"Well..." Claude studies Felix briefly. "The first and simplest step to doing that is going to be to take more time to think before you speak. You've got a habit of snapping out not just things you don't mean, but things you do mean but haven't really considered how people will take them - or, for instance, whether there's a way to word what you mean in a way that people might take better. Or whether, for instance, you're saying the right thing to the right person. I won't pretend I don't have my own doubts and fears about the implications of our losing our memories of this place, but...people who have their own doubts and fears about that, about what's going to happen to the five of us, aren't the right ones to talk to about that. I'd just be adding my load on top of the loads the rest of you are already carrying for yourselves. Who does that help?"
He crosses his arms over his chest. "Also, honestly...I really don't think you can make Sylvain feel better about all of this as long as you're convinced that everything will genuinely turn out terrible unless you accomplish something impossible. Because when you get right down to it, Felix - you don't really have any hope for the situation, do you? The best you've come up with for yourself is something to take your mind off of it. Something to convince yourself is productive activity just so you don't go crazy with agony over the idea of there being no actual solutions or hope. How is someone with no hope themselves supposed to make Sylvain believe things will be better than his own darkest fears?
"The best thing you can do for both yourself and Sylvain is to stop calling your pessimism practicality, and your displacement activity as a solution. I don't think even you believe, deep down, that you can find Arceus and make him do what you want. I don't think you even believe you could beg him into it. I'm not even sure how fully you believe in a pokémon god, or his power to grant wishes. So do you think you can make Sylvain believe in something you don't?" He shakes his head. "Sylvain's smart. The smartest man in Fodlan, someone once told me. He knows what you're doing, and why you're doing it. Your love for him and your desperation and willingness to do anything it takes for him - for all of us - means a lot to him, I'm sure of that, but I think that's what really lent weight to this promise you've made him. Not any belief in either of you that you could fulfill this one."
He sighs. "I wish you were here, so I could make you look at me. So just listen to me with all your ears when I say this, sunshine: what you really need to do, what you really need to go looking for, is hope. Hope and faith. Not in anything invisible or unobtainable, but in all of us - and especially yourself. We all need to accept that we could go home at any time, which is hard to swallow...but none of us can or should believe that going home will be the end of the world. For one thing - going back home to our homes, our friends and loved ones, the people who count on us? We're supposed to look on that with dread? We're supposed to be so selfish that we should focus on what we've gained here, and treat everything and everyone we left behind as less important? We've found peace here, so who cares if Almyra or Fodlan ever know the peace we set out to bring them?" He shakes his head. "I can't accept that. I won't accept that."
He fixes Felix with a look. "But more than that - it's not just about others, or duty. I refuse to believe that we're all - or even some of us - going back to misery. At worst, it'll be temporary. I said you wouldn't leave Sylvain alone or let him just go back and be miserable with his family, knowing what you do and being who you are, and I still believe that. I believe all of us - even me with the rest of you - have at least a passing chance, if not better, of coming together again back home the way we did here. What happened to bring us here, and bring us together, has all been unbelievably improbable and miraculous as it is, so the idea that there couldn't possibly be further unexpectedness or miracles - that things that have already happened could never happen again - isn't one I can believe in. And the possibilities I've laid out for you and Sylvain aren't even particularly far-fetched ones. They don't need miracles to happen. Those things are considerably less unlikely than how all of us wound up together in the first place, so don't bother telling me you can't believe they'll happen."
He rests his hands flat on the desk. "And on top of all of that...we have right here, and right now. We don't know how long it'll last. It could end tomorrow, or it could end sixty years from now. We've spent all our lives living with a mortality that isn't any different than that. What answer to that is there - what other answer has there ever been - than to just make the most of the time we have at the sides of the people we're with? To enjoy what we have while we have it? We need to believe that going home will be bittersweet and not just bitter, so that we can feel more than just dread at the thought, the same way one hopes to die a peaceful death after a life well lived to take away some of that fear, but we also need to not be fixating on the unknown moment when what we have will end. It'll only poison what we have now. And for what? Some wild chase after a god you can't possibly compel so you can make selfish demands of it? A chase that'll take you away from Sylvain, the man you're supposedly doing this in order to be with? Who you want to be there for?"
He leans forward. "You and Sylvain both need something to believe in, and hope for the future to look forward to. The reason you haven't been able to help him is because you're just as hollowed out by the thought of the future as he is still, so you don't have anything to offer him except for a promise you both know you can't keep - one that's honestly more for you than for him. But the thing is that there is hope. There are real things you can believe in. There's the present, right here and now. And there's all the possibilities of the future if and when we go home, which aren't nearly as bleak as you think they are. All of these things are worlds more likely than finding Arceus, and you know it, sunshine." His voice softens. "But believing isn't some physical activity you can do, so it doesn't burn off all that nervous energy you've got. And it's terrifying, because hope can fall through - and life has been anything but kind to any of you. Trusting that things can go well is so much harder for you than saying 'I'll make things happen the way I want', right?
"But isn't it kind of ironic you'd try to do that by chasing a pokémon, rather than by making Sylvain's present as incredible as you can? And instead of promising him that you'll save him from his misery when we go home? Sure, maybe you won't remember the promise, but so what? You know how you felt about him back home. You know you wouldn't just leave him to suffer if you could prevent it. So tell him that. Believe, like I believe, that the you back home can't possibly stay silent and stupid for long. Make Sylvain feel like, memories or no memories, here or at home, he'll have a future he doesn't have to dread, and he can trust you to provide it. If you want to take control of the future because you don't trust what it'll hold, then take that responsibility yourself. Don't shove it on Arceus to make it happen. Do it yourself."
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Date: 2021-03-18 06:02 am (UTC)He crosses his arms over his chest. "Also, honestly...I really don't think you can make Sylvain feel better about all of this as long as you're convinced that everything will genuinely turn out terrible unless you accomplish something impossible. Because when you get right down to it, Felix - you don't really have any hope for the situation, do you? The best you've come up with for yourself is something to take your mind off of it. Something to convince yourself is productive activity just so you don't go crazy with agony over the idea of there being no actual solutions or hope. How is someone with no hope themselves supposed to make Sylvain believe things will be better than his own darkest fears?
"The best thing you can do for both yourself and Sylvain is to stop calling your pessimism practicality, and your displacement activity as a solution. I don't think even you believe, deep down, that you can find Arceus and make him do what you want. I don't think you even believe you could beg him into it. I'm not even sure how fully you believe in a pokémon god, or his power to grant wishes. So do you think you can make Sylvain believe in something you don't?" He shakes his head. "Sylvain's smart. The smartest man in Fodlan, someone once told me. He knows what you're doing, and why you're doing it. Your love for him and your desperation and willingness to do anything it takes for him - for all of us - means a lot to him, I'm sure of that, but I think that's what really lent weight to this promise you've made him. Not any belief in either of you that you could fulfill this one."
He sighs. "I wish you were here, so I could make you look at me. So just listen to me with all your ears when I say this, sunshine: what you really need to do, what you really need to go looking for, is hope. Hope and faith. Not in anything invisible or unobtainable, but in all of us - and especially yourself. We all need to accept that we could go home at any time, which is hard to swallow...but none of us can or should believe that going home will be the end of the world. For one thing - going back home to our homes, our friends and loved ones, the people who count on us? We're supposed to look on that with dread? We're supposed to be so selfish that we should focus on what we've gained here, and treat everything and everyone we left behind as less important? We've found peace here, so who cares if Almyra or Fodlan ever know the peace we set out to bring them?" He shakes his head. "I can't accept that. I won't accept that."
He fixes Felix with a look. "But more than that - it's not just about others, or duty. I refuse to believe that we're all - or even some of us - going back to misery. At worst, it'll be temporary. I said you wouldn't leave Sylvain alone or let him just go back and be miserable with his family, knowing what you do and being who you are, and I still believe that. I believe all of us - even me with the rest of you - have at least a passing chance, if not better, of coming together again back home the way we did here. What happened to bring us here, and bring us together, has all been unbelievably improbable and miraculous as it is, so the idea that there couldn't possibly be further unexpectedness or miracles - that things that have already happened could never happen again - isn't one I can believe in. And the possibilities I've laid out for you and Sylvain aren't even particularly far-fetched ones. They don't need miracles to happen. Those things are considerably less unlikely than how all of us wound up together in the first place, so don't bother telling me you can't believe they'll happen."
He rests his hands flat on the desk. "And on top of all of that...we have right here, and right now. We don't know how long it'll last. It could end tomorrow, or it could end sixty years from now. We've spent all our lives living with a mortality that isn't any different than that. What answer to that is there - what other answer has there ever been - than to just make the most of the time we have at the sides of the people we're with? To enjoy what we have while we have it? We need to believe that going home will be bittersweet and not just bitter, so that we can feel more than just dread at the thought, the same way one hopes to die a peaceful death after a life well lived to take away some of that fear, but we also need to not be fixating on the unknown moment when what we have will end. It'll only poison what we have now. And for what? Some wild chase after a god you can't possibly compel so you can make selfish demands of it? A chase that'll take you away from Sylvain, the man you're supposedly doing this in order to be with? Who you want to be there for?"
He leans forward. "You and Sylvain both need something to believe in, and hope for the future to look forward to. The reason you haven't been able to help him is because you're just as hollowed out by the thought of the future as he is still, so you don't have anything to offer him except for a promise you both know you can't keep - one that's honestly more for you than for him. But the thing is that there is hope. There are real things you can believe in. There's the present, right here and now. And there's all the possibilities of the future if and when we go home, which aren't nearly as bleak as you think they are. All of these things are worlds more likely than finding Arceus, and you know it, sunshine." His voice softens. "But believing isn't some physical activity you can do, so it doesn't burn off all that nervous energy you've got. And it's terrifying, because hope can fall through - and life has been anything but kind to any of you. Trusting that things can go well is so much harder for you than saying 'I'll make things happen the way I want', right?
"But isn't it kind of ironic you'd try to do that by chasing a pokémon, rather than by making Sylvain's present as incredible as you can? And instead of promising him that you'll save him from his misery when we go home? Sure, maybe you won't remember the promise, but so what? You know how you felt about him back home. You know you wouldn't just leave him to suffer if you could prevent it. So tell him that. Believe, like I believe, that the you back home can't possibly stay silent and stupid for long. Make Sylvain feel like, memories or no memories, here or at home, he'll have a future he doesn't have to dread, and he can trust you to provide it. If you want to take control of the future because you don't trust what it'll hold, then take that responsibility yourself. Don't shove it on Arceus to make it happen. Do it yourself."