perfectmatch | week three

Furina and Verso are taken to sip and paint class. They'll be given wine and a paint brush and sat in front of some easels. It's up to them to decide where to go there!

Highlights

The camera crew gets bored watching them though.
But the wine is delicious.
They can spend as long as they want here!

[Painting..................

He sips his wine. Very longly. Sitting in front of his canvas and staring.]

Hm.

Edited 2025-06-17 18:02 (UTC)

[Furina, too, swirls her wine glass and takes a drink (albeit a shorter one; she's not about to turn this into Furina at the rager partie deux). She stares at their blank canvases, then draws a deep sigh.]

Are you waiting for inspiration to strike? I'm stumped, too.

[He looks far too pensive to just be worrying about the painting, but she'll wait to call him out about it.]

[More like trying to stare at a blank canvas and not feeling Entirely, Bone-Deeply Tired about it, but it's probably fine.]

It's not quite that, it's. Um.

[ ... ]

You know how you decided, after a while, that you needed a break from the stage? Well. This is my stage. But with all that's happened this week, I'm sure I can find some kind of inspiration in me.

[Oh... Yes, Furina does know that feeling all too well, so when Verso discusses his feelings in those terms, she immediately gets exactly what he's describing.

Anticipating that this will be a bit of a conversation, Furina takes a long drink from her wine glass and spins in her seat so she's facing him. She crosses her legs and rests her chin on the palm of her hand. Like she's getting in line for a really serious talk...or gossip. Either way, she's locked in.]

Well, I can tell you right now that forcing it is only going to grow your resentment for it. I rather stumbled back into it, but I could only truly embrace it when I faced what I myself wanted. Just what would you say is inspiring you now?

[Resentment? Is that what he feels? He had always thought he was only ever tired, lacking inspiration, but he thinks of the masks that Renoir had painted as part of his "portrait", and that anger had been one of them.

...Mask or not, there was truth beneath it, too. Maybe he was a little resentful, beneath it all.]

I think I'm trying to figure that out.

[He puts the paintbrush down, looks at Furina, then... goes for his wine again.]

Can I ask you something? Your wish... you don't have to tell me the details, but were you set on its nature when you arrived? And has it changed at all, since?

[Tired, too, is familiar to her. She had been so exhausted... and being wrung out so tends to take away the parts of you that you think you can give.]

Hm... No, I wasn't, because I'm still determining the best way to leverage it. I'm in a position where I can do as I please with it, you see, but it's one thing I don't want to spend frivolously. Once there's no chance of it changing, that's probably how I'll know I've settled on the right use. [In short, her ideas keep changing. All of them feel itchy and like someone would be slighted.]

I would have had a much more straightforward answer for you if this had happened a while ago. [Years. Centuries.] Before the ancient prophecy came to an end and my story came to a close.

[Then she wouldn't even be here as herself--if she could have allowed herself to be here at all--even though her goal would have ultimately been the same. He'd have met a somewhat different Furina.]

[And he was going to say that his might have changed its course in these four weeks, and his uncertainty regarding that, but he'd rather listen to what Furina has to say first. Any motes of comfort that he can unearth from them, selfishly, he's happy to reinforce his own thoughts with.

But-]

Ancient prophecy?

"All people from Fontaine are born with sin that cannot be absolved; one day, the waters of Fontaine will rise and the sinful people will all be dissolved into the waters, and only the Hydro Archon will remain, weeping on her throne- only then will the sins of the people be washed away."

[Do you ever get the sense that someone has heard the same story told in many ways for a very long time? She can't muster up the dismissive lack of concern she was once able to project. It seems there are some things about the way everything resolved that have still shaken her.]

Even though it might be difficult to believe, I'd have done anything to free the people of Fontaine from that fear. Now, knowing what to do with such a wish is...harder. [And therefore more up in the air. That's really all it is, though, so Furina looks a bit eager to move the topic on further.]

[Oh, what an apocalyptic sort of prophecy that sounds like — like it were ripped straight from the pages of a dark fairytale.

And yet... more than that, there are pieces of the puzzle here that begin to slot together, given the conversation he's had with Furina during that whole ghost fiasco.]

Wait. That other version of you, the one crying... That's the, ah, "Archon?"

[The weight of her responsibilities seem to become clearer to Verso; and thus, the meaningfulness of her stepping away from it, and how she might proceed henceforth. All things that Verso grapples with, too, in his own way.

Though he hardly saved anyone.]

[That makes two of them, then, really. For everything that happened, Furina doesn't often feel like her actions were responsible for saving anyone. She just played her part.]

Not anymore. [There is no more Hydro Archon, but Furina still has to pick carefully through her words. She's speaking around things she wanted to divest, around things that are best for the public not to know.] I abdicated from that role when the prophecy was ended, since I was no longer necessary. [She says "role" like "position," but maybe he can infer without drawing attention to it.]

Now...I wonder if my wish could still be used for Fontaine, or something else.

week three | dates

furina and verso

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a little spoilery tho again not something i think people care about