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[vrdantwind]

"Hey, this is Claude! Pretty sure I'm doing this correctly. You can leave me a message here, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Talk to you soon~."

Comments

[vrdantwind]

The reason I called you that is because it's what you already are. [Claude leans in to press a kiss to the top of Dimitri's head, since he's trying to hide everything else.] Like the star of your Crest - no matter what happens, your light shines through eventually. And I can't get enough of looking.

[vrdantwind]

They're certainly harder to provide for than horses, but not quite as much as your description would make it sound. They have slow metabolisms. They need to eat a lot, but certainly less frequently than horses do. A wyvern can go weeks between feedings.

That said...well, the truth is there's only one type of selective breeding I know of, and it's on a very limited scale. There's a certain country in my world where a very rare and specific color of wyvern is reserved for royalty. So there's rarely more than two or three at a time in existence. It's not what you'd call an extensive breeding program. Definitely not comparable to the way people breed horses.

As for hatching, I don't know many particulars. My wyvern was hatched shortly after I myself was born, so I wasn't really in a position to take notes. But successful integration, as you put it, isn't really a thing - at least, you make it sound like hatchlings are raised to be integrated with older wyverns. But hatchlings are raised very closely with humans as part of the taming and acclimation process, and it's a process that can take a decade or more. Usually it's either the person to whom the wyvern belongs - where I'm from, it's not at all uncommon for a person and their wyvern to grow up together, and that's what happened with mine - but for mounts meant for more general use than personal ownership, there are people who specialize in that rearing process. It's important for wyverns to develop that strong bonds with humans.

Besides, as I understand, they're not particularly social or nurturing with each other in the wild, so they don't exactly miss the company of their own kind.

[vrdantwind]

Is it? [Claude tilts his head.] What is it you're worried about, Dimitri?

[vrdantwind]

You love me. :3

[bestswordmaster]

maybe.
😸

[nastyboy]

[Dimitri nudges his nose further against Claude's shoulder. Kent is having to make some impressive adjustments for all of this, although he doesn't seem to mind. It's just a light exercise before dinner, right?]

...You were always the star, in my eyes...

[nastyboy]

I... [It's a struggle to explain, and his gaze flick downwards again.] I do not wish to ruin this... or - This sounds foolish.

[vrdantwind]

Was I? [Claude smiles, lifting a hand to brush fingers through Dimitri's bangs. (With Kent where he is, Claude doesn't have too much access to his hair.)] How so?

[vrdantwind]

No it doesn't. How you feel can't sound foolish to me. [Claude takes Dimitri's hands in his.] This is important to me. Are you worried? Uncomfortable? Because I'd be happy to do anything with you, Dimitri - and I do mean anything - but I don't want you to feel pressured into doing any of it. I don't want you to feel like it's happening too fast, or that it's not special, or like you're doing something wrong.

[lovelybottom]

I am making assumptions. I had assumed that wyvern would be kept in a centralized facility, even if there aren't many of them in an army. In a similar manner to horses in a stable or soldiers in barracks. (A vivarium? Aviary?) Hence a need for some socialization, so that they don't become hostile to other members of their own division. It seems as though it would be difficult logistically for each individual wyvern to be kept with its rider, especially when they reach maturity.

If the breeding program is limited solely to these royal wyvern, are the rest simply sourced from the wild? That's an unenviable job. Even if they aren't social, I've yet to meet a brooding female that won't defend her clutch.

[nastyboy]

Just - the way you've always smiled, how you inspire others...

You're an incredible leader.

[Everything he felt that he wasn't.]

[nastyboy]

I... I only know the one way to pursue romance. [The courtly version.] That way is what I have thought makes their lover feel cherished, special, loved, and that is what I have always wanted for all of you.

Rushing so quickly... I am uncertain. [He shakes his head, fingers tightening in Claude's grip just a little bit.] And if I am uncertain, I feel that the chance only grows greater that I will do something wrong, something hurtful.

After the Emet conversation

[fingersandteeth]

Right. So I saw you and Emet-Selch getting into it on Jaskier's post and while I *do* agree with you that Emet was being more than usually condescending tonight and I'm absolutely unsurprised that Dirk has evidently been a condescending ass to you in person, I also think there's something you should know about the two of them (and Hythlodaeus for that matter) that kind of explains why they're like that.

They're gods. They're essentially both gods back in their respective home realities and they have egos to match. Which doesn't mean it isn't as irritating as *hell* to deal with them when they're in full condescension mode, but it also makes it hard for them not to slip into their I'm A God And You're Not habits when dealing with mere mortals such as you or I, never mind that they're stuck in human bodies just like the rest of us.

This doesn't mean they're always *right*. (Dirk in particular has expressed some very retrogressive ideas about sex that I can only assume he picked up before he ascended.) It does mean that they are very stubborn about thinking their viewpoints are objective truth, particularly Dirk. Emet, at least, usually isn't operating from a position of bad faith even though it can come off that way (something it took me far too long to realize.)

Sorry if I'm sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, but as someone who spent most of the last summer in a stupid feud with Emet-Selch and recognizes all too well the frustration he's causing you, I thought I should explain what was going on before anyone comes to blows and Hythlodaeus has to stage another peer mediation.

[vrdantwind]

Hey, it's totally fine. I appreciate the context! A little embarrassed to be seen letting people get under my skin like that, gods or otherwise, but...well, as you already seem to appreciate, they definitely don't seem to even present a veneer of talking to people like equals, huh?

It's weird. You think of gods as being omniscient and omnipotent, so you naturally think they'd be able to navigate a conversation easily. That they could present themselves however they wanted to present themselves, because shouldn't they know exactly how? But I guess that's not actually how it works.

That said, I've been doing my best to keep my cool with them. Not to the point of ignoring the condescension, but at least so far as trying to listen and work with them. Emet does seem to have good intentions, just an...incredibly condescending approach. But I acknowledged it might not be intentional on his part even before you contacted me to confirm it, so hopefully I'm on the right track.

Dirk...well, let's just say one of our more recent encounters involved my catching him trying to pick the lock of Jane's front door at 3 AM after she'd fallen mysteriously unconscious while we were staying with her, and he acted like we were trespassing. And while I can't really go into details, that was after our first meeting, in which he attacked me outright. I wasn't going to say that on the public network, though.

So, 'strained' would be putting our relationship mildly. But he's privately offered to explain some things about himself to me, and I've told him I'm willing to listen. So...tentative progress, maybe.

[fingersandteeth]

From what I can tell--and admittedly, this is from someone who did not actually *finish* reading Homestuck which is hella long and unfortunately contains troll typing quirks--Dirk's tendency to be as shady as hell is something leftover from his mortal live(s) and possibly not anything he can help. He also has bountiful issues with control--and I say this as someone who's a closet control freak *myself*. I can see why he'd think you were the trespassers if he hadn't known you were friends with her yet--and if he expected the house to be empty and the door locked, I can see why he'd also leap straight to picking that lock.

Still, that *is* a terrible second meeting. Not something that can't be recovered from--I met Shinobu back in my world when he was breaking into *my* apartment on my dead sister's behalf and he's one of my more important friends here--but something that takes effort on the parts of both parties to overcome.

That said, good intentions but condescending approach is very *much* how Emet-Selch operates. He's not only a god, but a god with the personality of an irritable college professor who asks pointed questions to stimulate critical thought and doesn't care if you like him as long as you *learn*. It takes time to get used to him at his Emet-Selch-iest and I absolutely do not blame you for losing your patience. If that's your first exposure to his attitude, I absolutely do not blame you for misinterpreting him. Honestly, you're doing a better job of dealing with him than I did.

Granted, I was hella PTSD at the time for a variety of reasons and Emet had himself just come off a long stint of method acting as the Worst Person In The World in order to test mortals--as one does as a god, I suppose--and most of Emperor Solus zos Galvus' mannerisms and attitude were clinging hard to him... but still, you were able to figure out he was operating from good faith on your own and I needed Hythlodaeus to guide me to that conclusion and not until I went through something like two months of therapy with him first.

But yes, you're definitely on the right track with Emet. From my experience, what he wants most is for mortals to show they're capable of considering other viewpoints and try to make peace with each other. Believe me, if my relationship with him could recover to the extent it has given all the bullshit I pulled on him last summer--including one ill-considered attempt at psychological warfare--then yours will recover from one conversation's worth of misunderstanding. You're showing flexibility of thought in admitting you misread him and Emet loves it when mortals do that.

No clue about Dirk, though. Indulging his bullshit grandstanding does help, but it's not a guarantee. I've made a lot of missteps with him myself, particularly before I fell asleep for a week and went home for six and a half years. (Including, I suppose, thinking we were better friends than we actually were... but I'd rather not get into that.)

Anyway. Gods are condescending assholes: who would have thought? It doesn't matter if they're a very old god that's always been a god (Emet-Selch) or a much more recent god that probably started out as mortal (Dirk.) As far as I can tell, it's endemic to the condition.

[vrdantwind]

I mean, I can get why he reacted the way he did readily enough, as far as that goes. It's more that he acted as though there was no reason for us to question him - like he didn't even look at things from our perspective and go "hmm, yeah, I can see why I might look sketchy to someone without all the facts under the circumstances". Which I feel like is his main attitude problem, really. He has all these myriad, complex reasons for what he does, I'm sure, but he doesn't give anyone else any credit for the same. He acts like the only reason anyone else ever does anything at all that he doesn't instantly, 100% agree with is because they're idiots who are being wrong because they've never had a thought in their life. That's the attitude I get off him.

One of the other things he criticized me - well, our entire group - for was for staying in Jane's house waiting for her to wake up, instead of leaving while she was unconscious. He acted like it was sketchy for us to do that. And honestly, I can see where he'd think that - definitely weird to have a pack of guys hovering around an unconscious woman on the face of it. But on a deeper level, well, we were all worried about her, and ditching her while she was sleeping for a week as though we had no investment in whether or not she ever woke up, so she would (as far as we knew) wake up alone and disoriented? That also seemed bad. Equally bad, at least. But even in a very subjective situation in which there are no great answers, whichever one Dirk arbitrarily decides is the correct one is the Objective Right Answer. I won't deny, that attitude of his gets under my skin in a way that not a lot does anymore. I've fielded actual death threats with more of a smile. I'm not sure why it's so hard to control my temper with him specifically.

Maybe I've spent too much time being considered smart to handle being treated like this much of an idiot - on what feels like baffling, if not outright subjective, grounds - too gracefully.

Wait, are Emet and Solus the same person, then? I was told to talk to a Solus about...oh, something awhile back, when I first arrived. Some sort of musing on people, I think. I think the guy indicated he'd talk my ear off about it...and he seemed to have some definite Opinions on the guy. Having talked to Emet now, I can see where that guy was coming from in a lot of ways.

I think things are going better with Emet now, at least. It sounds like, in broad strokes, he and I consider the same sorts of things our priorities, even if our methods and perspectives are vastly different in the details. With the kinds of things I want to achieve, it's important for me to figure out how to put that exact sort of thing into practice - seeing things from different points of view and respecting them, no matter how far outside my experience they might be. So if there's a path to that, I'll find it.

Who's Hythlodaeus?

[rollstoseduce]

We spoke last during your gym battle! He called you the second-best strategist in Fodlan and "brilliant". He also did not believe me when I told him you hold him in high regard because of things he's said to you. So I suppose he still has some things to work through, but do me a favor, if you will - tell him he's dear to you to his face, would you? His type need things spelled out to him.

[Yes, he's drawing a comparison to Geralt here.]

Correct me all you want, smarty-pants, the point still stands. And please do bring him! I must witness his fussing with my very own eyes, then I'll have something to use next time he tries to get all bleak on me.

[fingersandteeth]

Emet-Selch's former fiance and the third man in that set of pictures. They were separated when Amaurot (the ancestral home of Emet's race of gods) fell and Hythlodaeus ended up dying in the process. And then he ended up here, about a month after Emet did and eons after his death from Emet's perspective, and you have no *idea* how much ridiculous drama ensued between him and Emet and Dirk as a result, thanks to Emet trying to have his cake and eat it too.

But yes, Solus is Emet-Selch is [REDACTED]. Emet-Selch is his title from Amaurot. He had a personal name, which Hythlo has told me in confidence, but prefers not to use it with strangers. Emperor Solus zos Galvus of Garlemand is the name he was going by when he first got here, as it was the identity of the last role he took on to tempt and test mortals. It took until Hythlodaeus got here for most of us to even *hear* the name 'Emet-Selch,' so a lot of people who met him before that think of him as 'Solus' because that's the name they were introduced to him by.

I don't, entirely because of how bad and contentious things got between him and I last summer. The name 'Solus' for me is too badly associated with the man I believed he was, who turned out to be the role he hadn't yet shed by our first encounter and someone he despised nearly as much as I did. 'Solus' is the man who repeatedly made me flashback to the worst time in my life, who drove me to fits of mental desperation that resulted in me shoving him down stairs when he was trying to force a conversation by blocking them and later led to me attempting the aforementioned ill-considered psychological warfare.

*Emet*, however, is a tired old man with a penchant for drama and terribly high-standards, who reminds me of my grandfather more often than not. It's a method of reframing, I suppose.

But yes. That's Dirk Strider and his terrible attitude to a goddamn T. I consider myself to be friends (if not close ones) with the man and his hypocrisy when it comes to accepting that other people have complex motivations that disagree with his own is one of the most irritating facets of a man who is in fact *extremely* irritating (if ultimately rewarding) to know.

As someone who (while not the smartest member of my family) hasn't usually considered myself to be a idiot either, I understand very well how hard it is to deal with Dirk's attitude gracefully. Before I knew he was a god, I had a *lot* of trouble not blowing up at him for it. Now... well, I try to grit my teeth and put on my agreeable face, then when the conversation is over I go off to the gym--or more recently find my boyfriend--and attempt to physically work out my frustration and aggression until I exhaust myself.

[vrdantwind]

In my own experience, wyverns tend to be kept in stables not too unlike horses...although the boxes are obviously a lot bigger. The stables tend to be kept warmer than a horse stable, as well. Wyverns don't wear blankets nearly as well, both because their scales are more like large, overlapping plates and they're kind of pointy at the joints, plus the obvious matter of the wings. They take a lot less regular exercise than horses, too; as long as they're well-fed, they're generally happy to relax. Slower metabolisms again. They definitely don't get frisky or restless like horses do. And of course, there's a big difference in maintenance and feeding between a wyvern that isn't being actively flown much and one that is. It's one of the things that makes maintaining wyverns as part of a standing army viable in the long term.

So, since they're kept in relatively close quarters, like horses are, I guess you could say they get accustomed to the presence of other wyverns by proximity.

Ah, I think I might've explained myself badly. I meant that breeding for special colors of wyvern is the only effort to breed for anything specific in wyverns that I'm really aware of. But we do breed wyverns in captivity over trying to hunt down wild clutches or, even worse, trying to tame wyverns from the wild. That said, we really only breed them for up and coming wyvern riders 0 which is to say, kids who are going to be riders or soldiers. Wyverns take long enough to come for maturity that there's no point giving a young wyvern to an adult; they need to either be at maturity already, or come to it at about the same time as their rider.

One of the bigger challenges of wyvern riders in war is finding new wyverns for riders who lose their mounts, or new riders for wyverns who've lost their riders. Obviously those problems seem to solve themselves - just pair them up - but both rider and wyvern tend to develop pretty strong bonds with their particular mount. It's tough on both sides to adjust to a new partner. Some riderless wyverns have to be released because they won't accept any other rider; fortunately, even tame wyverns seem to take back to the wild life pretty quickly. I guess it's because they're not really fully domesticated. Humans tend to adjust to such losses better, but I've heard of men with big personalities becoming withdrawn for years because of a lost wyvern partner. It's obviously the worst with partners like myself and my own wyvern, who were raised together.

Older teenagers and adults who are paired with stable-raised wyverns manage those losses better, which is why you mostly see stable-raised wyverns among the rank and file of armies, where you expect to see those losses incurred more regularly. It's really only high-ranking military families, nobility, or those who maintain wyverns for travel and recreation that raise their own wyverns - and not even all of them do. You get much smarter, more responsive, more loyal mounts that way - but it's a big time and effort investment, and not everyone who reasonably make it necessarily wants to.

[vrdantwind]

Oh? [Claude's eyes sparkle.] So it was just my effect on others you admired?

[He knows it isn't. He's fishing for compliments.]

[vrdantwind]

Oh, Dimitri. [Claude relaxes into a smile.] That's sweet...but you know that's not the only way to make people feel loved and cherished and special, right? Honestly, just the way you're looking at me right now makes me feel like that. It's not about having to follow some particular guidelines. A lot of the things you were taught...well, they were about formality, not feeling. Those things can go together, sure, but you don't need one to show the other at all.

I have a hard time picturing you hurting me, when you're so careful about that sort of thing now. [He lifts a hand to cup Dimitri's cheek.] But I can always tell you if you're going off-track, or if you're going too far too fast. Can't I? You holding yourself back isn't the only way to make sure nothing bad happens, you know.

[vrdantwind]

Hah! I'd object to the 'second-best' title, but I know who he was thinking of when he didn't rate me first. That'd be Teach. A professor - and professional mercenary of serious renown - who taught at the officers' academy we went to. They taught Dimitri's class, though, despite my best efforts to coax them to mine. Still, even with their teaching, they didn't exactly pass on their talents to anyone in Dimitri's class. They're his strategist now, I understand, and none of their students is showing any signs of stepping up to dethrone them. So being the second-best strategist, even without the benefit of Teach's...well, teachings...is still a pretty high honor.

Man, I still dream of what could've been if Teach had decided to come teach my house instead. None of Dimitri's class even seems to have developed any particular skill for strategy! Think of how much someone like me could've gleaned from them, though...oh well. No point in sighing too much over opportunities missed.

I've definitely told him how much he means to me, but I'll do it again. That's another thing his type needs - a whole lot of repetition to get ideas through their thick skulls.

But don't worry, I'll bring him. He may not be able to hold himself back from coming, anyway. I bet he'll want to make sure you know exactly how to best care for him for the whole day you'll have him...as though he's really that high-maintenance.

[vrdantwind]

Wow, you've really learned their whole story in-depth, huh? They won't object to you telling me all this, will they?

I'm sorry you had such a miserable time with Solus, though. It sounds like it must've been brutal on you. And I'm glad you and Emet have had better luck with each other, to the point where your experiences with him feel split between two completely different people. It...kind of reminds me of things with Dimitri, in a way.

Not that he's anything like Solus or Emet, of course, but there was a period of time not long ago where he was so lost in trauma that he was a totally different person from his normal self. A cruel, violent person who was focused on nothing but revenge against the people who he considers responsible for a massacre he was the only survivor of. He did some pretty horrible things. You've seen what he's like now, and that's much more the authentic Dimitri that was buried for...well, five whole years, to my understanding. But people who've interacted with both...honestly, they really do feel like two different people. And it's hard for me to hold the current Dimitri accountable for what the violent Dimitri did. He certainly wasn't that way by choice, and I don't think he had any real control over himself. He's even said that the dead were talking to him, goading him on, so...there's no way he was in his right mind.

Dimitri still holds himself accountable, though. I can't tell you how many times he's called himself a monster. I wonder if it might be help his guilt if he could think of the violent Dimitri and the kind Dimitri as two separate people...if only so he'd stop blaming himself for things that weren't really his fault.

Probably not, I guess. He's only just gotten his grip on reality back, I don't know that telling him to suddenly start thinking of himself as two people would be good for him.

Ah, sorry for getting sidetracked. It was just...interesting, to think of one person as two people, and I couldn't help seeing some similarities to how I think of Dimitri.

Out of curiosity...you don't make any secret of how aggravating Dirk is, but you mention he's rewarding to know. I can believe that, especially since I've known my share of aggravating-but-ultimately-worthwhile people, but what is it about him that makes him worth the aggravation to you? I've heard a lot about his good qualities, but the people I hear them from...well, I haven't really mentioned how challenging he is to them, and they haven't acknowledged it to me themselves. So I want to know what someone who does acknowledge he's a pain in the ass sees.

That said, if you go to Thace to work out your annoyance with Dirk, Thace must be a very happy man. On a very regular basis, too.

[lovelybottom]

Interesting. I would not have anticipated that wyvern would bond so closely with humans, even if raised together since hatching, considering their solitary natures. Though that may very well be a trait that was selected for in the breeding process, whether intentionally or not.

[In the margins of his notes, Geralt writes something down that's a separate observation from the things that Claude has been telling him: humans will pack bond with anything. It is a remarkable and persistent trait of humanity, the desire for companionship from creatures that, by all rights, should want nothing to do with them. They did it with wolves, and apparently in Claude's universe, with fucking wyvern.]

[The lifespan of a wyvern could be quite long; enough so that a man could have one of them for his whole life, from cradle to grave. Geralt has dealt with the loss of his mounts before, horses that served him well and had been more a friend to him than most other creatures, and they only lived a few short decades. Those farewells were difficult, even though each Roach only lived a fraction of Geralt's life. A companion that had lived the entirety of it...]

You were raised with your wyvern from a young age. What is its name?

[fingersandteeth]

... I meant by sparring, not by sex. Not that sparring doesn't often lead to sex with us, but I'd rather not go to bed with him angry if possible, even if it's with someone else. It feels like setting a bad precedent.

As far as Emet and Hythlo's story... there's a lot I'm actually *not* telling you? I feel like if they knew I've told you what I have, they'd roll their eyes and maybe make a comment about me being a gossip... but honestly, Hythlodaeus is just as bad. He's the reason I know a lot of this.

As far as Dimitri goes, trying to convince him that the self that did horrific acts and his other self are two different people is a *terrible* idea. I'm sorry, Claude, but it is. And yes, I *know* you acknowledge it is, but I need to stress how bad it really is. I understand the temptation to, because it's hard knowing that the people you love (in whatever fashion) are capable of such acts, but sometimes people *are*. And trying to make him think of his prior self as a different man altogether is just asking for him to dissociate. It'll foster a sense of unreality that will *mess him up*. Trust me on this.

I get that it hurts for you to hear him call himself a monster. But while it's not *healthy* that he is, it does show that he understands what he did was awful and he grieves doing it. And that's good for *him*. It's better he knows than he thinks everything awful thing he did was perfectly fine, because he's the hero. That's how you get people like Handsome Jack.

As someone who's felt like a monster at various points in his life, what helped me was to say to myself something like, "Okay, I'm a monster, but am I a monster that preys upon people or a monster that protects them? How can I be a monster that can do good? Or at least bad things with good outcomes?" I don't know if that'll help Dimitri, but it might. It'll focus him on the future, at least, and not the past he can't change.

(That said, I don't mind the digression at all. And I do get the need for *you* to separate them in your mind.)

Dirk is worth knowing even though he's a pain in the ass, because... well, for one thing, you'll have some interesting as hell conversations. He's very knowledgeable as well as being very opinionated--and while his opinions can be stupid, he's usually got the facts straight. Sometimes he's very funny (and sometimes he's really *not*.) And he's actually quite capable of being kind, despite everything. He'll obscure it in bullshit, of course, but that's just his way. He's usually willing to help people if they ask him to--and when he does, he's very capable at it. So yeah. He's an asshole, but the kind that's worth it.