Furina

Flamboyant and imprudent, Furina lives for the thrill of the courtroom, often speaking in a manner peppered with bravado and drama. She is impatient and has a childlike temper, and she will occasionally make judgments that she doesn't mean, which Neuvillette frequently has to control while conducting a trial to avoid complications. While she enjoys being in the spotlight, she only does so when it is focused at her positively, breaking down in complete shambles should something go out of plan and will try to save face at the first possible opportunity. However, she is shown to care about the people of Fontaine, as she conducts a lot of research on how to prevent the prophecy.

It is later revealed that Furina was not the true Hydro Archon. Focalors, the successor of Egeria, had separated her divinity from her body and spirit; Furina was the Archon's body and spirit but had no powers. Focalors used Furina as a way to deceive the Heavenly Principles in order to prevent the result of the prophecy regarding Fontaine from becoming a permanent reality. Furina was tasked with maintaining the guise of an Archon and cursed by Focalors so that she could not die nor pursue her own happiness so long as Focalors lived. As a new "human," she had difficulty taking the role but eventually mastered it. Aware of the prophecy that would doom Fontaine, Furina assumed the role of Hydro Archon for 500 years; while she was successful in this task, it wore her down mentally so that she suffered from severe self-esteem issues and paranoia, as shown when the Traveler convinced the court audience that she was a fraud in her trial. Despite being undying due to being cursed by Focalors, Furina remained fearful of situations that seemed deadly, as she pleaded the Knave to not kill her during an attack for the Hydro Gnosis, and was hesitant in dipping her hand into Primordial Seawater to prove whether she is the Hydro Archon during a trial. As a result, she deeply fears rising water levels.

She has fair skin and her eyes are heterochromatic with droplet-shaped pupils: her right eye is light blue with a dark blue pupil, while her left eye reverses the color scheme with a purple outer ring. She also has beaded-like eyelashes and soft white hair with light blue streaks. Arkhe alignments cause changes in Furina's features.

Furina's hair is sectioned into two parts, similar to a jellyfish cut: a short wavy bob cut of white, and a layer underneath of twin strands. Both sport "glowing" blue streaks. Her outfit is centered around pale blues and white.

As the icon of the Opera Epiclese, Furina has the right to speak freely during all stages of a trial.

Most of her questions are born from her curiosity and often have tenuous logical connections with the case at best, which at times can provoke raucous bursts of laughter from the audience.

But just as one might begin to suspect that Furina is just there for laughs and gags, and lacks even the capability to grasp the case in its entirety, she throws out opinions worth their weight in gold.

Of course, there are also times when she will express little interest in the whole process due to having earlier eaten snacks ill to her liking or missed some parade, but it is said that audience members lucky enough to be there are still pleased with this, as a god who speaks in anger is equally enchanting.

There is but one circumstance in which she will not appear to act quite so willfully, and that is when she takes the stage as an actress in a musical.

Fontaine has a great many musical theater classics passed down from antiquity that are, from time to time, performed at the Opera Epiclese, with key roles being played by the most popular actors of the day.

Before such productions are put on, there is a phase during preparations that resembles nothing so much as a lucky draw, where the troupe will send Furina an invitation. Should the mood strike her, she will agree to appear, resulting in a stage shared by a god and humans.

Once Furina has agreed to participate, the performance date for that show becomes a Fontainian festival in its own right, so popular that the Opera Epiclese couldn't possibly meet the fervent demand even if they sold nothing but standing tickets and were filled to capacity.

And when the music sounds and a god takes the stage, the audience will see not their lovable deity, who does as she pleases, but the character in the script.

Whether majestic or valiant, conniving or covetous, Furina is a dab hand at playing them all, perfect down to the last gest

Cases and performances take up a great deal of Furina's time, and even without these two things, she still shows up for all kinds of social activities and dinner parties related to government business and diplomacy.

Of course, social engagement is usually the limit of her remit, while the real behind-the-scenes work, and sometimes even certain important speeches made during these interactions, are handled by others.

Furina is quite thankful for these proxies, for she has heard that her life of leisure is a rare privilege in a world where most other gods have an endless parade of duties large and small to attend to.

She once considered that it might be right to set a... godly example, so to speak, and so she attempted to take part in the Palais Mermonia's day-to-day work when she had an excessive amount of free time on her hands...

However, her offers were respectfully yet consistently declined by both humans and Melusines, who insisted that "there are no great duties at present that need to be handed over to our god."

Though these words did make her glad, of course, after a few attempts she quickly realized how impractical it would be to use the work of the Palais Mermonia to escape her boredom.

Furina actually has another hobby, known to very few, and that is playing with little animals.

Fontaine's waterscapes are vast and beautiful, as well as blessed with innumerable adorable creatures. For one who always finds herself interacting with humans like Furina, this serves as an excellent change of pace.

However, animal habits are inconsistent and unpredictable, and Furina's carefree attitude always seems to rub them the wrong way. As in the "if she's not being blasted in the face by Hat Jellyfish, then she's being pursued to the ends of the ocean by Hunter's Rays" kind of wrong way.

It can be argued that the underwater world is more primitive and wild than the surface world, considering how little respect the animals here give a god on account of her status

Although Furina does tend to give people the impression of one prone to wandering thoughts and only tangential concern for the rules, she does have strict standards — in certain circumstances, anyway, especially before or after performances.

Everything must be to her satisfaction, be it the make or color of the props, the timing of the brightening and dimming of the lighting, or the pace and rhythm of the music.

As such, sharing the stage with a god is not some shortcut to glory, but one paved with blood, sweat, and tears, to the point where even the stories of a hard-to-please superstar prima donna fond of shows and with theatrical swagger to spare has reached even the lowliest street stalls.

Indeed, there was once a famous troupe that won the chance to perform with her, and pretended to agree to her exacting demands, only to default to methods they were more accustomed to during real rehearsals and performance prep.

The troupe director was confident in this method, believing that given Furina's personality, she would be most willing to back down on said demands if she were appropriately flattered and saw that everything was already complete and thus too late to change — a most excellent way to save effort and trouble.

But when the director began moving their props to the Opera Epiclese, he found Furina there, directing another troupe as they set up the stage rigging.

"Why, hello. You didn't seem interested in my opinions, so I arranged to perform with a different troupe."

The director was stunned. He had planned for Furina to discover the "flaws" in her view only after setup was complete.

But he could already tell that the stage sections that had been constructed precisely in accordance with her directions were significantly superior. Ordinary audience members couldn't necessarily tell, of course, but to professionals, the difference was always in the details, and these were obvious at a glance.

Round and round the interminable performance went, the day of the curtain call ever beyond reach, but so long as the prophecy loomed, the tale of this god must go on.

Though Fontainians found no real reason to doubt Furina over the years, she knew that the collapse of trust could begin with a single crack. No matter how small, once it appeared, it would be irreversible.

And the consequences of being exposed would be to reduce all her long years of work to dust, to allow Fontaine to fall — that was unconscionable!

So she did her best to laugh loudly when she should be glad, and weep bitterly when she should grieve, and display the divine bearing of an Archon when it was time to show off, all without fail, all without rest.

She knew that this was a performance. If she could endure until the danger had passed, she could finally take off her mask and regain the freedom to express her feelings.

Yet, she slowly began to realize that the godly role she was playing was eating into her.

A horrifying doubt began to creep up on her — how should she react when glad, if not to laugh loudly?

Perhaps she was once a girl who did not much enjoy laughter. Perhaps she had once been the sort to give up on herself at the first sign of difficulty, but such emotions had already slipped away, bit by bit.

Those in the performance arts often say that one must become a character to play them.

From that perspective, Furina's performance as the Hydro Archon has been flawless. Her painstaking perseverance produced the perfect product.

But no one has ever spoken of what might transpire once the last light had dimmed, for to them, the stage is fleeting.

For one such as Furina, who has acted for far too long, even the path back offstage has faded into dust, buried by the sands of time

The crisis of original sin was resolved, and Fontaine came under a new order. The affected areas were gradually rebuilt, and the people held high hopes for the future.

Furina was the only one with no place in this new world. She was quick to pack her bags and leave the Palais Mermonia, nor did she return to the Opera Epiclese.

She simply wanted to leave the memories that brought her so much pain as far behind as possible, and she was uninterested in the debates surrounding her — the Hydro Archon's tale was over, as it should be.

But where should an actress who had finished her part and fulfilled her duty go? None could say, and the concept of "freedom" rang hollow.

Furina's luggage remained piled up in her new rental apartment, and she lacked all will even to tidy up or get moved in. All she could do was lie in bed and stare at the bare ceiling.

Those she knew had very quickly found their place in the new order. Whether due to their strength, duties, or friendships, their importance made them irreplaceable.

In circumstances such as these, didn't "free" simply mean being someone who no one needed?

Just as she had reached this conclusion, her new residence received its first guest — Clorinde the Champion Duelist.

The duelist was shocked at Furina's living conditions, quickly expressing her willingness to pay for better accommodations, a notion Furina expended no small amount of effort disabusing her of. Despite this, she was dragged, however reluctantly, into at least properly unpacking and tidying up the room.

Clorinde then explained that she was here to invite Furina to a gathering. The duelist rarely took part in social events, but this gathering was one of old friends, who, as it happened, also knew Furina, and whom Clorinde had not seen in a while, anyway, so she thought she'd extend an invitation.

In days past, Furina would certainly have refused, for the greater the intimacy of her association with others, the more difficult it would be to conceal her

"If you become human, you can reveal your secret to no-one. You will face suffering and loneliness... Is this still what you want?"

By a twist of fate, the musical "The Little Oceanid" which nearly died before it could live, got the chance to be performed, and proved a resounding success at the Opera Epiclese.

Furina, standing in for the real actress, played the heroine Clio, who sacrificed herself to guide the freshwater upon which human survival depended back to them.

According to the script, she was not to take up the Vision that would appear before her as she disappeared, but instead allow it to fall into the ocean depths alone.

But during the actual performance, a real Vision appeared, and it belonged to Furina.

Visions are usually objects that appear in response to humankind's most fervent wishes, but this one, in particular, seemed more like a reward for her past deeds.

As Furina grasped it, its reflected radiance seemed to contain her heart, filled once again by this performance.

Performing had, in the past, brought her much pain, to the point where she had turned her back on the stage, but she indubitably understood the glory and brilliance of the stage best of all, and could give those who chase their dreams on the stage her matchless guidance and support.

As to the question of what to do next, which had plagued her for so long, she now had a clear answer:

To see this world from the perspective of the audience, and create the greatest performances without stepping onstage.

No longer would her attention be focused only on musicals — as long as it's related to performance, Furina is interested in taking part from behind the curtain.

Also, it is worth mentioning that though she seemed quite calm upon receiving that Vision, so much so that she even managed a few fine words, upon leaving the theater troupe, Furina immediately set off afterward to avenge herself on the "Local Legend" she had once angered by accident... which ended quite poorly for her

Furina is not considered an Archon, as she neither had access to the Hydro Archon's Divine Throne nor disappeared when the current Hydro Dragon's full elemental authority was returned. However, as far as Teyvat is concerned, Furina is considered to have served as Fontaine's Archon and abdicated that role upon the prophecy's resolution.

Undoubtedly, Furina has been much loved by the people of Fontaine from the moment she became the Hydro Archon.

Her charismatic parlance, lively wit, and elegant bearing — all bear witness to her godly charms.

But perhaps the thing that she is most revered for is her unrivaled sense of drama.

As the protagonist of a famous play at the Opera Epiclese once put it,

"Life is like the theater — you never can tell when the twist will come."

Furina is as inscrutable as the most cunning of stage characters, her course of action defying all prediction.

In fact it's precisely for this reason that the god of Justice and Judgment, unapproachable in her divine majesty, has such a bewitching influence.

But when the curtain falls, a hollow feeling invariably starts to creep in.

There are those who wonder whether there are moments in the dead of night when even a god like Furina feels the sharp pangs of loneliness.

No, surely not. People couldn't possibly imagine, let alone believe, that such a scene might play out.

And that's indeed the way it should be.

That is, were it not for the fact that Furina's tears had already been silently washed away by the Fountain of Lucine.

As the voices of doubt have bubbled up like a torrent, she has been forced to adopt a higher-spirited and more unyielding demeanor in her defense.

But she must also continue to fulfill her duties at hand, and can't possibly let her weakness be exposed through the rise and fall of her emotions.

The advent of an impending disaster — long foretold by ancient prophecy — draws near. Faced with such times, what is a god to do? More than anyone else, she wishes she knew.

From an onlooker's perspective, she seems distracted and weary — but she waves this off as a simple lack of sleep. As the Regina, loved and respected by her people, how could she let such buzzing naysayers get to her?

No — no matter how chaotic and urgent things get, she can't allow herself to drop the ball now, nor can she let all those years of hard work come to nothing.

Beloved by all, the one and only star of this grand opera...

Whether lonely, helpless, in pain, or in sorrow, and even if it means taking all the misery of this world onto her shoulders...

Her will to protect the people of Fontaine — every last one of them — has never yet faltered.