Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Extra! Extra!” The paperboy calls from across the street. He sounded more boisterous than he did last week, though that can always be chalked up to healed vocal chords; or perhaps, the blessing of much more agreeable news. 

On Mondays, Charlotte always took her sweet time in getting to work. It’s not as if The Steambird would miss the few minutes she needs to smell the flowers on the way— Mondays were slow days for daily news, and their advertisers often found more success in pasting their ads on weekends. It’s her breather, really. A nice, sunny morning like this needs time to be appreciated. 

She hums and fixes the work bag on her shoulder, getting her card ready to clock in for the day. Charlotte is obviously used to the craziness of her line of work, of course. But today— today is just doubly insane.

There are people running around, zipping and flying past her, with the boom of chattering conversation nearly (which was important to remember— nearly ) drowning out the sounds of printers being slammed over and over. It’s almost as if the entire building was on fire and everyone collectively decided to go down with it.

Charlotte stands in the doorway, her satchel still gripped in one hand. She blinks around in awe, unmoving. 

Finally, it’s Antila, The Steambird’s trusty photographer, who runs up to her and grips her shoulders to shake her out of her stupor. 

“Where have you been?” she screeches in Charlotte’s ear. Charlotte blinks rapidly at her, surprised at the rare urgency in her voice. Her nails dig into Charlotte’s shoulders, but it’s the least of her worries. 

Her reporter mind goes crazy at the connotations of the environment around her: perhaps a ship near the harbor has sunk, a new species has been discovered on the shores of Fontaine, or, wait— “Did someone die?” she asks incredulously, and Antila curls her upper lip.

“Every news outlet in Fontaine has been in a flurry all day. Every single one of our reporters have been calling in for a chance at an exclusive interview since we found out. News of this has even reached out of Fontaine borders,” Antila babbles, a drop of sweat lining the side of her face. “Lady Ningguang from Liyue has been sending her well wishes and sending our damn printers to cardiac arrest,” she hisses.”

“So… no one died?” Charlotte asks tentatively. She sighs a deep breath of relief. 

“No!” Antila cries. “The President of the Spina di Rosula and Fontaine’s Champion Duelist are getting married! Have you even checked our first draft’s headline when you came in?!”

It takes a moment for the news to settle in. She squares her shoulders and squeals. “Oh my goodness! Are you serious?” Charlotte cries, and she takes Antila’s hands in hers and squeezes them in excitement. Antila’s face is more solemn than hers, though the shine in her eyes gives away her glee. 

“Yes!” Antila affirms. She nods her head up and down so fast that Charlotte momentarily worries that it would fall off. “We need you here working overtime all week if you can. We have to compete with the rest of the newspapers in Teyvat. Don’t you see the kind of opportunity we have on our hands? I need you to ask one of them if they could pose for a picture for The Steambird. You’re close to that Navia girl, aren’t you? Archons know that there’s nothing that can get through to Clorinde. Unless, now that she’s getting married—”

Charlotte’s brain finally catches up to Antila’s babbles. “Wait. Getting married?” She furrows her brow and looks around the bustling Steambird. 

“I thought they already were?”

Café Lutece is quiet on Sunday mornings, and it’s something that clearly pleases Clorinde, if the way she casually sips her tea and sighs from across her has anything to say about it. 

Though she still feels as if she has to fight off the rest of her morning sleepiness, Navia couldn’t be more content to be spending her morning and breakfast with her friend. Granted, they’ve been doing so every week without fail, but it’s still a closing wound. 

“How do you like your bulle souffle?” Navia asks, glancing at the food presented in front of Clorinde. She licks her lips and spears a small piece that Clorinde has cut off before Clorinde even gets the chance to respond. 

“It’s quite soft on the tongue,” Clorinde says amicably, and she doesn’t even blink when Navia takes her speared piece and tries it for herself. “Don’t you agree?”

Navia hums as she chews. It’s soft and spongy and delicious, and very much unlike something Clorinde would order for herself. “It’s good,” she replies, shooting Clorinde a mild look, “but if you weren’t hungry, you could’ve said so.”

Clorinde exhales in the form of a laugh. She pushes her plate towards Navia, offering her breakfast food in full, and Navia greedily takes more from her plate. Clorinde, to her credit, doesn’t even look mildly offended. “I couldn’t miss our time together for the world. A few Mora out of my pocket for a breakfast meal wouldn’t hurt in comparison,” she says sincerely. 

“Wow, such a sweet-talker today, huh? Well, I can’t let you go hungry for your efforts,” Navia says with a giggle. She cuts a small piece of her own food, a simple savory omelet, and holds out her fork for Clorinde to take. Though Clorinde shoots her a look, she leans over the table to take a bite. 

Navia takes another bite of Clorinde's souffle next, and the mix of sweet and savory on her tongue from Clorinde’s meal and hers makes her feel like she’s floating. 

“Oh, yum,” Navia comments honestly. She contemplates digging in Clorinde’s sweet treat for another piece, but she knows how fickle Clorinde can get about her food. Unfortunately for her, her wandering eye doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Do you want me to ask for seconds? I know you have a meeting that runs late tonight,” Clorinde remarks, her nimble fingers working over her souffle to cut them up into smaller, bite sized pieces. For whom to eat, Navia couldn’t really tell. 

Navia hums as she thinks about it. “Nah. I could fix up a quick dinner before I head out in any case. I could make you some extras to bring if you’d like,” she replies earnestly. Though she would never admit it out loud, she knows how fondly Clorinde thinks of her cooking, even if she would rather shoot herself in the foot than ask Navia directly for it. 

Predictably, Clorinde says, “I couldn’t intrude.”

“And let you go hungry?” Navia half-exclaims, half-teases. “What kind of friend would I be to do that to you?”

She doesn’t know how Clorinde finds the restraint to keep from rolling her eyes. Clorinde merely sighs a breath through her nose and replies, “Perhaps… dinner at your place sometime this weekend may be something I would enjoy. I do miss your profiteroles after the roast chicken.” 

Navia beams, though she tries to hide the magnitude of her pleasure behind idly playing with her food with her fork. “Wasn’t so hard to say, right?”

This time, Clorinde does manage a slight eye roll. “Once you admit you can’t hold a musket straight as you think, then it could be a conceivable idea.”

“Hey!” Navia exclaims, nearly choking on her food in her haste to retort. “We were thirteen! I’m much better now with a gun than you think I am, Clorinde.”

Clorinde’s eyebrows lift upwards, perhaps in amusement or challenge. “Better than me?”

“Oh, now you know that’s not fair.”

Clorinde hides her smile behind her glass of water. 

The atmosphere between them feels nearly normal. Nearly, anyways. There’s never going back to where they were in the first place, but maybe it’s for the better. Still, she misses when their silence used to be filled with shared tranquility and peace of mind. Now, even with the birds harmonizing their little tunes in the trees nearby and the bustle of the morning crowd’s commute vibrating the earth under their feet, this silence between them feels… charged, in some way.

Clorinde clears her throat, both dispeling the knife cutting between them and replacing it with another cutthroat air.

“How have you been, Navia?” Clorinde asks kindly. She still says it with a kind of hesitance in her voice, even after all this time. Time is still needed to close every wound, she supposes. 

This time, Navia takes more time to think. Usually, she’d respond with something witty, something teasing enough like “Well, it’s only been a week, Clorinde,” but she knows she needs to put her words together carefully this time, in case it would be something Clorinde may take more personally.

 “The Spina di Rosula has been doing well— financially too, nowadays,” she begins, and Clorinde’s shoulders slump just slightly to be noticeable, “I’ve been a lot busier than last week, that’s for sure. Some kid’s poodle got stuck in a tree the other day.” The memory makes the end of her sentence lift with her laughter. 

Clorinde’s face takes on a small, yet genuine smile. “I see,” she says simply. It’s an invitation to keep talking.

“Yup.” Navia shifts in her seat. She plays with her fork, letting it poke around on the food in front of her. It’s a habit that Clorinde zeroes into almost instantly, and she narrows her eyes at Navia’s fork and then to her face. 

“And?” Clorinde says, not forcible enough to sound pressing but convincing enough to feel insightful. 

Navia slumps in her chair and sighs, running her hand down from the side of her face. She rubs a sore spot underneath her eye, and she sees Clorinde sit up stiffly in response. 

“Oh, sit down,” Navia says with the roll of her eyes. “I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. It’s just… annoying.”

“Annoying?” Clorinde echoes. 

Navia purses her lips and says, “If you consider continuously making headlines or columns in The Steambird for little things, yes.”

Clorinde seems to understand, though she tilts her head and stares at Navia to silently ask her to continue. 

“It’s just— ugh,” Navia groans and slumps into her chair even further. She’s lucky that there’s no one around them except for the patrolling garde who seems to be comfortably out of earshot. “You think after getting papa’s name cleared and the work the Spina di Rosula did after everything would stop all the hubbub about me, but jeez, it’s like it’s been the complete opposite! I can’t open a single newspaper without someone talking about where they think my necklace came from, or conspiracies about the Spina di Rosula, or— or anything like that!”

She makes crazy hand gestures as she speaks, a testament to her frustration, and Clorinde quietly nods along and places her chin on her hand. Clorinde’s facial expressions don’t move even an inch, cryptic as always, but Navia finds it a little comforting with its familiarity. 

She doesn’t mention the most damning of such examples— ones where newspapers would comment on her father’s innocence, calling it into question despite its arduous amounts of evidence, and thusly condemning her for existing near it.

Or the fact that they would condemn Clorinde with the same conviction, either in the same breath or the next. If it wasn’t a news article slandering Navia, it was one about Clorinde. Both can be present in the same article in a few instances. 

In the midst of her frustration, the thought gives her pause. It makes her wonder if Clorinde knows that.

Clorinde seems to be reading her mind. “If there was some way I could make those slanderous reports of you disappear, I would do so in a heartbeat.” She frowns and moves her jaw away from her resting hand. “Editorial pieces can be so difficult to deal with, but they aren’t the conclusive opinion of every Fontanian. Those who know you, and I by extension, should know that the things that they’ve read are not the whole truth.”

Navia forces out an exhale. “I guess you’re right,” she mumbles. “It’s a nuisance, but it’s not world-breaking. It sucks that we can’t take them to court for an ‘opinion.’” It makes her chuckle. “Like c’mon, isn’t there a single law out there that says we can take someone to court for the things they’ve written? I may not be the best at everything, but I’m confident I can beat someone in the courtroom. I’m the perfect law-abiding citizen. Never broke a promise, pinky or otherwise, in my life.” 

She puffs out her chest proudly, and she catches the way Clorinde’s lips twitch in a barely concealed laugh. 

She knows for a fact Clorinde doesn’t think she’s that funny. So she narrows her eyes. 

Clorinde looks away. Aha.

“What’s so funny?” she asks suspiciously. 

“I find nothing about your situation funny,” Clorinde says, and wow, she still can’t lie for the life of her. 

Navia merely sits more forward, her eyes boring a hole into the spot between Clorinde’s eyes, and Clorinde is the first to break and look away like Navia had shot a pebble at her. Predictably. 

It makes her smile and lean back against her seat, crossing her arms in satisfaction of the won battle. Some things never change.

Clorinde sighs and gently drops her fork back to her plate. She shifts in her seat a little uncomfortably, and Navia nearly laughs at the sight of her looking to be squirming under her gaze. And then the unthinkable happens— Clorinde inhales again, and when she releases her lengthened breath, she’s laughing.

It’s not nearly loud enough to sound maniacal, but the gentle tinkle of her laugh makes Navia more curious and frustrated about the thoughts going on in Clorinde’s head. When they were younger, she could look at Clorinde and laugh simultaneously with her, their time together practically mushing their brains and thoughts together to transmit them seamlessly. Evidently, they needed more time to get back to that point.

Or maybe Navia already knew what she was thinking about. But confirmation and vindication is always a nice start. 

“What?” Navia demands, though it comes out more like a whine. It does nothing to help her in this situation, though thankfully, Clorinde takes pity.

“Do you remember when we were twelve and the boy across the street was so smitten with you he brought you a fistful of daisies everyday?” Clorinde starts. The ghost of her laughter still lingers on her face in the form of a young smile, and Navia finds herself reflecting back. Clorinde leans her chin against her hand once more, a sign of her relaxation, further backed by the idle, hypnotic movement of her fingered glove running clockwise against the rim of her teacup over and over. 

Navia tears her eyes away to meet Clorinde’s expectant gaze and wrinkles her nose at the memory. “Oh, I remember him. Papa had to kindly, but firmly, ask him to stop loitering on our lawn.” She nearly chuckles. Clorinde at the time had offered to shoo the boy away herself, though she doubts that’s the reason why Clorinde has brought it up now. “What about it?”

“I remember you stormed into my room and screamed into my pillow in your distemper,” Clorinde continues. She seems awfully amused at the memory. 

Navia wrinkles her nose again, but this time at Clorinde. “Are you allergic to bulle fruit? Is that why you’re having random flashes of the past? Do you have a fever?” she asks, mostly in jest. 

Clorinde’s lips twitch briefly. She tilts her head to one side, the sweep of her hair falling over to cover an eye. “After you managed to compose yourself, you turned to me and declared we made a pact. You were quite insistent on shaking on it too.”

It takes only a moment for Navia to go from mildly confused to gaping her mouth open in understanding. Now she understands why it took Clorinde so long to get to the point— the damn woman was trying to tease her. 

“Oh,” Navia says, and she hopes her face doesn’t look as twinged with warmth as it feels, “you mean that thing. Guess we all have our embarrassing kid moments.”

“And it contradicts your claim that you have never broken a promise, ‘pinky or otherwise,’” Clorinde replies graciously. She’s still moving her finger on the rim of her teacup, while Navia’s leg bounces under the table. “As far as I know, we haven’t married at ‘the ripe old age of twenty if neither of us find a suitable partner.’ Why you thought our skin would feel like leather at that age, I will never understand.”

“Hey, are you forgetting I was twelve? And you shook on it with me?” Navia hisses, but most of her venom is non-existent, replaced by the wolfish grin on her face that threatens to spill into a laugh. “Your twenties as a twelve year old is like imagining us at ninety right now. And not to mention I was right! Neither of us are here with a special someone, and we’re way past our twenty-year-old prime.” She says the last fact proudly, even though the waiter that passes them shoots her a pitiful look from the side. She gives him a withering look, and he darts away. 

She can’t read the inscrutable look on Clorinde’s face. It changes with the fact, she knows that much, but she doesn’t understand what emotion Clorinde means to convey. 

Before she could ponder it longer, Clorinde says, “Well, I suppose that isn’t either of our faults. You’re as busy as I am, I’m sure; I can imagine building a relationship in our shoes would prove to be demanding.”

To say Navia is surprised would be an understatement. Since when did Clorinde ever think of relationships? Unless— “Why? Have you been eyeing someone?” she asks suspiciously. She scoots her chair closer to the table in case Clorinde wants to whisper. 

“What? Of course not,” Clorinde counters. Navia narrows her eyes at her. 

“You said that a little quick, don’t ya think?” she accuses.

“I just said we don’t have time for that, Navia,” Clorinde says, exasperated. “If anything, that proves my point more than what nonsense you think is true.”

Navia only hums. “The heart wants what it wants, right?”

Clorinde shoots her an unimpressed look and sips at her tea idly. To compose herself, maybe. Or maybe Navia was just sticking her nose too deep into things. 

“There is no one in Fontaine— or otherwise—” she starts, shooting Navia another look when Navia opens her mouth at Fontaine, “—who I find myself wanting to… get to know. My duties take up too much of my time and I wouldn’t dare try to rope someone into it. Besides, those who are interested in me find that I don’t want to reciprocate, and don’t give me that look— you were complaining about five different proposals just this month.” 

Navia closes her mouth from interjecting. It’s not her fault so many people want to try and take a gander at her Spina di Rosula fortune (which isn’t very much, really, but most people don’t know such privy details, and she isn’t too desperate to let them out either). She’s mostly a little embarrassed that she didn’t think Clorinde would have the same troubles. 

Clorinde is undoubtedly stunning, though Navia had always assumed that her seemingly impassive nature would drive the herd away. Then again, some may be into that. It was definitely what intrigued Navia to become her friend in the first place all those years ago. The fact that others might have thought the same amused her as much as it did to peeve her. For— some reason.

Peculiarly, Clorinde thins her lips and looks away. “Your friendship is… frankly, all I need in that kind of department.”

The admission makes Navia blink and raise her eyebrows. A slow grin spreads across her face.

“Aw, Clorinde,” Navia coos, and Clorinde pointedly looks away from her gaze to sip at her tea. Navia puts her hand over her heart. “My friendship is all you need?” she teases.

“With how many pastries you buy at these places, another friendship could rob me of my mora,” Clorinde says dryly, though with the hint of a half-smile, and Navia laughs behind her hand.

Clorinde lets her laugh long enough for her smile to slowly fade. It settles into a more somber, tight-lipped expression, one that sobers Navia up almost instantly. If there’s anything that hasn’t changed between them, it’s the way Navia can sense her discomfort and vulnerability almost instantly. 

“What we were talking about before, about the newspapers. What they say about you in them, or what they may whisper, and what they may say about me,” Clorinde says, shifting in her seat, “they’ll come and go eventually. I won’t act like it doesn’t sting to glance at headlines on the street, about you especially, but I know you’re stronger than letting some meaningless hearsay bully you around about it. If it comforts you, we’re the center of attention less and less.”

Navia sighs irritably, playing with an earring between her thumb and forefinger. She looks to the horizon instead of Clorinde as she contemplates. It’s true that the rumors and pointing fingers at them are becoming less prominent, especially now that the danger of those days had become stories to tell at dinner tables, but it didn’t mean the sharpness in them had lessened.

It irritated her with how often people chalked Clorinde up to be an unfeeling monster. While headlines about Navia were polarizing, some giving her devil horns but most praising her for her charity, every single instance of Clorinde’s name found on the streets held her down in scalding waters. 

Clorinde clears her throat, forcing her to glance back at her even for half a second. 

“All that matters to me is that you aren’t in harm’s way because of it,” she says, softer than she usually speaks. She licks her lips, looks down, and looks back imploringly into Navia’s eyes. “I wish every Fontanian saw you for the good person that you are, and I’m sure that in time, they will. And if you ever need me, Navia, I…”

Navia stands up and nearly spills her tea in the process, and Clorinde startles. 

With her palms slammed into the table, she blurts out, “We should get married!”

It takes precisely four blinks for Clorinde to say anything. A trail of her tea runs down from her knuckle to the bone of her wrist, though Clorinde doesn’t seem to mind nor care. 

“We should… what?” Clorinde says. 

Navia sits back down, her fast-beating heart spurring her on with adrenaline. She wrings her hands out on her lap and talks excitedly, quick enough that most people probably couldn’t catch up, but thankfully Clorinde had years of practice. 

“Think about it,” she starts, inhaling a deep breath through her nose to begin her animated ramble, “we can’t stop people from talking about us, but we can pivot what they say if we get two steps ahead. All those pesky courters wouldn’t dare touch either of us if we made it known we’re off the market. And there are tax benefits? I think? Right? Whatever. Anddddd, neither of us want to date so no one’s going to be, well, interjecting about it and all. Unless you want to! I’m not going to be offended if you don’t wanna get married to me.” She ends her spiel with an exaggerated pout, meant to make Clorinde laugh. 

Instead, Clorinde frowns. “That… seems like a drastic decision, no?”

Navia deflates a little in her chair like a popped balloon. She rubs the spot in between her eyebrows, pressing her lips together to think of something to say.

Clorinde’s face softens at her sulking face, and she puts down her teacup and says, “It could help, Navia, but understand what you’re wanting us to get into. Divorce proceedings in the court of Fontaine are much more linear than those in other nations, but it’s still time-consuming. We could always pronounce us as in a common law relationship and leave it as such, but marriage is asking too much. It could restrict you, and I—” 

“We don’t have to get divorced, you know that, right?” Navia says, sitting up in her chair. She’s a little more confident in her argument now, and she has all that courtroom practice to thank for it. “It’s not a one and done thing. I don’t know about you— actually, yes I do— but I can’t see myself wooing some other girl with how much I’m away doing presidential stuff. You said basically the same thing like five minutes ago.”

Clorinde regards her with a more open expression. She still looks rather confused at the situation, but she seems to be genuinely contemplating it. Good, Navia thinks. She’s always known she had lawyer persuasion material. 

“Plus!” Navia continues. “It would be a piece of cake acting like we’re in a happy marriage, because we will be. We’ve been best friends for so long that we probably know more about each other than any spouse we’ll ever have in our lifetimes.”

“But—” Clorinde begins.

“And I know what you’re thinking,” Navia says, rubbing her hands together mischievously. Clorinde’s eyes narrow in warning, but Navia calls her bluff when she sees it. “It wouldn’t be hard to show everyone else that we’re in a happy, loving marriage. We practiced how to kiss when we were in lycée, remember? Don’t think I forgot how much you liked it.”

Clorinde, to her credit, is more collected than Navia feels on the inside. Her eyes widen when Navia half-whispers the last two sentences, and she puts down her tea and sputters enough to make Navia laugh.

To put Clorinde out of her poor misery, she leans over the table and takes one of Clorinde’s hands and squeezes between both of hers. 

“We made a pact when we were kids,” she says, tilting her head, “and you don’t seem like the type to go against the law, now are you?”

Clorinde slips her hand away to sigh and pinch the bridge of her nose, and Navia begins to grin. That’s a clear sign that her resolve is breaking. 

Clorinde speaks after a long, drawn moment. 

“Think about it for at least a fortnight,” Clorinde warns. “I have no qualms with it. We have an annulment failsafe to fall back on, and seeing that this can be done non-invasively in the first place, then I would do anything to help you. But I would feel better if you thought longer about it.” 

Navia agrees. 

Though she can’t help but tease Clorinde for thinking so quickly about getting an annulment filed if they need it.

Clorinde just breathes out a laugh and says, “Someone in this marriage has to be the sensible one.”

Exactly two weeks after their conversation, Clorinde finds a ring box buried in the cake that Navia presents to her during an unsuspecting brunch.

And the next morning, on a Tuesday afternoon, their engagement announcement makes headlines. 

Less than a month later, The Steambird pronounces them married, though regrettably not being able to get the inside scoop on the marriage ceremony itself as it was “a private ceremony for the couple and a few honorable guests.” Clorinde and Navia have a laugh about that, as such a ceremony took place in front of Monsieur Neuvillette and two confused but spirited Spina di Rosula members. At least the courtroom wasn’t as stuffy as she thought.

That, and she will never forget the cutting look Neuvillette gave her when she leaned over to Clorinde during the exchange of vows and whispered, “You should start crying so it seems more believable that you’re hopelessly in love with me.”

Or when Clorinde had leaned back over and whispered back, almost vindictively and juvenilely, “Of course. I’ll cry when I am.”

It makes Navia’s laugh echo through the halls.

Their vows were the run of the mill kind, but when Navia slips the ring on Clorinde’s finger, she knows well enough that it would be the kind that they’d follow.

pour avoir
to have

Their first week together as wives was much harder than Navia had anticipated.

Clorinde wasn’t kidding about the paperwork that came with marriage, as well as the compromises for where they would stay and share. They had a bit of a tiff about whose place they’d move into, though Clorinde’s stubborn insistence that Navia let her place in the sewers be her second home and let her place be Navia’s haven, which convinced her enough to pack up half of her things to bring to Clorinde’s. 

Most of their things were easy to divide and conquer, as they’ve been sharing jewelry and clothes ever since they were children, but she didn’t expect the hardest part about married life was to even know where her wife would be throughout the day.

She tries not to let it get to her. She shouldn’t be so irritated about it anyway, as she’s promised Clorinde that they didn’t need to change much of their schedule to fit into their marriage. It’s precisely the flexibility that they can afford each other that makes their marriage such a great idea. 

Navia thins her lips at the thought of that. Well, if Clorinde doesn’t wanna help her unpack her things tonight, then she’s free not to. She’ll just take a walk. Yeah! That will probably help pass the time. 

The Spina di Rosula members had insisted she take the next two weeks off to spend time with her wife on their “honeymoon.” The same had been insisted for Clorinde, though she doubts Clorinde would let herself rest and keep her from justice for longer than a ten minute break, if she can even handle that. 

So, with so much time on hers and nothing else to do after she ticked off crocheting, stitching up torn clothes, and doing half of the unpacking, Navia dusts off her hat and saunters out of the door to go on a nice moonly stroll. 

The Court of Fontaine is especially beautiful at night after the glow of a morning drizzle, and it seems that tonight is no exception. The fireflies light up the reflection of wet pavement, the smell of fresh buns permeating the air, the buzz of idle chatter around her familiar and comforting. Today, when people glance at her, they merely smile and wave. No longer do a few oddballs lean to one another and whisper maliciously about her as she passes. Instead these few whispers sound more delighted than polarizing. 

It seems like the announcement of marriage had indeed created the needed buzz. She couldn’t wait to come home and rub it in Clorinde’s face that she was completely right. 

What was it that The Steambird had called them the other week? “New Power Couple Takes a Stroll in The Park” was it? Corny, but it was better than “Terrorizing Besties Take to the Streets” as she largely would assume. 

Navia smiles at whoever smiles back at her, and she twirls her umbrella over her shoulder as an outward sign of her giddiness. She nearly skips with every step that she takes. 

Admittedly, her walk would feel less lonely with her friend by her side. Her wife now, she has to remember. Though Clorinde often kept her mouth restricted to short replies to Navia’s rants, it always felt comforting to know that she was close to her heel, ready to chuckle or gasp or wittingly reply at any point of her stories. 

As if whispering and calling her name from the wind, a presence warms her left shoulder. She turns her head languidly, a slow smile playing on her lips when she catches Clorinde merely a few steps behind her.

She’s just arrived, Navia could tell, from the way Clorinde is pocketing her gun back into her belt and adjusting her hat. She wonders in what situation Clorinde had to shoot that gun in today.

Clorinde follows her inquisitive gaze, quickening her pace just enough to be shoulder to shoulder with her, and clarifies, “No one is dead. I was merely doing target practice.”

“On…?”

Clorinde shoots her an unamused look. “Targets,” she deadpans. 

Her stony demeanor breaks when Navia giggles, in which Clorinde joins with a small, relaxed smile. They walk for a few paces side by side, enjoying the view of the glassy night and feeling the wind tickle their clothes. She’s always loved these walks with Clorinde, even as a child. It let them both clear their heads of the crazy days they would have. Clorinde used to jest that it would help cool her body down from the many repetitive workouts she’d make herself do. Somehow it was hard to suspend her disbelief that Clorinde would ever need a cooldown from anything— she always seemed much too composed.

“I can’t believe you’re spending our honeymoon doing target practice,” Navia says wryly, though she hopes her relaxed shoulders convey that she isn’t upset at all. 

“Did you know accidents happen on days when couples get married?” Clorinde answers thoughtfully. She tilts her head, her eyes scanning the horizon full of aquabuses making their last trips for the night. 

“Are you saying you’re practicing shooting someone’s head off for me, because we’re married now?” Navia says with the flutter of her eyelashes. “How sweet of you!”

Clorinde exhales, shaking her head and turning away from Navia in amusement. “I mean that some can get too excited on behalf of the couple. We aren’t the only ones in the past few weeks to get married, now that the weather’s holding up. Thievery of wedding gifts can happen in the night. That, and duels can still happen to object to a union.”

“Well, aren’t we lucky that no one came to duel my wife, the Champion Duelist,” Navia says playfully. “How unfortunate would that be?”

Her jokes make Clorinde’s flat smile turn up just a little. She likes seeing Clorinde smile like that. She likes knowing she can make Clorinde’s guard go down, even just a little. 

Navia glances at her hand as they walk. She catches Clorinde’s gloved hand next to the rapier by her hip, and it makes her smile even wider knowing that their ring lies right underneath.

“You know what I’ve been up to all day,” Clorinde finally speaks. “How about you? Need more help unpacking?”

“I got most of my dresses out of the box today. I’ll probably need help flattening them out,” Navia says thoughtfully. She hums as she thinks back to the rest of her day, and she feels a droplet strike her umbrella. Maybe someone’s roof pipe is dripping. “I was showing Furina how to play a card game today. I stitched up a few pants, tried my hand at a new cross stitch and everything. Probably nothing as exciting as you stabbing a sandbag with your rapier over and over between your gun shots.”

Clorinde raises her eyebrows at her. “Long day, I see,” she replies, pointedly not answering to Navia’s tease about her practice. 

“And mostly a boring one,” she complains, her hands playing with the handle of her umbrella. She turns her head to look at Clorinde imploringly. “Can’t you take a few days off for our honeymoon? Even just one? I kinda wanna dust off that old tabletop game we used to play with papa. I wanna try being the dungeon master this time.”

Clorinde seems amused by her interest in a new gamely responsibility. Her hands still clasped behind her back, she says, “I’m sure I have my old notes tucked away somewhere at my— our place. You can study them if you’d like. I wouldn’t be offended if you reused my ideas to organize your campaign.”

“Hey! Unlike you, I have creative ideas on how to keep you on your toes,” she argues. And then she laughs to herself at a new thought. “You wouldn’t last an hour staying alive with me as your dungeon master.”

“Mon amour,” Clorinde says with a hint of a deep chuckle in her voice, “that’s not really a good brag to bring to the table.”

Navia finds herself snapping her mouth shut. 

Their walk is silent, minus the sounds of their shoes striking the wetness of the pavements. 

Clorinde tilts her head and squints at her. When Navia only clears her throat and looks straight ahead, Clorinde says, “I don’t think I’m witty enough for you to warrant that kind of reaction to my jokes. What is it?”

Honestly? Navia doesn’t know. It’s not that she did anything particularly bad. It was just… surprising. Sure, they’ve spoken about using pet names, both to cement their public relationship and as a sort of inside joke, and at the time it seemed like a good idea.

Now, Navia just finds herself trying to unwrap her tongue to say something. “Since when were you the kind of person to sweet-talk in the middle of the street?” she jests, elbowing Clorinde in the side with a light, albeit stiff, laugh.

Clorinde’s brow furrows. It takes her a moment to realize, and her forehead relaxes as she looks at Navia with light mirth. Navia tries to wittingly jab at the face she’s making, but nothing comes out. 

Oh Archons, is being married draining her of her wit?

Eventually, she has enough of Clorinde’s amused stare and retorts, “If you take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Oh good! It isn’t.

“Sorry,” Clorinde says quickly, and she looks away to glance back and forth between the shop signs near them. Her fingers play with the leather of her belt. Clorinde seems to dispel enough of her embarrassment to say, “I just didn’t think you’d be flustered by that, of all things.”

“No I’m not!” Navia exclaims, though her heightened pitch isn’t serving her any admission of innocence. To save face, she racks her brain for something to say and ends up rebutting, “I was just surprised that you were capable of saying anything that wasn’t something like ‘surrender now’ or ‘Navia, you’re holding your gun wrong.’”

She flattens her voice at the end in intimation of Clorinde, and it makes Clorinde scowl. It looks a little cute on her. Like a guard poodle trying to pout. 

She tries to hide her laugh, but a snort makes it way out of her mouth. Clorinde glowers even further. It seems like her teasing of Navia has completely left her mind, replaced with an innate desire to stop Navia from giggling in her face. 

“You’re bold for someone who can’t shoot her gun straight,” Clorinde remarks neutrally, but it’s so childish in nature to say that it catches her off guard. The second time of the night. Not that she’s complaining.

“Oh whoa,” Navia says, her eyebrows raising slowly. Her competitive side is starting to burn deep in her belly, a side that hasn’t reared its head in a very long time. “Are you trying to get me to prove you wrong? Because I can. Right here, right now if you’re not scared,” she teased. 

It seems to dawn on Clorinde how childish they were acting right then in that moment. Her facial features seem to flit between neutrality, horror, and vigor; until eventually, her striking eyes settle on Navia’s face, determined and oh so radiant in its passion. How she’s missed poking at Clorinde to get her like that. 

Maybe it was the honeymoon air that encouraged Clorinde’s hand in this situation, but she eventually accepts Navia’s challenge with a silent handshake to seal their deal and unholsters her pistol. With lightning speed, she loads the chamber and snaps it shut with the flick of her wrist. Navia would be more in awe had it not been for the task at hand. 

She mumbles, “Showoff,” under her breath, and Clorinde casts a sidelong look at her. It makes her grin, knowing that perhaps just for a moment, Clorinde had thought of sticking her tongue out at her. 

Clorinde jerks her head to the side to guide them to an alleyway. The night is quiet, and she doubts they would have anyone watching them from this distance, but she can’t help but ask. “Are you sure no one can hear us here?” She looks around, taking note of the shadows that cast where they are and the boxes that have held bottles on top. 

“In a pinch, I come here for a little target practice,” Clorinde says, rubbing her jaw as her eyes flit between the bottles in front of them. “This long alleyway acts as a natural suppressant to noise. The sharp corners provide cover, which makes it a good illegal meeting spot.”

The last fact makes Navia raise an eyebrow, but Clorinde is quick to add, “Trust me, no one will be here for a long time. I’ve made sure.”

“That’s comforting,” Navia quips. She means it genuinely, but she can’t help but try and tease Clorinde at every turn. Maybe it would break her mentality and she’d miss a shot. “But you’re absolutely sure no one can hear? I’ve heard how loud that thing can get. The last thing I want is for us to get arrested for scaring innocents on our honeymoon,” she says drolly. 

Clorinde is setting the bottles into a straight line as she remarks, “You’re much louder, and no one’s come to check what we’re doing. We’ll be fine, Navia.”

Navia opens her mouth. 

She closes it. 

Thank Celestia that Clorinde is too busy fixing up her line of targets to turn around even just for a second to see the look on her face. She’s certain that it’s not what Clorinde meant, per se, but it’s that unsuspecting touch that makes it even worse. 

Oh, she really needs to beat Clorinde now at their little game. Her dignity hangs in the balance for it. 

“Just know that I’m doing this for you too,” Clorinde says, her chin held high as she polishes the side of her pistol. “As the president of the Spina di Rosula, you’re bound to find trouble at some point if you haven't already, and I would feel better if my wife had the means to defend herself.”

“You really know how to make a girl swoon, Clorinde,” Navia says with a snicker. She puts her umbrella against the wall, crossing her arms to watch Clorinde work. “And don’t worry, you can sleep better at night knowing I can defend myself. Gunbrella? Ring any bells? Remember?”

“You can’t rely on it forever,” Clorinde answers. She glances up long enough to meet Navia’s expectant eyes. “There may come a time where a rusty musket is your only ally. Or, in this case, a pistol.” 

She walks over to Navia, spinning her pistol in a finger before presenting it upside down with the handle up to meet Navia’s hand. Navia curtsies playfully at her, which Clorinde returns with a small smile and a gesture to the bottled targets. 

“There are five bullets in the chamber. Hit as many bottles as you can from this distance,” Clorinde instructs. 

“Hey, wait,” Navia says, lowering the pistol from her prior stance. “What are the terms? What are we wagering?”

Clorinde actually pauses to think about that. “Loser pays for dinner?” she offers.

“Hmm.” Navia hums, then shrugs. “Not… compelling enough.”

Clorinde merely quirks a brow. “Loser pays for dinner… for a week?”

“Clorinde, we go out once a week.”

“Loser cooks dinner for a week?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Navia sets her face into a feigned, worried look. “I’m not sure if your kitchen will survive having you stay in it for that long.”

“Ha ha,” Clorinde dryly laughs. She thinks hard for a moment, looking up to the starry sky, then seems to gather an idea. “How about the loser owes a favor? Any favor.”

“Oooooh.” Now that was interesting. Navia asks, “Any restrictions to that favor before you seal your fate?”

Clorinde gives her a tight-lipped smile, clearly trying not to let herself be goaded into more teasing. Navia’s not sure if her restraint is holding up well though. “We can cross that bridge when we get there,” she says, and Navia grins. 

She positions herself in the middle of the bottles, raising a hand up in the way Silver had taught her. The pistol feels warm in her hand, perhaps due to all the handling from throughout the day by its owner. It’s also quite heavy for something so small, but it’s nothing she can’t handle. 

Clorinde stands off to the side, watching her from the brim of her hat patiently and without another word. Her striking gaze is making Navia sweat a little, but she tries to channel her nervousness into fire. Maybe the will of her mind will make the bullets hit true. It’s certainly her go-to strategy in most cases. 

She fires a shot, and the recoil nearly hits her in the face. Still, a bottle shatters, and she whoops. 

“Did you see that?! I told you I was—”

Navia doesn’t have the time to twirl around and openly goad in Clorinde’s face. Clorinde, for whatever reason, felt it necessary to come up behind her instead, her warm, unyielding hands coming to grip Navia’s elbow and wrist. Clorinde guides her arms farther out, then gently takes the hand at her side to grip the other side of the gun handle. 

Navia can feel her gentle breath against her neck, the warmth radiating from her body close to hers. It makes her hair stand up on end. 

“Shoot,” Clorinde says. The word tickles the shell of Navia’s ear. 

She shoots, and it aims true against a bottle. This time, the recoil isn’t so close to her face. She feels more balanced too. 

“Shooting with one hand is permissible, but it’ll cost stability and control,” Clorinde explains. She lets go of Navia’s hands, stepping back to let her continue. Navia kinda misses the warmth against her back. “Don’t take a hand off of it because you think the smaller size is easier to control.” 

“I thought you weren’t supposed to help your competition?” Navia teases. 

“I’m allowed to get involved if you’re at risk of getting a nosebleed,” Clorinde replies. Navia can hear her laugh a little from behind. 

Navia makes a face, then shoots again. It doesn’t hit a bottle this time, but Clorinde is graceful enough not to say anything. 

She shoots a bottle on the next try, but misses her last shot. All in all, she isn’t as bad as she thought she would be. 

She hands Clorinde back her gun, and to neither of their surprise, she reloads the gun, knocks all five bottles down, reloads it once more, and holsters it in the span of less than eight seconds. 

“The spin you did before holstering wasn’t necessary,” Navia says dryly. But she’s smiling. 

“I’m not sure why you agreed to a wager when you know I’d beat you,” Clorinde answers, once again ignoring her quips. “I didn’t say anything because of it. But you couldn’t help but insist, hmm?” At least she sounds amused by it. 

That was really all Navia wanted. She just wanted to spend some time with her. 

And if giving Clorinde a favor had to be done to make it work, well. 

“I’m just a little curious about what favor you wanna cash in,” Navia says truthfully. She goes to pick up her umbrella, but Clorinde beats her to it— she even opens it up for her before giving it back. “And honestly? I just wanted to see how great of a marksman people say you are.”

“Did you have doubts?” Clorinde asks, only curiously. They’re shoulder to shoulder again, walking home together without having to ask the other. 

“You weren’t half as good at hitting those bottles when we were kids,” Navia teases. 

“Hmm. And you’re just as bad as I remember,” Clorinde replies with a relaxed smile. “But at least you’re making amends for it now.”

“What can I say? I had a good teacher.”

“Giving me compliments won’t make me rethink about your favor.”

“Aw, boo.” Navia looks around them for a moment. Fontaine is still lively this time at night, and she knows for a fact that there’s a few places around them still serving crepes. “Hey. How do you feel about extending our night together for a little longer?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” Clorinde is instantly to say. “What do you propose?” Ha. 

Navia taps the underside of her chin playfully, then takes her hand and tugs her in another direction. “Come have dinner with me. A proper honeymoon dinner,” she insists, but turns back to look at Clorinde with a more flattened smile. “What do you think?”

Clorinde exhales, almost fondly, at her antics. “You have me,” she only says. “Just take us where you’d like.”

et tenir de ce jour vers l'avant
and to hold from this day forward

They settle nicely into their arrangement after a few months. Just as Navia predicted, it wasn’t completely divorced (heh) from how they acted to one another before slipping on their rings. They continued to eat at cafes together, nagged at each other, spent time learning and navigating new tabletop games— all the things that came with their friendship, except now they have shiny, matching rings. 

And live together. 

And sometimes pose together for photographers on the street. 

And kiss for said photos. 

But hey, at least coming home isn’t nearly as quiet as it used to be, even if Clorinde insists she’s quiet as a mouse. Her presence alone makes lounging around after a long day feel much warmer and gentler on her aching muscles. Sometimes literally, as Clorinde had insisted on massaging her a few times. Something about always needing to take care of herself and that muscles need rest, and yada yada.

Today, Clorinde greets her and hangs her hat by their door. Navia doesn’t move from her comfortable seat on the couch, but she waves Clorinde over and points at the cookies she made on the coffee table. Clorinde hums satisfactorily, bending down to take a piece. To this day, Navia can’t tell if Clorinde always makes sure to eat at least a bite of her food out of politeness or because she wants to. Maybe she should ask. 

Before she could open her mouth, Clorinde says, “I’ve thought about that favor this morning.”

Navia is momentarily confused. She tilts her head, but it comes to her when Clorinde sits next to her on their couch and the scent of her sweet perfume brings her back to the whispered breath against the back of her ear. Navia clears her throat and squeaks, “You have?”

“Yes,” Clorinde replies, mildly amused. She licks her upper lip to relieve it of any cookie crumbs. “Monsieur Neuvillette has asked if I would like to… mingle, at a formal event at the Opera Epiclese. Your charm would certainly help in an event like this.” 

“My charm?” Navia teases.

“With the yellows you wear, I think it would be impossible not to have a crowd attracted to you.”

Navia giggles. Well, Clorinde definitely seems to be in a good mood if her banter had anything to say about it. Her high spirits, even if Clorinde always wanted to mask them, are contagious. It makes it hard to say no to her, even if the favor is clearly… grandiose in nature. 

“I guess your favor could’ve been a lot worse. Sure. When is it?” Navia says amiably. She reaches over and grabs two cookies, holding one out to Clorinde. 

Clorinde takes it then answers, “Two weeks from now. Since you’re only busy in the evenings this week, we could head down to a boutique together in the morning to find something to wear. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the event, I was told we’d need something more frilly than what we have in our closets.” She looks to be nearly rolling her eyes. 

That makes Navia frown. She chews on her cookie while she thinks of the best way to put it. Clorinde is simply looking out the window, enjoying her second helping of Navia’s cookies with her leg over the other. She can tell Clorinde feels at home in that moment with her, and it makes her feel a little bad for wanting to say what she does. 

“Clorinde,” she starts gently, and the tone in her voice makes Clorinde turn to look at her with a pinched brow. “I might have to sit this one out.”

“Is something wrong?” Clorinde asks, her body shifting to face her now that Navia seems a little unsure. 

“No, not at all! I would’ve loved to go with you!” Navia says, shaking her head and gesturing so violently that she’s surprised she hadn’t flung her cookie yet. “I just can’t— I don’t think… I can, y’know, buy a new dress.”

Clorinde’s brow furrows more at that. It takes her a moment, and her mouth opens slightly in understanding. 

To Navia’s surprise, she laughs. 

“Mon cœur, I was going to buy the dress for you,” she says, and something about the gentleness in her voice makes Navia’s stomach warm. Maybe her cookies were still a little hot. “You don’t need to worry about anything. The dress, the invitation— they’re all paid for.”

That makes Navia’s shoulders slump in relief. “I can’t just let you pay for everything,” she argues. 

The side of Clorinde’s lips slowly tug upwards. “It’s my favor to ask,” she says matter-of-factly. Clorinde wipes her lap off of any unsuspecting cookie crumbs, then removes her leg from on top of her thigh. 

“What am I, your trophy wife?” Navia jokes.

Clorinde’s eyes narrow. Something in the way she sits herself next to her makes her seem more rigid at that, and Navia instantly recognizes that she’s made the wrong choice of jests. 

“You’re so much more than that, but I know you don’t need me or anyone else to remind you of it,” Clorinde says. “Wife or not, I would have taken you to those restaurants and paid for any of your amusements all the same.”

That makes Navia melt. Such a swoon-worthy woman that her friend could be. It almost makes her feel bad that she’s taken Clorinde off the market because she doubts another woman in Fontaine could treat another as lovely as this. 

(Almost.)

“Are you sure you don’t want me to pay you back half?” Navia asks worriedly. The last thing she wants is to overstep any of Clorinde’s kindness.

Clorinde waves her hand to dismiss the mere idea. “I will take care of everything,” she says simply, as if it isn’t the kind of words every woman would have wished for their spouse to say on spontaneous shopping trips. “All I want is for you to show up and help me from stumbling on my words.”

That makes Navia laugh. “Honestly, I think you need less of me saving you from a conversation and more of you getting yourself out there. Wine can help more than you think.”

Clorinde sighs, but she amuses Navia with the thought anyway. “I can hold a conversation fine,” she says, then shoots Navia a look when Navia looks at her in quiet, mock disbelief. “I just think it would be nice to have conversations dispersed between the two of us rather than just at me.”

“Why go if you don’t even like these kinds of things anyway?” Navia asks her curiously. Even as kids, Clorinde would only go to social gatherings if her master made her. Or if it was Navia’s birthday party, but that came with the best friend deal. 

Clorinde makes a noise of acknowledgement at the question. “You could say it’s part of my job.”

Navia nods at that, looking away from Clorinde to survey the interior of their shared home. Pictures of them are hung on the walls, as well as paintings and decor that Navia had brought with her. The air smells like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. 

What kind of wife would she be to deny Clorinde of her favor?

So she says, “Alright, so. What time do you wanna head to the boutique tomorrow? I wanna make sure we have enough time to put a mud mask on before we go.”

They arrive at the boutique at ten o’clock in the morning the next day, right on the dot. 

Navia yawns as a woman takes measurements right under her armpit. Kiara, the Melusine, is finding fabrics somewhere behind. Clorinde is reading a book on the couch close by, having already finished with having her measurements and colors chosen for the opera night. Being the simple woman she is, Clorinde foregone the furls requested for the event and chose the “black tie” option in the black tie attire dress code. 

Meanwhile, Navia couldn’t simply resist getting as many curls as possible in her dress. At least, more than in her usual outfits. 

“We could fashion some yellow into your dress, Demoiselle,” the seamstress says genially, unfurling her measuring tape to take measures of her hips. “Would you prefer more of a mustard, amber, lemon, or gold kind of palette?”

“Hmm…” Navia pretends to think hard about it, then turns her attention to the still-reading Clorinde. 

“Ma choupette,” she calls, loud and embarrassingly sweet. It has the effect that she’s hoped for, and Clorinde startles and looks up from her book. She doubts Clorinde had stepped into the boutique looking to be called something so sickeningly sweet in front of her regular seamstress and the customers inside. 

“Yes?” Clorinde says, chagrined. Though her voice is leveled with her calmness, her eyes pierce into Navia’s as if to warn her. 

“Would you prefer if I wore mustard, amber, lemon, or gold?”

At that, Clorinde dissolves into confusion and alarm. “I… well…” 

Then Clorinde’s mouth seems to dry, and she bookmarks her page with her thumb and closes the book onto it. She sits up more straight, looking between the seamstress and Navia like a distressed loose dog in the alleyway. 

Navia graciously turns back to the seamstress and confidently says, “Gold accents would be stunning.”

“Certainly,” the seamstress says, barely concealing her giggle behind her hand. “Gold will complement the subtle purples in your wife’s blazer. You have an eye for beauty.”

“Thank you,” Navia says with a little happy nod of her head. “It’s all thanks to you, really. Your dresses on display are magnificent. I would’ve bought them all myself!” she exclaims.

When she turns back to look at Clorinde, who’s still sitting there with a flat look, Clorinde mouths, You are impossible.

Navia just blows her a kiss. 

She wonders if her little stunt will make Clorinde feel vindictive enough to make her spend her own money on the dress, but she’s prepared for it. And it was worth it, in any case. 

Instead, Clorinde speaks quietly to another woman near the door while Navia ties loose ends about her outfit with the seamstress, and she makes her way back to Navia’s side without uttering another word. 

Clorinde takes her hand and walks them outside, and just as the door jingles to signify their exit, the seamstress happily calls, “Come back any time, Demoiselle! Your wife has paid for your next three outfits in advance!”

The day of the opera house gala comes much sooner than Navia expects. Clorinde had reassured her over and over that it was nothing more than a gathering between Fontanian representatives and those overseas to fortify ties, but if anything, the idea makes her skin crawl even more.

With the Opera Epiclese looming closer and closer, Navia gulps. Her mind runs wild. What if the Mondstadt representatives ask her about her favorite food and her mind goes blank? Do Inazumans like pastries? Can she talk about pastries? What if offering pastries were a sign of war? 

Clorinde puts a hand on the spot between Navia’s shoulder blades. The damn dress is backless, so Navia can feel the fabric of Clorinde’s silk gloves, and the warmth that lies inside those gloves. 

It makes her breathe a little easier. 

“I should’ve never let you win that stupid bet,” Navia whispers close to Clorinde’s face. 

Clorinde breathes out a short laugh. Even in her amusement, Navia can see the quiet concern reflected in her eyes. “We don’t have to go,” she says gently.

They stop at the entrance, the Fontainian closeby masking their conversation. Navia is grateful for it. There were too many people milling around them for her to feel completely vulnerable. How many national representatives were here anyway? It seemed excessive. 

She doesn’t realize she was blabbering it out loud until she sees Clorinde’s eyebrows raise in mild amusement.  

“Nothing you say to them will get you called for a public execution,” Clorinde says to her. “I’ve met most of them. Most make drab conversations, but you always know how to turn those kinds of conversations around.”

“Thanks,” Navia says quietly. She hugs her arms and runs her fingers up and down her bare skin. The sun is only beginning to set, which meant that the night would only become colder from here. She’d rather stumble through a conversation than freeze out here, she decides. “Let’s go inside?”

Clorinde gives her a small smile. “There’s my girl,” she says in a low voice. Navia knows the comment was meant to rib at her, a small joke meant to make her roll her eyes, but all it does is lift Navia’s spirits. 

They head inside, her arm wrapped around Clorinde’s extended elbow, and Clorinde doesn’t even have to present her invitation before bodyguards usher them deeper inside. 

Navia nearly gasps when she heads inside. There are easily dozens of people crammed into this space, all talking and milling around and socializing. A quartet is playing a nice, gentle melody in the back. There’s a refreshment table in the corner, full of cupcakes and wine towers that shine under the chandelier. A sign in the corner suggests that there’s a complementary theater in the opera house showing at midnight for the guests. The idea excites her, and she wonders if Clorinde would like to stay with her for that.

Clorinde follows her gaze and sees the sign. “We have front row seats,” she says as she leans into Navia’s ear. “I asked for a few more… favors.”

“You never fail to surprise me, huh?” Navia says. 

Clorinde just shrugs, but she still seems a little proud of herself for that. It’s cute, Navia thinks.

They spend about an hour (or at least, she thinks it’s been an hour) walking around the floor, introducing themselves over and over to different people. Most of them are kind, and nearly every conversation only lasts five minutes at most. Conversations themselves are surface-level, as to be expected from these kinds of gatherings, but Navia makes do with what she can to turn herself into every conversation. And surprisingly, there are some who know her by name. 

Two women from Mondstadt, one with a suit nearly as regal as Clorinde’s, greet them happily, wishing for their long marriage as they have themselves. It seems as if The Steambird has an audience outside of Fontaine. 

Clorinde leans close to her and whispers names in her ear whenever they get the chance. Clorinde tells her stories of people in the room, making her giggle and swat at Clorinde’s arm when she says something just a little too dry about a person. They don’t ever stray too far from one another. 

It’s only until Monsieur Neuvillette himself requests for Clorinde’s attention privately. Clorinde seems hesitant to reply, but Navia nods her head encouragingly to wave her away. 

“I’ll be fine,” she says sincerely. “I’ll just find us some more drinks.”

Clorinde nods silently, but then hesitates again. Navia thinks she’s rethinking leaving her alone in the room, but she’s pleasantly surprised when all Clorinde needed was to press a kiss to her shoulder and to tell her to “keep out of trouble.”

Neuvillette watches the exchange with a neutral expression, but his eyebrows jump upwards in both surprise and amusement at Clorinde’s peck. Clearly, he too wasn’t expecting any sort of PDA from their Champion Duelist. Perhaps that was exactly why Clorinde wanted to mess with him, especially when Navia knows that she harbors a silent grudge against him for calling her in the middle of their dinner twice this month. 

Navia sighs deeply when they turn and leave. Now that Clorinde is gone, there isn’t much around the room to entertain herself with. She misses Silver and Melus in these kinds of situations. At least they were willing to lend their ears for anything she had to say when she was bored. 

She blinks away the sorrow, then squares her shoulders and determines herself to distract herself in the meantime. Maybe she can try some wine tasting at the table over there. 

She isn’t alone picking a glass in the corner. There’s a man leaning against a pillar, swirling his wine and watching the crowds in front of them like a wolf stalking prey. 

He seems a little too scary for her tastes, but on further inspection, Navia tilts her head and tries not to laugh. Aw, he reminds her of Clorinde sulking at parties. 

“Not a fan of the wine either?” he asks, pointing at the glass in her hand.

“Huh? Oh,” Navia says dumbly, and she takes a sip to see what he means. It’s definitely bitter. She makes a face and hoarsely adds, “Definitely not.”

He laughs. When he turns his body to face her, Navia finally realizes who he is.

“What are you doing up in the surface world, Wriothesley?” she asks, confused. The last time Clorinde spoke about him, it was about some other stupid bet they made in his fortress. 

Wriothesley shrugs. “I was invited.”

Not much of a talker either. Just as she remembered him to be. “Are you watching the show here at midnight? You could sit with me and Clorinde.”

“Ah. I’d love to, but I don’t want to scare everyone if I start snoring in the middle of it,” he says. “I get sleepy after midnight.”

It makes Navia chuckle. “Better than spending a night in your office, right?”

Wriothesley hums, a small, polite smile making its way onto his face. “The chair’s not as bad as you think. The cafeteria chairs on the other hand? Neck breaking.”

“I’d rather not think about how it feels to be in that fortress, thanks,” Navia says with a quick shudder. 

“It’s not as bad as you think,” Wriothesley says benignly. “If you ask me, I think you’d make yourself right at home down there.”

When Navia stares at him incredulously, Wriothesley laughs. She laughs with him, albeit more confusingly. She’ll never understand how that man’s brain works, but at least she never has to. 

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I’d find you here of all places,” Wriothesley says honestly. He’s swirling his wine glass again. “But then again, the Spina di Rosula’s affairs are your own, and as are mine.”

“Oh, I’m not here on business. Technically,” Navia corrects. She takes another sip of her wine and instantly regrets it, but she manages to swallow it down. “I’m here as Clorinde’s plus one.”

“Really?” Wriothesley says, nothing in his voice giving anything away. 

“I mean, we are married, right? Who else would she be going with to these things?” she jokes, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She hopes Wriothesley doesn’t smell the nervousness coming from her voice. From the way he was staring at her, she’s half-afraid that he would call her a little suspicious. 

“No one,” Wriothesley says. 

Navia waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “Huh?”

“No one,” Wriothesley repeats. A waiter passes by, and he hails him over long enough for the waiter to take his wine glass. In the meantime, Navia finds herself still confused. “She never goes to stuff like this.” 

“But—” Navia furrows her brow in confusion. But Clorinde said she didn’t mind events like this. If she didn’t need to go, then why would she—

Wriothesley lets out a breath of laughter. “Honestly, I never believed all those stories in the newspaper about Clorinde following you around like she’s leashed to your heel, but I’m looking at living, breathing proof of it,” he says, his eyes scanning around them. Then he looks down at her glass of wine, and he continues, “Uh… I was going to say that I wanted to toast you for having such an enamored wife, but.”

Navia laughs. She holds out her glass of wine to humor him anyway. “We’re just here for the heck of it, Wriothesley. Nothing else.” 

But the thought of remembering how Clorinde spoke to her the entire night, in the tone she seldom uses to tease her for the sake of being ridiculous like they were school kids again, makes her heart feel electric. 

“If you insist,” Wriothesley says. 

She wonders why his sentence is so stippled, but the answer comes in the form of a hand finding its home between her shoulder blades. 

Clorinde’s gloved thumb caresses slowly at her skin as she says, “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“Clorinde,” she breathes, and she turns just enough for Clorinde’s hand to run down her back to grasp at her hand.

Her face gives nothing away, but her eyes never leave her. She brings Navia’s hand up to her face and kisses right where the wedding ring lies. Navia can’t tell if it’s intentional. 

Wriothesley clears his throat, halfway between being annoyed and pleased at the scene unfolding in front of him. 

Clorinde’s eyes shifts over to him, as if he’s a second thought. Somehow the idea alone makes Navia want to start giggling. 

Clorinde nods and regards him. “Are you staying for the show after? There’s an empty spot next to me and my wife.”

There’s almost like a forceful vigor when Clorinde grinds out the word, wife. 

Navia curls an eyebrow at her in question, but Clorinde doesn’t look at her. 

“Funny,” Wriothesley says. “Navia just said the same thing.”

“And he said he was scared he’d start snoring,” she adds for him. Clorinde briefly looks as if she’s going to laugh, but she composes herself when Wriothesley looks sharply at her. 

“Unfortunate that you won’t be coming,” Clorinde says, in a way that suggests it really isn’t. 

“I agree,” Wriothesley says. 

Navia looks back and forth between them, their silent, staring showdown confusing her to no end. 

It’s Wriothesley who breaks eye contact first. He visibly relaxes, then looks at Navia and says, “Well, I’m pooped. I’ll be heading back in a bit.”

“Oh. Already?” she asks, a little disappointed. She knows the man can be a little abrasive to speak to, but he was one of the only people there besides Clorinde she could have a longer conversation with besides the formalities.

“I’m sure your wife will take great care of you in the meantime,” he says. He says it with a hint of irony. Clearly, whatever Navia misses, it makes Clorinde look as if she wants to usher Wriothesley out himself. 

“Get home safe!” Navia calls after him, and he merely raises a hand to wave without turning to look back at the pair. 

Navia turns to Clorinde, who seems to be inspecting the wall’s paintings. “What was that about?” she accuses. 

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she answers easily, then takes Navia’s hand. “Come with me. We can start finding our seats.”

Navia vows to ask her again after the show, but the thought of it is pushed to the back of her mind when she enters deeper into the opera house and finds gorgeous red curtains staring back at her from the stage. Clearly, they wanted to keep the play a surprise. 

It excites her to know that this would be the first play she’d be sitting down to see for the first time in forever. From the way Clorinde turns to look back at her once in a while as they settle down, Clorinde knows it too. 

The play is as magical as she expects it to be. It’s one about a knight and her princess, and the travels they take around their kingdom. It’s wickedly romantic, and she wonders if Clorinde had known about the plot of the play the entire time, because she only ever turns to look for Navia’s reactions during gasp-worthy scenes. 

Clorinde’s hand is in hers for the majority of the play. It’s cool and heavy in her hand, but she prefers it that way. It anchors her to her seat, reminding her that she’s watching a play not alone in an empty theater house, but with a friend who earnestly listens to the whispered theories and side comments in her ear. 

A friend whom she loves and makes her feel like the princess in the play. 

She wonders what that makes Clorinde. 

And it’s Clorinde who seemingly voices those thoughts out loud. 

“Does this make up for dragging you around all night?” she murmurs in Navia’s ear. Her hot breath is warm against the side of her cheek. 

Navia lets out a hearty laugh. She doesn’t really care if anyone around her hears. “You’re lucky the answer is yes.”

“Do I make for a decent wife?” Clorinde asks, jokingly. But it's the underlying worry in it that softens Navia’s face. 

“The best,” she says, and she’s not so surprised at the sincerity in her tone. 

pour meilleur
for better

What’s that saying that Navia always hears in passing when she walks through the streets? 

Something about how the first months of marriage are done in bliss, like a prolonged honeymoon. 

That’s certainly true for her and Clorinde. 

Because why else would she be in the kitchen so early in the morning, baking macarons after Clorinde had offhandedly told her that she was craving them the night before? Something about being a wife has certainly been making her do things that she wouldn’t do before. 

Then again, when they were teenagers, she stayed up making a tower of macarons for Clorinde’s birthday but— listen, that was completely different.

She yawns as she pipes the first test batch in front of her. Even the birds aren’t chirping outside of the window yet, and she’s jealous of them for getting to sleep in. 

Oh Archons, how she wished she slept in today. She’s almost beginning to regret it, knowing that someone might call her in at any point today for work; that, and remembering how gently Clorinde was caressing her bare skin from underneath her loose shirt while they cuddled in bed earlier that morning. She has a feeling that Clorinde was blissfully unaware of her slumbering actions (and it makes her giggle to think about the headlines about the Champion Duelist being such a little spoon cuddle bug), and she’d rather not be the one to break that kind of news to her. 

Navia feels a presence loom over her shoulder. 

She doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. She yawns again and greets, “Good morning, ma puce.”

Clorinde bends down even more to check what she’s done. Navia can smell her perfume like this. Pretending not to hear another one of Navia’s awful pet names (which she’s been doing more and more lately, for the heck of it), Clorinde says, “What are you doing up so early making this?” She sounds both amused and concerned. 

Navia, in her sleep-deprived state, has no worries about being frank. 

So she answers, “Our anniversary is today.”

Clorinde freezes. 

Navia turns around to look at her, just to see how she’s choosing to react. Clorinde tilts her head in confusion (like a puppy, Navia thinks and nearly laughs in her delusional and sleep-deprived state of mind) and digests Navia’s words carefully. 

“Our wedding anniversary isn’t for another six months,” she says with a hint of doubt, like she’s worried that she’s getting the date wrong all along. 

It’s cute, and it makes Navia laugh. “No, silly, it’s our monthsary. As in, we got married on the same day of the month.” 

That only seems to confuse Clorinde even more. “You haven’t done anything like this before,” she points out. “You’ve greeted me in passing, but nothing like this.”

“True, but it’s never too late to start a new tradition, right?” Navia says, and she pipes out some ganache to spread it liberally on Clorinde’s upper lip. To her amusement, Clorinde seems to have no qualms with what she’s done and simply licks her lip to get it off. 

“Anything I should know about why you want a new tradition?” Clorinde asks her suspiciously. 

She sets her chin high and sniffs, pretending to be upset. “Well, if you didn’t wanna celebrate a day dedicated to our love that badly, then you should have said so,” she says ostentatiously. 

She side-eyes Clorinde to look for her reaction, and she almost giggles at the frown painted on those lips. And the little speck of ganache left on a corner. 

“I just didn’t know monthly anniversaries were important to you,” Clorinde replies, a little sadly, as if Navia had kicked her in the side. 

Navia softens at that. She huffs good-naturedly then says, “I just like that having excuses to celebrate good things. It’s… nice to have that option, especially with you. I can’t exactly celebrate a lot of things in my life without having someone by my side to celebrate it with.”

Clorinde stares at her. Her gaze is softer than it was before. Navia blames the look on her face as stemming from sleepiness, despite the fact that Clorinde was a much, much happier early bird than she could ever be.

Navia clears her throat, her eyes locking back onto the macarons in front of her. While she pipes, she tries to pitch her voice back up and continues, “And hey, you could just consider this kind of thing my version of making excuses to make more food. I can’t imagine anniversaries being up your alley, y’know, with all the mushiness and talking about feelings.”

And while she loves to openly tease about it, she can’t imagine anyone really wanting to celebrate a very much highly platonic but very loving marriage. It’s a done and done type of deal, like when school children announce themselves as best friends and never bring it up again because it’s already been assumed. 

(Except everyone in Fontaine loves to bring up their marriage for them at least once a day, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms that Navia doesn’t want to think about so early in the morning.)

Clorinde fidgets with the top button of her dress shirt while she regards Navia with an inscrutable look. From her lesser formal attire, Navia could gander that she only had something quick to attend to that day. It makes her want to ask Clorinde to spend some time together, but she’s already pushed her luck enough today. 

“I’m not good with talking, sure, but—” Clorinde starts, and she reaches over the counter to grab an empty macaron shell and offers it to Navia’s mouth. Navia is startled, but once she recovers, takes a bite out of her own creation. 

As she chews, Clorinde lightheartedly says, “Happy wife, happy life.”

Navia swats her arm with the limp piping bag, but Clorinde only exhales out an amused laugh. “I’ll be home sometime mid-afternoon. If you’re not home late, I’d love to take you out for dinner. We can even tell them it’s our anniversary— I’m sure they’d be more than willing to give us a complimentary dessert to split for it. How does that sound?” she asks this time, her voice more gentle and still twinged with the huskiness of sleep. 

It melts something in Navia’s stomach, like sugar in a pot. “Y— yeah, that would be great,” she says, a half octave higher than her voice ought to be on such a sleepy morning. 

Clorinde shoots her a docile smile. “Great,” she repeats. “I’ll see you then, Navia.”

She makes a move to step out of Navia’s little bubble, but Navia clamps her fingers around Clorinde’s wrist and exclaims, “Wait!”

At Clorinde’s curious look, Navia turns around to face her and presses a kiss to the corner of her lips. 

Clorinde stays still when Navia pulls back to lick her lips. 

Navia giggles at the way she looks. “You had a little something over here,” she says amusingly, pointing at the corner of her own lips. She smacks her lips and brightens, then adds, “Perfect amount of sweetness too! Thank goodness. I wasn’t looking forward to redoing a whole new batch of ganache for the macarons.”

“Right, of course,” Clorinde says quickly and distractedly. She breaks eye contact with Navia, her eyes wide and scanning the room before she marches over to their coat rack. 

Clorinde’s eyes are still sweeping the room. Navia takes pity on her. “If you’re looking for your hat, it’s on top of our dresser,” she calls out.

“Oh. Thank you,” Clorinde says dumbfoundedly. She nods just as stiffly at Navia, then marches into their bedroom and comes out with her wanted hat and a simpler coat.

“Will you be alright here?” Clorinde asks, glancing between her and the mess of the counter. 

Navia waves off her worry. “When you come home, you’ll have a plate of these delicious monsters waiting for you,” she says proudly. Then she deflates, and adds in a mumble, “The clean-up is going to kill me though.”

Clorinde hums as she comes back to Navia’s side, a hand fiddling with the position of the hat on her head. “Well, thank you for making the sacrifice to make some delicious macarons,” she murmurs close to Navia’s ear. “Happy anniversary.”

Navia suppresses a shudder. She bumps Clorinde’s hip and gently says, “Happy anniversary to you too, you goof. Now get to work.”

Clorinde chuckles. “Yes, ma’am.”

She tips her hat at her, a gesture both playful and gentle after the amount of times Navia had teased her about her attachment to it, and Navia pretends to swoon. Clorinde huffs in the form of a brief laugh.

“Be safe!” Navia calls out for her, and Clorinde replies in likeness, albeit with a little haste, just as they’ve always done for the last six months of their marriage. 

When the door closes, Navia looks back down at her half-finished macarons. She certainly had her work cut out for her. She sighs. 

The things she does for her marriage. 

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts and hype herself up to make another batch, Navia gets to work. 

It takes about two hours for her to make the perfect batch. She usually wouldn’t take that long to make something she’s so accustomed to baking, but it had to be perfect. In all honesty, she wasn’t sure why she was so insistent on celebrating their anniversary today. Waking up next to Clorinde wrapped around her, like she had been during sleepovers in their youth and nearly everyday since they’ve married, felt different today. 

Tucking back Clorinde’s strand of hair and letting her sleep in while she snuck out to bake her something in surprise felt thrilling, to put it simply. Thrilling, and like her heart couldn’t stop wanting to break right out of her chest. She wonders how people actually in love have managed their relationships like this. She loves Clorinde like a friend, and yet her own heart feels like it’s being baked into every macaron she bakes. 

At least, she’s certain her love is that way. 

Loving Clorinde like this has been all she’s known since she was a child. Nothing feels different, or at least nothing should feel different. After all, people say they marry their best friend all the time. It’s not as if they changed overnight after signing their names together in a marriage certificate. 

But she can’t help but think, while she stacks the last of her macarons onto a large plate, if this is what they mean by being in a long, happy marriage. She was certainly happy being with Clorinde. Would there be a difference if she had felt that way as her wife rather than her best friend? 

Was she happier as her wife than her best friend?

In the midst of her musings, Navia feels the sluggishness beginning to take up most of her body. She dumps her used baking utensils into the sink, then stares down at the black hole full of dishes to wash in front of her. 

Maybe she can clean this up and do some more thinking after a short, well-needed nap. 

So Navia drags herself into bed, crashes against her side of it, rolls into a tight, warm blanketed hug, and falls asleep. 

When she wakes, the birds are no longer singing outside of her window. The room is illuminated in moonlight instead, the slight orange-hue in the horizon suggesting that she had just narrowly missed the sunset. So much for a quick nap. 

And oh— their date! 

Navia rips the blanket off of her body and jumps out of bed in record time. Sweating from being wrapped up in bed for so long and her head still dizzy with sleep, Navia stumbles into the kitchen with her heart thrumming in her chest. The last thing she wanted is for Clorinde to come home with dirty dishes piling up the sink. What an awful impression that would make for an anniversary. What would Clorinde say?

And to her surprise, there aren’t any dirty dishes at all. Or dirt, really. 

The sink is empty, the countertops are clean, and the dining table is free of any mess. For a moment, she wonders if she had cleaned up the place in her sleep, until she notices the plate of macarons sitting nicely on the middle of the table. She would rather go blind than eat any of Clorinde’s macarons first before her wife gets to have any, and such a plate of macarons has been half eaten in its wake. That could only mean that Clorinde had helped herself to a generous serving after cleaning up. 

And to further serve her mystery case, a small basket of clementines sits next to the macarons. There’s a folded note sitting on top of the fruits, and Navia takes it in her curiosity. 

Mon amour,

I will be gone only for a little while to take care of a dispute. We have a dinner reservation at 8 p.m. sharp. If you are not up an hour before then, I’ll make sure to wake you. But considering that you may be reading this note awake and not sleep-walking or eating through our kitchen, I don’t think we have to worry about that. Wear the lipstick that you

Happy anniversary.

Clorinde has her name signed at the bottom with her little cursive signature. It makes Navia snort. As if she needed to sign a note like that to let her know who it’s from. 

It seems as if Clorinde took her role as a good wife as seriously as she did. Perhaps she was wrong to assume that their married life would seem so predictable. Clorinde, the wife, is somehow much more… charming than Clorinde, the best friend. 

Navia doesn’t know how to make of it. 

All she knows is that she can’t help the giddy smile from reaching her face, and that she can’t stop herself from pressing the brief note close to her chest where her heart lies.

ou pour le pire
or for worse

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows for every day of their married life, however. 

To think that their marriage would be saved from such petty spouse arguments was a mistake to assume on her part. 

They aren’t married in the sensible, most common way, but they’re close, as close as two people can get from the affairs of the heart. That meant that certain things could cut them deep, and today seems to be no exception. 

Navia rubs her eyes and continues to mix her dry ingredients in the bowl, blinking her way through the rest of the recipe. Her arm feels tired, but she pushes through the pain.

Clorinde is nowhere to be found, of course. 

They had a fight that morning— about what, Navia could hardly remember, and she wonders if that’s on track for many spousal arguments in general. But it irritates her— no, upsets her— to know that they’ve been avoiding each other instead of coming to fix it. They should be better than that, but here she is, alone in their big home, because neither of them wanted to extend that olive branch. How can she blame Clorinde for the situation when she’s just doing the exact same thing?

All she remembers is that fact that the past week had been rough on her, and Clorinde slipping off for work had grated on her one too many times. It had been the match that sparked, fusing it between them over breakfast when she made a snarky comment about Clorinde’s duties. She had anticipated— hoped, more like— that Clorinde would be the sensible pair of the two and defuse the bomb that was beginning to trickle into an explosion. Instead, Clorinde had snapped back at her, not veiling her pleasantries enough that Navia could hear the words “childish” and “ignorant” in between her spats of words even if she hadn’t used them.

Like a house of cards, one thing led to another, and Clorinde had left her alone to bake all by her lonesome when they had promised to spend time together that night. 

They were going to visit Poisson together too, Navia laments. And her father’s…

Navia sniffles. She angrily wipes her tears away with the back of her hand, infuriated with herself for the way she’s acting. So what if Clorinde wants to stomp off and avoid her all day? So what if she kinda misses Clorinde and wishes she was here right now? She should be mad at Clorinde right now, if anything. She should be thinking about anything else but Clorinde. 

She punches down her dough, huffing out an irate breath. 

Navia covers the bowl with a cloth, then unties her apron and offhandedly drapes it over the back of a kitchen chair. She’ll finish baking later, when she’s no longer at risk of punching clean through a mixing bowl. 

Her hand feels through the small armoire of their bedroom and stops on the handle of her parasol. A walk should clear her mind. Maybe she’ll visit Poisson on her off-day after all. Yeah! Maybe that’ll show Clorinde. 

But she can’t help but soften at the sight of the polished handle of her parasol. 

Clorinde had wiped it down for her, after they had tripped in the mud on their date just yesterday. She could see the love and care put into keeping her umbrella free from any imperfection, even if she hadn’t asked for it to be done. Clorinde must have been up in the late hours of the night, shadowed by the moon as she painstakingly wiped away at Navia’s umbrella. 

Words had never been Clorinde’s strong suit, evident by the way she was silent by Navia’s side when she’d escorted her to dinner, but these kinds of things? Oh, it’s one of the very many things Navia can’t help but adore about her. 

It’s windy and cloudy when she leaves the house with her parasol and a basket of freshly baked goods. The wind nearly blows her hat away, but Navia keeps one hand fixed on top of her forehead to keep it from rushing down the streets of Fontaine. People still continue to greet her with easy-going smiles, contrary to the weather around them, perhaps eased by the sight of her gentle smile and the smell of delicious bread that trails with her. 

“You’ll be happy to know that there will be no rain today, Demoiselle, if yer still planning to make that trip down,” a fisherman notes to her. He nods at her in passing, and Navia remembers her manners enough to thank him politely. 

She loosens a breath when he’s out of sight. She’s grateful that he hadn’t thought to ask her about Clorinde. After all, it was nearly an impossible sight to see Navia without her loyal wife glued to her side, a hand in one of hers and the other laid considerately on top of her rapier. 

The thought bristles the already fragile edges of her heart, but she forges on. 

Rain would be more gracious on her trip to Poisson than the barren clouds above her. At least it would provide her with gentle company, the kind that seldom could be replaced. 

She curtsies to her fellow Spina di Rosula members. They take turns bidding her hello, catching her up with the happenings around them. No one dares to ask her to accompany them, as they had been informed days before that today would be for her and her wife. And again, no one dares to speak about the missing wife in question. 

Navia thanks them for their hospitality. She offers them yesterday’s batch of bread, and her hungry members take them with much gratitude. They surround her in excitement, like school children waiting for handouts of candy. It’s sweet and a breath of fresh air from the constraints of her day, and Navia spends nearly an hour mingling with the villagers of Poisson and Spina di Rosula members who coincidentally happen to be on break. 

And when she takes fistfuls of her dress in order to climb up the hill, she’s still not alone. Her father’s headstone greets her as the sun of the afternoon peeks out from the curve of the hilly horizon. 

She doesn’t say anything to him this time. 

How odd it feels, to sit down in front of her father and say nothing at all for the first time in her life. 

What could that say about the predicament she’s put herself in? 

Navia shuts her eyes tight and counts to ten, letting the cool breeze of the wind ruffle her dress and keep her from breaking down in front of her father. It’s been so long since she’s cried in front of papa— she knows for a fact that he wouldn’t want her to be crying now, especially about this. And why would she let herself cry? It was a stupid argument anyway. No one cries over spilt milk. 

No one cries over the angered, hurt rattle in their wife’s voice, the scrape of the chair as she stands up to loom over the table, making her heart feel so small even as her own lungs are loud and deep when they’d argue.

Navia feels the first tear slip out of the corner of her eye. She feels her throat close up from the effort of keeping more tears from spilling, and she wipes harshly at her face with her palms. Her knees are drawn up close to her chest, and she exhales hard, inhales harder. She should have brought her sunglasses with her to keep from people letting see the swell in her eyes when she eventually comes down. 

The prattle of her breaths are pathetic. She’s not a child. She knows that these things happen. Friends fight— wives fight. It wasn’t even over something significant. 

And it makes her think. Is she crying because she had fought with her wife, or because she had fought with Clorinde?

The wind doesn’t hit the ruffles of her dress quite as harshly. It’s her first indication, and she sucks up her tears fast enough to hear the near-silent snap of a small twig behind her. 

She inhales sharply, then turns to see Clorinde standing nearby. She has a hand outstretched to her, as if wanting to touch her. To hold her. To comfort her. 

But Clorinde drops her hand the moment she sees Navia’s eyes fixed on her. 

They look at each other in the hush of these hills, and Navia doesn’t even know if she’s breathing. 

“Navia,” Clorinde says softly. She says her name like a prayer on her lips, summoning, conjuring something in the way she says it. Is it to greet her, or to give her another version of an apology?

“What are you doing here?” Navia asks. 

Clorinde just chooses to press her lips together. “When we used to fight, you’d go to your papa for help.”

It was true. It is true. But now, her father isn’t here to coax her from unhiding her face from his shirt and walk back to Clorinde’s house to knock on their door and talk it out. 

“Come sit with me,” Navia finds herself mumbling. 

Clorinde obeys. 

She doesn’t look at Navia as she sits close, leaving just enough room between them for Navia to get up and leave if she so chooses. She hates that Clorinde is treating her like this— again. Hadn’t she learned from the last time?

Her hot and flashing anger deflates when Clorinde reaches towards the space between them, slowly and nearly with a tremble, and places her hand on top of Navia’s. She’s still not looking at her. 

Navia feels the quaver in her jaw before she feels her tears slip out. She sets her jaw, turning her face away to keep Clorinde from looking at her as she blinks her stray tears away. She curls her fingers inwards to grab a fistful of dry grass, and Clorinde’s hand never wavers.

She’s here. 

Clorinde is here, and it has always been the only thing she’s wanted this whole time.

It douses the fire in her heart, and suddenly she’s too tired to argue. Too tired for much of anything, really. 

“I’m sorry,” Clorinde finally says, and her voice coats in the same rustiness of someone who is both sincere and out of their element. She closes her eyes even as Navia gazes at her. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. For all that you deserve in this life, it was never that. I was… I was just so hurt that you’d think you weren’t a priority to me. I see now that my anger was unjustified.” 

“You’re allowed to be angry at me. If I can be angry, then so can you,” Navia says, soft but with the razor edge of her indignation. Of all people in Fontaine allowed to be angry at anything and everything, it should have always included her and Clorinde. 

Clorinde still isn’t looking at her. Navia can see the way she swallows, how she can’t stop looking at the name scribbled on the headstone in front of them.

“You were right,” Navia says again, deflating and drained, “I was being childish. I was taking stuff out on you because I just didn't know how to deal with it with you, together. I’m… Clorinde, I’m so sorry.” 

Clorinde swallows again before she speaks. Her voice is hoarse when she does. “If I could take back things that I’ve said to you in the past twenty-four hours, I wish I could. But I also know that it would rob us from facing it together instead of doing it on our own, as we’ve done for— for far too long. When I married you, I promised on that altar that I would stay with you through anything, as long as you’re safe and happy.”

The reminder makes Navia’s chest ache with the hurt. She might have had a hard time these past few years, but so has Clorinde. They had been each other’s anchors for so long that being torn apart felt like drowning eternally at sea. 

Maybe that’s why this hurt so much. A taste of that kind of torture again, a reminder of where they had started before their commitment to one another, an imitation of it or not.

And gods, it makes her become hyper aware of the importance of this conversation. Clorinde is a woman of few words, so for her to open up to her like this, it was… it means everything to her. 

So she says as much. 

“Thank you,” she says, almost shyly. “I know it was stupid of me to think, after everything we’ve been through but— but I was just so worried that this would be the one thing that pulls us apart again. So… thank you, for coming back to me and reminding me that you’re still here.”

Clorinde blinks slowly at her. She seems shocked, as if Navia’s words alone have never occurred to her at all. 

“You’re my wife, Navia,” she says without embellishment. “Do you really think I would let anything compromise that with you?” It makes Navia’s heart squeeze. 

She rests her head on Clorinde’s shoulder, depleted of all energy from that single conversation alone, but at the same time, relieved. 

“Fighting today kinda blows,” Navia mumbles. 

Clorinde chuckles, breathless and unwound. She must be feeling the same way. 

“Whatever argument that passes between us, whatever tantrum you wish to have with me,” Clorinde says, and Navia weakly swats at her arm for the teasing. Clorinde only strengthens the hold she has on Navia’s hand. “I will be here for you. Amidst anything we may go through— I’m here. ‘For better or for worse’ as I recall.”

Navia hums at that. “I wonder if all of Fontaine knows that I have the best wife in the entire world,” she teases. Her voice is still much more soft-spoken than it should be, but Clorinde takes it in stride, laughing just enough to be kind. 

They watch the horizon together, listening to the bustle of the people below and the wind that howls through the headstones like a chorus of muted voices. 

And then Clorinde murmurs, gentle as the ocean that rides the shore, “I love you.”

Navia’s breath hitches.

But she blinks, hoping that she’s recovered fast enough to not seem uncertain, and cranes her head just enough to press a gentle whisper of a kiss on Clorinde’s jaw. 

“I love you too,” Navia whispers back, her exhale coming with a giddy, teasing laugh. 

“You big softie,” she adds, because sue her for not being able to hold it back.

Clorinde looks down admonishingly at her, but the crinkles in the corners of her eyes and the gentle set of her lips gives away her joy. 

“And for the record,” Navia says once more, because she can no longer stand the silence between them, “you do make me feel safe and happy. I hope you know that. And I sure hope you feel the same, Clorinde.”

She looks to find Clorinde still smiling. She nearly mirrors the smile, until she catches the slight downward curves at the corners of her lips, and the worry that strikes hard against Clorinde’s tight jaw. Navia shifts her body to look closer, a question on her lips, a question of worry and a probing of Clorinde’s thoughts, but the worry in Clorinde’s face vanishes as if it had never been there. 

Today is a start to getting Clorinde to open up to her. They still have more to go, but what is a marriage for if not being persistent to stay?

pour la prospérité
for richer

Today, the sun breaks through the murky gray clouds after a long, stagnating week of strong showers. It’s a cause for celebration, Navia thinks, so she wakes up extra early to run some errands for Clorinde before she wakes. She even buys Clorinde a small bouquet of flowers, because the violets and the sunflowers remind her too much of them not to pass up. 

She places the flowers in a vase on their table. It’s a perfect centerpiece, and Clorinde says as much when she finally stirs and rises just in time for the last of Navia’s pancake mix to hit the pan. 

Clorinde helps set the table and clean while Navia cooks. Navia hums while Clorinde bustles around her, and their silence is permeated with love and acceptance of the world they live in together, as well as the gentle song of a saxophone playing out on the street nearby. 

And much to her surprise, Clorinde extends a hand to her after she finishes stacking the rest of the pancakes on a plate, kissing the ring on her finger with a twinkle in her eyes and a request for a dance. 

“To catch your breath for your busy morning,” Clorinde explains, and Navia nearly answers, Yes, I quite need to catch my breath after seeing you dressed so carefree on this fine morning. 

Clorinde is cordial and sweet when they dance together, her hands ghosting only where they need to be. It reminds her of the dance lessons their papas made them take together when they were young teenagers, of how Clorinde always chose to lead as a preemptive tactic to protect her poor shoes against Navia’s footwork. 

It’s been many years since they’ve last taken a dance class together, and yet they flow together now in perfect harmony. Clorinde’s eyes on her certainly does its work in keeping her steady, holding her place and anchoring her to the home that surrounds them. Such a fond, gentle expression. 

She wonders how anyone can look at this woman and think of her as the devil in disguise, a candlebearer of death. She couldn’t simply be any less than the light in Navia’s life. 

Clorinde lets go of her gently when the saxophone player finishes his song. Navia clears her throat, ducking her head before Clorinde sees the light blush that clusters on her nose and cheeks. She tucks her hair behind one ear and brings the pancakes to the table, all the while Clorinde pulls out her chair for her before she even gets the chance to sit down herself. 

While they eat, Navia fetches the newspaper that she’s been saving on the countertop nearby. Her eyes scan it hungrily in her excitement. 

The Steambird has an exclusive interview of them on their front page. It only seems right, as Charlotte has been begging them for a “gold mine” even before their marriage. As a good friend and confidant of Navia’s, Navia had begged Clorinde for just five minutes with the good-natured reporter to repay her for all the good she’s done for them, trying to cleanse their names and all. 

And to reap the fruits of their labor, Navia reads their interview points out loud to Clorinde over their breakfast. 

She honestly can’t believe how easily they’ve acted in the role as smitten newly-weds. It felt too easy to replicate in front of Charlotte and to have been photographed as such for nearly the whole year they’ve been bound together with their wedding rings. 

Or at least, she can’t believe that Clorinde can. Hanging off Clorinde’s arm and looking into her eyes all lovingly and batting her eyelashes while gushing about how good of a wife Clorinde can be is all too easy for her. 

(Which totally isn’t something that keeps her up at night most of the time.)

Navia hums at all the positive feedback about them in the paragraphs she’s reading. Charlotte included other interviews with other Fontanians about them, and most were unanimously in agreement that Navia and Clorinde were the perfect couple that encapsulated the love and trust found within Fontaine. It made her heart soar to hear such praise, even if it really shouldn’t.

Clorinde sips her tea languidly, still dressed down casually. Apparently she had a day off today, and though Navia’s happy to hear that her wife’s finally able to catch up on her rest, it made her sad to know that she’ll be leaving Clorinde behind for the rest of the day to tackle some needed work herself.

It would have been nice to spend time together today. But the shared breakfast they have practically every morning makes up for it, she guesses.

The success of their marriage makes Navia want to bounce off the walls in excitement. People are saying only good things about them now, and she gets to live with her best friend! How nice is that!

But just as she’s reciting another thing that someone has said about them in the newspaper, Navia stops. Her face sours. 

Clorinde, receptive as always to her every whim and emotion, stops drinking her tea to lift an eyebrow at her in question and worry. She places her tea back on the saucer and asks, “Is everything alright, Navia?”

“Ugh,” she spits in disgust, and Clorinde’s eyebrows come higher up in surprise. Navia shakes the newspaper to straighten out, as if to hope that the words that she’s seeing in front of her are mistaken. “I thought they’d stop by now but there’s still so many dating rumors about me printed on here. Like, right above where you talk about how much you like my smile! Right above, Clorinde,” she hisses. 

She peeks from above the newspaper to catch Clorinde’s reaction. She had hoped to see some sort of disgust on her face— maybe not as adverse as the one on her face, but maybe something more subtle to suit Clorinde’s disposition. Like a frown or a pinched forehead. 

Instead, Clorinde takes a calm sip of her tea, then places it down and cuts into her pancakes without uttering another word besides, “Your pancakes are especially delicious today, Navia.”

Navia puts down the newspaper to stare at her quizzically. Was she missing something here? Is Clorinde and Charlotte pulling a prank on her right now?

“You heard what I said, right?” Navia says carefully and slowly. “Dating rumors about me? Dating people who aren’t you? In the newspaper?”

Clorinde finally picks up on the tone in her voice. She stops cutting into her food and looks up at her, pausing briefly to stare before setting her utensils down. Her face is a mask of poise, and Navia finds herself just a tiny bit irritated about it. She’s slightly bothered by the fact that Clorinde doesn't seem bothered. 

Honestly she couldn’t even understand why. If anything, Clorinde’s reaction is much more courteous than hers. 

“It’s what every young, attractive person in Fontaine goes through in the newspaper these days,” Clorinde explains to her. “It would be more odd to not have people talk about you in such manners. Married or not, Fontanians thirst for the dramatics. If anything, I think married couples make it so that they’re more susceptible to it.”

“You fit the bill too! You’re young, attractive, and charming,” Navia argues. She doesn’t really know why of all the points that Clorinde had brought, it’s that one that she feels the need to defend. Still, she’s not a woman to back down on her words, so she swallows a large gulp of whatever tea Wriothesley has mailed them this week. 

Clorinde just stares at her, her eyes dancing with amusement, and Navia adds, “Okay, well! Maybe if you were a tad bit more, uh, talkative…?”

Clorinde’s lips lift in a slight smile. She sips at her tea, mirroring Navia’s movements. Her shoulders are relaxed, or at least much more rounded than the squared hackles on Navia.

“I don’t feel threatened at all, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Clorinde placates. Her calming, gentle tone immediately puts Navia back at ease. “I’ve seen you garner attention like this ever since we were kids. Don’t you remember?”

Navia begins to argue, but Clorinde chokes back a light laugh to add, “Really? You didn’t notice that half of our class wanted to be with you? Why did you think everyone argued to be the one to play those games with you at your party?” 

It makes Navia fumble, but Clorinde just waves her hand dismissively. “There’s no shame in having people love you and vy for your attention, Navia. Some of the things they say about you are distasteful, I can agree with that, but having people just talk about how attractive you are isn’t any kind of grievance against me. I should be flattered, in all honesty.”

“But…” Even as her cheeks feel slightly warm under Clorinde’s cheeky last comment, Navia deflates when she can’t think of something to say. She knows she’s right. Still, it feels wrong to have so many people desperately want to bid for her attention and speak about her so— so boldly in printed words!

Clorinde clears her throat, and then says something that snaps her neck upwards.

“Navia, I’ve been thinking… that if you feel that you aren’t having certain… wants fulfilled, then I wouldn’t be offended if you sought that elsewhere.” 

“W— what is that supposed to mean?!” 

She swears that Clorinde’s cheeks are slightly more pale in the sunlight that filters through their window than usual, but perhaps she’s wearing another kind of foundation. She certainly feels more red in the sun like this, but she can’t find it in herself to be more embarrassed. 

Is this what it feels like to be Clorinde, when she had asked her to get married all those months ago? Is this Clorinde trying to get back at her? Because she certainly feels as if she’s about to have a heart attack. 

“We’ve been married for nearly a good majority of the year now,” she says, her words so even that Navia wonders if she’s practiced this, “and while we’ve kept this whole thing up nicely without raising any suspicion or running into more trouble than it should be worth, I’ve also… contemplated, about the other side of our marriage. The one that’s void in ours.”

“The one that’s…” Navia echoes her words, letting it ruminate in her head to understand what Clorinde is trying to say. 

And when she understands, she can’t help but stare at Clorinde, open-mouthed. 

“Have you been thinking about this because there’s someone else you want to—?” 

“No,” Clorinde says, a little quickly, “my line of work is too dangerous for me to involve anyone else, and I don’t have such— desires.”

Navia nearly laughs, deliriously really, at how hard Clorinde has to squeeze those words out. She takes pity on her friend and wife instead. “Then the same goes for me too, you know. Plus, if I do try and go after something like that— it would be too easy for a reporter to catch someone like me in the act. Could you imagine the awful headlines it would draw out? And it’s not like we can be like, ‘Hey guys! We’re not actually committing adultery!’”

But even then, as the words tumble out of her mouth, Navia feels sickened at the mere idea of Clorinde running her hands down another girl, of Clorinde exhaling hard in rapid, trembling breaths while kissing another girl’s collarbone, of Clorinde— 

Clorinde’s eyes soften. 

She pushes her plate to the side and reaches over the table, putting her hand on Navia’s. “You are a treasure, Navia. You’re rich in attention and I was never here to take that away from you. I just don’t want you to hide yourself away if it’s not something you want.” 

I want YOU, stupid! her mind blurts out, and she has no idea where it comes from. She has an idea where to turn to though, and it’s that tiny but oh so repressed part of herself that Clorinde probably had been referring to. But probably not directed to who she thinks.

And because her mouth runs faster than her mind, and that there’s nothing she could do to stop such things from tumbling out of said mouth, Navia finds herself quickly saying, “Hey, I mean— we could always do it ourselves.”

Clorinde’s eyes grow comically wide, and she nearly spits out her tea. Way to find the right timing, Navia. 

“Think about it!” Navia insists, and while her face feels so hot she’s certain she could bake cookies on it, she wasn’t the kind of girl to go back on her word. “We kiss all the time. I’ve seen your breasts when you get out of the shower more times than mine, probably—” more like most likely from the way she stares, “—and seeing an escort is way too risky. And it’s just like helping each other out, right? It’s not like we have to write a contract to do it. Well, okay not an actual contract but verbal consent is obviously something we have to at least agree with and—”

“Navia.”

Navia clamps her mouth shut to keep herself from digging her grave any further. She looks at Clorinde, wide-eyed and frazzled and feeling warm everywhere from the way Clorinde is staring at her. She’s never seen Clorinde look at her with such… Archons, she couldn’t even think straight right now. Should she be thinking? Should she be yelling?

“Are you sure?” Clorinde asks her. There’s nothing, as per usual, in her voice that gives away her objective.

Navia doesn’t know how else to answer. 

So she answers, “Yes.” 

She startles when the chair squeals. Clorinde stands up from the table, her movements fluid as she comes to Navia’s side and holds out a hand, still nothing in her face to give her away. 

Oh, but her eyes. How striking they seem to look deep into Navia as she says, “Come with me then.” 

“A— already?” Navia squeaks. 

Clorinde laughs breathlessly. “What kind of wife would I be to bed you without taking you on a date first?” 

And goodness, it’s not as if she can say no. She just excuses herself to write a quick letter to the Spina di Rosula, citing important business. All the while as she sits on her desk, she can feel Clorinde staring at her, piercing and strong and goodness, her knees feel weak and she’s already sitting down. 

By the time she finishes and gets dressed for the day, Clorinde is already by her side, walking them down the street to find a theater show to catch for the day. 

Her hand on Navia’s hip is normal for their day to day, but today, it feels electrifying. It’s as if Clorinde is walking her down the street to keep her from collapsing, holding her up by a single hand. Blood rushes into Navia’s ears and everything around her feels mute, and all she can think about is Clorinde’s gloved hand on hers, Clorinde’s gentle breath blowing on her skin when they sneak past people to get to their seats, Clorinde, Clorinde, Clorinde. 

But Clorinde seems insistent to want to wait. Laying only her hand on her thigh when they sit next to each other, stroking the inside with her gloved thumb as if it isn’t driving Navia to near insanity.

Dissolving into nothing would be a greater mercy than this, but Clorinde seems to relish quietly in the way she squirms. She’s cruel and merciless, something she’s never been to Navia before, but she supposes it’s on par to how people on the battlefield perceive her to be. Yet, the fact that only Navia gets this kind of treatment— the teeth close to the shell of her ear, the whispered tease of events of the rest of their night, the mere suggestion of possession her hands seem to have— it’s enough to make her want to fall to her knees.

And by the time they eat their fill for dinner, hours upon hours later, Navia feels so starved and needy that all it takes is Clorinde to slip her shoulder out of her dress for her to whimper and slide down against the softness of their mattress. 

Clorinde is kissing Navia’s collarbone with such reverence that she feels dizzy. 

“Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll stop,” Clorinde murmurs against her neck. 

Oh, fuck. 

What sane person would want her to stop? Navia tries to answer, but a breathless moan makes its way out of her mouth instead. 

Clorinde laughs against the column of her throat, and Navia feels the warmth all over again, lower this time. 

“My ravishing wife,” Clorinde half-whispers, half-snarls to her collar bone, and Navia sighs with trembling excitement. 

In the back of her mind, this feels all too fast, like a piece of ribbon being pulled apart. But that ribbon has been fixed on the back of her dress for years, wishing and wanting Clorinde to be the one to pull it for her. 

To have this done to her now feels like the lucid dream that people spend their lives wishing to experience, vivid and rushed and just nearly unreal. Consequences don’t dare to swirl in her head when Clorinde touches her like this. Not when Clorinde whispers sweet nothings in her ear as she pulls her apart, touching her in ways that her dreams themselves could have never beckoned as much as Clorinde can with her finger. 

And when she’s spent underneath the embrace of Clorinde’s arms, Navia still can’t seem to think of what this may mean for them. 

et la pauvreté
and for poorer

And what it ends up meaning is, seemingly, nothing. 

They wake together in their bed, wrapped up in the blanket and cuddling as they have done for nearly a year of their life and done on and off years and years before that. The only difference is the clear marks of love nipped on Navia’s neck, as well as the fresh wounds on Clorinde’s back and torso, an antithesis to the more desperate, foreboding slashes marks on her body. Navia is wrapped in Clorinde’s white dress shirt, and frankly, she quite likes the look. 

She tells Clorinde as much when they’re both up for the day, and Clornde merely chuckles, wrapping her arm around Navia’s waist to pull her close so that she can press a gentle, but rather ticklish, kiss to the back of Navia’s ear. 

It makes Navia scrunch up her neck from the sensation, and she turns to slap Clorinde gently for the intrusion. 

But Clorinde has already stepped out of the space between them, already making her way to brew some more tea to start her day. 

Navia brushes it off. 

So, they have breakfast together. They talk about what they want to do for the rest of the day, about the weather, about the current news happening in the city, about things that married couples do, with the exception of the excursions of last night. And it’s fine, Navia thinks, because it’s not like that they have to talk about. 

They don’t have to, if they don't want to. Even if the small part of her mind wishes that Clorinde would tell her even just a whisper of what they’d done to cement it in her memories forever, to ensure that nothing was a mere dream. 

But if Clorinde doesn’t want to talk about it, then neither does she. 

When Navia comes home that night, Clorinde has a warm bath running for her. Clorinde greets her with her usual gentle smile, nothing offset in the way she says Navia’s name or how she holds out her hand to help Navia get into the bath without making her slip. She also doesn’t let her eyes wander down to where they’ve wandered just the night before, nor do they caress her skin in the hungry way they did. Instead her hands are there only to help her bathe and get dressed, and her kisses are chaste and charming as if Navia hadn’t been given a taste of where they’d been in its haste. 

The two weeks are just the same. Their habitual, everyday married life, without anything exciting or splattered in between. They still laugh together, take walks together, do things together as married wives should. 

Navia should be happy about that. 

Nevertheless, it’s as if her heart has been hollowed out. 

And it upsets her, truly, to feel like this about a situation that should be a happily ever after in the first place. Her best friend loves her and treats her well, even if it isn’t the kind of love that a marriage should be— could be. 

So when Charlotte spots her running errands alone in Fontaine and asks her to catch up over some brunch, Navia accepts. The last thing she needs is to be walking around in a daze alone, thinking about Clorinde. 

Charlotte is kind and excitable when they sit down to eat. She even offers to pay for their meals off the bat, but Navia is quick to shoot that down. Letting Clorinde pay for most of their meals was more than enough on her conscience.

With the waiter on the way to send their orders to the kitchen, Charlotte is the first to speak and say, “So, how have you been, Miss President?”

“Ah, same old, same old,” Navia says with a quick wave of her hand and a laugh. There isn’t really much to talk about on her side of things. The things she does for the Spina di Rosula is mostly confidential anyway, not that that kind of talk would pique too much of Charlotte’s interest. 

“Aw, c’mon,” Charlotte starts, leaning over the table with big, starry eyes. “You really have nothing juicy to say to me? Especially about you and Clorinde?” she teases, and Navia laughs nervously. “I promise it’ll be off the record!”

Ah, no wonder why Navia’s feeling a little hot under the collar. She just remembered that Charlotte’s a reporter. Still, Charlotte is her friend before she is an esteemed reporter for the Steambird. She shouldn’t feel like Charlotte has her under a magnifying glass. 

She sips at her lemonade and tries her best not to let the nerves get to her. She relaxes, eventually. 

“Being married isn’t as adventurous as you think it is,” she starts mildly, but Charlotte already looks intrigued. “Everyone always stops me and tells me how lucky I am to be married to my lifelong best friend, and— yeah, it feels great, but that’s really all it is, you know what I mean? Being married to her just feels like… like a friendship with extra steps! Yeah.” She laughs, and it falls short on the account that it sounds a little forced. 

Oh Archons, she better stop talking in the next few seconds. She’s about to blow it. 

Charlotte tilts her head in mere curiosity. Her eyes still aren’t sharpened as they usually are when she hawks in to sniff out a good story, so Navia is grateful for that. “So not much going on behind the scenes than there is in front of the camera?” Charlotte asks her. 

It sounds so innocent that Navia thinks that it’s safe enough to answer honestly. “You could say that. I mean, we definitely have stuff going on that every couple doesn’t share, but it comes with every marriage. Right?”

Charlotte is staring at her intensely. When’s the last time she blinked and looked away? Why is she getting hot again?

“Of course,” Charlotte says with a bright smile. Navia relaxes. “I mean, I can’t exactly give you my take on it, considering I have a bare ring finger, but I’ve interviewed enough couples in my life to know what you’re talking about.”

Now, it’s Navia’s turn to be a little confused. “What do you mean?”

Charlotte waves her hand with a small smile, as if Navia’s confusion is part of her punchline. “You two? Have something special,” she marvels. “The way you look at each other, the way you finish each other’s sentences— but that’s what comes with every couple in love, amirite? But if you ask me, the reason why Fontanians are so enamored with you two is because..”

Charlotte takes her silence as an invitation to continue. “You didn’t get married just because you could, or someone dared you to, or because of some good press,” she says with a snort, as if the thought alone is so absurd and outlandish, “you two tied the knot because there was something there. Something beyond friendship and love and— and basically duty to a marriage itself. You mean something to each other more than what anyone or the court can define, and it’s so incredibly dreamy to see you try and describe it to the world anyway.” 

And Charlotte’s gushing, which was meant to be a mild ramble from a friend to make conversation before their food arrives, absolutely floors her. 

She’s right. 

She knows Charlotte is absolutely right about something that had been sitting in front of her for the majority of her life, and she’s terrified. 

Because if she knows what it means to be married now, then it means that Clorinde, in all her cunning and insight, must know by now too. 

And Clorinde hasn’t done anything about it at all. 

Navia chokes the thought down, banishes it to the very corners of her heart, accepts it for what it is, and smiles brilliantly at Charlotte. She can see their waiter coming with their drinks out of the corner of her eye. “You’re absolutely right,” she says. 

“Really?” Charlotte asks, which makes Navia giggle. Leave it to a reporter to challenge when someone thinks they’re right. 

“Absolutely,” Navia replies cheerfully. “I love my wife more than anything in the world. But I love my wife because she will always, always be my Clorinde.”

dans la maladie et dans la santé
in sickness and in health

With the weather shifting from its rainy days to its pollinated mornings, it was only natural for her to wake up sneezing and coughing one morning nonstop. 

She brushes it off the first morning, allowing herself to begin a meeting even with her loud sneezes and coughs and a handkerchief attached to her hand the entire time. 

By the third morning, the Spina di Rosula begins a mutiny and throws her out of Poisson until she recovers and rests up well enough to come back. They had even put together a “get well soon” basket for her, consisting of teas and herbal medicine from lands that Navia didn’t think was possible to find in Fontaine. 

Clorinde dotes on her, naturally. 

If it isn’t Clorinde coming by her sick bedside with a giant stack of food that she had ordered from at least three of Navia’s favorite restaurants, it’s the fact that she hovers at her side, ready to sweep her up and take her back to bed if she so even gave an indication that she was getting weak at the knees. Clorinde is the one to make sure she’s taken her medicine each and every time, and the one to nag about how she should be drinking more fluids and eating more fruits to let her body regenerate the energy. 

There isn’t a single day that passes where Clorinde isn’t at her every beck and call. She even brews her a nice cup of tea every morning, always making sure that she has a rag on her forehead, always reminding her not to worry about work because she should take it easy and she would personally help with the Spina di Rosula affairs herself while she’s recuperating.

After nearly a week, Navia’s sickness begins to recede. She can finally breathe out of her nostrils again, and her head doesn’t feel as if it needed to crack open like a nut on a rock. Still, she’s weak and can barely hold up the teapot to make some more tea for herself. Her temperature is still relatively high, but at least it isn’t burning like it had been the day before. 

It’s why she’s only mildly surprised when Clorinde comes home (early again, as she had been since Navia had gotten sick) and announces, “Let’s go on a walk.”

“Now?” Navia asks incredulously. She puts down the teapot to look at her wife, but Clorinde stands in the doorway pointedly. “Clorinde, I’m sick, if you haven’t noticed!” she cries, and she coughs into her elbow to prove her point. 

“I know,” Clorinde says, a hint of pity in her voice and features. “That’s exactly why you should walk with me. When was the last time you let yourself out of the house? Being holed up in here will only affect you worse, and being outside with fresh air will clear your mind and open your passageways.”

“What happened to ‘Navia, don’t get up, you’re sick!’ or ‘Navia, darling, let me put on your socks for you since you’re so sick,’” she says in imitation of Clorinde’s firm tone. 

Clorinde only chuckles. She’s already by Navia’s side, taking the teapot to pour the tea for her. “Ever since someone’s been getting better but letting me coddle her for the majority of my week,” she replies. She notices the wince in Navia’s face and immediately adds, “I don’t mind being here to take care of you. I just want to care for you right. And that means dragging you out of this house to get you to breathe in some fresh air for a change.”

Navia sighs, but she does so out of fondness rather than in irritation. “Will you come with me, at least?” she asks. 

She knows the answer before Clorinde even says it. “Of course.”

Navia excuses herself to make herself presentable. Though she’s sick, she knows better than to walk out of the house with one of Clorinde’s tattered shirts and pajama pants she got as a birthday gift years ago. Clorinde waits for her patiently by the door, and she takes her hand when Navia exclaims that she’s ready. 

“Stay by my side,” Clorinde says as she locks the door after them. “If you start to feel unwell, I will carry you back home if needed.”

She says it with so much conviction and confidence that Navia finds herself swooning. 

Clorinde juts out her elbow, a silent invitation for Navia to take. Navia complies with a light laugh, holding onto her wife’s arm and letting her take the lead. 

“I can’t believe it took me coughing a lung out in bed for you to act like prince charming,” Navia teases. 

Clorinde gives her a half shrug, though she pointedly doesn’t look straight at her. She tips her hat low enough on her face as she says, “I just want to be a good wife to you, Navia. As you have unto me.”

It makes Navia’s heart flip. She brushes it off to the chill of the night when she shudders. 

Predictably, Clorinde wordlessly slips off her coat and drapes it over Navia’s shoulders. It seems as if she had been waiting for Navia to comprehend the chill around them. Which is funny, Navia thinks, because Clorinde had all the time in the world when they were home to remind Navia to wear a coat herself.

They speak mildly about their days, arm in arm, and Navia is suddenly struck with the situation they are comfortably in. Their marriage has become more ordinary than when they are not, enlivened by instinctive chaste kisses before they head off to work, flowers exchanged on sunny mornings without prior arrangement to it, celebration of their anniversaries like it’s become a sacred holiday, their weekly dates, the way they help each other get dressed—

Things that Navia can’t seem to go back to. 

How can she walk here with her hand wrapped around Clorinde’s strong arm, pretending that this marriage isn’t as sincere as their friendship? 

Before she drowns herself in its implications, a group of drunken men walk past them with chortles bubbling in their gravelly throats. Their eyes are as predatory as rattlesnakes, piercing through Navia’s skin and turning her blood into a curdled mess. 

Clorinde’s arm feels solid under her hands. She never wavers. An anchor to her shore. 

One of the men jabs another in the ribs, pointing at Navia, jeering at her with the same look of hunger that men do when they believe they see something that is theirs. 

And even though her head feels dizzy with sickness and her limbs feel sluggish in the way that they move at her side, Navia is stubborn first and foremost. Clorinde is not. 

She knows it like a fact written on her palm, and it makes her believe that Clorinde will tug her along, making haste and preventing her from getting into any kind of trouble with men that should have nothing to do with them. She won’t let it happen. 

But Clorinde puts a hand over the one Navia has on her arm, holding her still in place. She looks at Navia, saying nothing but showing everything that she needs to convey. Navia closes her mouth.

Clorinde regards the men with such detachment in her eyes that Navia doesn’t know if her wife feels outrage, annoyance, or nothing at all. 

“My wife,” Clorinde says, and she says it with so much venom that Navia momentarily feels her veins freeze, “is not a subject for you to speak of so freely.”

They only stare. One seems to be getting red in the face, but one placates him with an urgent whisper to his ear and they all seem to collectively realize who they’ve been staring at. Like dogs with tails tucked between their legs, they stammer to her and walk away, a charged situation diffused only with the way Clorinde stands there, no gun or sword drawn. 

Clorinde watches them walk away, her eyebrows pinched together and her lips pressed tight. She looks as if she’s calculating something, the frigidity that masks her face so cold and unwilling that Navia nearly wants to slip out of her arm. 

And then she looks back at Navia, her face melting away to adorn her eyes with only worry and devotion that Navia— 

“I love you,” Navia says, low and soft, a marvel on her tongue that feels as if it’s the first time she’s ever said it. 

She’s told Clorinde she’s loved her for the majority of her life, for so long that each declaration feels like lifetimes in between. 

She was right. 

This has been no different to how she feels for Clorinde after vowing her life to hers on that altar. Stupid, stupid Navia— she just never opened her eyes to it, never saw it exactly for what it was. Never let herself speak it into existence.

Clorinde stands there, searching her eyes. And she says nothing. 

“I love you,” Navia says again, and she says it louder, happier. She’s almost laughing now, like she can’t believe it’s taken her this long. She blinks and slips out of Clorinde’s arm, a lump growing in her throat. “Clorinde, I— Archons, I love you. I loved you the first time you showed up on my door asking to spar with me. I loved you when you slipped that ring on my finger and let Fontaine know you’d marry me. I love how you think, how you look at me, how you think protecting me is how you can love me too, how—”

“Navia,” Clorinde whispers, her name said like a curse on her tongue. An admonition. “What are you doing?”

“Telling my wife that I love her,” Navia says simply, laughing. And she keeps laughing, because goodness, it feels so good to tell her. To tell her that this isn’t just convenience or a satire of how she’s felt. 

All of Fontaine knows how she feels. It’s only right for Clorinde to know the same. 

She takes Clorinde’s hands in hers, kisses Clorinde’s ring, and says, “I love you, Clorinde. If I could do this over again, I’d marry you in an alleyway. I’d marry you in the middle of nowhere. I love being your wife and being yours, and I just— please. I don’t want anything else from you. I just wanted you to know that I love you.”

Say it back, her childish mind cries, an antithesis to her uncommonly steady words. Tell me you love me too. That you’d marry me right here, too, if I asked.

“Navia,” Clorinde says again. She’s still searching for something in Navia’s eyes. Doesn’t she know that Navia would never hide anything from her? Not here. Never again. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Navia says quickly, her cheer slowly diminishing from the way Clorinde is just staring. She squeezes Clorinde’s hands. “We can go home right now if you want. We— we don’t have to change anything. I just really— I wanted you to know. That’s all.”

Stupid, stupid, loud-mouthed Navia. 

Clorinde finally finds what she’s looking for in Navia’s eyes. She swallows. 

And then Clorinde slips her hands out of Navia’s, and all Navia feels is the ghost of the cold metal of her ring gliding against her skin. Clorinde didn’t wear her gloves today. She knows how meticulous Clorinde can be about that. 

“There is… a small, family-owned boutique just a few minutes to your left,” Clorinde begins to say. 

Navia frowns. The mask on Clorinde’s face begins to make her heart sink. “What are you trying to—?”

“They know me. They owe me favors, and if you ask one of them to escort you home, they will comply,” Clorinde says again. 

When Navia exhales, it comes out ragged. “Clorinde?”

Clorinde falters, just for a moment.

She takes Navia’s hand, her eyes imploring and… almost distressed, as it peers into hers. She kisses a knuckle. 

“I will be home with you soon,” Clorinde says softly. 

“But—” Navia grips Clorinde’s wrist like a vice when Clorinde steps out. Everything around her feels like they’re swaying at her feet. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Navia pleads. Begs.

Clorinde looks at her, and it’s like she’s someone else again. There’s no visible trace of her Clorinde on her face, just a shadowed, empty mask that makes an imitation of her. 

“I’m sorry,” Clorinde only says. 

“Why?” Navia asks, demanding just as she is ready to collapse. 

Clorinde gulps, and she takes another step back. She isn’t looking at Navia anymore. She’s only looking at the ground. 

“I—” Clorinde closes her eyes, turning her shoulder away from Navia. “I want a divorce. Perhaps… I can even look if we can pass an annulment. For how long we’ve carried on this charade, the process will be lengthy. I’m sorry.”

Clorinde leaves her there, and Navia catches her eye just in time. She watches as Clorinde wipes at her eyes with her sleeved wrist. 

Clorinde was crying. 

pour aimer et chérir
to love and to cherish

To say that Clorinde can protect her from everything was naive at best, and dangerous at most.

When she wakes the next morning, her fever has subsided entirely. She almost wishes she still had it. At least then it would be useful as a distraction. 

And they stay married; at least, for the short time that they are allowed to be. 

Though their marriage is only written on paper, rather than it is in any other sense of the word. Navia wakes right before the sun rises, stirred by the gentle sounds of Clorinde getting ready for the day. Before she could utter a question, something like “Isn’t it too early for you to be up?”, Clorinde is already out of the bedroom and out of their house. 

Navia goes through her days in a new, steady routine: Clorinde wakes up before her and doesn’t stick around for breakfast, Navia eats across an empty chair, they spend their days apart, and they return home to each other in silence before they head to bed just as quietly. 

The silence between now is much too like the silence for the years they’ve spent apart from each other after Callas’ death. Solemn, quiet— grieving the loss of something between them even if it doesn’t manifest physically. 

The few times Navia tries to make conversation are futile. Clorinde only answers in clipped words, her eyes always darting around as if to find an exit. It saddens her heart every time, but she continues to try. She knows that the rift between them is getting too far and wide for them to fix, but damn it, she could at least say she tried. 

Isn’t that what matters in a failing marriage, in the end? 

To say that they’ve tried?

After almost half a month has passed, Navia begins to grow hope. They still spend their time apart from one another, but… that’s all. Clorinde still brings her gifts once in a while. Navia still leaves dinner on the table for her on the days she goes to bed early. When they will be away longer than expected, they still tell each other to keep the worry at bay. One night, they even go to see a play, hands whispering close to one another as they walk to the opera house. 

But then Navia wakes, the bed empty and cold as it always had been, and Clorinde’s ring sits on her side of the bed. Polished and cleaned, as if Clorinde had never worn it at all. 

And Navia’s heart breaks. 

After all, Clorinde has never been one to break a promise. If she’s looking to sever their marriage, then she will find a way. No matter how much Navia wishes she could beg her to reconsider. 

Navia thumbs her own ring. For a moment, she contemplates taking it off too. Maybe she can put their rings together in a box and hide it away, never to be seen ever again— but she’s always been the more sentimental one between them. And the weakest at heart. 

She keeps her ring on and tucks Clorinde's ring away in a compartment. She doesn’t even look at it. 

She comes home that night to an empty house once again. She wonders what Clorinde is doing out so late at night. Is she in danger? Is she speaking to someone like Monsieur Neuvillette, finalizing their legal separation? Will she wake to Clorinde shaking her shoulder, asking her to pack her things and move back to Poisson? 

How did they end up here? Didn’t Clorinde promise to spend the rest of her life by her side?

Her rising anger pops at the mere thought of Clorinde. How could she villainize her best friend for feeling the way that she does? Their marriage was simply nothing more than something for her to deceive herself with. For Clorinde to play along for this long was unfathomable in of itself. 

It’s beginning to rain, just enough to cause a little stir outside of the house. She closes the windows, waving at the pedestrians zipping past and yelling after them to find somewhere dry. They wave and smile at her, even when they cringe as more droplets of water stain dresses and shirts. 

There’s a knock on her door, and she thinks that it’s someone caught in the rain, looking for shelter.

In a way, she’s right.

She’s always seen Clorinde like a candle lighting the shadows. Gentle, unyielding, a bright but small light that guides her gently through this maze— and yet knowing that even a benign breeze may take her away. She wonders if Clorinde sees herself that way, understanding that the kind smiles and adoring gazes that she throws towards Navia is a testament that she’s everything like the candlelight that sits by her window. 

Clorinde is in the doorway. Dark splotches of the rain make its mark on her shoulders, her hair slightly damp. She’s breathing a little hard from her stride to get here. Her eyes are a little wide, calling to plead with Navia once again. 

She takes her hat off, gently pressing it to the center of her chest, like she’s trying to show Navia that her words will come only sincerely. Navia wishes she could find the courage to speak and tell her that she doesn’t need to do that— Clorinde has always spoken from the heart with her. 

For a moment, she doesn’t speak. It’s like she’s stunned to see Navia as much as Navia is to see her, but that wouldn’t make a single speck of sense.

“What do you want?” Navia asks her. She’s too tired to push any kind of irritation into her voice. She’s just tired of this. 

Clorinde winces. Navia thinks, it serves her right, before she scolds herself for thinking so. 

Clorinde takes a deep breath, and it rattles even from where Navia stands. “Monsieur Neuvillette would like to seek an audience with you. With us.”

It makes her heart sink.

All her fears have been coming true for the past few weeks, and she’s just supposed to sit here and take it. 

“Did you ask him to help you process it faster?” Navia says, and she can’t keep the bite out of her voice. To go to him, of all people, about this kind of thing seemed extreme, but she couldn’t put it past Clorinde for wanting to do things her way. 

Clorinde looks away from her burning gaze. “No,” she says, almost ashamedly. “I… asked him myself.”

When Navia doesn’t respond, she continues, “He thinks we’re making a mistake.”

Navia gives her a dry, humorless laugh. “‘We’?”

Clorinde glances from behind her, then back at her. “Can I come in?” she asks, hesitant like she already expects Navia to shut the door in front of her face. 

But this is Clorinde’s home first and foremost before it has ever been hers, so Navia steps aside and lets her into the house with a jerk of her head. 

They sit across from each other, the table between them empty and devoid of any fresh food or flowers. There is no laughter or ambling conversation between them to fill the silence. Clorinde’s drenched hat is the only thing on the table. Navia curls her fingers into her lap, stopping herself from reaching over to wring it out for her. 

Interestingly, it’s Clorinde who breaks the silence between them. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, as if it isn’t part of the vocabulary she’s been repeating to Navia every day ever since that night. “The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you. But severing this now— before it becomes an even bigger problem— will prevent you from getting hurt further.”

That lights the fire in Navia’s blood. “Why are you doing this?” she asks sharply, her words so punctured with bitterness that Clorinde’s eyes are glued on her, wide and vulnerable. “Did— did you marry me because you thought it was the only way to protect me? Did you think that’s what papa was asking from you?”

It’s thoughts that have circled her mind not just for the past few weeks, but for the past few months. Thoughts that have plagued her as soon as they stood on that altar together. 

Because thinking that Clorinde married her out of pity or a sense of duty was hard, but thinking that Clorinde didn’t, couldn’t ever, love her the way that she did was harder.

“No!” Clorinde says sharply. 

Clorinde’s rising voice spurs her on. “Then why?” Navia begs.

Clorinde loosens a breath. “We got married out of convenience and benefit for us both. The press would leave us alone, we can both focus on our careers, and you—”

“Not that.” Navia curls the fingers in her lap further into her palm, stinging them until she can feel half-moon crescents puncturing into her skin. “Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t love me? Why did you have to leave me there?”

Clorinde closes her eyes. Navia wishes she could just look at her. To see her and what’s happened between them. 

“I know you didn’t marry me because you loved me,” Navia says softly. Clorinde flinches. “I thought— I thought I didn’t love you, and that’s why I married you. We could have fixed this together. Y— you could have just told me that you didn’t feel the same, and we could’ve gone back to where we were before this without acting like we didn’t exist to each other again. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Clorinde stays quiet. She’s looking down at her lap, her face expressionless except for the thin press of her lips. 

Navia feels like crying. But she’d be damned if she didn’t see this to the end. She doesn’t want this to hang over them. Again. 

“All your life you’ve been told to follow someone and stick close to their heel. Do what you’re told. Throw your own body to protect them,” Navia says, her voice low. “I don’t want that with you, Clorinde. I want you beside me, but I don’t want to handcuffed you to my side. You have your own wants and ambitions, even if I don’t share them. What do you want, Clorinde?”

Clorinde licks her lips. She blinks, shifts her weight on her chair, and then looks away. 

The soft pitter patter of the rain on the roof is the only thing louder than Navia’s breathing. 

“Clorinde, please,” Navia begs, and her voice rises. “I’m not going to force you to stay with me. That’s the last thing I ever wanted to happen. You’re my best friend. If you didn’t want to kiss me, or touch me like that, or— or be with me, damn it! I would have—”

“I didn’t do it just for you, I did it because I was SELFISH!” Clorinde shouts, and the break in her voice shocks even Navia. When Clorinde turns to look at her, she can see the gleam of tears glossing over her eyes. Clorinde blinks, and the sheen in her eyes doesn't disappear. Her mask is gone. 

“Clorinde—” Navia begins, and doesn’t know what to say. 

Clorinde looks at her again, her breath shaky and her fist shaking on the table. “You married me out of convenience. Even so, you have shown me a companionship full of love and care. You became the wife that challenged me as much as you did love me. You showed me the worth of a marriage, and what it is to carry that ring on my finger. For that, I will forever be thankful. But I am not worth you. I’ve let this marriage blind me to how selfish I’ve been, and the grievances I’ve forced upon you. I’ve let myself indulge in living in a make-believe world, where you love me and you kiss me because you want to.”

“And I do, I—”

“And it’s wrong!” Clorinde insists, desperately. Her wide eyes are practically wild. “I thought I could restrain how I feel about you, because I’ve been doing it ever since I’ve met you. I thought marrying you to make you happy wouldn’t be out of my control— but it was. I let my want and desire for you control me. And I can’t keep doing this to you. Please. You have to understand that.” 

“Why is that such a bad thing?” Navia tries. Why is it a bad thing that you love me?

“Because you deserve better,” Clorinde whispers harshly. “Because you deserve to marry someone who cherishes you and loves you without burdening your union.” 

Clorinde looks as near to tears as she’s ever seen her. “Please,” she chokes out again. 

But Navia is stubborn. Unshakable and adamant in the way that she thinks. Clorinde knows that. 

Because before Navia can get another word in, Clorinde’s chair scrapes as she stands up abruptly. She kneels, right by Navia’s side, taking her hand in hers, squeezing it and looking into her eyes. 

It’s so much like the kneel for the plea of marriage, but its discordant reality makes the lump in Navia’s throat feel much bigger. 

“Please. I love you,” Clorinde begs. “I love you, Navia. But everyday I’m terrified of hurting you when I already have. I am not worthy of you.”

The heartbreak in the way she speaks— the way she says it like it’s only a matter of fact— that’s the only thing that stems from this conversation that angers Navia. 

“All my life I wondered what it was like to lose someone you love,” Navia whispers, and Clorinde’s hand on hers never wavers. “And then I lost so many people in my life in such a short timespan that I didn’t know how I managed to keep standing. But now I do. You kept from sinking. So to have you pleading on your knees, begging me to just stand here and lose you— do you know how hard that is? To have you beg me to let go of you because of your selfish wish to think that you aren’t good enough? Do you think pushing me away or having everyone throw stones at you will fix that?”

Clorinde opens her mouth, just slightly. Her eyes are still lost in her gaze. 

“I meant what I said that night,” Navia says again. “I would marry you now, and I would marry you anywhere. You’ve never been perfect, but I’m not either. I never married you because of your worth, or mine. I wanted you, in everything that comes with you. Just you.” Having Clorinde’s ring wrapped around her finger felt like a halo kissed on her hand. She would be an idiot to deny herself that kind of heaven. 

Clorinde’s eyes lands on the ring on her finger, still and unmoving from their position when they married long ago. Her face shoots between a dozen emotions at once. 

“You didn’t take it off?” she asks, almost in awe.

Navia gently takes her hands out of Clorinde’s and caresses them on Clorinde’s face. How she wishes Clorinde had knelt like this in another life, to put a ring like this on her finger and ask her to be hers forever. 

“I made a vow to you,” Navia murmurs. “And I never break my promises. Remember?”

Clorinde blinks away her tears. She inhales sharply, exhaling like it pains her. “I don’t know what to do,” she says shakily, and it’s like they’re ten again, when Clorinde had pushed her a little too hard and made Navia’s knee bleed. “I’m terrified.” That I’ll hurt you again. That I am beyond your forgiveness and you don’t want me anymore after this. 

So Navia does what she had done in the past. She laughs, and bends down to kiss Clorinde reverently on the corner of her lips.

Another promise.

“Fix this with me,” Navia says softly to her. The rain is beginning to clear. “Fix it because you want to be here and love me.” Like the way I love you. The way I want to cherish you. 

Clorinde doesn’t have to ask her to clarify. 

She charges upwards, a hand on Navia’s knee to stabilize herself, as she surges to kiss Navia on the lips in a heated, messy kiss. Navia keeps her hands on Clorinde’s face, a thumb stroking her cheek. Her heaven is in her hands. 

She can taste salt on her tongue. She doesn’t care if the tears come from her or Clorinde, or both. All she cares about is that Clorinde separates from her lips, just briefly, to breathlessly ask, “Where did you put my ring?”

Navia doesn’t respond for a little while. She just holds Clorinde’s face again, in awe. Clorinde lets her, closing her eyes and leaning into her touch. Vulnerable, and still scared, but ready to face it with her. 

To love and to cherish. 

jusqu'à la mort nous sépare.
until death do us part. 

Of course, the fix isn’t instantaneous. But it’s constant, and it works, and Navia has the love of her life valiantly by her side through the entire process. 

They tried their best to maintain what they’ve done in the past; but their dates are a little awkward, breakfast and dinner together is a stumble to get through, and Clorinde almost knocks Navia’s teeth when she bucks up during some… other recreational bed activities. 

And then one day, when they’re sitting at their usual spot at Café Lutece and Clorinde can’t find her words to tell her about how pretty she looks in the sunlight, Navia laughs and puts her hand over Clorinde’s. 

Their rings have been newly polished, and they shine in the light. 

“Let’s try again,” she says gently. Her eyes twinkle with mischief. “You can try and pretend that this is our first date. Pretend you’re starting from the ground up. How about that?”

Clorinde nods stiffly to her instructions and swallows. There’s a few seconds of silence before she takes a gander and says, “Uh… you look… exquisite. Today. Navia.”

Navia can’t help but giggle at that, even when Clorinde throws her a dirty look. “Sorry, sorry! You just looked so cute!” she cries, waving her hand in front of her face as if it would do anything to stop her from laughing.

Clorinde glowers at the crepe in front of her. It just makes her look cuter, and Navia tries to stop another giggle from coming out by drinking her water. She honestly doesn’t know what’s making Clorinde so nervous today— they’ve done it a thousand times, even before they were married. There’s nothing special going on today either. 

“How was work?” Navia says, softening the blow for Clorinde’s ego. She knows for a fact that something as familiar and comfortable as work can help Clorinde get back on track. 

She’s glad that she’s right. Clorinde’s shoulders slump as she replies, “Tedious, I’m afraid. Even someone in my position can’t escape the horrors of paperwork.”

“Aw, my poor baby,” Navia coos, and she grins when Clorinde’s eyes shoot up to meet hers in embarrassment and warning. Navia just stuffs her mouth with bulle souffle. 

“How was yours?” Clorinde asks, choosing instead to skim over Navia’s tease. 

“Same as yours,” Navia says. She frowns and speaks again after swallowing another mouthful of her food. “Funny though. Everyone kept giving me weird looks today. Some kid was smiling at me so hard I got the jitters. Do you think I should ask Sigewinne for a check up with them?”

Clorinde chuckles, surprisingly. “Your energy must just be rubbing off on them. That’s all.”

She thinks back to the large smile on that kid. “I don’t smile weird, do I?” she asks, worried. 

Clorinde smiles at her, and it’s warm and bright. It makes her want to smile back, but she finds herself a tad bit self conscious. Not to worry, though. Clorinde seemingly always knows how to remedy that. 

“Your smile is beautiful, mon amour,” she says sincerely. “Such as with sunshine after a drought, I can’t get enough of it.”

“You’re so—” Navia pauses, letting her beating heart still just long enough for her to continue. “You’re so corny, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” Clorinde answers easily. Her eyes are shimmering with playfulness as she takes a sip of her tea. 

“Probably one of your best lines yet,” Navia says again, almost to herself. She looks at the corner of the sky and hums. “I honestly don’t know how you can beat that one,” she adds amicably. 

Clorinde raises both of her eyebrows. Almost in challenge. “You think so?”

“Oh, I know so,” Navia says, her voice low. She likes it when Clorinde lets herself get competitive like this. It’s rare, but that’s what makes her giddy. 

There’s a moment that passes between them where Navia holds her breath, waiting for Clorinde to do something. Is she going to kneel down next to their table and profess her undying love? Maybe she’ll reach over and brush a strand of Navia’s hair away from her face and tuck behind her ear? Maybe she’ll unsheath a bouquet of roses that she’s been hiding on her lap?

Instead, Clorinde just laughs freely. “I’ll prove you wrong when you least expect it,” she says. 

Navia deflates, just a little. “I’m counting on it,” she half-teases, half-warns. 

Clorinde just smiles before she eats another piece of her crepe. 

When the bill comes, Navia insists on paying. Clorinde puts up a good fight, but she knows when to accept defeat with Navia’s neverending stubbornness. They walk hand in hand back home, chatting idly about the nice weather and what weekend plans they’d like to enact together next. 

Last week, they went fishing over the weekend, just to try something new. Navia was much better at it than Clorinde, but she had a feeling that Clorinde was holding back to let her win. 

And just the other week, they decided to go on an impromptu mini-staycation at home, baking and making paper crafts like they did as kids. They’re much better now with deft, adult hands, and their crafts still hang from above their bedroom to this day. 

There’s even a painting of them in the living room. Painted while they were speaking on a park bench in the middle of Fontaine, Clorinde’s adoring eyes for her eternalized on a canvas while Navia held tightly onto her hand in excitement with whatever story she was telling when the painter had captured it. 

Their love is no longer contained to the rings on their hands. It’s found everywhere instead, and Navia wouldn’t have it any other way. She hopes that Clorinde feels the same way. 

Clorinde tugs at her hand, gently prodding her to look at her. There’s a soft smile on her face, and her eyes are gentle as it caresses the curve of her skin. I love you, Clorinde seems to say without moving her lips, and Navia exhales a happy laugh against her shoulder and kisses the underside of her jaw. 

“I hope you’re not too tired,” Clorinde says soothingly. She’s running her fingers up and down Navia’s arm, and if Navia can fall asleep upright against her, she honestly would. “I bought tickets to another play for tonight. But if you’d rather rest, I’d be more than happy just to lay next to you.”

She wonders why Clorinde had been scared to compliment her at the cafe lately. She seems to be doing just fine sounding as charming as she does. 

“I’m not tired,” she assures Clorinde. As if she would ever pass up the option to spend time with her. “What play are we seeing?”

Clorinde’s smile is a little inconspicuous. “You’ll see.” 

They head home, and Navia jumps at the chance to make out with her wife. It’s not for very long, as Clorinde taps at her thigh and laughs freely against her lips, reminding her that their aquabus leaves in an hour and she knows how meticulous Navia can get about her lipstick. Navia huffs, but her wife is right. As always. 

But as a small act of revenge, she leaves a lipstick mark on the back of Clorinde’s neck when they leave the house.

Wriothesley is there with them when they board the aquabus. Navia thinks that it’s a little odd, considering that the fortress is nowhere in this line for the aquabus, but she accepts his explanation of running errands and needing a play to wind down. 

She feels a slight spark of jealousy when Wriothesley sits right next to Clorinde, the both of them whispering too quietly for her to try and overhear. They’re so close together by the middle of the ride that Navia pretends to trip and sit in between them. The ride is mostly silent after that, but Clorinde chuckles and rubs her arm in apology for the lack of attention before they get there. 

The opera house is packed. It always is, but there seems to be an overflow of people today. Miraculously, Clorinde has gotten them front row seats to a sold-out show. She never had such doubts about her wife’s ability to treat them to the grandest things in life, anyway.

They sit down next to a pompous looking couple. It’s comical watching them turn to look at them with a sneer, before matching looks of horror and apology overtake their faces. Clorinde waves off their bumbling apologies, and Navia barely manages to hide her little giggle in Clorinde’s shoulder. 

They chat and play a quick game of “I spy” as they wait for the curtains to draw. They laugh and swat at each other, and they manage to pass the time so quickly that Navia is surprised when the lights turn down low and people begin to hush up for the play.

It’s the same play that they watched for the first time as a married couple. 

It’s a beautiful play, really, and Navia is happy to see it again, especially seeing that it’s the same performers as last time. The acting is superb, and she finds herself tearing up during the last act. It doesn’t explain, however, why she can feel Clorinde’s eyes on her for the majority of the performance. 

“Is there something in my teeth?” she whispers to Clorinde, when the play is almost over. 

“Not at all,” Clorinde replies all too easily. 

“Okay?” is her reply, and she sits back nicely in her seat. Clorinde seems to be all over the place today, distracted and almost… skittish. She wants to ask Clorinde if she’s alright, but it’s rude to talk over a good performance like this. She keeps her mouth shut for the time being. 

When the lights finally come back and everyone’s clapping for the actors on stage as they bow and curtsy, Navia turns to her wife. 

“Are you okay?” she asks immediately, still clapping and having to speak a little louder over the thunderous noise of applause. “You look a little distracted.”

“I’m fine,” Clorinde says, but it’s almost like she says it through her teeth. “I’m just a little… tired.”

“Oh.” Navia frowns at that. “You should have told me. We can sneak off right now and take the first aquabus home.” 

Clorinde shakes her head. “Not yet. We have somewhere else to go.”

At that, Navia raises her eyebrow. She doesn’t remember Clorinde asking her to go somewhere else after this. And with the performance running so late, she doubts that most restaurants would be open right now. 

“Alright. Where are you thinking?” she asks, because although she has no idea what she’s wanting, she knows that she’d go anywhere Clorinde goes.

Clorinde smiles at her in relief. “Will you come with me? I want it to be a surprise.”

That intrigues her. So naturally, she lets Clorinde take her hand and says, “Where you go, I go.”

They sneak past the other people sitting down next to them, tumbling out of the opera house and squinting into the night. Clorinde excuses herself only briefly to speak to Wriothesley, something about needing “a quick exchange of hands.” Navia is grateful that the moon is full today, illuminating their paths and putting a halo of light around Clorinde’s gentle-looking features.

Where Clorinde takes her is, apparently, right out of Fontaine. 

They walk for so long that Navia’s feet are starting to get sore, but she would be damned if she didn’t see what Clorinde’s apparent surprise is. It makes her entire body vibrate, excited and nervous all at the same time, because Clorinde had never wanted to surprise like this before. She’s a blunt, straightforward woman— if Clorinde wanted to show her something, she would do so right then and there. The element of surprise has never occurred to a person like Clorinde. 

They reach the edge of a shore. There’s a wooden path to the shore that lets Navia step on it without dirtying her shoes, clearly made by Clorinde’s hard-working hands. It’s also been lit by candles. By the look of the wax, they seem to have been lit recently. 

At the end of Clorinde’s path is a boat, big enough to fit two. It looks sturdy enough that Navia isn’t too worried about drowning at sea, but it still looks rather unfinished, with no paint on it to declare who it belongs to. She wonders if Clorinde had made it herself. 

“What is this?” Navia asks, and she laughs, because she doesn’t know how else to react. The excitement in her body is beginning to make her want to take Clorinde in her hands and kiss her all over. 

Clorinde just gives her a look, then nods to the boat. She holds Navia’s hand and helps her inside, and she takes up the oars and pushes them out to the sea. 

The sea is dark, but it’s illuminated by friendly, blue creatures below and fireflies that zip around them above. The moon is large and winks at them, following their every move even as they go farther and further out into the sea. She can’t hear anyone here, nor can she hear anything else but the sounds of crickets and Clorinde rowing the boat for them. She shields herself and Clorinde from the moonlight with her parasol. 

“This isn’t a murder attempt, is it?” she jests when they finally start to slow down in the middle of the ocean. 

Clorinde snorts. Navia thinks it’s a pretty sound. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it when you broke my first edition card right before we graduated,” she says. 

“That was an accident!” Navia argues, but her ears twinge with warmth at the shame of the memory.

Clorinde just smiles encouragingly at her, and it immediately puts her back at ease. 

She keeps rowing and rowing, until they’re far enough from Fontaine that she can see the street lights that emit from it. The land that they came from is nearly the size of her thumb in the distance. She notices only now that Clorinde had their initials carved into the inside of the boat. It’s so endearing that she puts a hand to her chest. 

Navia looks around them. It’s beautiful where they are, but Clorinde looks like its centerpiece. 

Clorinde grunts and puts down the oars. Navia marvels at the veins on her hands, the scars that scatter on her wrist and knuckles and where they continue underneath her sleeves. She’s battle-torn and lovely, all at once. Navia has spent hours kissing every scar and skin that covers her body, and she wants to do it all over again.

Clorinde catches the breathless way that she’s staring, and her smile turns a little shy. She slips a hand into her pocket coyly. 

“I… hope you’re comfortable,” she says. “I don’t mean to scare you by bringing you out here.”

“Not at all,” Navia assures. She twirls her parasol between her fingers, gnawing at her lower lip. “You make me feel safe here. You’d make me feel safe even if you made us trek down a volcano,” she says honestly. 

That makes Clorinde’s shy smile broaden. 

And then it lessens, just a little bit. She’s meek again, and Navia can’t understand why. But the light in her eyes are still shining as ever, and she hopes that Navia reflects that too. 

“I… asked around about your father,” she starts. “And your mother. About how they met and the stories they’ve had together.”

That makes Navia’s heart grow fond. “Did you really?” she asks softly. 

“Yes,” Clorinde confirms, and she clears her throat. She’s not looking at Navia again. Instead, her eyes are turned to the horizon, at the fireflies and moon’s reflection that ripples on the waters around them. Navia can hear the sound of a frog croaking nearby. “I’m sure you know more than I do, but from what I’ve gathered, they loved each other very much. And that you got your temper from your mother.”

That makes Navia bark out a laugh. “I probably drove papa crazy with that, huh?” she says fondly. 

Clorinde tilts her head at her and smiles. “And now you’re driving me crazy about it,” she answers, just as fondly. 

It makes Navia’s heart swell. 

She feels like her heart is about to explode at any moment, like a balloon ready to pop. 

“Did I miss an anniversary?” she suddenly thinks to ask. Then the panic sets in. “Oh, shoot— did I miss our wedding anniversary?! Why didn’t you—”

“You didn’t. No need to worry,” Clorinde quickly says. She puts a mollifying hand on Navia’s knee.

The proximity between them is so close together that Navia can breathe in and smell her perfume. She can lean over and kiss her wife whenever she wants to. That fact alone makes her giddy, and she nearly caves and lets her self control go to do so. 

But, she also knows there would be time to do that at home. For whatever reason Clorinde had brought her here for, she knows that it’s important. 

What if she wants to leave again? her mind whispers to her, and Navia pretends to angrily stomp on it and throw a cannonball at it. 

Clorinde had spent every waking breath proving to her that the opposite is true. She’s gentle and kind and patient with her, and Navia hopes that she gives just as much back. Neither of them are perfect, but no marriage is. 

That, and the way that Clorinde is looking at her now, with so much love in her eyes and none of it tucked away, feels good. 

It feels really, really good. 

“Why are we here, Clorinde?” she finally asks. 

It seems like that’s the question that Clorinde had been waiting for all along. 

Navia watches as Clorinde takes a deep breath, her hands wiping down on her pants (so nervously, Navia notes, for basically the first time she’s ever seen her be), and she gets down on one knee. 

Right in front of Navia. 

She holds up a red velvet box, opened to reveal two rings. It looks identical to the ones that they’re wearing now, except that these have shiny, polished gems embedded in them. 

The boat wobbles slightly under Clorinde’s changed position, and Navia watches out of the corner of her eye at how it ripples the reflection of the moon around the boat. She can no longer hear the crickets that chirp in her ears. 

“Navia,” Clorinde starts, so stiffly and rehearsed that Navia just wants to grab her face and kiss her, “I’ve loved you for longer than you could imagine. There is no one else I want to spend the rest of my life with. You’re my best friend and the sun of my life all at once. When I think about what the future may hold for me, I only think of you. Will you marry me?”

Navia is speechless. 

She stares at Clorinde’s eyes, her mouth agape. 

Clorinde holds her position in front of her for a long time, before the length that stretches between them begins to agitate her. Clorinde puts down the ring box, closing it gently so as not to disturb the rings inside. 

“Can you say that again?” Navia asks. 

Clorinde is confused momentarily. She searches Navia’s face, then asks again, more so in a whisper, “Will you marry me? A— again?”

And then Navia laughs. 

She laughs until she’s crying, and she puts her arms around Clorinde’s neck and kisses her until neither of them can breathe. 

“In case you forgot,” Navia breathes against her lips, a hand gently resting on Clorinde’s throat, “we’re already married.”

“I know,” Clorinde says, laughing enough to let its sweet melody echo off the surface of the water. “I know. I want— I wanted to do it right.”

Navia can’t help but kiss her again, deeply and passionately. Clorinde sighs against her lips before coming back for more, and Navia can feel the tingles already spreading across her face. She doesn’t care about the logistics of it, or what people may say about that. She wants it more than anything. She’d marry Clorinde again in a thousand different ways. 

“Yes,” she finally says, breathless and happy and so giddy. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Clorinde picks her up with one arm, twirling her on the boat and giggling just as much as Navia is as she spins around. 

The boat sways harshly under their feet, and Navia squeals. Clorinde holds onto her tight, and she doesn’t seem half as concerned as Navia is. 

“Can you get us back on shore?” Navia asks, still breathless from their kiss and the aftermath of Clorinde’s romantic venture. “I don’t think dying right before we get remarried is the right way to do it.”

“Of course,” Clorinde laughs, and Navia happily traces the curve of her cheek with a finger. “Anything for my wife.”