[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.
What, I pour my heart out to you but I'm still just a slab of warm meat?
[He gives a slightly pinched smile and scoots down to lean his head against her. Maybe she just sees him as a gross human and what he just said meant nothing to her at all, if he had to guess, but at least he explained himself.]
Maybe I'll stop talking your ear off and take a nap. After all that, I'm beat. [The gentle rise and fall of her flank is soothing, when he's not intentionally riling her up and actually letting her relax.]
[Hayame faces his smile with a frown, acknowledging... in her way, that it was something. That it was... heard. But in return, she gives him no more than what he had already ascertained with his clever mind and overbusy eyes. At the very least (thankfully?), the blush seems to have cooled on her cheeks in favor of something more serious, but...
She turns her face away again, so that she does not preoccupy herself with the strange sight of a man (of anyone, really) that close to her. His weight is... solid. Warm.]
Do not pout so. Sleep, instead.
[She hasn't been resting since Meridian's loss. It wasn't like she could claim to not be in need of it either.]
Yeah, yeah, I hear you. [He pulls the cloak up to his chin, closing his eyes.] Let's pick somewhere a little more cosy to get some shut-eye next time, shall we?
[He hasn't given up on getting her out of the stable, in other words, even if he hasn't yet thought of a way to persuade her. (Besides the classic: Relentless Nagging.) That said, he soon drops off to sleep, being the type to be able to nap pretty much anywhere. Mercifully, he's not a snorer.]
[Somewhere a little more cozy... Hayame frowns a bit further at the insinuation, the idea that her stall was unfitting for sleeping in. For a human, perhaps. This stall was much better than the one she had lived in. There was hay and wood shavings on the floor, not mostly packed earth... there was a halved-door (not that it had stopped him)...
Before she can manage to come up with a proper retort, it seems as if he's already asleep.
How foolish he seems to her, laying there against her flank with his body gently rising along with the slow inhale-exhale of her main set of lungs. He had been naive, he'd said, she doubts he is as naive any longer... but he still trusts her enough for some reason to let his guard down that amount around her. A woman he barely knew, just...
A fellow outsider.
In the end, Hayame doesn't say anything, nor does she wake him. It takes her far, far longer, unused to standing or sitting this closely to another person, let alone sleeping, but... eventually. Eventually her eyes close and she does something like nap, feeling just a bit warmer with another Meridian curled close to ward off the chill and despair of loss.]
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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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[He gives a slightly pinched smile and scoots down to lean his head against her. Maybe she just sees him as a gross human and what he just said meant nothing to her at all, if he had to guess, but at least he explained himself.]
Maybe I'll stop talking your ear off and take a nap. After all that, I'm beat. [The gentle rise and fall of her flank is soothing, when he's not intentionally riling her up and actually letting her relax.]
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[Hayame faces his smile with a frown, acknowledging... in her way, that it was something. That it was... heard. But in return, she gives him no more than what he had already ascertained with his clever mind and overbusy eyes. At the very least (thankfully?), the blush seems to have cooled on her cheeks in favor of something more serious, but...
She turns her face away again, so that she does not preoccupy herself with the strange sight of a man (of anyone, really) that close to her. His weight is... solid. Warm.]
Do not pout so. Sleep, instead.
[She hasn't been resting since Meridian's loss. It wasn't like she could claim to not be in need of it either.]
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[He hasn't given up on getting her out of the stable, in other words, even if he hasn't yet thought of a way to persuade her. (Besides the classic: Relentless Nagging.) That said, he soon drops off to sleep, being the type to be able to nap pretty much anywhere. Mercifully, he's not a snorer.]
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Before she can manage to come up with a proper retort, it seems as if he's already asleep.
How foolish he seems to her, laying there against her flank with his body gently rising along with the slow inhale-exhale of her main set of lungs. He had been naive, he'd said, she doubts he is as naive any longer... but he still trusts her enough for some reason to let his guard down that amount around her. A woman he barely knew, just...
A fellow outsider.
In the end, Hayame doesn't say anything, nor does she wake him. It takes her far, far longer, unused to standing or sitting this closely to another person, let alone sleeping, but... eventually. Eventually her eyes close and she does something like nap, feeling just a bit warmer with another Meridian curled close to ward off the chill and despair of loss.]