Chapter Text
It started with a game.
Tabletop games had been the latest of the Court’s many attempts to find an antidote for boredom. Children were enraptured by fantastical myriad worlds, joining their heroes on a grand adventure, while their parents were simply glad to have them entertained for longer than an hour.
But they were less glad at the expenses that came running the game: Mora and otherwise. All the best mini figures and die sets had been squandered by the die-hard enthusiasts long before the quarantine: who were more than willing to charge unreasonable prices.
And that left these families with one option.
The Tabletop Troupe.
Clorinde and her fellow veterans had been swamped from all the new faces, so much so that the once humble business had expanded into the vacant building next door. The duelist did her best to pitch in once or twice a day after her duties, and she was always greeted by the beaming faces of children smiling through the windows. Even the patience of a saint would not be enough to endure rambunctious children for long - Clorinde was always thankful that she was only a part-time game master.
Alas, Fate was more often cruel to her than not.
“Hey! Don’t touch my guy!” “I cast lightning spell!” “It’s not your turn Timmy!”
The beleaguered grand duelist musters a polite smile. Despite coming from all over Fontaine, once Clorinde introduced the evil dragon the children quickly found themselves working together - if they weren’t leaping over one another for a chance to be the hero in front of everyone else. The arguments had been entertaining for the first half hour.
“Alright everyone, that’s enough.” She attempts. “Settle down now…”
The kids continue to bicker, crashing over one another. There were only five of them and yet their voices could drown out a hundred musket shots. Clorinde sighs, pressing a finger to the brow of her ridge and tilting her bycocket forward - dark eyes flashing with a tyrian glint.
“Everyone…”
She clears her throat, quelling the storm of their squabbling with but a gentle whisper. The children quiet down in an instant. Clorinde softens her voice when she notices one particularly clammy child squirming uncomfortably, shooting uncomfortable glances at tent flaps leading outside. “Thank you.”
“Now, let’s all take turns speaking and use our inside voices. Can we do that?”
Mutual murmurs of agreement.
They return to their slow crawl through the dungeon. Despite the toll it took on her peace of mind, Clorinde always enjoyed teaching children about the intricacies of tabletop games. A few flickering grins slip through the cracks of a mask of apathy as the children gradually begin to ease into their roles. All was well.
“Um… Miss Clorinde?”
The boy had large and round glasses, trembling hands clasped together as if in fearful worship. Clorinde had mistaken him as a baby deer when she first saw him: they had the same frightened and jittery eyes.
“Yes? Is something the matter?”
“I wanna go see Mom.” The other children laugh rather cruelly at his noble display, the boy blushing and clutching at his gut. “C-Can I leave Miss Clorinde?”
“Ooo, someone wants their mommy, are you scared of the dragon?”
“Aww! Why?” “Can you heal me before you go?!”
Clorinde quiets them a second time, a little less patient than before. She turns back to the timid child with her best attempt at gentleness. “Of course.”
“Do you know where she is? I can accompany you-”
The child vanishes outside before she can get another word. How strange. But with the other children demanding that she continue without him, Clorinde decides to dismiss the fact and continue. “Can you pass me that toy, dear? Thank you.”
Turn after turn passes.
Clorinde plays both the master and the absentee’s cunning ranger - but she could only juggle so much for so long. Eventually her growing concern eclipses any commitment she had to the role of game master.
The Spina de Rosula’s Court stronghold was infamously difficult to navigate - a complex network of winding canyons and deep ravines made of isotropic copper pipes. The kind of place where people would go if the Meropide would not take them. The kind where a man could fall through the cracks and never be seen again.
The kind where a child could do the same in mere minutes.
“Sorry. I have to go.” Clorinde folds her game master’s screen, not bothering to clean up the figures and various hand-written notes left scattered on her end of the table. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Aww! Do we have to end here?!” “I wanna fight the dragon!” “Can I cast lightning-”
She silently grabs her overcoat from the nearby rack and exits the tent, catching the eye of one of the many Spina De Rosula agents milling about. “Thanks.” The agent replies with a curt nod, greeting the children with a strained smile as they immediately whine about the interrupted session.
The oppressive humidity greets her with a slap to the face.
As useful as the stronghold was in hiding refugees, it came at the cost of having any kind of climate control - Clorinde was sweating buckets by the time she got to the stronghold’s main street. Her head spins on a swivel as she scans for her quarry, the ruffles on her outfit bobbing as Clorinde wallows her way through the seemingly endless throng.
Navia had insisted on bringing in every single person they could into the city - her gentle soul unable to stomach the mere notion of turning down a fellow man in need. “If we don’t do this, then nobody will!” The Champion Duelist had found it impossible to reject her and her humanitarian optimism.
Even if it made Clorinde’s job much harder.
She shoves past through the increasingly dense crowds, a single speck of violet drowned in a mire of browns and blacks. A fordone grunt escapes through her grit teeth. “Enough of this…”
Her Vision pulses with Electro as she channels its energy, leaping off a near-vertical wall and onto a rooftop. Her foot taps on the edge in a frantic rhythm, the crowds shimmying along the main street. A living quagmire, waters mired with the essence of humanity.
“Drat.” The huntress wipes her lip, gritting her teeth. “This is pure anarchy…”
But that left Clorinde with only one option.
“Navia.”
Clorinde finds the President at the storage hanger - attempting to make the Spina’s limited supplies last for just one more day. Truth be told, it was no small feat that Navia had managed to last this long with so many additional mouths to feed without any outside help: outside of the occasional supply crate that the Spina De Rosula had managed to swipe out from beneath the Palais’ nose.
“Huh?” Navia perks up at the familiar voice. “Oh, Clorinde!”
A bead of sweat rolls down the side of her forehead. “Good morning.”
“And what a good morning it is!” The shadow from her wide-brimmed hat makes her eyes glitter a brilliant blue, little pools of the summer sky. Navia nods towards a pair of carriers at her side. “Alright boys, you’re free to go!”
“Remember, same time tomorrow!”
The two nod, laughing and joking even with the heavy crates wedged in their arms. Her mere presence was a beacon of hope for all the downtrodden and forgotten - the shining star amidst a squalling storm. “Ah, I love my job… Anywho-”
“How’s the session going? Everything running smoothly?”
“Or do you need me to join in and spice things up?” She jokes, raising an eyebrow and lowering her voice to a coy whisper. “For old time’s sake of course.”
Clorinde smiles, eased by treasured memories. “Perhaps another day…”
“We have a situation.”
And just as she predicts, the idea of a missing person - a missing child no less - strikes a fresh wound for the President. Even with her experience at reigning in her emotions, Clorinde finds herself frowning as Navia presses a hand beneath her chin. Dark clouds rise to smother the disappearing sunlight. “I see…”
“You know this place better than anyone. I could use your help.”
“Alright-” Navia nods determinedly. “Count me in!”
They work well together, as they always have.
They had a lifetime’s worth of time to learn to cover each other’s weaknesses and bolster each other’s strengths. Navia’s infamous people skills allowed her to search for information without causing a panic, while Clorinde deciphered the truths hidden in the more subtle and discrete aspects of the environment. The Champion Duelist had been trained to stand alone, but she had to admit that having Navia by her side is a welcome change of pace.
What more could she have asked for in a partner?
Their search takes them to an alleyway, tucked between two hastily erected tents and ironically a short distance from where Clorinde had started. The duelist grunts in disdain as they approach, fiddling with the hilt of her blade. “Here? You sure?”
“Faustier and the boys said they all saw him go down here.” Navia shrugs, priming her weapon with the golden hue of Geo energies. “It's worth a shot.”
“... How unlikely.”
“Oh? Is the champion of Champion Duellists too prideful to admit she forgot to look here?” Clorinde’s customary smirk is more strained than usual. Sometimes her patience had simply run too thin to enjoy Navia’s constant quips.
“Stay here.”
“And let you have all the action?” Navia huffs. “Absolutely not.”
Clorinde shoots another look at the ‘gunbrella’ on her shoulders, a weapon that happened to be the furthest thing from practical. Alas, she had worked with the blonde long enough to understand that there was no convincing the headstrong Boss otherwise.
“Per your wishes, Miss President.”
Dripping water. Rustling of fabric. Clorinde tenses at the dreadful near-silence of the alleyway, unable to remove the shadows of monstrous beasts dancing in the recesses of her consciousness. The duelist could take fully-grown Vishap so long as she could see it. It was when the enemy was hidden did the fear set in.
“Be careful.” She warns. “I hear something around the corner.”
“Oh calm down Clorinde, it’s probably just a rat or-”
Navia’s banter is cut short by what they see in the dark.
A disheveled and raggedy man holds the missing child by the scruff of his neck, his eyes frantic and wide with insanity as he presses firm hands over his throat. Navia falters from the unexpected sight, perhaps recognizing the face of one of the many refugees she had brought into the stronghold. “What are you doing?! Stop!”
But Clorinde doesn’t waste time demanding an answer.
Absolution sings. The man is sent flying off the innocent child, her arm snapping back to her side with practiced efficiency. Clorinde maintains momentum, leaving the injured child for Navia to care for and rushing forward with a burst of Electro. The tip of her silvery blade scrapes across the floor - before launching to pin the hermit on the alley wall by his rags. “Talk.”
“You-you don’t understand- He’s a devil child! He’s sick!”
“Sick?” The huntress snarls. “The only one sick here is you.”
“PLEASE! I BEG YOU! KILL HIM!”
“What’s wrong with you?!” Navia shouts back with an atypical fury, clutching the child protectively and carrying him further from the fight. “He’s a kid!”
“He’s sick! And if we don’t kill him, we’ll all be sick!”
“That’s no reason to kill a child!”
Clorinde does not see it happen.
She hears Navias’ dress shift as she lifts the child by the armpits. She hears Navia whisper his name and lightly slap his cheek. She hears her call out for help as the drooling child gradually finds his footing in her grasp.
And then she hears the bite.
It is a horrible noise.
Clorinde shouts Navia’s name till her throat nearly tears, but her words are drowned - the blonde breaking like broken glass as teeth dig into her glove. For a split second Clorinde cannot process the sight. This was the same sickly child that she had pardoned from a tabletop fame, the same one that had nearly broken into tears when his friends teased him.
Now his teeth break through bone.
Navia strains to push him off, but the rabid child digs deeper still. Another anguished scream. The huntress finds her throat choked from an animalistic rage, pushing off the wall and nearly letting Absolution fall from her trembling hands.
“LET HER GO!”
Clorinde tears the child off by the hair, balking at the deep red of his teeth. This is the same child? Her moment of pause is enough for him to wriggle from her grip, snarling and clutching at his throat. “F-Food.” Clorinde seizes control of herself as the child swallows desperately in the air, mouth opening and closing as if trying to regurgitate the food in his throat. “Food… Hungry…. Hungry…”
Bloodshot eyes snap towards her.
The rabid child leaps, dribbling drool and snarling ferociously, but a kick to the gut slams him into the wall. He spasms and slides onto the ground, flecks of mucus and red dripping onto his shirt from jittering coughs. Clorinde’s chest tightens with adrenaline and anxiety. What have I done? Her heart is left bleeding as Clorinde clears her clouded mind, though her entire body is gripped by a deep guilt.
A cough. The kind with more fluid than air.
“Navia?”
Her eyes shimmer with pained tears as the last colors of life fade from an increasingly pallid complexion. The blonde collapses forward, her bitten hand twitching and writhing as if it had a mind of its own. Her fingers try in vain to catch the red dribbling down from her pallid lips.
“You’re sick.” The man in rags whispers, curling into a ball. “You’re sick…”
“Sick with what?” Clorinde tries to pry for more, but the hermit’s eyes flutter as he collapses. “Hey, sick with what?!” No answer. She moves to shake him awake, but a weak hand wraps around the edges of her overcoat.
“C-Clorinde...”
“No, no.”
Clorinde ignores the blood staining her outfit, easing Navia onto a stand. One of her hands wind around her shoulders and support her side, the other cradling Navia’s intact hand. The stoic duelist feels it trembling, like it was bound to break at even the slightest of pressures. “T-Thank you.”
“Don’t waste your breath talking.” She soothes. “Just breathe.”
“I - ugh - I can’t feel my legs.”
Navia collapses in her arms. Every part of the blonde burns with a malignant heat, the Boss fighting a rapidly losing battle with every shuddering cough. Clorinde pulls her into a messy bridal carry, dress draped over her arms like the petals of a dying flower. “Easy. I’ve got you.”
“W-Where are - where are we going?”
The word lodges in her throat. “... Outside.”
“W-What?” Navia’s hand pushes on Clorinde’s shoulder as the duelist strides out into the main street, beckoning her to stop even as the huntress shouts orders she could not remember. “N-No. Don’t. I-I can’t let you do this…”
“Navia. You need help.”
“B-But… the refugees…” Navia pleads. “They’ll - they’ll be kicked out.”
Clorinde grits her teeth. “And the Palais are the only ones who can help you.”
“No. No, please… I can - I just-”
“I can live.”
The plea breaks her heart.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
No response.
Navia’s hand slips off her shoulders as her weakening body finally gives into unconsciousness. Clorinde ignores the growing chaos in the stronghold, whispering a prayer under her breath as she makes for the nearest exit.
“And you took her here?”
Clorinde blinks - the barren walls of the Meropide coming back into focus. Even with her current circumstances, the duellist could not help but the old habit of becoming lost in a story. To think the day would come when a Champion Duelist was the one being interrogated. “I had little choice.”
“I wouldn’t trust anyone but Miss Sigewinne with the task of caring for Navia.”
“Hm…” Her interrogator hums. “I’ll be sure to let her know that, Miss Clorinde.”
The internal mechanisms of his gauntlets click in an unknowable rhythm, melding with the orchestral hums of the fortress’ complex network of pipes and valves. The Duke of the Meropide takes another long sip from his usual teacup - imported Inazuman porcelain decorated with bits of Liyue gold leaf. Clorinde had its pair within reach, but the tea within remains wholly untouched. “Hm.”
“So?” The duellist asks impatiently. “Can I see her?”
“Well you’d certainly make the medical staff even more worried.” Wriothesley continues serenely. “But, in all seriousness the Head Nurse has been very clear: no visitors until her vital signs stabilize. Besides, it would be of no use. Miss Caspar is indisposed at the moment.”
Her temper flares, burdened with worry. “Indisposed? What do you mean?”
“Sigewinnie believes that - sleep can help her body heal.”
“What? You put her to sleep?” The notion is disgusting, the kind that leaves an unnatural rankness in her mouth. “For how long? Are you sure that’s even safe?”
“Unfortunately, the rules of confidentiality prevent me from telling you any more.”
“Rules? You’re bringing up the rules in this situation?”
“Rules are what give the world order, Madame Clorinde, you can’t expect me to bend them even for old friends.” He continues. “Besides, didn’t you mention prior that you trusted Miss Sigewinnie with caring for her?”
Her temper flares. Wriothesley’s calmness, once an island of order within a sea of chaos, was nothing but fuel to the fires of her growing frustration. It did not help that Clorinde looked like she had been thrown into a washing machine - refined outfit left in tatters by the tumultuous tumble through the stronghold.
“But if you want, I would gladly direct you to our receptionist and-”
BANG!
The duelist’s chair falls back to the ground as Clorinde looms over the Duke - who had little emotion to provide except for a hint of amusement. Her teacup rattles on its saucer as her voice lowers to a hiss. “Enough games.”
“Monsieur Wriothesley, believe me I know all about rules.” Clorinde continues, dripping with venom. “But Navia is in danger. How can you expect me to sit here and wait?”
A harsh glare stops her in her tracks.
Her mind inevitably thinks back to the madman in the alleyway. Tempers cool as she lets out an ashamed sigh under the shade of her bycocket. Clorinde couldn’t remember the last time she had lost control like that, and it leaves a harsh burn on her cheeks. “... Pardon my outburst.”
The admission of defeat is received with but a subtle nod.
“Please.” Wriothesley gestures clemently. “Drink.”
The request is spoken like a command. Clorinde pulls her chair back to the table, pulling herself together with a deep breath. Relax. But that dreadful tension remains woven in her muscles as the duelist takes his offer. The pungent sweetness of chamomile tea is ineffective at washing away the bitter taste left on her tongue. “Thank you.”
He nods, quietly pouring her cup just as Clorinde takes another sip. The loss of her appetite, spoiled by the gnashing of teeth on flesh, did little to ruin the taste of her beverage. Wriothesley certainly knew his tea.
“More?”
“No thanks.” She mutters. “I’m not in the mood right now.”
Wriothesley pours regardless, filling her cup before moving to his own. He scoffs disgruntledly as the teapot only produces meager drops into his own half-full glass, but from the way his shoulder slump it is clear that the Duke took some comfort in the simplicity of the action. “Duke.”
“Please understand - I just want to make sure Navia is ok. That’s all I ask.”
The teapot is set down on its saucer. Wriothesley eyes the gentle whirlpool set within hsi cup of tea as he brings it up to his lips, wrinkles forming on his forehead from some unknowable internal dilemma. “Alright. How about this-”
“You can stay with her. 24/7. Neighboring cells with in suite bathrooms.”
“Whatever you want and whatever you need will be provided. Same with Miss Caspar, should she choose to request anything more from the attending medical staff.”
“... What’s the catch?”
She had worked with Wriothesley enough to know there was always a catch. And Clorinde had a feeling - a horrible, sinking feeling - that she already knew what the catch was. The single bleak light above them flickers as Wriothesley lets out a deep sigh.
“While Miss Caspar is stable at the moment-”
“We both know what will happen if she ever becomes - unstable.”
“I would have done this myself - but as you understand, I do have an obligation to both the fortress and to the inmates.” He speaks slowly and deliberately, as if he had agonized over every word for hours beforehand. “And with how volatile her condition is, there is no telling when she will-
Clorinde raises one eyebrow.
“Implode.”
“... Tch.” Clorinde focuses her furious glare at Absolution, a jaded young woman staring back at her on the reflective sheen of her blade. An invisible child bites down on her hands as the warden sets down his drink. “I can’t believe your audacity sometimes…”
“Like you said, my hands are tied.”
She shoots him as harsh of a glare as she can muster.
“This is the best I can do for you.” Wriothesley reassures - though his cordial words are rimmed with flecks of ice. “If we find a working cure for the illness you have my word that Miss Caspar will be the first to receive it.”
“And what if we don’t find it in time?”
The Duke answers with a prolonged sip, dodging and weaving for as long as he can.
“If you refuse to do it, I could prepare a few Clockwork Meka beforehand and-”
“No.”
A gnawing cavern slithers forth from the back of her mind, a darkness enveloping every last bit of her light. Clorinde slides Absolution back into its sheath: meeting Wriothesley’s beckoning eyes with the unyielding resolve of a Champion Duelist.
“I’ll do it.”