Work Text:
There were three things with the power to break the tedium of Duke of Meropide's life: the Pankration Ring, good tea, and clandestine whiffs of hair with the scent of gunpowder.
This afternoon, however, a candidate for a fourth element had appeared in his office. Wriothesley had been nursing a migraine and studying a report documenting a brawl that had occurred on one of his rare excursions on the overground when it happened. When a man adorned with frills, puffy sleeves, and the adorable misconception that he somehow had the right to an audience with Wriothesley without prior notice strode in.
An aristocrat, he'd wager. A quiet voice in his head lamented a certain duelist’s congested schedule and how horrendously it coincided with his.
"You must be new here," said Wriothesley without looking up, making a show of being preoccupied with the reports. "I know your life must have been a series of endless circumventions of the law, but in Meropide, everybody bends to it, not around it. And the rules state to schedule an appointment —"
"My robes have been stolen."
Wriothesley listened with masterfully concealed bewilderment as Neuvillette recounted the details of his Iudex robes' burglary. It seemed as though one Miss Navia had sauntered into Neuvillette's office, casted a spell that had rendered him debilitatingly compliant, and spirited his clothes away right off his back. When pressed for details, Wriothesley received only a plaintive shrug.
He eyed the man across him with suspicion. If this tale had come out of anybody else's mouth he would have dismissed it as a laughable attempt at a prank. But with Neuvillette... Wriothesley couldn't glean if this was a part of Neuvillette's journey to humanity or if he was just a terrible actor.
"Do you have any spare robes?"
A solemn look passed over Neuvillette's face. "Those robes were crafted shortly before I took the mantle of Iudex, by somebody who is now long gone. It's the only one in existence — there's a reason its theft is punishable by two years."
"So you want me to imprison her."
"No!" cried Neuvillette, slamming a hand across Wriothesley's desk as though he was preparing to piss into Neuvillette's water goblet. "Not a single hair on her head is to be harmed, or I will flood Meropide myself, understood?"
Wriothesley knew not this wild man in the chair. Briefly, he calculated the success rate of attempting to handcuff this unfamiliar, volatile version of Neuvillette, and concluded that the odds wouldn't be in his favor.
"No harming of blonde hairs. Noted." Wriothesley peeled the other man's twitching hand off the desk. "Is there an actual point to your visit or did you just want to roughhouse the furniture?"
Neuvillette sobered at this comment, retracting his offending hand and folding it neatly atop his lap. He straightened his back.
"Indeed, there is."
Wriothesley was a man who did not take to last-minute alterations of his schedule. Even less so making trips overground. But today he did both because Neuvillette was a friend, and quite possibly an undiscovered moron.
He watched with mounting incredulity as Navia flitted merrily about Neuvillette's office — wearing his Iudex robes — while Neuvillette peppered her with indulgent praises.
Navia twirled before Neuvillette's desk, stopped to face him, and spread her arms with a grin. "How do I look, Monsieur?"
Even from a distant corner in the office, Wriothesley caught the dusting of pink across Neuvillette's cheeks.
Neuvillette evaluated her thoughtfully, a forefinger and thumb brushing at his chin, and said, with all the sagacity befitting a man that was centuries old, "Yes, you do look. Very much."
Years down the line, Wriothesley would look back on this moment and think, I should have fucking left. But like an aircraft collision, or Mitachurls attempting to copulate, he simply could not tear his eyes away from the impending wreckage. He continued to sit, frozen.
Navia all but glittered at Neuvillette's response and resumed her flight about the room, swishing the divine garment of the Iudex about her legs and saying didn't she look regal, wasn't she the most stunning, the most commanding and illustrious, and shouldn't the Steambird ought to feature her on its front page? Neuvillette nodded to each statement with mounting vigor, his face utterly lovestruck, his head looking like it might neatly roll off his neck if Navia sought his praise one more time.
Wriothesley absently calculated the probability of his survival if he threw himself out the nearest window to crawl back to Meropide — purely to make up for the time wasted coming here. Then maybe, if he were a particularly lucky bastard that day, he'd run into Clorinde. He would make her tea while she listened to this tale of ridiculousness, and afterwards she can shoot him between the eyes for sport.
Alas.
Navia came to a still before Neuvillette's desk again and asked, a performative air of solemn gravitas in her tone, "Will I make a good Chieftess Justice, Monsieur Neuvillette?"
And that was it. The first chapter of how the most judicious member of Fontainian society permanently broke. To call the shade of red that had overcome his face a blush would be like calling the Champion Duelist remarkable. It simply did not suffice.
Neuvillette then proceeded to bring shame to the Iudex's reputation of composure by mumbling, mostly to himself, "The Chief and Chieftess Justice. Neuvillette and Navia. Otherwise known in Fontaine as Neuvia..."
"Still, these robes smell like heaven." Navia gathered the front collar, smushed her nose into the fabric, and inhaled deeply. Her body went lax and her eyes rolled back, releasing a loud and truly indecent moan. Was the office soundproof? Maybe it's not too late to fling himself out the window. "You smell so good, Monsieur."
A nerve in Wriothesley's temple throbbed. No. He will not become a voyeur today.
"I've seen enough." Wriothesley flicked his finger sharply. "Navia, give him the robes back."
She gasped and turned to Neuvillette, an exaggerated look of sadness on her face. "But I don't want to give them back yet."
As if heartbroken by the sight of a whimpering orphan, Neuvillette rushed to her side and patted down the robes, fixing the strings around the wrists and neck so it fit her better. "Don't listen to him. Of course you may keep wearing them." Over her shoulder, Neuvillette glowered at Wriothesley, commanding him with a pointed look to stay quiet like the meddlesome dog he apparently was.
Cryo sparked at Wriothesley's knuckles as he stood, his chair scraping harshly against the floor. "You came to Meropide and brought me all the way here to fix whatever that's—" he flapped his hand at them "— supposed to be and you're telling me to shut —"
"Is it Arielle's Softener you use?" asked Navia, sniffing the robes' sleeve. "No, it's that Inazuman brand isn't it? Or wait, maybe Florencia's Fancies..."
"I use the standard from Quartier Lyonnais," corrected Neuvillette gently. "The detergent itself is odorless. The key to a proper cleanse, rather, lies in a thorough soak in active Hydro energy."
Wriothesley spread his arms incredulously. "Was I not just talking —"
"Is that so?" There was a devious glint in Navia's eyes. She stepped into the box of Neuvillette's personal space, placed both hands on his chest and rose to her tiptoes. Wriothesley watched, unamused, as Navia brought her face close to Neuvillette's. She could have kissed him, swerving only last second to sniff briefly at the crook of his neck. She moaned again. "Oh, Monsieur Neuvillette. I'd do anything to smell like you."
His horns popped blue. His fingers twitched (it reminded Wriothesley of trampled bugs moments before death), water droplets forming around them, shuddering and bouncing, becoming a singular sphere before breaking out into little dots, all dancing frantically about his digits. If one squinted, one could observe steam coiling out Neuvillette's nose. And if one shifted their gaze to a frosty corner of the room, one would glimpse an innocent man who had long since atoned for his sins, and did not understand why he's being punished again, and would much rather be watching Mitachurls humping like bunnies in heat than be confined a moment longer in that room.
She stepped away. Neuvillette recovered.
Wriothesley, meanwhile, feared he never will.
She grinned at Neuvillette, bunching the robes and swishing them lightly, batting her lashes. "Can I take these home with me today, too?"
"Of course you may," came his automatic response. (Debilitatingly compliant, indeed.)
"Thank you." Navia threw her arms around him and planted a kiss on his cheek. Wriothesley observed as his friend's bones jellified, his soul escaping his body and ascending ostensibly to paradise. With great effort, his trembling hands came up to embrace her in return.
"I positively adore you, Monsieur Neuvillette!"
"Bleaurgh...” he replied, eloquently.
Wriothesley scoffed, but couldn't fight the beginnings of a smile. Perhaps it was time that uptight stick-in-the-mud met his match.
Inconvenienced yet entertained, he left. He wouldn't be missed anyway.
After a long shower, Wriothesley finished recounting the day's events with a snort. "How ridiculous was that? Especially the whole —" his voice rose to a falsetto "— 'I'm going to steal your clothes because I'm just so cute like that. Aren't I the cutest? What's your fabric softener? You smell so nice' gobbledygook. Unimaginable. Asinine. I don't think we've done anything like that. Have we ever done something like that? We've never done anything like that and we never will, right? We will, won't we? You're right, we won't. Because it's stupid."
Purple eyes examined him cooly over the rim of a gilded teacup. "Indeed, we haven't." Clorinde settled the cup on the saucer with a clink and vacated her seat, disappearing down his office's staircase. He didn't question this, as she had the tendency to wander about. What mattered was that they'd always find each other in the end.
When she returned, the tea already halfway down Wriothesley's throat surged back and sprayed out his nostrils.
His coat.
Clorinde was wearing his coat.
She had let her hair down, deep violet rivulets cascading across her shoulder. She fiddled with the oversized sleeves of his coat, bunching them up her forearms so her fingers could peek out. The hem of the coat landed just above her knee whilst on Wriothesley it must have stopped just below his hips. When facing one another in a duel, or even walking side by side on the hunt for wrongdoers, Clorinde always loomed. Commanding and lethal. He was constantly at her mercy and it gave him life.
But seeing her engulfed by his coat reminded him of precisely how much smaller she was in frame. Of how much power was contained in those lithe limbs and soft curves. And of all the measures Wriothesley would take to protect her, even when she was more likely to save his sorry rear than he was to save her hide.
He also realized that if she wore his coat to sleep tonight that it would smell like her in the morning. Archons, but she smelled like heaven.
Clorinde opened her mouth, a light flush rising to her cheeks.
"How do I look, Your Grace?"
"Bleaurgh."