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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]

Ah, ah, did I specify with my mouth? I'm pretty sure I just said I take people in general. I think you may just be reading your own ideas into my words...

[The fact that Claude's suggesting he takes people and not with his mouth makes it even worse for Sylvain is a Sylvain problem. One Claude is fully aware of and grinning over. He's not even really trying to make any innuendo, so Sylvain's reading it in doesn't make him feel the least bit guilty.]

And as flattered as I am, Sylvain, I don't need an actual pile! Don't let your guilt drive you into going overboard, okay? We're fine.

Ah, what can I say? The fiery red of your hair ignites the smoldering passion in my soul~. Sometimes I just can't repress it. At least I have to say things to tease you as a taken man - your being taken is a cruelty in itself to us single folk.

[gautsome]

the implication was there riegan
you wanted me to think about it :(

anyways you're too late -- i already bought an entire bucket worth of poke-puffs and claude kolach's alike. you're welcome!

ah, but do not lament your loss, dear friend. there are plenty of beautiful souls in the world.
such as... grant?
he's real cute. good kisser, too.
i think you'd like each other.

[vrdantwind]

Did I? ;)

Hah! Well, I guess I'll just have to resign myself to gluttony, then. You're definitely going to spoil my team, though.

Grant? I'll have to take your word on the good kisser thing. I tried it once to make up for missing the mistletoe opportunity, but he wasn't too receptive. Which was entirely my own fault, mind. I did it kind of out of nowhere, and also he'd just found out we're a handful of years younger than him and he was having a minor personal crisis over it. The kiss was meant to reassure him the age difference didn't mean anything to me - or you, as the other guy he'd kissed - but it didn't go over too well. Let it never be said I don't make miscalculations.

We're fine, mind you. I apologized and there's no hard feelings anywhere. But I'm not about to kiss him again unless he explicitly asks, and I don't think he'd ever ask!

That said, and all of that notwithstanding, he's not really my type. I tend to like more assertive guys~.

[gautsome]

wait is our age really that big of a deal.
we're not that young, are we?
... i mean i guess you are.
huh.

i really am your type, huh? what ever will you do without me? would you write me a ballad? poetry?

[vrdantwind]

Wow??? I don't know if I should be flattered or offended here! But you talk like you're going to be using your lance as a cane soon, old man.

But no, we're not that young. Frankly we haven't had the luxury to be, any of us. Maybe if we'd been through less, the differences in our ages might matter more, but...as it is, I think Grant's just being overly conscientious. Which seems like a thing he already leans into pretty hard, so that would track. But standards in his world might be a lot different than ours, too, to be fair.

It just seems silly for him to worry over that sort of thing for our sakes, as though we're not well and capable of looking after ourselves...wait, no, I take back everything I just said, I just remembered what group this is and talked myself out of my own conclusion. It'd be silly for him to worry over that sort of thing if it were for my sake. It makes perfect sense he'd worry about whether the rest of you know what's good for you.

Ah, could such a simple tongue as mine ever capture your ruinous beauty in words? Could any words in any language convey the depths of my grief that you're forever beyond my reach? Too little, too late! The messenger that arrives after the battle's already lost! I'll just sob your name into a pillow at night, though, it's fine.

[gautsome]

hey i can take care of myself
usually
... most of the time.

look i'm getting better. way better than i was back at the academy!
and just so we're clear, you have your problems too.
i haven't figured them out yet, but they exist!

[vrdantwind]

Sylvain. Sir. You had to be fetched out of the woods by
a half-feral man leading a rat army, because he was at the moment doing better than you were. Maybe sometimes you can take care of yourself, but I think it needs to be acknowledged that when you can't, you really can't.

Ah, Sylvain...I may seem perfect to you now, but unbeknownst to you, beneath this perfect veneer...simply lies more perfection. Sorry, it's flawlessness all the way down.

[gautsome]

claude its very rude for you to bring that up
my poor sensitive soul.

hmmm. yea i can believe that.
truly you are a gift to fodlan with all this perfection.
i dont know how to cope.

[vrdantwind]

Well, I know Lorenz used to cope by sputtering a lot. Personally, I find your tactic of acknowledging my glory in rapturous despair to be way more appealing.

[gautsome]

ugh don't compare me to lorenz
or use him as an example
ever.
how could you

[vrdantwind]

Even if I'm saying you're superior to him? I thought you'd like that bit.

[gautsome]

hubert is superior 2 him.
it's just not saying much

[vrdantwind]

On the one hand, I'd like to say "I wouldn't go that far", but on the other hand Hubert never switched sides on Edelgard, so...I can't really argue!

Honestly, I'd thought I was making some real progress on broadening his narrow mind from all the self-serving nonsense Count Gloucester spoon-fed him, too. But I guess I couldn't compete in the end.

[gautsome]

he was still one of yours
u wanted what was best for him
im sorry he never came around.

[vrdantwind]

Well, he sort of did later on. From what I heard, he ran into you guys and Teach during a battle with the Imperial army, and got dragged into your fold after he got thrashed. So as far as I know, he's safe, and he's gotten all the comeuppance anyone could ask for. He betrayed the Alliance and the Empire, and Count Gloucester too. I'm sure he'll be fine, but he's going to have a pretty uncomfortable time of it if and when Edelgard's defeated. His father won't be happy with him, and the Alliance won't be happy with him...and if he's got any principles of his own left that aren't just handed down directly from his father, I think he'll be ashamed of himself as well. If he was going to end up opposing Edelgard anyway, he could've just stayed loyal to his country and his friends. Instead he let his father talk him into seditious stupidity based on Count Gloucester's own craven, selfish ambitions, only to fail and have nothing to show for his commitment to someone else's bad ideas.

It might not quite be the hot seat, but it'll be plenty uncomfortably warm.

[gautsome]

you know i never would have expected that.
i'll give him credit for one thing, he's stubborn.
figured he would have insisted on that loyalty until the very end.
but still it's... good to know more people aren't dead. i get the feeling there were a lot of bodies by the end of the war.
one less is a blessing, even if it was lorenz.

[vrdantwind]

It might be that he knew he was on the wrong side, but pressure from his father and some idea of filial duty pushed him into working for the Empire regardless. That'd explain why he was willing to join you guys after losing. I think, if he'd genuinely believed he was doing what was right with all his heart, he would have given his life for it. He didn't lack for courage or grit - just sense.

'Even if it was Lorenz' is going to keep me laughing for weeks. But yeah, I agree with you. I hate that anyone has to die for this miserable war. I don't even want to lose Edelgard or Hubert...although, knowing them, there's no way that anyone could convince them to change course. If Edelgard didn't somehow believe all of this was necessary, she'd never have done all this. I just wish I knew why she thinks that. I'll never believe this path she's on is a good one, or the only one...but I can't believe everything I learned about her and her principles was a lie, either. Somehow, she thinks this is what's best for Fodlan. I just wish she'd shown her work, so I could understand how she and Dimitri and I could have all wanted the same thing, but with her coming up with such a radically different answer than we have.

[gautsome]

take it from me claude
even when parents suck and have terrible ideals its still really hard to break from them
hells, maybe you know that too, i don't know your business.
but... i do know what it's like to have a terrible dad with a horrible sense of what his children must do.

isn't that how war always works, though?
each opposing side has all of the same information and thinks they're doing the right thing.
just sometimes someone else gets a way different result.
sucks but... this is just the way of history.

[vrdantwind]

My parents had...questionable parenting tactics of their own, let's say. I've had multiple people freak out when I've described some of the things they did with me that I personally don't think are that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, which I think is mostly cultural differences but may also be a little them being extreme...though from my perspective, I couldn't tell you how much of one or the other there is. That said, I don't consider my relationship with them bad, even if it's not effusively close, either, so...I don't think I can say I'm in the same camp as you, or even Lorenz.

Although as far as Lorenz goes, I do have very different political ideas from my father, and I wouldn't mind completely going against his policies on any number of things if I have the chance. No sense of filial duty would convince me to follow my father down a course I didn't believe was a good one. So maybe that's why I can't understand Lorenz too well.

I'm sorry your father's as bad as that, though, Sylvain. You deserve better.

You're not wrong about history. It just feels miserable actually living it out. When you're just reading about it, it's simple - these things already happened, there's no changing them. Maybe this or that event could have been averted if the right thing had happened at the right time, if the right information had been had, but those things didn't happen and people didn't know, so things played out this way or that. But when you're living in the moment...there's this awful, constant feeling that you could fix this, if you could make the right things happen. If you could make the right call at the right moment, or catch someone before they can make a terrible mistake, or convince someone to change their mind.

In the moment, you reach those crisis points, those divergences...and you always think it's possible, you must be able to change things, they're happening right now and you're part of them. But despite your best efforts...you still end up with bad outcomes. And you're left to wonder if you could have avoided them somehow, if you had your chance to change things for the better and you fumbled it. And when people, a century from now, read the historical accounts of our time...will they be kind? Or will our legacies be "if they'd just done this instead, so much could have been averted"?

Well...I say 'our'. But I guess this is something only commanders really have to worry about much. Edelgard, Dimitri, and me. And Teach.

[gautsome]

You say that, but you'd be wrong. I've had to command my own men -- Gautier men -- over the last five years. My father might give the order to defend the border, but at the end of the day, it's me in the thick of it telling them to charge forward or retreat, to make a pincer or do something else.

It's not quite the diplomacy that you are referencing, but don't count me out as having to not worry about it.

[vrdantwind]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to talk down to you. Obviously you've got your own burdens of command, and so do a lot of the people we went to school with. I guess I was just thinking of people who are in charge of the countries embroiled in this whole mess. Teach isn't quite the leader of a country, but between advising Dimitri and having the Knights of Seiros backing them, and no Rhea in sight, they're practically a fourth power at the table by this point.

I just meant that at the end of the day, you serve Dimitri. And you take orders from him, or at least people working with him - I don't know if he was commanding you guys directly when he was at his lowest. You won't be judged the same way for following Dimitri's orders, even if they happen to be bad, that Dimitri will be judged for giving them. There's no higher authority for him, either. He can confer with advisors, but at the end of the day all he can do is try to decide what's right and wrong, and then command a nation to act on that decision. That's a different weight to carry than leading a battalion.

Ugh, I'm just rambling, aren't I? And probably offending you. Sorry.

[gautsome]

I think you're just making a mountain out of a molehill. Everybody has massive decisions to make. And hell, maybe it's worse just being in charge of a battalion. Think about it -- our decisions are going to weigh on you in the end. If we make a bad call, it goes back to Dimitri, who made a bad call as well by putting me in that role.

I think it's apples to oranges in the end, but there are some similarities. And there is a lot of weight that comes with any position like that.

But I'm not offended. Mostly.

[vrdantwind]

Mostly, huh? That's not too bad, but it still seems pretty far from ideal.

Anyway, don't think I haven't noticed you've switched to writing all formally. I don't know if that's from the gravity of the subject or if it's a sign of your mental state, but either way, I feel like maybe I'm doing something wrong if you're not able to relax like you normally do.

So, want to talk about something less unpleasant? I shouldn't be brooding over this stuff anyway, much less burdening other people with it.