He isn't wrong to think that she might wear a look of disapproval to hear that. Her lips thin, and the corners turn downwards, her grip on the spoon thing too tight. It is instinctive for her by now- shunning things that did not correlate directly to duty or battle, that might risk being enjoyable only for her to realize too soon that they were not for her or could not last.
In the wake of her silence (and chewing) he seems amiable to moving on instead, but Hayame is slightly stuck.]
... What sort of things do you expect?
[Things that... made her happy. Obviously not serving as an ambassador, which he had taken the initiative to tell everyone on her behalf. - She still needed to chastise him for that. But she isn't sure if she asks him that question because she is ready to reject the proposals or because she is simply curious... and her tone doesn't likely make it easy to tell, either.]
[Claude chews on his food for a moment, but he's suddenly distracted from the taste. Worried, again, that anything he says could anger her and damage things between them.
But they can't build anything between them based on fear, right? He had already told her he wouldn't withhold anything from her any more, and that goes for important thoughts and feelings, too. So he responds, cautious.]
I want you to figure out what makes you happy. It's not something I can dictate to you, but it's something I can help you figure out, a little at a time. It could be little things... like seeing what this came from.
[He picks a pomegranate seed from his food, holds it up like she had, then pops it in his mouth and eats it, a lopsided smile on his face as he swallows.]
Or... big things. [Like she had accepted Claude's feelings, for all his flaws, for all their differences and things they don't agree on.]
[She doesn’t stop eating, though her movements are slower and more methodical, covering for what she isn’t sure is anger or bitterness or curiosity. Maybe, since she feels a twinge of something like disappointment when he says she should figure it out (mostly), it was more of the latter.
Small things. Big things.]
… I am not a happy person.
[In general. Would that change just because she found a few more things to like? (To love?) It wasn’t like she was unaware of her disposition, or how other people saw her. (How other people had made it clear they saw her, time and again, most recently in regards to ambassadors.) She hasn’t even… has she smiled more than she could count on the fingers of one hand since her arrival here?
She doesn’t think so. Slowly, her eye slips over to him, catching that lopsided smile.]
I would not want you to stake too much on my discoveries.
[A wounded expression passes across his face, and he picks up his drink to buy himself time (or liquid courage) to figure out what to say. Instead, though, he doesn't drink, just finds himself swirling the deep red liquid as if it can somehow help circulate his thoughts.
Perhaps he should clear something up first.]
Don't misunderstand... I love you exactly as you are. [He says, eventually, looking up once more. It pulls at his heartstrings to think that she might assume otherwise. That she might think, again, that she's defective in some way.]
So, I'm not trying to make you into someone you're not. I just... want to give you things you didn't have.
[Seeing that expression on his face didn’t make her happy. It made her lips twist downward into even more opposite a smile, made her fingers tighten on the spoon. Eventually, it even makes her turn her gaze away again, because…
Because her skin always feels so hot when he says love. So easy, so clear, so… something she is trying to accept but still struggles to wholly believe. “Love”.]
…
[He wants to give her things, when most of what she’s ever known has just been taking. How to accept them, how to ask for them… she doesn’t really know how. (Matsukaze had wanted her to be happy. Set, Liem, Akua, they wanted her to be happy as “friends”. But this?). What could she say now, when a part of her kept trying to sabotage this still and the rest of her just wanted to believe?]
The food makes me happy enough.
[That he cooked it for her, not just… that it was there…]
[He seems taken aback, at such a simple admission, and he takes a gulp of wine and sets down the glass.]
Well-- good! You had me worried, for a second there.
[He refills his glass, then tops hers up, too, suddenly embarassed. He's normally so rational and calculating, that it feels crazy to hang on to every little word and mood of hers like it's a matter of life and death.
Or-- maybe it is. He had said before how worried he was that this place would chew her up and spit her out, leave her with so many enemies that she'd wind up dissipated and her shard ground to dust. If he can just show her that it doesn't have to be like that, there are things she can find that make living worthwhile beyond fighting...
Then maybe that little admission really is a big deal.]
[Even after saying it, Hayame isn’t entirely sure if she said it because it was true or just because she wanted him to have something. A reward for his hard work, or for putting up with her, when she thinks she knows for a fact that if he had confessed his feelings and said the sweet words he’d said to any other woman that surely…
Surely they would have treated him better. Be treating him better.
But she doesn’t know, and now… isn’t the place or the time to try and figure out which it was. Instead, she obligingly pushes her glass closer for the refill, unconcerned that any amount he would serve her would make her feel anything. Not unless he served up half the barrel anyway, her metabolism was too quick for it otherwise. But in the silence, before she returns to chewing (or rather, slowly decimating a lot of the fare on the table),]
You can talk about something. Your home, or what not.
[If she talks, she will likely spoil it, whether accidental or not. If they talk of this place, she won’t be able to stop herself from bringing up the ambassadors judgements. So… something else.]
Oh... sure. [He was getting sidetracked enough that he has to cast his mind back to their previous topic, eating a small mouthful of rice (and yes, eating at a slower pace than Hayame) as he considers. Something easy to talk about, something that won't bring up friction between them, but which she still might find interesting...]
I was talking about the academy and what life was like there, right? Byleth was there too, but a different Byleth to the mercenary we both know here. The Byleth from my world actually became my teacher.
[Time to leisurely eat is never something Hayame had, so… her pace is quite quick and efficient by default. Thankfully, the sheer volume she’s packing away means it doesn’t seem that she’s in danger of leaving him behind.
And she can listen while she chews, no problem, so-]
What do you mean, a different one?
[She abandons the tricky spoon for another kebab.]
Byleth, Dimitri and I are from three different Fódlans, where events diverged pretty dramatically. As Dimitri would have it, Byleth picked the Blue Lion house as its teacher. The way I remember it, of course he couldn't say no to teaching his adorable little Golden Deer. --That was my house, back in the day.
[Which probably explains all his oblique animal metaphors he likes to make sometimes... but anyway.]
And for the Byleth we know here? He never became a teacher, but eventually joined Dimitri's army as a sellsword. I was basically a stranger to him.
[Which was tough, at least at first, but he's long since come to terms with it.]
In her time here Hayame has heard of people who came from the same world but different “points in time” from one another, or from worlds that sounded similar in culture or geography but differed elsewhere, but. This was the first time she’d heard of three branching… “timelines”. A concept she wrestled to get her head around on a good day, mind, but.]
I assume you all figured that out quite early, at least?
[Chewing thoughtfully on the bread, Claude nods and swallows.]
Yeah. Though, I think it freaked him out at first that I knew everything about him, and he didn't know anything about me. Then, as we got to know each other, he started to worry that I was trying to use him as a substitute for the Byleth I'd lost. He might still think that...
[He's not sure. It had been addressed under the tree by Sothis, but did he listen then? Did Sothis relay what had been said, if not?]
It's a little complicated. It's sort of like meeting a twin brother who was separated a few years back. They're very similar people, but there are just so many differences in experiences by now, it'd be impossible for me to mistake them as the same person.
[To be… freaked out. She certainly would be if someone she’d never met claimed to know that much about her, and was perhaps able to actually back some of it up. Confusing, too, but… the twin analogy helps.
She may have taken the liberty to repeat that Byleth had praised and defended Claude to her, but the doubts about their friendship… well that was more personal. That was for them alone.]
He is still of your world, I suppose. Even if he is not the man you knew.
[That must be comforting, she thinks. Not being the lone survivor.]
He is a straightforward man.
[Said in a way that was admittedly hard to tell if it was a compliment or not, but.]
He is, isn't he? [Claude grins, and in his case, the reaction is unmistakably fond.] He says everything like it is.
[Much like a certain other person he knows. It's refreshing, for someone steeped in a lifetime of being slippery and hard to decipher.]
Like Teach, though, he finds it difficult to show emotion at times. Teach got a lot more expressive over time, but... This Byleth is still getting used to interacting with people beyond merc jobs.
[Maybe that's why Claude never found Hayame daunting to deal with. She might worry that she never smiled, but Byleth simply didn't emote much at all, even to show negative emotion like anger. He understands well that it doesn't mean they feel any less than anyone else, just for a lack of showing it.]
[Which she feels is what made that man more straightforward than she was, for she would speak her mind... but she rarely felt the need to explain herself, or what about her past might lead her to think or say what she did. In her own world, people had known things about her just by looking at her race, her sex, the style of her hair, the fact that she had arms. Here... she was allowed certain privacies. And she guarded them fiercely.]
Perhaps, then, he simply needs that same amount of time.
[He had said to her that he missed having someone to take orders from... and she missed the same. There were orders that could be taken here... but could those giving them be trusted? That was a different issue.
Her lips turn down at the thought, annoyed that she cannot stop herself from thinking in order to just... eat.
... The fruit with the meat was a nice combination, though. She helps herself to more of that.]
Yeah, I think so. He needs to figure out his own path, and where he fits into all this.
[And while Claude could tell him what to do as much as Jeralt used to, he wouldn't feel comfortable about it. He piles a few more vegetables onto his plate and leaves it at that, taking a pause to eat. Thinking it over, he does note that Byleth seems to be one of the rare few Hayame has at least a neutral, not negative, opinion of.]
Anyway, that's how Byleth fits into things with me. If you have questions, I can answer whatever you like...? [He could talk at her about anything and everything all day, but maybe she's curious about certain things, too.]
[What Claude says is true enough. There is only so much another person can do to lead, when the root cause of something was in another. Not if you actually valued the other person, anyway, and allowing them the freedom to become their own being. ... Not that she actually knew much about that part.
Hayame chews instead of asking questions. Her tail swishes anxiously across the floor, the motion interrupted by the cushions. The longer this goes on... The more obvious it must be how unsuitable she is as a partner for such things as this. Normal things. She had dined with Amos Burton before, but Amos Burton was a very silent man. She'd had tea with Liem Talbott, but that had been brief, and what to speak about had been decided. So what is she supposed to do? She could just demand he come up with a topic, or ask a vague question to set him on a path, but.
It feels like a cop out. Cowardly, as she's ever proving in this realm. The silence stretches on, broken only by the soft clink of silverware and her chewing until suddenly she manages,]
- I have a half-brother.
[... A very smooth segueway.
- What? He'd said he had them. It's... something in common. Even if she knows the circumstances must be vastly different between the way a prince has numerous siblings and a breeding stable jinba does.]
[Claude lets the quiet stretch on as he polishes off his steak, washing it down with more wine. He can hold his alcohol, but it and the food are both making him feel pleasantly fuzzy, so he doesn't feel the need to rush Hayame. Even in silence, he enjoys her company.]
Huh. [He had no idea what she'd ask, or say, but it wasn't that.] I didn't expect we'd have that in common... What's he like?
[Proud and cold, like Hayame? Competitive like his own brothers? He hoped, at least, that he wasn't cruel to her as Shahid was to him. Not having a throne to compete over had to help, but jinba were surely under all kinds of other pressures that would strain a sibling relationship.]
[As much as she sometimes wished for it, there was no comfort for her to be found in drink- no pleasant haziness or soft blur. She was a little jealous of humans for that, sometimes.]
I have many half-siblings, actually. But only Yubari and I look passable as brother and sister.
[They both were spitting images of their dam, and so each other. They were closest in age, just one foaling season apart. Birthed when the broodmare forced to bear them was younger, before she started losing them more frequently before finally succumbing to one that wouldn’t come out. But she doesn’t know anything about that Armless woman beyond what she looked like from a distance, and how she sounded when sent off to stud. Yubari, though-]
… He is the only one I trusted. And the only one who believed in me- that a mare could become a warlord’s horse.
[Something to have in common… her gaze grows distant, her fingers rub absently along the stem of her wine glass. What was he like… ? Even that, she would have known better if she herself were less cold, and more kind… if she had let him call her “sister” in public…]
He was not as good a shot as I am, but he was a fine archer. A better craftsman- he made my arrows. He was loyal… more understanding. … Kinder.
[(If she went back… if she survived by some miracle… Perhaps she could apologize-)]
[It's perhaps the first time he's heard an admission from her, even indirectly, that she values things like understanding and kindness, to mention them as positive traits in her brother. He smiles, bittersweet though it is.]
It sounds to me like he admired you. [Even if it riles him to realise her best goal had been to be someone's horse, once.] Honestly, I'd like to meet him someday.
[When all this is over, and her world is restored. It still might sound like a fanciful idea now, but it's one he's determined to cling to.]
It's for the best that he isn't caught up in all this here, though.
[If pressed, she would deny that she valued those things. They were just traits, that's all, easy ways to compare her with Yubari. Weaknesses that men were allowed to have, and women were not.
But.]
To his misfortune, yes.
[He had admired her. He was the only one who had, who hadn't been scared off by her demeanor and her iron, who was willing to help her prove herself as a warrior despite how she treated him, and it had nearly gotten him killed... and now risked being labeled a traitor's brother. She almost says that Claude surely wouldn't be able to meet him, that if Zenith were right it wasn't for the best at all, he was gone with her world, but-
She refuses to believe that.
Her lips purse again in thought, lapsing into silence before her fingers leave her glass to find the gold chain around her neck, the one that disappeared into the tight bindings around her breasts.]
Can I? I'd love to. [Claude's eyes light up, and he's already getting to his feet; it would be far too awkward to lean across the table, so he moves to Hayame's side instead to better see the sunbeam.]
It can be a nice little introduction to what I'll see in person, eventually.
[An idea he's not going to let drop in a hurry, whether it's a reasonable one or not.]
[At the party Liem Talbott had organized in Alenroux, when Claude had stumbled upon her in the makeshift privacy of one of the tents, she had hidden her bead from him. From everyone, not just him. But now she has offered, and he has accepted, come over to her, and so... she pulls the iliachtida from her tight breast bindings and cups the bead part in her hand.
Her lips purse, again, over his assertion that he will see it for himself... But she doesn't tell him he won't. She just thinks it.
Slowly, an image coalesces in the bead's surface. A military camp, mostly human, setting up for the night, and amongst their number is a male centaur with an unmistakable similarity in looks to Hayame- the same mane, the same sort of face, the same dun coat. He sees to his duties, unpacking and preparing supplies...]
That is Yubari.
[Where she'd sent him, back to their master to tell him the location of the hidden village where she'd been taken prisoner... now back to take the village by storm. On this day, the day that repeats itself over and over in her bead... He probably didn't even know if she was still alive.
[He watches as the image takes shape, and the jinba's resemblance to Hayame is striking, even if she hadn't said a word to explain who he is. Claude watches 'Yubari' assemble supplies, he wonders how many times Hayame has watched this scene play out, just how often she'd been alone with that sad expression and the iliachtida in her hand.
More often than she'd ever admit, he supposes, given how she had reacted back in Alenroux. What would she say to him, if she ever saw her brother again in person? Maybe she'd simply struggle to find the words, as she often does.
His hand finds her shoulder, and he squeezes gently, now more sober than before.]
You'll see him again.
[She would get there, and things will be different, and they'll be reunited. They have to believe that it's possible.]
[Claude’s wonderings were probably right. Hayame has watched this scene, and the other scenes that the sunbeam bead deigned to show her, countless nights since she had been given it by the Tribune. At first, she told herself she was looking for signs of falsehood in it, just trying to make sure that she wasn’t being deceived, that it was something she could trust in… but she’d eventually had to admit that it wasn’t that. That she was just lonely, the only jinba in a strange world when there were so many others who deserved to survive and would fight better for her world and its people than she could. That she felt if she didn’t look and remind herself of what home was supposed to look like and be like that she would go mad amidst the strange sights and experiences of Kenos.
But it had always been alone. She’s never shown anyone else what was inside. Even just the brief scene feels too exposed, too raw, like she’d ripped open her breast to show off her auxiliary heart. So after just a beat more, just long enough to watch Yubari set a crate down and look off towards the mountain with a worried expression on his face…
Hayame withdraws Meridian’s energy from the bead and cuts the vision. Her fingers curl around it and then banish it back to the tight confines of her breast bindings, and-]
Your food will grow cold.
[She says that, but. Her head has turned slightly, inward and to the side, just enough so that her cheek could rest against his knuckles where his hand rested on her shoulder.]
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leicesters) wrote2022-12-06 08:26 pm
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He isn't wrong to think that she might wear a look of disapproval to hear that. Her lips thin, and the corners turn downwards, her grip on the spoon thing too tight. It is instinctive for her by now- shunning things that did not correlate directly to duty or battle, that might risk being enjoyable only for her to realize too soon that they were not for her or could not last.
In the wake of her silence (and chewing) he seems amiable to moving on instead, but Hayame is slightly stuck.]
... What sort of things do you expect?
[Things that... made her happy. Obviously not serving as an ambassador, which he had taken the initiative to tell everyone on her behalf. - She still needed to chastise him for that. But she isn't sure if she asks him that question because she is ready to reject the proposals or because she is simply curious... and her tone doesn't likely make it easy to tell, either.]
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But they can't build anything between them based on fear, right? He had already told her he wouldn't withhold anything from her any more, and that goes for important thoughts and feelings, too. So he responds, cautious.]
I want you to figure out what makes you happy. It's not something I can dictate to you, but it's something I can help you figure out, a little at a time. It could be little things... like seeing what this came from.
[He picks a pomegranate seed from his food, holds it up like she had, then pops it in his mouth and eats it, a lopsided smile on his face as he swallows.]
Or... big things. [Like she had accepted Claude's feelings, for all his flaws, for all their differences and things they don't agree on.]
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Small things. Big things.]
… I am not a happy person.
[In general. Would that change just because she found a few more things to like? (To love?) It wasn’t like she was unaware of her disposition, or how other people saw her. (How other people had made it clear they saw her, time and again, most recently in regards to ambassadors.) She hasn’t even… has she smiled more than she could count on the fingers of one hand since her arrival here?
She doesn’t think so. Slowly, her eye slips over to him, catching that lopsided smile.]
I would not want you to stake too much on my discoveries.
[It would be cruel to lead him on, surely.]
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Perhaps he should clear something up first.]
Don't misunderstand... I love you exactly as you are. [He says, eventually, looking up once more. It pulls at his heartstrings to think that she might assume otherwise. That she might think, again, that she's defective in some way.]
So, I'm not trying to make you into someone you're not. I just... want to give you things you didn't have.
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Because her skin always feels so hot when he says love. So easy, so clear, so… something she is trying to accept but still struggles to wholly believe. “Love”.]
…
[He wants to give her things, when most of what she’s ever known has just been taking. How to accept them, how to ask for them… she doesn’t really know how. (Matsukaze had wanted her to be happy. Set, Liem, Akua, they wanted her to be happy as “friends”. But this?). What could she say now, when a part of her kept trying to sabotage this still and the rest of her just wanted to believe?]
The food makes me happy enough.
[That he cooked it for her, not just… that it was there…]
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Well-- good! You had me worried, for a second there.
[He refills his glass, then tops hers up, too, suddenly embarassed. He's normally so rational and calculating, that it feels crazy to hang on to every little word and mood of hers like it's a matter of life and death.
Or-- maybe it is. He had said before how worried he was that this place would chew her up and spit her out, leave her with so many enemies that she'd wind up dissipated and her shard ground to dust. If he can just show her that it doesn't have to be like that, there are things she can find that make living worthwhile beyond fighting...
Then maybe that little admission really is a big deal.]
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Surely they would have treated him better. Be treating him better.
But she doesn’t know, and now… isn’t the place or the time to try and figure out which it was. Instead, she obligingly pushes her glass closer for the refill, unconcerned that any amount he would serve her would make her feel anything. Not unless he served up half the barrel anyway, her metabolism was too quick for it otherwise. But in the silence, before she returns to chewing (or rather, slowly decimating a lot of the fare on the table),]
You can talk about something. Your home, or what not.
[If she talks, she will likely spoil it, whether accidental or not. If they talk of this place, she won’t be able to stop herself from bringing up the ambassadors judgements. So… something else.]
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I was talking about the academy and what life was like there, right? Byleth was there too, but a different Byleth to the mercenary we both know here. The Byleth from my world actually became my teacher.
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And she can listen while she chews, no problem, so-]
What do you mean, a different one?
[She abandons the tricky spoon for another kebab.]
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[Which probably explains all his oblique animal metaphors he likes to make sometimes... but anyway.]
And for the Byleth we know here? He never became a teacher, but eventually joined Dimitri's army as a sellsword. I was basically a stranger to him.
[Which was tough, at least at first, but he's long since come to terms with it.]
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In her time here Hayame has heard of people who came from the same world but different “points in time” from one another, or from worlds that sounded similar in culture or geography but differed elsewhere, but. This was the first time she’d heard of three branching… “timelines”. A concept she wrestled to get her head around on a good day, mind, but.]
I assume you all figured that out quite early, at least?
[Another kebab, gone.]
You two do not seem strangers now.
[… And though it was decidedly not her business…]
Byleth speaks highly of you, at least.
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Yeah. Though, I think it freaked him out at first that I knew everything about him, and he didn't know anything about me. Then, as we got to know each other, he started to worry that I was trying to use him as a substitute for the Byleth I'd lost. He might still think that...
[He's not sure. It had been addressed under the tree by Sothis, but did he listen then? Did Sothis relay what had been said, if not?]
It's a little complicated. It's sort of like meeting a twin brother who was separated a few years back. They're very similar people, but there are just so many differences in experiences by now, it'd be impossible for me to mistake them as the same person.
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[To be… freaked out. She certainly would be if someone she’d never met claimed to know that much about her, and was perhaps able to actually back some of it up. Confusing, too, but… the twin analogy helps.
She may have taken the liberty to repeat that Byleth had praised and defended Claude to her, but the doubts about their friendship… well that was more personal. That was for them alone.]
He is still of your world, I suppose. Even if he is not the man you knew.
[That must be comforting, she thinks. Not being the lone survivor.]
He is a straightforward man.
[Said in a way that was admittedly hard to tell if it was a compliment or not, but.]
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[Much like a certain other person he knows. It's refreshing, for someone steeped in a lifetime of being slippery and hard to decipher.]
Like Teach, though, he finds it difficult to show emotion at times. Teach got a lot more expressive over time, but... This Byleth is still getting used to interacting with people beyond merc jobs.
[Maybe that's why Claude never found Hayame daunting to deal with. She might worry that she never smiled, but Byleth simply didn't emote much at all, even to show negative emotion like anger. He understands well that it doesn't mean they feel any less than anyone else, just for a lack of showing it.]
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[Which she feels is what made that man more straightforward than she was, for she would speak her mind... but she rarely felt the need to explain herself, or what about her past might lead her to think or say what she did. In her own world, people had known things about her just by looking at her race, her sex, the style of her hair, the fact that she had arms. Here... she was allowed certain privacies. And she guarded them fiercely.]
Perhaps, then, he simply needs that same amount of time.
[He had said to her that he missed having someone to take orders from... and she missed the same. There were orders that could be taken here... but could those giving them be trusted? That was a different issue.
Her lips turn down at the thought, annoyed that she cannot stop herself from thinking in order to just... eat.
... The fruit with the meat was a nice combination, though. She helps herself to more of that.]
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[And while Claude could tell him what to do as much as Jeralt used to, he wouldn't feel comfortable about it. He piles a few more vegetables onto his plate and leaves it at that, taking a pause to eat. Thinking it over, he does note that Byleth seems to be one of the rare few Hayame has at least a neutral, not negative, opinion of.]
Anyway, that's how Byleth fits into things with me. If you have questions, I can answer whatever you like...? [He could talk at her about anything and everything all day, but maybe she's curious about certain things, too.]
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Hayame chews instead of asking questions. Her tail swishes anxiously across the floor, the motion interrupted by the cushions. The longer this goes on... The more obvious it must be how unsuitable she is as a partner for such things as this. Normal things. She had dined with Amos Burton before, but Amos Burton was a very silent man. She'd had tea with Liem Talbott, but that had been brief, and what to speak about had been decided. So what is she supposed to do? She could just demand he come up with a topic, or ask a vague question to set him on a path, but.
It feels like a cop out. Cowardly, as she's ever proving in this realm. The silence stretches on, broken only by the soft clink of silverware and her chewing until suddenly she manages,]
- I have a half-brother.
[... A very smooth segueway.
- What? He'd said he had them. It's... something in common. Even if she knows the circumstances must be vastly different between the way a prince has numerous siblings and a breeding stable jinba does.]
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Huh. [He had no idea what she'd ask, or say, but it wasn't that.] I didn't expect we'd have that in common... What's he like?
[Proud and cold, like Hayame? Competitive like his own brothers? He hoped, at least, that he wasn't cruel to her as Shahid was to him. Not having a throne to compete over had to help, but jinba were surely under all kinds of other pressures that would strain a sibling relationship.]
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I have many half-siblings, actually. But only Yubari and I look passable as brother and sister.
[They both were spitting images of their dam, and so each other. They were closest in age, just one foaling season apart. Birthed when the broodmare forced to bear them was younger, before she started losing them more frequently before finally succumbing to one that wouldn’t come out. But she doesn’t know anything about that Armless woman beyond what she looked like from a distance, and how she sounded when sent off to stud. Yubari, though-]
… He is the only one I trusted. And the only one who believed in me- that a mare could become a warlord’s horse.
[Something to have in common… her gaze grows distant, her fingers rub absently along the stem of her wine glass. What was he like… ? Even that, she would have known better if she herself were less cold, and more kind… if she had let him call her “sister” in public…]
He was not as good a shot as I am, but he was a fine archer. A better craftsman- he made my arrows. He was loyal… more understanding. … Kinder.
[(If she went back… if she survived by some miracle… Perhaps she could apologize-)]
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It sounds to me like he admired you. [Even if it riles him to realise her best goal had been to be someone's horse, once.] Honestly, I'd like to meet him someday.
[When all this is over, and her world is restored. It still might sound like a fanciful idea now, but it's one he's determined to cling to.]
It's for the best that he isn't caught up in all this here, though.
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But.]
To his misfortune, yes.
[He had admired her. He was the only one who had, who hadn't been scared off by her demeanor and her iron, who was willing to help her prove herself as a warrior despite how she treated him, and it had nearly gotten him killed... and now risked being labeled a traitor's brother. She almost says that Claude surely wouldn't be able to meet him, that if Zenith were right it wasn't for the best at all, he was gone with her world, but-
She refuses to believe that.
Her lips purse again in thought, lapsing into silence before her fingers leave her glass to find the gold chain around her neck, the one that disappeared into the tight bindings around her breasts.]
- Do you wish to see?
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It can be a nice little introduction to what I'll see in person, eventually.
[An idea he's not going to let drop in a hurry, whether it's a reasonable one or not.]
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Her lips purse, again, over his assertion that he will see it for himself... But she doesn't tell him he won't. She just thinks it.
Slowly, an image coalesces in the bead's surface. A military camp, mostly human, setting up for the night, and amongst their number is a male centaur with an unmistakable similarity in looks to Hayame- the same mane, the same sort of face, the same dun coat. He sees to his duties, unpacking and preparing supplies...]
That is Yubari.
[Where she'd sent him, back to their master to tell him the location of the hidden village where she'd been taken prisoner... now back to take the village by storm. On this day, the day that repeats itself over and over in her bead... He probably didn't even know if she was still alive.
Her expression is... sad. Despite herself.]
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More often than she'd ever admit, he supposes, given how she had reacted back in Alenroux. What would she say to him, if she ever saw her brother again in person? Maybe she'd simply struggle to find the words, as she often does.
His hand finds her shoulder, and he squeezes gently, now more sober than before.]
You'll see him again.
[She would get there, and things will be different, and they'll be reunited. They have to believe that it's possible.]
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But it had always been alone. She’s never shown anyone else what was inside. Even just the brief scene feels too exposed, too raw, like she’d ripped open her breast to show off her auxiliary heart. So after just a beat more, just long enough to watch Yubari set a crate down and look off towards the mountain with a worried expression on his face…
Hayame withdraws Meridian’s energy from the bead and cuts the vision. Her fingers curl around it and then banish it back to the tight confines of her breast bindings, and-]
Your food will grow cold.
[She says that, but. Her head has turned slightly, inward and to the side, just enough so that her cheek could rest against his knuckles where his hand rested on her shoulder.]
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