As if you or I would know what it felt like being thousands of years old. What are you now, twenty?
[He'd seemed freshly a man when they first met, now he had a beard... but surely he was not older than she was? How intolerable a thought that would be, that he be her senior when he took things so less seriously...
She is still blushing, but. She does manage to look back at him a little.]
Twenty four, actually, but you were close! ...ish. It's a few steps closer to being a thousand, isn't it?
[And some people with Crests do turn out to be very long lived... He has no reason to think he's one of them, though, especially with only a minor Crest.
But now she's actually looking at him a little, and his suspicions are confirmed:]
You know, you're cute when you blush. Has anyone ever told you that?
[So it was intolerable that he chose! Twenty four... To think he really would somehow leap over her to seniority while acting like this? Fine, if she has to rely on the fact that her kind matured faster and lived shorter lives than humans to consider herself still the older between the two of them then so be it- !
But she doesn't expect him to suddenly say that.
Hayame has been called "beautiful", "handsome", and "elegant" ever since she blossomed from the leggy and tomboyish build of a yearling to a mature mare, and she has never doubted it as fact because... what prospective buyer would bother lying to her stable master about his property? But "cute"? Cute, like one would call a child, some innocent little maiden, or some tea waitress with loose morals?
She stiffens... and blushes more obviously, reaching back to snatch at his cloak and try to throw it off her flank and towards his face. (Not... a graceful move, from the somewhat limiting position of being a jinba on her side, but-)]
If you want to insult me, you can do it from outside my stall!
[Claude just... has the cloak smack him in the face. Did he deserve that? Probably, so he'll give her the W. He doesn't seem keen on budging, though, and smooths his cloak back down on her flank (albeit sliiiightly more out of reach this time).]
Okay then, if the c-word is off limits, what description do you not find insulting? How about, "your cheeks are stained as red as the blood of a hundred warriors"?
[Not a serious suggestion, but who knows, she might take it as one.]
[... He is foolish, or brave. If the latter, at least he has that going for him. Hayame seems poised to try and do the needed maneuvering to kick him (part of the reason why she didn't like letting people near her or even see her when she was laying down, jinba were so much slower and vulnerable like this-) but she is so...
She's so tired. And defeated, particularly vulnerable as she was to the unnatural weight of failure hanging over the Meridian city.]
I do not need your observations, either! Do you think I had forgotten since you arrived, somehow, that I was not born with a sheathe between my legs? Or that you yourself are a man sharing warmth with me?
[(... She did like that phrasing slightly less insulting, admittedly, but. She can't say that now.)]
I do not need you to remind me of my sex's failings!
I wasn't trying to remind you of anything! [He holds up his hands in protest, looking baffled at the conclusion she'd taken a mountain-sized leap in order to jump to.]
And I definitely don't think of you as a failure at anything. That has nothing to do with you being a woman or me being a man... I was just trying to tease you a bit. [He'd do the same to anyone, regardless of gender. He will, however, add a more serious point.]
If you ask me, people who look down on others for who they were born as are the worst types of people.
You obviously think I am a failure at containing my-
[Hayame chokes on the wording, her cheeks growing annoyingly brighter.]
My maidenly nature.
[... The blushing. He says he wasn't, he looks confused, but Hayame doesn't look confused at all, her conclusion one that made perfect sense in her own head.]
The worst types of people are the most common sort of people- if you ask me.
[If that was how he wanted to phrase it, she could do that. (She hasn't kicked him yet, she tells herself, only because it would look absolutely foolish if she had to roll on her belly and lash out clumsily to do so.)]
[He grins.] You sure you're not just projecting? I don't even know if you are a maiden.
[They could argue back and forth like this all day, but Hayame is stubborn and set in her ways, so he doubts there's a point. He's already offended her, and that's that. Instead, he tries a different tack.]
Okay, let's flip the script a bit. How about you try saying or doing something that'll get me to blush? Then we're even, and you can make fun of me all you want.
[By the way she stiffens and refuses to deny that observation... she might be. Not that he, or anyone in this godsforsaken place, needed to know the reason why that was.
But he offers her a chance to even things between them, and that is not... unfair. Even if the battlefield is not one in which she is accustomed to fighting. Make him blush? On purpose?]
You-
[She is completely unprepared for it, and the attempt that stutters out is...]
Your beard is not as barbaric looking on your face as most men who sport them!
Do not take it to heart, I am- I am only attempting to meet the terms of engagement!
[Which, in all honesty, she fears like she's losing again??? What made men blush? They were lewd, and crude by nature, but if she accuses him of such it will only draw more attention to her own sex, and-
She is starting to look. Something like a puffed up red parrot, as she gropes about for something more blush inducing.]
You... you probably have no problem at all charming human lovers!
Just human ones? Sweet Hayame, your omission wounds me.
[He puts a hand over his heart, putting on his saddest kicked puppy look. He's not actually offended and mostly finding this whole thing hilarious in how effectively he's succeeding, but hey, better not ruin it now by breaking character.]
[She does not know if that idea disgusts her or makes him seem more gallant, and in absence of answer... Hayame tosses her head defiantly, her tail nearly whipping him in the ass as she pulls her legs in defensively close to her belly.]
Of the non-human lovers that you hold just as sweetly and adore just as dearly as your human ones!
[She sounds... pretty sure she can catch him in a lie this time, for some reason, as long as that caveat is there.]
[Ack, watch the tail, hamyams. He adjusts his cloak, then rubs his chin as he thinks about it.] Calling her a lover is going a bit far, but there is someone...
[He'll just have to leave her in suspense, though, because he adds:]
Isn't this about evening the playing field, though? I already told you a story, so I think you should tell me one first. About whatever you want. Maybe even a special someone in your life!
Growing very frustrated very quickly when something doesn't go her way and isn't the realm she feels that she actually knows (like, you know, real battles), Hayame makes a sharp, dismissive sound that makes it seem as if she is pretty sure he just made this mystery non-human not-quite-lover up completely.]
There is no one "special" in my life, so you will die disappointed in that tale!
Well, that's okay. [And this time, he isn't teasing. He may have a irreverent sense of humour, but he's not trying to be mean about it.] Why don't you tell me any story at all? I told you about my expedition to the desert, so I'd like to hear about your world, too. Then I'll tell you what you want to know.
Do you think you can distract me from the fact that I have yet to best you by demanding a story now, when you are the one who offered me one freely to begin with? You fairly demanded I listen.
They are the subject of them if they do grand deeds, storytelling talents do not come with the ability to wield a damned weapon.
[The ability to know when one is being roundly, thoroughly bested, however... Hayame slumps in defeat back against the stall wall again, turning her gaze away with her face still red.
He is lucky that his presence has been the only warm thing for the past... days.]
... You only offered me that avenue because you knew yourself a man disinclined to blushing. Fine. Keep your win and your secret fake lover. But if by some miracle she is real, you should probably not tell her that you have spent your day leaning on my rump.
Nah, she'd probably say something like, "Oh Claude! You're so kind and considerate to sit with a poor lonely lady all day. It makes me want to ask for Father's blessing to marry you all the more!"
[He adopts a high-pitched voice like he definitely has someone in mind he's mimicking, then laughs.]
Like I said, we're not lovers, although she was very insistent about being interested. But I did figure out she's not human, much as she tried to hide it.
What? You're "just friends" with a woman? Your tongue is outrageous.
[............. Also, eew. With the voice, too? Hayame's lips purse, her chin juts out, and she stays avoiding his gaze, her arms crossing under her breasts a bit more huffily.
She almost thinks she won't say anything else at all, but.]
- If you were a gentleman, you would have let her keep passing as human.
[... an understanding. That does get her attention, and once she finally turns to look at him... he is looking at the opposite wall. Because of course.
Her own eyes avert again before he can look back and catch her directly.]
As if a human man would know how I felt?
[Here, in her stall, still mentally bound to the only treatment she has known all her life?]
Yeah. Where I grew up, people looked down on me as... a kind of beast, of sorts. Less than human. All because of where my mother came from. They said I had the blood of cowards and weaklings... I was just an aberration, in their eyes.
[He glances to the door of the stall, almost as if he's paranoid someone might be eavesdropping. This is something he'd rather reserve for Hayame alone.]
I endured some pretty terrible things, to put it lightly. So I ran away, across the border, to my mother's homeland. But I was naive. People there were just the same-- only now I wasn't a coward but a bloodthirsty savage, to be hated and shunned. It wasn't until I changed my identity and hid who I was that people gave me any respect at all.
Not everyone has that kind of luxury, though, right? [He finally looks back at Hayame, his expression uncharacteristically serious, his hands tight fists under his cloak.] I know that. That doesn't mean I can just abandon a fellow outsider to fend for themselves.
[To her credit… Hayame does listen. Even though a part of her almost wants to interrupt, the hurt child she’d once been raging that whatever suffering a half-breed human might undergo was nothing compared to that of a jinba… she stays silent and she just listens.
It is not so easy for her to imagine, not based in her own reality. She comes from a land where almost all humans looked the same, and the ones that did have slightly different cultures… well, they’d been largely subsumed by now beneath the crush of “humans”. Just the one race, who looked the same and thought mostly the same… and then jinba, who were easy targets for hatred and discrimination.
There was no hiding what she was. No human who could not look upon her and know instantly more than she wished about herself and her background and her status. Here… it was different in some ways, but-
She finally looks at him. Just a little. Perhaps it would be hard, in a different world.]
No, not everyone does.
[But he sounded… sincere, for once, in contrast to his usual flippant demeanor. And she finds, as angry as she had been… that she shifts slightly beneath him, loosening up the tight cross of her arms just slightly as she… seems to make herself comfortable (or as comfortable as one could be) back in the bed of hay leaning against the wall of the stall.
Abandoning a fellow outsider… Hah.]
… You are warm, at the very least. Continue to make yourself useful in that way and I will not throw you out.
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[He'd seemed freshly a man when they first met, now he had a beard... but surely he was not older than she was? How intolerable a thought that would be, that he be her senior when he took things so less seriously...
She is still blushing, but. She does manage to look back at him a little.]
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[And some people with Crests do turn out to be very long lived... He has no reason to think he's one of them, though, especially with only a minor Crest.
But now she's actually looking at him a little, and his suspicions are confirmed:]
You know, you're cute when you blush. Has anyone ever told you that?
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But she doesn't expect him to suddenly say that.
Hayame has been called "beautiful", "handsome", and "elegant" ever since she blossomed from the leggy and tomboyish build of a yearling to a mature mare, and she has never doubted it as fact because... what prospective buyer would bother lying to her stable master about his property? But "cute"? Cute, like one would call a child, some innocent little maiden, or some tea waitress with loose morals?
She stiffens... and blushes more obviously, reaching back to snatch at his cloak and try to throw it off her flank and towards his face. (Not... a graceful move, from the somewhat limiting position of being a jinba on her side, but-)]
If you want to insult me, you can do it from outside my stall!
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Okay then, if the c-word is off limits, what description do you not find insulting? How about, "your cheeks are stained as red as the blood of a hundred warriors"?
[Not a serious suggestion, but who knows, she might take it as one.]
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She's so tired. And defeated, particularly vulnerable as she was to the unnatural weight of failure hanging over the Meridian city.]
I do not need your observations, either! Do you think I had forgotten since you arrived, somehow, that I was not born with a sheathe between my legs? Or that you yourself are a man sharing warmth with me?
[(... She did like that phrasing slightly less insulting, admittedly, but. She can't say that now.)]
I do not need you to remind me of my sex's failings!
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And I definitely don't think of you as a failure at anything. That has nothing to do with you being a woman or me being a man... I was just trying to tease you a bit. [He'd do the same to anyone, regardless of gender. He will, however, add a more serious point.]
If you ask me, people who look down on others for who they were born as are the worst types of people.
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[Hayame chokes on the wording, her cheeks growing annoyingly brighter.]
My maidenly nature.
[... The blushing. He says he wasn't, he looks confused, but Hayame doesn't look confused at all, her conclusion one that made perfect sense in her own head.]
The worst types of people are the most common sort of people- if you ask me.
[If that was how he wanted to phrase it, she could do that. (She hasn't kicked him yet, she tells herself, only because it would look absolutely foolish if she had to roll on her belly and lash out clumsily to do so.)]
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[They could argue back and forth like this all day, but Hayame is stubborn and set in her ways, so he doubts there's a point. He's already offended her, and that's that. Instead, he tries a different tack.]
Okay, let's flip the script a bit. How about you try saying or doing something that'll get me to blush? Then we're even, and you can make fun of me all you want.
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But he offers her a chance to even things between them, and that is not... unfair. Even if the battlefield is not one in which she is accustomed to fighting. Make him blush? On purpose?]
You-
[She is completely unprepared for it, and the attempt that stutters out is...]
Your beard is not as barbaric looking on your face as most men who sport them!
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Oh, wow. I think I actually detected a compliment somewhere in there.
[A kind of backhanded one, but still...! Unfortunately he's more stunned than blushing, though.]
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[Which, in all honesty, she fears like she's losing again??? What made men blush? They were lewd, and crude by nature, but if she accuses him of such it will only draw more attention to her own sex, and-
She is starting to look. Something like a puffed up red parrot, as she gropes about for something more blush inducing.]
You... you probably have no problem at all charming human lovers!
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[He puts a hand over his heart, putting on his saddest kicked puppy look. He's not actually offended and mostly finding this whole thing hilarious in how effectively he's succeeding, but hey, better not ruin it now by breaking character.]
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[She does not know if that idea disgusts her or makes him seem more gallant, and in absence of answer... Hayame tosses her head defiantly, her tail nearly whipping him in the ass as she pulls her legs in defensively close to her belly.]
Of the non-human lovers that you hold just as sweetly and adore just as dearly as your human ones!
[She sounds... pretty sure she can catch him in a lie this time, for some reason, as long as that caveat is there.]
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[He'll just have to leave her in suspense, though, because he adds:]
Isn't this about evening the playing field, though? I already told you a story, so I think you should tell me one first. About whatever you want. Maybe even a special someone in your life!
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Growing very frustrated very quickly when something doesn't go her way and isn't the realm she feels that she actually knows (like, you know, real battles), Hayame makes a sharp, dismissive sound that makes it seem as if she is pretty sure he just made this mystery non-human not-quite-lover up completely.]
There is no one "special" in my life, so you will die disappointed in that tale!
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[So he doesn't get to act like she owed him now!]
I am a warrior, not a wandering bard.
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[They do in Fódlan and especially in Almyra, anyway, but he shrugs.]
Buuut, fine, I won't force you. Go ahead and take another shot at me?
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[The ability to know when one is being roundly, thoroughly bested, however... Hayame slumps in defeat back against the stall wall again, turning her gaze away with her face still red.
He is lucky that his presence has been the only warm thing for the past... days.]
... You only offered me that avenue because you knew yourself a man disinclined to blushing. Fine. Keep your win and your secret fake lover. But if by some miracle she is real, you should probably not tell her that you have spent your day leaning on my rump.
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[He adopts a high-pitched voice like he definitely has someone in mind he's mimicking, then laughs.]
Like I said, we're not lovers, although she was very insistent about being interested. But I did figure out she's not human, much as she tried to hide it.
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[............. Also, eew. With the voice, too? Hayame's lips purse, her chin juts out, and she stays avoiding his gaze, her arms crossing under her breasts a bit more huffily.
She almost thinks she won't say anything else at all, but.]
- If you were a gentleman, you would have let her keep passing as human.
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[And maybe he's overstepping the mark here, but... He looks away, to the opposite wall of the stall.]
It's why I understand your feelings, too, at least a little. It's not easy, feeling like an outsider.
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Her own eyes avert again before he can look back and catch her directly.]
As if a human man would know how I felt?
[Here, in her stall, still mentally bound to the only treatment she has known all her life?]
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[He glances to the door of the stall, almost as if he's paranoid someone might be eavesdropping. This is something he'd rather reserve for Hayame alone.]
I endured some pretty terrible things, to put it lightly. So I ran away, across the border, to my mother's homeland. But I was naive. People there were just the same-- only now I wasn't a coward but a bloodthirsty savage, to be hated and shunned. It wasn't until I changed my identity and hid who I was that people gave me any respect at all.
Not everyone has that kind of luxury, though, right? [He finally looks back at Hayame, his expression uncharacteristically serious, his hands tight fists under his cloak.] I know that. That doesn't mean I can just abandon a fellow outsider to fend for themselves.
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It is not so easy for her to imagine, not based in her own reality. She comes from a land where almost all humans looked the same, and the ones that did have slightly different cultures… well, they’d been largely subsumed by now beneath the crush of “humans”. Just the one race, who looked the same and thought mostly the same… and then jinba, who were easy targets for hatred and discrimination.
There was no hiding what she was. No human who could not look upon her and know instantly more than she wished about herself and her background and her status. Here… it was different in some ways, but-
She finally looks at him. Just a little. Perhaps it would be hard, in a different world.]
No, not everyone does.
[But he sounded… sincere, for once, in contrast to his usual flippant demeanor. And she finds, as angry as she had been… that she shifts slightly beneath him, loosening up the tight cross of her arms just slightly as she… seems to make herself comfortable (or as comfortable as one could be) back in the bed of hay leaning against the wall of the stall.
Abandoning a fellow outsider… Hah.]
… You are warm, at the very least. Continue to make yourself useful in that way and I will not throw you out.
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