The chief justice is soft. Not in the ways of criminal law, or his verdicts in trials, no. He’s soft in all the ways he never expected. When Neuvillette sees you it’s like he can breathe, when he holds your hand he feels the burning of a thousand fires under his skin. It’s poetic in ways he never imagined. Neuvillette has changed in ways he never thought possible.

“Order in the court.” Neuvillette slams the gavel down and his voice rings out, loud and stern as he sits at the center of the Opera Epiclese. The tone of his voice commanding and leaves no room for question, and yet when you step into his office mere hours later Neuvillette cannot bring himself to speak to you in any way that isn’t fond. His voice lacks any hardness when you’re nearby. It both frustrates and fills him with unbearable adoration.

You are like the sun to a flower, the rain to his most joyful days. When he sees you he doesn’t know how to be the Iudex of Fontaine and only how to be a man whose heart is beating for the first time. It seems as if he cannot wait to see you at home, always looking for some way to distract himself from cases he drowns in just to smell your hair. Just to hold your hand with such tenderness, and whisper softly into your ears. Only for you to hear. “Thank you for lunch, my love.”

Neuvillette’s words are punctuated with a soft, almost natural kiss to the side of your cheek as he takes the meal you prepared for him. In all honesty, he feels less like a being who could judge gods and drown nations in torrential storms and more like someone who wants to be yours. He is yours. Every day where he can wake and grace himself with the view of his spouse sleeping soundly beside him is a good day.