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[pancakeboy]

[Text him! Or do whatever, I'm not the police, and neither is he, thank God. Just specify if you want the more-fun-but-less-stable pre-11/20 guy or the grumpy third semester/postcanon guy. Pancake only for VRDR guys please, he's not third semester yet]

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[pancakeboy]

He tips half the remaining konpeito into Raven's hand, and the other hand into his own. "I'll talk to Crow. See what he has to say. Kill that guy and bury him in a ditch, perhaps."

With that, he tips his handful of candy into his mouth.

[fogboundcrow]

"Please don't kill anyone. Not only would it not last, but you really shouldn't be making more enemies." His voice is calm, at least. Not irritated, just matter of fact. "Perhaps you could take out your frustration on some Shadows? You're allowed to be angry, of course, but I don't want you to face any more hardship than you already have. The Palace is already complicated enough."

[pancakeboy]

"You have no sense of humour, Raven." He says it through his mouthful of konpeito, with just a bit of the air of an awful older brother. Just a bit.

[fogboundcrow]

"I'll have you know that I have a perfectly respectable sense of humor. I'm just opting for sincerity." So there. He flashes a smirk. Take that, Magpie. "Besides, humor often is born from our genuine emotions."

[pancakeboy]

"My genuine emotions think I could pile enough concrete onto Drake to stop him coming back, in this or any other place." He sticks his tongue out. A half-dissolved peach konpeito sits on it, bereft of its spikes.

[fogboundcrow]

"Well, I care about you both, so please channel that ire to something else. You could always play Gun About and pretend he's the target." Still, the hatred speaks volumes...

Given Magpie's reaction before...

"He said something about our mother, didn't he?"

[pancakeboy]

The glint in his eye, dark as it was, fades to nothing. He looks away quickly, then nods. Something.

[fogboundcrow]

"Do you need to talk about it?" Need, not want. It's clear that this has been eating at him.

[pancakeboy]

But again, he shakes his head. He's kept it bottled up this long; repeating it is the last thing he wants to do. He glances back to Raven, though; Raven, who often gets things the way only a child can do.

"What would you have done? I don't pretend it's about her, not really. But what would you do in my place? I know you wouldn't forgive him."

[fogboundcrow]

"I can't exactly know what I'd do without knowing the context and what was said. That would determine quite a bit." Which is the problem. He doesn't know. It's all so vague.

[pancakeboy]

"I'm not repeating what he said. And you don't need to know. It should be clear enough that it was bad." No escape there, kid.

[fogboundcrow]

"Well, obviously it was bad. And obviously, I'm not going to condone sullying her name." Huff. But that's not enough. There's obviously more. "But Drake doesn't strike me as the type to act so maliciously without being provoked. I could be wrong, and I do trust you, and regardless of what led him to that point, he absolutely should have known better and I would never expect you to forgive or forget."

[pancakeboy]

Again he stares up, shredding his hard palate with the last of his konpeito. "We'd just met. I'd left some food on the ground for the birds. I was joking. I nodded at it, said you can have that if you want, I'm feeling generous."

He'd even been masking. It's the sort of nasty joke he made all the time. But it wasn't that bad. Yet he knows, if someone had said the same to him, it would have cut him to the core.

Maybe that's why he said it?

[fogboundcrow]

"Perhaps your words cut deeply in unintended ways, and he retaliated." He pauses. "For the record, I'm not condoning whatever it is he said. Dragging our mother into it was uncalled for, no matter the context or severity. But perhaps he took it as an eye for an eye and said something he saw comparable based on his personal experiences."

Raven growls, covering his face with one hand. "Again, I've no intention of undermining your feelings. Whatever he said clearly dealt lasting damage, but by the sound of it, something you said in return cut deep enough to turn Glitch against you and, perhaps, contributed to his distortions..."

Looking down, Raven rests his hands against his thighs. "An eye for an eye. Cycles of hatred and violence... I think if you asked me last year how I felt about such things, I'd laugh and say that those who do harm deserve harm in turn. Now... I'm not so sure. I can see the detrimental effects just as well. The likelihood of feedback loops."

[pancakeboy]

"I don't want to get into the other thing." He cuts Raven off, though maybe he should be thinking more about that, considering what Crow said. Shit.

"I guess... I found him interesting. At first. Before I got here I...." He trails off. That's a whole other story, isn't it? "I suppose you could say I was thinking about cycles of violence too."

[fogboundcrow]

"...Because of your Ren, right?" Raven still remembers that puppet. It's rather difficult to forget, given where it led them both. "It sounds to me as though you made an ill-spirited joke, not fully comprehending his background. He likely didn't comprehend this, too hurt in the moment, and so he retaliated. And because both of you felt wronged, neither wished to reconcile. In each of your eyes, the other deserved it."

Raven isn't sure where he stands here. He wasn't a direct participant.

"But regardless of who deserves what, the fact remains that this Palace cannot stay. Would you rather go by choice, or be pressured by those less forgiving? I'm not saying they would use force, or that you couldn't take them if they tried, but if you do participate willingly, then as I said, you can prove them wrong. Prove you are better."

[pancakeboy]

"You make it sound so easy." Kids. Come, or go; leave, or stay. Choose, or don't. The luxury of multiple destinations—had he ever had that? At this point he truly doesn't know.

[fogboundcrow]

"I never said it would be easy. All I'm saying is that you have the option to take control of the situation. If you handle this amicably, no one will see it coming. You'll 'win.'"

Because if viewed competitively, perhaps it'll be more palatable.

"Wouldn't it be worth it for the smug satisfaction, if nothing else? To approach them all, without having to be dragged along, and watch their jaws drop as you defy all expectations."

[pancakeboy]

Magpie thinks about it. He holds the image in his mind, and turns it to all angles; lets every bright facet glint in the sun. Then he sighs once more, long and loud.

"No," he says. "No, it wouldn't be. Crow, I can hear you. It's not like you think." He can just imagine Crow's delight at hearing him admit that—just sometimes—winning isn't everything. Well, let him. He's known about tainted little victories since day one.

[fogboundcrow]

"All right, then forget winning. What about closure? You're undoubtedly interwoven into this Palace. Would going not be worthwhile just to know what he really, truly thinks of you?"

To get answers. To understand. To do something...

"You can fill in the blanks, make assumptions, but if Palaces are anything like dungeons, then they peel away the lies and reveal the truth buried inside."

[pancakeboy]

"Are you trying to appeal to my fragile ego now?" At some point, he's twisted his hand into Raven's again. "Why are you so determined that I should do this? Don't say it's because you want us to be friends. You know well enough life's not like that."

[fogboundcrow]

"I do miss when things were that simple. And I wouldn't be surprised if a part of you did still care for him beneath all the resentment." No sense in lying about it. He's happy to accept the hand, though. "But what about your Ren? Wouldn't he be happy to see you set aside your feelings to pursue a common goal, regardless of how you may feel about the Palace's victim?"

It's just a hunch. He doesn't know Magpie's Ren enough to say with confidence.

"But more than anything, my time in Inaba has taught me the importance of facing the truth, however unpleasant. You don't strike me as the type to get lost in the fog."

[pancakeboy]

He brushes aside the question of what his Ren does or doesn't think; he doesn't trust himself to judge. Instead, he looks to the side, trying to catch Raven's wide eyes. "Is that true? You believe in facing the truth, no matter how unpleasant?"

[fogboundcrow]

"All of the members of the Investigation Team have had to face the sides of themselves that they hid from the world. ...Well, besides Yu, because apparently he's special like that." Despite the slight edge, he remains calm as he speaks. "In order to awaken our Personas, we had to accept ourselves, sometimes at our worst, or... sometimes the brightest sides of us we suppressed in order to survive."

It isn't hard to guess where Raven falls in that respect.

"The last Shadow we faced challenged us on a broader level. He warned us that the truth brings only pain and that we'd be better off turning the other way. We refused, of course, because we'd come too far to surrender, no matter what ugly truths await us. It's... important, I believe, to take a stand in the face of a cruel reality."

[pancakeboy]

—and he flinches, looking down. "So what happened?"