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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

[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.

[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.

[fingersandteeth]

*Oh*. You're right, we were talking at cross-purposes. Acknowledging that he wasn't in his right mind when he made those decisions isn't a bad thing to do, no. It won't change the fact that he did them, but it'll help him remember that he won't necessarily be liable to repeat them without those particular traumatic circumstances.

You're also right that everything with Jack does loom large in my mind, which I'm still a bit frustrated about. For me, it's been six, nearly seven years, but as soon as I woke up on Armin's houseboat in this world again, it was almost as if nothing had changed but me. I can only credit it to getting my memories of this world back--and of course, the entire mess with Jack had been entirely on my mind when I fell asleep on Armin's houseboat.

Just-- being messed up about Jack was my past self's problem. Why is it still mine? Is it just that I'm angry at myself for putting in more effort than he ever did? Is it that I'm still furious at how even at my lowest point, hurting someone I loved would be break me and he did it without even realizing it was *wrong*? I remember being terrified of him before I went home, because if he could (and would and did) hurt people he loved for power, then *I* certainly wasn't safe--the only reason I wasn't terrified when I woke up was that I'd had all those years of sharpening my skills that I was reasonably sure that I could easily defend myself from him, at least on a physical basis. Maybe I just still feel like I was played for a sucker in every aspect of our relationship.

In a way, I got out of a very messy break-up by him disappearing while I was asleep. In another way, I never got the closure I needed, even if it would have come with our hands around each other's throats.

(I'm sorry. I really didn't mean for this to turn into another round of me ranting about my ex- that I've had trouble getting over. That this happens with *all* my significant exes makes it worse, not better.)

(Please no overt references to not remembering VR during canon updates to avoid pime taradoxes btw)

[vrdantwind]

That's it exactly! That's what I want him to understand. The actions were monstrous enough, but his mental state was so altered that it wasn't because he is himself inherently monstrous. He'd never do those things in his normal state of mind, so he shouldn't treat his everyday self as a monster. If anything, he's just a man who has lapsed into monstrousness when he's been pushed too far, which...honestly, I wonder if everyone isn't like that. Surely we all have our breaking points, past which all logic and ethics may well break down? We just haven't all been pushed to it.

If you're saying you had one of those 'canon update' things Dirk talks about, like Jane had where she went to sleep for a week or so and then woke up after having lived for some longer amount of time back home...well, that sort of makes sense, in a way. A lot of time back home passed for you, but no real time passed for you here, did it? A week in time that you weren't awake for, at most. So...why would the stuff with Jack, here, feel like it happened in your past? From your perspective here, it's still very recent. If you'd been living all that time here, dealing with Jack and the place where your relationship with him had happened, then maybe you'd be over it, or at least further along in getting over it. And you're saying Jack disappeared while you were gone, right? So you never got closure...but you didn't know you'd never get that closure until you came back here. You've only had since waking up to deal with being denied that. I'm guessing that's been a lot less time than the six or seven years you spent back home.

Waking up here again must have been like being dropped right back into the thick of that specific part of your life, with no warning. Of course that's going to affect you. It'd be weirder if it didn't.

Do you think this stuff keeps breaking into unrelated conversations with other people because you don't have specific times or people to talk with this about? I'm just saying that maybe if you accommodate your obvious need to discuss these things in specific times and ways, you can at least direct how and when the outbursts happen. When dams keep breaking, then channels are the next best option.

understood!

[fingersandteeth]

I mean, the thing is that I *do* have someone I should talk to this about. I've got a friend who basically volunteered to serve as my ad hoc therapist since summer. I see him for a few hours around noon every Wednesday. I just-- haven't been talking to him about *that* so much, because a lot of what I'd been doing with him was reconstructing myself from what was left after *I* broke, which was some time before I came here the first time.

(I think you're right that everyone has a point at which they're broken. I know when mine was.)

But yes. I did have one of those 'canon updates' as Dirk calls them and since then it's been-- difficult. Mostly because I changed in quite a few ways in those six years and with most people I met before I 'updated' I sometimes feel the unconscious pressure to revert to the younger self they'd be more familiar with in their company. There's a few exceptions, such as with Thace, but for the most part it's a thing. That might be why I enjoy talking to you and your friends. You've never known the old me.

[vrdantwind]

You realize you're saying "I have someone to talk to this about" and "but I'm not actually talking to him about it" in the same breath, right? Maybe eventually you'll get to this subject with him, but until you do, maybe you need another person to talk about this specifically with.

I know six years can drastically change a person, but you make it sound like you and your past self are such completely different people that you're tempted to consciously act differently around people who knew the younger you, and might expect you to be someone else. Six years is roughly the amount of time it's been for me since the civil war in my country broke out, so as it happens, I have a major life event and a similar timeframe to compare to as you do. I'm certainly different, but I have to say that I don't think my base personality has shifted all that much in that time. Is that not the case with you? Did you undergo more of a radical shift?

I mean, I understand that you appreciate that I've only known you this way, and I'm glad you like that. I'm certainly not trying to undercut that by learning a little more about the differences between current you and past you. I'm just wondering how much of a difference those six years made. Granted, for the people here who, from their perspectives, saw you make a six-year shift in attitude over the course of a week's worth of sleep, I imagine it would've seemed kind of dramatic even if it wasn't objectively that big of a change. War made me a little more serious than I used to be, and while I don't think that's a big or shocking change, if my friends saw me go from one point to the other in a week, they might be taken aback.

[fingersandteeth]

Mm. It's complicated. I didn't go to war or anything. I did become a more dangerous person.

I don't think my essential, core self is that very different, save that I was a broken man when I came here and by the time I returned, I'd managed to repair myself as much as possible. It's just-- behaviors, I guess.

I suppose one way to explain it was that as a young man, as a member of a minority population that often experiences institutionalized discrimination--and as one who is fairly solidly built besides--I developed habits of body-language built around... well. Minimizing the space I took up. Making myself appear smaller. Non-threatening.

I was still doing that when I was first here and when I fell asleep in Armin's houseboat. I'd stopped doing that in those six years I was home, not the least because my position in my community of survivors *relies* on me being able to present myself as a threat if need be--and over those six years I'd amassed a good deal of skills to back it up.

Now I catch myself going back to those old habits and it's very frustrating.

[vrdantwind]

Funny...I know someone who does similar to that. I've been working to help them understand they don't have to shrink themselves down or hold themselves back here out of fear of what people will think - helping them embrace their confidence more. I'd say more about them, but the specifics of their marginalization were shared in confidence, so it's not something I have the right to explain...and I don't want to invite speculation even by making it obvious who I'm alluding to. Suffice it to say that I've got a nice clear picture, though.

I've got plenty of experience being hated myself, but I reacted very differently to it, so those experiences aren't too applicable. Also, as you've noticed, I'm not all that physically intimidating. Certainly not compared to some of the company I keep. Even if I'd been more reclusive or done more to avoid confrontation, I'd never have had much need to try to make myself smaller unless it was just to present a harder target to hit.

That said, I doubt you have much call to try to make yourself bigger or more imposing here...but you've obviously got no need to minimize yourself around anyone, either, especially people you've known for awhile. Is it only with people who knew the old you? Or do you sometimes fall into the habit around other people as well?

[fingersandteeth]

[... Steven is maybe going to guess Grant, but only because he's also not white.]

Not *only*, but so much more often than with other people. And it's just-- it's irritating. When I find myself slipping into my old habits of holding myself, it's *irritating*. And frustrating.

I've been thinking about *why* I do it and I wonder if I'm responding to people's expectations of me too. Not even necessarily conscious ones? But when you get to know someone, you start expecting them to act a certain way. Just, well, consistent with how they have before. If someone starts suddenly holding themself differently, you'd notice right? It would be really weird, wouldn't it?

[A thought strikes him and Steven swears out loud.]

My first time here, one of my best friends was a man named Tyler, about your age. We were from the same world, even though we never met each other there. I know now that he went to university with my friend Gil back home, but the first time I was here, I hadn't met Gil yet.

But here's the thing: Tyler hates when people change on him.

And here's the other thing: technically, I came back here once during the six years I was away. It was a weird weekend, the first one, and I didn't *remember* being here before at that time. It happened *months* before I even fell asleep and got 'canon updated.' But I did encounter myself as I am now (technically myself as I was a year ago from my perspective) and I remember the old me being a mix of envious and jealous of the me I am now, because he seemed like he had everything together in a way that I didn't--though I suppose it went both ways, as me a year ago envied the old me for being happily in love, not realizing how shaky a foundation that love rested upon. Basically, the entire thing was timeline shenanigans and a complete headache for both old me and me-a-year-ago.

The point is, me-a-year-ago ended up encountering Tyler and he *hated* me almost instantly, because I wasn't the Steven he expected me to be, but some new and different asshole.

Tyler disappeared about a week after I got back from my 'canon update.' I hadn't had a chance to have a real talk with him since said update? Honestly, I'd been dreading doing it. And then it never happened. Because he was gone.

And I just realized, just now, that possibly the whole Tyler thing has a *lot* to do with why I feel tempted to slip back into the old me with people I used to know.

[vrdantwind]

[Hilariously, it is Grant, but for completely different reasons than Steven thinks.]

Isn't it also possible you're projecting what you expect them to expect of you onto them? I mean, just as a possibility? Maybe they don't actually expect you to act like your old self, but part of you thinks they do, and you respond to that. Or maybe you're worried that your relationships with them are contingent on you being like the old you, so you try to mimic your old self on a subconscious level. That certainly wouldn't be surprising. You're very aware of how you've changed to them, and how they haven't changed to you. There might be some subconscious effort you're making to go "see, I'm still the same me" to them, even though in many ways you're not. But if those relationships are worth preserving to you, then you've definitely got a motive to try and preserve them, and if you think that requires being the person you used to be to some degree, well...

Mind you, I'm just theorizing. It could also be them expecting something different from you, too. But they're not here, and I don't even know who we're talking about, so I can't even begin to hazard a guess what they think or expect. All I can really analyze with even the faintest possibility of accuracy here is you, and what you might be thinking and doing. And a lot of that is just projecting anyway, so take it for whatever it's worth. Which could be nothing!

Still...the whole Tyler thing you mention definitely seems to lend some weight to the possibilities I'm suggesting. That maybe it's your idea of what other people expect from you, and your worry about how much change the people who used to know you perceive in you - and how that will affect your relationships with them - that's influencing your behavior, rather than it necessarily being what they want or expect.

The upside to all this is that if it's you assuming what people expect, and how they might react to your meeting - or not meeting - their expectations, then there's a chance that your assumptions might be wrong.

[fingersandteeth]

[Well, we're not entirely sure if Steven really realizes that Grant's a werewolf and not just a very attractive bear.]

... ah hell. I think you're *right*. I really do. Especially since... well, the whole thing with Tyler happened. And I know Tyler's been uniquely traumatized in his own way and not everyone will react so badly to change... but even if I know that consciously, I think my subconscious mind is just-- expecting people to react that badly anyway now. And I just need to start actively fighting back against it.

I mean, hell, I used to have the same reaction only in reverse to Shinobu, before I got 'updated.' I knew he knew me in the future and I always felt so awkward with him because I was sure he was expecting my older self, even though he's always tried to treat my past self like a different person than the self I am now. And now he's one of the few people I feel really *knows* me now, because I'm the one he met a year ago in our world.

(It's a funny story, actually, involving him getting talked into stealing my DVDs by my sister's ghost and me threatening him for the attempted break-in, but don't worry, everyone's friends now. Including all the ghosts involved.)

[vrdantwind]

So basically, you're letting your own ideas of how other people perceive you color how you react to them, rather than simply being yourself. Which I can understand, certainly, say, if you're trying to be diplomatic or win someone over, but...acting that way all the time, not just as a conscious decision to try to achieve an end? That sounds exhausting. It also sounds like a really good way to lose your way to knowing who the real you even is, especially if you're wearing different faces for different people.

After facing discrimination back home, I'm guessing you've had plenty of times where you didn't exactly have the luxury of not being concerned with what people thought of you. And then Tyler kind of reinforced that idea for you here, probably, even if you probably don't face that kind of discrimination anymore. I'm betting that's going to be a hard habit to break.

I'm assuming by this point in the conversation the indeedee cards came

[fingersandteeth]

You have no idea.

But yes, actually, that *has* been a life-long problem for me. It was even worse when I was younger, given how badly men who love other men were regarded when I first came of age. Between my ethnic group and my sexuality, I've always had to worry about other people's perceptions.

I thought I was finally growing out of always needing to play to my audience. I really did. And I'm just so damn frustrated that evidently I haven't. Not here.

(I even got a damn Indeedee card on the subject, from Emet. It was kind of a kick in the gut to read, but he wasn't *wrong*.)

[vrdantwind]

I'm fortunate in that sexuality wasn't as much of an issue where I'm from, although I had other things I had to worry about. That said, for most of my life the things that made people perceive me in ways I could have done without...well, they weren't things I could change about myself at all. So I personally never really worried about trying to fit in so much as I worried about doing what I could to impress, or charm, or outright deceive if necessary. Anything to make people more congenial...or at least more malleable.

That said, old habits die hard. Old survival habits die even harder. It's hard to kill something when its sole purpose is staying alive. I wouldn't beat yourself up about it too much.

Anyway, rather than trying to get rid of the habit, have you tried making the habit superfluous? Something that doesn't feel necessary is much easier to set aside. So instead of trying to stop yourself from trying to accommodate your acquaintances' expectations, figure out what it would take for you to become so comfortable around them that you don't feel any concern about how they're looking at you. I mean, I feel like for anyone who you'd be willing to be your real self around, you'd have to trust them, right? (And obviously for those you don't trust, it's fine to keep tailoring the image you want them to have of you.) But I get the feeling that perhaps you don't trust those people enough to be natural around them yet. So maybe you need to figure out what's holding you back there. I'm guessing, for instance, that you don't have this issue with Thace, because if you trust anyone at all, I'm sure it's him.

holy shit, i didn't know he'd say this much until he did

[fingersandteeth]

I don't have this issue with Thace, no. But Thace knows where my bodies are buried. (In a metaphorical sense, I mean, obviously, since any bodies I'd have would be back home and we're from different worlds.) He doesn't have any illusions about the kind of person I am and hasn't since... well, since I went to him for advice when everything started going wrong with Jack and then blew up at him when I thought Thace was treating me like a child or a naif over it all. But obviously I can't go around telling *everyone* these things. The only reason I could *then* was because Thace was already one of my closest friends, he knew a few things already that he hadn't condemned me for, and I was fully prepared to lose him over him knowing everything I'd done at that point. And then, after I came back, I told him the rest of it.

And Shinobu, who is the only other person I trust as much as Thace now, knows exactly who and what I *am* back home. I've explained my position to Thace and I've hinted at it to a few people--I told the less controversial part of it to Carly and gave abbreviated explanations to Hythldaeus and Emet-Selch--but most people? They don't know. Or they know something of *what* I am, like Armin does, but not the position I serve.

Back home? Everyone in my community of survivors knows. They know *what* I am, because none of us are human anymore. And they know what I *do*, because it's an open secret that I do it. And yes, some of them fear me for it, as well they should, but that's the price of serving and protecting my community in that fashion. I don't regret it. I don't regret anything I've done for their safety.

And I'm talking circles around what that *is*, what I *am* and what I *do*, aren't I? Well, that's the whole point. Not being human anymore is the *easiest* part of it to talk about and it's taken me this long to even *mention* it to you. As for the rest?

[And Steven stares at the screen for a long moment before he finally types,]

I'm my monarch's assassin and executioner. I have been for the last three years. It's not something you can just bring *up* with people. Hell, I'm taking a gamble telling you *now*.

[And then he presses send before he can talk himself out of it.]

[vrdantwind]

I appreciate the show in trust in me, even if I do feel that being in a whole new world that forces humanity on everyone and that isn't affected by any politics or actions we might have been part of back home means that a lot of the details we consider most significant about ourselves have surprisingly little meaning here. You're not the only non-human here by a long shot, which definitely waters down what alarm that idea could inspire in those who are human. You're also not the only one with an ethically questionable background, but unless that carries over into this place, how much practical concern is it for people here?

I'm not trying to undercut the importance of what you've said, mind, even though I suppose in a way that's how it sounds. Rather, I'm trying to say that maybe you don't need to be as worried about sharing these things with people as you are. In a place like this, the threshold for what people are willing to accept, what people have no particular reason to condemn or fear, is a lot higher than it probably is in any of our worlds of origin. The spectrum of people and experiences here is just so vast.

Anyway, I just had the thought if you could let go of some of the anxiety tied up with the secrets you're keeping, perhaps you'd be less worried about being your real self with others. I don't know if I've communicated that very well, though.

But on a personal level, you don't have anything to worry about entrusting me with this information. I'm a pretty secretive guy myself, and I don't let any secrets slip easily - mine or other people's. I've got no reason to condemn you, either. I've used some fairly underhanded tactics of my own on occasion...and while I've never gone so far as to employ assassins, I still have enough political savvy to know that there can be grim necessities. And for all that I'll always prefer diplomacy, I may not even have the luxury of avoiding that sort of thing in the future.

I forget how much I've mentioned to you, but I used to be the duke - and de facto leader of the ruling council - of a country called the Leicester Alliance. I stepped down from that title after reunifying that country with Dimitri's own country. What I definitely haven't mentioned before was that, due to some complicated international tangling of bloodlines, I had to give up being duke of my mother's country so I could return home and become the king of my father's country. (Of course, both countries hate each other. And me, for having a foot in both worlds. Life's never easy, right?)

So, as a king myself, am I supposed to judge you? When I might have to ask someone just like you to get his hands dirty for me someday? If anything, I can only hope I can find someone who's as devoted to serving the greater good by finding the lesser evil as you.

That said...I'm curious that you say assassin and executioner. Do you mean to say you handle deaths both judicial and, shall we say, extrajudicial? I wouldn't expect those roles to both be played by the same person.

[fingersandteeth]

Well, I don't suppose they would be in most ordinary communities. Changelings, which is what in fact I am, are different.

I don't know if your world has the Fair Folk in it, but the easiest way to explain is that there's powerful otherworldly entities that live in a realm distinct from but also adjacent to everyday reality and they often kidnap people for their own uncanny purposes--and their realms shape us into creatures that aren't actually human any longer, even as we have magic to fake it in the company of normal humans.

Almost twelve years ago, I was one of the humans they stole away. And almost seven years ago, I escaped with five of my friends, although my five years away broke me in the process. I'm not for the most part broken *now*--but it was slow-going at points.

Changelings can see through the illusions that make us appear as normal to ordinary mortals. It helps us find each other. We have a tendency to form communities of various sizes in the wake of our experiences, called Freeholds. I'm from a large city, with well over a million people living there--even as rare as we Changelings are, that makes for a local Freehold population well into three figures.

I suppose you could consider it a secret sub-population living among the greater population of ordinary mortals? Officially the government of the land that I'm from knows nothing about us. Unofficially... they still very well may know nothing.

Each Freehold divides itself into 'Courts' of like-minded Changelings according to how we cope with our captivity and newfound freedom. The Courts share governance of the Freehold community, either geographically or temporally, depending on which system a Freehold follows, and each Court has a monarch, who best embodies the ideals of the Court. There are various other positions with the Court that people can fill.

The Autumn Court, which I am a part of, traditionally has a position which is poetically called 'the Barrow-Tender' or sometimes the 'ghul.' A Barrow-Tender's job is to protect the Freehold through killing those who threaten it, both inside and outside the community. When those threats come from outside the community, I'm an assassin. When they come from inside the community, I'm an executioner. Since it's not an excessively large community, I don't get deployed very often, but I usually am a few times each year and not always during my Court's season--though it's an Autumn job, our monarchs tend to share us with the other seasonal monarchs.

Freeholds, even in the largest cities, generally don't end up being *too* large themselves. I suppose when you've less than a thousand people, combining both roles into one whose job description is 'killing threats' makes sense. And believe me, Claude, the threats I killed *were* nasty pieces of work, one and all of them. I don't regret a single one.

Still, I'm glad you *do* understand, Claude. If you put this kind of thought into governing your father's country, you'll be a very *good* king, I think. One I can only hope to be as good as, should the Ashen Crown ever pass to me--although if it does, I'll likely have an easier time, with so many fewer subjects.

(And yes, actually, you *did* communicate things well enough and you have a point too.)

[vrdantwind]

Changelings sound a little similar to some things Grant's told me about his world. I don't know if they're the same or just alike, but I'm not entirely without a frame of prior reference. My own world doesn't have anything like it, though. Stories, maybe, but nothing real.

I...didn't realize you weren't really talking about a monarch in the traditional sense, though. If you're from the Autumn Court, then I'm guessing there's four courts to a Freehold to correspond with the seasons, right? And those four courts are split between, at most, almost a thousand changelings in your Freehold. Although 'three figures' could be a whole lot less than near a thousand. But at maximum, we're talking a monarch ruling over maybe 250 people?

I admit, that's not the scale I was picturing.

[Which is to say, Claude feels a little sucker-punched right now.

It's true that he's not playing his status as Almyra's king that close to his chest anymore. Those close to him have been told, and those who aren't from his world aren't likely to care; it'd have no meaning to them. But feeling like Steven came from a king's court, directly reported to a king, had made Claude feel like they could understand each other on a deeper level, and he'd opened himself up on that belief...only to find that the monarch Steven is talking about isn't anything like the kind of king Claude was thinking of. Not a ruler of nations, but more of a small, underground community leader.

There's an absolutely intense discomfort at feeling as though he's opened himself up under false pretenses, even though he doesn't see Steven wanting to misuse that information and in fact has no idea how he could. It's just...the feeling of giving more away than he should have, than he would have if he'd known from the start what he knows now. Of having miscalculated. He hates it.

It's not Steven's fault, and Claude doesn't blame him. But he's not any happier about it. But letting on that he's feeling vulnerable would be even worse, so he buries it as best he can. Primarily by changing the subject.]

I do have to admit, though, my primary experience with assassins is being their target. It's a unique experience for me to get to chat with one.

[fingersandteeth]

Well, I've only got nine hunts to my name since I've taken up the position, so I'm only a moderately experienced one.

And... well, I suppose I meant for you to make the inferences you did. It's easier for people to assume I'm talking about a traditional monarchy, rather than an underground community, and it saves so much explaining if I just let people make assumptions. But then you told me about yourself and... well. I felt like I ought to give you the full explanation, since you told me things you didn't have to.

[vrdantwind]

You say that like you have a metric to judge against. What's the standard number of kills for a highly experienced assassin? Assassinating nine people who didn't want to die - other changelings, at that, who sound pretty unique and probably have their own strengths and weaknesses and powers - doesn't sound like that low of a number to me, in context. I mean, I've foiled multiple assassins and I'm just one guy. Nine successes - consecutive ones, possibly? - when even one stubborn asshole like me could ruin your record and quite possibly kill you back is nothing to sneeze at.

Mind you, that's just one outsider's opinion.

And hey, what can I say, you played me pretty good there. I didn't really have much business making that kind of assumption in the first place, anyway - I don't even know whether your world has monarchies that operate in what would be considered the traditional sense in my world. I should've been more careful.

[fingersandteeth]

Technically one of them was a Mage and two were merely powerful mortals, but point taken. And I suppose you could count them as consecutive? Not all of them went down on my first attempt, but I got all of them *eventually*.

We do have monarchies, but they're mostly constitutional monarchies these days, where the bulk of the governance is done by a Parliament or something like that and the actual monarchy itself is more for show. And my own country was always a republic, more or less.

[It is nice to know he managed to pull one over Claude, who is a very tricky customer.]

[vrdantwind]

Honestly, thinking it over, 'consecutive' is kind of a meaningless word for me to have used. I mean, as opposed to what? Your being killed yourself in between assassinations? So yeah, I think it's fair to call any number of successful assassinations you've survived doing 'consecutive'.

Truth be told, the Leicester Alliance that I ran before heading back to Almyra was a ruling council of nobles, which...sounds a bit like what you're describing, I suppose. It was interesting, coming from a country of kings only to end up de facto leading a country that doesn't have them. If I've got nothing else going for me as king, I doubt any other king in history has had the benefit of getting experience beforehand in ruling a whole other country under a completely different style of government. If I can't use that expertise and knowledge to my advantage, then I've got to be my world's biggest fool.

I guess that's getting off-topic, though. Although at this point I'm not sure if we have any specific subject we're talking about or not.

[fingersandteeth]

I don't think we do, actually. I think we're talking just to talk, which is admittedly a terrible habit of mine--and yours as well, I suspect.

But honestly, Claude, I think your experience with other forms of governance will probably be the best asset you'll have as a king. If nothing else, it'll give you a lot more flexibility of mind than someone who's been used to the divine rule of kings. (I honestly don't know how much authority Almyra has in its monarchs, but I'm sure it's much more than the leading lord in an oligarchy might have.)

[vrdantwind]

Hah. Truth be told, there's no such thing as a divine right of kings in Almyra. Fodlan has something like that, at least in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and the Adrestian Empire. The Alliance was the one country in Fodlan that bucked monarchies. Of course, they call them emperors rather than kings in the Empire, but beyond that the distinction's pretty meaningless. In Fodlan, people rule by bloodline. But in Almyra, they rule by merit first and foremost.

My father did pass down his crown to me, as it happens, but he won the crown in his youth. And it's entirely possible for me to lose it, if someone challenges me and wins. Most of Almyra works on meritocracy rules.

Our kings have a good chunk of authority, too, but honestly a lot of being king in Almyra is dealing with international affairs or infrastructural management your average Almyran warrior has no patience for. Though of course we're also the ones who make the laws, who decide our international policies, who have the final say in matters of peace and war, that sort of thing. But a lot of local affairs in far-flung areas of Almyra are governed more by local Almyran warlords than by any dictates of the king. The warlords do answer to the king, but the king often doesn't need to intervene in most day-to-day affairs.

[fingersandteeth]

Honestly, I feel like meritocracy's a better system than inheritance, when it comes to seats of power. Although I might be biased, of course, because that's how the seasonal crowns get passed along in a Changeling freehold--when a court's monarch steps down or dies or what have you, the crown appears on the brow of whatever Changeling best embodies that particular court. (Which means it's likely to be myself once the current monarch retires, because, well, I'm rather known for being an Autumn's Autumn, so to say.)

Does the empire even have any sub-kingdoms? Because as I understood it previously, you rather require those to have an empire for real and not just a kingdom calling itself an empire to sound better.