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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]

You're a lot more complimentary of my poison knowledge today than you were the other day. [Claude winks at him.] I must have won you over with the nectar-collecting applications, huh?

[bestswordmaster]

[Felix rolls his eyes.] The other day you were talking about drugging Sylvain to sleep. Using it in battle is completely different.

[vrdantwind]

I was talking about helping Sylvain rest using a medicinal sleep aid, Felix. Really, you'll never get anywhere in life if you don't learn how to make these critical distinctions.

[bestswordmaster]

That's called drugging someone, Claude. [Ah, again it seems the first-name basis goes both ways now.] And I've gotten plenty far without being pedantic.

[vrdantwind]

Administering medicinal sleep aid! I did say I wasn't planning on doing it against his will, stop making it sound so heinous.

[bestswordmaster]

It's not my fault that's how you made it sound.

[He walks along in a silence that's unexpectedly comfortable for a few minutes.]

You must have looked into what else lives in the wild along this road. What are you planning to catch?

[vrdantwind]

I just said I could have Basque use Sleep Powder on him! That only sounds heinous if you interpret it heinously.

[He lets that silence settle easily between them. As much of a chatterbox as he can be, he doesn't feel the need to talk all the time. And he likes being out in nature. It's frigid right now, granted, which isn't ideal, but aside from the temperature it's still pleasant to be out and about. More so to be traveling with friends in such a peaceful environment. He can't remember the last time he could just go on a walk with people he's fond of, with nothing significant on the line.]

Well, there's a few things that interest me if we can spot them in the forest past Azalea...but until then, I hadn't seen anything we're predicted to potentially see that really caught my eye. And with how little money I have from the holiday shopping I've done, I'm trying to be pretty sparing with my Pokéballs.

[bestswordmaster]

[Felix nods.] I want to fill out a few gaps in my team's type spread at the cave, but until then there's only the new kind of cat that lives somewhere along this road.

[Ordinarily, Felix tries not to let anyone see him doting on cats, but since Varley was already with him when he arrived, there's little hope of that now. So he figures he might as well abandon the attempt while they're here and catch every cat he can find.]

[vrdantwind]

More cats, huh? [Claude shoots Felix a sidelong smile - and while there's obviously a teasing element, there's a look of genuine fondness in his eye. There's just something very cute and fitting about Felix and cats getting along.] They suit you.

[bestswordmaster]

Yes, more cats. Is that a problem? They're the only animal that's tolerable. In our world, anyway.

[Inexplicably defensive as he is over this, he can't help feeling that 'they suit you' is a compliment coming from Claude, and he flushes faintly.] We have an understanding, that's all. If you see a little pink cat with a weird, puffy tail, tell me.

[vrdantwind]

Is that one of the pokémon you're hoping to catch? [Claude grins, lacing his hands behind his head.] I'll keep an eye out for it, don't worry.

[bestswordmaster]

Yes. It is. Quit making fun of me.

[He blinks, seeing Claude adopt this pose. It's so familiar, so classic Sylvain, that he almost does a double take.]

Do you walk like that all the time?

[vrdantwind]

Do you seriously think I'm making fun of you every time I smile? [It certainly only makes Claude's grin wider.

It fades into mild surprise at that question, and he glances over at Felix.] What, like this? [He jerks his head slightly to indicate his arms.] Sure, a decent amount. I don't just do it when I'm walking, though. It's always been kind of a habit. Why?

[Claude and Sylvain probably haven't spent enough time around each other to discover all the little similarities in their mannerisms yet.]

[bestswordmaster]

Not every time. [He shoots Claude a look that says 'I see that grin you're wearing.']

Yes, like that. You look like Sylvain. He's been doing that for years.

[vrdantwind]

Well, you sure complain about a lot of false positives, then! [He winks.] Half the time you object, I'm not making fun of you at all.

[At the mention of looking like Sylvain, Claude blinks.] Really? I always figured people just considered us similar in personality, but...you're saying we even have some of the same tics? Huh. Maybe that's part of what Ingrid was talking about, too.

[bestswordmaster]

Then what is that infuriating grin for? And what about the other half of the time?

[Wait, other people have said Claude was similar to Sylvain? The thought makes Felix feel...something, he doesn't know what.] You're not that similar. You're the one who said I was treating superficial similarities as more substantial than they are.

[His brow furrows.] Ingrid? What did she say?

[vrdantwind]

Are you suggesting I have non-infuriating grins, Felix? [Claude bats his eyelashes.] I'm flattered~. But maybe it didn't mean anything! Maybe sometimes I'm just aggravating and there's no specific reason for it.

As for me and Sylvain...we do have a lot in common, but we're also plenty different. It probably depends on what you're looking at, and how deeply you're looking. But I wouldn't say all our similarities are totally superficial, even if plenty of them aren't necessarily that deep, either.

As for Ingrid...well, she didn't say which of her 'close friends' I reminded her of by name. [He chuckles.] But she mentioned it was someone who causes her tons of trouble and doesn't treat the opposite gender well, so let's just say it didn't take a genius to put two and two together, y'know? It was cute that she left him a little plausible deniability...but she didn't leave him very much. [He runs his hand through his hair, grimacing.] As for what she said...ugh. She didn't really go into how I reminded her of him. I don't think she even realized it at first; it took awhile. Plenty of time for me to get a whole bunch of vicious lectures from her...you know, one time she yelled at me for going to bed too early at night? And then accused me of not getting up early in the morning, even though I do actually get up early? She saw me as being so similar to Sylvain that she decided I must have the same habits as him, even when she had no idea what I was actually like.

She did sort of apologize after awhile, once she realized she was taking out her frustration with him on someone who reminded her of him, but...well, let's just say that the lectures never actually stopped. Too ingrained in her, I guess. Is she like that with everyone, or just people who are a little too Sylvain-esque?

[bestswordmaster]

You're always aggravating. Doing it for no reason is even more annoying.

[He listens to Claude's experiences with Ingrid thoughtfully, frowning a little.] Not everyone, but Dimitri and I have endured plenty of her lectures, too. Even the other Lions weren't always immune. She's set in her ways. But she usually isn't vicious, not even with Sylvain. ...not even when I lashed out at her and said some things I shouldn't have.

[vrdantwind]

I thought it'd be relieving! It's not always about making fun of you!

[The subject of Ingrid returns him to a slightly more sober mindset.] Anyway, I don't think I'd call her vicious herself, but the lectures sure were. That said, I think a lot of it was more...context? I mean, you guys grew up with her, she probably knows the three of you down to your bones. And when she gives you a stern lecture, you know it's because she knows you and she cares about you. But...imagine someone who barely knows you, who's barely even tried to get to know you, came up and started lecturing you the way she does. And that some of the things she's complaining about aren't even accurate? But she just says you're lying when you contradict her!

It wouldn't feel like that person cares about you and wants the best for you. It wouldn't even feel like that person knows you. It'd feel like getting a tongue-lashing from a total stranger who's decided your flaws are somehow their business, except they're not even your flaws. They're someone else's. It's someone else deciding they know who you are and what you're like for you, based on a completely different person, and by the way, they hate it. And they want to make the fact that they hate who they've decided you are your problem.

[...huh. Claude's starting to wonder if maybe the stuff that happened with Ingrid bothered him more than he thought at the time. There's an unpleasant feeling welling up as he talks about it.]

[bestswordmaster]

How is being aggravating supposed to be any kind of relief? Tch.

[Felix is frowning more by the time Claude finishes explaining.] That's extreme even for her. You must have struck a nerve somehow. She might be irritating, but she doesn't lecture for nothing.

Or maybe she liked you. Her expectations are... [Felix shrugs, fixing his gaze on the path ahead instead of on Claude.] She was engaged to my brother. And he was the perfect knight. If she was interested in you, maybe she was holding you to an impossible standard set by a dead man.

[vrdantwind]

I really don't know what I did...we'd barely even had anything to do with each other when the lectures first started.

[At the suggestion that Ingrid might like him, Claude's eyebrows shoot up practically to his hairline.] Don't you mean she liked Sylvain? I mean...he's the one she thought I was like. And she never really got to know anything about me beyond her Sylvain-based assumptions...

Uh, personally speaking, though, if that's how she treats people she likes...hoo boy, no thanks! I think the only nice things she ever had to say about me were that I talked to her more nicely than Sylvain, that I don't treat women badly like Sylvain, and that I'm reliable when it really matters. And all that together sounds like a decent amount, but two of those were just direct comparisons to Sylvain and that's still only three things next to...quite a lot of her chewing my ear off.

Sorry, I know she's a close friend of yours, and I'm sure she's probably a lot more charming with other people, but...well, I can't tell if she thinks I'm someone else, or just wishes I was. But anything she likes or hates about me doesn't seem to have much to do with me at all, really.

[He glances sidelong at Felix.] Anyway...if your brother could live up to whatever standards she has, they can't be impossible. Someone managed them, obviously. The impossibility comes in when we want one person to become someone else. Or when someone dies, and we let our grief and reverence, and their legacy, overshadow the reality of who they were and what they did. It's easy to forget the flaws and embellish the accomplishments of the dead.

[bestswordmaster]

I'm sure she thought your behavior was inappropriate for a leader. I always thought you seemed irresponsible back then, too, but you weren't my leader, so I didn't care. I suppose I wouldn't be that surprised if she got fed up with her inability to change Sylvain and took it out on you because taking it out on him accomplished nothing.

[Felix's brow furrows.] She is my friend. But she's been trying to live someone else's life ever since my brother died. Idolizing the idea of self-sacrifice to justify his death as anything but tragic. Just like everyone else. The only 'accomplishment' of his they care about is the final one. Ingrid always thought she could fill the hole he left in our lives by following in his footsteps and trying to get all of us to do the same. It's appalling.

So whether she was berating you for not being the leader she thought you should have been or the version of Sylvain she wanted him to be, or just not living up to some ideal she decided you should, I don't know. You wouldn't be the first one she used as a stand-in for someone else.

[Some part of Felix feels like he's said far too much, but somehow Claude makes it seem easy to just...talk. Much easier than usual.]

[vrdantwind]

Oh, yeah, that was definitely the tone of at least one of her lectures. "Why don't you set a better example", "don't you think it's shameful for a leader to be so slovenly", that sort of thing. I still don't get that. Maybe my leadership is unorthodox, but has it ever actually been lacking? The only time you could really suggest it failed back then that Ingrid would've ever even seen was the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, when we lost, but...frankly, blaming that on my bad leadership instead of crediting your guys' and Teach's efforts would feel kind of questionable. Plus she never got on Edelgard's case for her failures of leadership that I know of, so - what? Does Ingrid seriously care more about the style of leadership than the results?...I mean, I guess that'd be kind of typical for someone from Faerghus, but man.

[A beat.] I'm not saying anything bad about people from Faerghus, mind you. But I think of all three countries, Faerghus is probably the one most deeply invested in knights and nobility and courtliness and all that stuff, so if anyone was going to prioritize how someone acts over the results of their actions, it wouldn't be unexpected for that mindset to come from the Kingdom.

[He glances at Felix.] You're an obvious exception, of course, from everything you're saying...and, y'know, your attitude in general. And if how people venerated the knightly nobility of how your brother died as though the duty meant more than the death...well, if that's not the cause of the difference, I bet it played a big part in it, huh?

[bestswordmaster]

[Felix glances back in return and the more he talks, the more it seems he's spitting the words out.] Hmph. Go ahead and say whatever you want, it's all true. The Kingdom's nobility cares more about appearances and lofty ideals and their own egos than doing anything for the people or thinking for themselves. They didn't mourn my brother. They applauded him for dying the right kind of death. And that includes Ingrid, and my father. I feel sick just thinking about it.

Watch me bullshit Almyran worldbuilding!

[vrdantwind]

Hmm. [Claude folds his arms behind his head again, looking up at the sky.] You know, I was reading a book about Almyra once...it talked about how, in Almyra, after every battle, win or lose, there's a big feast. Those who are still living celebrate the people who are gone, and in a sense celebrate for them, too. Apparently in Almyra, there's an emphasis on both living well, and dying well. But it's not because Almyrans have any stuffy customs or ideas of noble sacrifice or anything like that; I'm sure you know that Almyra and Faerghus would have practically nothing in common. I don't think they even believe in an afterlife. There's just a sort of cultural belief that you should live your life to the fullest - and that everyone dies eventually, so that when a person does die, they should try to make it meaningful. Should try to accomplish something on their way out. Helping to win a battle, fighting a worthy foe, protecting something - or someone - important. Because people don't live forever, but their actions can leave a lasting impact on the world.

It's weird, how two cultures so totally different could be kind of similar at the same time. I wonder if you'd hate the Almyran way of looking at things just as much because of how it's similar, or if there's enough different about it that you'd prefer that way of looking at things.

Either way, though...I think in the end, they're both just different cultural ways of dealing with grief. I don't know if there's any objectively right or wrong ways to mourn the loss of someone important to you...but I do know it's possible to hurt someone who's already grieving, whether you mean to or not. Like, if someone is surrounded by people who all seem to be drawing some kind of meaning, finding some silver lining, in something that feels senseless and utterly bleak to them. Not only would somebody like that be in mourning, they'd feel totally isolated...and like the loss they've suffered is being turned into other people's inspirational message.