Well... I've made it my business. You know me, [ Claude says, offering Marianne a flash of a grin. ] None of us are able to be judge, jury and executioner, though. I've been trying to confer with local governance so that we can bring the evidence to them and make judgments based off of their own customs, but it's been slow going. [ He dismisses it with a flap of his hand. ] It's just more politics. I won't bore you with it.

[ Not that he doesn't appreciate Marianne's own perspective, but she also knows his politicking well enough to interpret it correctly; it's only boring because he hasn't actually gotten anywhere with it. ]

What you're doing is arguably more important. More action, less talk! [ His eyes soften. ] Are they doing okay now? I didn't stick around for the fight for too long, but it was worse than any Demonic Beast I've ever seen.

Haah...

[ She's not taking the bait, is she? Claude's smile turns a little wistful. This is a serious conversation. There's no other way to cut it. There's no way that he'll be able to just joke and charm and connive his way out of this one, because there's no way to paint the truth that isn't completely damning. Even if he were in a position like Cyril's, it would be easier; he would be a victim of the conflict between their nations, not directly related to the very perpetrators of it.

He laces his fingers together and forces himself to look her in the eye. If he's going to do this, he may as well do this, right? Worst case scenario, he loses her friendship. It would sting, but he'll survive. ]

Here we go, then. Maybe you've put some of this together already, after what you overheard in that maze. But I wasn't born in Fodlan. In fact, I only came to Fodlan for the first time just a few months before we all met at the Academy.

[ His only saving grace was, he thought, the fact that they were all a bunch of teenagers and were more consumed with their own lives than inspecting others too closely. He wonders how many slip-ups he got away with; ignorance of Fodlan's history, of its religion, of customs and manners and turns of phrase that he couldn't have possibly learned from his mother alone. ]

I was born in Almyra. I am Almyran.

[ He can't read her expression.

For much of his life, he's survived based on his ability to read others and to shift accordingly, to be what they want him to be, or need him to be, or to make the concerted effort to be everything but. It's always a little unsettling to him when he has no view into what the other person is thinking. It would do him little good here anyway; he's already made up his mind to be honest for this conversation, and trying to say only what would placate Marianne most certainly wouldn't be that. (What would that even be? I'm not like the rest of them, maybe. I'm still from Fodlan. I'm still more like you than I am like them.) ]

In Almyra, they think about as highly of people from Fodlan as Fodlan thinks of Almyrans. But unlike in the Leicester Alliance, in Almyra, the circumstance of my birth is public knowledge. The situation wasn't ideal.

[ He had come to Fodlan for a reason, head full of ideals, heart full of hope, but that wasn't the only reason. If it was, he wouldn't have crept away in the dead of night like he had, ill-prepared and with nary a word. He had left, in part, because staying there even one more day had felt intolerable. ]

So I wanted to see Fodlan for myself. To meet its people, to understand its culture, so that maybe by experiencing both sides, I would be better equipped to find a way to end this conflict between us. [ He shrugs, a little uncomfortable. He feels foolish now, for having expected Fodlan to be any different in its treatment of outsiders, for having thought he could have just spent a quiet couple years at school and slip back home. ] I wasn't expecting to stay for long, but once war was declared and Grandfather died... they're my people too. I couldn't just leave.

[ He will. Once the war is either over, or proves itself to be an unwinnable battle. But not a moment sooner.]

[ Claude hadn't expected Marianne to be cruel upon hearing about this. He hadn't expected her to be bigoted either; he knows her well enough to know that her reaction will be far beyond the snide, taunting voices he's so familiar with, that any betrayal and despair she'd feel would be due to his own deceit, or due to the long, violent conflict between their nations. It's worse in the Alliance than it is anywhere else. How could it not be? His classmates have spent their whole lives sending their men to fight at the border. Some, like Hilda, even saw their own family doing the same. But Marianne has always been civil to Cyril in a way that others weren't always, so he'd at least had some idea as to what to expect.

Perhaps he should have expected her turn towards compassion instead, but he didn't. For a moment he just blinks at her, astonished by that immediate takeaway. His immediate instinct is to swat it off, deflect with a smile, do you really think something like that could really bother me? They're not totally wrong, you know!

He bites it back. ]

That's right. Even though I was raised in Almyra, I belong to Fódlan as much as I belong to Almyra... or maybe I should say, they belong to me.

[ He doesn't belong. He's not sure if he would even if he was as full-blooded as the next person. It may be some part of his own character just as much as it's his upbringing and bloodline. ]

It doesn't get to me so much anymore, you know. More than anything else, it just stokes the fires of my motivation to change it. If everyone could just open their minds, I know things could be better.

[ He hesitates. There's one last thing. They're all-in now. This, of all things, is probably the greatest deception of all, a royal dipping his fingers into two separate plums. ]

And I'm in the position to change it, you see. I'm not just half Almyran. [ He clears his throat. ] I'm technically the Almyran prince. An Almyran prince. The youngest of many. [ He winces, hearing how trepidacious his own voice sounds in his throat, filled with strained jollity. ] My mother has never done anything by half-measures.

[ Claude lets out a slow breath. To his credit, it barely trembles. Just a little, at the end, hands itching, eyes wandering. Despite Marianne's seemingly easy acceptance, it's hard for him not to feel as though he's made some sort of grievous error. He's spent so many years keeping this secret -- he didn't know he was still capable of telling the truth. He'd spent so long terrified at the very prospect. What would Lorenz have done? Cast him out, seized the Alliance for his own? What would Hilda have done, upon realizing it was Claude's people who thrust her people, her brother, into life-threatening peril again and again? What would meek, devout Ignatz have done, knowing how distant Claude was to the goddess he worshipped? What would Lysithea have done, realizing that her already unsteady territory, her already strained parents, were following an outsider into the unknown?

Perhaps if he were to tell anyone first, it would have always been Marianne. Or perhaps it's because she's the only one here. He has no true answer to that. In his heart, he knows that there's as equal a likelihood that he would take this secret to his grave. For now, he's glad he didn't, even if he wasn't expecting Marianne's kind answer. ]

I appreciate your discretion. And your faith in me. Truly, that's all I want. Peace between our people -- more than just peace, but cooperation, a way for us to join hands and make the world better for both of us. There's so much we could learn from each other, if only we let go of these old conflicts we've carried on for far too long. But it's not something I can focus on until the war is won.

[ It's daunting to consider that if he has his way, winning the war won't be his greatest effort. It's just the first step in what he knows will be a lifelong journey. With his piece said, though, he hesitates, then speaks again. ]

Does it not... worry you? To have an Almyran at the head of your governance? I don't think most people would react the way you just did.