[ 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
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.]