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The Fortress of Meropide has developed a distinct reputation that is fortified and feared in equal parts, one far more onerous than many can attest to personally. It is an unavoidable effect of an underwater mecca run by lowlifes, criminals, and ne'er-do-wells. The simple cases for the citizens who unwittingly stray from the path of justice are resolved easily; lessons are learned and sentences are carried out with legal jargon, paperwork, and warnings against future infractions. However, not everyone in the Fortress wishes to buy into the Duke’s brand of redemption, and sometimes single sentences turn into a lifetime’s forfeiture. Over the years, the worst that Fontaine has to offer is boiled down, reduced, and concentrated into a cesspool of animosity locked away below the ocean’s waves.
That’s when the rumors grow wings and fly away with reckless abandon, though the tales of harsh conditions imposed by harsher sentences are not all untrue (if slightly hyperbolized). If the company exiled to sleep within its dark, watery embrace is a warning against injustice, then the unsavory environment of the underworld is the iron fence on which the sign is hung. A good deterrent is just as effective as a severe punishment. That is what Monsieur Neuvillette tells her, anyway, and Sigewinne is inclined to heed his erudite word.
Just as with any place of living, there are positive aspects, too, that help to offset the undesirable traits. She has watched in wonder as the state of the Fortress of Meropide steadily improved over the years under the Duke’s rule. From food, to healthcare, to efforts for rehabilitation, she has made her own contributions where they have been within her power and expertise as well.
Balancing the major food groups and ensuring that each inmate is provided with a properly balanced diet was an exhausting endeavor when all vegetation was required to be imported. Even then, most of the produce purchased was of subpar quality, meaning there was little freshness at all to be had in the infrequent shipments. Most were either rotting upon receipt or wilted, maggot-infested, brown, and limp. Not to mention the lack of variety that the Court of Fontaine was willing to part with for the sake of the exiled inmates and their woefully empty bellies. Thankfully, the Duke convinced an Amurta Driyosh scholar to research within Meropide’s confines (the promise of a daily meal certainly played a part in the decision). Only a few short years later, a fully-functioning underwater hydroponic garden was established, and the scholar returned to the Akademiya with a published thesis. The bulle fruit trees have only just begun producing under the overload lamps, but the citrus they have borne has done wonders to reduce the number of scurvy cases that come through her clinic. And, if nothing else, the delicious and nutritious medaka fish that populate the water reservoirs are a delight to watch on lazy Free Days.
The habitability of the Fortress has also made lengthy strides toward improvement. The walls of Meropide are considerably old. In the past, though the hull was properly cared for from the inside, external degradation was all but ignored until the worst occurred. Singular rooms and even entire sections often became flooded at a moment’s notice. They were lucky if no one was hurt. It would take days and sometimes weeks in the more severe events to fully dry out, reclaim, and refurbish the flooded sectors. When beds became scarce, inmates would either suffer water-logged linens or a cot in the Production Zone until the damaged areas could be cleared for use. That didn’t stop many inmates from sneaking back into their quarters without permission, leading to upper respiratory infections from mold spores and painful foot sores. A diving team was commissioned by the Duke, and now daily maintenance is completed by a team of inmates to ensure their home stays properly dry.
Because of her unique constitution, Meropide offers the best compromise for her two hereditary worlds. No where else can one watch their sunrises and sunsets from below the ocean waves, delighting in the dancing colors of marcotte, rainbow rose, and pluie lotus that glisten through the churning tide. And at night, when all is quiet and the Production Zone has paused its industrious march, one can hear the calls of forlorn sea creatures echo through the cold metal walls as if drawn by the bow of a viola.
She hears those distant calls even now, and through the soles of her shoes, she can feel the icy chill of the metal floors. At this time of night, the water conduits embedded in the decks are deactivated, nothing to recirculate pyro-heated warmth into the sectors. The furnaces are barren and dark, and the workshop is unmoving. There is no one to tend to the fires, no one to feed the forges, and certainly there should be no one awake besides the night guards who skulk about with shining torches. She almost misses the clockwork tick of the Fortress at its high hour; the constant bustle makes Meropide seem alive, human cells working tirelessly to keep their host healthy. But rest is just as important to physical wellbeing as exercise, and everything has settled down to sleep.
The day lights are dim at this hour, and the yawning underwater pathways are awash in shifting shadow. She had thought the idea of “night lights” impossibly funny when she had first arrived. To a Melusine, the time for sleep is signaled by an internal chime, ringing dolefully of slumber and dreams when necessary for good health or recuperation. The notion of relying on light as a clock was admittedly baffling and sounded more like a poorly-constructed joke. It had not crossed her mind that these silly human creatures would be so dependent on cycles of light to biologically function, but she has since acquiesced to its necessity for her incarcerated charges. An efficient circadian rhythm for below-depths living arrangements, driven by automatically-dimming lights, has been in effect for years now at her behest.
The lift rattles and shakes its way to a lower level, making her teeth chatter and her feet feel numb. When the pulleys and gears grind to a jerking halt, she loses her balance and has to windmill her arms to stay upright. She glares at the lift, taps it a couple times with the toe of her shoe, and then tugs her clothes back into place before striding off.
She quietly makes her way into the sector, pausing to admire how the towering ventilation fan above the Pankration Ring cuts blocks of shadow on the floor as it rotates. She has seen Kamera photos of the grand cathedrals in Mondstadt so very far away and imagines that this is what those stained-glass murals might look like in person. She can trace images of bygone gods and heroes in her mind’s eye, but it is the figure at the center of the ring that demands her attention. It weaves between the shadow and light like it is not quite sure where it should reside or where it belongs. Against the soft give of a punching bag, a fierce rhythm is tapped out, focused, powerful, and so quick that the movements blur before her eyes.
One-Two-One. One.
His shirt has been discarded, dangling like an exhausted opponent on the ropes, and his skin glistens under the harsh light. She lets her gaze trace over the curves and edges that make up the Duke of the Fortress of Meropide. His lines are painted in strokes of harsh beauty, and there is little in his outward appearance that begets the word ‘delicate.’ She used to sit for hours and pour over books on human anatomy, tracing those lines upon the living mannequin before her. She would mentally dissect every string of sinew and chisel out each strut of ivory bone, laying them out side by side with her own to better understand the form she herself wears.
If she were underwater, his heartbeat would mimic the pulse of a blubberbeast’s echoing song. She would be able to hear the rush of his blood, the whisper of his breath, the swell of his lungs, the creak of his joints, and the strain of his muscles. Wicks of sweat warmed by waves of body heat cast his scent into the air like sea spray: leather and tea and the cheap, minty, herbal soap that Meropide purchases in bulk at a discount. Over the top of it all is the bright, citrus scent that accompanies fresh bloodletting, Electro-sharp. The smell makes her rhinophores twitch, but the sight of all that phosphorescent plasma really makes her nose wrinkle. He’s tried to clean it off, but nothing can escape the keen sight of a Melusine; days old or weeks old, it will stain whatever it touches, and the evidence is smeared across the leather punching bag. Remnants paint his skin in splotches almost as plentiful as the scars he goes to great lengths to hide.
One-Two-Two-One. One.
He doesn’t have anything covering his knuckles—neither his boxing gloves nor even those thin wrappings he favors—which is the first problem. The second, if the guard stationed outside this sector can be trusted, is that Wriothesley has been in the ring for nearly two hours now.
She marches forward. The hum of the fans is grating on her ears when she gets nearer, like how a cat might feel if pet against the grain of her fur, but she perseveres. Tonight’s visit requires a certain level of decorum if it is to go as planned. Humans are fickle creatures, quite sensitive when the circumstances are not in their favor. It has taken her many years to find just the right angles to poke and prod for the best results with this particular human of hers.
Two-One. Two.
It takes a hop or two and then some shimmying to wriggle below the ropes, but she triumphantly makes it into the ring. She skips and jumps over dried splashes of blood on the floor but keeps in his field of vision, catching the way he watches from the corner of those pale, blue eyes.
Here is as good a spot as any, free from bloodstains. Carefully wrapped, temperature-controlled, and highly nutritious, her ammunition is packed away and slung around her bodice. She kneels, slipping her bag free, and sets it down at her knees. With a click, the clasps flick open, and she begins to empty the contents one-by-one. A napkin unfolded. A thermos here. A sealed container there, still warm. Fork. Spoon. Knife. Lastly, she unholsters her pistol and sets it deliberately next to the makeshift place setting. She will let Wriothesley guess as to whether or not it is loaded.
“My dear Sigewinne,” he says between deep, gulping breaths. His chest heaves. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
One-Two-One. One. One-Two-Two-One. One. Two-One. Two.
“You know, I learned something today,” she says, just loud enough to be heard over the rapid jabs and wicked right hook.
The Duke bounces back on the balls of his feet, fist held up protectively, shoulders a tense line. She watches the way the muscles in his back uncoil and shift, slinking away below his scarred skin and curling up like a dog down to rest. He draws himself up, boots knocking together, and lets his hands drop. When those palms slap against his thighs, two terrible, blood-bright handprints are left behind on his trousers, the last punches thrown.
She shuffles to get comfortable, smoothing out her skirts. “There is a muscle in humans that Melusines do not share. The musculature is far different, you see: in humans, it is the trapezius tissue that expands like the wings of a xenochromatic ray from the shoulders to the neck and even into the upper back."
Wriothesley’s shoulders droop. He tips his head back to stare up at the ceiling, drawing seething breaths through clenched teeth.
“It is absent in Melusines, limiting the range of motion of the neck and head. They compensate by having cartilaginous supports, rungs of a ladder that interlock to provide structure and protection,” Sigewinne says. She raises a hand and sets her fingers in the small dip at the base of her skull.
“While this impromptu lecture on the anatomical differences between humans and Melusines is fascinating, I assure you, it is late, and you really ought to—”
“If one applies enough force to this spot, do you know what happens to the human who suffers the blow?”
Those muscled shoulders of his tense right back up, scarred fists balled tightly against his thighs. She folds her hands primly in her lap and waits. She can see the clockwork gears grinding away inside his head, weighing his options on a set of burnished scales. However, Sigewinne isn’t some Gardemek that can be thrown off by a difficult-to-pronounce name or some other such nonsense. Wriothesley ops to stall for time, and the exasperated noise escapes from behind her lips before she can catch it. He leans down to grab the pile of dark wrappings from the floor. Then, round and round, he winds them over his palms and between his fingers, slow and deliberate. Her patience thins as the length of the cloth shortens, and enough time passes that his breathing finally goes quiet with one last heaving sigh. Once the bindings are fastened tightly into place, he turns fully to face her.
Though she has lived among humans and inherited a body created in their image, the intricacies of facial structure still give her pause. There a thousand meanings in every motion and hundreds of expressions possible in each contour, but she recognizes this one in front of her easily enough: Cautious. Unsettled. His eyebrows dip into severe slashes across his face, and his lips are nothing but a thin, grim line. Many inmates have arrived to the Fortress bearing the exact same set of features.
“The brain stem can sever from the spine—a clean break and a quick death,” she says to break the silence.
If the emotions of others are difficult for her to understand, then she is often at a loss for how to appropriately express them herself. She can see the effects of her shortcomings play out in real time: His expression goes blank, wiped clean, gaze unfocused, jaw slack. She saw Wriothesley’s mugshot only once a long time ago, but here it is now, recreated before her in flesh and blood rather than in ink and paper. The difference, aside from his age and nourishment, is that he doesn’t bow his head anymore. She wonders if he trained himself out of it or if it was beaten into him by Meropide.
Wrong words. Like a worm wriggling in her chest, guilt makes her squirm, and her eyes run away to hide.
“You can’t just stand there all night… Won’t you come sit with me?” she offers, words stilted, a verbal bandage on a mental laceration. She reaches for the thermos and unscrews the lid, hooking a finger around the string of the tea bag to dip it a few times. It’s a bribe, and he must know it.
The air is a tense vibration independent of the ventilation fan overhead, but he does eventually move. She can tell how much he’s overworked himself by his first step. The stiff-muscled lurch is jarring when she is used to watching him glide through the Fortress with a grace that belays his strength. She is reminded of the stray dogs that prowl in the alleyways of the Court of Fontaine, keeping to the shadows and slinking away with distrust shining in their eyes. It burns away some of her timidity and replaces it with an equal measure of concern and anger.
He settles onto the ground and folds his legs up the best he can manage, looking out of place as he stares down at the assortment before him. Unsurprisingly, his stare is on the thermos that she’s been toying with, eyeing the label on the teabag.
“Drink,” she says firmly and hands him the cup. “I can tell just by looking that you are dehydrated.”
He must really be thirsty because he takes it without complaint and lifts the lip to his mouth, gulping the drink down. She watches the slow roll of his throat as he swallows.
“How is it?” She has hopes that she sounds nonchalant, but they are not high.
Wriothesley closes his eyes, gently sets the cup down, and wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
“Hideous.”
She wilts. She really thought this would be the one, the perfect post-workout smoothie: glabrous beans, fish, cabbage, sunsettia, and milk. Simple carbs for energy, liquid for rehydration, and protein for muscle repair. Perfectly balanced, and she even brewed it with tea this time.
“Here,” she mutters, fighting the wobble of her lower lip and sniffling only a little. She opens up her bag again and pulls out a second thermos. “Chamomile.”
Wriothesley eyes it warily and even goes so far as to give the drink a sniff before taking a hesitant sip. He sighs into the cup when he really does find only tea, eyes slipping closed, and steam curls around his face. He doesn’t notice as she tugs off her gloves and tucks them into the pocket of her apron. Sigewinne holds out a hand, and when those blue eyes of his open, they narrow dangerously. She has seen guards scurry away with their heads ducked and hardened criminals cower at that stare, but she will not leave any room for debate.
“You will let me attend to your injuries,” she says, and the fingers of her other hand play along the edge of her gun. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s used it on him.
She would call him skittish if it wouldn’t make him turn tail and flee, but he eventually offers up a hand, palm up. If Wriothesley clasped her hands between his, hers would disappear. The callouses that he wears are thick and rough, years of hardship made physical. Monsieur Neuvillette’s hands, fingers long and slender, don’t seem nearly as large when he ruffles her hair affectionately, and the stark difference between them always gives her pause.
She picks at the corner of the cloth until an edge is freed. The wrappings unravel and fall away slowly, coiling into a heap between their feet. She is careful, but once the last length is unwound, it sticks to his skin for a moment before giving way. She turns his hand in hers, bringing the back of it into the light, and her heart sinks. His knuckles are bright and glassy, red as valberries and dripping. With expert ease, she unfastens her first aid kit and gets to work. She rips open an antiseptic wipe with her teeth and cleans away as much of the blood as she can while it continues to well at the edges. What she reveals is a swollen mess of mottled blue, purple, and black bruises that makes her grit her teeth.
Besides the swelling, nothing is crooked or obviously deformed, and his dexterity seemed fine when she handed him the thermos. She presses gently on the back of his hand and rolls each digit between her fingers to check for fractures, watching Wriothesley’s reaction closely. He doesn’t flinch, not even a sharp intake of breath, and stares at a point just past the crown of her head where her rhinophores twitch angrily. Thank the Hydro Archon that he had the sense, however little rattles around in his skull, to remove his rings and chains. She doesn’t want to think about the damage he would have done otherwise.
“Why do you do this?” she wants to ask, but she bites back the angry accusation behind the sharp of her teeth, stilling her tongue. It’s precisely because she never asks that he allows her, however reluctantly, to do this in the first place. The moment it slips from her lips would be the instant she loses him entirely. Trust is a difficult bond to form within the Fortress of Meropide, and the lack of it is perpetuated by fear. To the inmates, trust only comes in the form of a guaranteed welfare meal and the promise of a sentence served, never in the goodwill of people.
To a Melusine, goodness is synonymous with truth. Deceit and malice come as naturally to them as flying: physically impossible. If Melusines could receive Visions from the gods, she’s sure it would have happened by now because she can think of no other beings as pure as her willful sisters, the virtuous embodiments of Egeria’s Celestial principle. Maybe it is the clarity with which they see the world that makes it so much easier to place their faith in others… Maybe that’s just another core difference between Sigewinne and her siblings.
She slips a tin of salve from her kit and twists off the lid. “These romaritime flowers were from my sister.”
Wriothesley’s eyes flick to the salve and then dart away, edgy and uneasy. “You have a lot of those.”
“Cosanzeana. Who else has a token like hers? You’ll have to thank her next time she visits.”
She smooths the thick, silvery jelly over his knuckles. His scars go all the way down to the tips of his fingers and across the beds of his nails. He pretends they aren’t even there most of the time, but when he does mention them, the lies are easy to spot. Not for the first time, she tries to imagine the stories behind each mark. One circles the entirety of his wrist, and the reason for such a distinctive injury makes her shudder. It’s almost as awful as the one that runs down the length of his throat into the dip of his sternum or those that line the edges of his abdominals. Almost.
First, a thick gauze pad, and a fresh wrapping comes next, not too tight and nothing to impede his range of motion else he’ll rip it off the moment she looks away. On the smaller cuts on his fingers, she settles for a few adhesive bandages, snipping the edges to ease it over the joint of each digit.
She takes the second hand without it being offered and unwraps the bindings, bracing herself for what she’ll find. There is a reason he offered the left hand to her first. Though Wriothesley is ambidextrous, he favors his right side when he’s in the ring, and it shows in the pearly flash of bone on each crested knuckle. She glares up at him, but he’s taken to hiding his face behind the thermos, sipping quietly.
He has finished the remainder of the tea by the time the last dressing is tied off. She takes the time to wipe her hands down with another antiseptic wipe before tugging her gloves back into place. Wriothesley eyes the welfare meal set out before him.
“Should I expect another unwanted surprise if I open this up?” He taps the lid with a blunt nail.
She graces him with a fierce pout and sticks her tongue out. “Ask Wolsey.”
He snorts and pries off the lid to peek inside. Tasses Ragout. Lucky. He sets the lid aside and unfolds the tiny slip of paper tucked away inside.
“’Throw a rock, and the ripples of your choices may create waves that flood the shore,’” he reads. A smile plays at the corner of his lips. The fortune flutters to the floor as he takes up his food. “Whoever writes those should be fired.”
They sit in silence as Wriothesley tucks in. She would have preferred a meal with more protein to help him repair muscle, but at least it isn’t anything fried or oily. Though nutritious and well-portioned, it is not enough to keep him going for long; someone of his size and build needs at least twice what is ladled into those containers, but she has never seen him take seconds or complain of hunger. Not once. But he eats with an unmistakable hurry; his fork scrapes a jittery path along the bottom of the container and up to his mouth, always full and ready for the next bite. His eyes move from the meal, to the doorway, back to the meal, up to the ring, down to the meal, and off to the side, a constant, wary, roving cycle that makes Sigewinne dizzy. Even after so long since he called the streets or the cells his home, he holds tightly to the habits that make her heart clench painfully in her chest.
And that is the crux of the issue, she thinks as she watches him eat his meal with bandaged hands. Always taking whatever is within his means. No complaint, no matter the outcome. Doing what must be done and handling the consequences.
Once he has finished, Wriothesley gestures for her bag and packs everything away as neatly as it had been removed. When the last container is placed snugly within it, he sets the bag aside. Sigewinne sees the way his eyes slide away, the subtle shift of his hips, and the twitch of his fingers, ever-lured back to the punching bag across the ring. An uneasy frisson of a growing distance between them shivers up her spine as he leans away. If she lets him go, let’s him retreat back into his head and set his hands and body back into motion…
She catches onto his sleeve before he can get up to leave, and he goes still at her touch. Her fingers trail down to his hand and trace along the neat bandages that hide away his scars and injuries. He’s trying hard not to pull his hand away, risen tendons in his forearm standing out starkly against pale skin.
Sigewinne has known him to be terribly selfish and self-serving many a time—in fact, they have both known each other for most of their lives. He is conniving, scheming, and roguish. Wriothesley has ruled with a cruel type of fairness, each decision weighed against action, each sentence commensurate with the infraction. Someone in his position doesn’t ascend to power through peace, kindness, and deliberation, yet his reputation has done nothing but soar since assuming control of the Fortress of Meropide. Lauds and laurels are draped over his shoulders. He would have no trouble finding a distinguished position amongst the elite in the Court of Fontaine if he so wished, yet even years after fully serving his sentence, here he remains. He hands out tickets to redemption freely and sees off reformed citizens with a wave and a wish of good luck, feet firmly planted within the confines of Meropide.
This man is full of contradiction.
She presses the pads of her thumbs into his palm, trying to convey all the jumbled thoughts in her head, like everything she wants him to know can be imparted by a simple touch.
“If I took this hand to the infirmary…” Her voice is so quiet, barely above a whisper.
Such a firm believer in justice but never allowing himself the luxury of forgiveness or change.
“Laid the knuckles up against that man’s spine…”
Maybe he thinks he’s beyond saving. Rebuilt, rehabilitated, but still ruined at the core.
“Would I find that the bruise fits like a shadow?”
Perhaps in his mind, he’ll always be a murderer.
The hand that covers hers startles her despite its gentleness, and she looks up. Nothing betrays what he might truly be thinking, but for as calm and collected as Wriothesley seems on the outside, the subtle kickstart of his heartbeat through her fingertips confirms her suspicions. He starts to pull away. She quickly grabs hold of his fingers a little tighter, trying to keep him close, but she knows it won’t work for long.
Wrong words. Wrong words.
“Don’t go! I-I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry yourself over it,” he says. His smile is tight, and his laugh is a low, humorless rumble in the back of his throat. He swipes a thumb over her knuckles and gives her fingers a soft squeeze. When he slips free from her grasp, she doesn’t fight it. Her hands fall limply back into her lap. He stands and dusts off his pants, frowning at the bloody handprints.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” she says, wanting to draw his attention back to her, but his body is already fully turned, eyes cutting to the punching bag.
“You shouldn’t waste your time on someone like me,” he says, swiping his tongue over chapped lips. “I took care of it.”
It isn’t that simple, she thinks. He shouldn’t take the first avenue available and concede to its destination. Wriothesley doesn’t have to be the executioner. He doesn’t need to dirty his own hands to keep others’ clean. However, there are no repercussions for a man determined to live his life in exile, and he falls right back into the awful pattern of what he knows. All Fontainians are born in sin, after all, and the cradle is large enough for a lifetime.
How she wishes it weren’t true.
He takes the first step away, and with each heavy step, she sees the way he shutters himself off. He strikes the gavel, signs the papers, locks the cell with his own key. He rubs his wrists and rolls the bulk of his shoulders, shaking out his arms. Eyes trained on the punching bag, he raises his fists, flexes his fingers, and tests the give of the bandages.
The crack of the first strike makes her flinch.
One-Two-One. One. One-Two-Two-One. One. Two-One. Two.
“This is what I deserve.” To Sigewinne, it sounds like nothing more than regret, and she can only watch as his wrappings slowly bleed red.
One-Two-One. One. One-Two-Two-One. One. Two-One. Two.
It is true that the Fortress of Meropide has a dark reputation, but it is the Duke that embodies it.