[He's camping out on the top bunk of the bed in the cell, back to the bars, though he'll turn and give Dimitri a polite smile when he sees him enter.]
Yeah. I'm glad you decided to come. [He'll slip off the bed, walking over to kneel across from Dimitri, his posture just as formal as Dimitri's words, even if he can't match his own in inflection right this moment.]
Could I ask you why you said what you said, at the end of the trial?
[ Guy is still poised for a man facing execution. he considers the question a moment, thoughts churning behind his eyes. ]
The stones made people question your tact, but from our conversations I did not take you as a cruel person.
[ whether or not he agreed with the gesture, the damage is done, and he doesn't have much interest on rehashing it. ]
Anyone who has lived through hardship—someone who saw war early in their life and still comes out of it with compassion in their heart, and the will to fight injustice... that's someone I think I could trust.
[This old topic again, hm...? It drops him into a more somber expression, smile present but thin, a gesture of platitude alone.]
...It's noble of you, Dimitri. But I think you're putting me on a pretty large pedestal.
Just because someone has retained their humanity through the struggles of war doesn't make them any better or worse than anyone else. You could put two people through the exact same scenarios, and their character, including their trustworthiness, would still be entirely unique.
To lose and to struggle—that changes people. And not always for the better. You see the true mettle of a man after he's seen suffering, and how he chooses to conduct himself after.
[ And he'd say they've all seen suffering. ]
It isn't about a pedestal. I am not saying you could not disappoint me, or that you are perhaps a paragon of a man. [ he doesn't know him well enough to say. ] But... have you never wanted to believe in the best of people, Guy?
Your reasoning is sound. I don't think anything I said truly clashes with that. It's your open willingness to believe in someone that I would call into question here.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be giving people the benefit of the doubt, or think that they can pull through things despite how they might have acted in the past. [He thinks of Luke, of how he'd chosen to see that boy to the ends of the earth despite his mistakes.] But there needs to be a balance.
I would say I have been amicable to you, and I would say that what conversations we have had have been pleasant. But where do you draw the line between having belief in a person's ability to change, and being ignorant of what they might truly be doing because of that belief?
[It's less of a statement of implication and more a curiosity, trying to prod Dimitri for his reasonings. They're still not much more than strangers. For the prince to claim trust in a man he barely knows, while touching, is still idealistic enough to be questionable.]
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ah yes time to pretend we were young and innocent and not dead for this thread
Yeah. I'm glad you decided to come. [He'll slip off the bed, walking over to kneel across from Dimitri, his posture just as formal as Dimitri's words, even if he can't match his own in inflection right this moment.]
Could I ask you why you said what you said, at the end of the trial?
gently ignores brutal execution
The stones made people question your tact, but from our conversations I did not take you as a cruel person.
[ whether or not he agreed with the gesture, the damage is done, and he doesn't have much interest on rehashing it. ]
Anyone who has lived through hardship—someone who saw war early in their life and still comes out of it with compassion in their heart, and the will to fight injustice... that's someone I think I could trust.
no subject
...It's noble of you, Dimitri. But I think you're putting me on a pretty large pedestal.
Just because someone has retained their humanity through the struggles of war doesn't make them any better or worse than anyone else. You could put two people through the exact same scenarios, and their character, including their trustworthiness, would still be entirely unique.
no subject
[ He isn't praising Guy necessarily, but. ]
To lose and to struggle—that changes people. And not always for the better. You see the true mettle of a man after he's seen suffering, and how he chooses to conduct himself after.
[ And he'd say they've all seen suffering. ]
It isn't about a pedestal. I am not saying you could not disappoint me, or that you are perhaps a paragon of a man. [ he doesn't know him well enough to say. ] But... have you never wanted to believe in the best of people, Guy?
no subject
That's not it.
Your reasoning is sound. I don't think anything I said truly clashes with that. It's your open willingness to believe in someone that I would call into question here.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be giving people the benefit of the doubt, or think that they can pull through things despite how they might have acted in the past. [He thinks of Luke, of how he'd chosen to see that boy to the ends of the earth despite his mistakes.] But there needs to be a balance.
I would say I have been amicable to you, and I would say that what conversations we have had have been pleasant. But where do you draw the line between having belief in a person's ability to change, and being ignorant of what they might truly be doing because of that belief?
[It's less of a statement of implication and more a curiosity, trying to prod Dimitri for his reasonings. They're still not much more than strangers. For the prince to claim trust in a man he barely knows, while touching, is still idealistic enough to be questionable.]