[ A few seconds too long for Claude's taste. He can feel Felix's eyes, the space that a curt response might have filled keeping empty. Though not usually the type to choose ignorance, to choose to look away, he is the type to retreat when necessary. So he doesn't acknowledge the pause, the shift in attention that his own laxity prompted. Claude keeps his eyes on the sky until it passes, until he can answer what finally fills that space with easy humor, nothing soft, nothing telling. ]

That's only because you aren't thinking creatively. For example, you could practice your footwork! ...though, that might be a bit too reckless...

[ No matter how good Felix is, everyone makes mistakes, and a slip up here could result in a nice range of catastrophes. Broken neck, impaling himself on his sword, losing the sword over the edge just as a hapless student passed innocently by below.

And speaking of catastrophes. He probably shouldn't remark about Dimitri. Claude had noticed the light himself, equally unsurprised. While his late nights were generally spent reading, every now and again he prowled the monastery, trying his luck getting into this or that "prohibited" place. Whenever he stepped out of his room at an unsociable hour, or returned to it, almost without fail: a light beneath Dimitri's door.

Claude chances a look. A mere flick of his eyes, snatching a glimpse of that frown before his attention seems to return to the sky. He probably shouldn't, but then, treading lightly would itself be telling, coming from him. ]

Hm. What do you think, should I have invited His Princeliness, too?

[ It's a joke and hopefully an obvious one.

What's less obvious but far more disconcerting is the truth that underlies it: that Claude is truly comfortable here, beside Felix. He wouldn't be able to say the same for Dimitri. ]