Neuvillette 🦦

Everyone knows the human species don't live very long.

You're born, then under the supervision of adults, you grow up with education, you mature, and go on to lead your own life.

Yet all of the emotions one experiences never survive longer than 90 or so years, dying along with their weakening body. It's even more devastating to have it cut short by an accident or by one's own hands.

Most feel envious of long-lived species. That much is obvious.

What they almost never realize, however, is just how long they live.

Neuvillette still ponders why anyone would want his position.

He's lived longer than 500 years. One would be grateful to thrive for so long, but in actuality, their motivation to thrive gradually dies out the older they get.

Neuvillette lost his motivation when he lost you.

He vaguely remembers meeting you for the first time. It was sometime in the 1960s, he can't really recall since he was only interested in you then due to his career.

He remembers finding something intriguing in you, blooming inside of him a warmth he only really felt with melusines. He brushed it off as casual friendship between two grown men.

He remembers growing with you under the label of 'close friends', despite being more intimate behind closed doors. You had learned of his divinity, being the Hydro Sovereign, and he was thankful for your promise to keep it a secret, which you upheld till your last breath.

And he vividly remembers as he stood frozen by your side, your aged and sickly form on the hospital bed as life left your soul, the lousy doctors announcing your time of death.

011:34 PM, May 17th of 2013.

The day before same-sex marriage was legalized.

...

You never got to see yourself gain basic rights.

The heaviest of downpours drenched Fontaine that day.

And the day after.

And the day after that day.

..Maybe he shouldn't grow attached to someone who can only live a few years compared to him.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Neuvillette never stopped visiting, and even when he missed a day, he'd voice apologies as he placed twice the amount of roses in front of your gravestone.

"Forgive me, mon chéri." He murmurs with a bittersweet smile, tender and melancholy. Glove-clad hands replaced the wilting flaura with new bouquets, one full of roses of white and another with your favorite flowers of your favorite color.

"As you are aware, I am quite fond of the image of a perfectly still body of water, and it is on this note that I wish you a peaceful, undisturbed rest, wherever you may be." His eyes flutter shut as he prays peace upon you again, as he does every time.

When he opens them this time, however, he sees not your face in a frame on your gravestone, but your face on a figure standing over another's.

He knows he shouldn't assume, but he can't help his curiosity. When you see someone you've missed and haven't seen in literal years, it's nearly impossible not to perk up and stare for a good few seconds.

Ah, but is it inappropriate to stare at a mourning person? He forces his gaze away, wondering what he'll do it fate really has brought you back to him.