Angst Collection

The cottage on the outskirts of Fontaine was a cruel irony. It was picturesque, nestled among rolling hills and weeping willows, far from the judging eyes of the Court. But for Furina, it was merely a smaller stage, one where the audience had been replaced by jailers.

In the beginning, the silence had been a relief. After five hundred years of applause and the weight of a nation’s gaze, she had welcomed the emptiness. But then the headaches started—vicious, rhythmic pounding that felt like a gavel striking the inside of her skull. It was the price of the masquerade, perhaps. You do not fool the Heavenly Principles for five centuries and walk away unscathed. The light had dimmed, flickering like a dying candle, until the world dissolved into a smear of grey, and then, eventually, into nothing.

She was blind. A former god who could no longer see the ocean she had saved.

"Lady Furina, I have brought some tea. It is chamomile, to help you rest," a squeaky, gentle voice said.

Furina didn't turn her head. She sat by the window, though she couldn't see the garden. She could only feel the warmth of the sun on her skin, a sensation that felt unearned. "Thank you, Menthe. Just leave it on the table."

She heard the soft patter of Melusine feet. Neuvillette had sent them—Menthe, Sigewinne on occasion, and others—to "assist" her. In reality, they were a perimeter. They were the guards of a fallen queen who had proven herself too fragile for freedom.

Clorinde was the most constant presence. The Champion Duelist didn't speak much, but Furina could hear the rhythmic sharpening of a blade or the creak of leather as she sat in the corner of the room. Clorinde was there to catch her. Literally.

She had caught Furina when she tried to let the bathtub overflow and slip beneath the surface. She had caught Furina when she found a kitchen knife in the dark and tried to trace the lines of her wrists. Every time Furina tried to exit the stage, the curtain was yanked back up by forceful, well-meaning hands.

"You should eat something," Clorinde’s voice came from the doorway, steady and cool. "Neuvillette sent over some delicacies from the Palais."

"I’m not hungry, Clorinde," Furina whispered. Her voice sounded thin, like parchment left in the rain.

"He is coming to visit tomorrow. He would be pleased to see you in better spirits."

Furina let out a dry, hacking laugh. "My spirits? My spirits are exactly where they deserve to be. Tell the Iudex not to waste his breath. Or his gifts."

She felt the weight of the cane leaning against her chair. Neuvillette had given it to her on her birthday. It was made of fine wood, tipped with silver, elegant and functional. A tool for a blind woman to navigate a world she no longer wanted to inhabit. To him, it was a gesture of hope—an invitation to walk the shores again. To Furina, it was a leash.

As the months bled into the second year, the visits from her old "friends" became more painful. Navia would come, her voice forcedly cheerful, talking about the reconstruction of Poisson, but the silences between her sentences grew longer. Navia’s pity was a heavy, suffocating blanket. Neuvillette was even worse. When he sat in the room, the air grew humid, thick with the grief he refused to voice. He spoke of the law, of the weather, of the Melusines’ well-being. He never spoke of the fact that she was a ghost haunting her own life.

She knew they saw it. They saw the way her hands shook, the way she had stopped brushing her hair, the way she would stare with sightless eyes at a wall for six hours without moving. They were watching her die slowly, and their response was to tighten the watch.

But Furina had been an actress for five hundred years. She knew how to play a part.

She began to feign a modicum of recovery. She smiled more. She ate enough to keep them from hovering. She even took the cane and walked to the edge of the property, leaning on Clorinde’s arm. And all the while, she was scavenging.

A pill here. A bottle of medicinal tincture there. A bottle of wine hidden behind the wardrobe, then another. The Melusines were observant, but they were also innocent. They believed in the goodness of life; they couldn't conceive of a soul so hollowed out that it only sought its own end.

The night of the second anniversary arrived. The sky was likely clear, the stars bright over Fontaine, though Furina only knew the darkness.

She sat at her small desk, her fingers trembling as she felt the edges of a piece of paper. She held a pen, her grip awkward. She couldn't see what she was writing. She had to rely on muscle memory and the desperate hope that the message would be legible.

*I am tired,* she thought. *The play is over. Let the actor go home.*

She scratched the nib across the paper. She felt the ink bleed. She wrote about the exhaustion, the darkness that wasn't just in her eyes but in her marrow. She wrote a thank you to Neuvillette—a lie, perhaps, but a kind one. She wrote a goodbye to Clorinde.

When she finished, she set the pen down. Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

She reached under the bed and pulled out the stash. Two bottles of heavy, sweet wine. A handful of sedatives and pain-suppressants she had hoarded from Sigewinne’s medical kits over months of feigned "headaches."

She uncorked the first bottle. The smell of fermented grapes hit her, sharp and cloying. She drank deeply, the alcohol burning a trail down her throat. Then, she took the pills, one by one, washing them down with the wine until her stomach felt uncomfortably full.

She finished the second bottle with a sense of grim determination. The world was already beginning to tilt. The darkness was becoming heavy, velvety, pulling at her limbs.

"Lady Furina?" A soft knock. It was Menthe. "It is time for bed. Shall I help you?"

Furina tucked the note under the inkwell, her movements sluggish. "I’m... I’m already in the chair, Menthe. I can find my way to the bed tonight. I feel quite... peaceful."

"That is wonderful news!" the Melusine chirped, oblivious to the slur in Furina’s voice. "I will dim the lamps, though I suppose... well, I shall make sure the fire is low. Goodnight, Lady Furina."

"Goodnight," Furina whispered.

She managed to stumble to the bed, her knees buckling. She collapsed onto the sheets, not even bothering to pull the covers over her. The dizziness was folding her from the inside out, a great, swirling vortex of grey. For the first time in centuries, the pain in her head was receding, replaced by a profound, numb emptiness.

*Finally,* she thought, her eyelids fluttering shut. *The curtain falls.*

***

Clorinde entered the cottage two hours later for the midnight shift change. The house was silent, save for the crackle of the dying fire. Menthe was dozing in a chair in the kitchen.

Something felt wrong. The air was thick with the scent of stale wine.

Clorinde moved with the silent grace of a predator. She checked the bedroom first. Furina was lying on the bed, her posture unnatural, her breathing shallow—too shallow.

"Furina?" Clorinde stepped forward, shaking the woman’s shoulder.

There was no response. Furina’s skin was clammy, her face a pale mask of marble.

Clorinde’s gaze darted around the room. She saw the empty bottles under the bed. Her heart plummeted. "Menthe! Wake up! Get the emergency kit!"

Clorinde turned to the desk, her hand brushing against a piece of paper. She picked it up, her eyes narrowing as she tried to decipher the frantic, overlapping script.

*...no more light... please don't wake me... Neuvillette, I am sorry... it is too quiet here...*

The ink was smudged, the lines slanted and uneven, the work of someone writing in total darkness. It wasn't a suicide note; it was a surrender.

"She took the medicine, Clorinde! The whole cabinet is empty!" Menthe cried, scurrying into the room with a look of sheer terror.

"Signal the Palais," Clorinde commanded, her voice cracking for the first time in years. "Use the emergency beacon. Now! Tell Neuvillette it’s a Grade One medical crisis."

Clorinde hauled Furina into a sitting position, desperately trying to induce a reaction. "Stay with me, Furina. That’s an order. You don't get to leave yet."

But Furina was limp in her arms, a broken doll.

The next hour was a blur of panic and precision. The blue streak of the emergency signal lit up the outskirts of the city. Within twenty minutes, the sound of a high-speed transport echoed outside.

Neuvillette didn't walk into the house; he seemed to materialize, the air around him freezing with the sheer force of his agitation. A team of royal physicians followed him, pushing past the Melusines.

"What happened?" Neuvillette’s voice was a low growl, vibrating with a grief so sharp it felt like a physical blade.

"She hoarded the supplies," Clorinde said, standing back, her hands trembling. She handed him the note. "She wrote this."

Neuvillette took the paper. He looked at the blurred, sightless writing—the desperate scrawl of a woman who had been his sovereign, his friend, and his greatest mystery. He felt the phantom sensation of rain beginning to fall outside, a torrential downpour that mirrored the breaking of his heart.

"Save her," Neuvillette whispered to the doctors, his eyes never leaving Furina’s pale face. "If she dies, the hydro in this nation will never run clear again."

The physicians worked with frantic energy. They pumped her stomach, administered stimulants, and monitored the faint, stuttering rhythm of her heart. Neuvillette stood by the window, the note crumpled in his fist. He looked out at the darkness, knowing that he had failed her. He had given her a cottage when she needed a reason to breathe. He had given her a cane when she needed a hand to hold.

Hours passed. The sun began to creep over the horizon, painting the room in shades of pale gold that Furina would never see.

"She is stable," the lead physician finally said, wiping sweat from his brow. "The dosage was nearly lethal, but her constitution... it is stronger than it looks. She is asleep now. A natural sleep."

Neuvillette exhaled, a sound that was half-sob, half-relief. He walked to the bedside and looked down at her. She looked small. Without the hats, the ruffles, and the bravado, she looked like a child lost in a storm.

"She will be angry when she wakes," Clorinde said softly, standing in the shadows of the corner.

"I know," Neuvillette replied.

"She doesn't want to be here, Neuvillette. We are keeping her in a cage of our own making."

Neuvillette reached out, his long fingers hovering just above Furina’s hand before he pulled back, as if afraid his touch might shatter her. "Then we must change the cage. We must find a way to make the world bright enough that she doesn't need her eyes to see it."

He looked at the note one last time before tucking it into his coat.

"Until then," he murmured, "we watch. We wait. And we do not let the curtain fall."

In the bed, Furina’s hand twitched, a silent protest in her sleep, as she remained anchored to a world that refused to let her go.