage anyone to change the past he decides to go through for decades in his life.”
“Is this someone from the past still the same person?”
He nods to answer. The circumstances may sound complicated at first but when Nahida hears it is still the same person, the gray clouds of confusion disappear in her mind. She smiles sweet, lifting one hand then making her iconic finger gesture like she got a marvelous idea on how to process this request,
“Then, let’s give the person the sweetest dream. There will be no memories altering. The person will know it’s a dream, even if the dream may become the newest memory for them.”
The way Nahida sees it. She wasn’t even going to allow anyone do the deed unsupervised or all by oneself without her guarding on the side. Humans can easily be tempted to change many things even in one dream. Dreams may be the strongest thing with no words able to explain its phenomenon but also the most fragile thing. But, how can she say it without sounding like she gives too easy a time of judgment to the Iudex in front of her?
Pure and genuine, just like Apep. So little, almost nonexistent of any ill intention. She feels she can trust the man to hold the seed where she extracts some of her wisdom to make it possible to enter the dream realm, alone. Although, when walking outside the Palais Mermonia and hearing the name of the retired Duke of the Fortress of Meropide, she believes her decision is correct.
Saying farewell to humans is very different from saying farewell to any other beings. She wouldn’t want to disrupt their last times together.
Wriothesley has often slept in for much longer hours than usual. While he does look younger than most humans at his age on the outside, the insides of his body will not say lies. At these times, Neuvillette would find himself sitting right beside the bed, just mesmerized at the peaceful sleeping face but his life force has already spent decades helping people. The people who believe they will no longer be able to come back to the graceful sunlight. When the overworld throws them and abandons them, Wriothesley is there in the underworld to give them a place.
Remembering back. There were too many moments where the Duke would casually say nonsensical things. Such as him saying no one will come to his funeral, or saying when he retires the prisoners would applaud in happiness because no one would miss a head administrator like him who beats naughty prisoners to infirmary. As if the exact opposites didn’t happen.
The prisoners wail behind the now ex-Duke’s back. The guards often express how he misses Wriothesley because of how understanding he is. Not to be mistaken the new administrator doesn’t do the same good job as Wriothesley, how could he not when he was handpicked and trained by the Duke himself? But the guards say their sympathy and emotional connection is not the same.
“As long as the new administrator does a good job, I’m sure they will forget about me sooner or later.”
How curious. This makes Neuvillette curious. Was this the mentality Wriothesley had before committing the crime? From his talk with the Captain of Special Patrol when she was personally curious and went researching Wriothesley’s previous identity, she came back with a head shake. Understandably, the people who he met in the past must’ve passed away due to old age or sharing similar conditions as him now. The Captain only manages to gather how no one knows the name of the boy in the newspaper at the time.
Whether Wriothesley never told the name he decided for him, or he chose to not have a name at the time. One can be taken out from the story. Wriothesley was planning to be forgotten . Bringing all of his history down with him, never again to be discovered with a name. How does this realization make Neuvillette feel? Restless, probably. Even searching through the water, he never finds Wriothesley’s tears and emotions. True to what Sigewinne said when he was in prison. She never saw the Duke shed a single drop of tear even though the injury he sustained is enough to make any adult man sob like a child.
As the Hydro Sovereign himself, the original God of Life in this world, Neuvillette is not ignorant to the invisible signs of when a life gradually reaches its end. When a life ends, its body will also retire from its long last duty. Deep down, he knows, the red blood cells, white blood cells and many others, one by one fall into eternal sleep as each day passes.
They once talked about making Wriothesley live longer, but the Duke refused. Even if by Fontaine history, he was an Oceanid turned to human, he was born a human and by a certain Iudex, he became true human, he would never change the decision to die as a human. It was what the Hydro Archon fought for, and a blessing given by the heaviest rain in Fontaine the day where the prophecy came.
…
The seed given by the Dendro Archon… It’s glowing. She said before that she can speak to him directly into his mind when the seed glows and it will only happen when Wriothesley is going to have last dream. The unexplainable last dream when a human is about to reach their end. If Neuvillette wishes to make Wriothesley happy, this will be his last chance.
“Mr. Iudex, you won’t be able to change anything major in this gentleman’s memories and dreams. But it is not a way of saying, you can’t give anything memorable for him. Please do not ever tell him that it’s a dream. You can become anything, little child, an adult or even animals. If you are ready, please put the seed on his chest then close your eyes, as if you are sleeping.”
Sleeping. It’s quite an unnecessary act for a Sovereign like him. But he will follow along. The act of a human sleeping and dreaming. Neuvillette took one more deep-loving gaze to Wriothesley. They will soon meet in another form. Wriothesley—what could your past be like in your memories that no water even has?
A theater play came into Neuvillette's mind. It’s a play he watched alone because Melusine gives him a ticket for it. The story follows a child who ran away from his home paradise, in search for his actual mother. The young child was as beautiful as an angel, no one would suspect he was the child of a human. Indeed, it is due to the same reason why the child was stolen by the angels to become one of theirs. While their angel-less child was thrown from heaven to live with a human. The message of the play, as far as Neuvillette remembers, was how a child is shaped by who they lived with, not cut short at genes.
Who was the protagonist’s name again?
When Neuvillette opened his eyes in a dream, he was greeted by a thin blanket crumpled on the side of some dusty abandoned storage box and some clothes peeking underneath the blanket. As if it was to safeguard the worn clothes. He looks around. There is some building that disappears, yet in his memories he remembers vividly it was there. Unless this is a memory where the building hasn't been built yet.
This is how Fontaine looked like over 30 years ago. That one store still sells fruits, not gems of rare items. He manages to see Chevreuse’s father—Donatello, who was still in the Special Patrol before getting sent into trial for his crime, running around catching some runaway criminals. So, Wriothesley has these memories but he would probably have yet known the identity. His legs are about to follow along where the memories could end, but his shoulder bumps to something.
“Who are you?”
Even from the single word, Neuvillette would recognize the voice. It is a voice he heard for years, after all. Oh . It seems Nahida already changed him into something he imagined before entering the dream. He looks to the front, a pair of blue and purple shaded eyes met in the similar height. The black hair says it all on who it is. Wriothesley—or the name he had before he became Wriothesley.
Smaller. Thinner. Shorter. And more rough-looking. He wears almost nothing but some worn-out clothing with some holes here and there as a result of having worn it so many times.
The dark-haired young teenager assesses the same teenager in front of him. There’s nothing on him that screams he is homeless or abandoned. The beautiful and smooth white hair says it all. He doesn’t have the time and energy to babysit someone else at the moment, “Who are you? Why are you here?” He asked sternly, not wanting to receive any more lies.
The girl’s voice comes into his mind, explaining it’s okay to use any name or reference from the future, because this memory comes from the past, the Wriothesley here would not be able to suspect anything. Wriothesley once said, he doesn’t like people who lie. It’s one of the reasons why he can trust Neuvillette. As the Iudex says every time, “I am the Iudex, I do not lie.” However, would this be considered to be a lie?
“I believe you won’t lie to him, at least I can say it is not a harmful lie. We can’t do anything using your real identity. I am sorry, but you are too much of an important figure to him. If you use your real name, I am afraid he will wake up soon.”
Very well. Neuvillette will put this act and scenario as if he were playing in a theater and acting out as a character he remembers. The young Archon is right. Neuvillette —has already existed in this time. If he were to use the same name and identity, even with no knowledge of dreams, it’ll disrupt Wriothesley’s head into confusion.
“So, are you going to tell me why you are here?” He asked again, before deciding to put some hands, because there is nothing more suspicious than finding a child staring at his survival stash.
Neuvillette took a deep breath. Chanting to remember he is doing this to give Wriothesley the last sweet dreams and happiness he could give. Just like the play he watched alone in the present time, the protagonist’s name, it was—
“My name is Neville. I am searching for my real mother."