Summary: Joris gets a cameo and Yugo has more angst.

AN- Rewatching Dofus a few months ago reminded me of all the feels involved in that show, and suddenly Joris was involved in this fic. Another line from season 3 episode 3 is stolen (the "You always have a choice, Yugo-" line) and the reference to Ruel's 'almost' marriage comes from both season 2 and Arpagone in season 3.

The ambassador was found convening with the Sadida royals. At first, Yugo's instinct was to assume he wasn't busy since he wasn't speaking. But having interacted at least a bit with the man during his times visiting Sadida on behalf of the Eliatrope civilization, he'd picked up enough about Joris to know that instinct was incorrect. As much as the man may not seem like a contributor to conversation, he was listening to it all shrewdly; Yugo couldn't just pull him away from it under the assumption he'd be free to leave.

So he'd waited it out (outside of a connection to wakfu, Adamaï's lessons had also been good at teaching him patience) and then took the opportunity to ask Joris aside the moment the convention broke apart.

They'd never really talked one on one before. Amalia told stories (she didn't have much on the background of the ambassador [no one seemed to], but she had plenty of respect for him for the help he gave her when Armand had been keeping her words silenced) and Adamaï had told Yugo he pegged the diplomat from Bonta as an ally in their goal to give a home to the Eliatropes, but that was it.

Still, those stories interested him enough.

This was a man who'd ripped through Nox's most dangerous machine puppet. Someone reportedly old (though none of the rumors he'd heard from Amalia when she'd been asked or any others gave anything concrete on how old), and someone his friends could say first hand was strong in watching him take down Razortime.

And people with age, people with fighting experiences needed to get that strong, surely- surely had faced things they hadn't wanted to or felt uneasy about decisions made. They'd have advice on how to move on from making harsh decisions. Or at least, he had to hope they would.

(Ruel, the oldest friend he had, certainly had his own, but it was never quite as close to judgments and killings so much as it was advice on how to treat family or how to not run away from a good thing [always oddly specific to marriages and partners and Yugo was still on Amalia's side in thinking Ruel was probably telling tall tales about this almost-marriage of his] and as useful as that was [and as much as he was recently ignoring it subconsciously to draw away from people], it wasn't quite what he'd need to hear in order to feel less sick over what had happened alone in those pocket dimensions)

Joris waited for the teen to start up first. At a bit of a loss how to, he cut to the point: establish the impression Joris had given him and then ask for confirmation that he'd have advice.

"The rest said you destroyed the machine that killed Pinpin," Yugo said.

With most people, the brotherhood would say 'almost killed' or something similar; the story of Pinpin's return would draw more attention as a resurrection versus an unexpected recovery and besides, Rubilax hardly wanted it to be big news that he saved his guardian's life. Between trying not to get a bunch of people doubting their story and harassing the 'ginger warrior' over it and the teeny tiny little fact that Rubilaxia had destroyed cities and killed innocents in its creation that could draw negative attention to Tristepin's survival unfairly, they were going with a flub story on his return after Nox. Or they were with most. Obviously, the Sadida royal family knew better, all those present at Rubilaxia knew, and those that Amalia's father said were trustworthy could hear the full story from Nox's arrival to Tristepin's return.

Besides the fact that Joris was among those trusted, he'd also seen the rest in the spot where Pinpin had died. It'd be pretty hard to hide his death from a witness.

So there was no point being evasive or treating this like any other stranger. He may not know Joris (did anyone really?), but he didn't need to try to hide things. Or not all things, at least. Yugo didn't know that he'd be talking about every detail of his own problem. At least his friends had heard it all the day of. Trying to explain multiple dimensions and an immortal enemy and having the ability to lock said immortal enemy into a pocket dimension alone would be tedious.

More than that, he didn't want to explain it. Didn't want to think about it, to talk about it, to remember the details.

(He was here, willing to talk about it to a virtual stranger, because want or not? he couldn't forget it.)

The confirmation from his questioning statement was simple rather than elaborative. Yugo realized he'd have to push rather than talk vaguely.

"The rest were having trouble with it. Grougaloragran struggled with the three puppets Razertime destroyed effortlessly and not even the help of a level four Shushu could let Pinpin hurt it. It took Ruel to touch it and you still managed to take it down. That's impressive." Yugo paused a moment before asking what the compliments were leading up to. "Who are you?"

The smaller individual looked up at him (under less somber circumstances, Yugo may have been amused at not being the shortest one around in a conversation with an adult), narrow eyes and nose all that was visible in the darkness of that hood.

"The ambassador of Bonta," Joris replied.

It was a dodgy answer, in Yugo's opinion.

"Yes, but you were able to destroy Nox's strongest machine. You're powerful."

Still there was no response, no change in the cloaked expression.

"I just want advice from someone with experience," the Eliatrope muttered. "With everything I hear about you, I thought you'd have some."

Joris's eyes narrowed.

He gave a somewhat censored version of events. Not because Joris couldn't know of the Eliatropes or Qilby being a traitor fought at the archipelago- he already did- but because Yugo was uncomfortable at giving complex details. He'd rather not think of them either, though that did not stop him for doing so. They stuck day after day.

"And what advice do you want from me?" the ambassador asked after he'd finished explaining how he was caught up on wishing there'd been a different option in hindsight for dealing with Qilby. It was a fair question. It was a question that Yugo himself had to consider the answer to. It wasn't that he was after a listener; he had listeners, more than he deserved: his father, Ruel, Amalia, Pinpin and Eva- (Adamaï, he wished, but he felt too uncomfortable to bring this up with his brother knowing that the dragon had been so hurt after being led into the Zinit), people he'd mentioned he was feeling guilty to at least once. So it wasn't that he had to say it; it was something else he was after.

A fix.

Or a salve for what would always go unfixable.

Just something to balance out the guilt.

Joris's response to such desire was neutrality.

"It sounds as though you did what you could in the moment. I cannot judge. You cannot live as long as I without making decisions that leave you the worse off."

Ah but see, that was the point-

Yugo hadn't been right after that moment. He hadn't been himself, active, excited, happy; hadn't been talking freely with friends and family, hadn't felt fearless about what he could say. The more time that passed, the more the gravity of it all sank in and sank down on him so that he grew quieter

"But what if that was just what I had to do in the moment? What if there's more that can be done now?"

Yugo hadn't verbalized that part of his thoughts to the others. He felt like he was failing something to admit he was thinking along those lines. Maybe it was just out of predictive worry that that would be how Adamaï would react the moment Yugo told him this as well.

"What other option exists? Your enemy is an immortal. If killing him is no option, you can only act to detain the threat. Have you found a better method? A different prison that a powerful Eliatrope can't break or talk their way out of?" Joris pointed out the inevitable.

It hardly made Yugo feel better.

Hearing that he was right for all the reasons he already knew added nothing new to his emotions on the matter. It was the same, the same each time, and Yugo was sick of feeling uneasy over that same. He'd done what had to be done but that didn't make it feel any better.

It never did.

If he was younger, he might have thought it would. But that was before Nox. Before watching all the damage spread by Nox that hadn't been intended as permanent by the mad Xelor. Before watching the Sadida's converge on top of the clock and realizing that, as much as Pinpin's death hurt, as much as his own reversed death felt awful, he'd feel no better watching them enact revenge on a broken man.

It was supposed to be a salve enough that doing what had to be done when there was only one option could hardly be his fault. It was the only choice. The only right choice, even if it was still wrong in some ways.

He wasn't as young as he once was, however. He knew that making that only right choice still left him empty and guilty inside.

"It still hurts," he muttered. "I knew in that moment it was all I could do and I know that now and knowing it doesn't take any of the responsibility away."

It was hard to read an expression cloaked, but Yugo saw enough to feel Joris was looking at him in sympathy.

He wondered, briefly, what sort of choices someone as old as Joris had had to make that left him under the same pressure, never to lift, always to weigh.

"Then find yourself a new option before bemoaning the one you made forever," the ambassador finally said.

While a part of Yugo wanted to laugh that it was easier said than done, most of him was distracted by the fact that Joris had practically recommended he pursue this. The Eliatrope assumed he'd always be told (should he actually bring this up to anyone, but if he felt they'd deny it, why would he try to vent?) that he would always have to stomach the unease and let it be- that he should try to forget he was leaving someone in that void and thus sentence him to remain forever.

The part of him that was still just the kid he was shuddered at how he could think this thought, but really he wished they could just have killed the traitor. But Qilby would have returned to a dofus that, with both members inside, would be ready to hatch. It was unworkable. Everything was unworkable. Everything had been then, at least.

Who was to say he couldn't find something else through brainstorming with Balthazar and Phaeris in the now?

"Do you think that's worth trying?" Yugo asked.

Would his friend's (would his brother) think so, if he actually tried to open himself up to them about this weight?

"For his sake? I withhold judgement. For your own?" Joris's eyes narrowed. "Yes."

And maybe Yugo should've realized that was reason enough. Trying to sacrifice his own comfort for everyone else's was fine, but if there was just as safe a way to contain the threat without giving him this upset? He didn't have to be self sacrificial for that. What he did in the Eliatrope dimension, he did because he had no other choice.

(You always have a choice, Yugo- whispered a part of his mind that wanted to cut at him, wanted to say he hadn't had a hard time in doing what he had, wanted to draw him inward under talk of how he'd chosen the darkest route instead of trying to come up with a different option in the moment despite how he rationally knew that he hadn't had time then.

They were the whispers he needed to mute, but attempts to ignore their presence had only led to him stifling under its weight. If, instead of ignoring them, he addressed them face on-...would they fade, if he did not have to think about a dimension of nothingness that served as an especially unthinkable form of hell for those that couldn't die?)

He hadn't had time then, hadn't had a choice then. But he wasn't there now. Now, Qilby didn't have the Eliacube and there was no fight occurring.

Now, he could pursue more choices now, if he let himself.