abraxas inbox + horizon contact

[godshattering]

ABRAXAS HORIZON INFO ART CREDIT CODING

action + prose (nsfw marked) / horizon / network

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[warfed]

[She's silent for a few moments as she considers his explanation, taking another bite of fruit and chewing it thoughtfully. There is a chance, he says, that they still might return— that anyone who had left this place could.]

Here long enough that they left their mark on people, if not the Horizon. Enough that someone thought to ask after them.

[That in itself is interesting, though she has to wonder what either of them might have chosen to build in the Horizon in the first place. There was also the question of timelines, which they have all come to learn can vary in any number of ways.]

I wonder... which version of Edelgard did these Summoned meet? The friend I remember, or the conqueror that others have spoken of? It is... difficult, for me to imagine her as the latter, but I think... I could understand how she could become that person, without her friends.

[godshattering]

Yes, there must have been some kind of impact. All I'd mentioned was Fodlan in passing and he placed it enough in his memory to mention both of them by name which means they must have... shared something about where we're from. That knowledge must not have left Thorne since no one I mentioned Fodlan to in the Free Cities after I arrived seemed familiar with it at all.

[ Not that he hadn't tried; there'd been a few too many instances of where he'd said the continent's name with a bit too much hope before letting that go. Until Petra and Sylvain had arrived too, that is, and then Felix and Hilda. For all his love of information, Claude isn't looking forward to telling the others about this though he knows that he has to.

Especially with that chance they could still return, and even as he watches Petra turn this over and over. The mention of a version startles him though it's an apt term; can Claude himself guarantee he's the same person in each timeline? It seems unlikely if what he knows as history did not happen for whatever those other versions of himself went through, and he can admit this as a truth.

He's silent for a long pause as he thinks. ]

The only thing I've ever been able to narrow down between what we all know is Teach. And that doesn't narrow down much at all given that you and Sylvain remember Teach differently than Hilda and I do, and I haven't asked Felix yet. There has to be a tie there somehow given that for you and Felix I give up the Alliance, but that didn't happen when... Teach was on my side, more or less.

[warfed]

[She nods slowly, considering. It's hard to think that any of them might change dramatically in any of these events; they are who they are, no matter what happens, or so she wants to believe, but what she hears of Edelgard from others, even in passing... it is not so much like the Edelgard she remembers. There are similarities, but perhaps it was the Professor's presence that managed to bring out the best in her? Perhaps that had allowed Edelgard to follow her path as closely as she could, without falling to desperation or having to make concessions in order to benefit from the aid of others.

It is impossible to know for sure without speaking to Edelgard herself. Even then, with events differing as they have, with their memories and experiences all being so varied... how can any of them ever know anything for certain?

She frowns again, taking another sizable bite of her fruit and chewing thoughtfully as she chooses her words, searches her feelings on the situation.]

I am thinking... there is much we cannot know for sure, but that whatever happens, or may have happened, we are all still ourselves. I am thinking that must be true for Edelgard, as well. All that is changing are the circumstances, but our hearts— those are not so easily changed.

[That much, she believes with certainty, and she looks at him squarely.]

Even though I remained with the Empire, I am still being the same Petra you remember from the academy, yes?

[godshattering]

[ 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.