The streets of Fontaine glimmered under the late afternoon light — pools of gold rippling over stone bridges and fountains that sang with their endless cascades. Steam drifted faintly over the waterways, though the air wasn’t cold enough to warrant it. It was as if the city itself had begun to breathe differently.

People paused, murmuring as you passed. You had come quietly, a traveler wrapped in light fabrics the color of fire at sunset, your hair glowing faintly like molten silk as it caught the sun.

You felt it too — that odd hush between heartbeats, the gentle pull of something unseen. You hadn’t planned this visit. You had simply grown restless in Natlan, the songs of volcanoes and warriors no longer enough to fill the ache in your chest. Fontaine had called to you — its cool calm, its precision, its waters that knew nothing of fire.

You’d told yourself you were here only to wander. To see, to feel, to forget. And yet, as you crossed a narrow bridge overlooking a canal, your steps slowed.

At the far end stood Neuvillette. Chief Justice of Fontaine. The man who was the law, and something far older beneath it.

He wasn’t surrounded by guards or officials, just walking, quietly, his expression unreadable as always. Yet when his eyes met yours across the distance, the city seemed to fall silent.

A wave of energy rippled between you. Water and flame meeting halfway, neither consuming the other. The very air shimmered with pressure, as if the elements themselves were holding their breath. For a moment, you both simply stared, and in that gaze was recognition.

Not of faces, but of essence.

Your pulse quickened. Beneath your mortal skin, something ancient stirred, the memory of molten rivers, of scales and sky-fire. And from him came the echo of oceans so deep they had never seen light. He stepped forward, calm as the tide, though his heart beat faster than he would admit. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of millennia restrained by decorum.

“Ah…” His composure faltered for the briefest instant, eyes flicking over you — the flicker of heat behind your pupils, the aura that felt too wild for any human. He straightened, the faintest tremor of awe threading through his words. “I wasn’t expecting… you.”

The crowd around you continued walking, unaware that two of Teyvat’s oldest forces had just crossed paths again, drawn together by something neither time nor reincarnation could erase. Neuvillette inclined his head slightly, a wisp of mist rising at his feet as the air around him cooled in response to your heat.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Pyro Sovereign of Natlan,” he said quietly, the faintest smile tugging at his lips — formal words, but carrying something deeper.