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[ Of all the things, he hadn’t expected elezen to exist in the stories of another world. Granted, he hadn’t expected anything of his own world to exist in the stories of another, so it may as well be something so seemingly random. ]

Do they? What are they called?

Elves.

[Phoentically close, which is interesting.]

Not too far off the mark, actually.

Huh. That is kind of close.

[ That's super weird actually, to think that his best friend is a fantasy story. ]

None of the others ring a bell, though?

Not at all. But maybe if you describe them to me, I may recognize a parallel?

[That's the interesting part about these other worlds and alternate universes -- the similarities shared between them were almost as baffling as the differences.]

[ Arenvald is no bard, but he tries his best to describe each of the races in turn, from the diminutive lalafell to the hulking roegadyn, and the ones in between, the feline-featured miqo’te and the au ra, with their horns and scales and lizard-like tails.

It’s so strange to have to explain things that, to him, are as normal as breathing, but more and more he has realized that every world varies, sometimes drastically. Hydaelyn seems to vary more than most. If Connor has a desire to learn about it, then he’ll indulge him as best he can. ]

So, anything else seem familiar?

[Fantastical sounding, all of it. Truly like something out of a movie or a novel, and while Connor doesn’t know of a species to label any of them specifically, it all still seems like it would slot nicely into the fantasy genre, alongside elves.

He shakes his head.]

No. Nothing specific. Though it still sounds as if they belong like something out of a tale or a myth, if you were to describe them to a normal human in my world.

I do like hearing about your world, though. It's good, I think, for me to be able to readjust my baseline for "normalcy" this way.

I don’t mind telling you about it, either. It helps me to remember to broaden my own horizons because not everything everywhere is the same.

[ He grins. It’s good that they both get something out of this, at least. ]

So, if you have any other questions, all you have to do is ask.

[He smiles a little in return, his own fainter but no less sincere. Connor has visibly relaxed compared to his state when he first entered Arenvald’s room (seeing his friend half-clothed notwithstanding); now, tension has trained from the line of his back, and his hands have lost their fidgeting stress. He supposes the more casual nature of where he’s sitting, still on Arenvald’s bed, probably drains a bit of the formality away, too.

Still, he pauses. There is a question bouncing around in his head, one that he’s shelved until he felt it was proper to ask it. But with Arenvald’s invite laid before him, now is as good of a time as any.]

I do have one question, if you think now is a good time for it. About your— [His eyes flick up to his friend’s forehead, just briefly, a hint of what he wishes to know before he even utters the words.] —scars. The story behind them.

Ah.

[ His own eyes flick upwards. Not that he can look at his own forehead, so it’s more of an acknowledgement of what Connor is looking at.

He was expecting this to come up, considering Connor walked in on him bare-faced (and bare everything else, for that matter), and there was no missing the way Connor’s gaze had landed on his forehead then, either. Still, he hesitates a little, if only because he needs a second to steel himself. ]

I don’t mind. Just know it’s not going to be a pleasant story.

[ He presses his lips together, drawing them into a thin line as he considers the best place to start. ] You recall my telling you about Ala Mhigo, yeah? How, after the fall of the Mad King, it was invaded and subjugated by the Garlean Empire?

[He wasn’t expecting it to be a pleasant story. Scarring like that doesn’t hint towards anything pleasant at all, even if Arenvald hadn’t already told him that it was representative of bad associations. He knows organic bodies well enough to understand the degree of an injury, being the sort of android that he is. Connor can see, through empirical observation, that whatever caused such scarring was not a middling thing.

But he can’t garner a full story from only observation. And so he’ll listen, his face falling into something a little more serious than before, and he nods.]

Yes. I do remember you telling me that.

My mother was Ala Mhigan, but my father… he was Garlean. A soldier. You can probably guess what I mean when I say my mother did not exactly welcome my arrival.

[ A beat, as he lets that sink in. The circumstances of his birth may never stop being an uncomfortable subject. ]

My very existence seemed to cause my mother anguish, I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me that I was naught more than a reminder of the worst moment of her life. She wasn’t kind to me by any means, and one day she…

[ Another pause, but only because he realizes there is some context here that Connor is missing. Once again, he has to relay a tale knowing that the finer details are all but alien to his friend, but this is the first time it’s been something so deeply personal. ]

Ah, I should explain. Pureblood Garleans have a third eye, set in the center of their forehead. It’s not quite an actual eyeball, and rather looks a bit like a pearl set in the skin. In any case, my mother became convinced that I had the start of one coming in. She took up a knife, and… [ He makes a vague hand motion at the angry scars slashed across his forehead, dripping onto his face, as if to say, “you know.” ]

She cast me out not long after that. I was just a boy at the time, a half-Garlean mongrel, left to fend for myself on the streets.

[There are a multitude of things to say to that. Programmed responses that come fluttering up in his mind, line by line, to choose from dependent upon mood, circumstance, and preferred reaction. All of it already queued up before Arenvald even finishes his last statement, habit that he’s not sure will ever dissolve; ingrained in him, these empirical notions. The analytical negotiator, made to look and sound approachable, and to always say the right thing — no matter how uncomfortable the subject might be.

And yet Connor makes the willful decision to discard all of that. What Arenvald tells him is deeply personal, those scars on his forehead now possessing a weightier meaning than he could’ve guessed at. A terrible moment couched in another terrible moment. He can’t hope to imagine what it must’ve been like for him. Fear, pain, the trauma of memory to be etched in skin.

Strange, how when he wants to reply with something not wrought from subroutines, words seem less ready to leap from his lips. That other core of himself is perpetually less suited for this, maybe, but Arenvald deserves only a sincere response.]

I’m… sorry. I can’t imagine how awful that must’ve been for you. And I understand now why you’d rather cover your scars rather than let them show.

[It was more than just vanity. It was a very raw, personal part of himself, Connor thinks; why allow strangers to look upon it as if it were nothing?]

Does it make you… uncomfortable? That I’ve seen them?

[ Many of the Scions know that he's half-Garlean. He'd even go so far as to call that part common knowledge, but this? Only very few people know the story behind the strokes of paint that cover his face, and fewer still have seen the scars.

In fact, Connor is the only one to have seen him without his warpaint. Even before Connor asks, he knows the answer. He knows that he's strangely okay with this, the initial embarrassment aside. ]

Uncomfortable? No. I... I trust you with this, Connor. I decided I would trust you with it when you asked back on Struxta.

[There's something... satisfying, knowing that Connor holds that much of Arenvald's trust. (Maybe satisfying isn't quite the right word for it, not strong enough, but he doesn't wish to strain his mind to find the right label for it right now.)]

Thank you. I'm glad that you trust me enough to tell me something which probably isn't easy for you to talk about.

[They've both had their turns at it, haven't they?

He pauses, pursing his lips together, before venturing further.]

It must've been difficult, after that. Fending for yourself, by yourself?

[ Of all the people who could have barged in on him, he’s glad it’s Connor. Connor has a quiet sort of understanding, even with his penchant for directness. He appreciates the chance to have this moment, sat down as friends instead of the somewhat hurried explanation he gave to Alphinaud and the Warrior of Light to better explain his desire to seek out the Mad King’s trove.

This is different. It is grim and heavy to be sure, but there is a measure of comfort here as well. ]

No, it was… quite difficult. The best thing I can say about those years was that I survived, but I’m not proud of the things I did to get there, begging and stealing and worse with naught to my name but a dagger and whatever scraps I could lay my hands on.

Then one day something clicked into place. I looked in the mirror and realized I hated the animal I’d become. I fell in with the first group of refugees I could, bound for the border and out of Ala Mhigo. Once we crossed out of Garlean territory, I took up life as an adventurer. I earned an honest living as best I could and ‘twas only some time after that my Echo began to awaken and guided me to the Scions’ door.

[It’s hard to imagine Arenvald — the kind and friendly person that Connor knows him to be — to have once been desperate enough to steal and worse. But he knows just as much that survival is an impossibly strong motivator; instinct ingrained in organic beings, that will to live overriding almost everything else, rendering paths steeped in morality far more difficult to tread.

He’s seen it in deviants too. That stubborn desire to cling to what they thought was life, the way they looked at him, with that vicious, last-gasp defiance they all shared.

Connor swallows thickly, though he has no need to. He’s glad, at least, that his friend was able to pull himself out of that dark period of his life.]

You’re a very strong individual, Arenvald. Most would let experiences like that change their personality and perception of life into something bleak. Something that followed them constantly. But it appears as if the opposite applies, in your case.

[ That is a very flattering assessment, and though it’s not the first time he’s heard such a remark, it still makes him a bit embarrassed. He doesn’t think he did much special, but he’s seen just what can happen when things go the opposite. He sees it in Fordola, a girl his own age, a pureblood Ala Mhigan who threw in with the Empire out of some bitter sort of hatred towards her countrymen and determination to prove that she was good enough in the eyes of their invaders. It eats at her, that anger. By the grace of whatever gods that cared to cast their mercy upon a poor half-breed like him, he was spared that darkness. ]

Someone very important to me once said that I am free to write my own story. I try to live by that as best I can.

[ His eyes flick over, catching Connor’s gaze. ]

There should have been no future for someone like me, some wretched, starving half-breed with a scar on his face and no food in his belly. But somehow… I moved beyond that. I became more than what I was made to be, and I can only hope that I do better every day.

[He meets Arenvald’s gaze, and — I became more than what I was made to be — holds it, for a lingering second. He feels it again, then; that doubt, wheedling uncertainty, that has absolutely nothing to do with the tale he’s just been told. Simply the application of that idea, of becoming something other than what circumstances wrought you to be, runs a strange parallel in his mind that he has no desire to actually bring forth into the conversation.

Connor glances to the side briefly, sets his jaw. But nods, because despite whatever flickers within the ring of his LED, he is truly glad to hear it for his friend.]

I’m sure that you will. [He looks at Arenvald again.] All of us have been doing good since our arrival here. Helping foreign worlds and the people on them. Whatever circumstances that may come to define you in the future, it can only be a positive result.

[ That was somewhat intentional on his part, that statement. He had offered it to Connor as a suggestion in the midst of the Storm, after his friend has said in a small and terrified voice that he was afraid to die.

What if you are simply meant to be more than your program?

It is something he still believes of his friend, that despite his origins in some factory and the fact that is is electricity thrumming beneath his skin instead of a pulse, he is still a person. Connor, too, is free to write his own story. ]

I certainly hope so. I still don't really agree with Astoria more or less conscripting us, but I do feel good about what we've accomplished.

[Arenvald might believe it in an unwavering way, but to Connor, the idea is a bit like foundation shaking under his feet. And he does all he can to step over the fault lines, the cracks snaking across, so that he doesn't stumble and drown in the unknown in-between.

If he knows there's a point that his friend is trying to gently make, read via implication and memory of a conversation they've had once before, Connor willfully does not mention it or bring it to light.

If nothing else, his stubborn streak is indelible.]

It's hard to complain about a successful mission, even if none of us are here on our own accord. I hope it's the beginning of a trend.

So do I.

[ It feels good to succeed, regardless of why or how they're here. ]

By the way, let me know if there's anything I can do to help you out. With Hank, I mean, but in general, too.

I appreciate it. And the same applies to you, from me.

[He does have one final curiosity, though.]

Did you speak with Hank for very long?

Not overlong, I suppose.

[ He frowns, unsure if he wants to explain to Connor that Hank somehow got an express ticket onto his bad side. Surely he doesn't need to worry about that on top of everything else. ]

His dog ran off, so I helped him find it. After that we chatted a bit and I tried my level best to explain what was going on, but he wasn't really having it. We split up not long after that.

[But as always, and perhaps not surprisingly, Connor thrives off of details. Especially when it comes to his friends.]

What did you think of him?

[And in a very Connor-like fashion, he asks bluntly.]

[ Connor sure likes to cut right to the quick, doesn't he? ]

Well, I uh... I suppose he didn't strike me as someone I'd want to spend a lot of time with.

[ That's putting it nicely, right? ]

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