victory_road | Arrival; [Video]

The gear's feed flickers in to a rather disheveled looking redhead that clearly doesn't want to be doing this. Because goddess and all the saints, he does not want to be doing this. Asking for help is already a task. Asking for help within a brand new world he cannot even begin to comprehend? Nightmare scenario. He's clearly lost and disoriented, and there's music and a fire pony following him around. Really, the only good thing is the fire pony- ponyta- whatever.

"Okay, don't know what this is, where this is going, or who's on the other end, but I can read instructions well enough to get to this point. Hi, Sylvain here, no clue where I am besides a very unhelpful 'New Bark Town' sign a few paces back, and I found a horse on fire. A baby horse, err, or maybe a pony. So... help? Maybe? I'm not even sure what I'm asking here."

And the apparent cause of how much of a mess his red locks are becomes obvious as he sweeps a hand through it again like a nervous tick. Behind him, the camera is panned just enough for a ponyta to be seen running obviously bored laps back and forth. They're pretty clearly at the edge of town, the buildings of New Bark still somewhat visible. Sylvain didn't make it very far...

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"I'm always gentle with Annette," he promises. For him, anyway, he is. A few compliments doesn't hurt anybody, right? He also doesn't seem to be worried about apparent jealousy either. Sylvain's been aware of the way Felix seems to be kinder and more patient with Annette. Maybe there's even a little crushing going on. He hasn't ever nettled the exact answer out of Felix, but he has gotten amusing and annoyed retorts to it. Equally entertaining for the redhead.

"Heh, is that so? I'd imagine he was. Did you at least get the adoration of some beautiful girls out of it?"

"I know you are," Claude says with a chuckle. It's not like Claude himself doesn't have a vested interest in Annette, and he'd definitely kept a weather eye on Sylvain around her - but Sylvain had treated her more like a little sister than a romantic interest, even from Claude's limited observations. It had been gratifying to see.

"Adoration, hell." Claude laughs. "They stalked us. Shrieks of delight when they saw us. It was less enjoyable than you'd think, though - a lot of them were about the same ages we were at the academy." He pauses, then grins. "Well, that some of us were at the academy, old man. The point is, they skewed pretty young."

Actually...he's not sure how much age might dissuade Sylvain. He'd been several years older than some of the girls he'd dated at the academy, given that Sylvain had been several years older than most of them at the academy...and, between Claude's tastes never running much towards women of any age, and Faerghus having some pretty strange customs, Claude's really not sure where the line of acceptability is for Sylvain, or for men of Faerghus in general. It hasn't exactly come up much with most of the men of Faerghus he knows.

There's few boundaries Sylvain isn't willing to cross, unfortunately. He doesn't ultimately seem dissuaded by the age comment, but doesn't jump at it either. Considering his own personal experiences, Sylvain has a terrible perspective on the whole thing.

"Can't be helped. If a pretty girl wants you, she wants you." He says it with a flippant sort of half-shrug as if that's merely the day-to-day sort of thing. Which, to be fair, it kind of was for him for awhile.

"Younger me might have actually loved that." 'Loved' being code for despised, and lashing out about it in an emotionally manipulative way. But hey, he didn't say it out loud at least.

"Well, they didn't exactly want us in any case," Claude says, with an enigmatic smile and a shrug of his own. "They wanted the people they kept mistaking us for. And I can't see a Sylvain of any age feeling great about anyone wanting him for anything other than himself."

Ah, he's betraying perhaps too much familiarity with Sylvain's issues here. But then again, not only would it be dishonest to pretend Sylvain is pulling the wool over his eyes with a comment like that, it'd be unflattering. Claude is rarely willing to pretend to be - or be perceived as - less intelligent than he actually is unless it's for an exceptionally good reason. He especially doesn't like the thought of Sylvain thinking Claude is less astute than he actually is. Sylvain's opinion of him matters more than most.

Sylvain feels the tightness in his shoulders just in time to stop himself from freezing up. Ah- hm. That's an interesting thing for someone to say about him. But from Claude, it's telling.

It's not that he's ever had any pretense about fooling somebody like Claude. Or that he's even committed to trying. He simply exists around him as he would, and unlike most people, Claude sees through it. Sylvain's figured it wouldn't be hard to sniff him out if anyone ever bothered to try, but sometimes it still does catch him off-guard when it happens.

There's nothing that hints at anything wrong when he smirks to such a comment. Because there isn't, really. He doesn't think Claude would ever do something malicious with such perception.

"I guess you're not wrong. What I should say instead is younger me would have played it off better. Guess I'm getting rusty in my, as you said, old age." And he winks for good measure.

"I wouldn't say that." Claude smiles at him, and there's a touch of something more genuine in it than they usually tend to allow between them. They both like to keep things superficial, carefully arms-length, nice and removed from any vulnerability or possibility of getting hurt. (Or, rather, it would be more accurate to say that they both liked that back before they'd developed a deeper relationship, and that's the status quo Claude needs to re-adjust to here with a Sylvain that doesn't remember anything different.) But there's a more open warmth there now.

"Rather, I'd say that in your old age you've gotten a little more honest about what you actually like and what you don't. Which isn't a bad thing, in my opinion. Besides, after everything we've all gone through during the war, it's a lot harder to brush off extra unpleasantness, right? Anybody's tolerance would be at a low ebb."

Arrival; [Video]

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