[open] harpstring moon catch-all

[snowslip]

Who: Marianne and you!
Where: Around Aldrip
What: Catch-all log
Warnings: N/A


i.

[ Though Marianne has made her life in Aldrip for many moons now, the remodeling of town has her losing her way. You might run into her doubling back around, entering an establishment only to quickly excuse herself, or stumbling into shadier alleys looking terribly out of place for a woman of the cloth. ]

Excuse me— where is this?

[ Apart from running her usual errands, she can also be found putting up recruitment posters around town for the Artzenritter healer troop. Come take a look? Or perhaps lend a hand at graphic design, technology is a struggle. ]

ii.

[ The memories of the other Aldrip linger, an alternate life where she wasn't plagued by her Crest and she held hope and confidence in herself that she never knew she could. On one sleepless night, she writes an anonymous message to the network after much fiddling with the new charms. ]

I still feel troubled by the memories of the other life we lived. Is it the same for anyone else?

[ If you know her already, she may feel comfortable enough to confess in person. ]

Some days, I feel like I don't know which of my memories to trust.

[ ooc: Her usual haunts are the Willow Clinic where she'll be trying to ease pollen symptoms this month and Astralin's farm and the surrounding meadows where she can be found tending to chocobos and her horse Dorte. Feel free to PM or ping me at ahlyo for a custom starter! ]

Comments

[feintofhart]

C'mon, you can't tell me I was talking about anyone besides you.

[ He waltzes in like he owns the place. He can see the hesitance in her frame, the hunching of her shoulders, the way her eyes flit to look everywhere but his face. It's been like this for a while now, and Claude has been afraid to ask if it's because she was horrified by his behaviour or her own, in that strange little town. He had been a philanderer, a drunkard, an enabler, a cad. And she had become a religious zealot, regarding the world through theological blinders.

It had exacerbated the worst parts of them. None were so strange to feel as though it wasn't a path they'd go down, once upon a time. Still, he marches forward, refusing to look away, as though he feels none of the awkwardness between them. ]

Treats, [ he says, taking out a thermos and unscrewing it, filling the breakroom with the warm smell of cinnamon, and then setting some pastries on the table. ] Cinnamon tea and sweet buns. The baker assured me they're quite good.

[ Marianne's favourites, not Claude's. He's never had much of a sweet tooth. ]

I thought we could catch up. I haven't seemed to be able to pin you down, these days.

[snowslip]

Oh...Thank you. They look good. I'll just—

[ Distractedly, Marianne makes space on the break room table for the treats, taking the long route around the room to put a book away. Claude appears ever himself, like he's already put those strange events behind him. Marianne still recalls that other world vividly, sometimes with lingering confusion, sometimes with horror.

She almost can't recognize herself in the woman who had been so self-assured and yet assuredly wrong in her faith. The things she had said to him... She cringes to think about it. How can he act like nothing has happened between them? ]

I've been busy lately...

[ Marianne trails off. Certainly, she has her work cut out between the farm and the clinic, and this season's pollen symptoms have brought an influx of patients, but in the past she's managed her busy schedule and still showed her face at Claude's apothecary to pick up herbs and spoil Zafeera with treats. Put plainly, she's been avoiding him. ]

[feintofhart]

No you haven't. You've been avoiding me, [ Claude says flat-out, though there's nothing accusatory, nothing recriminating in his tone. The sky is blue, the grass is green, Marianne has been avoiding him. Why bother dancing around the subject when that's the whole reason why he's here?

As genteel as ever, a sharp contrast with his words, he pours her a cup of tea and slides it over, then palces a few pastries on a paper plate for her. ]

Which I'm quite used to, mind you, just not usually from you. You've been a hard woman to nail down, Marianne. [ He smiles at her, a flash of white teeth, brow creased with good humour, green eyes inscrutable as ever. ] Now, I don't mean to make you uncomfortable...

[ Which he's doing, quite purposely, right now. Maybe that past him and this current him have a thing or two in common. ]

...but I consider you a very good friend indeed, and I'd be neglecting that if I didn't swing by to get to the bottom of things. I know that other me was -- well, there was very little to recommend him, but I hope you know that wasn't me.

[snowslip]

[ When Claude speaks what's on their minds plainly, Marianne pales and looks down at the floor instead of at the tea offered to her. But it's not long before his last statement gets her to turn to him again, startled. ]

I know. That's not why—

[ She exclaims quickly. She hadn't been avoiding him because of him, rather the opposite. ]

I wasn't myself either. I've been confused since we returned, but now I realize that.

[ The real Marianne is the person she is now, struggling to speak to Claude when her other self could press him without stumbling. The lingering memories from that world were so strong that at first, she had thought herself the fraud. ]

It makes me horrified to recall the things I said. Are you...not upset with me?

[feintofhart]

Why would I be upset with you for something that was never your fault in the first place? Unless you're upset with me for, ah -- hm. Well.

[ He's too embarrassed to even give voice to all of what he'd been up to. By the gods, he'd been acting like Sylvain, a horrifying prospect that he never thought he'd stoop to, only he acted on such desires far more than their classmate ever did. ]

You know.

[ It's a sin greater than Marianne's, he thinks. His other self had been perfectly cogent, perfectly in control of his actions, not taken in and fleeced by some horrifying cult from an early age. That other Marianne had been unbearable in her convictions, but even if she were still that same person, it would be difficult to hold it against her.

And for Claude, it's a simple thing indeed, to separate the two personas. He had raced towards the memories like a starving man sprints to food, drinking down the idea of a better, more exciting life with a sort of desperation that was truly unbecoming of him. He had no idea to know what a boon that would be for him later, to bathe himself in another world to escape his own. The delineation between everyone then and everyone now is quite clear in his mind. ]

That wasn't you, and it wasn't me. There's no reason to let all that impact our relationship now.

[snowslip]

No, no. I'm not upset with you. Just...myself.

[ She says quickly. The way Claude acted had been shocking, to say the least, but she can forgive him in his circumstances more easily than she can forgive herself. Marianne considers his words and, finally, takes a seat at the table, though the treats still go untouched. ]

I find it hard to put behind me. It still feels so real. Do you really think the people we were weren't us?

[ Or who could have been her. If she truly saw none of herself in that other Marianne, then why wasn't it simple to dismiss, to have a laugh at their other selves and move on? ]

[feintofhart]

I do, [ Claude says firmly. ] I know others don't see it so simply, but... we are the products of our upbringing, aren't we? The people we were when raised by completely different people in a completely different country, with completely different friends and completely different vocations -- how could that possibly be us? Just a mirror for what we could be.

[ Which isn't something Claude is too unsettled by, at the end of the day. Underneath different circumstances, they could have been far, far worse. Yes, Claude had been a cad and a coward, and Marianne taken in by some hideous cult, but they could have been taken in by murderers and thieves and genocidal maniacs. ]

At the very least, I don't think we should be held responsible for what they did. What's the point in that?

[snowslip]

I...suppose you have a point.

[ It's a relief to know Claude hadn't held her actions against her. She had ignored the glimpses of her real memories, convinced they were trickery, and the lingering effects of the simulation made truth and lie seem to blend together. The thought that her other self was her own person with no bearing on who she currently is, no reason to compare herself and come up short, takes a load off her shoulders. ]

That makes me glad. We were um, rather at odds in that other world. [ Marianne looks down at her hands. The other Claude hadn't been so understanding, and neither had she. ] I hope we'll be able to work through any differences that come between us.

[feintofhart]

Oh, I was an immense asshole in that other world, [ Claude admits freely, a self-deprecating laugh on his breath. ] My life wasn't all that bad, but somehow I still spent the entire time moping around and shoveling all of my problems onto other people. Just absolutely horrifying behaviour.

[ Lying with other mens wives, other womens husbands? Working with ne'er-do-wells because he didn't care what came of it? Encouraging others to engage in just as much horrible behaviour as he himself was? Lashing out and mocking anyone who dared question his ways? He can hardly believe it. ]

Suffice to say, I don't hold any of that other you against you so long as you'll grant me the same luxury. [ He grins ruefully at her. ] We are nothing more than the product of our upbringings, I'm afraid. We could've been even worse, perish the thought.

[ But while Claude is happy to let bygones be bygones... he knows for others, it's not nearly so simple. ]

...do you have more that you need to get off your chest? I know some people had harder times than others piecing everything together again.