may catch-all!

[feintofhart]

Who: Claude & Various
Where: Around Aldrip!
What: Claude and his encounters around town... again!!
Warnings: None anticipated! If you'd like to hop in on a log, however, please feel free to PM/DM me or hit me up on plurk (here!), and I'd be happy to whip up a starter for you, or you can just wildcard me in here! I've got my plotting comment here for the month if you want to take a peek -- Claude will the usual man about town, working at his apothecary, training, hunting, etc. etc., but with the twist that his sentencing honesty curse is taking hold.

Comments

[entreats]

[ If she was speaking to anyone she doesn't care as much about as she cares about Claude, Ange may have pointed out that this is the sort of thing people say right before they go mad with power. She likes to believe that he'll be better than that though, so she doesn't, instead focusing on this from another angle that she can easily see. ]

I don't know what that is like. Dedicating your whole life to something like that. Especially when you might not even be alive anymore to enjoy the results. [ Sure, Ange has also dedicated the remainder of her life to something.

But it's such a small and selfish goal that she doesn't even dare to compare it to the grand plan for an entire country he's laying out here - like it's nothing. With such confidence, too. ]

I guess.. [ .. the girl's voice trails off.

It's like she's looking for the right words for something. ]

.. I just hope it makes you happy, Claude.

[feintofhart]

It's what people like us were born to do, if we do it right, [ Claude says. The words flow from him as easily as can be, even with the honestly curse still afflicting his tongue; there is so much in this world he feels deeply uncertain about, but his own sense of responsibility, his own ambitions for the future, his own hopes for the way the future may be -- these are things that he never gets to speak aloud, but are the only things that get him out of bed every morning.

That godawful curse wasn't altogether incorrect. Talking about the nature of his birth is one thing, or about feeling a bit cranky about the way the world has shifted around them, but this? This is, he supposes, the closest he can get to his true self.

Damn it all. He hates it when they're right. ]

And people like us, with our ambitions... all we want is for people like you to be able to live full, happy, healthy lives. People without the sort of power I'm born with should just be able to live in peace.

[ And yes, he's aware that Ange was born rich -- but that's different from having power. When he smiles at her, it reaches his eyes. It's sweet of her to worry, he thinks. He knows how outlandish his plans sound, of course; that's why not a living soul in Fodlan knows about them. Almyra either, for that matter, not after his mother had dismissed them as nothing but childhood fancies. ]

If I can make that happen, I'll be happy, [ he says firmly. ] And I hope you can live in peace once we're eventually freed of this place too.

[ Peace isn't something they see very much of at all, these days. It'll come. ]

[entreats]

[ .. hah.

That last part is so ironic that it's almost kind of funny. Ange doesn't laugh though, obviously. She doesn't react to it at all. She's sure it must have been hard for Claude to throw this all out there, for having been so honest with her today, especially when it wasn't his own choice to do so. The last thing she'd want to force him to do is to react to the truth of her own circumstances while still forced to be honest.

So Ange is quiet, seemingly taking it in for a moment, before she asks: ]

How are you feeling now?

[ She usually hasn't seen people this long at once while they're enduring their sentencing, so she's not sure how exactly it all goes down.. ]

Do you think the whole honesty thing is done now you've talked about all this?

[feintofhart]

If this didn't do it, then nothing will. My plan is to lock myself away until the sentencing is through, and if they've deemed this insufficient, then I'll grin and bear through whatever they want to do about that.

[ He's done with trying to see logic or reason in anything that the Council does. He sees now that it's not the point. It's never been the point. He pauses, looking pensively over at Ange, rubbing his thumb idly against his knuckle. ]

Thanks for hearing me out, Ange. I know you didn't exactly sign up for this either, [ he admits, cracking a small smile at her. He knows Ange doesn't truly understand the gravity of the situation - how could she, when he's avoiding laying all his cards on the table ] If I had to put this all out there, then I'm glad it was with you.

[ Would he have fessed up to it otherwise? Probably not. But so it goes. ]