church ch 3 (misfits of creation)

[warmskies]

Henning actually smiles a little bit when Claude tells him the news, and catches up with him after his work at the church storehouses are done with.

"So you're staying a little while longer in the city for once," he says again, still marveling at this otherwise mundane bit of news. "Usually you stay for a week, if that, and then you're off. What made you decide to change your mind?" There's a wry twist of a smile, and then a hand patting Claudre's shoulder. "I hope it's not because the execution from yesterday impressed you too much. Those don't happen every day, you know. It'd be worrying if they did." 

"Don't worry." Claude laughs in turn, letting Henning guide him along. "I'm not expecting to catch any more executions."

Frankly, he'd be happy if he never saw another one ever again. He lets Henning guide him a little more out of sight from the main area of the church, that ever oppressive spire, and towards a little courtyard Claude remembers existing. Already he can hear the sound of low friendly laughter and chatter in the distance. 

It's no true secret that, while the church preaches "temperance", get togethers in the city (or just outside of it) aren't particularly uncommon. This is especially true for those not fancy enough for ornate robes, those cogs who make the day-to-day mundane necessities happen. The working folk.

A nod of approval is given to that statement, the sign that he's said exactly what Henning wants to hear. "Some folks around here get far too into that," he says with a sigh. The hairs on the back of Claude's neck prickle upwards. He keeps smiling. "There are even gambling rings, or so I've heard." 

Humans really will be the same no matter what. Claude nods, tries to listen as if from far away. "I wouldn't think there's much to bet on," he says. 

"Oh, hardly on the outcome," Henning agrees, a perfectly casual conversation. "But folks will make up all sorts of things, I suppose. I've never done it, I'm no sinner, but I've heard things about it. People bet on the cause of death, or how many hits the executioner will take..." He snorts. "Although I always thought that to be a bit of a fool's bet if anything. It's a reckless thing, so it always gets hurt, whether it kills the criminal or not." 

In the back of his head, his mind's eye drags up memories in crystal brilliant detail: blotches of red on golden fur that no longer shined brightly in the light, splatters of blood that hardened against a dirt floor, snarled out breath that is all pain and anger and despair. He thinks of Dimitri, curled up like a shield. Dimitri, every step careful and wary. Two large hands, curled so delicately around one of Claude's own.

"Wow," he says. He laughs. "That's pretty morbid!" There are a lot more things he could say, and he cannot afford to say them. "Anyway, honestly, I won't lie to you, Henning, but that execution did play in a part in my decision. It made me realize that it's... pretty lonely in my line of work." 

It's pretty lonely in his line of existing, and that is part of the reason, not the entirety, of why he is going to break a Voa executioner, one of the alleged "demons" that the church so despises and fears, out of a cage located right in the dead center of the church and the city as a whole. 

But the great thing about what he has told Henning is that it's his favorite kind of lie: it is not technically a lie. Merely... a neglect for every detail, an absence of the entire truth.

His quartermaster doesn't know those other details and pieces exist, and so he nods, accepting this perfectly understandable explanation. "Animals are beautiful, although some of them are squirrely little bastards," he says, "but there's nothing quite like human connection." Another dry chuckle. It's a warm laugh, matching warm hair, and Claude wishes he could hate him. "It really says what a recluse you must be that you've held out this long with only short stays." 

"Hey, don't act like I don't see anybody at all!" Claude laughs back. The distant voices are a lot less distant now. "I see plenty of interesting people when doing deliveries for the church." A lot of them are other members of this church, from the larger branch that pays no mind to a little remote city like this. A lot more of them are various strangers, and people Claude would even dare to call friends. No small amount of them are people vital for his various plans, things he has in the works and goals he aims to accomplish. "Although speaking of people, are you sure these friends of yours won't mind me suddenly jumping in...?"

Henning makes a relaxed and dismissive sound. "Oh, they love new faces to rib on, and they know I wouldn't bring anyone who'd be a downer. Not for a night of relaxation. Why, are you worried?" 

"It's been a while!" Some more laughter. It's easier to laugh, and people fall for it better, too. Making friends here is not high on his list of priorities, although he would never oppose this group liking him. Claude has other concerns. 

He's lucky; Henning apparently has decent taste in friends. There are a couple of the usual comments, but the ones that think they're compliments. No one is aggressive. Just about all of them chuckle at his jokes, and love to hear stories, or exchange them. There's no fire, or else one of the nuns or a priest might come in to scold them, so they all drink by moonlight.

It's easy enough, with the moon mostly full. Apparently, it's a regular little thing for them. The alcohol is some cheap wine. Claude manages to get out of drinking with an uproarious tale of how a monk caught him sneaking a curious sip once and punished him so bad that he can't even look at the stuff anymore. (At least, that's what he tells them.) 

They are not bad people. They're just... flawed. Or, rather, it is the system that is flawed, he reminds himself as he gratefully accepts a small waterbag from a woman with a rough smile and honest eyes. A flawed system that produces flawed and hurt people. 

Flawed they may be, and friendly, but more than anything else... They're useful, too, in ways that Claude had quietly been hoping for. They exchange all sorts of gossip, most of it new and that he's not had a chance to hear with how much he passes out of the city. He knows better than to take everything at face value, of course... but the vice of one nun, or the temper of one of the bishops, that's all something to look into for the future. Just.. in... case. 

Sometimes, he gets quieter little things, too. Alcohol is useful, that way, and why he doesn't indulge himself. One person too near to Claude mutters how his husband best not know he's gone drinking with the friends again, that he'll have to be quiet getting back home. When Claude helps a woman work through a fit of nausea from just a bit too much liquor, she drunkenly confesses to a bad habit of sticky fingers when she's like this, and her worries on it. Claude sympathizes, at the same time that he stores such information away, and is glad that he didn't bring his coin purse to this gathering. 

Most valuable of all, however, is when he hears a certain name pop up. That certain name is soon followed by lots of chatter, all to do with a certain occupation. It doesn't take long for him to hear that Afey is a guard who used to work near the gates. He used to get bored, and so slacked off, and so got caught. As with so many minor little punishments that are used around this place, he'd been sent over to the executioner... not to be killed, but simply to patrol the area.

Apparently, for some, it's highly unpleasant. Oh, not because they're terrified, although Claude is pretty sure that more people are deeply scared of Dimitri than they'd care to admit. The children are open about it, of course, but adults are supposed to be adults. The "demon" is nothing more than a boogeymonster under their bed, albeit a real creature that some amongst their number can control. 

Oh, no, for adults? Adults have to worry about Dimitri being more bratty than anything. Claude doesn't hold back when he hears about some of the ways the executioner has tried to "intimidate" his captors; he's pretty sure it's more simply acting out. It takes effort to muffle his own laughter when he hears about the time Dimitri threw a soup bowl at a guard's head because he wouldn't stop clicking his tongue, and other similar incidents.

Dimitri, from what he can tell, is very particular how his space is for both the noises around it or the things he's given, which isn't very much at all. Considering that, Claude feels he's perfectly valid in such childish temper tantrums. 

Intimidation tactics. Ha. Please. 

From what he can tell amongst the quiet and often drunken gossip, there's a kind of hazing ritual amongst anyone who's had to go on guard patrol around Dimitri's cage, where they'll not tell a single new soul about just what sets Dimitri off. Learning from experience and all that. That means that any newbies often try to delay the inevitable in their routes, taking ages to return for a quick peak before scurrying off to see that, hey, maybe the kitchens should be looked over instead, yeah? Afey seems to be exactly like that sort, too... and the routes they often seem to take are not that hard to hear about, or remember. 

The little get together only lasts perhaps a few hours, at most. Among those gathered for tonight, the majority seem to reside in the city. All they have to do is leave the immediate church lands and head out to the streets. Quartermaster Henning is one of those, but he's a decent guy. Guides Claude back to the temporary housing that scouts, traders, visitors, and hunters use for the church. You know, the common run-of-the-mill ones, anyway.

That suits him just fine. There's a couple of things he wants to pick up, after all. So he gives his thanks to the quartermaster when they stop outside the building, and he does in fact go to his room. He stays there for around... half an hour, he'd say. Just enough to grab something he'd picked up that morning, during breakfast, and take the chance to change out of his usual boots.

It doesn't take too long before he's slipping out again, a little shadow that no one notices. He has one more stop to make before he goes see the person he's really wanted to be with, one of the few people he knows can make him truly feel less alone. This late at night, he doubts anyone will be watching the pantry too hard... 





The moon hangs high over his cage as he paces, so temptingly and mockingly out of reach. Dimitri glances at it occasionally. It's a source of... He's not sure. It's kind of ridiculous to blame the moon for anything to do with his current situation.

Oh, no, not the fact that he is a prisoner and weapon. He knows that is the fault of no one but the humans who brought him to this place to start with. They'll pay for that cruelty one day, and they shall pay for his existence in spades. 

Rather, it's... Well, he supposes it has to do with the reason why he is acting like this in the first place. Waiting. 

Experimentally, Dimitri reaches one end of his cage and twists on his foot to go rushing towards the opposite end. He brakes suddenly, one foot raised, pawpads slamming against stone. It doesn't so much as rattle his fangs... so he's more idle than anything as he pulls his leg back to investigate his foot.

There's not much to do in his cage, obviously. Most nights are ones like this, with his days spent sleeping as best he can, whether in long stretches or short bursts. That leaves him a lot of time at night, when the moon reigns supreme instead of the sun. And it is... infuriating. 

A slow breath rattles out from between his teeth, and he bounces back from the wall before finally putting his foot down. They have groomed him into a monster, a tool, but a tool is to be used. In order for him to survive, he knows he needs the energy and strength and quickness to be "victorious" in his fights... if the results can truly ever be called that.

Yet in the confines of his cage, stuck between hard brick and carefully forged metal, what is he to do? There is no purpose here. All he can do is this: pacing, running, jumping or kicking or throwing what few things they allow him. They do not allow him much. Certainly nothing that would be satisfying to throw. 

Even more infuriating is that he knows this will not last, not truly, and a vague ache from his stomach reminds him of this fact. Spitefully, Dimitri ignores it, and resumes pacing. They feed him twice a day: early in the morning, and then in the afternoon, bordering on evening, never quite enough. He's long since stopped tasting the food they give him, although there's never been much to taste.

As he walks, Dimitri grinds his tongue along the curve of one fang and tries to recall what he even had this afternoon. Soup or stew? There's hardly any difference. 

His tongue pauses somewhere near the back of his jaw, twisted to get that far, and Dimitri's mind can't help but wander to what he had been able to taste. A gentle smokiness, a bright tartness - when was the last time he had tasted anything besides texture and copper? He can't remember. When he was a child, maybe. There had been the sound of eager little footsteps, whispering, and a fist wiggling past the bars of his door with a golden offering right there in the center of his palm... 

Sound. Dimitri's ears twitch, and one twists sharply to better focus on that area, but he already knows who it is. The humans who regularly walk these halls in the darker hours feel no need to hide their presence. Their steps are bold, the full weight of their little bodies put down against the earth. Depending on how high the station, or how well armored they feel they need to be, sometimes there's even a sharp click. 

They are nothing like this soft whisper of soles brushing against stone, soft as a cat. But he's certainly been lost in his own head tonight. By the time he looks over and out to the courtyard, Claude is already more than halfway across it with those bright green eyes focused on him and only him.

Dimitri stops pacing, stops moving at all save for his tail slowly drifting back and forth. "So," he says, eye wide as he takes in Claude's approach. "You came." He doesn't know why he says it, why the point needs to be hammered in any further. 

Stopping before his cage, same non-existant distance as before, Claude plants his hands on his hips. "Of course!" he replies, so casually gallant that Dimitri is fairly certain that he's being messed with.  Played with? He's not sure what the right phrase would be. The right word. "You've mistaken me for someone unreliable. Believe me, that's an easy mistake to make." There it is again, that grin. "But I can't very well show you anything if you don't get to see me, can I?"

When they were children, even with language keeping them apart, Dimitri remembers how much Claude had laughed and giggled and smiled. If he could not speak with Dimitri, it seemed as though he had made it a goal to still make Dimitri laugh as well. He'd been playful, that way. It'd... been nice, back then.

Now, well, now it's strange to him, after so many years not experiencing anything even remotely like it. All he can do is stare a little bit at Claude. What is he supposed to say here? 

Apparently, he doesn't have to say anything at all, because Claude continues on as he steps even closer. The exaggerated pull of his smile ebbs away, and there's something a little more... a little more Claude, there, in his smile. He still has a pouch at his belt, just as he had last night, and he undoes the top of it. "Hungry? I got better food this time. I goooot..." Even before Claude pulls out a packet of wax paper, Dimitri's nose is twitching. "Let's see. Smoked sausages, some cheese, dried fruits... Oh! And some fresh bread. Baked just this morning." 

When Claude pushes the packet forward, he has to press down, compress, just to push it past the bars at all. Snapping out of his faint confusion and wariness, Dimitri finally moves forward as well with his hands carefully outstretched. It's an automatic reaction, honestly, to ensure that the packet doesn't drop to the ground and that his food is not - well. He'd probably eat just about anything Claude had listed no matter if it fell on the floor, but still. Once he actually has it in his grasp, a comfortable weight, he's... not entirely sure what to do with it. 

The answer is obvious, he knows, it just - takes a moment. Claude doesn't rush him at all. He simply stands there, relaxed, smiling, and seems so happy when Dimitri finally lowers himself down onto the ground. Pulling one hand from around the package, Dimitri tried to unwrap it, only to grimace when one long claw slices through the paper like it's air. This... may take a moment, he suspects. It would be child's play to just keep going, to tear everything to shreds, but it... His gaze flicks up at Claude, who's settling down onto the ground as well with his legs and ankles crossed. 

...He wants to do this right. 

"So you have enough extra-" What's the word? There's a word for what he's thinking of, and Dimitri tears through the wax paper some more on accident. "-money. Enough to spend on things like this..." 

"Well, technically the church employs me," Claude explains, still watching Dimitri. Something in his gaze somehow seems... content. Satisfied? "Not that I had a lot of other job options, growing up as their ward. But I make a decent living as a hunter who brings in food for them...and sometimes they use me as a scout, since I go everywhere and I'm good in the wilderness. Mostly it's just keeping the larders full, though." The corners of his lips quirk up, a little more energy added to his otherwise relaxed smile. "But, if I'm being entirely honest, I might have lifted this stuff from the kitchen's personal stores without, ah, precisely asking. No point in troubling anyone over so little, right?"

Dimitri eyes Claude dully, fingers paused over what is quickly becoming a shredded mess on his lap. Once, when he was younger, he think he would have raised a fuss at that kind of revelation. He would have protested. Theft isn't the kind of thing one should encourage recklessly; he thinks he remembers his father imparting lessons like that. 

Certainly that had been what he'd believed when he'd first met Claude. Then, when he had first been forced across the world, through space, through magic, he hadn't quite understood what had happened. Dimitri narrows his eyes down at the wax paper just remembering it all: dazed and dizzy and with so many figures around him in a circle. He hadn't made the connection at first. He didn't make the connection for many years. When he flicks a claw through wax paper this time, it's on purpose. 

They hadn't hurt him, not immediately. They did not press magic into his wrist to burn a brand there, a connection. They did not force him into this cage. Instead, it had been a quiet little room locked away out of sight, and he had...

Dimitri tries, this time, to do better with the wax paper, and doesn't succeed. He'd believed better, then. He had thought if he were patient, and polite, and nice, then things would work out in the end and he would be able to go home, because, even without a family, he still had a home- 

His claw shakes, but he manages to unwrap one portion of the wax paper. Dimitri lets out a breath and keeps going. 

So he'd believed better of the world, and he'd been desperate, back then. He'd cared, back then. Right now, he doesn't think he could possibly care less, although perhaps he could muster up some effort to try.

Instead, he shakes some wax paper off of his claw. The package has been a bit more shredded than properly unwrapped, but it's a good first start. Maybe. "If you continue to steal, they will discover the culprit," he points out, getting back to work. He did not think he had much pride left in him, but this is apparently a matter of it. "Enough of it, and they will very likely send you to me." 

It's been something he's carefully figured out over the years, just who the humans in this church send to him and why. Honestly, despite all the time he has had to do nothing but kill humans, he has to admit that he doesn't understand their judgments fully. There are generally three types of humans that are sent to him. Three types of brands tattooed onto their chests to be visible over a low enough shirt. Three types of... sin, he thinks. Or maybe they're crimes? None of his captors have ever bothered to inform him of what his claws dig into. They only demand the claws. 

But Claude told him, once upon a time. He tried to explain the church's purpose, and the idea of saints or gods or just a one god, and there was... varying success. Of course there had been. They had been children, and the translation from Claude's language to Dimitri's had always been clunky at best.

Yet Dimitri had still remembered that Claude had managed to get across theft to him well enough, and how people who could not stop stealing were eventually punished. Dimitri couldn't have known what that punishment was. 

Another piece of wax paper pried away, the tip of one claw gently tugging it along. A strange feeling curls in the pit of his chest, a kind of relief. How strange. "I suppose that would be one way of dealing with the sneaking you seem to be so fond of," he murmurs, remembering that he had a sentence he sought to finish.

It is an afterthought, something he remembers only when the last of the wax paper follows the tug of his claw and reveals the vast amount of food that had been stuffed into such a fragile and tiny little thing like a sheet of paper. There really is meat. Then again, there had been meat, too, with the food that Claude had given him only last night. Perhaps this shouldn't be so surprising. 

"Don't worry," Claude says, a chuckle acting as a punctuation mark. "I'll be careful. That... is concern you're showing, right?"

"It's honesty," is Dimitri's gruff response, although he doesn't think he means it to quite come out that way. It's just, he's preoccupied as he delicately takes the wax paper spread off from his lap so that he can place it on the slightly better position of the ground. As he does this, as he leans over it, he takes in a deep inhale from his nose.

With only scent alone, all of this is so much better than anything he's eaten in years. His tail thrashes behind him, once, twice, eager even though he tries to tell it to not do that. Such good food, it'd almost be a waste to eat it all in one rush... but his stomach has other ideas. It's just hard to know where to start. 

While he makes this decision, Claude lets Dimitri's words roll right off of his shoulders, down his back. Just like he had last night. He keeps talking, leaning forward, chin to hand, casual as can be. "Anyway, I don't think they're going to notice one person's worth of food missing, especially if it's not every day. Which it can't be, because as much as I might like to visit you every night, I won't always be able to. Sometimes there'll be events here that keep things too active for me to go unobserved, or I'll be sent out hunting or traveling and have to spend the night out in the wilds or in other towns...who knows. I'll visit as often as I can get away with, but I can't exactly promise a consistent schedule. We'll just have to roll with the situation as it is, and see where that takes us."

He leans back again, and watches as Dimitri finally makes his choice to go with the bread first. At least, Dimitri wants to believe that Claude's watching him eat, because the alternative is that he's noticed how much his tail is flicking back and forth. Better for him to watch his careful and particular methods of eating than that.

If this were his regular meal, well, Dimitri wouldn't have to do anything all besides just eat: bread into soup to make it edible, finish off the bread, finish off the soup. Simple. With this... With this he actually has choice, which is a strange thing after so long. 

Claude seems mildly happy either way, content, and Dimitri still cannot tell if it's because of his tail or because he's glad Dimitri is accepting his food. Well. 'Accepting', as he tears a piece of bread off to curiously feel its softer innards.

All Claude does is keep talking, like this is still normal. "Anyway, I'd like to make your food myself, but I can't really get away with that." He stretches his arms, first out in front of himself, then high up, fingers laced together the entire time until they stop at a rest behind his head. "If I wanted to make you anything hot, I'd be cooking late at night and someone would be bound to notice and question the smell. And it's not like I have the skill set, or the tools, to just whip up things like bread and sausages and cheese over a campfire. Nope; the food I make myself is the stuff you've already had, and it's fine for traveling but I want to do better for you. The gods know you deserve it. So it's stealing or bust, really."

Gods. Not God, not the one of two names that this place prays and confesses their sins to. They're names that he can remember hearing ever since it was a room and not a cage that he was trapped inside of, names he had echoed to Claude once when the other boy had slipped down to visit him. They had not been the gods Dimitri could remember from his homeland, and Claude had managed to clumsily explain that it was the same for him as well.

Dimitri rolls the clump of bread inbetween the pads of his forefinger and thumb, feeling the way its texture is lost until it becomes something more like a little ball against his pads. "Clearly what your gods think doesn't matter, because this is what I've earned," he mutters, and finally puts the piece of bread inside of his mouth. 

"Where you've ended up and what you've earned don't necessarily have any correlation to each other, you know," Claude says, mild as he continues to watch him. Well, it's hard to come up with a comment against that, even if Dimitri does not believe it to be true, if he believes this is all simply nonsense trying to masquerade as some sort of logic. Claude is very good at that, he thinks. And then, as the bread sinks against his tongue and his teeth chew through it, he stops thinking at all, and his tail gives a few rapid twitches at the very tip. 

It's... good. A little sweet, a little earthy. There is no stale crunch, a signal that all flavor has been drained out with the passage of time, a troublesome act of eating that is only barely worth the energy put into it. Dimitri chews and tastes until he can't taste anymore, until it is but liquid nothing in his mouth, and then he swallows. For the first time in years, his stomach almost feels... content. 

Content but not satisfied. Still, he doesn't tear into the rest of the bread, or see if it tastes any different when his fingers haven't misshapen it from its original form. Instead, putting it back upon the wax paper, he goes for a piece of dried fruit that had been packed alongside it. It is shriveled in Dimitri's grasp, and yields just faintly to even a small bit of pressure that he applies.

"I wish I had small talk to make while you're eating," Claude says, sliding his hands down from behind his head. He's still watching.  "Obviously your mouth is busy. But I feel like it wouldn't exactly be appealing to listen to anything people have to say about the outside when you've been locked up all this time."

Dimitri's gaze flicks up at Claude, eye narrowed. "No," he mutters, the reverb of a growl behind that single word. "It's not." 

After all, whatever else Claude might think - if this is indeed as genuine as he claims it is - they are still both here. They are still in the places this church and its humans have deigned they belong: Dimitri a weapon to be aimed and sunk into the masses regardless of circumstance or true innocence, Claude merely one more twig of a branch of the tree that is a religion he does not even believe in.

It is what it is, and nothing can really change that. Not even a simple bit of the first fruit he has had in a very long time. 

Closing his eye, Dimitri focuses on the faint sliver of juice that flows on his tongue, and the taste which still clings to the sour flesh that turns sweet after he's already swallowed. The fruit is good, despite everything. The fruit is good, because of everything. 

"I thought you might have missed having someone to talk to." Despite being told off, Claude is still there. Even before he'd spoken again, Dimitri could still feel the weight of his gaze upon him. He can feel it not leaving. "Guess I thought wrong, huh?" 

Dimitri doesn't bother to give him an answer, just leaves the fruit in its place on the wax paper. It's not that Claude is wrong, or, if he is wrong, Dimitri is not sure it is in the entirely right way of truth. He's talked plenty to himself over the years, talked to the ghosts he thought were haunting him, talked to the illusions he eventually knew they were. His mouth is all that is available to him, now.

Usually, that is with words. Tonight, right now as he closes his teeth delicately around the very end of a sausage, his mouth serves a different purpose. Tonight finds his tail wildly smacking around behind him again when flavor bursts along his tongue. 

Same reaction with the cheese. Same silence from Claude. With the lack of conversation, Dimitri suddenly feels that his reactions are far too loud in the silence. Ever rapid flick from the tip of his tail as mild sweetness rolls in his mouth sounds like the beat of a drum.

Yet Claude makes no indication that he's watching. That he's seen. At least, when Dimitri glances up at him, he's pretty sure he's not seen.

Certainly he can't have been caught looking. His eye isn't like the eye of a human. That was one of the first things he'd noticed about them. Well, he'd noticed a lot of things that made humans stand out so differently compared to Voa, but that had been a top contender for first place. His eyes don't show the middle part so easily. Just blue all the way through. That shields him... he thinks. 

Not that it matters if he's seen, he tries to tell himself as he finishes up his taste test of the different foods. He's gone completely naked in his cage before when the summers have gotten too hot for his fur. He'd ignored any yelling the humans had directed his way, doing his best to find the darkest corner of his cage to lay in.

Certainly, he has to use the restroom like any other living creature, and, well, there's nowhere to really do that particularly privately. It had taken ages for them to anything related to that in his cage, a small bucket whose reek he's grown dead to. And they'd only done that when he'd almost made himself sick holding it in, when he was younger and thought himself to possess more dignity. 

So what is he worked up about? The wag of a tail? Dimitri scowls, tearing off a chunk of bread with his teeth. His eye focuses back on Claude, still silent and content and watching there on the other side of the bars. Soon enough, his manners only deteriorate even more, and he hadn't really been using them much to begin with. He devours almost everything Claude has seen fit to bring him tonight, not caring if he makes a mess of himself, if he sounds or looks disgusting. He eats as though it will be taken from him, by some sort of cruel whim he can't even begin to understand. 

Nothing is taken from him, which is a first in a very long time. A lot of 'firsts in a very long time' have been happening for the last two nights. In the end, however, he doesn't eat everything. Not exactly.

He leaves maybe half of the cheese, and a good couple pieces of fruit, set off to the side in the piece of wax paper that now seems so much larger without the rest of its haul to fill its crumpled existence. The cheese had been the best, in his estimate, and he'd prefer more meat than fruit right now... but the fruit is nice. A sharp flavor that cuts through his mind, makes him feel a little more aware. He thinks it will cut through the monotony of his days just as easily. 

All of that is for the future. He cleans his fingers of anything that might be leftover, swipes his tongue over his mouth and a little fur. All the while, his gaze stays on Claude. Claude, still watching. In all his chattering, he'd said he was a hunter. Dimitri can see that in the way he stays so still and patient. 

Refocusing on Claude's existence, on his not leaving, is bothers a corner of his mind that he hasn't paid much attention to in most of his life. "What is it that you are getting out of this?" he asks, a low mutter of a question. An old friend can't just be a friend. Not for him, not here, not in this time and place and what he is. There has to be a reason.

"What, you don't think your winning personality and scintillating company are enough of a reward?" Claude blinks at him, acting innocent, before the act quickly crumbles and a chuckle leaves him. "Seriously, though, this isn't about getting something. We're friends, and that's enough. But I guess being with my old friend is getting something, if it comes to that...no matter how suspicious and hostile you are. Knowing you're all right means a lot...for a given value of 'all right', obviously, but it's a big improvement for me over my having no idea what happened to you. Wondering if you were even alive."

It's foreign, this- everything. Claude's everything. All the teasing, all the glibness, the playful smiles, those are all things that he hasn't seen aimed in his direction in a long time. Better... to assume them fake. They have to be fake.

Yet even as Dimitri watches Claude, the words and sound leaving his lips begins to lose its lightness, and his face begins to settle into something more serious. Somber. It should be a sign of a mask being dropped away.

It isn't.

Dimitri can feel no vindication at a mask being torn away when Claude is still acting as himself. He's still telling Dimitri the very same things that he was telling him the night before, when they reunited after so many years separated: he cares, they're friends, Dimitri deserves more than a cage and a brand and blood soaked through his fur.

Claude looks at him with those bright green eyes, and tells him, "I missed you, you know. A lot. Being able to be with you again would be worth risking a lot, all by itself. But you've had a miserable time of it, too, for no good reason, so being able to do something - anything - to make that better is worth even more."

He's been missed. His absence, somehow, has been noticed. Deep in his chest, Dimitri's heart clenches and aches painfully. That these ideas could be real, could be something...

Resisting the urge to dig his claws into his own ribcage, Dimitri draws one knee up to his chest. "You miss what I was," he says quietly, arms wrapping around his leg.

"No, I missed you," Claude says, immediate, unhesitating. Those green eyes, focused right on Dimitri. "Full stop, I missed you. I'm not blind, Dimitri. I can see how you've changed. But I'm still here, aren't I? You might be different, but you're still you. Besides, the way you are now..." Trailing off for a second, Claude lets out a slow breath. "This isn't how you want to be, is it? It's not what's natural for you. It's what they've made you to be, and what the situation's demanded you become."

Those green eyes seem to dig through him so easily, as though roots seeking shelter in the warmth of his body. Dimitri can't stop Claude from talking, not now, and so Claude continues. "How could anyone blame you for that? How could they call that natural? If either of us finds that distasteful, it's not on you. And if it's rooted in the situation you're in... Then it doesn't have to be permanent, either."

"It is what I am regardless!" The ache in his chest isn't leaving. It's just - Dimitri snarls, guttural and bestial, exactly what he is, what he always will be. His claws dig into his leg as he leans forward, hackles raised. "Natural or not, wanted or not, there's no changing what I am now. You've seen what I can do - what I do regularly."

Dimitri pulls his lips up over his fangs, bares them as a point and a warning both. Blood still seems to linger on the back of his tongue, texture and taste and heat, even though he knows there is no physical trace of it anymore. "I broke his neck with my teeth - I didn't have to do that. There is much I do not have to do so long as the end means a person dies. Yet I still do it." His heart is pounding, aching, and Dimitri feels out of breath as he glares at Claude. "And you'll still hold onto that?"

Because he can't. Because no person should. That's the terrifying thing, Dimitri realizes, as his heart beats painfully against the inside of his chest. He doesn't even want himself, this monster he's become. No, not even a monster - a thing. A tool, a weapon. That's all he is, and he should not want for more.

And yet he does. It has only been two nights, and yet here he is, a monster and a weapon and a fool, already knowing he wants this never ending chatter from Claude instead of more still nights where he only has his ghosts for company. He knows he will want more of this in the future, even if he never received a bite of food again: the noise, the warmth...

The way Claude holds his gaze levelly, and does not leave. "Yes," he says, quiet and firm. "Even if that's what you are now, even if that's all you're ever going to be, I'm still going to hold onto that. I don't even know why you're asking, Dimitri. If I'd decided otherwise, if I hadn't already made up my mind that who and what you are now is worth whatever I can offer, would I have even come?"

The ache inside of his chest snaps. "Because you SHOULDN'T!" Dimitri is on his feet again in a whirl of movement. It's easy to remember, like this, that he towers over Claude so easily, and his fists shake at his sides. "I can't- it's not-"

But the words crash and scramble inside of his head, tangling into one another and lodging in his mind, inside of his throat. Dimitri hasn't spoken to other people like this in a very very long time; his hallucinations don't respond to him in quite the same way. His hallucinations certainly don't get him worked up like this, not anymore.

For a second, all he does is stand there while he practically chews the air as if he can spit the words out of himself. But he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't even know what he wants to say. There's just... emotion. Too much emotion to handle.

Words useless, fleeting, Dimitri whirls away and resumes the frantic pacing that he had initially abandoned at Claude's appearance. Actually, it's different, now. Now, it's more furious, more frantic, and he trembles with an energy he both can't contain and can't express. The hard beat of his feet against the ground helps... but not as much as he'd like.

In the face of this sort of thing, most humans of the church have backed away in nervousness, or held their ground with clenched jaw and clenched fist with intent clear. All Claude does is quietly laugh, a soft but long kind of sound. It hadn't occurred to Dimitri before, but... He thinks the other man did this the last night, too. So carefully quiet...

People, nowadays, don't even blink if he makes a ruckus inside of his cage, unless he's particularly loud enough for long enough. But that's him. That is the demon they so despise. A person's laughter, or the sound of his voice... That's a little more noticeable, he supposes.

"I've got such a long history of doing things I shouldn't do, Dimitri." Claude's eyes practically glitter over his wide smile. "You have no idea. That includes making friends with you in the first place. Being told I shouldn't do something just makes me want to do it more."

The words he wants to use come to mind a little easier, this time, although only after perhaps a good dozen paces from one end of his cage to the other. Mainly, it's just a question, something he has been wondering, on and off, ever since Claude first reappeared in his life. "How did you find me?" That first conversation didn't feel planned, exactly. Something about it was just too sudden.

"Oh, that?" Another one of those light laughs, although it seems different this time around. Dimitri could not and cannot explain how. "Total accident! It's like I said: I was just passing through. But, well, I guess I must have laid the charm on a little too thick when I was dropping off supplies I'd brought to the quartermaster, because he roped me into going to see an execution. Not exactly my idea of a fun time, honestly... But he wouldn't hear any objections. And, well... I saw you there."

Just like Dimitri had thought: it had been that execution which had drawn Claude in. His tail snaps back and forth again, still aggravated and anxious. That had been the only possible way, after all. In any other situation, well, he's here, in his cage. That Claude had found him exactly on the night of his most recent kill...

Claude continues, still so casually dismissing what an oddity he is for all of this. "I was pretty sure I recognized you, even after all this time. We were lucky enough to get front row seats, but the arena is still pretty far down, and you are quick when you're in a fight. I wanted to make sure. So-" He flicks his hand, a quick little gesture towards the current scenario both of them are in. "Here I am."

Here he is indeed: a nonsensical fool who saw a monster dig his teeth into the living flesh of a man to break his neck, and yet still believes such a creature is capable of anything else. Who will shove his hand, soft and vulnerable, through the bars of a cage meant to keep him safe.

Things used to make sense, only two nights ago. Now, it feels as though nothing makes sense, and he is left unsteady and weightless in his confusion. But being just confused has never helped him, or at least it has not helped him fro a very long time. Unfortunately, the only other alternative he knows is anger, and, well, that does him little good here.

All Dimitri can do is whirl away again, pacing another half a dozen times as raging adrenaline burns through his veins uselessly. Claude keeps watching him, amused at the reaction.

Some more words come again when the energy leaves, and they come as Dimitri storms back to the bars of his cage with one finger pointed at Claude accusingly. "Then this is all your responsibility," he snaps, the word rusty on his tongue and dragging along faint memories that taste like copper. A different kind of copper than that which he tasted only the night before. His tail thrashes, whip-like, behind him. "Whatever happens because of this, I have nothing to do with it. With the rate you are going, I will no doubt see you with a diamond upon your chest soon enough."

"I can think of worse ways to die," Claude says, completely unperturbed. Dimitri sort of wants to throw something at him. Unfortunately, his cage is clean. "But there's no reason why my decisions would ever be your responsibility, is there? If the consequences for those decisions turn out to be you, so be it." He grins. Dimitri wishes flinging a blanket would have more of a satisfying weight to it. "But I'm a bit more sneaky than I used to be, you know. I think I can get away with this."

Slowly, Dimitri takes a deep breath, and then he does not waste it with a verbal response. All he does is tilt his head a bit as he looks down at Calude, trying to convey with expression alone how utterly foolish he still thinks this all is, and how this obviously would still be his responsibility if Claude gets sentenced to death, and how on earth can't he see that?

It's a bit complex a message for a face. He's not entirely sure if he succeeds.

"I suspect it is not very hard to get in here if one truly wants to," he eventually says, stepping away and sweeping his body to a sharp curl against the ground. Unlike before, he doesn't retreat to the far wall of his cage. A little closer to the middle, maybe. "Most people do not lack sense." Which makes it almost odd that Claude seems to, not only because it is such a common thing, but because Dimitri's memories of the boy with green eyes on the other side of his door had framed him as so clever.

Claude's smile has not left his face. "You really are worried about me, aren't you?" he asks - no, says - lazily.

He's not. He better be not. "I am stunned, if I am anything at all," Dimitri grumbles, adjusting his cheek where it rests against his arms so that he can peer out and over at Claude. "I am not often in a position where I can watch foolishness of this level."

"What's so foolish about it, anyway?" Claude prompts, as though he expects to get a list, and is eager for it.

Dimitri doesn't want to give him the satisfaction. And, besides - "Would the details of such cause you to reconsider your actions?" he retorts. While Dimitri has only had two nights to get to know Claude again, that has been more than time enough to know that the answer to that question is 'no'.

"You know, I'd like to believe you're asking that because some part of you doesn't actually want to dissuade me from being your friend." Claude continues to smile, but - it happens for just a brief second. So brief that Dimitri cannot entirely be certain anything changed. Certainly the smile on his lips didn't waver. Neither did his voice. His eyes, maybe... "But let's face it, you've been doing nothing but that ever since we reunited. I'm too smart to believe the lies I tell myself."

He leans back, then, palms flat against the hard ground of the courtyard. This lets him tilt his head back, his face towards the stars. Dimitri shifts his head a bit, but, ultimately... he doesn't move forward again. He already knows without having to try that he will not be able to see the same sky that Claude can. All the stars, and the shape of the moon... Those are foreign to him. No, not foreign. Barred.

Instead, he watches Claude's face, engrossed in how disarmed he is in the present moment and the way moonlight warms his dark skin. So lost in staring, he's a bit startled when Claude speaks up again. "But to answer your question... No, I suppose nothing you could tell me would change my mind. Not really. I've already considered my actions plenty." 

"I have a great deal of doubt about that." Dimitri's tail flicks sharply, once, at the end. This doesn't seem considered. This seems... death seeking. Nothing at all like that clever boy he once knew. Is that the point? He can only wonder, and watch, and talk. "So... a night is all you need to consider your actions, then." Too little time, in his opinion. 

Claude's eyes don't leave the stars. "It's all I need to decide where I'm going." He shrugs. "As for the finer details of how I'm going to get there, well, that tends to take a little longer. But I never claimed to have those all ironed out already, and I'm working on them as we speak." 

Where he's going.... Dimitri's gaze begins to shift off towards some distance he cannot truly see. Little wonder, then, that he can't... 

"Hm?" When Dimitri blinks and comes back to himself, it is to see that Claude is looking back over at him again. "Can't what?" 

This doesn't seem to bother Claude much, and there is only curiosity in the way he looks at Dimitri. "You said it's not surprising you can't... something," he says. "Can't what?" 

"Ah." Things make sense now. "I said that aloud..." This happens, sometimes.

Or, at least, he thinks it happens sometimes. Dimitri can't entirely be sure most of the time. After all, it's only been him and his ghosts. His captors react to him whatever noises he makes, or doesn't make, so has it ever really mattered? Dimitri rubs his face down against the soft fur of his arms, trying to force himself back into his body where he unfortunately belongs. It's not exactly stable... but what does he care about stable?

"I cannot understand your thinking. But I would not. There is no need for me to think on where I am going." He tucks his nose into the crook of his elbow, voice odd and muffled to his own ears. "Perhaps, in that light, foolishness can almost make sense." 

"I see." Claude says nothing else for a moment. When Dimitri finally allows himself to look over his arm a bit, he can see the man quietly studying him. Before Dimitri can hide his face away again, however, he scoots over until his shoulder is against the bars of Dimitri's cage and he's leaning sideways against them. "So... You're resigned to being here forever, huh? You're on such a hair trigger, I was wondering if you give them trouble trying to get free." 

"I won't be here forever." Of course, that could almost be mistaken for optimism, and he doesn't want that. "I'll die." He thinks he sees Claude's eyes move at that, a brief flick towards the star strewn heavens as though asking for guidance from some god of his at what might vaguely be humor. Dimitri prefers to think of it as a statement of fact, more than anything. "Until then... it doesn't matter if I lash out or not." And he shifts, at that, until he is more sprawled than laying, and his arm stretches limply out towards the bars of his cage. 

There, far too pale and ugly against his fair fur, lies his brand. 

Such a deceivingly simple little thing. Like all the brands this church seems to use to mark its undesirables, it is in the form of a diamond: all sharp angles and unforgiving straight lines. That part is white, and stands out sharply against the dark fur of his wrist. This cruel and unnatural white that scars his skin. Within that white, two symbols, pitch black and devoid of fur. He does not know if they mean anything: one a simple thick line following the flow of his arm, the other almost like an axe's head. 

He supposes it doesn't matter. He knows what this mark means, in its place on his wrist: he is the church's lapdog, their weapon, a tool they can keep controlled and aim where they need to. 

Well. It isn't as though they need to control him more often than not in the ring, not when it comes to his morbid purpose. He goes into wild states all on his own, whether or not they prompt him to it. 

"Well, by that logic, none of us will be here forever," Claude says, a touch dryly, although his gaze flickers down to the brand when Dimitri offers view of it so boldly. His eyes return to Dimitri's face in the end. "I meant that you're resigned to not getting out of here before that happens." 

"It would never happen," he says, bland and certain in equal measure. That's just simple fact. It doesn't even hurt anymore, a fact that he has had so long to adjust to. No, if there's anything that stings at him... Dimitri narrows his eye. "I tried," he says, voice low, a rumble tearing at the edges of it. The memories tear at the edges of it. "I was younger, and tried. You know nothing." 

But how could he? How could he know of the multiple attempts Dimitri had made to scramble up the side of the execution walls as though freedom lay upwards? How could he know of the many clumsy attempts to speak that language only earned him punishment and pain? How could he know anything? 

Without connecting explicit thought to explicit action, Dimitri's lips curls up again over his fangs. "There is no point trying to escape. I learned that a long time ago, just like I learned, eventually, that the only goal I will ever be able to reach, the only thing I will ever be able to do for those of my family who died long ago, for those who have died under harsh light and my harsher claws, for myself... is to take down one of my captors before they put me down like a wild animal." Snarling? Smiling? Dimitri is not sure what his own mouth is doing, besides speaking. "I look forward to the day that I can sink my teeth into the throat of whatever important human I can reach." 

Perhaps this makes him a- the word escapes him. Either way, he may have no place to judge Claude. Dimitri knows that this plan of his, this goal, this dream - it is a form of death seeking as well. But he has nothing else. He has nothing left. 

Those thoughts, the memories that drove in just how trapped he is in this place - they're far from pleasant. In fact, they're downright tiring, and Dimitri finally curls in on himself again with his limbs kept close. His tail flicks around his body, as though it could be any kind of shield. "...I would have thought the last killing night to be a proper example for you, but it appears that it was not. Stay long enough. You will see the worst of how I can act eventually." 

Dimitri is well aware of how he can get, after all, there in the killing ring. Some days, he is exhausted, and easily forced back into his bonds, dragged into the tunnels and halls which lead back to his cage, although he is often forced underneath running water to clean the blood from his person first. But other days... Other days, the adrenaline runs too strong, or his anger is too great, or he is just... lost in his own violence. 

Those are the days when his handlers have to really fight to drag him back. A misfortune, honestly, that their magic allows them luck in this area. Dimitri suspects, from the roars of the crowd when this happens, that it's half the appeal. 

Throughout all of that, Claude stays quiet, and just listens. Faintly, Dimitri can remember a young boy doing the very same thing when he would try to explain a concept to him in Voali. As though he were gathering pieces of a puzzle, scattered though it may have been, in preparation for putting it all together later. Maybe he really hasn't changed that much. Dimitri knows, to his despair, that he hasn't changed that much. Not like he has. 

Finally, Claude looks away - to the stars, again, and this time Dimitri allows his own gaze to be dragged along with his. He has looked out to the stars hundreds of times during his captivity; likely it has been many more times. Some nights, it was with a bitterness to his gaze, while other nights found him pained and aching. No matter when, the stars were always a reminder of somewhere he would never be again. Of people he would never see again. 

Yet somehow, the view is completely changed with the simple addition of Claude's profile, moonlight following the curve of his nose and losing itself in the dark of his hair. Just Claude, sitting there against the bars of Dimitri's cage. 

Oblivious to the change he has made, Claude quietly speaks up. "You know... I remember when we were kids, and I always dreamed that I would bust us both out and I'd run away with you somewhere. Back to my homeland, usually... as though it were a few miles over." He chuckles quietly. "Man, the things I didn't know I didn't know back then.... I didn't have any idea just what it'd take to make that happen." 

The sight, the words, renew something in him, a nostalgic ache that makes his heart feel solid within his chest again. Dimitri's claws twitch, wanting to reach out.... 

He slides his eyes shut, as if sight alone is the only temptation he has to fight against. As if he is not too late to fight against the ache taking root in his lungs, when it had begun the second Claude had reached his hand so helplessly through the bars of his cage. "You'd say that," he says, perhaps suddenly. "I used to see you all the time, like before... And you would always give such promises. The number of times I fell for such a specter..." 

Finally, he gives in. He gives into his longing, and the soft temptation lying only a short ways from him. His hand sneaks out, arm stretching easily across the gap that lies between him and Claude.

Claude does not wear very loose clothing, he's noticed, not like the very important humans of the church whose clothing drapes and flows. The first day, he had been very practical: clothing with no sleeves, tied tight to his body, boots that reached up along his legs, the bright red accentuating every little bit of him. Tonight, for reasons he does not know, his clothing is a little looser. His belt of cloth has an end which lays upon the ground, bulges just slightly through the bars of his cage and rests there in the awkward gap.

Dimitri doesn't grab it like he has grabbed so many other things before, hard and with his palm curled tight around it, an iron grip that demands tearing and breaking. He doesn't pinch it between his fingers, clawtips too sharp to do anything but puncture through such thin and delicate material. All he does is... touch. A simple touch, the pads of his fingers resting against the bright red fabric so that it is gently pinned between his touch and the metal of his bars. 

A simple touch. A simple... connection to what is real. This is no illusion of his mind. No trick of ghosts. It may be a lot of things, foolish most of all... but it is real. 

Claude does not look down at where Dimitri's fingertips touches his belt. He doesn't know, he's pretty sure, but... his smile seems softer, somehow, under the light of the moon and stars. "Did I promise you a lot of things as a kid?" he asks, not looking down. "Or was that some hallucination of me? We talked about so many things back then that I can't remember all the specifics." 

"The hallucinations." Dimitri rubs his finger gently against soft cloth. It's better quality than the pants or cloth belt that he himself wears. Softer. Not so worn or uncomfortable. "I tried to kill you, once." This is likely not a reassuring thing to hear, but the truth is not a thing that is meant to be reassuring. Dimitri's voice is mild, low, unchanging. "You were always promising me things I couldn't have... Or asking questions all the time. And you never changed..." 

Not like Dimitri did. Not like how he grew bigger, and more violent, and broken, even as he was locked away in this too small cage. Dimitri does not think he has changed for a long while, now... but he has changed, permanently, compared to the small boy he used to see on the other side of the bars. 

Claude has also changed permanently, now, because he is not that fake illusion who had stayed perpetually a child. His jaw has grown stronger, highlighted by soft silver light; Dimitri can still see it with his eyes shut. "Promising you things I didn't make happen... Now that doesn't sound like me at all," he says. "Does that mean some ghost of me is what killed your hope?" 

A low snort escapes him; it would certainly have been easier if something like that had happened. "Hope doesn't last long in this place. Not in this cage, not in this church, and not in this blasted city." They all spawned each other, after all. He knows nothing of this city's history, not the fine details, but he knows that to be fact. Without the church, there would be no city. There would likely be no cage. There would be no people, and there would be no blood. 

His hallucinations of Claude were... What were they, in the end? He's not sure. Reassurance? Something to lash out at? He's never really pondered it before. Never had the time, or eventually inclination, to ponder it. He hadn't ever thought it important. 

There's a beat of silence, of absorbing words, before Claude speaks again. "Sorry for the pain I caused you... even if it was a hallucination of me that did it." 

"If you apologize, then you act as though it was no hallucination at all." Dimitri shifts, pulling his hand back and opening his eye to take stock of Claude once more. At some point in their exchange, at some point when Dimitri had his eye closed, Claude himself moved. It's not much, his head simply sideways as though he were glancing sidelong at Dimitri... but his eyes are closed, lashes curved along his cheeks. Dimitri closes his own again as well. "...You are in no rush this time as well, then?" 

"I've gotten a feel for the guards' patrol routes already." Something teases at the borders of his voice, light and confident. Dimitri can tell without looking that Claude is smiling again; it's the same tone he's used before. "I've got another ten minutes or so before I should be gone." 

It's only been a day and a night, and he's learned already? That is quick. Dimitri doesn't want to give him credit for it. "Prepared well for more petty theft, I see." He doesn't think he remembered petty before. A little kernel of pride tries to take root in his chest. Dimitri lets it. 

"Naturally!" There's a kind of fakeness to Claude's tone, an insincerity, a smile. "I'm hurt you'd think me so incompetent, Dimitri!" 

"You saw me bite through bone, and then shoved your hand into my cage with impressive disregard." 

"I never said I wasn't reckless." Claude's laughter bubbles out of him, seems to fill the courtyard, fill Dimitri. Almost reluctantly, and unfortunately only almost, Dimitri opens his eye to meet those brilliant green ones. The smile is on his face just like he thought it would be. "Just not incompetent. They're different words for a reason, you know." 

Dimitri scoffs. "The difference between them is less separate than one would think." No matter what Claude tries to argue, all of this - and that initial display most of all - is still foolish. Still... asinine, yes. It's asinine. Even if it has not yet ended in a bad result, it's still asinine. 

Another quiet laugh is all Dimitri gets in response, as if he is the one talking nonsense and not Claude. It's almost in contrast to the way he cocks an eyebrow, sharp and quick, amused. "You still haven't complimented my Voali, by the way," Claude says. "But, you know, in your own time." 

Laying down to the ground like he is, his stomach should not have any lower to go. Yet Claude's words force it to drop, and Dimitri looks away at them. It's not that he has not noticed. It's not that he has not thought it impressive. He has recognized Claude's impeccable Voali since the second his old friend came to him the night before, where it sounded almost more natural on his tongue than Dimitri's. 

How is he supposed to feel about that? He does not know. Should he even want to ask about the places Claude learned Voali in, who he learned it from that was not Dimitri? He does not know.

He shouldn't want to know, Dimitri knows that. What good would knowing do him? He cannot go to the places Claude has been, and cannot speak to the people he has spoken to. How long has he spent recovering from that loss, and the knowledge of that loss? All that time and effort and grief, put to waste by a single question... 

A question he asks now, unable to stop himself, to the lukewarm and still air in front of him instead of to Claude. "Where did you learn it...?" 

Claude answers anyway. "I've done a lot of traveling for my work, you know. Getting supplies and information... Sometimes, what the church wants isn't around here. They don't exactly like leaving their little circle of influence they have going on." Despite what he keeps trying to tell himself, trying to stop himself, Dimitri shifts his head to look back at Claude again. One of those lovely shining smiles that comes from some deep well inside of him is on Claude's face to greet him. 

What else can Dimitri do in the face of that smile, and from more information that he knows Claude never got a chance to teach him? He sits still, and listens as Claude continues on.

"Outside of this particular religious offshoot, after all, humans and Voa co-exist peacefully and commonly. They recognize each other as equals. So as soon as I first went to those places, could find out where they were... I made it a point of interacting with as many Voa as possible, and learning as much as I could from them. I got fluent at bartering with them, especially." Claude laughs, and Dimitri realizes he's sat up, leaned forward. When did he do that? 

Claude doesn't lean forward. He's still against the bars, already as close as he physically can be, and bright. "And believe me, if you've ever tried bartering in a second language you'll find out just how quick and how good you can get at it if you want a decent deal." He winks, as if Dimitri would have any idea on this sort of experience he's reference. Dimitri nods, as if he does. "Voa are great, but merchants are merchants no matter where you are. So, I learned fast." And Dimitri nods again, still quiet. Still listening. 

Because this is still the boy he used to see so regularly, with that insatiable curiosity demanding answer after answer from Dimitri that he had in turn gladly struggled to give. Of course that boy would have leapt onto the first opportunity he could wrest from the church to venture out of it, with their foolishly given permission, so that he could dig up more answers for himself. This is the same boy who had slipped away from his own handlers to talk with something that was a monster, that would become a monster... No, this is not surprising at all. 

His hand shifts - Claude's hand shifts, settling against the bars, settling in that gap where his belt bulges out. Where Dimitri had laid his own fingertips. Dimitri's eye follows it, a quick darting glance down before returning to Claude's face, his voice. "I taught you our language, so I wanted to learn more of yours," he says, smile fading gently with every word. A faded imitation of its own self. "Part of me used to think about surprising you with how much better I'd gotten, if I ever found you again... But, if I'm honest, another part of me never held out any hope for that. Still, it felt like - when I was learning, I could at least still pretend you were alive." 

With what he had known of Claude, even when he had been a child, it had not been a surprise that he had searched out ways to speak Voali. It had not been a surprise that he can now speak it so easily. Dimitri, thus, should not be surprised... and yet the feeling still weighs heavy in his gut, leaves his mouth opening wordlessly before he closes it despite how patiently Claude is looking to him. Waiting for a response. 

All this time - maybe not all of it, no, but perhaps a good deal of it, ever since he was taken from that room and put into a cage, Dimitri has thought ill of all humans. Even Claude. He had thought many things, few of them kind, a few of them pessimistic. Yet Claude had... 

Somehow, he rather suddenly feels sick, and Dimitri looks away. He resolves himself to look away. Then again, he had resolved himself not to reach out and touch Claude's belt, too. Claude, who is still watching and waiting for a response patiently. "I can not say the same," Dimitri finally manages, the words at last making sense in his head and fortunately coming out properly on his tongue. It occurs to him a second later that he should clarify, even if he is not sure he needs to, and he adds, "In regards to... Fodlish." The language of humans. 

That is not to say he knows nothing, that he has retained nothing, after all this time. Claude had taught him simple enough things, back when they were children, and those had all been easy enough to remember.

Dimitri had asked questions in turn, remembering things the human adults had said and echoing them clumsily to Claude later on, with mixed results on answers received. He's retained enough that he has a rough idea of what things his guards and handlers occasionally talk about, although it is not always easy. 

Yet he has not had Claude to speak to. Yet the other humans viewed him as a deceiver even with innocent questions. Yet he has never had any reason to continue speaking it aloud himself. 

It does not feel fair, to have retained so little while Claude has learned so much. Yet he does not seem to hold it against him. "That's fine," he says instead. "It's been a long time since anyone's taught you anything, right?" When Dimitri glances back at him again  - his resolve truly means so little now - Claude's smile is back to something a little more shining again instead of faded. "Maybe we could take up those lessons again. You don't have to, if you don't want to, but it'd be something to do." His eyes glimmer, all teasing and mirth. "You could insult the guards in something they'd understand!" 

"In the past, they have only thought me up to tricks," Dimitri says, rolling his eye and certain the little gesture isn't seen. His tail swishes from side to side - almost a snap in its quickness. "It would only be a waste of your time." 

"I don't think so." Of course he wouldn't be dissuaded. If anything, Claude seems even more pleased about something, even as he shrugs. "Time spent with you doesn't feel wasted, no matter what I'm doing. How could teaching you things feel wasteful?" 

There's an obvious answer here. It's so obvious that Dimitri begins to knead his claws into his palms, and has to stop himself. "It wouldn't be put to use," he says slowly, using more control than he feels he's needed to use outside of the killing arena in... Mm. "There's no reason for it to be put to use." There are words underneath his words, an - insinuation that he knows Claude is more than smart enough to pick up on: And you should know that. 

"Even if it isn't, so what?" Claude presses. "Teaching something you want to know still has value. And unless you wanted to learn, there'd be no point in teaching you, so that's the only way it'd happen, right?" In other words, the only way teaching would not be worth it is if Dimitri himself said he did not want to. While this is forced to sink into Dimitri, Claude looks back up to the sky. To the stars. "It wouldn't be a waste," he repeats quietly, like it's important. "Besides, you never know what tomorrow might bring." 

"It's been easy to know for years, now," Dimitri murmurs, but he's almost not even really thinking of his own words. Instead, his gaze has drifted downwards, away from Claude's illuminated face, and towards his own anxiously kneading claws. 

Does he want to learn? It feels like a question sprung on him - what is he talking about? It is a question that has been sprung on him, a choice he never expected to make, just like all of Claude's existence right there on the other side of his cage's bars.

Somehow, all of this feels like a terrible mistake. It feels as though he is being blindfolded somehow, and expected to walk forward while waiting for the sudden drop of a cliff. If he could just detail to himself why he feels this so strongly...

Because that's his only argument to the fact that he is absolutely and mind-numbingly bored. There is nothing to do within his cage; it's a fact he has ignored for many years. Most of his life, in fact.

What else could he do about it? He's run, and done exercises he can faintly remember being taught by a family friend, and he's practiced moves against old matches that have long since played out like they always play out. Mostly, he does a lot of sleeping. He did planning, for a short while, planning that had nothing to do with his escape, but he's stopped doing that. All of that is all he can do, stuck in a cage with a blanket and a chamber pot and occasionally trays of food that taste nothing like what Claude brought him. 

But now there is Claude. There is Claude, filling up such an enormous courtyard with just his tiny person. Filling up Dimitri's world with just his person. Dimitri is loathe to admit it, but he cannot deny that his day has been so much more obvious in its dullness after the prior night's events. Claude had been right: it would be something to do, and something to do in the daytime when Claude is not about. 

It still feels as though it will hurt something, hurt him, but... Dimitri blinks, realizing how much time has passed. It's too small an amount of time for the position of the moon to tell him anything at all, so he doesn't bother to look.

Instead, he just relies on his gut, and looks to where Claude is still lounging so contentedly against the bars of his cage, stars reflected in his eyes. "A guard is supposed to come around soon, yes?" The first words are barely out of his mouth before Claude jolts, relaxed to harried before Dimitri's heart can finish its latest beat. 

Before he can finish blinking, Claude is on his feet. "Shit - yeah, you're right." He brushes himself off, quick and as quiet as one possibly can be. Hands patting against  cloth, a ghost of a sound, isn't something that gets past Dimitri's ears... but he's fairly certain that a human's ears will not catch it, not when the sound is otherwise swallowed up by the vastness of the courtyard. "I'll be back the next night, alright? Well, the next night out of the three, I don't know which it will be yet. Don't get yourself into too much trouble before then, got it?" Claude is already moving, a light silent trot across the courtyard that is a tad faster than the way he first approached Dimitri. "I want you to still be here when I come back!" 

He's gone, vanished into shadows and night time, before Dimitri has a chance to respond, or tell him that whether he is here or not isn't something that's exactly in his control. Gone before Dimitri can tell him that's quite something to hear, from a man stealing from church pantries. Dimitri suspects Claude would roll his eyes again if he'd gotten the chance to hear.

Instead, he stays where he is, half curled up on the ground. At least, he stays like that for a little while. Dimitri isn't sure for how long; time occasionally blurs and becomes meaningless. But it is still night, still dark, and that's all he really needs to know before he unfurls himself. 

Even with Claude's absence, he can still tell which gap in the bars was a temporary home for that simple red cloth belt. There is no need for him to reach forward. There is nothing there, now. Dimitri reaches anyway, grinding the pad of one finger against metal. It is not much warmer than it was before Claude arrived, he thinks. He can only think, can only guess. When was the last time he touched the metal bars of his cage? His prison? 

Words are not a physical thing which he can roll in his mouth, like a bit of hard bread, or a shattered fragment of bone. Dimitri tries regardless. He arches it up against the roof of his mouth, presses until his tongue is bulging against his fangs like a bloated thing. He digs the tip down, feels where itself is connected to himself. "Hi," he says, not in Voali, but a single little syllable from Fodlish. One of the things that Claude would say every day, when he used to visit him in a little room filled with sunshine from a single window. 

Realizing what he's done, Dimitri draws his mouth tight in his face, and forgoes his blanket as he instead curls up again on the hard ground. He closes his eyes - squeezes them shut, as though that can also smother the thoughts his brain had without agreement from the rest of him. 

They were foolish, after all. They are still foolish. He should give himself at least a day to find a good enough argument to refute them.