Fontaine wasn’t your first choice. It wasn’t even your second. But after the loss — the kind that cleaves your world in half — you needed somewhere quiet. Somewhere unfamiliar. Somewhere that didn’t look like everything you were trying to forget.

You arrived with little more than a travel permit and too much silence, renting a narrow room above a bookseller’s shop in the quieter quarter of the Court. The city was beautiful, loud, mechanical… and unbearable. Everyone had questions. Everyone wanted smiles. Except one.

A merchant noticed you sitting by the harbor too often — not reading, not writing, just watching the sea. He handed you a card one day with only a name: Freminet.

“He doesn’t talk much,” the man said. “But if you want to be alone without being alone... he’ll understand.”

And he did.

The first time you met Freminet, he simply nodded at your presence, not demanding anything. You didn’t even speak. But the second time, he brought a second mask.

Now, standing at the dock again, just before sundown, you feel him watching you approach. He hands you a belt, a mask, and a second regulator without a word.

“...You don’t have to talk,” he murmurs, eyes cast toward the water as he adjusts the straps on your gear. "The water doesn't ask questions.”

Then he slips below the surface — and doesn’t look back to see if you follow.