wayfarer.

𝘴𝘦𝘪𝘻𝘦⠀ 𝘵𝘩𝘦⠀ 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵⠀; ⠀𝘴𝘦𝘪𝘻𝘦⠀ 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳⠀ 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘦

[slyshot]

⊰ ⠀•   inexalt‌

            ‘‘   can  you  stand?   ’’ 

            ‘‘   oh,  i’m  fine,   ’’   hilda  huffs  breathlessly,  but  there’s  a  pained  wince  that  contorts  her  face  for  a  moment  as  she  tests  her  bearings  on  her  right  ankle,  her  weight  steadied  by  byleth's  hand.   ‘‘   i  landed  funny.  it  feels  a  little  tender,  but  i  think  i  can  walk.   ’’

            ‘‘   let  me  help  you  back.   ’’   the  battlefield  was  a  treacherous,  churning  pitfall  of  splintered  wood  and  turned-up  mud,  littered  with  weapons  and  buildings  and  bodies,  but  just  as  hilda  opens  her  mouth  to  respond  there  is  a  heavy,  uneven  flapping  of  wings,  and  a  familiar  voice  ringing  across  the  field  that  makes  both  their  heads  turn.  byleth  feels  something  phantom  lance  through  her  chest.

            i  could  have  been  faster.  byleth’s  gaze  meets  claude’s  halfway.  he  always  hid  his  concern  well,  but  she  feels  it  anyway,  like  a  chill  on  the  back  of  her  neck,  and  there  were  no  healers  in  sight.  more  likely  than  not  they  were  already  preoccupied  with  the  wounded.  i  did  as  much  as  i  could.

            ‘‘   you  go  on,  byleth.   ’’   leonie’s  voice  pipes  up  from  her  other  side.  it  takes  byleth  a  moment  to  realize  she  had  approached,  and  is  easing  hilda’s  weight  off  her  hands,  taking  it  onto  her  own  shoulders.   ‘‘   i’ll  help  hilda  back  so  she  can  get  that  ankle  looked  at.  claude  sounds  like  he  needs  you.   ’’

            hilda  tries  a  wobbly  smile.  leonie’s  brow  is  furrowed,  and  the  collar  of  her  shirt  is  stained  with  blood,  but  she  seems  otherwise  unharmed.  byleth  stiffly  nods  her  assent.   ‘‘   you  two  be  careful,   ’’   she  says,  backing  a  step  towards  claude.   ‘‘   if  anything  goes  south,  come  find  us.   ’’

            she  spares  a  moment  to  watch  them  go,  and  then  turns  her  focus  where  its  needed:  as  she  trots  over  to  claude’s  side,  she  can  hear  him  gently  murmuring  placating  words  to  the  wounded  beast  in  front  of  him.  byleth  drops  to  her  knees,  and  as  she  does  the  wyvern  chuffs,  shielding  the  wound  away  with  her  wing  and  regarding  byleth  with  one  looming,  narrow  eye.  

            ‘‘   …if  you  can  get  her  to  let  me  near  the  wound,  i  can  stop  the  bleeding.  it’ll  at  least  be  enough  until  we  find  someone  to  heal  her  properly.   ’’   she  feels  tense,  just  a  measure  unsure:  she  had  never  been  in  a  position  where  her  precarious  relationship  with  animals  might  be  relied  upon.  byleth  looks  to  claude,  her  eyes  instinctively  searching  for  sign  of  weakness,  but  she  already  knows  he  is  fine  ─   alive,  if  not  unwounded.  she’d  made  sure  of  it.

            ‘‘   i’m  glad  everyone  is  safe,   ’’   byleth  murmurs,  peeling  off  her  own  gloves  and  laying  them  in  her  lap.  she  reaches  a  tentative  hand  for  the  wyvern’s  snout  where  claude’s  hands  rest,  hoping  to  offer  her  a  comforting  scent,  but  the  beast  flinches  back.  ‘‘   i  wont  let  anything  happen  to  her  either,  claude…  but  you  may  have  to  lend  me  a  hand.  i  guess  we’ve  never  been  properly  introduced.   ’’

              Byleth’s presence beside him was enough for a shaky exhale to slip out between Claude’s lips. The battle was bloody, bloodier than he could have anticipated. His scouts reported that all they had spotted was a skirmishing party, a cursory advance group with intentions to slip in and discreetly get a foothold in this village. What came to meet the Golden Deer with sunrise was a battle-hardened detachment of war and flames.

              Claude met Byleth’s gaze (it was always searching-- when Claude looked into her eyes, he found comfort and stability, but there was a sense of something strange. Something ethereal that he just couldn’t grasp, it kept him up at night), and he smiled.

                      I could have planned for this.

                ( somewhere high above him, where the cosmos strummed the strings of fate, Claude would never know how his sentiments echoed her own. )

              “Yeah, everyone’s okay, thanks to you teach. If you hadn’t called out the flank from the riverbank, I don’t know what we would’ve done.” Claude wiped his brow again, further smearing that dark streak of soot across half of his face as it mixed with the beads of sweat which slid down his temple. At his wyvern’s reactions to Byleth, Claude couldn’t stop a small frown from tugging at the corners of his mouth.

              “Must just be because of the wound,” He said softly, “Sahar is usually pretty nice. Just the other day she gave Hilda a nice big kiss on the cheek.” Claude slid his right hand beneath the wyvern’s neck and cradled her head in the nook of his arm, and he gently rubbed her neck with his left hand. He lowered his face down to press his cheek against Sahar’s, and then Claude began to hum. After a minute or so, Sahar’s defensive movements calmed down, and her wing shifted to reveal the open wound as she relaxed.

              Claude blinked, and he looked up towards Byleth, still keeping his cheek down and pressed comfortingly against the wounded beast’s snout.

              “She’s okay now, teach. You can go ahead.” Slowly, Claude’s eyes shut for a handful of breaths. A tired sigh followed. After spending some time humming and murmuring reassuringly to Sahar, one of Claude’s eyes will crack open and a tired but familiar half-grin will creep its way across his features.

              “Don’t go and disappear for five years again, okay? You’re getting slow out there, another five-year vacation and you won’t be any competition for me at all.”

[slyshot]

⊰ headcanon : coping with a smile  ii. 

               Claude experiences intense spells of anxiety, stress, exhaustion, and depression. As is the nature of these states of mind, one often leads into the other. 

              Especially pre-time skip, he can have some extreme trouble falling asleep at night. A mind like Claude’s is hard to shut off, and when it’s on a train of thought that’s good or bad, it’s near impossible to derail and shut off. Anxiety comes to him when he feels like he’s wasting time, wasting resources, wasting every passing minute not working towards his dreams. 

              When he’s anxious he can’t sleep, so he stays up writing, reading, working on hypothetical problems and hypothetical answers to those problems in debates, plans, or schemes of the sort. 

              A perpetual level of stress is buried beneath Claude’s skin, as I mentioned the burdens that he’s been carrying from a very young age. He’s endured this hardships in his life, he’s been given these tools for changing the continent, he has to use them, he has to make sure that he’s not going to waste these opportunities. 

              Exhaustion trickles in and by the time his body simply gives out from weariness, it’s near sunrise and he makes himself get out of bed or stand up from his slumped position at his desk to join his house on their activities for the day. He has to keep up appearances, he has to or else all the work he’s put in will fold and crumble on itself. 

              A tired, stressed, and anxious mind brings up memories of events that Claude wishes to forget. Years of insults, getting beat up and left in the dirt, attempts on his life, scrutinizing eyes and backhanded remarks, all of them are glimpses of raw pain and sadness that he’s locked in a box in the back of his mind. No matter how hard he tries to keep his mind focused on the present and the future, there are moments where an immeasurable sadness completely consumes him.

              In those moments, he feels like he’s drowning. Claude will lock himself in his room, away from the eyes friends of his friends and instructors, and as softly and quietly as he can, he will simply cry.

[slyshot]

⊰ headcanon : coping with a smile  i. 

               While I very much enjoy the charming and joking personality that Claude puts on, I do think that the underlying reason behind that face that he can wear comes from a history of painful trauma. 

              Dimitri and Edelgard both had to endure some pretty traumatic and life-changing things from an early age, but I feel that Claude’s pain is overlooked since it’s a bit of a different type of trauma that he’s had to endure. Not saying that there’s tiers to suffering, but coping with a hard childhood manifests itself in more ways than one, and Claude’s method of coping displays itself in a very specific way. 

              Claude is very much so a “Wrap your negative emotions up, put them in a box, deal with them later” type of person. 

              He was born with a burden of responsibility, being the mixed blood son of the King of Almyra, and when he ran away to the Alliance, another responsibility was placed upon his shoulders when he was named the Riegan Heir. Upon that, the burden of his own goals for the future make a weight that’s near crushing. With these weights, Claude doesn’t feel like he has enough time to dwell on emotions he’s feeling that would only serve as a “detriment” in his eyes to address, he doesn’t have time to even let himself be SAD about the things he had to endure as a child. His past is the reason for his actions in the future, but Claude feels as though that any time spent not actively forging alliances, relationships, and friendships that will benefit his goals for the future, is time wasted. 

              Claude’s learned, painfully, that given the blood that flows through his veins and the tone of his skin that some people are immediately set on edge. He’s learned that a smile, a joke or two, all work towards easing a person’s tension and making him seem more disarming. 

              Claude still is naturally a charismatic person. Just, over the years growing up, he’s been forced to develop this constant face that he displays outwardly and strongly towards most everyone that he meets as a result of his past.

[marmastry]

This crit quote? SPICY

[slyshot]

❝what an embarrassing display... sorry to involve you, i really let my mouth run off this time.❞ dorothea sighs as they part from seteth's office. two other students, both their senior, leave the room next with their shoulders raked up like cats trying to appear twice their size, audibly hissing about a whore's mouth tainted by barbarian cock. ❝—and i'll continue to use it, shouting about racists who can't grasp a 'barbarian' reading more books than them and their ages combined!❞

                A small, half-smile lingered on Claude’s lips as he and Dorothea exited Seteth’s office. In truth, he had a smile on his face ever since he was also called in for the lecturing, though it went from an initial one of incredulousness to a simple, knowing, and all together bemused half-grin. 

               Seteth himself seemed like he wasn’t enjoying this lecture like he usually tended to. When it was a matter of faith, slacking on studies, or shirking responsibilities, Seteth made sure to make every minute inside his office count. On this matter, though, he seemed more genuinely upset. Regardless, Claude walked in stride with Dorothea, and he let out a small laugh at Dorothea’s finishing remark. 

               “Seteth might just call us back in if he hears you and those two still going out here,” Claude met the gazes of the two students who had incited the conflict, and he simply winked. The gesture only seemed to irritate them further, and the two of them turned the corner of headed down another hall. 

               Claude paused a safe distance down the hallway, out of earshot of Seteth’s office and he met Dorothea’s gaze. She was certainly passionate, open-minded too, the way she talked and carried herself among nobles and the other students reminded him of himself. The grin on his face went from sly to genuine, and he slid one of his hands into his pocket and raised the other to rest over his chest. 

               “I appreciate it, Dorothea, but you I don’t want you getting into trouble on my behalf. I’ve seen and heard people like those two students my whole life. Fighting them head-to-head can only get you so far.” A soft sight left his lips, and he turned his head to the side and stared down the hallway. 

              “I’ve got plans though, big ones. Change is on the horizon, like the sun rising each day, it’s only getting closer,” His eyes came back to hers, “And today showed that you’re a part of that change. So, my new confidant, want to go get some lunch?”

[slyshot]

hollow victory / hey @inexalt          

                      Victory felt like it was the identical twin of defeat. With each passing day of this war, battles won looked nearly the same as battles lost. Blood, ash, flames, crumbled buildings and spatterings of gore, it was hard to look upon a battlefield with these as constants and feel like the victor. 

                       Claude stood on the remnants of a collapsed shed and looked over the shambles that once was this village’s market square. Corpses of Empire soldiers littered the ground, among them were also the bodies of church soldiers and those bearing the insignia of the Lecicester Alliance. So many lives lost, so many candles extinguished. Claude tilted his chin up and he looked towards the sky, the sun’s halo could be seen faintly behind the thick clouds, trails of light still managed to slip through the cover and touch his skin. It was all for something, the lives lost on both sides weren’t in vain. 

                      He saw Ignatz and Raphael emerge from between a pair of houses, draped across their shoulders was a wounded Alliance soldier. Claude took a step forward with the intention of going to help them, but the sound of hurried, and uneven flapping overhead caught his attention. A large shadow cast down over him, and his Wyvern ungracefully descended and fell the last couple of feet with a loud thud. It curled up in a patch of grass a bit away from the village square, in one of the few parts of the battlefield that wasn’t composed of scorched earth. 

                      Claude hurried to his Wyvern’s side. He dropped his bow to the ground and slid to his knees by its head. At Claude’s touch, the Wyvern let out a pained exhale through its snout, and it rose one of its wings to reveal a gruesome looking wound that was bleeding considerably on its flank. 

                      “Hey, hey girl, you’re alright,” Reassuring words, more for himself than the Wyvern. He slipped his gloves off and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. A long smear of soot now stretched down his temple. Gently, Claude petted her head as he raised his head and looked around. 

                      He couldn’t remember where he last saw Marianne. Or Flayn for that matter. Claude looked left, then right, and there he saw Byleth helping Hilda to her feet. 

                      “Hey, Teach!” Claude called, “I could use a hand!”

[slyshot]

⊰ headcanon : sideburns galore

               A smaller, less serious headcanon but an IMPORTANT ONE NONETHELESS!

              After the time-skip, Claude is rocking some seriously sharp sideburns. If you ask him, he will say simply that he likes the look, and it suits him very well. Claude tries to trim and keep his facial hair looking sharp, never patchy. 

              He’ll say the sideburns are a stylistic choice, one that nobles and commoners alike are too afraid to rock and pull off as well as he does. But, deep down, he knows that he simply just cannot grow a full beard. 

              It’s one of his secrets... One of those so painful, heart-wrenching desires, that he just can’t grasp. 

[slyshot]

⊰ headcanon : growing pains

               Claude didn’t have an easy childhood. Maybe the understatement of the year. One would expect the first and only son of the King of Almyra to be respected, even celebrated that the line of succession has hope for the future. The harsh reality was anything but. 

              A majority of Almyrans viewed the people of Fódlan as weak-willed, spineless, and even cowards. The numerous and continuous conflicts along Fódlan’s eastern border only further fueled the general cultural resentment. For the son of the king to be born with half the blood in his veins being that from Fódlan, it felt like the state of Claude was an even greater shame than to be full-blooded from that nation. To carry the burden of somehow, someway, in the future, having to lead a nation where a large portion of the people despised your blood from the moment you were born, it could’ve been enough to crush even the most strong-willed of folk. 

              Claude’s parents did love him dearly, and he loved them. Both the Duchess Riegan and the King of Almyra would have been aware of the state that their son would be born into. And it was for just that reason that they didn’t try to shield Claude from the hardships that would come. 

              As he said in his support with Byleth, his parents told him from a young age that he wouldn’t be able to grow stronger if he didn’t learn to fight his own battles. Whether or not that was the right thing to subject your child to is up for debate, but it exposed Claude to a lot of things from an early age, that would inevitably fuel his future, world-changing goals. 

              In learning to fight his own battles, Claude endured the harsh realities of racism, abuse, both verbal and physical, and even assassination attempts on his life while he grew up in Almyra. These events, all stemming from constructed barriers of discrimination from factors that a person couldn’t even control, he knew from a young age that they had to be torn down. Each bruise and cut, each narrow brush with death, and each time he was shouted at and insulted, it was fuel for his future plans, it was what forced him to keep his mind sharp. 

              While the growing pains that Claude endured in Almyra were much more upfront, clear and aggressive, when he ran away from Almyra and crossed into his mother’s homeland, he experienced discrimination still, but in a much different way. 

              Back-handed compliments, snide remarks, and the simply way that people would look in his direction were weighted enough for Claude to know that he couldn’t simply run away from all the years of pain that he endured. Whether it be his blood, or his skin color, as long as these barriers and pre-dispositions existed in people’s minds, generations upon generations would continue to endure the same hardships that he did. 

              Change had to be big, it had to come and really shake things up. He knew he had to bring that change.

[slyshot]

"What were you thinking, Claude?" Ingrid lands as the crowd begins to thin, the curves of her frown complemented by the windswept strands of her hair. "Trying something like that on Caspar?" Her hands sit on her hips for a second before she reaches into her pouch for something, an old clay pot. "If you want to prove something, do it with a moving target. In the air. It'll be better for all of us - you can't put a vase in the infirmary, anyways."

              There was a collective gasp from those gathered around in the training area. Those cheers that had steadily grown in volume as claude nocked his arrow, and slowly pulled the bowstring back, made an ever-growing smile grow across claude’s lips. 

              It was always so serious out here, the students trained like they had a thundercloud hanging above their heads every day. Why not lighten things up a bit? Break the mold, do something out of the ordinary.

              Claude’s teeth flashed in his trademark can-be-doing-no-good smile. His eyes met Caspar’s, who was standing just about thirty or so feet away from him, and Caspar flashed a smile back that seemed to be even wider than Claude’s.

              Caspar, the arrow-catcher. Eh, that doesn’t sound too great, they can work on a nickname for afterwards.

              Claude narrowed his eyes, aimed at the wooden target just an inch or so beneath Caspar’s hand, and he let it go. There was a whistle in the wind as the arrow traveled through the air, then a resounding thud. a handful of seconds passed in complete silence, before blood began to blossom out of the back of Caspar’s hand. Caspar was helped and led away, Claude received the stink-eye from a number of students, and he very quickly began to backpedal away.

                And I just thought of a better name. Caspar quick-hands. 

              That was before he heard the loud snort of a wyvren exhaling through their nostrils, and an irritated Ingrid approaching him.

              “ It’s really not what it looks like , ” Claude said as he shouldered his bow and raised both his hands up before him. He tried to skirt around past Ingrid, but her wyvren seemed to be watching his every move.

              “ It may be hard to believe but – ” Claude paused a breath, “ Well maybe not that hard to believe , but Caspar wanted to try and catch my arrow . I would’ve been a bad sport if I didn’t let him try . ”

               Claude eyed the pot in her hands and he gave Ingrid a sheepish smile, “ we can break some pots another day . I feel like if I try and shoot anything else today Jeritza will attack me . ” Claude leapt over the wyvren’s tail, and began to jog off, “ oh and if you see any of the other instructors, don’t tell them i shot Caspar!”

[slyshot]

⊰ headcanon : combat training 

               Claude is, selective, in how he devotes his efforts in studies as a student of Garreg Mach. In some areas, he receives top marks, while in others it looks like he’s barely scraping by. With any given week or month, even those grades will fluctuate. One specific area of study and examination that suffers from Claude’s not-always-wholly devotion, is combat training. 

              Growing up in Almyra, and having the legendary Nader as your combat instructor from the moment he was old enough to walk, Claude is obviously incredibly proficient with his weapon of choice. Agility, quickness, and a sharp eye for execution was drilled into him as early as he can remember. Then, running away from Almyra and being embraced by his grandfather, the Duke Riegan, he was given even more instruction in combat and tactics but this time with a Leicester Alliance spin to it. 

              So, upon enrolling in the Officer’s Academy, Claude’s vision is set far beyond simply honing his skills with the bow. He heavily relies on the training he’s received in the past, as well as his natural talent to pass the physical and combat readiness exams that he’s required to take. Some days, it’s the bare minimum, other days, he can put on quite the show. 

              Much to the frustration of the instructors and sometimes the other students who he is sparring with, it’s obvious that he’s often holding back or simply not putting his all behind each spar. Training on some days is a chance for Claude to have his body in motion, find the rhythm in his movements, and then let his mind wander on loose plans for the future or solutions to problems that he’s facing or may face soon.

[wargains]

"so, caspar." the training grounds were almost always filled with students, and the steel ringing in the air showed that today was no exception. caspar was there, head bowed and fists pummeling a training dummy. claude approached from the side, wary of being caught by a wayward fist. "i've been hearing people talk, people have been saying you've got the fastest hands in garreg mach." claude slowly slipped an arrow from his quiver, a sly grin grew across his face. "think you can catch an arrow?"

    never let it be said that there will ever be a day that CASPAR VON BERGLIEZ will back down from a challenge! even ones that will have him risking life, limb and fingertips. ESPECIALLY ones that will have him risking life, limb and fingertips! his grin has got to be at least ten times the size of claude’s, and then he’s staring down at his palms. fastest hands in garreg mach, eh? far be it from him to let his adoring fans down! 

    “you’re ON!” caspar declares, slapping his hands together in an effort to wipe them of non-existent dirt. there’s probably a more optimal time to do this, perhaps when his knuckles aren’t red raw and screaming for him to nick dorothea’s moisturiser, or when his arms aren’t still reverberating from his strikes on near-solid wood and threatening to pack up and leave all together, but caspar doesn’t particularly care. he’s either going to catch that arrow, or he won’t. foresight doesn’t travel a step further than that. 

    caspar skips back a few steps, light on the balls of his feet and deciding that it’s a good thing he’s not wearing armour at present. after all, it would only weigh him down, and he’s going to need all of the agility he can muster if he wants to catch an arrow as fast as claude can shoot it. at the very least, he’s got never underestimate your opponent down pat. shame about the rest. 

    by this point, a few heads have turned to hear where the yells of “gimme whatcha got!” and “i’m ready for ya!” are coming from (apparently none more responsible than either caspar or claude, seeing as no-one steps in to intervene) and a small crowd gathers around the sides of the fifteen foot gap between them. caspar’s eyes are fixed on the arrow, but he can still see claude’s flashing grin from the corner of his eye. he’d wonder if distraction is the name of his game, but then a particularly plucky kid that caspar recognises as one of the stable boys calls out three! and then several other people are joining in. 

                 two! 

    caspar’s heart is thundering and his tongue juts out of his mouth, swiping the sweat from his upper lip. 

                             one! 

    the twang of claude’s bow slices through the tension and caspar throws his arm out almost hard enough to wrench the limb from its socket. at first, he grabs at nothing but air and feels a sinking disappointment in his chest, but as his fingers release their grip of nothingness he feels something hard strike his palm. his fingers snap back around it, and he’s yelling something unintelligible but definitely self-congratulatory before he realises that the bustle of the training yard has fallen to a deathly silence. it takes more than one look at his hand to realise that the head of the arrow is jutting out of the back of it, his wraps are stained a deep dark red, and it hurts like the fires of ailell. 

    “wow,” caspar utters under a shaky breath, shifting his hand outwards so that his blood doesn’t drip on his pants. his face is starting to grow a deathly shade of pale and his entire expression is strained, but he looks up at claude with a cheery grin nonetheless.

    “well hey, I CAUGHT IT!” 

[caspar vc] i can’t believe you’ve done this / unprompted / @slyshot

[slyshot]

tags!