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It was on a Wednesday after everything that Furina woke up to rain.
It made for a bad start to the day before she even awoke, the pattering of water worming its way into her dreams and reminding her of floods and tears. A sudden, unceremonious wakening and groggy stumble to the bathroom to wash her face only led Furina to look into the mirror and take a moment to remember who she was looking at.
For so long, whenever she caught sight of her reflection, the figure staring back at her had been the Regina of All Waters, the goddess Focalors. Perfect porcelain skin and a playful smile, always divine and never human. The face that Furina saw now had the same eyes, the same full lashes and round cheeks, but could not have been more different.
The person looking back at Furina now was worn and tired, disheveled and wearing her nightmares in the shadows beneath her eyes. That face had yet to become familiar, but it was herself.
Of course it was herself. There was no way for mirror-her to follow Furina to her new home. Mirror-her was gone. Mirror-her was dead.
Furina slammed the bathroom door shut on her past and went to the kitchen to cook herself breakfast. It was a whole new life, and she had to let everything else go.
Furina the human couldn’t command a dragon or sway the hearts of her nation like she once could— sometimes she barely had the heart to step outside her house— but she had recently learned to make crepes. Besides, the Vision she’d just learned how to use properly had given her a wonderful new gift— her little companions, the Salon Solitaire. Perhaps she and the Salon could make a beautiful breakfast together, and forget all of this. Buoyed by the thought, Furina smiled and reached for the power of her Vision.
The cheerful movement and presence of the Salon was nowhere to be found. Furina frowned. She was sure the surge of power through her was the same as what normally brought her constructs to her side.
Then, turning, she saw it. Faintly glowing, taking up more space in the kitchenette than Furina herself, was an oceanid. Furina recognized that oceanid. Pale blue, with elegant fins and a sweeping curl atop its crowned head— there was no mistaking it.
It was Focalors.
Furina felt her world narrow down to only herself and her other-self, just as it had been that day with the mirror. Her heart thundered in her ears and her breath stilled in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Here, in her own home— in her safe apartment— in her brand new life far away from everything that could hurt her— how dare the past return!
Gasping as if she’d finally broken the surface of the lake, Furina grabbed the nearest object and flung it at the offending oceanid. Harmlessly, the small frying pan splashed through its beatifically calm face. A butter knife did the same a moment later. Furina swore, trembling from head to toe.
“Why are you here again?” she demanded. “Leave me alone! I’m finally happy, aren’t I? What more do you want from me?!”
Focalors was silent. Only a faint, musical hum permeated the air around it. Out of the shock, a spark of anger ignited within Furina.
Over her centuries of life, of performing, there had been countless times that Furina had yearned for her mirror-self to come back and explain her duty, to tell her she was doing the right thing. After five hundred years of silence, she’d finally been cut loose, set adrift, a sacrificial doll that had outlived its purpose.
Why would she come back now? Now, when Furina was finally coming to terms with her solitude? Now, when she had managed to briefly put aside the memory of being abandoned by everyone she thought would stay at her side until the end?
“If you’re here to mock me, I won’t stand for it,” said Furina. “I don’t care if you were always the better part of me. Take your divinity, I don’t need it back.”
Focalors said nothing. Nothing needed to be said. Furina could hear it loud and clear in the silence— her feeble attempts at human life were simply not up to her other self’s expectations.
An hour of curses, ranting, thrown objects, and utter lack of response from the silent oceanid left Furina at her wits’ end. Not even a drop of water dislodged from that elegant form, no matter what she tossed at it. Her control over her Vision seemed to have no effect on Focalors’ presence. Of course, a mortal’s mastery of Hydro could never overcome a god’s.
Regrettable as it was, Furina knew there was one person who could solve this problem for her.
—
Neuvillette looked up immediately when Furina stepped into his office. In the past, he would never have looked surprised at her intrusions, commonplace as they were, but today her presence provoked a slight widening of his eyes. If Furina hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he looked happy.
“Hello, Furina,” he greeted her. “What brings you back here? Do you need my assistance in booking the Opera again?”
“No, nothing like that,” said Furina. “But I do need your help.”
Those words still felt wrong out of her mouth. But they spilled from her lips so easily, now that she was weak. Neuvillette, benevolent sovereign that he was, nodded for her to continue.
“There’s a Hydro construct in my house,” said Furina. “It replaced my Salon Solitaire. I need you to send it away.”
“Is it beyond your capabilities to remove?” Neuvillette asked.
“I… I can’t do it. It must be mirror— ahem, Focalors returning to take my place.”
Neuvillette’s expression sharpened. His soft blue antennae perked up in interest.
“How did she appear?” he asked.
“I tried to call the Salon… er, my summons, but she appeared instead,” said Furina. She worried at the Vision on her hip absently with one hand. “She just… floats there, not saying anything, but I know she’s watching me.”
“What actions did you take after that?” asked Neuvillette.
“I didn’t do much,” said Furina, wondering how to explain that she had screamed, thrown kitchen implements, and said some very rude things to an unresponsive Hydro construct without making Neuvillette think she had finally cracked. “I may have… cursed. A little.”
Neuvillette gave an odd flinch, a barely perceptible full body shiver that ran all the way to the tips of his antennae.
“You… cursed. Her.”
“Why, should I have tried to avoid insulting it?” said Furina, a little too sharply. “If you’re going to take the blasted thing’s side, I’ll leave and deal with it myself.”
“That’s not what I meant,” sighed Neuvillette. Furina regretted putting that guilty expression on his face. In this new life of hers, she’d told herself she wouldn’t be a bother to Neuvillette anymore, wouldn’t keep upsetting him and taking up his time, but here she was, doing exactly that. She had half a mind to just turn and leave. But Neuvillette straightened his shoulders and walked around his desk to Furina’s side, waiting for her to lead the way.
“I will see what I can do for you,” he said.
When they returned to Furina’s house, she hesitated to open the door to Neuvillette and show him how she had been living. He didn’t rush her, standing quietly a few paces back and fixing his gaze on some nearby flowerpots as if to give Furina space. She hated herself for needing it.
Taking a deep breath, she flung open her front door and strode in to face the apparition of her former self. It hadn’t moved, still shining in her kitchen, dim light filtering through the windows and dancing in its translucent body. It almost seemed pleased to see Furina again, the sense of satisfaction radiating from its unmoving face setting Furina’s teeth on edge.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “I’m here to send you away once and for all.”
She turned to Neuvillette, who stepped into her apartment one careful foot at a time. His otherworldly gaze cast about the mess of her living space— silverware, frying pans, and the shards of a cup that had broken as it splashed out of Focalors’ watery body lay strewn across the floor.
“I see,” said Neuvillette. “So this is her.” He paused, considering. “What makes you believe she is Focalors returned?”
“She… she must be,” said Furina, trying to keep a hysterical tremor out of her voice. “I mean, she looks like me, but so much more elegant. And Hydro-ish. And if I were her—” a short, derisive huff of laughter— “I would come back too, to tell myself to get it together. Look around! Is this what she had in mind after her grand plan came to fruition?”
Neuvillette stayed quiet for several moments, a complicated series of emotions playing out on his face, a subtle performance that Furina did not have it in her to decipher.
“I do not sense any divine presence from her,” he said. “The throne of Hydro was utterly destroyed, and the consciousness known as Focalors along with it. Furthermore, from my brief interactions with that being, I do not believe she would strip your newfound autonomous life from you over something so mundane as a lack of kitchen organization in the wake of several major events.”
“Then what is this?” demanded Furina, waving incredulously at the still, elegant figure. “Why is it here? Where did it come from?”
“I believe it came from you, Lady Furina.”
“…Why?” she asked weakly.
“I’m afraid I cannot say,” said Neuvillette. “Unless—” he paused and considered Focalors. “If I may, Lady Furina, I could attempt to read the emotions contained in this Hydro construct. Only, of course, if you consent to this potential breach of privacy.”
“You’re already in my house,” muttered Furina. Neuvillette didn’t move. “Fine, I consent. I don’t care. I just want to know why she’s here so we can send her away.”
Neuvillette reached out. A blue glow suffused both him and the Focalors-construct, his antennae and coattails swaying as if caught in a current. The oceanid sang its mournful song to him, and he opened his eyes.
“It’s you,” said Neuvillette. “Your self-regard, and a hope for the future. If Focalors’ will affects this construct, it is only to mold it into the shape of her love for you.”
Furina stayed quiet for a long moment. If Mirror-her had left behind a droplet of herself in hopes of shaping Furina’s future into a happy one, then why… why could she only feel bitterness in return?
“I hate her,” Furina said.
“Why?”
“For being better than me. For showing me everything I lack. For coming here and… and loving me when I only have the energy to hate her back.”
“She is you.”
“I hate her.”
“I do not think you do,” said Neuvillette softly. He gave a long, quiet sigh, a gentle wind that heralded a few heavy raindrops pattering against the street outside. “The Furina I know was never hateful. Performatively antagonistic, maybe, and at times spiteful, but not the sort to bear true hatred towards an innocent person.”
She is not innocent, Furina wanted to argue. But she couldn’t. The mysterious construct’s only crime had been coming into being in the wrong place at the wrong time, born into the hands of a goddess who disdained it— created in the image of one who disdained herself. Who could rightly condemn a being that had not asked to be brought into the world as a receptacle for its creator’s suffering?
Furina’s vision was blurry. Her floorboards wavered and refracted into a hundred thousand colors before her. A single tear fell to the ground between her feet.
“Neuvillette,” Furina whispered. “Did Mirror-me… hate me?”
“No,” said Neuvillette. “I think she loved you very much.”
Furina looked at her construct, its pure water body, its quiet unceasing song. An innocent existence comprised of love. She could no longer muster any hatred, not even for her own unworthy self. Only a helplessness deep within her, a pain that she now refused to pour into that sinless vessel.
”I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I forgive you.”
The past was dead. The pain was hers alone. And yet, she had been granted her own life to live.
Furina stepped forward and let the Singer’s wings embrace her. It felt like cleansing, like being whole— it felt like love.