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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~."

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[bestswordmaster]

"Hmph. You are failing your own advice. It was good advice."

Felix nods. "You're right. You will feel useless. So do I. If there were some way to avoid it, I'd have found it a long time ago. There isn't, so...we'll just have to feel useless together, until we get over it. Keep ourselves occupied." He rests his head against Claude's. "Sleep helps. ...I can stay here. If you want."

[vrdantwind]

"I didn't mean I was failing to take the lesson to heart." Claude cocks an eyebrow at him. "I meant...I feel like the failure I illustrated in that story. The person who's fallen down and can't help anyone else. Only I don't think I was trying to stand on my own that much...I was doing fine until now. I didn't even feel all that stressed until Dedue vanished and we had to help Dimitri through that, but it wasn't anything I couldn't have handled just fine. No more stressful than other things I've helped people through without a problem. So it feels like I've collapsed without doing anything that would've brought it on...and it's not like I love Sylvain any more than you or Dimitri do. So why am I the only one who can't hold it together now?"

He closes his eyes again when Felix rests their heads together. "No...I know you want to be with Sylvain. And he should have someone with him, even if there's no chance he's going to wake up this soon. I don't like the thought of just...leaving him alone. I'll come with you."

He's still not sure he'll be able to keep it together, seeing the upsetting unresponsiveness of Sylvain up close again. It's impossible not to desperately miss him when he's both right there and a million miles away. But...things being better between him and Felix makes Claude feel a little more up to trying. And whether or not he can...realizing how much it means to him for someone to be with Sylvain, keeping him company, feels like it's rearranged his priorities a little. That's more important to him than how he personally feels, or even what anyone in Almyra thinks of him. He wouldn't let any Almyran's opinion - or the opinions of everyone in Almyra - dictate what he did or how he treated Sylvain while the man was conscious; why should now be different?

[bestswordmaster]

"Because you're the only one this is new for." Felix shrugs. "It's a different kind of pain. The uncertainty makes it worse. You don't know what you're supposed to feel. I imagine that it must be particularly difficult for you--you're always trying to predict and plan."

Felix lifts his head and blinks. "...all right. Thank you. I'd prefer to be there with Inda, as well." He finally releases Claude and stands, offering him a hand.

[vrdantwind]

Entirely possible. I've heard that Almyra was the first country to truly tame them, and they have the longest history of wyvern-riding being a major aspect of their culture, so presumably they'd be the ones to have records of what the very first tamed wyverns were like...but they're also a country with a strong oral tradition. Such records likely wouldn't exist in written form - or, if they did, they were probably written up centuries after the actual events by scholars concerned with more material records, and who knows what changes or omissions to that knowledge might have occurred before it was ever committed to paper.

[Claude isn't quite sure how much he wants to tell Geralt about himself, including the fact that he himself is Almyran. Not necessarily because he thinks Geralt would - or could - use that information against him, but because Claude has some friends he hasn't really...told the truth about himself yet. He doesn't want a careless word from someone who doesn't know who has or hasn't been told to reach their ears.

Not that Geralt really lets many words at all past his lips, careless or otherwise...but the best guard for a secret is one's own self. If Claude controls the information, he doesn't have to worry about such things at all.]

His name is Mori. It means 'horse' in an ancient language. Which, well...I named my horse Wyvern. I thought it was funny back when I was a kid...okay, I admit, it's still funny. Especially the looks on people's faces when I tell them that.

[vrdantwind]

Hah! You should be more specific next time...although I agree your logic is good. Besides, who wants frustration souring intimacy with someone you love?

And yes, I get it, it was a bad idea! I was just musing out loud, though, and I concluded on my own it was
a bad plan. It's just frustrating, like I said. I don't think Dimitri ever would or perhaps even could do those things, except when his state of mind was so altered that he was barely himself or even fully understood what he was doing. Would a Dimitri not goaded by hallucinations of past trauma ever have done the things he did? Not in a million years. That's why saying I need to accept that he could or would do those things seems somehow...wrong, to me. Aside from sharing the same body, the Dimitri who committed atrocities was basically an entirely separate, entirely different person at the reins. Saying he and Dimitri are capable of the same things doesn't feel true at all - not from what I know of them. I know it sounds like I just don't want to accept Dimitri is capable of bad things, but I swear it's deeper than some mere discomfort or an unwillingness to accept hard truths on my part. And that's why it's hard for me to see Dimitri feel the need to take responsibility for things I know he'd never have done if it had truly been his hands on the reins when they happened.

But it's like you say - even if it wouldn't mess up his sense of reality and self, it's better that he wants to make up for those things than if he tried to deny any responsibility for them. Better to take too much accountability rather than too little. But I do want to be clear - I was never, EVER suggesting that those terrible things would have been okay, no matter who is considered as having done them. I'd never have excused those actions, or considered having him excuse them, either. The idea of re-categorizing atrocities as okay was never on the table at all, and I think you might be applying your ex to a scenario where nothing like him was being talked about.

I have to say, Dirk and I are currently talking, and it is interesting. It's certainly going better than my last encounters with him. I'm not sure if the way he talks is more accessible than Emet's speech or less, though. He's got a habit of throwing in terms and phrases I don't seem to have any context for. I can't tell if it's unconscious, a deliberate challenge to see if I can work things out from context to keep up, or if he doesn't even give the illusion of a damn if people can understand him.

[vrdantwind]

Well, maybe I want to hear them anyway. [He chuckles.] Although I guess maybe I shouldn't be forcing you to stay awake...

[vrdantwind]

Not to completely terrify you, Dimitri, but...all the guidelines you've learned are Faerghus guidelines. [Claude looks amused.] Almyrans have different standards, you know. There isn't some guaranteed formula for success with me...or Grant, for that matter, since he's not from Faerghus, either. Or Felix, who kind of hates the formal Faerghan way of doing things...so really, you were always going to have to have individual approaches for all of us. There's no simple checklist of things to do and things to avoid. There's just...being with us, learning what we like and what we don't like, figuring out what we're okay with. And we have to do the same with you.

[vrdantwind]

I know about them in the sense I've learned about them here, at least, but they're not something we had back home. I can't claim to be familiar with them.

I think I've seen some of those animations you're talking about...but I've heard them called cartoons? Is anime different?

And from what I've seen, you're plenty good at martial arts yourself. Just because other people may be better doesn't mean you should sell short your own skill.

[fingersandteeth]

You did. You did conclude it was a bad plan and I probably didn't need to spend all those paragraphs expanding on why it was such a bad plan. I just-- Oh, I don't know. I just have feelings about culpability and how one moves on after doing reprehensible things. And... you're right that I might have gotten my feelings about Jack mixed up into things, admittedly. Or rather, my feelings about my own... I'm not sure what the right word should be. That is to say, when I was with Jack I found out about various things he did before coming here and *I* gave him a free pass on all of them until I found out it had led to him doing something *I* found unforgivable--when a better man might have left long ago. *I* was the one who re-categorized such things as 'okay.'

(He hasn't done most of it yet, if it helps you or your friends when it comes to interacting with Baby Jack.)

But about Dimitri... are you saying he was *possessed*?

[That seems to be what Claude is implying, anyway. Which is a bit worrying, but hopefully if Dimitri did have any passengers, they were left behind when he came here.]

Regarding Dirk and his idiosyncratic way of speaking... I've known the man for a year and I'm still not sure which of the three options is accurate.

[Honestly, Steven blames Andrew Hussie.]

[vrdantwind]

Ahhh. I understand now. And yeah, that...must've been awful for you. You want to believe the best of someone you love, that if they have done horrible things that they were somehow misguided, or the circumstances justified them, or it was some one-off mistake...that it doesn't mean they're a horrible person. But then, if you find out they've done something so horrific that no excuse could ever be good enough...then naturally you'll end up wondering how you could have let all the other stuff slide.

As I said, though, I don't think this is too comparable. No, I won't go so far as to say Dimitri was possessed, but...as far as conscious control of his actions goes, I don't think that the end result was too far off from that, even if the cause wasn't at all the same. Dimitri's been...traumatized beyond all belief, really. I don't want to lay out his whole history for you, even though he doesn't keep it secret or anything; it feels a little invasive, all the same. But when I say it starts with that massacre I mentioned earlier, and that the hits just kept on coming after that...I'm putting it mildly. Anyone would have broken under that, and Dimitri did. He was actively hallucinating the dead speaking to him for a lot of the time he was on a single-minded revenge mission. And the revenge...wasn't even for him, which is maybe the saddest part. His country has a pretty horrific religious belief - that if a person dies with regrets, they go to a fiery pit of torment until the living either recompense their sins or ease their regrets. So those friends and family that died in the massacre...Dimitri was taught they were burning in hell until he avenged them. That their souls couldn't rest easy until he killed who was responsible. And those voices were in his head, blaming him for their deaths, demanding he seek vengeance on their behalf...

Dimitri wasn't possessed, but he was absolutely not in his right mind. And it's hard to look at a man who suffered so much that he went temporarily insane and blame him for the things he did when life had broken him entirely down. Nothing he did was a conscious choice made in his right mind, that's for sure. And that doesn't make the things he did any less heinous, I know that, but...I can't exactly say that the Dimitri who's in a healthier state of mind bears even the faintest resemblance to the Dimitri who'd been driven into the pit. I don't know whether you consider that an excuse or not.

As for Dirk, my guess it's that it's a mix of all of them.

[Blaming Andrew Hussie for nonsense is rarely a bad plan.]

[fingersandteeth]

I'm sure you're right about Dirk.

And I do understand how I let all that other stuff slide, because I was at a fairly low point in my life and found it hard to care about anyone past a very small circle of people and the things I found out about he mostly did to people in his own world and time. I'm just-- irritated with myself *anyway*.

(I do hope I'm not boring you by talking about my issues about him, by the way. You're just-- well, easier to talk to about this sometimes, because you got here about when the Jack *I* knew disappeared and so you don't have any preconceptions about him, which nearly everyone else does.)

But I understand, I think. He broke for a while due to what he endured and he's managed to reconstruct his old self from the pieces, as much as he possibly could. I've been through that as well. Nothing so horrible as what you're describing, but I had my own five years of hell once and I had to do a lot of reconstructing of myself too.

But honestly, it's not up to me to determine whether or not Dimitri's madness born of trauma was an excuse or not. It's not up to you either. It's up to Dimitri and Dimitri alone to make that decision. I'm happy to believe that Dimitri's a changed man now. I *like* Dimitri, Claude. I really do. We talked when he first visited Fight Club and I was impressed by what a sweet, thoughtful guy he is. I'd like to talk with him again.

But I still hold myself culpable for what I did during my own five years of hell and I understand why Dimitri might continue to hold himself culpable too.

[nastyboy]

[There's a slight smile on Dimitri's lips.]

It is the opposite of what was requested, true. So... I will close my eye now, and just... listen.

[nastyboy]

[Dimitri just makes what sounds faintly like a death rattle.]

I could not make things simple for myself, doing this for the first time with so many different people, could I?

[vrdantwind]

Good. Get some rest, my beautiful light.

[And Claude begins reading from his book, his voice soft, feeling so much love for the man leaning against him that he can hardly stand it.]

[uncutetomboy]

cartoons and anime are basically two words for the same thing

[Well, if you're Japanese they are and Akane is Japanese. 'Anime' is her language's umbrella term after all.]

dirk's favorite kind of anime is the stuff they make back home in japan, he likes it better than a lot of western stuff (except the kind with little ponies)

and i guess you're right, it's just hard when i went from the best in town to barely in the top ten in the space of a year

[vrdantwind]

Nah, I don't mind in general. I just wanted to point out that there might not be any real parallels here between what was being talked about and what happened with him. I get the feeling your experiences with him loom pretty large in your mind, and sometimes stuff like that creeps into unrelated conversations, so I just wanted to mention that it might not be relevant here. Not because I mind you talking about it in general, but because I think you might be jumping at shadows a little. Or letting your past experiences color things they shouldn't. It's good to have someone call your attention to it when you might be going off-track, or when something's influence on your thinking might be waxing a little too strong, you know?

And sorry, I think we might be talking at cross-purposes again. I just meant whether you perceive my explanations as being just me making excuses for him. And, I guess, I was also referring to whether or not you consider those circumstances to have been genuinely out of his control, and his actions having been done under such an altered state of mind that it's hard to consider them conscious decisions to hold his saner self accountable for...which is to say, I don't know whether or not you consider my personal reasoning compelling. But I wasn't saying that what either of us think of it is some objective truth, or that it should influence - much less overwrite - how Dimitri feels about it.

I know I did speculate about Dimitri maybe being helped by the idea of himself and the Dimitri who did those things as separate entities, even if only briefly, but that was never out of a desire to just...absolve him of culpability, or to excuse him from trying to make reparations. It's more that I tend to feel like he never really acknowledges fully that he wasn't in his right mind at the time. It feels like he considers himself a monster because he treats his actions as though his every action was guided by a conscious decision, in full awareness and with nothing influencing his actions, to be horrific for the fun of it. Which everyone knows isn't true, frankly. It feels like he doesn't take the extenuating circumstances - of which there were plenty - into account at all when it comes to judging himself.

I think I'd feel better about it if he'd just say something like "I couldn't help it, but what I did was still awful". Not making excuses for himself to escape accountability, but just...giving himself the tiny and completely reasonable bit of credit as never having wanted to do those things, and having ended up in the place where he did due to a lot of circumstances that were never up to him. There has to be a middle ground between "I did nothing wrong" and "the fact that I was completely insane at the time is immaterial, I'm just as awful as if I'd decided to do those things for fun". I don't want either extreme for him.

[vrdantwind]

You could have, I guess. [Claude smiles up at him.] But then, would you be dating all of us? Which of us would you be willing to give up in the name of simplicity?

[vrdantwind]

Claude sighs, smiling faintly. "I guess you might be right." He shakes his head. "You know, this feels like a reversal of how things normally go with us. You're helping me figure out my feelings instead of the other way around..." His soft gaze finds Felix's eyes. "Thank you, sunshine."

He takes Felix's hand, rising to his feet. "I should go let Dimitri and Grant know that I'm feeling better. Give me a sec?"

[bestswordmaster]

Those look more like the eyes Felix is used to seeing--still not exactly sparkling, but they seem to have regained some of their life, and even just that alongside the nickname is enough of a return to familiarity that it helps. He can't hold Claude's gaze for more than a couple of seconds, but he nods; everything is too raw for him to try to back away from this closeness now with excuses. "You're welcome. I wasn't sure I could, or that you would want me to try, so...I'm glad Dimitri was right."

He squeezes Claude's hand lightly. "All right. I'll wait--" In the other room, is what he was going to say, but maybe it's better if he and Claude go back into that room together. Besides, if Dimitri and Grant are still loitering out in the hall, Felix doesn't really want to have to talk to them. "--here."

[nastyboy]

No...

[Dimitri nuzzles against Claude's palm some more.]

Never.

[vrdantwind]

"He was. Some of the things I was worried about had to do with you, so nobody else could have reassured me." Claude moves past Felix, pausing to press a light kiss to his jaw as he passes. "And Dimitri knew you could. You ought to have more faith in yourself."

Then Claude slips out of the room, and Felix will hear faint murmuring just outside the door. However, he won't get long to pay attention to that (or consider eavesdropping) before he's distracted.

Arbiter, who's been looming large but silent this whole time, shifts in order to lean down, lightly resting his beak on Felix's shoulder. A red eye - eternally baleful by the nature of Corviknights, but somehow calm for now - blinks slowly at Felix, before Arbiter's head lifts again.

There's something...strangely formal about the gesture, somehow. It's almost reminiscent of the flat of a sword being laid atop one's shoulder in recognition of some great deed. It certainly seems to be some kind of odd gesture of benediction from one of Claude's most notoriously protective, judgmental pokémon.

Felix will notice, in fact, that most of Claude's pokémon are currently regarding him. (Not, perhaps, too surprising, as with Claude's absence there's not a whole lot else to pay attention to in the room besides each other, but it might make Felix a little awkward. But there's a definite air of approval. In fact, Sturm beams and actually claps his hands in obvious indication of his happiness. Clearly, Claude's fussing team are happy that Felix has helped Claude out of his funk.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Jadoube the Zoroark, who has some interesting options for showing her approval. She shakes herself off and straightens up...and then, with a shimmer of illusion, she takes on the appearance of Claude himself. And (s)he gives Felix a thumbs up. "You did great!" she says, in Claude's own voice.

There's a certain tone to that praise, interestingly - Felix, having grown so familiar with Claude, might recognize it. It's got that fond, almost paternal tone Claude gets when he's talking to his pokémon, not to another person. Jadoube may well be parroting what Claude tells them when they've done well, in order to communicate the same to Felix.

This friendly (if faintly disturbing) message imparted, the illusion fades and Jadoube is simply a Zoroark again.

[vrdantwind]

Then you might just have to resign yourself to us, and all the messy complications we represent. [Claude's smile broadens as he watches Dimitri nuzzle his hand. It's actually enough to make a minute shiver run through him.]

[vrdantwind]

Well, if it's not a case of your skills getting worse - which it doesn't seem to be - and the talent pool around you simply expanding...that can be a little disheartening in how it reminds you that skill and position are always relative, but it can also be the most fertile ground for making greater strides in your chosen field. Nothing helps you hone your skill more than healthy competition, right? Being surrounded by people who are better than you are at things makes climbing to greater heights and learning more than you knew before almost inevitable.

[bestswordmaster]

You ought to have more faith in yourself. That's just the kind of thing Felix would expect from Claude--always lifting people up, even if all Felix did was lay out the unfortunate truth of what it's like to lose someone you love. He has plenty of faith in himself when it comes to things he knows how to do, but reassuring people is very much not one of them. So hearing that Claude appreciated the talk anyway is a comfort.

He startles when an enormous beak comes down to rest on his shoulder. He turns with wide eyes to see Arbiter looking back at him in approval. "Oh. You're...welcome?" The gesture is an abrupt reminder that these Pokemon were here to witness that entire conversation, have been watching him and listening this whole time. If he thinks about it too much, he'll feel humiliated, so instead he turns his attention to the fact that he's now the center of their attention.

"What?" He can't help backing away a little toward the door at their staring, despite the fact that they're obviously the opposite of upset with him. There's a reason he put all of his and Sylvain's Pokemon other than Inda in their balls today, even Varley. He didn't want to feel watched in his raw, pathetic state. "I caused the problem in the first place, I was just...rectifying it. That's all."

Then the Zoroark moves, and Felix stares as she...turns into Claude and uses his voice. What the fuck? What the fuck.

"Uh...thanks. Don't ever do that again. ...I have to go."

Sure, he said he'd wait here, but he didn't say he'd necessarily stay on this side of the door. He hopes Claude is almost finished with his talk, because he's absolutely going out into the hall now.

[nastyboy]

Then I resign myself to such blissful torment gladly. [His lips move against Claude's palm as he speaks, still quiet.]