[ If it is true, that explains a lot in Claude's mind, in something he keeps to himself. It's also comforting in a double-edged sword kind of way to know that Edelgard's motivations were the same no matter the cause - that they would have still agreed on the things they shared that he'd only learned about through the course of the war. Of course, that also means his disagreement with her on what he couldn't overlook would have also stayed the same. Even that helps as much as it aches.

Claude fills the silence in with eating his own fruit while his mind is still turning everything over. Until Petra turns to face him, that is, and then he stops to study her as she asks a very important question. ]

I don't think you could ever be someone different to me, Petra.

[ That particular answer doesn't take long to find at all, with no need to mask it as anything other than what it is. It's possibly a little too honest if Claude stops to think about it, for what it might reveal which he doesn't intend to do in anything besides his usual deliberate ways. He doesn't feel like retroactively twisting it into anything else, though.

Or not entirely. ]

And by that I mean you could probably still outclimb me when it comes to any tree and same goes for archery, though we'll have to test out the latter sometime in person since the Horizon's taken care of proving the first one.

[ He's not forgotten his earlier slip in the branches on their way up to here even if his pride is no longer smarting from them. That's still winding his way around a point instead of outright saying what it is and Claude knows it, so he offers her a smile. ]

You're still the same person to me.