expiationlogs | ethereal moon logs (closed)

She was a sight for sore eyes. Maybe you and Dorte can be reunited soon too.

[ Marianne is perhaps one of the only people here to understand just how glad he was to be reunited with his steed. He may not be as ardent an animal lover as Marianne is, but he comes close; gone are the days of lazing about the courtyard with the stray cats, but he still looks back at them as fondly as he looks upon anything else. He can't help but smile as he watches Marianne fawn over Zaffy, giving her all of the love and affection and adoration that Claude personally feels that she deserves. He can't blame others for finding her a fearsome sight - she has personally sent many men to their deaths, so it's not altogether unsubstantiated - but she's a sweetheart. She clearly couldn't tell the difference between Mariannes either, greeting her with a roar of delight and wriggling around so that Marianne could pat her in just the right spot.

It's almost enough to make Claude forget the anxiety brewing deep in his gut. He knows what they came here to talk about: the truth, kept hidden for so long. A part of him wants to turn to cowardice, deflect and deny, just enjoy a lovely cup of tea with a dear friend like the good old days. But that wouldn't be fair to her, not now that she knows there's more to it. ]

This is plenty. Thanks, Marianne. This feels just like old times, doesn't it? [ He breathes in the sweet scent of the tea. It's not the same as back home, but it's close. ] How've you been?

[ Okay, okay, he will talk about it eventually, but... you can't blame a guy for delaying, can you? ]

I very much hope to see her again.

[ She misses Dorte terribly, and seeing Zafeera gives her hope for the first time that, goddess willing, Dorte could also make the miraculous journey here. Until then, she trusts the Golden Deers to look after her friend.

Marianne isn't in a rush to dive into the subject, reaching for a sugar cube and stirring it into her cup of tea. ]

I've been okay. It's been busier at the clinic, but we're hoping to get as many people home before the new year.

[ Between seasonal colds and tending to the injuries of the rescued citizens, it had been a hand-wringing few weeks. She's glad things seem to be calming down, though it wouldn't be quite accurate to say Aldrip was peaceful again. Trust between the two towns had broken down and emotions were still running high. So 'okay' is the best she can put it, but she tries to inject a little bit of positivity. Something she's attempting to do more of these days. ]

How have you been? We've been through one ordeal after another it seems.

An ordeal is right. I can hardly believe everything that's happened in the past few months -- or the arguments people are genuinely having over this. I really wasn't expecting this much squabbling, though that's my mistake. I should have expected it.

[ He takes a sip of his tea, pondering. Even a place as contentious and prone to arguing as the Alliance would be presenting a more unified front in the wake of such obvious misdeeds. They certainly wouldn't be arguing between the two extremes like people seem to here, as though there is no middle ground between complete annihilation and absolute forgiveness. ]

But it's a miracle that we got as many people as we did back home alive, so I count that as a celebration. And maybe amidst all of the fighting, people will cool down enough to allow cooler heads to prevail. [ He offers Marianne a small smile. ] It'll work out. You haven't gotten involved in any of that, have you?

People seem very, um, passionate about their views. [ Which is one way of putting it. ] I didn't really know how to chime in, and I'm not sure how much of it is our place to judge.

[ Seeing the Chosen argue amongst themselves had been handwringing for her as the conflict-averse person that she is. Marianne had never known how to speak up during the Alliance's debates and she kept her thoughts to herself now. She can only imagine her adoptive father's disappointment. He'd coached her in elocution only for her to make herself invisible when it mattered. The thought deflates her a little and she sighs into her tea. ]

I've been helping Ethlyn and the Artzenritter tend to the rescued.

[ Keeping her head down and focusing on her healer work was her answer to the disagreements. At the end of the day the injured still needed tending to, no qualms about it. The rift between the towns will be much harder to mend. ]

Well... I've made it my business. You know me, [ Claude says, offering Marianne a flash of a grin. ] None of us are able to be judge, jury and executioner, though. I've been trying to confer with local governance so that we can bring the evidence to them and make judgments based off of their own customs, but it's been slow going. [ He dismisses it with a flap of his hand. ] It's just more politics. I won't bore you with it.

[ Not that he doesn't appreciate Marianne's own perspective, but she also knows his politicking well enough to interpret it correctly; it's only boring because he hasn't actually gotten anywhere with it. ]

What you're doing is arguably more important. More action, less talk! [ His eyes soften. ] Are they doing okay now? I didn't stick around for the fight for too long, but it was worse than any Demonic Beast I've ever seen.

That sounds just like you.

[ If there's anyone who can wrangle different sides to sit at the same table, it would be Claude. It's a delicate situation but the sort a leader handles everyday. She's relieved not to be called on to deal with it. Although it might disappoint the Margrave, Marianne is content to keep her head down and live her quiet and unassuming life. ]

Um, I wish you good luck with it.

[ Talking to people is truly more difficult than anything, but if Claude is enjoying himself, then she's glad. She doesn't know if she can be of any help with the talks even if she tried, but she can do her part as a healer. ]

People are recovering and returning to their families. It worries me the monster is still out there, but I'm glad we found the kidnapped.

One step at a time, right? We take care of what we can, and deal with the rest later.

[ This, too, is important to talk about. Claude trusts Marianne's judgment. He may not take it on as his own - he tends to believe Marianne to kind a soul for that, compassionate where he leans on his pragmatism as though sinking into an old, comfortable pair of boots - but he'll at least bear it in mind. But the both of them are well aware that that's not why they're here. There's a thrill of apprehension still deep within him knowing the conversation that there is yet to be had.

The only thing that keeps him anchored here instead of running away is the fact that he knows that if he were to turn coward and tell her he doesn't want to share after all, she would let him. Somehow, that would be even worse. He glances down at the table between them, drumming the fingers on one gloved hand atop it. ]

But... we did meet for a reason, right? [ He rests his chin on his knuckles, a smile fluttering at the corners of his mouth, relying on bravado-laden flirtatiousness where honesty just won't do. ] Still want to hear my sordid little secrets?

[ Claude is smiling, calling it his sordid little secret and making light of things, but Marianne's expression only grows more serious and contemplative. She gets the sense that he is pushing himself. She had heard the mocking voices in the maze and all the terrible things they said. Claude may be strong but no one is immune to cruelty. She knows what it's like to keep a secret and to fear how others will react to the truth, so she believes this must not be as easy for him as he makes it sound.

Looking back on the past, she thinks she should have tried better to look her friends in the eyes. Then maybe she would have noticed sooner that Claude's smile doesn't always reach his eyes. It might be belated, but she wants to know him as he really is and perhaps she can muster the courage to tell him about herself as well. She nods solemnly. ]

As much as you're comfortable sharing, I'll listen.

Haah...

[ She's not taking the bait, is she? Claude's smile turns a little wistful. This is a serious conversation. There's no other way to cut it. There's no way that he'll be able to just joke and charm and connive his way out of this one, because there's no way to paint the truth that isn't completely damning. Even if he were in a position like Cyril's, it would be easier; he would be a victim of the conflict between their nations, not directly related to the very perpetrators of it.

He laces his fingers together and forces himself to look her in the eye. If he's going to do this, he may as well do this, right? Worst case scenario, he loses her friendship. It would sting, but he'll survive. ]

Here we go, then. Maybe you've put some of this together already, after what you overheard in that maze. But I wasn't born in Fodlan. In fact, I only came to Fodlan for the first time just a few months before we all met at the Academy.

[ His only saving grace was, he thought, the fact that they were all a bunch of teenagers and were more consumed with their own lives than inspecting others too closely. He wonders how many slip-ups he got away with; ignorance of Fodlan's history, of its religion, of customs and manners and turns of phrase that he couldn't have possibly learned from his mother alone. ]

I was born in Almyra. I am Almyran.

[ The pieces fall into place. Claude's mysterious past, his unexplained appearance, and the taunting voices in the maze. The admission doesn't completely blindside her, not after what she had overheard, but Marianne still feels her head spin at all that it means.

Until now Claude was a half-formed puzzle, enough pieces on the board that the truth seems obvious when you know it, the picture vague enough that it's easy to color wrong with your preconceptions. Out of all the rumors that had dogged him, Almyran had never been an accusation. It's hard to reconcile the Claude she knew with the image of the warmongering people in her head. If the Alliance didn't trust him before, they would never trust him if they knew his origins as the very enemy of Leicester.

She meets his gaze, taking in his facial features, looking at him not with any revulsion, but there is uncertainty there. It takes her a moment to formulate words. ]

I see why you couldn't tell anyone, but I don't understand. Why did you leave Almyra and decide to fight for Fódlan?

[ He can't read her expression.

For much of his life, he's survived based on his ability to read others and to shift accordingly, to be what they want him to be, or need him to be, or to make the concerted effort to be everything but. It's always a little unsettling to him when he has no view into what the other person is thinking. It would do him little good here anyway; he's already made up his mind to be honest for this conversation, and trying to say only what would placate Marianne most certainly wouldn't be that. (What would that even be? I'm not like the rest of them, maybe. I'm still from Fodlan. I'm still more like you than I am like them.) ]

In Almyra, they think about as highly of people from Fodlan as Fodlan thinks of Almyrans. But unlike in the Leicester Alliance, in Almyra, the circumstance of my birth is public knowledge. The situation wasn't ideal.

[ He had come to Fodlan for a reason, head full of ideals, heart full of hope, but that wasn't the only reason. If it was, he wouldn't have crept away in the dead of night like he had, ill-prepared and with nary a word. He had left, in part, because staying there even one more day had felt intolerable. ]

So I wanted to see Fodlan for myself. To meet its people, to understand its culture, so that maybe by experiencing both sides, I would be better equipped to find a way to end this conflict between us. [ He shrugs, a little uncomfortable. He feels foolish now, for having expected Fodlan to be any different in its treatment of outsiders, for having thought he could have just spent a quiet couple years at school and slip back home. ] I wasn't expecting to stay for long, but once war was declared and Grandfather died... they're my people too. I couldn't just leave.

[ He will. Once the war is either over, or proves itself to be an unwinnable battle. But not a moment sooner.]

You're...part Fódlan and part Almyran.

[ Marianne says quietly, the realization sinking in as she listens to him. The feelings he has for Fódlan, the way Claude had spoken fondly about the Duke around the campfire that night...their relation must be true. Did Duke Riegan know everything? He must have wanted to protect him knowing how the Alliance would have reacted to the truth.

Marianne hasn't met many Almyrans in her isolated life. There was Prince Shahid, sneering as he commanded his wyvern riders to bear down on the Throat. There was Cyril, the hardworking orphan who Lady Rhea had given shelter to, sparing him from what might have been a worse fate. Then there was Claude. For all appearances a Fódlan noble like the rest of them that she has to adjust her picture of Almyrans. He had blended in, kept his secret close to his chest. In the many years they had known each other, she had never suspected him. She really was hopeless with people. Marianne glances at the floor, contemplating what to make of everything. ]

I never realized how much you were dealing with. How much you still are. The voices in the maze were cruel.

[ Claude hadn't expected Marianne to be cruel upon hearing about this. He hadn't expected her to be bigoted either; he knows her well enough to know that her reaction will be far beyond the snide, taunting voices he's so familiar with, that any betrayal and despair she'd feel would be due to his own deceit, or due to the long, violent conflict between their nations. It's worse in the Alliance than it is anywhere else. How could it not be? His classmates have spent their whole lives sending their men to fight at the border. Some, like Hilda, even saw their own family doing the same. But Marianne has always been civil to Cyril in a way that others weren't always, so he'd at least had some idea as to what to expect.

Perhaps he should have expected her turn towards compassion instead, but he didn't. For a moment he just blinks at her, astonished by that immediate takeaway. His immediate instinct is to swat it off, deflect with a smile, do you really think something like that could really bother me? They're not totally wrong, you know!

He bites it back. ]

That's right. Even though I was raised in Almyra, I belong to Fódlan as much as I belong to Almyra... or maybe I should say, they belong to me.

[ He doesn't belong. He's not sure if he would even if he was as full-blooded as the next person. It may be some part of his own character just as much as it's his upbringing and bloodline. ]

It doesn't get to me so much anymore, you know. More than anything else, it just stokes the fires of my motivation to change it. If everyone could just open their minds, I know things could be better.

[ He hesitates. There's one last thing. They're all-in now. This, of all things, is probably the greatest deception of all, a royal dipping his fingers into two separate plums. ]

And I'm in the position to change it, you see. I'm not just half Almyran. [ He clears his throat. ] I'm technically the Almyran prince. An Almyran prince. The youngest of many. [ He winces, hearing how trepidacious his own voice sounds in his throat, filled with strained jollity. ] My mother has never done anything by half-measures.

[ Marianne's eyes widen at Claude's admission and she brings a hand over her heart. She may have already had an inking about his origins after the maze, but this fact takes her unexpected. Not just an Almyran, but an Almyran prince. A member of the royal family. In Fódlan. At the head of the Leicester army. She feels her head spin again. ]

Claude... you're full of surprises today.

[ She manages a weak and breathless laugh. It makes sense the more she thinks about it. The way he comported himself wasn't that of a commoner, and no normal Almyran could make his way across the Throat and into one of the highest seats of power. What would the Alliance have thought? If he didn't keep a secret, he would never be accepted. Scorned, cast out, or worse, she knows well the fear of persecution. When she looks at him now and hears his voice strain to stay cheerful, she realizes the terrible weight he's had to carry. ]

I promise I won't tell anyone what you've told me. Here nor in Fódlan.

[ For what little it's worth, she can reassure him of that. In truth, she doesn't know what to think of Almyra, but Claude...they'd studied together, fought a war together, even navigated a new world together. Learning his shocking background doesn't negate their time together, nor does it change the heart she sees in him. Marianne manages a smile. ]

Peace feels like a far off thing. I hadn't even considered it possible, but maybe you're just the person to make it happen.

[ Claude lets out a slow breath. To his credit, it barely trembles. Just a little, at the end, hands itching, eyes wandering. Despite Marianne's seemingly easy acceptance, it's hard for him not to feel as though he's made some sort of grievous error. He's spent so many years keeping this secret -- he didn't know he was still capable of telling the truth. He'd spent so long terrified at the very prospect. What would Lorenz have done? Cast him out, seized the Alliance for his own? What would Hilda have done, upon realizing it was Claude's people who thrust her people, her brother, into life-threatening peril again and again? What would meek, devout Ignatz have done, knowing how distant Claude was to the goddess he worshipped? What would Lysithea have done, realizing that her already unsteady territory, her already strained parents, were following an outsider into the unknown?

Perhaps if he were to tell anyone first, it would have always been Marianne. Or perhaps it's because she's the only one here. He has no true answer to that. In his heart, he knows that there's as equal a likelihood that he would take this secret to his grave. For now, he's glad he didn't, even if he wasn't expecting Marianne's kind answer. ]

I appreciate your discretion. And your faith in me. Truly, that's all I want. Peace between our people -- more than just peace, but cooperation, a way for us to join hands and make the world better for both of us. There's so much we could learn from each other, if only we let go of these old conflicts we've carried on for far too long. But it's not something I can focus on until the war is won.

[ It's daunting to consider that if he has his way, winning the war won't be his greatest effort. It's just the first step in what he knows will be a lifelong journey. With his piece said, though, he hesitates, then speaks again. ]

Does it not... worry you? To have an Almyran at the head of your governance? I don't think most people would react the way you just did.

It's unheard of to be sure.

[ Marianne's hand comes over her heart as she searches her feelings. An Almyran at the head of a Fódlan army is a strange thought indeed, but discovering his origins doesn't change what she knows of Claude's character. ]

I think...perhaps I'd feel differently if you were a stranger to me, but after all that we've been through, all the qualities of a leader I've seen in you— you have my confidence, Claude.

[ She speaks quietly but with certainty. Almyra and Fódlan had been at odds as long as she lived. She never imagined it could be any other way. Now that he's opened her mind to the idea, why couldn't it be another way? It won't be easy, but it's something to work towards. ]

I can't say I know much about Almyra. Will you tell me about your homeland sometime?

Then... the only thing I can do is thank you, [ Claude says earnestly. He takes a moment to study himself. He feels strange, outside of his body in a way unusual for him, the frantic patter of panic having smoothed out to something new, something different now that his greatest secret has been spoken aloud and he finds himself no worse off for it. No, on the contrary -- he's better for it, an eventuality he'd never dared so much as imagine. He feels a little lighter now. Buoyed by the power of a belief that isn't put in some figment of himself he's pretending to be, but himself, the first time he's been wholly himself in years.

He wouldn't find the same luck with anyone else, he knows. But he'll cherish the gift that he's been given, here and now. He smiles at her. ]

I'd love to tell you about it. And this wouldn't be for many, many years, once the work is done, but someday? I'd love to show it to you too. It's a beautiful country. You'd love it. [ His eyes crinkle at the corners. ] Believe it or not, we're well known for our animal sanctuaries. I'll take you there one day.

[ Marianne returns his smile. The man before her is the same Claude she knows but something is different, it feels. Perhaps it's the weight off his chest or his smile that looks unlike the one's she's seen before. She's spent too much time lost in herself, looking in instead of out at the people around her. Quietly, Marianne resolves not to shy away from meeting his eyes, determined to get to truly know him after all their time together. If Claude is brave enough not to hide himself away, then she can't either. ]

I would like that. To see the land Zaffy calls home...it's a dream we can work towards.

[ Her hands move to pour the tea for them that has become over-steeped. He's right it may take a long, long time to accomplish, but it doesn't feel impossible. ]

ethereal moon logs (closed)

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