[Judging by the slightly strange emotion that flickers across her face... Hayame did not seem to realize that she had said what she had until Yuri turns the question back on her. - Did she say "feel"? She had surely meant...
Her brow furrows. Her cheeks are slightly ruddy when she turns her gaze away.]
- "Pass". Or whatever the word. It does not matter.
[And if she thought anything else, it was... a fleeting weakness, that was all. A selfish thought that was probably... the path to insecurity and destruction. She shouldn't go down it anyway. Maybe... Maybe she shouldn't show Claude what this new bracelet of hers can do.]
As long as I grow accustomed to it to the point I do not feel so distracted in this shape.
[ It's interesting, the difference in how his friends approach access to different forms. Byleth had been incredibly eager once the disorientation passed, throwing himself headlong into testing out his dragon form and figuring out what it could do. He'd been rather disappointed to be flightless, but he had other tricks up his scaly sleeves.
Hayame, on the other hand... It must be a complicated thing, gaining a form that for others take for granted as normal and mundane. She's stood out among them all along, and now that she can blend in if she so chooses, she seems conflicted between what she wants and what she thinks she should pursue. ]
That's well within our capabilities.
[ Hayame can be shrewd. She chose the right person to assist her in something like this. But he wonders whether she might not need a measure of reassurance. ]
[Yuri was a shrewd man. It was not like Hayame had not known that before she invited him out. With him, there was always the risk that he would cut to the heart of the matter. Usually, he did it gently enough. Maybe that was why she continued to stay around him, despite her general distaste of prying or being known.
He has come to the heart of the current dilemma once more, with just that question. Her body language betrays her more than usual, because she is not used to controlling the subtle things a human body would do. The restless legs, the turn in of feet, the shift in hips away from him.]
... No. I have not told him yet.
[And yet why? If this was purely just a tool for infiltration, then why not tell him as casually as one might mention purchasing new arrows?]
[ It lines up with what she'd said before, he thinks. To "feel human" is a messy knot to unravel, and feeling that way with someone with whom she shares the most intimate sides of herself would surely be something she craves. At the same time, Yuri can well imagine it's daunting enough to paralyze.
Having a complicated history only compounds that, he can imagine. Letting someone in is hard enough, but this is different. Unique. Her body language suggests to him that he's likely right. ]
When you're more confident in this form... It's worth considering. He's quite the schemer, and I'd wager he'd be eager to offer up an idea or three.
[ Collaboration is something he has come to enjoy only recently, having so seldom even communicated his plans to others in the past. That's the easy aspect of this, a softer lead-in, because the rest... Yuri isn't sure whether it's his place to say the rest, yet she may need to hear it. ]
I don't know him as well as you do. Whatever form you take, his feelings won't change, yeah?
[ If she has considered Claude might fancy some temporary form over her true one, Yuri doesn't believe she needs to fear it. Claude has never struck him as the sort, even from his distant vantage point. ]
[A schemer. Ah. Claude was like that. He had... He had come up with schemes to make her think of him as a friend, and to gradually trust him, and to... to make her smile, and to let him in to her life and her heart. Not only was she concerned that he would just find out about this new ability of hers just on his own, using his wits and the knowledge of her he had at his disposal, but...]
I am not worried about his feelings. But what if...
[She didn't think... he would stop loving her. But she turns her head. Her fingers clutch unconsciously at the layered robes she now wears, and her teeth, no longer sharp, bite into her bottom lip. It's stupid. She shouldn't say anything. She should just...]
... What if he thinks we work together better this way?
[He would never say it. She knows he never would. But what if he thought it? For even an instant? She had never pretended that being with her, in particular... that any human and jinba being together was easy. Of course it would be easier if they were both jinba, both human... But if she wouldn't blame him for having that sort of accidental thought, even a brief flicker of "oh, it's better like this"...
[ So it is as he suspected. Given what he does know of Hayame's past, of how she feels about herself and some of the cruelties of her world, it's a natural worry. Even absent those things, he's sure a great many people would have that same anxious thought creep into their minds.
A natural worry indeed.
But one Yuri doesn't think Hayame ought to torment herself with. He recalls distinctly Claude's manner with her, in the wake of the torture that demon had put her through. Good at masking as Yuri recognizes Claude to be, he thinks it was clear as they all spoke how deeply his care runs.
His first response is to gesture to the seating nearby. It may be easier for her if they sit. ]
...I don't think he'd see it that way. Not in the way you're thinking of it.
[ He takes the seat further from where she stands, that she won't have to move as much when she's uncomfortable not only in a different form but discussing something that isn't at all easy for her. ]
For something like cramming yourselves into a cramped space, possibly, but not...as a couple.
[She definitely cannot sit down. If she sits down... then it will become a real discussion, and she does not wish to dignify this with a real discussion. It's stupid of her, and insecure, and she shouldn't have even opened her mouth. What she should have done is just thank Yuri for his help, try on more clothing, pick some, and then move on.
But she isn't. Her expression is growing more cross, more frustrated...
And yet she has sat down on one of the chairs in the dressing room presumably used for those who would like their friends' advice while trying things on. To her credit, she manages not to wobble, though she does hold her spine a bit strangely, used to sitting more like a slouched canine in her centaur form than... on her rump straight up and down. Her response takes time... but eventually,]
... Not on purpose.
[She wouldn't be with him at all... if she ever thought of him as a man who would be dissatisfied being with someone different from him in general. If she ever had a hint of it... She would have been gone. But also... she never thought she would be in a situation where he might know how much easier it would be to be with her as a human, like actually know and feel and see...]
[ Yuri waves the very notion away like a puff of smoke. He could say many things to that, but he opts for the simplest one to begin with. The one that should, in theory, leave no room for further concern where impugning Claude is concerned. ]
Hypotheticals aren't slander.
[ Yuri has no doubt that Claude has turned many a hypothetical about in his mind. He certainly has, about various things. About various people. Coming from a background such as his, it's often been a matter of survival. Hayame needn't think that he'll view her thoughts as a reflection on what she thinks of Claude.
Well, with one exception. It's clear that he's very dear to her, to worry so about his reaction to this form she now has access to. ]
Were I in a position similar to his, I'd think what matters is the individual, more so than their shape. He's never voiced dissatisfaction over being different, surely.
[ As best he understands it, the Claude of his timeline has dreams of unity between peoples who view one another as entirely different. So he'd heard, back in the brief time they'd all been at the academy.
In their world, those differences are in culture and appearance rather than build, but a man with such aspirations often has personal reasons behind them. That must hold true with this Claude too.
And someone like that, he thinks, would not be so easily swayed. Nor would a sharp-eyed bowman fail to see Hayame is most comfortable in her own skin. That'd matter more than any small convenience. ]
[Hayame almost says "no", that he never, ever did, because most days... She didn't feel as if it were so. She had always been the one between the two of them more worried about their differences- whether they could be overcome, whether others would judge them poorly for them. Except that... well. Even if it was couched in self-deprecating humor, and even if it had been... a rather intimate, heated moment...
Hayame clears her throat awkwardly, her cheeks flushing a more obvious, heated red. She cannot meet Yuri's eyes.]
Not... not a lasting dissatisfaction...
[She had assured him, hadn't she? About... that particular issue? It wasn't... a problem anymore, but-
But that wasn't the point! The point was... She definitely had to say something else, quick, less they both ended up lingering on what her words could possibly mean. And the point... it was far more sobering than a bit of insecurity disguised as a joke about the difference in human and jinba manhoods...]
But it. It would be only natural.
[To... have those sorts of accidental thoughts. Even if he did not voice them, and even if he even felt bad after having them...]
If I were human to think... "Oh, this height is better" or... "Now sharing a bed is easier"... or "This way we don't have to go to the market as much"...
[ Yuri notes the color burning her cheeks, but he doesn't remark upon it. This has to be difficult for Hayame and the last thing he wants to do is make her regret confiding in him. He considers what she's said and the potential implications, folding his arms across his chest. ]
It's natural to compare. You do it even when people are very similar.
[ Yuri has done so himself and been the subject of such comparisons, so he can speak from experience there. He has little by way of experience with genuine feelings for others, but this much he can speak to. When he was busy tolerating one noble or another's attentions, it passed the time to think on such things.
It's not at all the same, but it doesn't need to be, because— ]
But what if he concludes that he likes you best in your true form?
[ Has Hayame considered that possibility? Who she is and how she is are what Claude fell for. Does it strike her as so impossible that a man who boldly boops her nose may prefer her just the way she is? ]
[She knows it's natural. She knows, and that's why it's so damn frustrating, because there's nothing to blame and there shouldn't even be anything to be mad about. It's not even that she...]
I'm not doubting that.
[She didn't know about "best", but she knew... She knew he loved her the way she was. That's why this felt so petty and small of her to even think in the first place, and yet...]
... But he'll still know. Even if he'd still choose me like I am... Once he's seen me that way he'll know how it could have been.
[If things were different. If he had just fallen in love with someone else.]
[ Yuri is quiet for a spell, pondering her words. This is weighing heavily on Hayame, even though she has considered that Claude's feelings for her won't wane or change. It's a relief that she hasn't convinced herself against that.
Even so, this dread is there. This fear that presses down on her so heavily. It may be better to approach it from another angle. ]
Now, I only knew the Claude of my world at a distance. But I hear things. I make it my business to — information's a precious commodity, after all. And I can't help thinking that because of who you are and what you've been through, you can relate in ways others can't.
[ Yuri has been looked down upon, used, objectified. Not because he's different, save his androgynous beauty, but because he was poor. Being treated a certain way for being another race is something he's seen and heard from his people, from those of Duscur who went out on a limb to fight for a young king who strives to mend those wounds, but he hasn't been through it.
He and Hayame relate in certain ways, and surely she and Claude relate in others. Had she been born human, her experiences would be different, without question. Would he rather she had never suffered? Of course. But her resilience and desire to fight injustice are at least partly owed to what she has survived. ]
It's a complicated bit of business, but even if some aspects of life would be more convenient for you in this shape... Would you rather you were this way?
[It does not surprise her to hear Yuri explain his business when it comes to information- after all, that is part of why she had called on him for this entire task, knowing it would have the potential to allow her to gather the same, if she could only master how to look and act human. ... If she could only quench the discomforting anxiety she feels about it.
But what he says after that, about... relating. It makes her one remaining (no, one exposed) eye dart away again. Makes her remember... that day, months and months ago now, when Claude had talked his way into her stall where she had curled in the aftermath of Meridian's loss in the Iconoclast Oracle trial, bitter and pained by the sensations that had swept through their faction. The one when he had talked about... being fellow outsiders.
Who could relate in ways that others could not.
She both does and does not have to think about his question. Would she rather she were human? If she was, her life would be completely different. It would have been completely different... and she could not even imagine who that woman would be now. But if she could make the choice now?]
- It isn't a question of "rather".
[Because even if she thought "yes"... the bracelet was only temporary. She could not exist as a human, not really. She would only have approximately half a day before the spell would unravel, and then need to be recharged before she uses it again. So it couldn't... it couldn't even-]
But... There are no jinba in your world, are they?
Not that I know of... But there are many things beyond our small slice of the world, things we don't know. We didn't have a word for dragons, for that matter, calling them divine beasts.
[ And maybe they truly are that, actually. Their ties to the goddess are long established, and whatever one may say of Sothis, they know that she did indeed create the people of Fódlan. If those dragons are her children as well, it's not terribly difficult to fathom, bearing that in mind.
Their world is so very small in certain ways, and more may well lie beyond what appears on their maps and charts. ]
I can't say that there are none. Only that we don't know. Most of our people aren't literate, so word wouldn't spread all that well even if someone like you were encountered in some far-flung place.
[ But when she asks it that way... He mulls it over further, weighing the concern with a hum. Being different, being new, makes anyone anxious, even when it's for the smallest of traits. ]
Regardless, being as you are isn't a demerit.
Edited (cries in formatting) 2024-05-06 01:24 (UTC)
omg comes to wrap this a million years later im sorry
[Yuri offers her hope- the idea that perhaps jinba do exist somewhere in his world, even if people as he knows them are not aware of them. But that... That is not quite what upsets her about that thought. It is something else... and she does not know if she has the words to express it properly, nor the shame to keep trying to speak of her fears.
That if she were so selfish, and so naive, as to believe she could stay with him... to believe that she might somehow be able to make a life with him, live in his world with him... That being as she was would be a demerit. Not for her, per se, because she... She had grown up property as a race that was considered lesser and inhuman, so she was more than used to weathering insults and bearing disdain. But for Claude, no, for Khalid, who was a king, who would need his people to accept him and listen to him and not think he was some sort of... some sort of pervert, or degenerate, or... or something, somehow above marrying one of his own people, a human at all...
No.
She cannot say it.
Instead... instead, she lowers her halved gaze, and after a moment, her cheeks still ruddy despite her intent to banish it... She stands abruptly. Wobbles- but stands.]
... Come, Yuri. We have tarried here far too long, when there is practicing to be doing.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Her brow furrows. Her cheeks are slightly ruddy when she turns her gaze away.]
- "Pass". Or whatever the word. It does not matter.
[And if she thought anything else, it was... a fleeting weakness, that was all. A selfish thought that was probably... the path to insecurity and destruction. She shouldn't go down it anyway. Maybe... Maybe she shouldn't show Claude what this new bracelet of hers can do.]
As long as I grow accustomed to it to the point I do not feel so distracted in this shape.
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Hayame, on the other hand... It must be a complicated thing, gaining a form that for others take for granted as normal and mundane. She's stood out among them all along, and now that she can blend in if she so chooses, she seems conflicted between what she wants and what she thinks she should pursue. ]
That's well within our capabilities.
[ Hayame can be shrewd. She chose the right person to assist her in something like this. But he wonders whether she might not need a measure of reassurance. ]
...Does Claude know about it?
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He has come to the heart of the current dilemma once more, with just that question. Her body language betrays her more than usual, because she is not used to controlling the subtle things a human body would do. The restless legs, the turn in of feet, the shift in hips away from him.]
... No. I have not told him yet.
[And yet why? If this was purely just a tool for infiltration, then why not tell him as casually as one might mention purchasing new arrows?]
no subject
Having a complicated history only compounds that, he can imagine. Letting someone in is hard enough, but this is different. Unique. Her body language suggests to him that he's likely right. ]
When you're more confident in this form... It's worth considering. He's quite the schemer, and I'd wager he'd be eager to offer up an idea or three.
[ Collaboration is something he has come to enjoy only recently, having so seldom even communicated his plans to others in the past. That's the easy aspect of this, a softer lead-in, because the rest... Yuri isn't sure whether it's his place to say the rest, yet she may need to hear it. ]
I don't know him as well as you do. Whatever form you take, his feelings won't change, yeah?
[ If she has considered Claude might fancy some temporary form over her true one, Yuri doesn't believe she needs to fear it. Claude has never struck him as the sort, even from his distant vantage point. ]
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I am not worried about his feelings. But what if...
[She didn't think... he would stop loving her. But she turns her head. Her fingers clutch unconsciously at the layered robes she now wears, and her teeth, no longer sharp, bite into her bottom lip. It's stupid. She shouldn't say anything. She should just...]
... What if he thinks we work together better this way?
[He would never say it. She knows he never would. But what if he thought it? For even an instant? She had never pretended that being with her, in particular... that any human and jinba being together was easy. Of course it would be easier if they were both jinba, both human... But if she wouldn't blame him for having that sort of accidental thought, even a brief flicker of "oh, it's better like this"...
Why does she feel so afraid to show him?]
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A natural worry indeed.
But one Yuri doesn't think Hayame ought to torment herself with. He recalls distinctly Claude's manner with her, in the wake of the torture that demon had put her through. Good at masking as Yuri recognizes Claude to be, he thinks it was clear as they all spoke how deeply his care runs.
His first response is to gesture to the seating nearby. It may be easier for her if they sit. ]
...I don't think he'd see it that way. Not in the way you're thinking of it.
[ He takes the seat further from where she stands, that she won't have to move as much when she's uncomfortable not only in a different form but discussing something that isn't at all easy for her. ]
For something like cramming yourselves into a cramped space, possibly, but not...as a couple.
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But she isn't. Her expression is growing more cross, more frustrated...
And yet she has sat down on one of the chairs in the dressing room presumably used for those who would like their friends' advice while trying things on. To her credit, she manages not to wobble, though she does hold her spine a bit strangely, used to sitting more like a slouched canine in her centaur form than... on her rump straight up and down. Her response takes time... but eventually,]
... Not on purpose.
[She wouldn't be with him at all... if she ever thought of him as a man who would be dissatisfied being with someone different from him in general. If she ever had a hint of it... She would have been gone. But also... she never thought she would be in a situation where he might know how much easier it would be to be with her as a human, like actually know and feel and see...]
I do not intend to slander him...
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Hypotheticals aren't slander.
[ Yuri has no doubt that Claude has turned many a hypothetical about in his mind. He certainly has, about various things. About various people. Coming from a background such as his, it's often been a matter of survival. Hayame needn't think that he'll view her thoughts as a reflection on what she thinks of Claude.
Well, with one exception. It's clear that he's very dear to her, to worry so about his reaction to this form she now has access to. ]
Were I in a position similar to his, I'd think what matters is the individual, more so than their shape. He's never voiced dissatisfaction over being different, surely.
[ As best he understands it, the Claude of his timeline has dreams of unity between peoples who view one another as entirely different. So he'd heard, back in the brief time they'd all been at the academy.
In their world, those differences are in culture and appearance rather than build, but a man with such aspirations often has personal reasons behind them. That must hold true with this Claude too.
And someone like that, he thinks, would not be so easily swayed. Nor would a sharp-eyed bowman fail to see Hayame is most comfortable in her own skin. That'd matter more than any small convenience. ]
no subject
Hayame clears her throat awkwardly, her cheeks flushing a more obvious, heated red. She cannot meet Yuri's eyes.]
Not... not a lasting dissatisfaction...
[She had assured him, hadn't she? About... that particular issue? It wasn't... a problem anymore, but-
But that wasn't the point! The point was... She definitely had to say something else, quick, less they both ended up lingering on what her words could possibly mean. And the point... it was far more sobering than a bit of insecurity disguised as a joke about the difference in human and jinba manhoods...]
But it. It would be only natural.
[To... have those sorts of accidental thoughts. Even if he did not voice them, and even if he even felt bad after having them...]
If I were human to think... "Oh, this height is better" or... "Now sharing a bed is easier"... or "This way we don't have to go to the market as much"...
[... Ah. Even if she did.]
no subject
It's natural to compare. You do it even when people are very similar.
[ Yuri has done so himself and been the subject of such comparisons, so he can speak from experience there. He has little by way of experience with genuine feelings for others, but this much he can speak to. When he was busy tolerating one noble or another's attentions, it passed the time to think on such things.
It's not at all the same, but it doesn't need to be, because— ]
But what if he concludes that he likes you best in your true form?
[ Has Hayame considered that possibility? Who she is and how she is are what Claude fell for. Does it strike her as so impossible that a man who boldly boops her nose may prefer her just the way she is? ]
no subject
I'm not doubting that.
[She didn't know about "best", but she knew... She knew he loved her the way she was. That's why this felt so petty and small of her to even think in the first place, and yet...]
... But he'll still know. Even if he'd still choose me like I am... Once he's seen me that way he'll know how it could have been.
[If things were different. If he had just fallen in love with someone else.]
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Even so, this dread is there. This fear that presses down on her so heavily. It may be better to approach it from another angle. ]
Now, I only knew the Claude of my world at a distance. But I hear things. I make it my business to — information's a precious commodity, after all. And I can't help thinking that because of who you are and what you've been through, you can relate in ways others can't.
[ Yuri has been looked down upon, used, objectified. Not because he's different, save his androgynous beauty, but because he was poor. Being treated a certain way for being another race is something he's seen and heard from his people, from those of Duscur who went out on a limb to fight for a young king who strives to mend those wounds, but he hasn't been through it.
He and Hayame relate in certain ways, and surely she and Claude relate in others. Had she been born human, her experiences would be different, without question. Would he rather she had never suffered? Of course. But her resilience and desire to fight injustice are at least partly owed to what she has survived. ]
It's a complicated bit of business, but even if some aspects of life would be more convenient for you in this shape... Would you rather you were this way?
no subject
But what he says after that, about... relating. It makes her one remaining (no, one exposed) eye dart away again. Makes her remember... that day, months and months ago now, when Claude had talked his way into her stall where she had curled in the aftermath of Meridian's loss in the Iconoclast Oracle trial, bitter and pained by the sensations that had swept through their faction. The one when he had talked about... being fellow outsiders.
Who could relate in ways that others could not.
She both does and does not have to think about his question. Would she rather she were human? If she was, her life would be completely different. It would have been completely different... and she could not even imagine who that woman would be now. But if she could make the choice now?]
- It isn't a question of "rather".
[Because even if she thought "yes"... the bracelet was only temporary. She could not exist as a human, not really. She would only have approximately half a day before the spell would unravel, and then need to be recharged before she uses it again. So it couldn't... it couldn't even-]
But... There are no jinba in your world, are they?
[- Not just in Almyra. Anywhere.]
no subject
[ And maybe they truly are that, actually. Their ties to the goddess are long established, and whatever one may say of Sothis, they know that she did indeed create the people of Fódlan. If those dragons are her children as well, it's not terribly difficult to fathom, bearing that in mind.
Their world is so very small in certain ways, and more may well lie beyond what appears on their maps and charts. ]
I can't say that there are none. Only that we don't know. Most of our people aren't literate, so word wouldn't spread all that well even if someone like you were encountered in some far-flung place.
[ But when she asks it that way... He mulls it over further, weighing the concern with a hum. Being different, being new, makes anyone anxious, even when it's for the smallest of traits. ]
Regardless, being as you are isn't a demerit.
omg comes to wrap this a million years later im sorry
That if she were so selfish, and so naive, as to believe she could stay with him... to believe that she might somehow be able to make a life with him, live in his world with him... That being as she was would be a demerit. Not for her, per se, because she... She had grown up property as a race that was considered lesser and inhuman, so she was more than used to weathering insults and bearing disdain. But for Claude, no, for Khalid, who was a king, who would need his people to accept him and listen to him and not think he was some sort of... some sort of pervert, or degenerate, or... or something, somehow above marrying one of his own people, a human at all...
No.
She cannot say it.
Instead... instead, she lowers her halved gaze, and after a moment, her cheeks still ruddy despite her intent to banish it... She stands abruptly. Wobbles- but stands.]
... Come, Yuri. We have tarried here far too long, when there is practicing to be doing.
[She must focus on what is far more pressing.
Making this form a boon instead of a bane.]