"Adorable, fluffy kittens also have the needliest claws," Claude points out with a chuckle. "It's impossible to know, but maybe he was always going to grow into the ones he has now, one way or another. But a beloved older brother he admires as much as you...of course you'd have always seen the softest, happiest side of him. And I think a lot of those hard edges were only developed after your death...maybe as a direct result of it, even. So we really are talking about two totally different Felixes."
He smiles a little, gazing out at the ocean. "That said...I actually have met the Felix you've seen. This weird weekend has done some playing around with people's ages...or maybe it's brought separate, younger versions of them in. I haven't seen a younger and older version of a person in the same room together, so I'm not sure which it is. All I know is that I got to talk to a younger Felix, one who hadn't lost his big brother yet...and he was absolutely adorable. Anyone - especially a big brother - would be crazy about him. He even decided he liked and trusted me, just from hearing that he and I become friends when he's older."
At the questioning about Sylvain, he glances at Glenn. "It sounds like you might already know some things about his home situation," he says, a touch carefully. "Which isn't really my business to tell any more than yours. But what I will say, because it's public knowledge in my time and I don't know when it happened in your lifetime, that Sylvain's brother Miklan eventually got kicked out on top of being disinherited - I think he'd finally begun causing too much trouble. And in the year we were all at Garreg Mach together, he broke into the Gautier estate and stole the Lance of Ruin. The Blue Lions - which is to say, Dimitri and Felix and Sylvain and Ingrid, and some other students besides - were dispatched by the church to deal with the theft, and Miklan's gang of bandits. And in the process, Miklan was killed. I don't know who struck him down, and there's limits to even my curiosity; I never asked. But Sylvain...wasn't unaffected by that, I know that much. That's probably part of what's changed.
"The other part is just...the war. Toward the end of the year we had at the Officer's Academy, the Adrestian Empire launched an attack on the church, and declared war on it. And, by proxy, both the Kingdom and the Alliance. It's still raging back home, as of when we all came here - and it's been going on for almost six years. Sylvain - and Felix, and pretty much everyone else - have been doing a lot of fighting, being soldiers. The war hit the Kingdom especially hard - Cornelia turned out to have been an Imperial asset, almost certainly planted on purpose. Almost as soon as the war started, she tried to have Dimitri executed, out of sight, under trumped-up charges of having murdered his uncle - which of course there was no proof for. Dimitri escaped, but he spent most of the war in hiding, and...well, mentally, in the roughest place imaginable. He was so betrayed and enraged and traumatized, he was barely sane. Not that Cornelia stopped there - she tried to drag the whole Kingdom and all its nobles over to the Imperial cause, and the whole country's been a hornet's nest of war since. Gautier and Fraldarius have been leading the resistance against her, so...you can imagine Felix and Sylvain have been in the thick of it all that time. And Felix loves fighting, but Sylvain..." He shakes his head. He doesn't really need to elaborate there.
"According to Sylvain, he's seen the end of the war, and a Kingdom victory. Which is good to know, but...well, a lot of the changes you see in him definitely come down to the wringer he's been wrung through over the years."
He looks back out at the ocean. "As for how I know all this...I could say that Felix and I are friends, and leave it at that. But I've been honest with you so far, and I haven't regretted it yet, so...I'll stick with that for now. The fact is that...a lot of us developed feelings for each other. Or maybe always had them. Simultaneously. And we all decided we were fine with exploring those feelings simultaneously." He glances at Glenn again. "So I'm dating your brother. And Sylvain. And Dimitri. And they're all dating each other, too...well, except Sylvain and Felix, who've gone all the way to being married already. You already seem to be aware that Felix was infatuated with more than one person growing up, so maybe hearing he's with more than one person isn't too much of a shock to you. I'm the only big surprise as a relative newcomer, compared to the little knot of Faerghans who've been in love with each other since childhood." He grins. "But I'm told I'm charming."
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He smiles a little, gazing out at the ocean. "That said...I actually have met the Felix you've seen. This weird weekend has done some playing around with people's ages...or maybe it's brought separate, younger versions of them in. I haven't seen a younger and older version of a person in the same room together, so I'm not sure which it is. All I know is that I got to talk to a younger Felix, one who hadn't lost his big brother yet...and he was absolutely adorable. Anyone - especially a big brother - would be crazy about him. He even decided he liked and trusted me, just from hearing that he and I become friends when he's older."
At the questioning about Sylvain, he glances at Glenn. "It sounds like you might already know some things about his home situation," he says, a touch carefully. "Which isn't really my business to tell any more than yours. But what I will say, because it's public knowledge in my time and I don't know when it happened in your lifetime, that Sylvain's brother Miklan eventually got kicked out on top of being disinherited - I think he'd finally begun causing too much trouble. And in the year we were all at Garreg Mach together, he broke into the Gautier estate and stole the Lance of Ruin. The Blue Lions - which is to say, Dimitri and Felix and Sylvain and Ingrid, and some other students besides - were dispatched by the church to deal with the theft, and Miklan's gang of bandits. And in the process, Miklan was killed. I don't know who struck him down, and there's limits to even my curiosity; I never asked. But Sylvain...wasn't unaffected by that, I know that much. That's probably part of what's changed.
"The other part is just...the war. Toward the end of the year we had at the Officer's Academy, the Adrestian Empire launched an attack on the church, and declared war on it. And, by proxy, both the Kingdom and the Alliance. It's still raging back home, as of when we all came here - and it's been going on for almost six years. Sylvain - and Felix, and pretty much everyone else - have been doing a lot of fighting, being soldiers. The war hit the Kingdom especially hard - Cornelia turned out to have been an Imperial asset, almost certainly planted on purpose. Almost as soon as the war started, she tried to have Dimitri executed, out of sight, under trumped-up charges of having murdered his uncle - which of course there was no proof for. Dimitri escaped, but he spent most of the war in hiding, and...well, mentally, in the roughest place imaginable. He was so betrayed and enraged and traumatized, he was barely sane. Not that Cornelia stopped there - she tried to drag the whole Kingdom and all its nobles over to the Imperial cause, and the whole country's been a hornet's nest of war since. Gautier and Fraldarius have been leading the resistance against her, so...you can imagine Felix and Sylvain have been in the thick of it all that time. And Felix loves fighting, but Sylvain..." He shakes his head. He doesn't really need to elaborate there.
"According to Sylvain, he's seen the end of the war, and a Kingdom victory. Which is good to know, but...well, a lot of the changes you see in him definitely come down to the wringer he's been wrung through over the years."
He looks back out at the ocean. "As for how I know all this...I could say that Felix and I are friends, and leave it at that. But I've been honest with you so far, and I haven't regretted it yet, so...I'll stick with that for now. The fact is that...a lot of us developed feelings for each other. Or maybe always had them. Simultaneously. And we all decided we were fine with exploring those feelings simultaneously." He glances at Glenn again. "So I'm dating your brother. And Sylvain. And Dimitri. And they're all dating each other, too...well, except Sylvain and Felix, who've gone all the way to being married already. You already seem to be aware that Felix was infatuated with more than one person growing up, so maybe hearing he's with more than one person isn't too much of a shock to you. I'm the only big surprise as a relative newcomer, compared to the little knot of Faerghans who've been in love with each other since childhood." He grins. "But I'm told I'm charming."