[If she was safe. If she needed help. He's sorry- she supposes, for not knowing she would not be able to parse his words. All of it just whirls around in her head, knocking around in her skull despite how still she seems.
She cannot say that she had almost called upon him more than once in the weeks since they had returned from the Tree. Because she was lonely. Because she was in heat. Because she wanted to know what his message had said. Because she had gotten used to him being around. ... She does not even want to admit it to herself. Even now, she struggles with wishing she had condemned him more aggressively beneath the roots, made him too afraid to even dare try to contact her again-
But he steps closer and she does not move. Not beyond a slight hint of a swallow that runs down her throat.]
The world did not end.
[They were still here. The tree was healthy again. The Blight was being cured. And with it... the desperation to confess things before it was too late. Time had been rewound, and yet... she still remembered what he'd said. Still remembered he'd said he'd not regret it.
She loses the rest of the words. The ones where she was going to ask him if she should do him the favor of forgetting something he'd surely only said in the heat of the moment.]
[He agrees, smiles brighter, relief melting his expression. They're fine, and he still has a chance to figure out some of the crazier suggestions he'd offered her. Not just going to her world, but fixing things there, and... Well, that was a thought for the future. He needed to shut off all the ideas always rattling around in his head.
For now, he closes the distance between them, gently reaches, takes one of her hands in his.]
I might've been desperate back then, and I blurted things out sooner than I would have under ordinary circumstances... but I know how I felt. None of it was a mistake.
[He knows how happy he is now, seeing her safe and well after the Tree, seeing that she'd 'accidentally' put herself somewhere he might be. That maybe she did, after all, want to be near him.]
[Hayame does not stop him from taking her hand (his is warm, smoother than she expects from an archer), but he has only seconds before she rips it away again, clutching it to her chest almost defensively over where her shard rests in her sternum and her iliachtida lies tucked beneath the binding of her breasts. Her fluster crawls warm and flush up her neck and into her cheeks, her one dark eye darts back and forth to make sure none of the other soldiers at the outpost had been looking in their direction, but-
She doesn't leave. Her knees are still locked up, hocks quivering, hooves digging into the dirt.]
You do not know that.
[The words are hissed between them, already feeling as if she is losing control when she- she needs it, doesn't she? Without it-]
[He doesn't resist when he snatches her hand back, as if he expected that reaction, watching her evenly while she flusters.]
Who are you trying to convince, here? Ask yourself that honestly.
[All she had to say was that she didn't feel the same, and they could go their separate ways with no ill feeling on the matter. But this dancing around things, her seemingly nervous behaviours... That can't be it.
He drops his voice, low enough for only her to hear.]
[Ask herself honestly? She doesn't want to. She has avoided being forthright even with the person she should be confiding in most, and yet he so strategically narrows down the issue to a single question. To two questions.
Why can she not just say "you"? Just live the lie that she is trying to convince him that he is wrong, make him realize that he has made a mistake when really-
Really-
Her face grows ruddier, her lips twist with the effort it takes to be silent despite her best efforts, and she wants- She wants to run away again. She had made a mistake, in standing around hoping she might see him, in thinking she was ready for this. She can't answer him, it takes everything she has just to mask the upset she feels with what she hopes looks like anger. Was she unlovable?]
I already told you-
[In the roots, in the dark. Hadn't she been clear enough? (No, no she hadn't, it had been so chaotic and their communions had bled together in a messy, oppressive spill of thoughts and visions.)
But she had tried to. She'd tried to tell him she had done horrible things in her life, that she was a creature that only existed because humans had bred her for battle and obedience or the bit and the saddle, that she was could only see her fate as one to die to cleanse her dishonor... and didn't that answer his question already?
... Must she say that she believes herself to be unlovable in so damnably plain a word as "yes"?]
It's not true. [Claude responds, without waiting for her to struggle to pull together an answer.] Do you think I'm somehow better than you are? Armies have lived and died on my word. Thousands of lives were lost.
[And while he always hated needless killing and preferred peace, that was something he'd never be able to run away from. He had waged war, and he would never allow himself to forget that. "Sorry, but I must," didn't save a man who a second later would have an arrow through his chest, for the sole reason that he fought under the banner of Emperor Edelgard. It didn't bring back those of Leicester or Almyra who had fallen on his incursion into Adrestia, or the former schoolmates who he had once laughed alongside turned to enemies, and who were now corpses filling his path.]
You still deserve happiness, and the freedom to pursue it, just like anyone else. No, even moreso, to make up for what you've never had.
[His words sound beautiful. In the roots they had been a lovely fantasy, too, grand and hopeful and something like out a dream... But when had dreams ever come true for her? It isn't just that people died, it was-]
... And what were those armies fighting for?
[Her voice is still barely above a whisper, all too well aware that one of the soldiers could come by at any time, embarrassed by how little she had thought this out. Had she truly believed that he would allow her to simply... to go back to how things used to be? Had she thought that none of this would come up? She'd just wanted-]
Does it matter? The point is, I have blood on my hands too. I didn't start the war that consumed Fódlan, but I did end it.
[It doesn't make him better than anyone, least of all Hayame, who for all intents and purposes has only known a life of servitude. Claude was able to make choices of his own volition, and had vastly more power than her to do so.
He's keeping his voice low, but he's also aware this as the potential to turn into a very public argument. He glances along the stables, voice still hushed, and looks back at Hayame.]
Look, I didn't want things to be like this when I saw you again, and I doubt you did either. I missed you, you know...? [Maybe she'll argue that it was stupid and delusional to miss her too that she isn't worth that emotional effort, so he heads her off before she can.]
[What is she supposed to say? That she missed him? Was that not pathetically obvious, now that he has found her standing here in the one place beyond his home where he could be reliably found? Why must she use words to say it?]
You fought to end a war, to- to make peace, and give people better lives-
[... Things that are noble. Things that were good. And she-]
I turned away from the Armless as if I were above them. I captured jinba that escaped, I hunted down anyone my stable master required-
[She had turned away from the sufferings of the Armless and held her head high as if she were better than them, more worthy of not being treated like horses, cannon fodder, and breeding stock. She had captured escaped jinba, she had consigned them to the fates she feared more than anything just to try and make sure she would never fall that far, and he...]
[Had he joined the ranks of those who would accuse her of always fighting or arguing uselessly with everyone around her? Her voice snaps too loud, startling a strange, six-legged mount a few stalls down.]
Why does everyone think that I am not tired of fighting?
[Just because she was willing, because she felt she had to, because it was the only thing she knew how to do-
Her fingers curl tighter at her breast, yearning for the comforting warmth she'd felt last time she'd held his shard.]
I know you're tired of fighting. That's why I'm telling you that you can stop.
[Just as he had beneath the Tree, when he told her she could put down her burden. He didn't come into this trying to pick an argument, and the only one trying to create one is her, with all these denials and refutations. He reaches up, gently touches her shoulder.]
Come on. We can go somewhere quieter, and just... talk. [Not argue, or fight, or disagree, or make a scene that will just make a rift between them again.] How about the forest?
[There are a lot less monsters around, these days, and even less people. It's not like they'd be likely to have an audience there.]
[It's not that easy. Why does he think he can make it sound so easy? Just stop? Again, she is too slow to stop him from touching her, and has to slap his hand away far too late not to betray that... she didn't want to even be doing that. She wanted... She'd almost reached out to him so many times in the past weeks, not even just when she was in heat-
But they're practically in public. She's angry, she's confused, she's hurting still from so many things. This is her chance to turn and flee, to just go, she doesn't want to talk, because if they talk-
She remembers what Akua had said, when the other woman had come to visit her in her stall after the loss of the Oracle.
And when she turns from him... it's not to disappear into the outpost or down the road back to the cornerstone.
She heads into the forest. There is a clearing by a stream not far from there.]
[Claude's once again not surprised at being slapped away, even if it stings in more ways than one. He lets her go on ahead while he takes a moment to bid goodbye to his wyvern for now, giving her a snack of dried meat and promising he'll be back later.
Once he catches up to Hayame, he realises it's cooler in the shade of the forest, and peaceful, with little to interrupt the silence except distant birdsong and the growing sound of the trickling stream.]
This looks like a good spot... Let's stop here a while. [Once he's sure the perimeter of the clearing is monster-free, he pauses to crouch by the water and splash his face.]
[When Claude enters the clearing, Hayame is standing by the stream, her back to him and her arms down by her sides. Her head is slightly down, her tail slightly traitorous, flicking back and forth in betrayal of how anxious she was despite how cold or calm she was trying to appear.
A good spot. A good spot... to talk.
She cannot call him a fool today. She is the fool, who had dreamed this would go differently, who thought she could somehow speak to him again as if nothing had changed, like she could just rewind... Wouldn't it be better if they did? Wouldn't it make all of this easier... ?
Hayame doesn't stir much, but her eye drifts to the side and down, watching Claude (Khalid) splash water on his face as she bites into her bottom lip. ... He looked hale. ... That was good.]
[He knows her body language well enough to recognise when she's anxious, but he doesn't comment, instead just doing the opposite and flopping back on the grass to sit, taking in the scenery like he finds the whole thing relaxing. (It would be moreso if Hayame relaxed, too, but... one thing at a time.) He looks up at the sky, clear to see through the canopy of the trees.]
Forests are still kind of a novelty for me, you know. Almyra doesn't really have them, so Fódlan was the first time I got to experience any.
[The sights, the smells, the animals and insects, how green it was, learning to climb a tree for the first time... As a student at the academy, it was all foreign to him.
Still, before he gets lost in reminiscing, he fixes his attention back up at Hayame.]
Enough about me rambling, anyway. I want to shut my big mouth and listen to you, for once.
[It doesn't surprise her that he just... just makes himself comfortable. She... She hasn't laid down in days. Not since she had slunk to Springstar to have her Discord cleansed, in desperate attempt to prevent herself from trying to sate her heat. That had not gone... how she'd intended. But at least it meant there had been one night she'd slept on her belly since they'd lost the Oracle, instead of standing stiff with her knees locked in the corner of her makeshift stalls or beneath trees in the woods of Alenroux.
Forests. He talks about forests, first, then offers to listen to her, but what does he want her to say? She'd already tried to scare him off, to convince him that she was unlovable, that she wasn't deserving of love, and yet-]
... Echigo province is covered in forests. And mountains.
[She doesn't turn from her position by the water's edge... but she does turn her face just enough that she can keep him in the corner of her eye. She imagines that's not what he means when he said he wanted to listen to her. But he doesn't want her to fight, so... what is there? Does he want to hear about her world?]
[He flops back on the grass onto his back next, linking his arms behind his head.]
If I see it in person one day, I'll have an idea of what I'm in for.
[But he said he'd listen, so he goes quiet again, watching her. Of course, there was still that one thing he really wanted to talk about, but hadn't Hayame been the one to approach him? Wasn't there anything she wanted to say?]
[He still entertained the idea that he would somehow be able to come to her world. She didn't know why she would have thought he'd given it up already, it's not as if... for all she had run from his confessions, for all she had insulted his proposals as fantasy... she did not think him weak-willed or irresolute.
But.
She stares at him, while pretending she is not. She finally moves, but just to cross her arms defensively, one hand rubbing up and down a muscular bicep. The flush from earlier has faded slightly, but there is still some warmth staining her cheeks. Her tail whips at the backs of her thighs and hocks. She can tell he is waiting for her to say something...
The words, though, are trapped in her throat. She does not want to say more than she has to, guessing what it is he is waiting for. She feels as if anything she gives him will just become fuel for another fight, when really, she did not want to, she just wanted him to... to give up of his own volition. To realize he has made a mistake.
And yet for some reason... No. She knows the reason. A part of her did. But is she just supposed to admit it out loud? Something as pathetic and small of her as that... ? As being unable to let go of the one person in the roots who had offered to choose her?
[The bird continues its song, and still the silence between them stretches on. He's watching with a small smile on his face, noticing the slight heat in her cheeks still, that anxious tail still going. He can't read her thoughts, but he thinks he can get the measure of her, and he moves to prop himself up on his elbows.]
...You might realise at this point that you can't change my mind. I know how I feel. So the only real question left to answer is... Do you like being with me? I think you've already answered that question.
[By seeking him out. By humouring him even now with his requests to talk, even though it's seemingly the most difficult thing in the world, right now, while he just lounges around and watches. Still, he won't be completely difficult about it now that he's given her a chance, and instead, he opts to help.]
I think the rest just comes with time, you know? Like a muscle that wasted away from lack of use, feelings are kinda like that, too. Accepting that it's not a lie, or a mistake, or that you're not worthy... Maybe the guilt won't stop eating at you until your world is restored, and you can set things right. Maybe it'll never go away.
But, it'll all seem a lot more achievable, if you have someone to help you along on your journey. A shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to your complaints, someone to hunt with, to tend your wounds, to smile with...
[Ah, there he goes again, opening his big mouth when he tried not to, and now he's finding himself reeling off a list like a proposal. Yet there's so much he wants to give her, that all seems like it barely scratches the surface.
He sits up properly, offering a smile that appears-- shy. ]
...Well, if you want those things, having them would only make you stronger.
[It does not feel so long ago that Hayame was venting to Akua in her makeshift stable, railing against the advice the other woman was giving her and arguing with her about the nature of friendship as if she could change it through simple force of will alone. The villainess's words had left cracks in nearly everything she said, from her right to feel betrayed by the actions those who supposedly cared for her had taken to her insistence that it should not be so wrong to expect loyalty from those who would claim to be her friend, and what that had left in its wake...
She had said that people who truly cared about you would challenge you. That you would enjoy being challenged by them. But what did that mean? Hayame has never had the time nor the desire to philosophize over such things. By the time she'd begun to question what she'd always known, begun to imagine that things could be different... she had offered to give up her life, and the time for thinking never came. But in Horos, now in Kenos... she had reached a breaking point.
Now... She has to change, if she wants to survive without trying to crush her own shard underfoot or throwing herself recklessly into fight after fight in the hopes that one might become her last. If she wants to survive to see her world again, to die where she belongs...]
I cannot...
[What? Stop trying to change his mind? Love him? Accept that he isn't lying? Let the guilt go? She doesn't know, and it makes her expression twist, her skin heat, her one remaining eye darken. He smiles at her, shy and sincere, and what- She had long forgotten how to smile, those muscles wasted away from lack of use just like he spoke of her feelings, and she... she turns her face away. Her shoulders stiffen.]
... Is that what you wish from me?
[Someone to cry on his shoulder, to complain in his ear, to hunt with, to come to him to have her wounds tended, to smile with...]
Is that not any different than allies? From "friends"?
I'd like more than that. Of course I would. [He had already said as much, demonstrated as much. But any affection he offered here and now had been swatted away, so he didn't dare try that again, maining a respectful distance so she didn't feel crowded in.]
But this is about what you want. If you want to think of me as just a friend, or if... maybe those deeper feelings are mutual... Either way, it would be wrong to keep forcing my feelings on you without understanding your perspective.
[Or helping her understand her perspective, as the case might be. He thinks back to the roots and how she had kissed him back, messy and inexperienced as it had been, but that might have just been the shock of the situation. Or the desperation of someone who craved affection of some kind, any kind.]
If... when we kissed before, and you returned it... if you were just playing along with my own selfish whims, I'd prefer to know.
[There is a part of her that understands this must be a kindness. That to other people, who can discuss such things without shame, who understood their own hearts... it would be a courtesy to speak so plainly of these things. But the rest of her... would rather fight ten men than have this conversation. That he asks her such things so directly...
She had come from a world where "proper" affection, between people of decent social standing, was never displayed in public. Not even husband and wife would touch each hands or shoulder around others, let alone discuss things so plainly. Hayame had seen things, because she was a jinba, and jinba were treated as chattel, because the grooms who raised her had been rough frontiers men who did not concern themselves with propriety or who overheard their exploits at the brothels, but what she'd hoped for-
What she'd hoped for had been the life of a warrior. To never be touched, because she simply couldn't fathom a touch that was kind or gentle. But she knows now that... that it isn't impossible. She could have it if she wanted it. If she pursued it.
Claude is sitting right there talking about it. For a moment, she wonders if she kissed him again if he might fall silent. He wants to know if she was just playing along... but...]
... I am a jinba.
[She reminds him in case he had forgotten. It wasn't as if she couldn't imagine jinba and humans being together- she could imagine it all too well, in certain disgraceful circumstances. In heat-addled attempts to be rid of her purity out of spite. But perhaps he was simply blinded by emotion or the same sense of charging ahead without thinking that had led him to confess in the first place. (If she looks at the water in the stream at a certain angle, she can just about see him...)]
No matter how human my lips might feel.
[- Had he actually thought about that? (She had, even if she cannot admit to the pervasive fantasies that had dogged her last heat, unwilling to contact him for fear it would taint everything.) Was she... desirable to him? Or was she only desirable despite?]
[And yes, though he wouldn't admit it to her before, he had thought about it. First at the masquerade, when they had shared a room and she had been in heat. He had tried to be a gentleman about the whole thing when she turned down his offer to help, but even if he'd framed it as a joke at the time, he would have readily gone along with it if she said yes. Had even imagined afterwards how it might have gone, how it would have been easiest to compensate for their differences in size. (The bath, or the bed...?)
But he didn't want to think of a friend, or an ally, or whatever they were in those terms, so he quietly put that fantasy away. She wasn't an object, and wanted to be treated with the dignity she deserved, when she felt so embarassed and inconvenienced by her inhuman status in a world designed mostly for humans. Now, on the other side of it, though, he realises she must think that not only is she unloveable, but seemingly undesirable, too.
His eyes trail along the equine half of her body, the sleek dark tail and the dun coat, the strong muscles which not so long ago were quivering with anxiety. Even in moments of her so-called weakness, they're inextricably Hayame, the person he loves. What kind of monster would pick and choose what to love and what to ignore about someone's body?]
And I'm a human. [His gaze moves back to her face, even as she avoids looking directly at him. He's not someone from the same world who had enslaved her people, but a human all the same. Even without that, he's comparatively frail, weak, and probably not at all an adequate partner for a jinba, when he really thinks about it. But for someone whose entire life's work was to remove the dividing lines between peoples, it just seems like a triviality to him.]
I think you're beautiful exactly as you are, Hayame. I love every part of you, and I'd make sure you knew it.
It is her turn to be reminded. He did not come from her world, he did not even look like the men of her world did, for they were paler of skin and darker of hair. She had never seen a human man possess eyes of jade, like he had. ... But he was still human, the same species that had hunted hers down in the field and peaks, enslaving them and breeding them until a once proud race had become tools for wars they hadn't started. In her desperation, she had once managed to let a god lay hands upon her, because she knew that shape meant nothing to a divinity able to change his own at whim. She had managed to let a human woman touch her, because... because she was a woman, but-
Could she allow it? Would there not come a point when she began to flinch away or feel her gut roil in learned disgust? She doesn't... She doesn't know, and she is afraid to find out. She is afraid to see the look that might cross his face, if he were to see fear on hers instead of pleasure.
Hayame's fingers curl, and she pulls the hand to her breast. Should she have asked for his shard? No, she didn't... It had felt so overwhelming, so undeniable, when she had held it directly, and she does not know if she can maintain decorum if she had it. Instead, she thinks... she thinks of what he had said in the dark of the roots, her tail flicking anxiously behind her. She thinks of what Akua had said, again, about how she mustn't think of others' choices as betrayals...
But she had felt only that, beneath the eyes of the Iconoclast Oracle. Her strength and her companionship had not been enough to keep Liem Talbott from turning to Zenith, her words weren't enough to sway Amos, her offerings and his blessing weren't enough to keep Set from gallivanting with all of her enemies, their pact wasn't enough to stop Akua from interfering with her revenge on the demon who had taken her eye... None of it was enough. She hadn't been enough for them.
And it felt pathetic, and small, and womanly, but she wanted... she wanted to be chosen. Was it so wrong? Was it so impossible in this place, where loyalty wasn't shape by the rigid honor code she understood? Set had chosen Silco. Amos had chosen Yima. Liem had chosen Zenith. Akua had chosen Sebastian. At least, that is how it had felt to her in the moment, hot with the fury that always flickered inside of her, ready to roar to life all too easily. But Claude... Khalid-]
... You said you would be on my side. No matter what.
[When he'd thought the world was ending, and surely she could only wreak so much more havoc in the roots. A hard swallow forces it's way down her throat, and she fights to keep the weakness out of her voice, to sound strong and sure. Finally, she turns back to face him, her expression twisted with shame and longing to believe.]
Is it still true? You will stand by me, even when Zenith comes for my head? Even if I make enemies of half of Meridian? Even if I call you a fool and turn from your compromises and your talks?
It's not conditional. You can insult me or disagree as much as you like. I prefer people to disagree with me over yes-men who never tell me how something could be better.
[He smiles wryly, even as she turns to him where he sits. Maybe there are some things they'll never agree on... but then, maybe not. If Almyra or Fódlan could change their minds, why not people here, too?]
I just don't want this conflict to consume you. If there's anything I can do to stop that, then I will.
[Even if she feels like she doesn't need to be protected, or that she'd sooner die fighting Zenith than live with dishonour, or whatever other notions she might entertain in the future. He never claimed to be impartial in his overtures for peace; he just abhorred unnecessary conflict, Hayame included in that.]
Edited (gets banned for godmoding) 2023-06-15 14:47 (UTC)
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no subject
She cannot say that she had almost called upon him more than once in the weeks since they had returned from the Tree. Because she was lonely. Because she was in heat. Because she wanted to know what his message had said. Because she had gotten used to him being around. ... She does not even want to admit it to herself. Even now, she struggles with wishing she had condemned him more aggressively beneath the roots, made him too afraid to even dare try to contact her again-
But he steps closer and she does not move. Not beyond a slight hint of a swallow that runs down her throat.]
The world did not end.
[They were still here. The tree was healthy again. The Blight was being cured. And with it... the desperation to confess things before it was too late. Time had been rewound, and yet... she still remembered what he'd said. Still remembered he'd said he'd not regret it.
She loses the rest of the words. The ones where she was going to ask him if she should do him the favor of forgetting something he'd surely only said in the heat of the moment.]
no subject
[He agrees, smiles brighter, relief melting his expression. They're fine, and he still has a chance to figure out some of the crazier suggestions he'd offered her. Not just going to her world, but fixing things there, and...
Well, that was a thought for the future. He needed to shut off all the ideas always rattling around in his head.
For now, he closes the distance between them, gently reaches, takes one of her hands in his.]
I might've been desperate back then, and I blurted things out sooner than I would have under ordinary circumstances... but I know how I felt. None of it was a mistake.
[He knows how happy he is now, seeing her safe and well after the Tree, seeing that she'd 'accidentally' put herself somewhere he might be. That maybe she did, after all, want to be near him.]
no subject
She doesn't leave. Her knees are still locked up, hocks quivering, hooves digging into the dirt.]
You do not know that.
[The words are hissed between them, already feeling as if she is losing control when she- she needs it, doesn't she? Without it-]
Just because you do not think it yet-
[She'd warned him, and he was still determined?]
no subject
Who are you trying to convince, here? Ask yourself that honestly.
[All she had to say was that she didn't feel the same, and they could go their separate ways with no ill feeling on the matter. But this dancing around things, her seemingly nervous behaviours... That can't be it.
He drops his voice, low enough for only her to hear.]
...Do you think you're unlovable?
no subject
Why can she not just say "you"? Just live the lie that she is trying to convince him that he is wrong, make him realize that he has made a mistake when really-
Really-
Her face grows ruddier, her lips twist with the effort it takes to be silent despite her best efforts, and she wants- She wants to run away again. She had made a mistake, in standing around hoping she might see him, in thinking she was ready for this. She can't answer him, it takes everything she has just to mask the upset she feels with what she hopes looks like anger. Was she unlovable?]
I already told you-
[In the roots, in the dark. Hadn't she been clear enough? (No, no she hadn't, it had been so chaotic and their communions had bled together in a messy, oppressive spill of thoughts and visions.)
But she had tried to. She'd tried to tell him she had done horrible things in her life, that she was a creature that only existed because humans had bred her for battle and obedience or the bit and the saddle, that she was could only see her fate as one to die to cleanse her dishonor... and didn't that answer his question already?
... Must she say that she believes herself to be unlovable in so damnably plain a word as "yes"?]
no subject
[And while he always hated needless killing and preferred peace, that was something he'd never be able to run away from. He had waged war, and he would never allow himself to forget that. "Sorry, but I must," didn't save a man who a second later would have an arrow through his chest, for the sole reason that he fought under the banner of Emperor Edelgard. It didn't bring back those of Leicester or Almyra who had fallen on his incursion into Adrestia, or the former schoolmates who he had once laughed alongside turned to enemies, and who were now corpses filling his path.]
You still deserve happiness, and the freedom to pursue it, just like anyone else. No, even moreso, to make up for what you've never had.
no subject
... And what were those armies fighting for?
[Her voice is still barely above a whisper, all too well aware that one of the soldiers could come by at any time, embarrassed by how little she had thought this out. Had she truly believed that he would allow her to simply... to go back to how things used to be? Had she thought that none of this would come up? She'd just wanted-]
What were you trying to accomplish?
[Was he better than her? So many were.]
no subject
[It doesn't make him better than anyone, least of all Hayame, who for all intents and purposes has only known a life of servitude. Claude was able to make choices of his own volition, and had vastly more power than her to do so.
He's keeping his voice low, but he's also aware this as the potential to turn into a very public argument. He glances along the stables, voice still hushed, and looks back at Hayame.]
Look, I didn't want things to be like this when I saw you again, and I doubt you did either. I missed you, you know...? [Maybe she'll argue that it was stupid and delusional to miss her too that she isn't worth that emotional effort, so he heads her off before she can.]
Not everything has to be a fight.
1/2
[What is she supposed to say? That she missed him? Was that not pathetically obvious, now that he has found her standing here in the one place beyond his home where he could be reliably found? Why must she use words to say it?]
You fought to end a war, to- to make peace, and give people better lives-
[... Things that are noble. Things that were good. And she-]
I turned away from the Armless as if I were above them. I captured jinba that escaped, I hunted down anyone my stable master required-
[She had turned away from the sufferings of the Armless and held her head high as if she were better than them, more worthy of not being treated like horses, cannon fodder, and breeding stock. She had captured escaped jinba, she had consigned them to the fates she feared more than anything just to try and make sure she would never fall that far, and he...]
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[Had he joined the ranks of those who would accuse her of always fighting or arguing uselessly with everyone around her? Her voice snaps too loud, startling a strange, six-legged mount a few stalls down.]
Why does everyone think that I am not tired of fighting?
[Just because she was willing, because she felt she had to, because it was the only thing she knew how to do-
Her fingers curl tighter at her breast, yearning for the comforting warmth she'd felt last time she'd held his shard.]
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[Just as he had beneath the Tree, when he told her she could put down her burden. He didn't come into this trying to pick an argument, and the only one trying to create one is her, with all these denials and refutations. He reaches up, gently touches her shoulder.]
Come on. We can go somewhere quieter, and just... talk. [Not argue, or fight, or disagree, or make a scene that will just make a rift between them again.] How about the forest?
[There are a lot less monsters around, these days, and even less people. It's not like they'd be likely to have an audience there.]
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But they're practically in public. She's angry, she's confused, she's hurting still from so many things. This is her chance to turn and flee, to just go, she doesn't want to talk, because if they talk-
She remembers what Akua had said, when the other woman had come to visit her in her stall after the loss of the Oracle.
And when she turns from him... it's not to disappear into the outpost or down the road back to the cornerstone.
She heads into the forest. There is a clearing by a stream not far from there.]
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Once he catches up to Hayame, he realises it's cooler in the shade of the forest, and peaceful, with little to interrupt the silence except distant birdsong and the growing sound of the trickling stream.]
This looks like a good spot... Let's stop here a while. [Once he's sure the perimeter of the clearing is monster-free, he pauses to crouch by the water and splash his face.]
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A good spot. A good spot... to talk.
She cannot call him a fool today. She is the fool, who had dreamed this would go differently, who thought she could somehow speak to him again as if nothing had changed, like she could just rewind... Wouldn't it be better if they did? Wouldn't it make all of this easier... ?
Hayame doesn't stir much, but her eye drifts to the side and down, watching Claude (Khalid) splash water on his face as she bites into her bottom lip. ... He looked hale. ... That was good.]
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Forests are still kind of a novelty for me, you know. Almyra doesn't really have them, so Fódlan was the first time I got to experience any.
[The sights, the smells, the animals and insects, how green it was, learning to climb a tree for the first time... As a student at the academy, it was all foreign to him.
Still, before he gets lost in reminiscing, he fixes his attention back up at Hayame.]
Enough about me rambling, anyway. I want to shut my big mouth and listen to you, for once.
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Forests. He talks about forests, first, then offers to listen to her, but what does he want her to say? She'd already tried to scare him off, to convince him that she was unlovable, that she wasn't deserving of love, and yet-]
... Echigo province is covered in forests. And mountains.
[She doesn't turn from her position by the water's edge... but she does turn her face just enough that she can keep him in the corner of her eye. She imagines that's not what he means when he said he wanted to listen to her. But he doesn't want her to fight, so... what is there? Does he want to hear about her world?]
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[He flops back on the grass onto his back next, linking his arms behind his head.]
If I see it in person one day, I'll have an idea of what I'm in for.
[But he said he'd listen, so he goes quiet again, watching her. Of course, there was still that one thing he really wanted to talk about, but hadn't Hayame been the one to approach him? Wasn't there anything she wanted to say?]
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But.
She stares at him, while pretending she is not. She finally moves, but just to cross her arms defensively, one hand rubbing up and down a muscular bicep. The flush from earlier has faded slightly, but there is still some warmth staining her cheeks. Her tail whips at the backs of her thighs and hocks. She can tell he is waiting for her to say something...
The words, though, are trapped in her throat. She does not want to say more than she has to, guessing what it is he is waiting for. She feels as if anything she gives him will just become fuel for another fight, when really, she did not want to, she just wanted him to... to give up of his own volition. To realize he has made a mistake.
And yet for some reason... No. She knows the reason. A part of her did. But is she just supposed to admit it out loud? Something as pathetic and small of her as that... ? As being unable to let go of the one person in the roots who had offered to choose her?
In the distance, a songbird trills.]
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...You might realise at this point that you can't change my mind. I know how I feel. So the only real question left to answer is... Do you like being with me? I think you've already answered that question.
[By seeking him out. By humouring him even now with his requests to talk, even though it's seemingly the most difficult thing in the world, right now, while he just lounges around and watches. Still, he won't be completely difficult about it now that he's given her a chance, and instead, he opts to help.]
I think the rest just comes with time, you know? Like a muscle that wasted away from lack of use, feelings are kinda like that, too. Accepting that it's not a lie, or a mistake, or that you're not worthy... Maybe the guilt won't stop eating at you until your world is restored, and you can set things right. Maybe it'll never go away.
But, it'll all seem a lot more achievable, if you have someone to help you along on your journey. A shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to your complaints, someone to hunt with, to tend your wounds, to smile with...
[Ah, there he goes again, opening his big mouth when he tried not to, and now he's finding himself reeling off a list like a proposal. Yet there's so much he wants to give her, that all seems like it barely scratches the surface.
He sits up properly, offering a smile that appears-- shy. ]
...Well, if you want those things, having them would only make you stronger.
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She had said that people who truly cared about you would challenge you. That you would enjoy being challenged by them. But what did that mean? Hayame has never had the time nor the desire to philosophize over such things. By the time she'd begun to question what she'd always known, begun to imagine that things could be different... she had offered to give up her life, and the time for thinking never came. But in Horos, now in Kenos... she had reached a breaking point.
Now... She has to change, if she wants to survive without trying to crush her own shard underfoot or throwing herself recklessly into fight after fight in the hopes that one might become her last. If she wants to survive to see her world again, to die where she belongs...]
I cannot...
[What? Stop trying to change his mind? Love him? Accept that he isn't lying? Let the guilt go? She doesn't know, and it makes her expression twist, her skin heat, her one remaining eye darken. He smiles at her, shy and sincere, and what- She had long forgotten how to smile, those muscles wasted away from lack of use just like he spoke of her feelings, and she... she turns her face away. Her shoulders stiffen.]
... Is that what you wish from me?
[Someone to cry on his shoulder, to complain in his ear, to hunt with, to come to him to have her wounds tended, to smile with...]
Is that not any different than allies? From "friends"?
[He had said he...
He had kissed her.]
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But this is about what you want. If you want to think of me as just a friend, or if... maybe those deeper feelings are mutual... Either way, it would be wrong to keep forcing my feelings on you without understanding your perspective.
[Or helping her understand her perspective, as the case might be. He thinks back to the roots and how she had kissed him back, messy and inexperienced as it had been, but that might have just been the shock of the situation. Or the desperation of someone who craved affection of some kind, any kind.]
If... when we kissed before, and you returned it... if you were just playing along with my own selfish whims, I'd prefer to know.
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She had come from a world where "proper" affection, between people of decent social standing, was never displayed in public. Not even husband and wife would touch each hands or shoulder around others, let alone discuss things so plainly. Hayame had seen things, because she was a jinba, and jinba were treated as chattel, because the grooms who raised her had been rough frontiers men who did not concern themselves with propriety or who overheard their exploits at the brothels, but what she'd hoped for-
What she'd hoped for had been the life of a warrior. To never be touched, because she simply couldn't fathom a touch that was kind or gentle. But she knows now that... that it isn't impossible. She could have it if she wanted it. If she pursued it.
Claude is sitting right there talking about it. For a moment, she wonders if she kissed him again if he might fall silent. He wants to know if she was just playing along... but...]
... I am a jinba.
[She reminds him in case he had forgotten. It wasn't as if she couldn't imagine jinba and humans being together- she could imagine it all too well, in certain disgraceful circumstances. In heat-addled attempts to be rid of her purity out of spite. But perhaps he was simply blinded by emotion or the same sense of charging ahead without thinking that had led him to confess in the first place. (If she looks at the water in the stream at a certain angle, she can just about see him...)]
No matter how human my lips might feel.
[- Had he actually thought about that? (She had, even if she cannot admit to the pervasive fantasies that had dogged her last heat, unwilling to contact him for fear it would taint everything.) Was she... desirable to him? Or was she only desirable despite?]
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[And yes, though he wouldn't admit it to her before, he had thought about it. First at the masquerade, when they had shared a room and she had been in heat. He had tried to be a gentleman about the whole thing when she turned down his offer to help, but even if he'd framed it as a joke at the time, he would have readily gone along with it if she said yes. Had even imagined afterwards how it might have gone, how it would have been easiest to compensate for their differences in size. (The bath, or the bed...?)
But he didn't want to think of a friend, or an ally, or whatever they were in those terms, so he quietly put that fantasy away. She wasn't an object, and wanted to be treated with the dignity she deserved, when she felt so embarassed and inconvenienced by her inhuman status in a world designed mostly for humans. Now, on the other side of it, though, he realises she must think that not only is she unloveable, but seemingly undesirable, too.
His eyes trail along the equine half of her body, the sleek dark tail and the dun coat, the strong muscles which not so long ago were quivering with anxiety. Even in moments of her so-called weakness, they're inextricably Hayame, the person he loves. What kind of monster would pick and choose what to love and what to ignore about someone's body?]
And I'm a human. [His gaze moves back to her face, even as she avoids looking directly at him. He's not someone from the same world who had enslaved her people, but a human all the same. Even without that, he's comparatively frail, weak, and probably not at all an adequate partner for a jinba, when he really thinks about it. But for someone whose entire life's work was to remove the dividing lines between peoples, it just seems like a triviality to him.]
I think you're beautiful exactly as you are, Hayame. I love every part of you, and I'd make sure you knew it.
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It is her turn to be reminded. He did not come from her world, he did not even look like the men of her world did, for they were paler of skin and darker of hair. She had never seen a human man possess eyes of jade, like he had. ... But he was still human, the same species that had hunted hers down in the field and peaks, enslaving them and breeding them until a once proud race had become tools for wars they hadn't started. In her desperation, she had once managed to let a god lay hands upon her, because she knew that shape meant nothing to a divinity able to change his own at whim. She had managed to let a human woman touch her, because... because she was a woman, but-
Could she allow it? Would there not come a point when she began to flinch away or feel her gut roil in learned disgust? She doesn't... She doesn't know, and she is afraid to find out. She is afraid to see the look that might cross his face, if he were to see fear on hers instead of pleasure.
Hayame's fingers curl, and she pulls the hand to her breast. Should she have asked for his shard? No, she didn't... It had felt so overwhelming, so undeniable, when she had held it directly, and she does not know if she can maintain decorum if she had it. Instead, she thinks... she thinks of what he had said in the dark of the roots, her tail flicking anxiously behind her. She thinks of what Akua had said, again, about how she mustn't think of others' choices as betrayals...
But she had felt only that, beneath the eyes of the Iconoclast Oracle. Her strength and her companionship had not been enough to keep Liem Talbott from turning to Zenith, her words weren't enough to sway Amos, her offerings and his blessing weren't enough to keep Set from gallivanting with all of her enemies, their pact wasn't enough to stop Akua from interfering with her revenge on the demon who had taken her eye... None of it was enough. She hadn't been enough for them.
And it felt pathetic, and small, and womanly, but she wanted... she wanted to be chosen. Was it so wrong? Was it so impossible in this place, where loyalty wasn't shape by the rigid honor code she understood? Set had chosen Silco. Amos had chosen Yima. Liem had chosen Zenith. Akua had chosen Sebastian. At least, that is how it had felt to her in the moment, hot with the fury that always flickered inside of her, ready to roar to life all too easily. But Claude... Khalid-]
... You said you would be on my side. No matter what.
[When he'd thought the world was ending, and surely she could only wreak so much more havoc in the roots. A hard swallow forces it's way down her throat, and she fights to keep the weakness out of her voice, to sound strong and sure. Finally, she turns back to face him, her expression twisted with shame and longing to believe.]
Is it still true? You will stand by me, even when Zenith comes for my head? Even if I make enemies of half of Meridian? Even if I call you a fool and turn from your compromises and your talks?
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[He smiles wryly, even as she turns to him where he sits. Maybe there are some things they'll never agree on... but then, maybe not. If Almyra or Fódlan could change their minds, why not people here, too?]
I just don't want this conflict to consume you. If there's anything I can do to stop that, then I will.
[Even if she feels like she doesn't need to be protected, or that she'd sooner die fighting Zenith than live with dishonour, or whatever other notions she might entertain in the future. He never claimed to be impartial in his overtures for peace; he just abhorred unnecessary conflict, Hayame included in that.]
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