NOVEMBER - DECEMBER TEST DRIVE MEME

[indigo_events]

➞ Post with a character you wish to test drive in this game's setting.
➞ Tag other people's starters and thread out shenanigans!
➞ Invite your friends! Try out new characters! Come play with us!
➞ Have fun!

NOT SURE WHERE TO BEGIN YOUR TEST-DRIVE JOURNEY?
CHECK OUT ALL THE LOCATIONS WE HAVE AVAILABLE IN:

JOHTO | KANTO | SEVII ISLANDS

Feel free to make various prompts in multiple locations!

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OTHER USEFUL LINKS:
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Comments

[nastyboy]

...The child I was traveling with said I should name him.

[Should Dimitri be traveling with a child? Honestly, it's highly debatable... Even in Dimitri's eyes. Still, finally, he slowly crouches down. The relief is visible on the little pig.]

Dean.

[gautsome]

Dean. [Sylvain repeats it, and pays the information about the child little mind. It's not Sylvain's place to make judgements, not when he hasn't seen Dimitri in the better part of five years. Not when he hasn't known whether or not he was alive or dead.]

Think your friend will help me name mine?

[nastyboy]

They will gladly like you. As a child... They have an admiration for knights.

[And, frankly, even for all his bad habits like flirting and leaving heartbroken girls in the dirt... Dimitri still finds Sylvain a better example than him in that area.]

...Do you forgive me?

[gautsome]

[Knights. The word sticks funny in his ribs. He'd never thought of himself as much of a knight. In his younger days, there'd been talk -- but never time. He hadn't even graduated properly, unless the beginning of a war counted as a graduation.

But he pushes it down for the time being.]

What am I forgiving you for?

[nastyboy]

Everything.

[Where can he even start? Dimitri doesn't know. There's just.... so much. He tries to breathe, tries to remember that is a thing he can do.]

[At his feet, the Tepig looks up in concern, and nudges his snout into one of Dimitri's hands. It helps keep him focused, at least, and he blinks, staring downwards.]

...I could not wreak the vengeance that I had promised them, Sylvain.

I am not fit to be forgiven. And I do not know what else I can do... Perhaps it is better if I am trapped like this, and no one else need hear me anymore...

[gautsome]

[Wow. This conversation sure is packed with a hefty amount of things he doesn't want to deal with. Given the option, he might have rather chucked the whole thing into the water and gotten out of dodge with the Fish. At least, despite being entirely useless in the woods, it didn't drag up emotional conversations that Sylvain only understood half of.]

Hey, Dimitri. [His voice surprises even himself. So, too, does the hand that reaches out and clasps the former prince on the shoulder. Sylvain offers a smile, but it's not nearly wide or sunny as usual. It's unsteady, which makes it far more genuine than any smile he's managed since getting here.]

I'm the resident disappointment, remember? As long as you are with me, you don't have to worry about anyone looking down their nose at you.

[Some time ago, Sylvain might have reached up and ruffled Dimitri's hair. Now, he doesn't think that rat's nest needs any help.]

[nastyboy]

[The first time he'd been touched after dying, it had been because Chip had grabbed his hand when he'd just arrived, and the child had excitedly pulled him along. Such contact didn't last long - Chip needed to grab something from their bag, and the contact had ended. Dimitri... hadn't even realized he was dead, then.]

[His companions touch him, sometimes... but it's different to be touched by animals, by creatures that represent his soul.]

[...When was the last time he was simply touched? No intent to harm, to kill?]

[Dimitri can't say anything. All he can do is stare, tears starting to silently fall down the curve of his face.]

[gautsome]

[Sylvain -- honestly has no idea what's happening. It isn't that he's unused to being cried on, he'd been the shoulder to cry on for Felix until he grew too big and Glenn was buried in the ground. He'd been there for all of his friends in those younger year; It was his duty as the eldest of the bunch.

But they've grown up and grown apart. Ingrid scolds him, Dimitri tries to guild him, and Felix lashes out with his tongue at any given moment. He can't remember the last time he saw either of them cry.

Never mind the fact that this is Dimitri. This is a man who, up until just a few minutes prior, he thought had been killed. Maybe he'd had his suspicions, his hopes, but those had been fleeting.

And now this is Dimitri crying, for reasons that Sylvain simply cannot comprehend. Given the distance, and everything in between, he can't say he's sure what to do.]

Hey -- Hey, big guy, come on. You don't need to cry. I know I was miserable to deal with, but it couldn't have been that bad.

[Humor. He falls to humor and deflection to cope. He wasn't ready for any of this.]

[nastyboy]

Am I crying...? I had forgotten...

[He'd cried when he was younger. He'd wailed, and called, and reached out for every single person who had stepped before him. From king, to shield, to servant, passed from hand to hand. For what?]

[Back then, he hadn't wanted to leave their sides. Back then, in the aftermath, for a funeral more for a nation than for himself, he had still wanted to be by their sides.]

[Yet he can't be. He is here, wherever this portion of the afterlife is, and by his side instead is...]

[Dean is making more soft distressed noises, and Dimitri lets the small pig clamber up into his arms, against his stomach, his chest. He looks up from it, to Sylvain.]

....You stayed.

[He's still crying.]

[gautsome]

Dimitri, what are you talking about? [There has been a substantial amount of confusion over the last... well, he's lost track of time. Sylvain doesn't know most of what Dimitri is talking about, and neither of them seem to be anywhere near the same page. Nevertheless, there are things that he's sure have never changed.

If they had, he wouldn't have taken up arms to continue fighting to hold the remaining Kingdom land. Whether Dimitri was but a memory like he believed, or still out there breathing like he hoped, the man was still his friend.

So that's why he can't comprehend the idea that he might have left. Not right now, when it's clear that Dimitri isn't okay. He might not know how to help, but that doesn't mean that he'll turn his back on him.]

Of course I did. [There's that smile again, the soft thing that he keeps tucked away for special occasions. He's shown it to Dimitri twice now.] I might be an asshole, but I'm not that much of an asshole.

[nastyboy]

[It's strange... Had Sylvain's smile always been so different? There had been the smiles he'd seen as a child, when he and Felix got over whatever petty argument they'd have, and gone back to their other two friends.... And he'd certainly seen more than his fair share when they went to school together. When school had seemed to matter.]

[This isn't like either of those.... Although maybe it's closer to the first than anything else.]

..More than I deserve...

[But they can discuss that later. Some vague semblance of order finally strikes Dimitri, and he holds the Tepig closer to his chest again.]

...I was working for the inn owner. To pay for our stay...