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Church Source 6
The night when Claude returns seems as though it will be like any other night, with Dimitri practicing the human tongue in his preferred way of pacing through his cage. It helps wear him out, he's found.
--
Dimitri has no reason to expect Claude tonight. In point of fact, no one in the monastery has any particular reason to expect Claude here tonight...although, as Claude had patiently explained to the guards he's bribing, if they want to find the other half of the money he promised them tomorrow in the dead drops he's arranged, he doesn't care if he's here or not; he expects certain things of them. He's not too worried about them double-crossing him and ignoring his orders; for one thing, he'd set up the dead drops for that explicit purpose, so they'll understand that Claude will simply not put it there if they disobey him. And, for another, why rely on them at all? That's why he'd slipped the sleeping powder into the stew he'd arranged to be the night watch's meal for tonight. Probably all of them will have dozed off at their posts.
(Plus, he's blackmailing several of them. Gently; no direct threats. He'd just made it clear he knew some damaging secrets, and he wasn't looking to hurt them...but if he's doing them the favor of keeping their secret, could they do him one small favor in return? Fifteen minutes of your time! A nice, cheap price. He couldn't get dirt on all of them, but for the ones he could, it's just one more layer of insurance for his plans.)
And this plan can't fail him. He's put an exhaustive amount of work into it, into making sure it'll go off without a hitch, into making it non-disruptive and likely not to garner much attention from the church, on preserving his own innocence within the eyes of the church...but the fact of the matter is, he's all in on this. He's going to get Dimitri out of the monastery, no matter what it takes tonight. If it means having to fight, if it means having to kill, if it means excommunication (which he doesn't care about) and a lifetime of pursuit by the church's inquisitors(which he does). He'll burn every bridge for this, if he has to. He'll give his life for it.
His extensive preparations have merely been in the vein that he doesn't think it has to come to any of that, and would prefer it didn't.
Claude doesn't want the monastery to crumble in blood and fire. He wants it to be dismantled brick by brick in the cold light of day, brought to trial and executed in the name of justice. He doesn't want them to simply die as martyrs; he wants their names burned into history as war criminals.
Dimitri, Claude supposes, would consider Claude's aversion to violence soft, or forgiving. Claude seriously doubts that Dimitri would hold onto such illusions if he was able to understand the kinds of plans Claude has for the church they mutually despise.
There's no moon tonight, and the courtyard is prohibitively dark as Claude moves across it, with a stealth that even Dimitri's padded feet would have a hard time matching. It's completely different from how Claude moves during the day, so much so that one has to wonder if even the way Claude moves is sometimes an act - an act meant to hide what he's actually capable of by giving no hint to it whatsoever.
"Dimitri," he hisses, once he's near the bars. He's sure Dimitri can see him in the dark - he understands Intseh night vision is better than that of humans - but Dimitri is also preoccupied and not expecting company. "It's me." He smiles a little, although there's a slightly tense, harried feel to his manner tonight that suggests he feels the urgency, the time crunch of the window in which his plan will be at its most optimal chance to succeed. "I brought you your gift a little early."
--
Instinct has often come before reason in Dimitri's head, if only because there's been more reason to use it than otherwise, and he reacts more to the idea of noise than what that noise actually signifies. He whips around almost immediately at the first syllable, tail snapping through the air enough that it'd bruise any person that it would hit- a quick reaction fitting for the church's executioner. Even his claws immediately curl at the ready, teeth bared already. Not expecting Claude means his mind summons up threats, because what else could be here besides the one ally he has in this world?
It disappears in a heartbeat once it actually penetrates who's at his bars, however, and threat is eased back in exchange for faint confused surprise. "Claude?" His ears flick back, sensing something is off and wary already. "You were not to return tonight, I thought..."
--
"And as far as the church is concerned, I haven't," Claude replies, with a grin - a flash of white teeth visible against darker skin in the blackness. "I didn't want people to think I was going to return tonight."
He steps closer to the bars. The key is warm in his hand; he's been clutching it like a lifeline. He may be an accomplished schemer, but this plan is so important that there's no way he can pull it off without some reasonable nerves. "You haven't asked me what I brought you yet."
--
While there's always been a hint of hurry to their meetings, more on Claude's end than anything, it's never been like this... and Dimitri has slowly acclimated to how their meetings go. Such a drastic change has him glancing around, eyes carefully searching through the darkness. Is this a trick of some sort, like he always thought it would go?
"...What."
--
Claude slips the key between his fingers and into the lock, turning it slowly so there's less noise from the tumblers as they snap back. Then he tucks the key away, pulls a rag from the pouch on his belt, and quickly rubs down the hinges of the door. The rag has oil on it; when Claude opens the door, there's barely a whisper of noise.
He smiles at Dimitri. "I know you don't bother with dreams anymore, so I thought I'd bring you something real."
--
Reality, as it turns out, is tricky.
In the ideal turn out of this scenario, the utter shock on Dimitri's face, easier to make out with his pale fur even in darkness, isn't too out of place. What follows it, however, isn't elation or happiness or wonder. Instead, Dimitri's expression crumples in on itself, wide blue eye squeezing shut. "Of course it would be you too," he hisses, although it almost doesn't seem directed towards Claude as more himself than anything. His shoulders hunch up, claws curling to grasp at... something. Certainly not Claude, since he turns away from the other to begin pacing in short frustrated circles but a meter or so away from him. "I want one thing, I have nothing else, I'm going to die in that ring, and yet, again, once you are gone...." A low snarl leaves him.
Hopefully Claude took Dimitri's mental state into consideration when crafting this scheme of his. He's seemed mostly stable, thanks to Claude's company and something to pour his focus into such as learning another language... But there's still been no denying his casual admissions of hallucinations, the occasional difficulty he has between understanding what's in his head and what he's said, and how his attention sometimes drifts from Claude to focus on something that isn't there.
And right now, he thinks what's happening now... That surely must be any one of those options, and it, it- it infuriates him to consider that his rattled mind may really have taken Claude's image to torment him with how close the man has pulled him. He can't stand it.
--
Claude has, a bit. He's not too surprised when Dimitri - if he's reading the context clues right, and he finds it hard to imagine he's not - chalks him up to being a hallucination. Fortunately, he thinks it's going to be simple enough of a misconception to sort out.
Claude steps through the open door, into the cage, and gently rests his hands on Dimitri's shoulders, turning the Intseh to look at him. (Assuming Dimitri cooperates with the urging, of course. If Dimitri doesn't want to move, Claude probably couldn't make him do so without some kind of winch and pulley system.)
"It's real, Dimitri. I'm real. We're getting out of here."
--
As always, being touched in a non-violent way will continue to surprise Dimitri for a long while yet... and double when he's not expecting it. His body jolts at Claude's touch, and he can't even think to stop him when he's forcefully turned around with his eye snapping open in shock. Even with the evidence right there in front of his eyes, touching his arms... It feels so hard to think it could be real. Reaching up, he gingerly rests his fingers along Claude's hands at his shoulders- first as a touch, then as a grip.
"Claude..." It's a strangled breath of a sound. He's not thought of escape as a dream for a very long time. Now that the real thing is in front of him.... His hand shakes against Claude's, and he looks to the open cage door with such a complicated twist of emotions that he doesn't know what to do with even half of them.
--
Claude lets Dimitri adjust to the idea for as long as he dares; even thirty seconds is stretching it. Fifteen minutes is a fairly large window of time - moving quickly should be enough to get them outside the monastery in seven - but he couldn't reasonably ask for more without inciting dangerous levels of suspicion, and eight minutes of padding isn't a whole lot of wiggle room for problems they may run into. He gives Dimitri fifteen seconds of just...pure processing time, before he slides a hand out from under Dimitri's to reach up and cup his face, guiding him to look at Claude again.
The next fifteen seconds get devoted to pulling the Intseh down and kissing him the way the bars wouldn't let him do last time.
--
A mixture of a gasp and a snarl is breathed against Claude's lips when he kisses him, and that spurs him, somehow, if only enough to grasp the archer's sides as if afraid he'll vanish into thin air if he doesn't grab this chance. When they part, the sensation is finally moving past 'numb' and kickstarting into adrenaline. Keeping his hold onto Claude, he jerks his head back towards the door. Just the action of taking a step outside- out of the cage, not bound, not prodded, free- nearly leaves him dizzy, not knowing what to do.
"They... can finally die, like they were meant to."
...Well. He knows what he wants to do, at any rate.
--
Ah. Not good. Claude hadn't entirely counted on Dimitri's leaning toward violence rather than simply wanting to be free, which...in retrospect, honestly, he probably should have. Too late to lament it, now, though; he just has to deal with it.
This...is going to take all of his powers of persuasion, he thinks.
"Dimitri, no." He grips the Intseh's upper arms, gently but firmly. "I've got us a chance to get out of here, for you to never have to be in a cage again - for you to have an actual life. But there's not that big of a window of time for us to get out of here. And if you go on a rampage here, if you slaughter people in their beds here...you'll be a criminal. You'll be a public danger. They'll be able to spin your aggression, the deaths you cause, to make you a monster and the dead into your victims. The church is bigger than this monastery, and they'll send people after us. It'll just be a short-lived victory that ends with the church wiping you out." The look of pleading in his eyes is genuine, although the fact that he's letting Dimitri see it in his eyes might be a calculated move. "And me with you, because I'll be there if they come for you.
"Please, Dimitri. I didn't free you just so that the church can end up killing you anyway. There are other ways to punish them than just tearing through them tonight. Better ways. Don't throw away this chance we've got. You can finally have a future - one you choose for yourself. You don't have to be a killer anymore."
--
As executioner, it takes sometimes half a dozen controllers to rein Dimitri in when he's at his worst and most uncontrollable, and even that is reinforced with the magic that binds Dimitri to the church and is burned into his skin. Claude's own strength, not even taking into account the difference in how he handles him, is hardly enough to even be called 'restraining'... Yet it still seems to make him bristle as such when he snaps back to look at Claude with his lips already peeling back over his fangs.
"Then I'll just get rid of all of them." This is not a well thought out plan. Dimitri isn't in the space to even try making those. "To them, I am nothing but a monster already! To be a criminal would acknowledge I exist, as a person, as someone that can commit sin." The corners of his mouth jerk up, a brief and desperate grin. "Almost a victory of its own. But for them to get away with what they've done, to continue to act as though they are free of murder merely because they forced another, tortured someone and refused to acknowledge their personhood-" A low growl is picking up in the back of his voice, threatening to break out into a much worse snarl. "This is what they deserve! If they want an executioner, something that can judge sin and punish it with death, then they'll get that, and the first ones who should have been in that ring with me should have been them all along. I'll show them that!"
....But he doesn't go tearing off just yet. Dimitri stays where he is, bristling and aching for violence as he might be, fangs and claws bared as they might be. His own reputation, his own fate? He doesn't care about that. The idea of some sort of 'long term' goal is too difficult for him to comprehend, not when he's swept up in his emotions.
Claude... is different. Dimitri has never been able to hold onto anything in his life yet- part of why his growing softness to Claude has distressed him so much. Such a good thing, what will he do when it gets torn away from him? But now that he's being hit with a rush of freedom.... He has a chance to hold onto the one good thing, the one good person, in his life, and not let go. Not lose him.
--
"Dimitri, believe me, I agree with you that they need to pay for what they've done. And I promise they will. But what I'm telling you is that just killing them is not the best way to do this." Claude cups Dimitri's face in his hands, holding the Intseh's gaze with eyes that positively burn. This is an intensity Claude rarely lets show, despite the fact that it's what drives him from day to day; he prefers to keep it disguised.
"Killing them is too good for them."
And now that intensity is in Claude's voice, too. There's a cold hate in the words that might bring Dimitri up short where nothing else could, because Dimitri will recognize it. It's got all the vengeance and rage in it as Dimitri's own heart, coming from an entirely unexpected source; it's like Claude's taken the raw power of Dimitri's thundering waterfall of fury and channeled all of it into a laser drill that can cut diamonds.
"They tortured and imprisoned you for years, Dimitri. They stole you from your home. They purged my village, did their best to erase my culture from me, treated us both like lesser beings for the bulk of our lives. And what - a few minutes of agony for them, and then they're free? Dying still clinging to the belief that they were right, so they and the rest of the world can call them martyrs? Innocent victims of some mindless, bloodthirsty beast? We can do better than that. I can do better than that. I can turn the whole world against them. I can get them excommunicated and executed by their own church, let them die knowing the world considers them godless fanatics, have them denied heaven by their own faith. That's what I've been working towards for years."
It's downright intimidating to see just how much ferocity, how much bitterness, Claude keeps hidden away behind his everyday, casual demeanor. But, in a way, it's intoxicating as well; Dimitri will get the sense that he's seeing deeper into Claude than he ever has before, perhaps deeper than anyone has before.
"We've lost enough to them. A revenge we have to sacrifice even more for isn't worth having. If you want them punished, then work with me for a vengeance against them we can savor for the rest of our long, happy lives. Not one that'll just make our lives harder. I'm sick of them limiting the good things we can have."
--
Dimitri has not had a physical home for a very, very long time.
The room they first stored him in? Even when he was at his most optimistic, he only viewed it as a temporary space. The cage? Nothing but a prison, meant to choke his freedom, his sense of self, away completely. Then there was the arena, but that was merely where he was put to use, unleashed upon. If there has been anything he's treated akin to home, something to welcome him, to wrap himself in... It's been his own hatred and rage, his own bloody desire for even a scrap of vengeance. It's the only comfort he's been able to have, the idea he could tear something in this rotten system apart with his claws before finding freedom in the death that would no doubt result.
He'll find the sense in Claude's words... later. He'll even find himself agreeing with them... later. But for now, more than the words, more than the sense... It's the burning of those words that pierces through, that blends with his own intensity and animosity to redirect the current. Those feelings and Claude are the only reassurances Dimitri has ever had, so to see them blended together....
A regular person might find them terrifying put together like this. Dimitri, instead, takes comfort, shaking claws reaching up to lay over Claude's hands as he bows his head, expression twisted. He wants to tear this whole place to the ground. He wants to turn the stones to dust, dash blood against the ground, see it all burn... It's a want so bad he shakes from it. But....
"Alright." His twisted face, his hoarse voice- it's as if Dimitri is physically pained from pulling back from his most destructive urges. "But- one thing. Let me destroy one thing."
--
Claude is almost shaken by Dimitri's acquiescence. More than just by the fact that he was able to win it so quickly, although he'd certainly been expecting an uphill battle when he'd realized (far, far later than he should have) just how much Dimitri wanted to murder the people in the monastery, although that is certainly quite a lot. But more than that...he knows how violent Dimitri is, has been taught to be, and how unstable and bitter he is as well.
That Dimitri is not just able but willing to listen to him, to trust him, to place perhaps the one thing he's been longing for most in Claude's hands with only blind belief that Claude will eventually help him fulfill those desires, that someone who's barely even had a concept of a future will accept delayed gratification on the one thing that's been keeping him going all this time...
It tells Claude everything about how much he must matter to Dimitri. How much Dimitri trusts him. And it's the most monumental responsibility Claude has ever been handed, by anyone. He actually stops breathing for a moment.
"Thank you," he finally whispers, in a voice that should tell Dimitri quite clearly that Claude realizes just how much of a sacrifice (however temporary Claude intends it to be) this concession is. "But...what one thing are you talking about?"
If Dimitri's agreeing to this, then presumably this one thing isn't meant to destroy Claude's greater plan to get them out of here. (Dimitri would presumably know that it'd be a problem for their escape and thus not be feasible, otherwise, and probably wouldn't bother asking for the allowance.) Claude's not sure what would fit those criteria, under the circumstances, but if it does...then Claude's willing to give it to him. Right now Claude is willing to give Dimitri just about anything he can.
--
"The room." It occurs to him a split second afterwards that he needs to give more information. "The one- where I was first pulled into, before you met me." Dimitri thinks, vaguely, that he might have described it once to Claude when they were younger, although the description can't have been very good at all. He was still optimistic back then, for starters, and he'd been dazed at being jerked through time and space into an entirely different country.
"I want- I need to destroy it." There's that snarl of a grimace on his face again, tail thrashing through the air behind him. "When I'm gone.... When I'm gone..."
Dimitri is violent, occasionally oblivious, and bad at long term planning. Yet he's not an idiot. He'd picked up long ago how used to handling 'demons' the monastery is, how entrenched this violent method of handling criminals is in their habits. It occurred to him, not too long after he'd been officially made an executioner, that he was just a replacement for another Intseh... and that, eventually, when he met his own violent end, another would be a replacement for him.
He won't let that happen. And.... if he can't bring this entire monastery to the ground, he can at least destroy one room.
And if he can only destroy the one room... That one, more than anywhere else, would give him the most satisfaction.
--
Claude hesitates. It's a good idea, and one he immediately wants to implement...even though it'll probably mess up the fifteen minute window for his plan. Granted, hopefully his redundancies (like the sleeping powder) will be enough, but it's one layer of guarantee gone that they can get out without being seen...and that's a risk.
More so for Dimitri than himself.
"...it wouldn't be the same if I did it for you, would it?" he asks, without too much hope on that point. "Only if you're spotted wandering the halls of the monastery, it's going to raise the alarm no matter what. But if you went outside and waited for me while I did it...I could probably talk my way out of it if anyone spotted me." He studies Dimitri. "But...I get the feeling that wouldn't satisfy you."
--
"No," is the immediate and completely unsurprising response, Dimitri's narrowed eye only adding to it. Still, any sort of agreement seems to be easing up some of his wild anger from before now that there's the possibility of it being focused somewhere, and he quickly glances about. "...I can be careful," says the person built like a mobile fortress, prone to violent outbursts. "I can hear things better than you can, and not run into anything."
...Maybe. Possibly. Being stealthy is a very new experience, although he's fairly sure he understands the base idea.
--
"...all right." Claude gives him a smile that's strained - the pressure of needing this to go well, and no longer having nearly as much assurance that it will, is enough to make anyone tense - but genuine. "I don't want any other Intseh to have to go through this, either, so I'm glad you thought of it. My plans were focused just on you."
He pulls away from Dimitri, going over to something he dropped into the dust of the courtyard before stepping into the cage. It's a large, heavy cloak with fur trim, hood included - it'll be hard for anyone to see much of anything of the person wearing it, which is of course the point.
Claude holds this out to Dimitri. "I brought this just as insurance that it'd be hard for anyone spotting you while we're on our way out of here to tell you're an Intseh, but it might be a lot more useful than I thought. I paid off the guards to leave their posts for fifteen minutes or so on our route out of here - that timeframe will have passed by the time we're finished, obviously, but hopefully it won't matter since I drugged everyone on night shift anyway." He gives Dimitri another grin - this time it's a little more sly. "I didn't really know if I could trust them. So hopefully we won't run into anyone, or at least no one who's awake...but it's impossible to predict everything."
--
That he's found a cloak that can so completely cover Dimitri is impressive in its own right, frankly, and he wastes no time in throwing it over. Almost immediately, his mouth can be seen turning in distaste. "It's... a lot..." He's not used to having something that covers his horns and ears like this, and his tail feels more confined than he's ever had it be. Still, he puts up with it, immediately heading towards the same entrance and exit to the courtyard he's seen hundreds of people go through.
Yet he pauses there, not only for his ears to flick about for any sounds but to look to Claude.
"...If I pick you up, I could go faster. You said fifteen minutes..." This is probably the quietest spot they'll have to themselves ,so near to his cage, so he wants to take the brief moment to check on this. His padded feet can help him be quiet and fast, although he'll still have to take care.
--
"I'm not worried about the time limit anymore; I can't imagine we'll make it whether we rush or not." Claude chuckles quietly. "I figure dismantling that room in some way so it can't be used again, without causing so much noise that we're discovered, is going to be at least a half hour job, never mind travel time there and back. We'll just have to hope my sleeping poison does its work and keeps the guards under." He shrugs and smiles at Dimitri.
"As for carrying me...as romantic and attractive a prospect as that is, wouldn't it make more sense for me to go first down the halls, then call you forward once I'm sure the coast is clear? If I'm spotted by anyone, it won't be totally disastrous, so I can be a sort of early warning system." He looks thoughtful. "Luckily, there should be no problems getting into the summoning room itself, since there's no real reason for security. Or for anyone to use it while there's already an executioner handy."
Speaking of which - Claude suddenly remembers something critically important. "Ah - shit, I almost forgot." He reaches out and presses a hand over Dimitri's executioner tattoo. "Your control mark - we should disrupt it before we do anything else. So they can't control you even if they catch us. If we break the lines of the tattoo - with a cut or something - it won't work again until it either heals cleanly or you're given a new one." Claude pulls out a small knife, glancing up at Dimitri's face. "I've got a bandage, so we can keep you from dripping blood, but...this is a pretty important part of the plan. And your freedom. Do you want to do it, or should I?"
--
Dimitri shrugs at the idea being shot down. He'd been thinking in terms of speed, less caution, but clearly Claude has the opposite priorities. As long as they aren't caught, that's the important thing. Besides, Claude has clearly thought this through more than he has, on account of having clearly been planning for it for.... who knows how long. Dimitri is willing to go along with this, so long as it gets him to his goal.
Before he can move forward to continue, however, there's Claude's hand at his wrist, and.... Dimitri looks down to where they're connected, the brand visible to him on his arm. The night has been full of too much emotion, too much information, and he feels dazed when he says, "That's all it takes...?" He'd always hated the tattoo, ever since it had first been burned into his skin. Yet it hadn't occurred to him there was a way to make it... fail. To stop its hold on him. If he'd known that.... "I would have torn it off long ago if I'd known...."
Probably for the better that they're doing it now, frankly.
Yet the question is a serious one, and Dimitri hesitates for only a moment before he reaches for the knife. Yet instead of taking the hilt of it, his hand folds over Claude's, guiding it closer to the mark. He meets Claude's gaze, feeling more sure in this than most other things in his life. "...Both of us."
--
"They'd have simply restrained you in other ways and then re-applied it," Claude replies, with a shake of his head. "It's really only going to be useful now that they can't put it back on you." At best...Dimitri might have been able to tear one of those people apart that he's so desperately wanted to, by catching them by surprise. But it was only likely to work once...and who knows? They might have considered that knowledge so dangerous for Dimitri to have, or the death he'd caused to be too heinous, that they wouldn't have let him live after that.
It's definitely better this way.
Claude gazes into Dimitri's eyes and nods, grip tightening around the hilt of the dagger. "Not too deep, but not too shallow," he instructs. With his free hand, he traces a slashing line across the tattoo, the line crossing directly over the symbols within the diamond shape and bisecting the diamond itself completely. "Just one cut should be enough if it disrupts enough of the design."
--
Claude hates every second of it. He appreciates how necessary it is, but hurting Dimitri is basically the last thing he wants to do, Dimitri's blood is the last thing he wants to see. And the feeling of the blade sliding deliberately through his skin doesn't just give him the creeping, vicarious sensation of what it must feel like(it's not like he's never been cut before, he can imagine it better than he'd care to), he can also feel what it's doing to Dimitri through the hilt of the blade and it repulses him. He wishes it had been fast, just so it'd be over more quickly.
But it is over soon enough, if any amount of time at all could possibly be soon enough, and Claude hurriedly tucks the knife away again to get out the bandages and wrap Dimitri's hand. "They'll never control you again," he mutters, in a voice that suggests that, even as much as Dimitri resents it himself, Claude's own fury and distaste of the church's controlling Dimitri still manages to come fairly close.
--
It's still taking time to sink in, on some level- the idea of being free in body, in spirit. (The mind may take longer, with all the damage that's been done.) Yet watching Claude's expression as he hastily bandages the injury, it seems to help push it a little deeper, and Dimitri only seems to wait long enough for Claude to finish before his free hand guides his face up towards him. He ducks down, quick, with a bit too much teeth, for a kiss before pulling away.
"...None other, either." And with that, he begins to pull Claude along. "This way." It's been a long time since he's been anywhere besides his cage or the execution ring, but that one time path had been notable. Dimitri might not remember the details, might need Claude's help, but he remembers roughly the right way to go... and it's opposite of the path he's normally taken.
The church doesn't like the potential of current and future executioners to meet, after all. The summoning chambers are opposite of the execution grounds.
--
It's not until they're inside, in the quiet halls of the monastery, that Claude gently pulls away from Dimitri. "All right," he murmurs. "Let me go ahead. I'll go as far as the next corner, and if the coast is clear I'll gesture for you to follow, okay?"
--
There's a couple of very soft 'thmps' as Dimitri's tail smacks against the inside of his cloak, as though his furrowed brow doesn't show enough of his distaste. "...I'll wait." He won't like it, but he'll wait and not immediately murder on sight.
--
"If we see someone," Claude warns quietly, "don't kill first, all right? Remember, a lot of the people here have been lied to; it's the ones in charge or the ones who are willfully vicious that are the ones who should pay, not people who've just been tricked. If we run into anyone, we can capture them and then figure out what to do."
He doesn't wait to argue the point; he doesn't want any argument of the point. Instead he moves quietly ahead, striking a careful balance between a gait that is as soundless as he can make it and a mode of movement that doesn't immediately scream 'suspicious individual'.
He makes it all the way to the end of the hall, peers around the corner, then gestures for Dimitri to follow him.
--
A faint grumble is all the argument that Claude gets, fortunately, but Dimitri stays behind, watching and waiting. This kind of go and wait is new, a little frustrating, and it's taking all of his very new self control to hold back. As Claude makes his way down the hall, Dimitri adjusts his hands within his cloak and rubs his fingers across his bandage.
It's a good reminder. Solid.
Due to the situation being what it is, Dimitri doesn't need to restrict himself in anywhere near the same way as Claude does. He just surges forward, the movement of his cloak more a problem than his padded footsteps, before he comes to a quick stop besides Claude. "Certain of where you're going?" he asks, tugging at his hood with some distaste. His hearing feels muffled and he doesn't like it.
--
"Completely. I've been planning to break you out since I found you again, so I did my homework." Claude flashes a grin at him. "I've got the layout of the entire monastery memorized."
Their trip through the halls is - even with Claude running ahead of Dimitri like a pilot fish ahead of a shark - both quick and uneventful. Soon they reach the door to the summoning room. It's locked, Claude discovers, but he's picking that lock even before Dimitri reaches him after being beckoned forward.
Claude is, after all, someone who's been collecting incriminating and - usually as a direct result - hidden information on the church for years; this isn't the first time he's had to get into somewhere people would prefer he not go. Not by a long shot.
In less than ten seconds, the tumblers click back and Claude is opening the door with a smug look on his face. Granted, the lock wasn't complex by any means - probably no one makes much effort to come here - but he still got to show off to Dimitri a little.
--
It'll be touching to think back on that bit of information, that Claude has been working so long for him, but Dimitri can't think too much on it right now. Everything else is soaking up his attention as he trails after Claude, senses straining for any sound indicating threat or presence. When he finally catches up to Claude, all he can do is watch in complete mystification as he fiddles with the lock. Not a bit of it makes any sense to him, so it's almost more impressive than magic when the lock clicks open. Claude will get to hear the sound of Dimitri's ears smacking against the inside of his hood as they perk up when the door just... opens.
He'll have a lot of questions about this later.
For now, however... Surprise wearing off, something clenches in Dimitri's stomach as he reaches out himself to push the door open. It's been so long since he's first been inside this room... And yet, in the gloom, it feels as though nothing as changed since he was a boy. He's almost rocked by the feeling that washes over him, rocking slightly on his feet, as he takes it all in. It's not a small room by any means, meant for at least a few people just in case the summoning ends violently and they need room for damage control. To one side are a pair of cabinets, one clearly holding books behind its locked doors while the other has various tools for the creation of potions, and they seem to be the main decor of the room... Not counting the large statue in the back of the same saint that can be seen in so many other places throughout the monastery. Opposite from the cabinets are a basin for hand washing, space for preparation...
And there, right in the center...
It's smudged, Dimitri observes in a daze as he steps further into the room, taking in the summoning circle. Faded as well. They've apparently not touched this room ever since he was first brought forth; it's purpose was served that way. He still remembers the smell of incense- yes there are the holders near the basin- and the dizzying nausea that had overtaken him as he'd been there, directly in the center, surrounded by solemn faced figures....
As the memories hit him harder than anything that's done so in the execution ring, Claude will get to see the way he's starting to hunch over, trembling claws out from the cloak, and a move around to see his face will make the bared fangs more than clear... It's the split second before Dimitri completely snaps. This is Claude's one chance to do damage control, both in regards to his plan and the overall room.
--
Claude rapidly moves forward, wrapping his arms around Dimitri. "I'm here," he murmurs, soft but urgent. "Remember: you're free now. We're getting out of here, as soon as we make sure no other Intseh ever get dragged here again."
His mouth is pressed against Dimitri's hood, close to his ear. "The only way they'll ever have any say over what happens to you, ever again, is if they catch us here, so we need to make sure they don't. Okay?" He squeezes Dimitri slightly. The hold is more reassurance than restraint; he knows he couldn't physically hold Dimitri back if he tried. "Now help me figure out the best way to destroy this stuff thoroughly but quietly."
--
Blindly, not particularly looking, Dimitri fumbles his hand up until he can press it against where Claude's his, press it against where his heart is beating rapidly in his chest. It's hard to make out the meaning behind sounds, make words out of them. He needs another few seconds before he remembers to breathe, shaking all over. "Get the books," he says, voice straining to be quiet. "They probably- how to make that symbol over again." As for him, once he's sure he can move without screaming...
Dimitri wants to tear up the stones from their places, throw them through a window. To make up for being unable to do that, he kneels down to begin dragging his hands over the markings. They're easy to smudge further, although they still take work, and Dimitri ignores the rough pain that comes with using his hands. It's something physical he can do, and he needs to get the energy out of him at least a little bit before continuing further.
--
Claude nods, releasing Dimitri - slowly - to head over to the cabinets. The locks here give him a little more trouble, but not much; soon enough he has them open. He surveys them, looking for the ones about summoning magic and thinking about how best to destroy them. He's not one for destroying knowledge, generally - in fact he's about the exact opposite of that - but the church can't be trusted with this knowledge.
Fortunately, they won't need to destroy everything, or even most of the books. Some of them seem to be generalized magic books, or about potion-making, or various other resources. Claude doubts there are many books about this particular kind of summoning magic, and even fewer that lay out what this branch of the church uses it for. It's not common - or even accepted - practice anywhere else that Claude knows of.
In the end, he finds a thick, leather-bound volume and pulls it out of the bookcase. He flips through it, just to make sure this is indeed the book that deals with the subject at hand - and, in relatively short order, he finds pages with summoning circles very much like the one Dimitri is currently scrubbing out. That's evidence enough for him.
Claude carries the book over to the basin, even as he begins methodically tearing out pages. He starts tossing the balls of paper into the basin in handfuls, until he's got nothing but an empty shell of binding in his other hand; this he tosses aside.
Then he reaches into his pack and finds his firestarter. Lit in the basin, with nothing but quick-burning paper, the fire will be small; it won't spread, and the smoke will be minimal. Considering they closed the door behind them, the smell isn't even likely to reach anyone else. And he can't think of a quicker, more thorough way to destroy them.
--
As the smell of burning paper begins to fill the room, Dimitri finally rocks back onto his feet and pushes shaky hands up against his face and into his hair. It leaves a trail of white sticking to his fur, already quite a mess on his hands. This should be enough. Now most of the circle is nothing more than a smear of white on stone, and sometimes not even that. His palms are sore from how hard he's ground them to make this happen, but.... He takes a deep breath through his nose, and pauses.
...The smell is familiar. Somehow, familiar.
When Claude looks away from the fire he's tending, he'll find Dimitri silently opening the cabinet for the potions, going through the various things there. Most of it are just the tools necessary for the practice... but there's something there that's different. An ingredient kept tucked away, left overs of the past summoning kept just in case. It's a plugged vial of some sort of white powdery substance, and Dimitri clumsily tugs it open.
...That's around the point Claude will see him stick his finger in, get only a bit of the dust, and slip his tongue out to taste it.
--
"Dimitri?" Claude asks, with a note of sharp concern in his voice. "What are you doing? Is that even safe?"
He's looked up from the burning papers - the fire from which is already dying; it really didn't last long - just in time to notice what Dimitri's doing, and he's immediately concerned. He doesn't know much about this kind of magic, the kind not worked through tattoos, but he wouldn't trust many of the reagents as edible.
(He's also planning on pouring every liquid in the cabinets down the basin, and the church can enjoy whatever plumbing woes may come from that, but that's a concern for later.)
--
There's no immediate answer. Dimitri just stays quiet for a moment, brow furrowed as he goes through the taste now on his tongue. After a second of thought, he looks up at Claude. His brow is drawn tight, not understanding what he's puzzling through, not entirely. "Claude... It's bone." He rubs his fingers together, where some of the dust is still lingering and seeming to blend in just fine with the white that's already on his fur. "I've tasted bone before..." Not like this, mind. Rather, at his most vicious as an executioner, when he was able to tear through entire chunks of flesh right down to the very center. The taste is a little different, without the blood and muscle and fat to get in the way, not to mention the difference between solid bone and what's been ground up.... But it's close enough for him to feel certain about the taste.
"The same smell was in the circle...."
--
There's a minute tightening in Claude's jaw. He turns to the basin, sees that the papers are nothing but smoldering black balls, and is satisfied with that. Then he walks over to Dimitri, gently taking the bottle from his hands and recapping it before tucking it into his pouch. "We'll bury the bottle when we're out of here," he says, with calm finality.
He really doesn't want Dimitri thinking on this subject anymore, not now, so he diverts the subject as forcefully as possible. "Can you help me start pouring these liquids down the basin? We have to do them one at a time, because frankly who knows what'll happen if we mix them."
--
For some reason, he almost wants to protest when the vial is taken from him. Dimitri hasn't the faintest idea why. It's not as if he knows whose bones those are. Yet there's something on the edge of his understanding, it feels, if only he could figure it out. Still, he leaves it be, looking towards the cabinet again.
"..Very well. I'll listen for anyone who might be passing by." Even with the sound of liquids running, he'll be able to pick up on that much. Leaving Claude with that vial, he begins to go through the remaining bottles that do in fact tend towards liquid more than any other substance. Having large hands is good for this much, and he carts them over to where the basin is. A petty and bitter part of him just wants to smash it all to pieces... but he holds back, ears flicked downwards as he starts yanking caps off.
--
Claude, meanwhile - whose understanding jumped far ahead of Dimitri's as soon as Dimitri clarified what the white powder was, and is still full of that cold, quiet fury - goes through the rest of the paraphernalia, looking for anything else that appears to be even vaguely useful to the church. A few more bottles of unidentifiable liquid is all he finds, although one that's a dark, sullen red catches his eye for reasons that crystallized instantly after the realization that the priests use what has to be powdered Intseh bones. He takes it, gingerly, and wiggles the cap loose just enough to get a sniff - and his nose instantly wrinkles in distaste. He's not surprised that it's blood, but he's even angrier than before.
He's sure Dimitri's going to smell this as soon as it's properly uncapped, which is part of why he hasn't done so yet. He leaves it temporarily in the cabinet as he carries the rest of the bottles over to the sink for Dimitri's convenience, then returns to that final bottle in silence.
His eyes move to the statue of the saint.
When the smell of the blood hits Dimitri, he'll find that Claude is carefully, deliberately painting tears of blood down the saint's face with his fingers. There's a set grimness to his features that is as foreign to him as they are to the church.
--
Smelling blood sets off all of Dimitri's instincts immediately, abandoning the last of his own task to whirl around with the fur on the back of his neck bristling already. The executioner in him is already thinking of a fight, and the rest of him is alarmed at what that might mean for Claude, even though Dimitri knows his senses haven't picked up the sound of anyone else entering the room with them. When he sees what Claude is doing, just where the blood is coming from, he pauses for only a second before slipping over besides him.
"...Blood as well, then." The smell of this, too, is familiar like the powdered bones were, in a way that's different from the gore he's used to. Unable to help himself, he reaches over to lightly touch Claude's face, leaving a faint trace of the circle's paleness on that dark skin. "...You know something I do not."
--
"Guessed, maybe," Claude murmurs. His expression softens minutely when Dimitri touches him. "We can talk about it once we're outside, though. It's better to focus on what we need to do for now."
Once he's finished applying the blood to the saint's face, satisfied that the tears look more natural than a child's finger-painting, he caps the bottle of blood and tucks it into his pouch as well, to be buried with the bone. Then he turns to Dimitri. "Can you think of anything else we should sabotage here?"
--
"I would tear the stones from their place on the floor and shatter the glass of their potions, but that is not quiet." It'd be sarcasm from anyone else. Dimitri merely says it with some bitter disappointment as he glances back to the cabinets. "...I can think of nothing else." He inclines his head down towards Claude's fingers. "Will that not be a problem to have visible?" Literal blood on his hands is bound to get attention if they run into someone on the way out, after all, and Claude already let him know a while ago that they're going off track from his original plan.
--
Claude shrugs and smiles slightly. "That's the least of my worries right now." His gaze slides over to the empty bottles, and the empty shell of the book binding. "Let's put the room back the way we found it. Give them a little mystery." He smirks, with no humor. "Maybe they'll think it was an act of God."
--
"Or a demon," Dimitri says bluntly, still going to put the bottles back where he roughly remembers they came from. There's no way for him to remember what went exactly where, just that they belong on certain shelves, but that will be fine enough, he imagines. It's clearly been ages since anyone has been in this room for anything more than a brief clean to keep dust off their saint. It's doubtful the exact positioning of bottles or such will go noticed.
The book he'll entrust to Claude, including avoiding spreading blood more, and simply listens at the door for a moment before slipping his head out to confirm the coast is clear. With that, he waits for him to go first.
To lead the way to freedom once more.
--
Claude makes sure to put the book back with his clean hand, and takes care to avoid getting blood on anything as he refastens the locks. "If they end up terrified that a demon magicked you and all their supplies away, and made their saint cry tears of blood, I can't say I'm going to lose any sleep over it," he says dryly. Then he moves over to the door beside Dimitri, likewise peering down the halls. He takes a moment to lock the door behind them; he wants this to be as confusing and inexplicable (or, potentially, suspicious) for the church as possible. Claude then straightens up, touching Dimitri's arm briefly, and moves down the halls again, beckoning the Intseh along behind him.
They're almost back to the courtyard, heading for the entrance Claude initially planned on taking them out of, when he pauses at a corner. There's a guard visible in the next hall. For a moment, Claude's heart flies into his throat...but then he notices the way the man is slumped against the wall. Asleep, then, or mostly so; their luck might still be holding.
When Dimitri reaches the corner with him, Claude turns to him. "Careful here," he murmurs, voice low. "We'll go together. Be on the far side of me, so that I'm between you and him; your feet are still visible under that cloak, but it'll be harder for him to see them - or any other part of you - if I'm in the way. Walk like you've got every right to be doing what you're doing, but keep your head bowed forward so the cloak hides your face still. He might not even be awake, but even if he is, he's not at his sharpest. Don't speak, don't slow down, and don't look. Understand?"
--
"The practical parts," Dimitri says, having started to wrinkle his nose around the time Claude tried to tell him what sort of mood to put in his walk. Dimitri has never, not once, thought about how he's walked. He's not even sure he knows how to do anything that isn't just plain 'walking'. This is rather above him. As he glances briefly around the corner himself, even more aggravation starts to bubble in his veins. The guard is on his blind side, meaning he won't be able to keep a close eye on him even without the hood in the way. And the hood still feels as though it's too much over his ears.... "I don't like this."
Yet he reaches up to tug his hood further along his face, pads kneading along stone restlessly. "...But I will do it." His hands disappear inside his cloak. "..And will not kill him if something goes wrong." Just perhaps a mild maiming. A concussion. He'll see how it works out.
--
Claude leans in to press a quick kiss of gratitude to the corner of his mouth, smiling at him as he pulls away. Then, tucking his bloodied hand into his pocket, he begins moving down the hall, careful to keep pace with Dimitri.
He only shoots the quickest of glances at the guard as they pass him, and relaxes considerably. Either out like a light, or not even bothering to open his eyes as they move past; possibly they're so quiet he doesn't even realize people have passed him. Claude's sleeping poison is still in full effect, and that's immensely reassuring. Still, Claude waits until they're at the end of the hall before he lets out his breath in a sigh. "So far, so good," he murmurs.
They only encounter one more guard on their walk to the back entrance of the monastery, and the situation plays out almost exactly like the first. Claude thinks he sees the fluttering of the man's eyelids as they pass, but he's not particularly worried about it; the man can't have gotten a good look at either of them, if he registered them at all.
And then, finally, they're at the gate. The gate guard is fast asleep in his gatehouse; no surprise, since he actually gets the luxury of a chair to slump in. The gate itself is something of an obstacle, of course; they can't possibly open it quietly. Claude, however, is unconcerned, moving over to the wall. There are steps leading to the top of the wall, as is fairly common in most large structures like this; they're not meant to keep people in. The drop on the other side is roughly ten feet - not pleasant on the ankles, perhaps, but certainly doable without significant injury. Scaling the wall from the outside had been trickier than this, but Claude spent last night quietly and carefully digging mortar out from between bricks to create handholds for himself to make it easier.
"Ready to leave?" he murmurs to Dimitri, with a bright smile. Against all odds, even with the detour...Claude's plan still seems to have come off without a hitch. His relief is palpable.
--
Somehow, it's been far easier to be in fights to the death than it is to stay calm as he walks alongside Claud through the monastery, then at the gate. While he'd been relatively calm when Claude had instructed him, by the end of it, he's nearly buzzing with anxious adrenaline and can hardly see anything but Claude as the other man leads the way. He's waiting for something to happen, for something to go wrong... and when nothing does? When they're there at the gate?
Dimitri looks a combination of daze and lost as he drags his stare over to where Claude is waiting, panting just a little bit. "....Just this?"
--
"Don't think it'd be this easy without all the work I put in," Claude replies with a wink. "But yeah, this is it. All we have to do is jump down and disappear."
He chuckles. "I'd offer to lower you down, but you'd drag me right off the wall, probably. But with those feet of yours, I imagine you can land pretty lightly."
--
"...So I should lower you down." This isn't a joke. Dimitri seems to mean this utterly sincerely as he considers the drop. He's pretty sure he's made worse drops, during desperate moments in the ring where he'd made scrambles up the walls as if that would do anything. A tall height, the reach that comes with it, combined with early year pure desperation... Well, that can get a Intseh pretty high up before he falls, or his controllers pull him down first.
Claude doesn't get a chance to change his mind on this. Dimitri takes a deep breath, using this new focus to step forward without any further hesitation. Dropping down into a crouch, he digs his fingers into the edge and swings downwards. With his height alone, that frankly takes care of most of the fall, and he can drop down with hardly any issue at all. There's a light grunt as his weight hits the ground, but he's upright again immediately as he looks up to Claude with his arms outstretched.
--
Claude blinks, then laughs quietly. "Is it just me, or have you been looking for an excuse to have me in your arms all night?" he teases quietly, before hopping lightly down. He's got no reservations; if Dimitri wants to catch him, he'll catch him. Claude's trust in Dimitri, and his strength, is quite assured.
--
The catch is just as smooth as one could hope, with Dimitri not even wobbling in the slightest. "It's all I can do in this," he murmurs against Claude's hair, not realizing the teasing for what it is right now as he lowers him down to the ground. All this planning, all this work, successfully getting them out of the monastery.... He has enough sense to know it's all thanks to Claude. Him? Well... They know what he wanted to do. Still wants to do, frankly.
With Claude set down, Dimitri looks over his shoulders at the expanse of.... everything that awaits him. He's never seen so much available to him before. For so much of his life now, his entire world has been made up of the cage, the execution ring, and the halls connecting the two. All of this....
He reaches over, gripping Claude's hand tightly. There's so much. It's overwhelming.
--
Claude squeezes his hand, grinning at him, before he tugs him down the road - diagonally across it, in fact, to slip into some woods on the other side. Claude wants them out of sight of the monastery as quickly as possible, just in case, although he doesn't think anyone will see them now - or think much on it if they do. But extra precautions never hurt anyone, and they've already pushed their luck tonight.
--
Dimitri has no reason to expect Claude tonight. In point of fact, no one in the monastery has any particular reason to expect Claude here tonight...although, as Claude had patiently explained to the guards he's bribing, if they want to find the other half of the money he promised them tomorrow in the dead drops he's arranged, he doesn't care if he's here or not; he expects certain things of them. He's not too worried about them double-crossing him and ignoring his orders; for one thing, he'd set up the dead drops for that explicit purpose, so they'll understand that Claude will simply not put it there if they disobey him. And, for another, why rely on them at all? That's why he'd slipped the sleeping powder into the stew he'd arranged to be the night watch's meal for tonight. Probably all of them will have dozed off at their posts.
(Plus, he's blackmailing several of them. Gently; no direct threats. He'd just made it clear he knew some damaging secrets, and he wasn't looking to hurt them...but if he's doing them the favor of keeping their secret, could they do him one small favor in return? Fifteen minutes of your time! A nice, cheap price. He couldn't get dirt on all of them, but for the ones he could, it's just one more layer of insurance for his plans.)
And this plan can't fail him. He's put an exhaustive amount of work into it, into making sure it'll go off without a hitch, into making it non-disruptive and likely not to garner much attention from the church, on preserving his own innocence within the eyes of the church...but the fact of the matter is, he's all in on this. He's going to get Dimitri out of the monastery, no matter what it takes tonight. If it means having to fight, if it means having to kill, if it means excommunication (which he doesn't care about) and a lifetime of pursuit by the church's inquisitors(which he does). He'll burn every bridge for this, if he has to. He'll give his life for it.
His extensive preparations have merely been in the vein that he doesn't think it has to come to any of that, and would prefer it didn't.
Claude doesn't want the monastery to crumble in blood and fire. He wants it to be dismantled brick by brick in the cold light of day, brought to trial and executed in the name of justice. He doesn't want them to simply die as martyrs; he wants their names burned into history as war criminals.
Dimitri, Claude supposes, would consider Claude's aversion to violence soft, or forgiving. Claude seriously doubts that Dimitri would hold onto such illusions if he was able to understand the kinds of plans Claude has for the church they mutually despise.
There's no moon tonight, and the courtyard is prohibitively dark as Claude moves across it, with a stealth that even Dimitri's padded feet would have a hard time matching. It's completely different from how Claude moves during the day, so much so that one has to wonder if even the way Claude moves is sometimes an act - an act meant to hide what he's actually capable of by giving no hint to it whatsoever.
"Dimitri," he hisses, once he's near the bars. He's sure Dimitri can see him in the dark - he understands Intseh night vision is better than that of humans - but Dimitri is also preoccupied and not expecting company. "It's me." He smiles a little, although there's a slightly tense, harried feel to his manner tonight that suggests he feels the urgency, the time crunch of the window in which his plan will be at its most optimal chance to succeed. "I brought you your gift a little early."
--
Instinct has often come before reason in Dimitri's head, if only because there's been more reason to use it than otherwise, and he reacts more to the idea of noise than what that noise actually signifies. He whips around almost immediately at the first syllable, tail snapping through the air enough that it'd bruise any person that it would hit- a quick reaction fitting for the church's executioner. Even his claws immediately curl at the ready, teeth bared already. Not expecting Claude means his mind summons up threats, because what else could be here besides the one ally he has in this world?
It disappears in a heartbeat once it actually penetrates who's at his bars, however, and threat is eased back in exchange for faint confused surprise. "Claude?" His ears flick back, sensing something is off and wary already. "You were not to return tonight, I thought..."
--
"And as far as the church is concerned, I haven't," Claude replies, with a grin - a flash of white teeth visible against darker skin in the blackness. "I didn't want people to think I was going to return tonight."
He steps closer to the bars. The key is warm in his hand; he's been clutching it like a lifeline. He may be an accomplished schemer, but this plan is so important that there's no way he can pull it off without some reasonable nerves. "You haven't asked me what I brought you yet."
--
While there's always been a hint of hurry to their meetings, more on Claude's end than anything, it's never been like this... and Dimitri has slowly acclimated to how their meetings go. Such a drastic change has him glancing around, eyes carefully searching through the darkness. Is this a trick of some sort, like he always thought it would go?
"...What."
--
Claude slips the key between his fingers and into the lock, turning it slowly so there's less noise from the tumblers as they snap back. Then he tucks the key away, pulls a rag from the pouch on his belt, and quickly rubs down the hinges of the door. The rag has oil on it; when Claude opens the door, there's barely a whisper of noise.
He smiles at Dimitri. "I know you don't bother with dreams anymore, so I thought I'd bring you something real."
--
Reality, as it turns out, is tricky.
In the ideal turn out of this scenario, the utter shock on Dimitri's face, easier to make out with his pale fur even in darkness, isn't too out of place. What follows it, however, isn't elation or happiness or wonder. Instead, Dimitri's expression crumples in on itself, wide blue eye squeezing shut. "Of course it would be you too," he hisses, although it almost doesn't seem directed towards Claude as more himself than anything. His shoulders hunch up, claws curling to grasp at... something. Certainly not Claude, since he turns away from the other to begin pacing in short frustrated circles but a meter or so away from him. "I want one thing, I have nothing else, I'm going to die in that ring, and yet, again, once you are gone...." A low snarl leaves him.
Hopefully Claude took Dimitri's mental state into consideration when crafting this scheme of his. He's seemed mostly stable, thanks to Claude's company and something to pour his focus into such as learning another language... But there's still been no denying his casual admissions of hallucinations, the occasional difficulty he has between understanding what's in his head and what he's said, and how his attention sometimes drifts from Claude to focus on something that isn't there.
And right now, he thinks what's happening now... That surely must be any one of those options, and it, it- it infuriates him to consider that his rattled mind may really have taken Claude's image to torment him with how close the man has pulled him. He can't stand it.
--
Claude has, a bit. He's not too surprised when Dimitri - if he's reading the context clues right, and he finds it hard to imagine he's not - chalks him up to being a hallucination. Fortunately, he thinks it's going to be simple enough of a misconception to sort out.
Claude steps through the open door, into the cage, and gently rests his hands on Dimitri's shoulders, turning the Intseh to look at him. (Assuming Dimitri cooperates with the urging, of course. If Dimitri doesn't want to move, Claude probably couldn't make him do so without some kind of winch and pulley system.)
"It's real, Dimitri. I'm real. We're getting out of here."
--
As always, being touched in a non-violent way will continue to surprise Dimitri for a long while yet... and double when he's not expecting it. His body jolts at Claude's touch, and he can't even think to stop him when he's forcefully turned around with his eye snapping open in shock. Even with the evidence right there in front of his eyes, touching his arms... It feels so hard to think it could be real. Reaching up, he gingerly rests his fingers along Claude's hands at his shoulders- first as a touch, then as a grip.
"Claude..." It's a strangled breath of a sound. He's not thought of escape as a dream for a very long time. Now that the real thing is in front of him.... His hand shakes against Claude's, and he looks to the open cage door with such a complicated twist of emotions that he doesn't know what to do with even half of them.
--
Claude lets Dimitri adjust to the idea for as long as he dares; even thirty seconds is stretching it. Fifteen minutes is a fairly large window of time - moving quickly should be enough to get them outside the monastery in seven - but he couldn't reasonably ask for more without inciting dangerous levels of suspicion, and eight minutes of padding isn't a whole lot of wiggle room for problems they may run into. He gives Dimitri fifteen seconds of just...pure processing time, before he slides a hand out from under Dimitri's to reach up and cup his face, guiding him to look at Claude again.
The next fifteen seconds get devoted to pulling the Intseh down and kissing him the way the bars wouldn't let him do last time.
--
A mixture of a gasp and a snarl is breathed against Claude's lips when he kisses him, and that spurs him, somehow, if only enough to grasp the archer's sides as if afraid he'll vanish into thin air if he doesn't grab this chance. When they part, the sensation is finally moving past 'numb' and kickstarting into adrenaline. Keeping his hold onto Claude, he jerks his head back towards the door. Just the action of taking a step outside- out of the cage, not bound, not prodded, free- nearly leaves him dizzy, not knowing what to do.
"They... can finally die, like they were meant to."
...Well. He knows what he wants to do, at any rate.
--
Ah. Not good. Claude hadn't entirely counted on Dimitri's leaning toward violence rather than simply wanting to be free, which...in retrospect, honestly, he probably should have. Too late to lament it, now, though; he just has to deal with it.
This...is going to take all of his powers of persuasion, he thinks.
"Dimitri, no." He grips the Intseh's upper arms, gently but firmly. "I've got us a chance to get out of here, for you to never have to be in a cage again - for you to have an actual life. But there's not that big of a window of time for us to get out of here. And if you go on a rampage here, if you slaughter people in their beds here...you'll be a criminal. You'll be a public danger. They'll be able to spin your aggression, the deaths you cause, to make you a monster and the dead into your victims. The church is bigger than this monastery, and they'll send people after us. It'll just be a short-lived victory that ends with the church wiping you out." The look of pleading in his eyes is genuine, although the fact that he's letting Dimitri see it in his eyes might be a calculated move. "And me with you, because I'll be there if they come for you.
"Please, Dimitri. I didn't free you just so that the church can end up killing you anyway. There are other ways to punish them than just tearing through them tonight. Better ways. Don't throw away this chance we've got. You can finally have a future - one you choose for yourself. You don't have to be a killer anymore."
--
As executioner, it takes sometimes half a dozen controllers to rein Dimitri in when he's at his worst and most uncontrollable, and even that is reinforced with the magic that binds Dimitri to the church and is burned into his skin. Claude's own strength, not even taking into account the difference in how he handles him, is hardly enough to even be called 'restraining'... Yet it still seems to make him bristle as such when he snaps back to look at Claude with his lips already peeling back over his fangs.
"Then I'll just get rid of all of them." This is not a well thought out plan. Dimitri isn't in the space to even try making those. "To them, I am nothing but a monster already! To be a criminal would acknowledge I exist, as a person, as someone that can commit sin." The corners of his mouth jerk up, a brief and desperate grin. "Almost a victory of its own. But for them to get away with what they've done, to continue to act as though they are free of murder merely because they forced another, tortured someone and refused to acknowledge their personhood-" A low growl is picking up in the back of his voice, threatening to break out into a much worse snarl. "This is what they deserve! If they want an executioner, something that can judge sin and punish it with death, then they'll get that, and the first ones who should have been in that ring with me should have been them all along. I'll show them that!"
....But he doesn't go tearing off just yet. Dimitri stays where he is, bristling and aching for violence as he might be, fangs and claws bared as they might be. His own reputation, his own fate? He doesn't care about that. The idea of some sort of 'long term' goal is too difficult for him to comprehend, not when he's swept up in his emotions.
Claude... is different. Dimitri has never been able to hold onto anything in his life yet- part of why his growing softness to Claude has distressed him so much. Such a good thing, what will he do when it gets torn away from him? But now that he's being hit with a rush of freedom.... He has a chance to hold onto the one good thing, the one good person, in his life, and not let go. Not lose him.
--
"Dimitri, believe me, I agree with you that they need to pay for what they've done. And I promise they will. But what I'm telling you is that just killing them is not the best way to do this." Claude cups Dimitri's face in his hands, holding the Intseh's gaze with eyes that positively burn. This is an intensity Claude rarely lets show, despite the fact that it's what drives him from day to day; he prefers to keep it disguised.
"Killing them is too good for them."
And now that intensity is in Claude's voice, too. There's a cold hate in the words that might bring Dimitri up short where nothing else could, because Dimitri will recognize it. It's got all the vengeance and rage in it as Dimitri's own heart, coming from an entirely unexpected source; it's like Claude's taken the raw power of Dimitri's thundering waterfall of fury and channeled all of it into a laser drill that can cut diamonds.
"They tortured and imprisoned you for years, Dimitri. They stole you from your home. They purged my village, did their best to erase my culture from me, treated us both like lesser beings for the bulk of our lives. And what - a few minutes of agony for them, and then they're free? Dying still clinging to the belief that they were right, so they and the rest of the world can call them martyrs? Innocent victims of some mindless, bloodthirsty beast? We can do better than that. I can do better than that. I can turn the whole world against them. I can get them excommunicated and executed by their own church, let them die knowing the world considers them godless fanatics, have them denied heaven by their own faith. That's what I've been working towards for years."
It's downright intimidating to see just how much ferocity, how much bitterness, Claude keeps hidden away behind his everyday, casual demeanor. But, in a way, it's intoxicating as well; Dimitri will get the sense that he's seeing deeper into Claude than he ever has before, perhaps deeper than anyone has before.
"We've lost enough to them. A revenge we have to sacrifice even more for isn't worth having. If you want them punished, then work with me for a vengeance against them we can savor for the rest of our long, happy lives. Not one that'll just make our lives harder. I'm sick of them limiting the good things we can have."
--
Dimitri has not had a physical home for a very, very long time.
The room they first stored him in? Even when he was at his most optimistic, he only viewed it as a temporary space. The cage? Nothing but a prison, meant to choke his freedom, his sense of self, away completely. Then there was the arena, but that was merely where he was put to use, unleashed upon. If there has been anything he's treated akin to home, something to welcome him, to wrap himself in... It's been his own hatred and rage, his own bloody desire for even a scrap of vengeance. It's the only comfort he's been able to have, the idea he could tear something in this rotten system apart with his claws before finding freedom in the death that would no doubt result.
He'll find the sense in Claude's words... later. He'll even find himself agreeing with them... later. But for now, more than the words, more than the sense... It's the burning of those words that pierces through, that blends with his own intensity and animosity to redirect the current. Those feelings and Claude are the only reassurances Dimitri has ever had, so to see them blended together....
A regular person might find them terrifying put together like this. Dimitri, instead, takes comfort, shaking claws reaching up to lay over Claude's hands as he bows his head, expression twisted. He wants to tear this whole place to the ground. He wants to turn the stones to dust, dash blood against the ground, see it all burn... It's a want so bad he shakes from it. But....
"Alright." His twisted face, his hoarse voice- it's as if Dimitri is physically pained from pulling back from his most destructive urges. "But- one thing. Let me destroy one thing."
--
Claude is almost shaken by Dimitri's acquiescence. More than just by the fact that he was able to win it so quickly, although he'd certainly been expecting an uphill battle when he'd realized (far, far later than he should have) just how much Dimitri wanted to murder the people in the monastery, although that is certainly quite a lot. But more than that...he knows how violent Dimitri is, has been taught to be, and how unstable and bitter he is as well.
That Dimitri is not just able but willing to listen to him, to trust him, to place perhaps the one thing he's been longing for most in Claude's hands with only blind belief that Claude will eventually help him fulfill those desires, that someone who's barely even had a concept of a future will accept delayed gratification on the one thing that's been keeping him going all this time...
It tells Claude everything about how much he must matter to Dimitri. How much Dimitri trusts him. And it's the most monumental responsibility Claude has ever been handed, by anyone. He actually stops breathing for a moment.
"Thank you," he finally whispers, in a voice that should tell Dimitri quite clearly that Claude realizes just how much of a sacrifice (however temporary Claude intends it to be) this concession is. "But...what one thing are you talking about?"
If Dimitri's agreeing to this, then presumably this one thing isn't meant to destroy Claude's greater plan to get them out of here. (Dimitri would presumably know that it'd be a problem for their escape and thus not be feasible, otherwise, and probably wouldn't bother asking for the allowance.) Claude's not sure what would fit those criteria, under the circumstances, but if it does...then Claude's willing to give it to him. Right now Claude is willing to give Dimitri just about anything he can.
--
"The room." It occurs to him a split second afterwards that he needs to give more information. "The one- where I was first pulled into, before you met me." Dimitri thinks, vaguely, that he might have described it once to Claude when they were younger, although the description can't have been very good at all. He was still optimistic back then, for starters, and he'd been dazed at being jerked through time and space into an entirely different country.
"I want- I need to destroy it." There's that snarl of a grimace on his face again, tail thrashing through the air behind him. "When I'm gone.... When I'm gone..."
Dimitri is violent, occasionally oblivious, and bad at long term planning. Yet he's not an idiot. He'd picked up long ago how used to handling 'demons' the monastery is, how entrenched this violent method of handling criminals is in their habits. It occurred to him, not too long after he'd been officially made an executioner, that he was just a replacement for another Intseh... and that, eventually, when he met his own violent end, another would be a replacement for him.
He won't let that happen. And.... if he can't bring this entire monastery to the ground, he can at least destroy one room.
And if he can only destroy the one room... That one, more than anywhere else, would give him the most satisfaction.
--
Claude hesitates. It's a good idea, and one he immediately wants to implement...even though it'll probably mess up the fifteen minute window for his plan. Granted, hopefully his redundancies (like the sleeping powder) will be enough, but it's one layer of guarantee gone that they can get out without being seen...and that's a risk.
More so for Dimitri than himself.
"...it wouldn't be the same if I did it for you, would it?" he asks, without too much hope on that point. "Only if you're spotted wandering the halls of the monastery, it's going to raise the alarm no matter what. But if you went outside and waited for me while I did it...I could probably talk my way out of it if anyone spotted me." He studies Dimitri. "But...I get the feeling that wouldn't satisfy you."
--
"No," is the immediate and completely unsurprising response, Dimitri's narrowed eye only adding to it. Still, any sort of agreement seems to be easing up some of his wild anger from before now that there's the possibility of it being focused somewhere, and he quickly glances about. "...I can be careful," says the person built like a mobile fortress, prone to violent outbursts. "I can hear things better than you can, and not run into anything."
...Maybe. Possibly. Being stealthy is a very new experience, although he's fairly sure he understands the base idea.
--
"...all right." Claude gives him a smile that's strained - the pressure of needing this to go well, and no longer having nearly as much assurance that it will, is enough to make anyone tense - but genuine. "I don't want any other Intseh to have to go through this, either, so I'm glad you thought of it. My plans were focused just on you."
He pulls away from Dimitri, going over to something he dropped into the dust of the courtyard before stepping into the cage. It's a large, heavy cloak with fur trim, hood included - it'll be hard for anyone to see much of anything of the person wearing it, which is of course the point.
Claude holds this out to Dimitri. "I brought this just as insurance that it'd be hard for anyone spotting you while we're on our way out of here to tell you're an Intseh, but it might be a lot more useful than I thought. I paid off the guards to leave their posts for fifteen minutes or so on our route out of here - that timeframe will have passed by the time we're finished, obviously, but hopefully it won't matter since I drugged everyone on night shift anyway." He gives Dimitri another grin - this time it's a little more sly. "I didn't really know if I could trust them. So hopefully we won't run into anyone, or at least no one who's awake...but it's impossible to predict everything."
--
That he's found a cloak that can so completely cover Dimitri is impressive in its own right, frankly, and he wastes no time in throwing it over. Almost immediately, his mouth can be seen turning in distaste. "It's... a lot..." He's not used to having something that covers his horns and ears like this, and his tail feels more confined than he's ever had it be. Still, he puts up with it, immediately heading towards the same entrance and exit to the courtyard he's seen hundreds of people go through.
Yet he pauses there, not only for his ears to flick about for any sounds but to look to Claude.
"...If I pick you up, I could go faster. You said fifteen minutes..." This is probably the quietest spot they'll have to themselves ,so near to his cage, so he wants to take the brief moment to check on this. His padded feet can help him be quiet and fast, although he'll still have to take care.
--
"I'm not worried about the time limit anymore; I can't imagine we'll make it whether we rush or not." Claude chuckles quietly. "I figure dismantling that room in some way so it can't be used again, without causing so much noise that we're discovered, is going to be at least a half hour job, never mind travel time there and back. We'll just have to hope my sleeping poison does its work and keeps the guards under." He shrugs and smiles at Dimitri.
"As for carrying me...as romantic and attractive a prospect as that is, wouldn't it make more sense for me to go first down the halls, then call you forward once I'm sure the coast is clear? If I'm spotted by anyone, it won't be totally disastrous, so I can be a sort of early warning system." He looks thoughtful. "Luckily, there should be no problems getting into the summoning room itself, since there's no real reason for security. Or for anyone to use it while there's already an executioner handy."
Speaking of which - Claude suddenly remembers something critically important. "Ah - shit, I almost forgot." He reaches out and presses a hand over Dimitri's executioner tattoo. "Your control mark - we should disrupt it before we do anything else. So they can't control you even if they catch us. If we break the lines of the tattoo - with a cut or something - it won't work again until it either heals cleanly or you're given a new one." Claude pulls out a small knife, glancing up at Dimitri's face. "I've got a bandage, so we can keep you from dripping blood, but...this is a pretty important part of the plan. And your freedom. Do you want to do it, or should I?"
--
Dimitri shrugs at the idea being shot down. He'd been thinking in terms of speed, less caution, but clearly Claude has the opposite priorities. As long as they aren't caught, that's the important thing. Besides, Claude has clearly thought this through more than he has, on account of having clearly been planning for it for.... who knows how long. Dimitri is willing to go along with this, so long as it gets him to his goal.
Before he can move forward to continue, however, there's Claude's hand at his wrist, and.... Dimitri looks down to where they're connected, the brand visible to him on his arm. The night has been full of too much emotion, too much information, and he feels dazed when he says, "That's all it takes...?" He'd always hated the tattoo, ever since it had first been burned into his skin. Yet it hadn't occurred to him there was a way to make it... fail. To stop its hold on him. If he'd known that.... "I would have torn it off long ago if I'd known...."
Probably for the better that they're doing it now, frankly.
Yet the question is a serious one, and Dimitri hesitates for only a moment before he reaches for the knife. Yet instead of taking the hilt of it, his hand folds over Claude's, guiding it closer to the mark. He meets Claude's gaze, feeling more sure in this than most other things in his life. "...Both of us."
--
"They'd have simply restrained you in other ways and then re-applied it," Claude replies, with a shake of his head. "It's really only going to be useful now that they can't put it back on you." At best...Dimitri might have been able to tear one of those people apart that he's so desperately wanted to, by catching them by surprise. But it was only likely to work once...and who knows? They might have considered that knowledge so dangerous for Dimitri to have, or the death he'd caused to be too heinous, that they wouldn't have let him live after that.
It's definitely better this way.
Claude gazes into Dimitri's eyes and nods, grip tightening around the hilt of the dagger. "Not too deep, but not too shallow," he instructs. With his free hand, he traces a slashing line across the tattoo, the line crossing directly over the symbols within the diamond shape and bisecting the diamond itself completely. "Just one cut should be enough if it disrupts enough of the design."
--
Claude hates every second of it. He appreciates how necessary it is, but hurting Dimitri is basically the last thing he wants to do, Dimitri's blood is the last thing he wants to see. And the feeling of the blade sliding deliberately through his skin doesn't just give him the creeping, vicarious sensation of what it must feel like(it's not like he's never been cut before, he can imagine it better than he'd care to), he can also feel what it's doing to Dimitri through the hilt of the blade and it repulses him. He wishes it had been fast, just so it'd be over more quickly.
But it is over soon enough, if any amount of time at all could possibly be soon enough, and Claude hurriedly tucks the knife away again to get out the bandages and wrap Dimitri's hand. "They'll never control you again," he mutters, in a voice that suggests that, even as much as Dimitri resents it himself, Claude's own fury and distaste of the church's controlling Dimitri still manages to come fairly close.
--
It's still taking time to sink in, on some level- the idea of being free in body, in spirit. (The mind may take longer, with all the damage that's been done.) Yet watching Claude's expression as he hastily bandages the injury, it seems to help push it a little deeper, and Dimitri only seems to wait long enough for Claude to finish before his free hand guides his face up towards him. He ducks down, quick, with a bit too much teeth, for a kiss before pulling away.
"...None other, either." And with that, he begins to pull Claude along. "This way." It's been a long time since he's been anywhere besides his cage or the execution ring, but that one time path had been notable. Dimitri might not remember the details, might need Claude's help, but he remembers roughly the right way to go... and it's opposite of the path he's normally taken.
The church doesn't like the potential of current and future executioners to meet, after all. The summoning chambers are opposite of the execution grounds.
--
It's not until they're inside, in the quiet halls of the monastery, that Claude gently pulls away from Dimitri. "All right," he murmurs. "Let me go ahead. I'll go as far as the next corner, and if the coast is clear I'll gesture for you to follow, okay?"
--
There's a couple of very soft 'thmps' as Dimitri's tail smacks against the inside of his cloak, as though his furrowed brow doesn't show enough of his distaste. "...I'll wait." He won't like it, but he'll wait and not immediately murder on sight.
--
"If we see someone," Claude warns quietly, "don't kill first, all right? Remember, a lot of the people here have been lied to; it's the ones in charge or the ones who are willfully vicious that are the ones who should pay, not people who've just been tricked. If we run into anyone, we can capture them and then figure out what to do."
He doesn't wait to argue the point; he doesn't want any argument of the point. Instead he moves quietly ahead, striking a careful balance between a gait that is as soundless as he can make it and a mode of movement that doesn't immediately scream 'suspicious individual'.
He makes it all the way to the end of the hall, peers around the corner, then gestures for Dimitri to follow him.
--
A faint grumble is all the argument that Claude gets, fortunately, but Dimitri stays behind, watching and waiting. This kind of go and wait is new, a little frustrating, and it's taking all of his very new self control to hold back. As Claude makes his way down the hall, Dimitri adjusts his hands within his cloak and rubs his fingers across his bandage.
It's a good reminder. Solid.
Due to the situation being what it is, Dimitri doesn't need to restrict himself in anywhere near the same way as Claude does. He just surges forward, the movement of his cloak more a problem than his padded footsteps, before he comes to a quick stop besides Claude. "Certain of where you're going?" he asks, tugging at his hood with some distaste. His hearing feels muffled and he doesn't like it.
--
"Completely. I've been planning to break you out since I found you again, so I did my homework." Claude flashes a grin at him. "I've got the layout of the entire monastery memorized."
Their trip through the halls is - even with Claude running ahead of Dimitri like a pilot fish ahead of a shark - both quick and uneventful. Soon they reach the door to the summoning room. It's locked, Claude discovers, but he's picking that lock even before Dimitri reaches him after being beckoned forward.
Claude is, after all, someone who's been collecting incriminating and - usually as a direct result - hidden information on the church for years; this isn't the first time he's had to get into somewhere people would prefer he not go. Not by a long shot.
In less than ten seconds, the tumblers click back and Claude is opening the door with a smug look on his face. Granted, the lock wasn't complex by any means - probably no one makes much effort to come here - but he still got to show off to Dimitri a little.
--
It'll be touching to think back on that bit of information, that Claude has been working so long for him, but Dimitri can't think too much on it right now. Everything else is soaking up his attention as he trails after Claude, senses straining for any sound indicating threat or presence. When he finally catches up to Claude, all he can do is watch in complete mystification as he fiddles with the lock. Not a bit of it makes any sense to him, so it's almost more impressive than magic when the lock clicks open. Claude will get to hear the sound of Dimitri's ears smacking against the inside of his hood as they perk up when the door just... opens.
He'll have a lot of questions about this later.
For now, however... Surprise wearing off, something clenches in Dimitri's stomach as he reaches out himself to push the door open. It's been so long since he's first been inside this room... And yet, in the gloom, it feels as though nothing as changed since he was a boy. He's almost rocked by the feeling that washes over him, rocking slightly on his feet, as he takes it all in. It's not a small room by any means, meant for at least a few people just in case the summoning ends violently and they need room for damage control. To one side are a pair of cabinets, one clearly holding books behind its locked doors while the other has various tools for the creation of potions, and they seem to be the main decor of the room... Not counting the large statue in the back of the same saint that can be seen in so many other places throughout the monastery. Opposite from the cabinets are a basin for hand washing, space for preparation...
And there, right in the center...
It's smudged, Dimitri observes in a daze as he steps further into the room, taking in the summoning circle. Faded as well. They've apparently not touched this room ever since he was first brought forth; it's purpose was served that way. He still remembers the smell of incense- yes there are the holders near the basin- and the dizzying nausea that had overtaken him as he'd been there, directly in the center, surrounded by solemn faced figures....
As the memories hit him harder than anything that's done so in the execution ring, Claude will get to see the way he's starting to hunch over, trembling claws out from the cloak, and a move around to see his face will make the bared fangs more than clear... It's the split second before Dimitri completely snaps. This is Claude's one chance to do damage control, both in regards to his plan and the overall room.
--
Claude rapidly moves forward, wrapping his arms around Dimitri. "I'm here," he murmurs, soft but urgent. "Remember: you're free now. We're getting out of here, as soon as we make sure no other Intseh ever get dragged here again."
His mouth is pressed against Dimitri's hood, close to his ear. "The only way they'll ever have any say over what happens to you, ever again, is if they catch us here, so we need to make sure they don't. Okay?" He squeezes Dimitri slightly. The hold is more reassurance than restraint; he knows he couldn't physically hold Dimitri back if he tried. "Now help me figure out the best way to destroy this stuff thoroughly but quietly."
--
Blindly, not particularly looking, Dimitri fumbles his hand up until he can press it against where Claude's his, press it against where his heart is beating rapidly in his chest. It's hard to make out the meaning behind sounds, make words out of them. He needs another few seconds before he remembers to breathe, shaking all over. "Get the books," he says, voice straining to be quiet. "They probably- how to make that symbol over again." As for him, once he's sure he can move without screaming...
Dimitri wants to tear up the stones from their places, throw them through a window. To make up for being unable to do that, he kneels down to begin dragging his hands over the markings. They're easy to smudge further, although they still take work, and Dimitri ignores the rough pain that comes with using his hands. It's something physical he can do, and he needs to get the energy out of him at least a little bit before continuing further.
--
Claude nods, releasing Dimitri - slowly - to head over to the cabinets. The locks here give him a little more trouble, but not much; soon enough he has them open. He surveys them, looking for the ones about summoning magic and thinking about how best to destroy them. He's not one for destroying knowledge, generally - in fact he's about the exact opposite of that - but the church can't be trusted with this knowledge.
Fortunately, they won't need to destroy everything, or even most of the books. Some of them seem to be generalized magic books, or about potion-making, or various other resources. Claude doubts there are many books about this particular kind of summoning magic, and even fewer that lay out what this branch of the church uses it for. It's not common - or even accepted - practice anywhere else that Claude knows of.
In the end, he finds a thick, leather-bound volume and pulls it out of the bookcase. He flips through it, just to make sure this is indeed the book that deals with the subject at hand - and, in relatively short order, he finds pages with summoning circles very much like the one Dimitri is currently scrubbing out. That's evidence enough for him.
Claude carries the book over to the basin, even as he begins methodically tearing out pages. He starts tossing the balls of paper into the basin in handfuls, until he's got nothing but an empty shell of binding in his other hand; this he tosses aside.
Then he reaches into his pack and finds his firestarter. Lit in the basin, with nothing but quick-burning paper, the fire will be small; it won't spread, and the smoke will be minimal. Considering they closed the door behind them, the smell isn't even likely to reach anyone else. And he can't think of a quicker, more thorough way to destroy them.
--
As the smell of burning paper begins to fill the room, Dimitri finally rocks back onto his feet and pushes shaky hands up against his face and into his hair. It leaves a trail of white sticking to his fur, already quite a mess on his hands. This should be enough. Now most of the circle is nothing more than a smear of white on stone, and sometimes not even that. His palms are sore from how hard he's ground them to make this happen, but.... He takes a deep breath through his nose, and pauses.
...The smell is familiar. Somehow, familiar.
When Claude looks away from the fire he's tending, he'll find Dimitri silently opening the cabinet for the potions, going through the various things there. Most of it are just the tools necessary for the practice... but there's something there that's different. An ingredient kept tucked away, left overs of the past summoning kept just in case. It's a plugged vial of some sort of white powdery substance, and Dimitri clumsily tugs it open.
...That's around the point Claude will see him stick his finger in, get only a bit of the dust, and slip his tongue out to taste it.
--
"Dimitri?" Claude asks, with a note of sharp concern in his voice. "What are you doing? Is that even safe?"
He's looked up from the burning papers - the fire from which is already dying; it really didn't last long - just in time to notice what Dimitri's doing, and he's immediately concerned. He doesn't know much about this kind of magic, the kind not worked through tattoos, but he wouldn't trust many of the reagents as edible.
(He's also planning on pouring every liquid in the cabinets down the basin, and the church can enjoy whatever plumbing woes may come from that, but that's a concern for later.)
--
There's no immediate answer. Dimitri just stays quiet for a moment, brow furrowed as he goes through the taste now on his tongue. After a second of thought, he looks up at Claude. His brow is drawn tight, not understanding what he's puzzling through, not entirely. "Claude... It's bone." He rubs his fingers together, where some of the dust is still lingering and seeming to blend in just fine with the white that's already on his fur. "I've tasted bone before..." Not like this, mind. Rather, at his most vicious as an executioner, when he was able to tear through entire chunks of flesh right down to the very center. The taste is a little different, without the blood and muscle and fat to get in the way, not to mention the difference between solid bone and what's been ground up.... But it's close enough for him to feel certain about the taste.
"The same smell was in the circle...."
--
There's a minute tightening in Claude's jaw. He turns to the basin, sees that the papers are nothing but smoldering black balls, and is satisfied with that. Then he walks over to Dimitri, gently taking the bottle from his hands and recapping it before tucking it into his pouch. "We'll bury the bottle when we're out of here," he says, with calm finality.
He really doesn't want Dimitri thinking on this subject anymore, not now, so he diverts the subject as forcefully as possible. "Can you help me start pouring these liquids down the basin? We have to do them one at a time, because frankly who knows what'll happen if we mix them."
--
For some reason, he almost wants to protest when the vial is taken from him. Dimitri hasn't the faintest idea why. It's not as if he knows whose bones those are. Yet there's something on the edge of his understanding, it feels, if only he could figure it out. Still, he leaves it be, looking towards the cabinet again.
"..Very well. I'll listen for anyone who might be passing by." Even with the sound of liquids running, he'll be able to pick up on that much. Leaving Claude with that vial, he begins to go through the remaining bottles that do in fact tend towards liquid more than any other substance. Having large hands is good for this much, and he carts them over to where the basin is. A petty and bitter part of him just wants to smash it all to pieces... but he holds back, ears flicked downwards as he starts yanking caps off.
--
Claude, meanwhile - whose understanding jumped far ahead of Dimitri's as soon as Dimitri clarified what the white powder was, and is still full of that cold, quiet fury - goes through the rest of the paraphernalia, looking for anything else that appears to be even vaguely useful to the church. A few more bottles of unidentifiable liquid is all he finds, although one that's a dark, sullen red catches his eye for reasons that crystallized instantly after the realization that the priests use what has to be powdered Intseh bones. He takes it, gingerly, and wiggles the cap loose just enough to get a sniff - and his nose instantly wrinkles in distaste. He's not surprised that it's blood, but he's even angrier than before.
He's sure Dimitri's going to smell this as soon as it's properly uncapped, which is part of why he hasn't done so yet. He leaves it temporarily in the cabinet as he carries the rest of the bottles over to the sink for Dimitri's convenience, then returns to that final bottle in silence.
His eyes move to the statue of the saint.
When the smell of the blood hits Dimitri, he'll find that Claude is carefully, deliberately painting tears of blood down the saint's face with his fingers. There's a set grimness to his features that is as foreign to him as they are to the church.
--
Smelling blood sets off all of Dimitri's instincts immediately, abandoning the last of his own task to whirl around with the fur on the back of his neck bristling already. The executioner in him is already thinking of a fight, and the rest of him is alarmed at what that might mean for Claude, even though Dimitri knows his senses haven't picked up the sound of anyone else entering the room with them. When he sees what Claude is doing, just where the blood is coming from, he pauses for only a second before slipping over besides him.
"...Blood as well, then." The smell of this, too, is familiar like the powdered bones were, in a way that's different from the gore he's used to. Unable to help himself, he reaches over to lightly touch Claude's face, leaving a faint trace of the circle's paleness on that dark skin. "...You know something I do not."
--
"Guessed, maybe," Claude murmurs. His expression softens minutely when Dimitri touches him. "We can talk about it once we're outside, though. It's better to focus on what we need to do for now."
Once he's finished applying the blood to the saint's face, satisfied that the tears look more natural than a child's finger-painting, he caps the bottle of blood and tucks it into his pouch as well, to be buried with the bone. Then he turns to Dimitri. "Can you think of anything else we should sabotage here?"
--
"I would tear the stones from their place on the floor and shatter the glass of their potions, but that is not quiet." It'd be sarcasm from anyone else. Dimitri merely says it with some bitter disappointment as he glances back to the cabinets. "...I can think of nothing else." He inclines his head down towards Claude's fingers. "Will that not be a problem to have visible?" Literal blood on his hands is bound to get attention if they run into someone on the way out, after all, and Claude already let him know a while ago that they're going off track from his original plan.
--
Claude shrugs and smiles slightly. "That's the least of my worries right now." His gaze slides over to the empty bottles, and the empty shell of the book binding. "Let's put the room back the way we found it. Give them a little mystery." He smirks, with no humor. "Maybe they'll think it was an act of God."
--
"Or a demon," Dimitri says bluntly, still going to put the bottles back where he roughly remembers they came from. There's no way for him to remember what went exactly where, just that they belong on certain shelves, but that will be fine enough, he imagines. It's clearly been ages since anyone has been in this room for anything more than a brief clean to keep dust off their saint. It's doubtful the exact positioning of bottles or such will go noticed.
The book he'll entrust to Claude, including avoiding spreading blood more, and simply listens at the door for a moment before slipping his head out to confirm the coast is clear. With that, he waits for him to go first.
To lead the way to freedom once more.
--
Claude makes sure to put the book back with his clean hand, and takes care to avoid getting blood on anything as he refastens the locks. "If they end up terrified that a demon magicked you and all their supplies away, and made their saint cry tears of blood, I can't say I'm going to lose any sleep over it," he says dryly. Then he moves over to the door beside Dimitri, likewise peering down the halls. He takes a moment to lock the door behind them; he wants this to be as confusing and inexplicable (or, potentially, suspicious) for the church as possible. Claude then straightens up, touching Dimitri's arm briefly, and moves down the halls again, beckoning the Intseh along behind him.
They're almost back to the courtyard, heading for the entrance Claude initially planned on taking them out of, when he pauses at a corner. There's a guard visible in the next hall. For a moment, Claude's heart flies into his throat...but then he notices the way the man is slumped against the wall. Asleep, then, or mostly so; their luck might still be holding.
When Dimitri reaches the corner with him, Claude turns to him. "Careful here," he murmurs, voice low. "We'll go together. Be on the far side of me, so that I'm between you and him; your feet are still visible under that cloak, but it'll be harder for him to see them - or any other part of you - if I'm in the way. Walk like you've got every right to be doing what you're doing, but keep your head bowed forward so the cloak hides your face still. He might not even be awake, but even if he is, he's not at his sharpest. Don't speak, don't slow down, and don't look. Understand?"
--
"The practical parts," Dimitri says, having started to wrinkle his nose around the time Claude tried to tell him what sort of mood to put in his walk. Dimitri has never, not once, thought about how he's walked. He's not even sure he knows how to do anything that isn't just plain 'walking'. This is rather above him. As he glances briefly around the corner himself, even more aggravation starts to bubble in his veins. The guard is on his blind side, meaning he won't be able to keep a close eye on him even without the hood in the way. And the hood still feels as though it's too much over his ears.... "I don't like this."
Yet he reaches up to tug his hood further along his face, pads kneading along stone restlessly. "...But I will do it." His hands disappear inside his cloak. "..And will not kill him if something goes wrong." Just perhaps a mild maiming. A concussion. He'll see how it works out.
--
Claude leans in to press a quick kiss of gratitude to the corner of his mouth, smiling at him as he pulls away. Then, tucking his bloodied hand into his pocket, he begins moving down the hall, careful to keep pace with Dimitri.
He only shoots the quickest of glances at the guard as they pass him, and relaxes considerably. Either out like a light, or not even bothering to open his eyes as they move past; possibly they're so quiet he doesn't even realize people have passed him. Claude's sleeping poison is still in full effect, and that's immensely reassuring. Still, Claude waits until they're at the end of the hall before he lets out his breath in a sigh. "So far, so good," he murmurs.
They only encounter one more guard on their walk to the back entrance of the monastery, and the situation plays out almost exactly like the first. Claude thinks he sees the fluttering of the man's eyelids as they pass, but he's not particularly worried about it; the man can't have gotten a good look at either of them, if he registered them at all.
And then, finally, they're at the gate. The gate guard is fast asleep in his gatehouse; no surprise, since he actually gets the luxury of a chair to slump in. The gate itself is something of an obstacle, of course; they can't possibly open it quietly. Claude, however, is unconcerned, moving over to the wall. There are steps leading to the top of the wall, as is fairly common in most large structures like this; they're not meant to keep people in. The drop on the other side is roughly ten feet - not pleasant on the ankles, perhaps, but certainly doable without significant injury. Scaling the wall from the outside had been trickier than this, but Claude spent last night quietly and carefully digging mortar out from between bricks to create handholds for himself to make it easier.
"Ready to leave?" he murmurs to Dimitri, with a bright smile. Against all odds, even with the detour...Claude's plan still seems to have come off without a hitch. His relief is palpable.
--
Somehow, it's been far easier to be in fights to the death than it is to stay calm as he walks alongside Claud through the monastery, then at the gate. While he'd been relatively calm when Claude had instructed him, by the end of it, he's nearly buzzing with anxious adrenaline and can hardly see anything but Claude as the other man leads the way. He's waiting for something to happen, for something to go wrong... and when nothing does? When they're there at the gate?
Dimitri looks a combination of daze and lost as he drags his stare over to where Claude is waiting, panting just a little bit. "....Just this?"
--
"Don't think it'd be this easy without all the work I put in," Claude replies with a wink. "But yeah, this is it. All we have to do is jump down and disappear."
He chuckles. "I'd offer to lower you down, but you'd drag me right off the wall, probably. But with those feet of yours, I imagine you can land pretty lightly."
--
"...So I should lower you down." This isn't a joke. Dimitri seems to mean this utterly sincerely as he considers the drop. He's pretty sure he's made worse drops, during desperate moments in the ring where he'd made scrambles up the walls as if that would do anything. A tall height, the reach that comes with it, combined with early year pure desperation... Well, that can get a Intseh pretty high up before he falls, or his controllers pull him down first.
Claude doesn't get a chance to change his mind on this. Dimitri takes a deep breath, using this new focus to step forward without any further hesitation. Dropping down into a crouch, he digs his fingers into the edge and swings downwards. With his height alone, that frankly takes care of most of the fall, and he can drop down with hardly any issue at all. There's a light grunt as his weight hits the ground, but he's upright again immediately as he looks up to Claude with his arms outstretched.
--
Claude blinks, then laughs quietly. "Is it just me, or have you been looking for an excuse to have me in your arms all night?" he teases quietly, before hopping lightly down. He's got no reservations; if Dimitri wants to catch him, he'll catch him. Claude's trust in Dimitri, and his strength, is quite assured.
--
The catch is just as smooth as one could hope, with Dimitri not even wobbling in the slightest. "It's all I can do in this," he murmurs against Claude's hair, not realizing the teasing for what it is right now as he lowers him down to the ground. All this planning, all this work, successfully getting them out of the monastery.... He has enough sense to know it's all thanks to Claude. Him? Well... They know what he wanted to do. Still wants to do, frankly.
With Claude set down, Dimitri looks over his shoulders at the expanse of.... everything that awaits him. He's never seen so much available to him before. For so much of his life now, his entire world has been made up of the cage, the execution ring, and the halls connecting the two. All of this....
He reaches over, gripping Claude's hand tightly. There's so much. It's overwhelming.
--
Claude squeezes his hand, grinning at him, before he tugs him down the road - diagonally across it, in fact, to slip into some woods on the other side. Claude wants them out of sight of the monastery as quickly as possible, just in case, although he doesn't think anyone will see them now - or think much on it if they do. But extra precautions never hurt anyone, and they've already pushed their luck tonight.