church ch 4 (versed in so much worse)

[warmskies]

Dimitri is... difficult, at times, to get through. And Claude certainly tries, let there be no mistake. 

It's too soon to make any strong judgment calls, he reminds himself every time Dimitri ignores him, or seems more captivated by something going on in his cell that Claude can't see. The phrase "fugue state" comes to mind when Dimitri acts that way, although at least Claude's voice seems to stir him now and then. However, it's only "now and then". 

While he'd never call such a condition fine, it works to Claude's advantage. He'd long ago made the decision that he had to keep his plans a secret from Dimitri. His old friend... hadn't even realized that he'd spoken aloud, had been under the impression he was simply thinking a thought he'd then abandoned before its completion. If Claude were to tell him of his plans, and Dimitri let them slip in a fit of haziness.... The only comfort he has about that possibility is that Dimitri seems to speak solely in Voali when he's talking to himself. 

No one in the church, at least this particular branch of it, speaks the tongue. Why would they? It's the language of "demons", of soullessness and sin. Start learning that and, why, you're on the path to becoming a heretic. A heathen, pagan, sinner. You know, someone with a working curiosity and functioning open mind who knows how to have fun. 

But Claude is a realist, and he knows there's a caveat to that comfort of his: Dimitri only speaks Voali to his knowledge. No one here knows Voali to his knowledge. There are a lot of things he can't be 100% certain of right now... and thus, he keeps his plans to himself, still messy sketches forming in his mind that they may be. After all, the best kept secret is one only you know. 

On the bright side, Dimitri seems to adjust a little more with every night that Claude visits him, all in a row throughout the majority of the week. He wakes up a little more, focuses on Claude instead of favoring whatever he sees in his mind.

Maybe the execution was a factor, Claude theorizes later on as he flicks through the library books in the hazy sunlight of soon-to-be-noon. No matter how many times Dimitri has done that sort of thing before, there's a weight to taking a life... and the Dimitri he can remember bouncing about in his room, trying to find the exact thing that would get across his meaning as they learned each other's tongue? That Dimitri had been far too soft for this kind of violence. 

His fingers start to grind into fragile paper, and Claude stops himself. Alternatively, his appearance alone was enough to throw Dimitri off the balance he'd established for himself after years of being an executioner, with no one who would bother to reach out for him. It had been a shock to Claude, too, to see just how Dimitri had ended up. Being on the other end... Yeah, that could throw anyone off, put Dimitri in shock. Claude lets loose a slow breath. 

There's a lot he still has to learn: about the guard patrols, about who has secrets he can hoard or flaws he can exploit, the layout of the entire church, how to keep people off his trail for at least a short while when he finally succeeds... But one step at a time.

A plan worth doing is worth doing carefully, to ensure there's as little room for error as possible. It's been his whole plan for as long as he can imagine, pulling the curtain on the church, both to the world and to itself... but he'd never have imagined trying to break out an executioner like this. 

Well. He'll make it work. Claude reminds himself of this, finger following a line of words. There's no question about that, at least, even if he has a million other questions waiting for him in the wings. 

"Claude!" Roused out of his own many troubles, he puts on a relaxed smile when he looks up to see who's calling his name. It's one of the people that he went to go drink with, when Henning invited him - the woman who got sick and that he consequently helped. She looks much better than that night as she ducks away from a monk frowning at her loudness, all sheepish and smiling. Once she's close enough, she speaks in a much quieter whisper. "I didn't take a hunter like you for a bookworm." 

Cath, that's her name. He remembers from the round of introductions that had occurred about the fire. Claude winks. "Hey, if I'm going to be staying in town for a while, I should indulge in all the things I don't have access to on the road, right? It'd be silly not to do so otherwise." 

"It's true that your lot live a pretty rugged life..." She steps closer, looking over the books he has spread across his little table. "What're you reading, then?" 

The real answer is nothing incriminating. The answer that Claude gives aloud is, "I was looking into the architecture of this place, actually. It hit me just the other day that we  have so many beautiful statues of the Saint, but I'd never really wondered about the devoted person who'd made them. And, well-" He laughs softly, so that the monk watching them with hawk eyes doesn't target him either. "I got a little lost in it all." 

"Huh, now you have me wondering... Wait-" She shakes her head. "I didn't mean to get caught up conversation - The Quartermaster is looking for you!. It looked pretty important." 

Well. That's either good news or bad news, and he can't tell which based on secondhand accounts. He pushes himself up. "I'd better go as quick as I can, then. Although I'll feel a bit bad about leaving all this mess behind, I hope that Brother Scowl over there understands..." 

Cath takes in a deep breath, the kind that Claude has long grown familiar with as various people around him have tried to hold back their laughter on whatever it is he's said. But she recovers quickly, smiling at Claude even friendlier than she was when she was drunk. Good. Friendliness really does do so much. "I'll take care of it, don't worry," she says. "Quartermaster Henning is why we have such good meals, so best to not keep him unhappy or waiting, right?" 

"Right," Claude agrees, chuckling, and just waves goodbye to her instead of giving his honest opinion that only the bread is really any good in this place. Bread and meat, with everything else being a coin flip on passable or bland torture. Besides, he doesn't have time to get into a deep discussion on how the church could really get over its idea that blandness and pain is somehow a sign of purity, and that the recipes and foods of anywhere past their lands is a sign of being possessed by demons. Even food from the main church! 

Like he said. It's a deep discussion... And he has more important things to focus on, which is ingratiating himself to people like the Quartermaster. 

Quartermaster Henning is where he always is on days like this: the stables near the storage building where all the goods are brought whether hunted or traded. His face is a stormcloud, gray in anxiety and aggravation, and it only eases up in relief when he turns around and sees Claude approaching.

"There you are! I was starting to worry that you were off in some nook no one could find." Claude doesn't have a chance to respond at all; Henning keeps going. "I'll cut straight to the point. Someone else was meant to take a wagon over to a town a couple of ones over, but - well, they came down with fever, which would be one thing, and broke a leg when they fell down some stairs trying to soldier through." 

Claude clicks his tongue. "Reckless of them." 

Henning's groan says that he is well aware, and is probably going to ream the original driver in question the second they're coherent enough to understand words again. "At any rate, anyone else we'd normally use is unavailable, besides you. So I need you to go and do what they were supposed to. It'll probably keep you away from here for a few days at least..." Reaching up, Henning rakes his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry. I know you planned on staying in the city for a bit." 

Claude isn't surprised by this request coming to him of all people, even disregarding how everyone else is unavailable. Frankly, it's just how he likes it, and Claude smiles at Henning. "It's no trouble at all, Quartermaster. But with one caveat." 

With how his day has apparently been going, Henningalready looks exhausted as it is. "And what would that be?" 

"Treat me to dinner when I get back!" Claude says, laughing brightly, and feels satisfied when he sees Henning's expression lighten as well. "I was looking forward to my meal tonight!" 

"Do a good job on this task, and we'll see," Henning says, indulging him with the faintest of grins. "Now hurry and go get what you need from your room. The wagon and horses should be prepared when you get back." 

Claude doesn't need to be told twice. He hurries off, already thinking of all the things he personally could use in town, where to find them. If he can arrange his trip just so, it won't look entirely suspicious if he arrives in the dead of night. That way, he doesn't have to talk to people much here in town. You know, make it easier to slip his own things out of sight and back to his room. Books banned from the church library, some tools to replace what's worn out in his hunting pack, see what's in the marketplace just in case it gives him any ideas on how to get Dimitri out of here- 

His hands are in the middle of shoving things into his pack when he thinks of Dimitri, and Claude swears quietly in his head. Damn.... This is going to be him leaving Dimitri all on his own for the first time since he arrived in town. Somehow, that feels a little.... unfair, to his friend. He's already been alone for so long... 

Taking a deep breath, Claude centers himself and continues packing. No, this is important. Not only is he getting things that are going to be good for him, and will hopefully be good for Dimitri someday soon, but he's making himself invaluable to the nitty gritty of the church and its city. The things he plans on doing.... Well, before, when he'd only really been thinking of himself and the rest of the world, he'd been focused on the higher ups of this branch. They even listen to him now, sort of, well, not at all, really. 

It's complicated. On one hand, Claude is one of the most disposable people people in this whole city, of that he has no doubt. After all, he's just a kid that they picked up from people who were so much less enlightened than they were, a kid they thought they could save from himself and his blood.

But he's not really one of them. Claude knows that, even as much as people like Henning and Cath might be oblivious to this simple fact of life. So he's more than once had a priest or a bishop or any other person higher up than him on the food chain ask him to do something that they would never inflict upon one of their own, or that they would dirty their own hands with. 

In that way, Claude reflects grimly, him and Dimitri are the same. If it is not something from the church, if they are not from the church, well... The results speak for themselves. 

But that means he has more dirt and knowledge on the priests than he does on his fellow low level "devotees", Claude has to admit. That was his own fault; he thought too big instead of considering the little details that make up the whole. Perhaps he wasn't entirely wrong in doing things like that initially, with what he wants to do, wants to accomplish, but the small details are important too.

He can't forget that... and that first step means doing things like making friends with Henning, and people like Cath, and maybe even that kid they were all ragging on who did guard duty not that long ago. 

Anyway... Claude smiles automatically at Henning when he gets back, the wagon indeed prepared, and immediately heads off onto the road. As he does, he glances back at the city, the gates shuddering closed behind him. Dimitri... will probably be fine, honestly.

Why wouldn't he? He's been spending time on his own for years now, in that shitty cell. By this point it must be absolutely mundane, even if there is an inherent misery to it when one has the full context. Claude will frankly be honored if his absence is noted at all, and that Dimitri doesn't just sleep through the days he's gone. 

Away from the city, past the bits of farmland that stick close to the city walls, a wry smile forms on Claude's lips. Yeah, it'd be an honor, alright... or maybe just something a lot more soft instead. But he doubts it. 





...Claude isn't coming. 

Dimitri realizes it when... Honestly, he's not sure when. Time is not something he has the ability gauge, exactly, by the minute or the hour. Time just passes, and Dimitri a helpless passenger in its throes. But Claude has always visited, these past nights, even with Dimitri somewhat oblivious to his presence at times. Even when he feels trapped within himself.... He knows that Claude is there with him. So he's expecting him, even if he is not waiting for him, curled up in his cage. 

Time passes. He is dragged along with it. Staring at the ceiling, and the walls, soon becomes boring. His gaze goes to the courtyard. Still empty. His gaze goes towards the night sky, devoid of moon now from what he can see. 

The meaning of that does not hit Dimitri immediately. It takes him a few seconds, seeing nothing but empty void. But then something about the prior normalcy, the adjustment to his schedule and his life that he was just getting used to, finally hits him. 

Claude has showed up at Dimitri's cage at an exact time. Or, there was never an exact time that Dimitri could tell. But Dimitri has always kept track of the stairs that have shifted overhead, the path of the moon... and Claude had always made sure to arrive before the moon disappeared out of sight. 

Dimitri goes still. It feels as though every little piece of him, from his heart to his toes, goes still upon this realization. How... is he supposed to feel about this development, exactly? He had first thought, upon Claude's first visit, that the man would disappear soon enough. That he hadn't meant it when he said that he would stay by Dimitri, would rekindle the friendship neither of them had a say in keeping as children. Or perhaps he would get captured - has been captured, for thieving, or sneaking, or any number of things. 

He doesn't know how to feel about any of those possibilities. 

Without thinking on what exactly he wants to do, Dimitri pushes himself up. A low growl rumbles forth from his throat. Somehow the courtyard seems far too quiet, and he cannot tell just what has made it so. But there will be no one else filling it with sound for many hours yet.

Not until someone comes forth with his meal for the morning, and then takes the remnants away so that he does not throw them at the monks and guards and others. That isn't good enough. That's too far in the distance. All that can make noise in the courtyard is himself. 

And so he proceeds to make just that. 

At first, it's simply muttering. Listening to Claude speak to him all these nights has made him - remember things. Nothing like his childhood, or places, or anything like that.

Just - words he had forgotten he had forgotten. Phrases he could recall hearing his father say, or an older friend mimicking from a friend's older brother. Claude is so fluent, now.... Sometimes, when Dimtiri closes his eye, it's almost as if he's not talking to a human. It's almost as if there's another Voa on the other side of the bars... but that seems worse, sometimes, and so he always inevitably opens his eye again. 

Those are the words he mutters to himself, tongue folding around familiar syllables in what had been once unfamiliar words. They make their home in his mouth again the more he repeats them. Some of the phrases, the words, they're just things he says, but different, now, more informal.

There's a distant ping in the back of his head - it's rude to speak like that. He can almost imagine one of his parents scolding him on it. Not a hallucination, just - a nagging feeling, a sense of nostalgia and deja vu, old memories of how he shouldn't mimic his friends no matter how they act.... 

They only last so long, these fragments of Voali, of home, that he cradles in his mouth and against his tongue. He tries the language Claude had tried to teach him so long ago, those fragments of Fodlish, but there's not enough. He doesn't remember enough. Dimitri's pace starts to quicken, strengthen, and he finds some petty satisfaction in the way his claws drag or his feet stomp against the ground. It sends an impact through his legs, up to his body, and that- that is something. It is not sound, it does not feed the lack of anything, but it is something. 

His pace quickens. Dimitri flings himself against the walls of his cage - palms smashing against stone that doesn't yield, feet kicking out at metal bars. His tail snaps through the air, again, again, again, until it hurts. Dimitri doesn't notice. The courtyard is too quiet, now, and he - how did he stand it for so long? Bile burns at the back of his throat, with no weight to back it. He's withstood it for years, what changed?

None of this feels normal. Lungs burning, mouth panting, Dimitri starts to race throughout his cage. Shoulder to bars, fists to walls - the adrenaline makes him feel something, however shallow those feelings might be. But it's a lot of noise he's making, more than the gentle whispers which filter from Claude's lips to the gaps of his cage to his ears. 

At first he thinks he's drawn his illusions back to him, noises tugging at his ears that he knows cannot exist within his cage. They're all around him, at his side, behind him, volume never changing despite where he goes within his cage - and it is not a small thing they have provided him, at least not in terms of pacing. But then there is something before him, language, words, and Dimitri whirls around with his teeth bared. 

One of the words had been stop, and the culprit is the one of the humans that passes by so regularly every night. Guard. He knows that words. In Voali and - Fodlish, yes. He knows that word. And the person embodying that word right now is snapping at him, not quite yelling, not yet, valuing quiet still. 

Dimitri does not value quiet. He shoves himself against the bars of his cage, yells at the top of his lungs, roars, and he grins, manic - yes, manic, a good word, sharp in his mouth and in his skull - when he sees the guard grimace at the sound. It is not pleasant. Good. He is not pleasant. They have to deal with the consequences of what they have done, and that is him. 

The guard tries to order - familiar words, Dimitri knows this Fodlish well - and draws closer when Dimitri does not listen. In their church magic, there is a cruel light, and it brightens the courtyard in one sharp burst before settling in the guard's hands.

A staff. Common, well used, familiar to Dimitri's body in the form of old bruises and the weight of it. The guard jabs it between the bars, right at him, but he is too slow. Dimitri is used to quicker movements than this, jerks back, smacks his hand out and laughs - loud, ugly, thick in his throat - when he sees the guard grimace. A staff rattling between metal is not pleasant; even he can tell that much. 

Eventually, the guard leaves, only to return a short time later accompanied by his handlers, by one of the faces he unfortunately knows all too well. Dimitri recognizes a fight, a struggle, violence against him, when it comes. Tonight, he does not mind. 

It fills the silence, the nothingness that has somehow become unfamiliar to him. That is all he could ask for. He does not bother to think ahead to the next night, or the nights after that. 





It takes a few good days for Claude to get back to - well, he'd never call it home, but a temporary base, certainly. It had taken some time to get to the town that the church's goods were meant to arrive at, even with pushing the horses to their limits.

It had been necessary, unfortunately. The ex-driver had wasted a lot of time that Claude had to make up for. When he'd arrived, well, there'd been all the handling of goods and money to deal with, and then there had been the trade of things the church wanted. 

Nothing on the list had been particularly interesting, frankly. What had been more important had been Claude using what scant amount of time he'd had to get some of the things he wanted and needed, along with catching up with a few friends or informants. It hadn't been a lot of time for any of it... but Claude had used every single second to its fullest potential. He's gotten good at it. 

He's also gotten quite good at managing his time to get him right where he needs to be at the exact time he wants to be there, which is why he arrives at the gates to the city after the sun has gone down. The guards at the gate acknowledge him with a grunt and a nod that quickly turn into smiles when he reaches back into the supplies to bring some "care packages" picked up from the next town over. Oh yes, it's all smiles and well wishes then, once food gets brought into the equation. 

Well, it's not as though he can blame them, Claude supposes, waving goodbye to the pair in their little station while he guides the horses into the city. It may have been a decent spring day earlier, but the nights can get chilly still, and they have a long dull night shift ahead of them. Probably didn't get hot food, either, and it was probably nothing special. Why not enjoy some cheese and sausages from the next town over? Maybe it'll help them realize there's better food out in the world. And maybe that will have them realize there's a world out there worth looking into. 

As he expected, Quartermaster Henning isn't at the storage building when he gets back. There is a girl instead, likely put there just in case he came back late - which he did. Another smile, this time in the face of a small bag of roasted pumpkin seeds that he waves off as something extra that he was lucky enough to get. Oh, people like the special feeling of having something specifically bought for them, of course... but it's a bit much when he's still not someone close.

In contrast, something free that he makes a show of liking and eating before he offers a separate bag? It makes a little more "sense" to a person, while still being flattering and pleasant. When one gets something easily and likes it, they tend to hoard, after all.... So not doing that, being generous, well, the girl says it herself as she accepts the bag: "I didn't know you were so nice, Claude. Thank you." 

There's some encouragement to come work with the trading wagons some more, but Claude sidesteps giving a direct answer. Instead, he laughs, misdirects, and takes his leave saying he'd like to go straight to bed after so many "hiccups" on the way back.

He'd long ago thought of some fun creative tales that he could raise up as a defense, but this girl doesn't ask, just tells him to have a nice night as she takes care of the wagon. Claude volunteers for the horses, not only to add to the reputation he's carefully cultivated in general (now in further detail) but because, well... He genuinely likes horses. What can he say? 

He really does head straight to the lodging area, too. He really is tired. Someone, like usual, is manning the little area before the bedrooms, and they direct him to one that's empty. It's the exact mirror image of the one he'd left: similar bed, similar desk, exact same layout. Maybe that should be comforting. Instead, Claude can feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickle upwards in - in a lot of things, really. A lot of feelings. Unfortunately, none of them are good. 

In contrast to what he told the guards, the girl at the storage building, the person in charge of church lodgings - Claude doesn't go to sleep. Instead, first order of business is taking out his pack. With the wagon having been given the clear for having everything it needed, and everyone distracted by friendliness and good ol' fashioned food, no one had even thought to think about Claude's own belongings.

Just as he likes it. Maybe no one would have bothered anyway.... but Claude knows better than to assume. He knows people are more inclined to give him trouble.... so best to do everything in his power to circumvent it. 

If that's worth the price of some sausage, cheese, and a bag of pumpkin seeds, well, that's pretty cheap comparatively. Besides, he'd been planning on buying those anyway. 

Past the walls of his room, he can still hear life go on in the rest of the church. There's the sound of orphanage kids doing the last chores for the day, bringing water in and out for the dirty dishes that are coming from the bustling dining hall losing some of its fervor as workers and nuns and so many others filter back into the city and the lodging hall.... 

Same schedule as always, listened to from a room that's basically the same as the one before it. The only things that are different would be him, the things he's packing, and the shape and position of the moon outside of his window. Claude wishes he could find a comfort in it like all the people who live here do, as he works at hiding some things and putting in plain sight others. When it's in the forest, the fields, he doesn't have this problem. Being out there is so much better than being in here. 

No towering buildings like prison bars. No gray stone and white clothing like a world blanch of color, save for red like so much blood spilled. No stagnation. 

This city, this church, this entire world needs a wind of change rushing through all of it, verdant and thriving. When he has some things stuffed in a bag smaller than his pack, and the city outside quiets into sleep, Claude slips out to bring about that first breath of it. 

Unfortunately, when he makes his way through the church and arrives at the courtyard, it's a breath he opts to hold for a brief moment. There, across the worn dirt path and pale moonlight of the training yard, Dimitri paces almost violently in his cell. No, pacing is for other things.

This is outright running, with Dimitri not even bothering to stop himself as he reaches the end of his cage. Instead, he slams into the brick walls as he meets them, the slap of his palms echoing in the small space. Behind him, his tail whirls like a whip with every turn back to repeat it again. Claude may be at a distance... but he can still hear the thrumming of Dimitri's growl, breathless and rough. 

A blind man could read Dimitri's agitation right now, and Claude has a few considerable advantages over one in that regard. He slows the quick pace he'd been using to make his way through the church, not so much cautious as measuring. He's never seen Dimitri this worked up before... Even when he'd annoyed the Voa, Dimitri had never flung himself across his cell like this before. It had just been a quick couple of paces, something to work out his frustration. What had gotten to him this bad...? 

Well, there's only one way to find out, he supposes. "Dimitri?" he calls out softly, once he's reached the bars. Yet however soft he tries to make his voice, it seems to cut through the air like a knife. Dimitri slams into one of the walls away from Claude one last time... but doesn't push himself away. Those long ears twitch. A good sign? Too soon to tell. "Are you okay?" 

In the back of his head, he wonders if any of the guards will be worried at either the loud noises from the "demon cage", or worried about the sudden silence more... But, no, he's pretty sure they won't bat an eye, not with how Dimitri apparently acts on the regular if the word around town is any indication. Claude figures he'll worry about it if it happens when it happens, for the time being.

He has more important things to worry about for now, like the way Dimitri slowly turns his head to stare at him with one single wide eye. 

Is he looking at him? Where is he looking? With the structure of Voa eyes, it's impossible to tell. Dimitri still doesn't say anything. 

Smiling with an easy confidence that the rest of him does not remotely feel, Claude does the inadvisable and steps closer to the bars. "Sorry I was late!" he says cheerfully, even as he is increasingly aware of Dimitri's instability. It's been a couple of days of no contact; Claude can't even be certain that Dimitri so much as recognizes him in the state he's in. The way he's looking at him... It doesn't inspire trust. Nothing normal is going on here, and "normal" had already been a warped value ever since Claude first visited him. Maybe something significant happened while he was gone... 

Well, he can only hope that whatever happened wasn't permanent, because his original conclusion still holds up: all he can do is act based on his hopes. If his fears are going to come true, he'll find out soon enough. He can't bear to entertain those possibilities until he's forced to.

So he keeps smiling, reaching into his bag until he finds that small parcel of food. "I brought you some more food," he continues, because saying the obvious can't hurt with Dimitri in who-knows-what kind of state. "Actually traded for this time! They sent me a couple of towns over." 

And he holds the package out inbetween the bars with a smile on his face. 

In this situation, he's the one most in danger. Sure, he has the same tattoos as so many "devotees" of the church do, as a lot of people beyond it do, and that allows him to channel energy into weapons... but he's still only human, here. Dimitri has a good couple of feet on him, claws, teeth - there's a reason the church uses him as an executioner, even if this sort of violence is something Voa culturally loathe. 

Yet in the way Dimitri slowly turns around, and the measured caution to his steps.... Claude has seen that before, out in the wild, out in cities bigger than this one. He's seen it from all sorts of animals, from prey to predator, the slow gait of something not entirely sure if it's safe. Humans tend to be a lot more complicated, individualistic, but animals? Animals don't see a reason to change something already doing its job well enough. 

He waits. What else can he do? Claude keeps the parcel held out, still smiling, patient and calm because he knows anything else could set Dimitri off. Dimitri takes his time, goes the more circular and around route instead of straight towards him... but he does get there, eventually.

Right on the other side of the bars, it's a lot easier to read Dimitri's attention. If there's any luck in this encounter, it's that Dimitri is such a blessedly open book. His head stays tilted down, attention no doubt focused on the package. When he looks up at Claude - probably - his chin jerks just slightly upwards, head following, and then down again. Looking over him, maybe? 

But then Dimitri reaches over, hands hovering an inch away from the package before they finally close over the thin wax paper. Just like that - it all rushes out. Tension leaves his shoulders, making them slump down, and his stiff tail droops down loosely. Dimitri relaxes.

Claude relaxes, too, heart no longer so painfully tight inside his chest. Oh. He watches Dimitri drop down easily into a sitting position across from him. He thinks he understands now, why Dimitri was so wary, why  he had to touch something before he could relax. 

...For other visits, he'll have to keep that in mind, although Dimitri doesn't seem anywhere as violent now as before. Then again, Claude supposes as he sits across Dimitri on the other side of the bars, he put his hand within easy reach even when he was. Maybe he'll just continue as he has been, then. That sounds about right. 

As usual, Dimitri seems completely disinterested in starting up any conversation himself. Claude picks up the slack, because Dimitri rarely tells him to stop. "I was able to get you some really nice things this time," he says, all smiles. Now that he has some experience with the food that Claude has brought him, Dimitri seems to be making a little more effort in how to unwrap it. Claude watches as those sharp claws are pointed away, the pads of Dimitri's fingers working at the wax paper. It's nice to be reminded that he can be careful, and tender. "You know, since I had the freedom to go shopping without anyone asking why I needed it." 

Claude waits to see if that elicits a reaction at all. Dimitri seems to be more preoccupied with the strange shape of the wax paper. It's so much bulkier, all sorts of goodies shoved inside, more than whatever can be filched from the church kitchens. Even as much as he's trying to unwrap it, Dimitri pauses now and then, rolling the package in his palms to make out the shape of it. He'll take hope from that. Any curiosity, any reaction, is better than nothing. 

Yeah. Definitely better. Satisfied with that, making himself satisfied with that, Claude glances down at his fingers. One finger flicks up after another as he rattles off the list of food stuffs. "Smoked cheese, dried mushrooms, a whole beef sausage, some herb bread, roasted pumpkin seeds, some pickles... oh, and a little surprise for dessert." Claude winks. "And some more for tomorrow too!" He's quite pleased about that, honestly, and even more pleased that he's managed to store it away so that the smell doesn't attract any nosy critters.... or monks. So, same thing, really. "I miiiight have gone a little overboard." 

Still nothing, but, as each second passes with the sound of crinkling paper and a stray claw tearing through it, Claude starts to suspect it's less because he's being purposefully ignored and because Dimitri is just genuinely struggling. When's the last time he's ever had to use finesse with those massive claws of his? Even as Claude watches, Dimitri sticks out his tongue right in the center of his mouth, just the tip poking out.

It draws a bit of realness to Claude's smile... and then, through a series of little mental hops, makes him realize something. Twisting about, he reaches into his pack again to dig through it. "Oh, yeah - hold on."

The sound of paper ceases. No more crinkles, no more tears. It's not just a trick of the night's darkness that makes him feel certain that Dimitri is looking at him properly now, is it?

Claude feels himself bolstered by this, before he's pulled out a canteen to hold out in offering to his friend. "I don't know how often the give you water, but, since I brought you so much food, you should at least have a drink to wash it down with." His shoulders roll in an easy shrug. "I can always get a refill." There's a water pump here in the courtyard, as a matter of fact. 

And there's Dimitri's gaze on him. 

As it had been when Dimitri had turned his head at the first sign of Claude's voice tonight, it's wide again, but... it's not so frenzied, or still. It's... soft, uncertain in the wide curve of it, brows raised in gentle arches above it, mouth small beneath. There's only a second of hesitation before Dimitri reaches out, leaving the packet resting on his legs. Exactly like with the wax paper, he takes care to tilt his claws up and away from Claude's soft skin when he accepts the canteen. 

How small it seems in Dimitri's larger hands, even though Claude has always made sure to get large canteens of water for when he's out on the road. Dimitri turns it over a few times, inspecting it, before he glances back up at Claude. His mouth parts, and it feels as though Claude can almost see some vague form of words rolling in his mouth, behind his eye, but he can't see the shape of them. Not until Dimitri speaks, syllables foreign and awkward as he murmurs, "Thank.. you." 

Claude's heart stutters, warms, a fire igniting in its earth, even as he blinks for a second and takes in those two simple words. Because... That isn't Voali leaving Dimitri's mouth. 

It's Fodlish. The same Fodlish he'd taught to Dimitri a lifetime ago, when his friend had badgered him past a smaller set of bars to learn it. 

His surprise is momentary, gone in a second, and Claude finds his smile coming easier, more genuine, to his mouth. "You're welcome," he says, also in Fodlish, leaving Voali to the side for a brief moment. Just a moment. 

This.... It feels right, the two of them communicating this way, slipping into one another's languages like a sweater shared between friends. It's exactly like the childhood in the church that Claude remembers, the better parts of it, the parts that had kept him going for so long. It's more than anything else he's experienced since he's reunited with Dimitri, and now... Now he can do more for Dimitri than he ever could as a child. Company, always, but food, and hope, and.... one day, freedom. 

It's a good feeling, a great feeling, and Claude wraps himself in it. Dimitri - well it's no surprise that Dimitri soon glances away in short order, his uncertainty obvious in every strand of fur. Besides, he still has the rest of the package to get through, although he's made good progress on it, honestly. A lot better than what he's done before, although the battle damage is unmistakable when Dimitri finally spreads it out against the ground with all of the food displayed on it. It's a delicate touch that one would never have connected with the vicious movements of earlier. 

All spread out are exactly the things that Claude listed for him - plus one more smaller wrapped package that Dimitri tilts his head at curiously. For the most part, however, he seems content to leave it alone, and looks back to the rest of the haul that Claude has brought for him tonight. Before, Claude would have thought he'd go right back to the same focused eating as usual, with maybe the occasional response to any of Claude's chatter if it was a fortunate night. 

But tonight... Tonight, things are different. He can already tell that, even before Dimitri finally raises his hand. "What... is?" he asks, still awkward in Fodlish as he points down and looks up at Claude from beneath his fur almost cautiously. It's the most he's ever reached out before, and they both know it.

Claude mentally waves away any contemplative thoughts before they can get too deep. He's honestly too pleased with this development as it is to spare energy to them. Instead, he glances down to take stock of what exactly Dimitri is pointing at. "Mushrooms," he answers in Fodlish, before he switches back to Voali for some clarification. "That's the name for them normally, anyway. It doesn't specify that they're dried. For that, you'd say.." And another language switch. "Dried mushrooms." 

Dimitri's only response is a quiet nod. Answer now received and, hopefully, retained, he reaches down to take one of them for a taste. It's almost exactly like all of their encounters before when it comes to food, but Dimitri doesn't ignore Claude completely, now. Instead, he points to another piece of food, the sausage. "This?" he asks. And on they go. 

Exactly like the 'game' they would play as kids: point, inquiry, answer. At least there's a little bit more variety now than when they were kids. Then, they could only point at the door or the bars or parts of their body before they ran out of items to translate. After that, well, then they had to try and figure out more complex linguistics, like sentence structure. Claude likes to think he's always been a clever kid, but even he'd had been a bit of a struggle with that. 

Maybe it would have been better if they'd been able to continue this kind of game, back then: Dimitri pointing at a seed, Claude explaining that it's a seed, that it's been roasted as a description, that it belongs to a pumpkin. Then again, Claude has the advantage of knowing Voali now as well. He can translate as he needs to, instead of fumbling and guessing at meanings. Occasionally, Dimitri echoes him quietly under his breath, fumbling over the language that he once was starting to get a grasp on before all his efforts were washed away by ignorance and malice from other people. 

Perhaps, if they keep doing this, and if Dimitri keeps wanting to do it... He'll be back to speaking it decently again, instead of feeling the words in his mouth like they're a foreign intrusion. 

Eventually, just like the room of their childhoods, they run out of foods to practice Fodlish on. Dimitri goes back to eating quietly. Honestly, Claude feels like the night could end on that alone, and he'd be the happiest he's ever been in a long time.

Yet the night is far from done, and there's apparently greater heights that progress can reach. Dimitri eventually glances up at him again, picking through the pumpkin seeds. "...Hunting again?" he asks, back in Voali once more. 

"Some," Claude agrees readily enough, because it's not untrue. Whatever plans the prior wagon driver had, they'd not been passed onto Claude... and, frankly, he'd probably have gone hunting on his own anyway, not only for his own meals. "It was actually more of a trade run for the church." He flicks his hand through the air. "Taking the things they made here there, and then trading them for things from other villages and towns. The hunting I did along the way was more for my own personal trading use rather than the church's - so I could get stuff like that." 

He nods down to Dimitri's meal, and winks. "I'm a good hunter - I'd even say great - " Dimitri idly snorts under his breath, and Claude generously doesn't call him out or tease him on it. " - and I'm a decent forager as well, but your meals would be pretty limited if it was just stuff I was able to gather. It's way more convenient to get whatever you can, whenever you can, in whatever amounts you can, and then trade those to the people who need them for whatever you may specifically want or need yourself." 

Dimitri takes a moment to absorb this, rolling a seed inbetween his claws carefully. "You seem to have made yourself... valuable," he says at last, deciding on a word before he pops a few more seeds into his mouth. 

While Claude wonders what made him decide on that opinion, well, Dimitri isn't wrong. "Of course." Claude smirks. "Making yourself too valuable to be easily gotten rid of is the first step in having the freedom to get away with things, you know. It's the kind of philosophy a lot of the higher ups in the church take." He folds his arms behind his head for a moment, lets his muscles stretch out. "Of course, my reasons for doing that are rather different... Plus I started out with something of a disadvantage, being an outsider." 

"Not a disadvantage for long..." It almost hardly seems as though it's directed to Claude at all, with the way Dimitri's attention is focused more on the chunk of cheese he's holding his hands. Carefully, he does what Claude has seen him do a few times as he breaks off a piece and then puts it to the side.

Other food seems to start getting similar treatment, although it doesn't seem as though it's getting put aside. Just broken or sliced apart, with Dimitri using his claws in lieu of a knife. His intentions become clear enough as he starts trying different things together: sausage and bread, bread and cheese, sausage and cheese. 

That's another good sign, he thinks. Dimitri hadn't bothered to experiment like this before. 

So distracted by Dimitri's little tasting experiments, Claude almost forgets that Dimitri is still talking until the Voa finishes with, "Apparently, you have a talent for charming others." 

Claude doesn't think Dimitri has ever seen him interacting with members of the church before; he avoids passing by Dimitri's cell during the daytime because he can only stomach so much of this unpleasant sight even when Dimitri is all on his own. Besides, he has a lot of preparation to do for his plans of the future. But right, right... The first night he'd come by, he'd mentioned Quartermaster Henning dragging him to the execution. 

And now he has Henning relying on him for important last minute tasks, plus some more connections. "What can I say? I couldn't afford not to get good at that," Claude chuckles. "Honor and honesty are wonderful, virtuous qualities... but they're not so amazing when they don't work for you. When you're disliked and distrusted by default, using charm and guile to get by is pretty much your only option. I'd rather live ignobly than die honorably." 

"If those qualities existed, perhaps we wouldn't be as we are." Jaw clenched and brow furrowed, Dimitri begins to slice apart what's left of the sausage again. "As it is... That guile of yours only make chains of other people." He jerks his shoulders up. As he moves his hand, gathering different foods together, his executioner's brand catches the moonlight which glares between his bars. "But maybe that's an honesty, a truth, as well." 

In the back of his mind, Claude is reminded of other conversations between Voa, how they so wander towards the philosophical and such... but the rest of him is more confused than anything, and he furrows his own brow. "Chains?"  he asks. "What do you mean?" 

"All of this - " Dimitri makes a dismissive gesture to the courtyard - no, not just the courtyard. The church as a whole. Maybe even more. " - is held up by that same philosophy, the one you claim as yours. A philosophy of guile and deception. What city has it crafted? I've never once seen it." He stabs his claw through a mushroom. "But I know the result. It is me. It is hordes of your own, lining up to see me slaughter another of theirs. Do the reasons matter when the result is what it is?" 

"Wow." Claude laughs, but it's strained, filtered through a heart and lungs that feel far too tight in his chest. He brings his hands down from where they'd been folded behind his head. "That's... sure a comparison to make, I guess. Not a particularly flattering one on my side of it, either..." He takes a breath, settles his heart. "That said... Not sure it's as accurate as you think it is." 

It's a little hard to look at Dimitri right now like this, or at least as he works his way through his thoughts, his experiences. Instead, Claude folds his hands beneath his chin with his gaze focused downwards. There's nothing to really distract himself with, just the dust outside of Dimitri's cage.

"For one thing... I'd say that tricking people to overcome the unfair disadvantages they've put you at, or to achieve good ends - or both - is a little different from tricking people into believing things that help you hoard your power and punish people you hate. To say the least." 

But Claude isn't interested in saying only the least. He may love Dimitri dearly, want the best for his old friend... but he goes hard as he looks back up to him.

"If we're asking pointed and somewhat painful questions, I guess it's fair game to level one at you. I remember how polite and well-behaved you were as a kid. Upstanding and well-mannered - definitely not anything like me. You wanted them to see you as a person, right? How far did that get you?" 

Dimitri doesn't shy away from his gaze, or the conversation. He just meets him with a bitter but settled stare. "Good as dead," he answers, without seeming happy about the conversation either. But not actively hurting... Claude isn't particularly surprised. He's been here for so long that one hurt likely can't be distinguished from another. 

While Dimitri starts to carefully put his food together on the wax paper, Claude shrugs. "Well, like you said - the result is what it is. And if the result is what's important, then what's better: a good result achieved by dishonorable means, or an honest failure? Are you telling me that you wouldn't have lied or tricked anyone if it had meant that you could have escaped this situation?" He gestures to Dimitri's cell, and smiles mirthlessly. "If you'd realized that being good wasn't going to do you any good?

"When you lose, you lose. And if the stakes are high enough, then it's not going to matter how you lost - only that you did. The only way to have any control at all in how things go is to win." 

Taking a bite of the tiny dried mushroom he's left on his claw, Dimitri speaks with it tucked into his cheek. Being an executioner instead of that sweet well-mannered kid really has changed a lot. "It seems to me," he says, still organizing his food with the mushroom on his claw, "that there is no success in either direction, no other result in a world where the only options to survive are your brand of trickery, or suffering." 

He finishes off the mushroom, making it easier to put together the foods he wants in the order he wants. "After all, you are still in a collar laid around your neck by the church, no matter how well you have managed for yourself. If our only 'wins' are being alive, then that does not seem worth half the effort." And with that, he pauses, having finished arranging his food into what looks like a tiny little sandwich. 

...He somehow seems pretty pleased about it, ears easing up from where they'd gone flat, and shoulders relaxing. 

Claude smiles, both because it's nice to see Dimitri able to enjoy something, even with the conversation at hand, and because of something else entirely. "On the contrary - I'm still setting up for my win. That's part of what you get to decide, as a winner - not just how you're going to win, but what prize you're playing for. And the prize I'm aiming for... Well, I always knew it'd take a long time to get the pieces arranged to my satisfaction. I am going to win. But when you start at the bottom of the pecking order, like we have..." Claude spreads his hands. "Well, you have to play it slow and careful." 

There's no understanding in Dimitri's gaze when he tilts his head up to glance towards him, ears twitching but not going one way or the other. Well, that's fine. Some of this is stuff that he's only referring to, things he's never once confided to another person before. But for the rest of it... There, Claude can only hope that Dimitri doesn't forget it, that he thinks on it further. That he changes his mind on - well, a lot of things. 

What to do with the barb in his own heart from Dimitri's comparison to him and the church? He'll... figure that out later, he supposes. 

For now, he buries it. For now, he leans forward with one leg drawing upwards, chin resting against his knee, arms wrapped around himself. Just to watch Dimitri, watch him. Ha... It reminds him of how he'd sit outside Dimitri's door, years ago. He'd listen to his friend fumble through Fodlish, mixing Voali in with it when he had to ask Claude for a certain word he didn't know. 

He wonders how much of that Dimitri remembers. It had been so important to him...

"That said," he murmurs, as Dimitri goes back to his food, "I don't think your way of doing things is doomed to failure, either." Claude lets out a slow breath. "I admire those kinds of things in a person. I do, you know? I definitely liked it in you." Dimitri's ears twitch, and he stops eating. Listens. "But... I guess there's a time and a place for that kind of thing, and it's only when other people are willing to play by the same rules. 

"No one here was ever going to do that. But I bet back where you came from, with other Voa? With people who actually recognized you as having worth as a person? You could have grown up to be as honorable as you wanted, and been respected for it." But that obviously never happened... and they can only work with the present that they have right now. 

Maybe Dimitri is thinking something different, however, with the way he's staring at Claude. His eye is wide, stunned, a little confused, lost in thought as maybe he ponders what his life could have been like if he had never been dragged here and forced into such a violent miserable life. Or maybe Claude is completely off base. Who can say? 

Only Dimitri, and he opts to look back down at the sandwich he's delicately holding in his fingers. Even from this angle, Claude thinks he can see the way his jaw is tense. "What would the true worth in that be...?" 

"I think it'd be worth just about anything," Claude says quietly, serious as the grave, serious in a way he never lets other people see him. "Anything and everything." 

What will Dimitri say to that? It's something he's left wondering, because Dimitri, in the end, says nothing. He only stays still there for a moment, moonlight turning his fur golden, head bowed and hair hiding his face. The two of them stay like that for a moment, quiet and still, before Dimitri finally breaks it. Of course he would. There's food to eat. Claude lets him get to it, and focuses on his breathing. 

That hadn't been exactly the best conversation to have, especially when he'd been so eager to see Dimitri again... but it's not gotten worse. In a sort of twisted way, it's actually gotten better than how Claude had first thought this night would go when he initially entered the courtyard.

Dimitri is calm. He's engaging in conversation. Even as Claude watches, he continues to finish off his food, with only a bit of the sausage and the cheese set to the side, alongside the smaller package. It's the most engaged Claude has ever gotten him, besides those first couple of nights. 

Still. What a silver lining: Dimitri is calm and talking with him, just at the cost of metaphorically punching him in the gut. Claude thinks he would have preferred an actual physical punch. 

In contrast to that... The peace and quiet is nice. Claude focuses on his breath, eases up his tight heart even if the thorn lodged in it won't leave. Dimitri continues to eat, lost in his own thoughts but at least not his own head. Good weather, bright moon - what else can he ask for? Well, besides a whole lot, but Claude is a pretty firm believer in getting what he can with his own two hands. 

Soon enough, the array of food on the wax paper has been cleared out, and Dimitri at long last turns his attention to the final tiny package. It's wrapped in wax paper as well, but by now Dimitri has managed to get a good amount of practice in handling that.

The fact that it's so much smaller, with the folds so much harder to get a hold of, however? That requires even more of his concentration. Claude just watches him. After all of that, he's not really sure what to say himself for once, and Dimitri has never really been one for idle conversation now anyway - 

"Gnk-!" Dimitri jolts back, a full-body bristle from beans to ear tips, and holds his hand out  at the same time that he tries to scoot back like he can detach himself from it as a bit of honeycomb falls onto the wax paper. 

Oh gods - Claude bursts out laughing, fist shoving into his mouth and inbetween his teeth as fast as he can get it in order to muffle the sound. It's like a heavy curtain lifted from him. The moonlight seems brighter, his lungs a little lighter, and Dimitri is looking at his pathetically flapping hand as though it's betrayed him.

There, on the very tips of his fingers, past his claws, is honey sticking there.

"It's just honey," Claude chokes out past his fingers, shoulders shaking as he does his best to swallow his own laughter. It's not really working. 

"It - doesn't - feel good on my fingers!" Dimitri hisses out at him, almost a snarl. Yet what would normally be an intimidating sound is rather ruined as he tries jiggling his hand another direction. No dice. Honey, unfortunately for Dimitri, sticks. 

"Lick it off," Claude advises, stifling his laughter still. "It'll taste good. That's what humans do." 

"I know how honey works!" Claude raises his eyebrows, still grinning and clearly full of disbelief, and Dimitri huffs. But the shock is wearing off, and Dimitri finally raises his fingers to his mouth petulantly. "Humans can't understand this..." 

Well, he's probably right on that front. That isn't helping Claude try to keep a straight face, however. "And here I'd thought it would be a pleasant surprise," he says, wheezing only a little. "Guess next time I'd better warn you, huh?" 

Dimitri's stare gives away the fact that he doesn't believe him in the slightest. "I doubt you will." Well, Claude did almost laugh until he cried... or choked. Whichever came first. 

"I will, promise," Claude insists, laughing some more. Just, quieter, this time. "Just eat it, okay? I don't have all night to find out if you like it or not." 

"You have all night to laugh at me," Dimitri points out, huffing. Still, that just seems to be a matter of getting the last word in. With that accomplished, Dimitri turns his attention back down to the honeycomb as he licks and lightly gnaws on his fingers. When he's cleaned himself up, he picks the honeycomb up again with a lot more care and caution than before. 

Even for all his efforts, however, it still ends up a slightly messy affair. There's really no helping it. Dimitri's claws are long enough to keep the honeycomb from the pads of his fingers, but he's not used to using them that way. Fur is still around the pads of his thumbs, and along his face. It's basically inevitable that he makes a mess of himself, even as his ears start to perk up and his tail relaxes from where it's laid out to the side.

Claude watches him work through the honeycomb fondly, this moment where his friend can just enjoy a rare treat, even if it is apparently ill-suited for Voa. Yet as he watches... Something occurs to him.

It hits his brain as Dimitri sucks along his fingers, and drags his tongue along his mouth. The little amount of light that they have thanks to the moon does a fine job of illuminating the honey which sticks to Dimitri, especially when he opens his mouth to drag his tongue along the sharp curves of his teeth.

...Hm. This would be someone's fetish, wouldn't it? It's a thought that forms in the back of his mind, even if the rest of his actual thoughts are innocent. After all, while this might be someone's fetish, it's apparently not his. Unfortunate that his mind is just too sneaky and dirty in its own right.

Before he can get too lost in all the ways someone might be attracted to Dimitri and Voa in general, and the ways he might be attracted, Claude glances down at the honeycomb. There's still a good bit left, but at the rate that Dimitri is going? It's going to vanish soon. He has a question to ask before that happens. "Did you forget you have cheese too?" he asks. "Or do you not like that kind?"

Dimitri pauses, tongue mid-clean from where it's pushing at his upper lip to reveal more of his teeth and some of his gums. "I'm saving it," he says, once he's satisfied that there's no more honey inbetween his fangs. After a second, he glances down towards the small chunk of cheese that's waiting by his side. "...Why?"

Chuckling, Claude says, "Well, for one thing, you always eat every bit of what I bring you... but you haven't told me what you've liked or disliked about any of it. I don't know what to get for you in the future. So I wasn't sure if you were saving that, or if you just didn't want it." He shrugs, smiling. "Also, you've been combining a lot of your foods today. Honeycomb and cheese supposedly go pretty good together."

Just like that, Dimitri's ears twitch up straighter, and he directs his attention back down towards his leftover cheese. It doesn't take long at all for him to carefully take a chunk of honeycomb and match it up with a delicately carved off chunk of cheese, matching them together. He doesn't eat it right away. Instead, Dimitri's chin shifts, and Claude can tell he's eyeing him warily as though this is another huge joke on his behalf. Not that he has to worry, really.

Maybe Dimitri realizes that when he takes his first bite of honey and cheese, because his tail suddenly wags and smacks onto the other side of him like the impact of a falling star. It'd probably hurt for anyone else that isn't Dimitri, because Dimitri is focused on nothing else but staring wide eyed into space while the flavor sinks into his mouth.

Claude's smile couldn't get any more broad. "Is that a winner?" he asks, eyes no doubt sparkling. The tail is an absolute dead giveaway... but he'll do his friend a favor and not draw attention to it.

Snapping out of it, Dimitri hunches his shoulders up, and tries to shift as if there's any possible way for him to hide his tail. "It's... good."

"I thought you might like it." Claude leans back a little, resting his arm along his knee now. That much had stood out to him when he'd stopped by in the village to pick up all sorts of food, both as little pieces of bribery for people like the guards, and a much bigger haul for Dimitri himself.

The glisten of honey had been like a beacon, or a sign. Seeing his choice lead to this kind of thing... It fills him with contentment, and a memory as well.

"I still remember when we were little, and I brought you a honey candy I took off a kid who tried to beat me up... You really seemed to like it, back then, so I thought you might like the real thing."

He doesn't realize that he's said anything particularly odd, honestly. It takes a beat of silence, of Dimitri just staring at him, for him to realize that there has to be something off in his words. He'd probably figure it out, given a few more seconds, but Dimitri speaks up first. "...Is that what happened," he says, somehow not quite a question. His claws knead into the air, wanting to do something and without target.

"Did I not mention that before?" Claude chuckles, even though that now sounds rather true in hindsight. Of course he'd never really talked much to Dimitri about his own difficulties living in the church, although they weren't the same as his friend dealt with.

Honestly he never really spoke to most people about the troubles he experienced. Complaining, he'd learned early on in his life, never really got him anywhere - both back home, from what he can remember it, and in the church, although the two were for somewhat different reasons.

The church took the crueler of the two positions, in Claude's opinion: if he was the one being harassed, or bullied, then wasn't it because he was doing something weird or bad, and thus deserved it? So he simply kept things to himself, or learned to find places in the church or the orphanage where he could make sure his fellow orphans would actually get in trouble for entirely different reasons.

And why complain to Dimitri, anyway? As much as his friend would have wanted to, he couldn't have done anything for Claude back then regardless... and the knowledge would have just made Dimitri miserable. Besides, Claude had been so much more focused on his pleasure and fascination with Dimitri than sharing his miseries. Those, why, those he could find just about anywhere else in the church.

If he'd occasionally been dirty, or a little bruised, whenever he visited Dimitri, well, Claude had never opted to speak of it. He was always happy, and excited, and curious about the things he could learn from Dimitri. Didn't that make sense? It was his one bright spot in the church.

If he'd talked about how the two of them were both outsiders in the church, well, Claude had never really explained that. He merely convinced Dimitri into the next round of learning Fodlish, or Claude learning Voali. Logical enough, really - he'd always been interested in learning about the things he didn't know, so why dwell on what he did?

So he supposes he never did tell Dimitri about things like that, and that's just confirmed when Dimitri thins his mouth and says, "No. You... didn't." Is he actually upset? Claude can't quite tell, honestly.... If anything, the way Dimitri's tail twitches and the way his ears flick back just slightly... Is he confused? Claude thinks that might be it. He did the same thing when he was a little kid. When they were both kids.

Well, things are already miserable, and maybe recounting that little tale will sate whatever curiosity is in him. "Yeah, some kid tried to start a fight with me, like usual," he says, because that was usual back then, "but I pretended I saw the deacon coming and knocked him over when he turned to look. I got in a couple of hits before he ran off, but he dropped his pouch of honey candy."

Claude's smile is downright nostalgic; the memory is too far off for it to be painful. Despite the distance, he can still remember how golden the candy had shined in the sunlight when he'd curiously held it up to get a good look at it. It had shined in Dimitri's fingers, too, when Claude had snuck it past the bars of his door. Besides, getting the better of that bully? Seeing Dimitri light up in the presence of something nice? That had been almost as sweet as the candy, at the time.

"We got a treat out of that, so I thought it a win at the time. I got punished later, of course, but that wasn't exactly new." He shrugs, uncaring. That double standard had also not been new... but they couldn't stop the fact that he had gotten candy, had tasted it, shared it, and so he had resolved not to let it get to him.

For a long moment more, Dimitri stays silent, and the only sound would be the crinkle of wax paper as he grinds it between his fingers. He doesn't look at Claude, just looks downwards. Claude would say that makes it a little harder to read Dimitri's emotions, but, well.... With his eye as it is, he supposes he's always been relying on those ears and tail of his more than anything else. Still, the exact nature of those thoughts is the mystery here.

That's part of what makes it hard to understand what Dimitri means when he suddenly says, "And now?"

Claude cocks his head to the side. "And now what?" he asks, giving Dimitri a questioning look.

"And now is that no longer new, or not?" Dimitri pauses, feeling the need to clarify, although Claude has already caught on to what he means. "Being punished... for defending yourself."

"These days, it's not so easy to get me in trouble," Claude says, laughing. "I'm too valuable... ironically, because I'm so worthless to them. I'm competent, fluent in multiple languages, and there's nowhere I won't go... but I'm a foreigner, an outsider who didn't truly grow up under the church's wing, so sending me into dangerous places doesn't both them too much."

Oh, sure, most of them won't say as much, not outright... Some of them still believe they're actually above that kind of thing, when they're not, and others still like to play coy.

But Claude knows the truth of the matter.

He continues, flicking reasons off on his fingers. "No one in the church - no one high enough up to matter anyway - will kick up a fuss over how I should be given better treatment than I am. But I do have a lot of contacts, a lot of friends, and a lot of people who owe me favors. I'm too convenient to dispose of without good reason, while being juuuuust expendable enough that they won't ever have one of their own do my jobs. So, no, no one throws me under the bus too much anymore... and what trouble they do throw me into, it doesn't come from them.

"And so as long as I know how to take care of myself - " He winks. " - which I do, by the way - I can manage just fine."

Dimitri eyes him, and then eyes his now completely empty hands. So engrossed by the conversation and the taste of cheese plus honey, he's cleared out his entire meal instead of leaving anything set to the side this time. Claude notes this for another night, especially with the way Dimitri's ears flick downwards in clear disappointment before he refocuses on their conversation.

"So you have friends," he says slowly, tail twitching at the end. "I was beginning to wonder, with how you've made a habit of seeing a monster."

"A few," Claude agrees amiably. "Not what I would call close friends, mind. But they're people I like, and people I'd help out for free if it didn't set me or my plans back any. But close friends... Those are people that you'd help out no matter what personal risks you'd run. And then, the tier above that... People you'd help without even stopping to make the calculations. Loyalty down to the bone, deeper than thought itself."

Dimitri stares at him for a moment, with that eternally blue eye, and Claude wonders if this is reminding him of anything. If this is making him think about what their childhood used to be like, or maybe friends he had back in his home. But then, maybe it's taking some time as well, and Dimitri frowns slightly. "You... speak as if you know it exists," he says quietly.

"Of course I do." He chuckles again. "You know it too, even if you're so bitter you're pretending you don't. Family ties, parents with their children, sworn friends - you know of these things, whether or not you've benefited from them personally. You can't be so jaded that you're going to pretend to not know what I'm talking about even from observation."

Claude doesn't claim this with Dimitri... and that's a deliberate choice on his end. There's no point to it yet, is there?

For another long moment, Dimitri stares at him, and there's a quiet heaviness to it... and a quiet distance, too. Claude knows he's right... He knows that Dimitri has to remember parents who loved him and would give anything for him, and having seen examples of that loyal friendship from afar. It exists, and they both know it does.

But then Dimitri bristles, and he looks up at the stars that are barely visible from his cell. "...It's the extent more than the original existence I'm doubting."

Claude sighs, shifting in place and turning his back until he's leaning against the bars of Dimitri's cell. Tilting his head back, he looks up to the stars as well. There's not much point to carrying on that form of conversation, he thinks.... Not until he can get to his goal, until he can get Dimitri out into the world so that he can see everything he's lost faith in.

But what else can he talk about? "I have to say... even with all the ways I imagined us meeting up again, I never pictured it going like this." 

Silence for another moment from Dimitri. Claude wonders where he's looking now; he can't be fiddling with the wax paper anymore. "I never pictured it at all," Dimitri finally murmurs, and there's another thorn in Claude's chest. "You weren't even looking when you found me..." 

Normally, Claude is quite good at hiding his real emotions, or at least the depth of them. But... "Never?" he asks, and there's no helping some of the sadness that leaks out through his voice. "Not even when we were kids, when they first sent me away?" How did he not realize how important it was for Dimitri to miss him before now? He'll still get him out of here, it's important, it's right, but... Gods, does his heart ache and twist at the idea that Dimitri never once thought of him when he left. 

The pause that follows feels so heavy, so thick in the way it smothers him, but it's probably not as long as it feels to him before Dimitri softly speaks up once more. "Does that count...?" he asks, and Claude feels his lungs release just a little bit. He still cared. He's just... lost. They both are, in some ways, he supposes. 

"Of course," he answers, something for himself as much as it is for Dimitri. "A lot of the times I imagined finding you were back then, too. You weren't the only one who got jaded growing up." It's perhaps just harder to tell with him, and Claude has to close his eyes at the emotions twisting at his heart. 

No response. There's only silence. Has Dimitri drifted off again, into his own thoughts, or distracted by hallucinations? Is he thinking of what he wants to say, of the things Claude has told him? It would be a little much to believe that he's having a complete 180 from how he's reacted to Claude beforehand... Even just him wanting to talk to Claude again, to learn Fodlish, is a giant step. To ask for anymore... Claude always will, but he's a realist, in the end. He lets out a slow breath - 

And he holds it, throat hollow and empty as clawpoints gently press against the front of it. 

What a gentle threat, so easy, and it hits Claude just then are big Voa truly are - how big Dimitri especially is, from what is no doubt a combination of violent lifestyle, how well the church must have fed him as a child, and his own genetics. Dimitri's hand could fit around Claude's throat easily from where he's slipped it inbetween the bars, and yet he holds back.

It's just... those claws. The thumb balanced delicately along his jaw, pinpricks where the rest of his claws follow the curve of his throat, all the way to where his pinky is curled just enough until there's a pinprick at the hollow of Claude's throat. 

Claude almost doesn't realize his own eyes have snapped open, sightless from where they stare upwards towards the stars. What he's aware of is the slight tremor that wracks through his body just once, a slight start at the realization of how close Dimitri has gotten. How silent he can be. How big he is, his presence against Claude's back and his breath rustling through his hair. 

Kind of stupid, really. He's interacted with Voa before. He knows how tall they can get, how much more muscular Dimitri is from a life of combat. But still. Still. It's something else to realize that Dimitri was doing something behind his back after all, and how sharp his nails feel. Slowly, Claude breathes in again, and feels the skin along his throat rise up against Dimitri's claws.

His hand is so big... It sends adrenaline pumping through his veins, from his heart to his legs, to his arms, to all of his body. Despite this... Claude closes his eyes again, to the sound of Dimitri's voice whispering through his hair. 

"How did you think it would go, then...?" 

Is this the end, then? Claude doesn't think so... and if it is, then it is. Even as much as he tries to tell himself this, however, Claude can't deny the slight amount of tension that's seized his body.

"Well..." He swallows, tries to convince his heart to calm itself. "In terms of the most basic difference... I always thought you'd be happy to see me." There's a wistfulness in his words he can't deny, can't fight against, just thinking of the mental image his younger self had so often conjured: a younger Dimitri, both of his eyes, smiling like Claude was his world. It had been a little selfish but, despite what so many of the adults in his life had thought, he was only a child. Wasn't he allowed to be selfish, now and then? 

For whatever reason, the claws at his neck relax, and they don't press so closely now. Oh, they don't pull away... but, for whatever reason, Dimitri has seen or heard something that he... likes? Claude can't quite tell. All he does is focus all of his attention towards Dimitri, and his next soft words that are an utter contrast to his claws against Claude's skin. "Disappointed, then..." 

"Which of us are you referring to?" Claude asks, bleak humor and little else as his mind gets distracted from Dimitri's hand around his neck. 

"You... I would think." There's the sound of dirt floor being shifted against, paws scuffling against them, and then Claude can really feel Dimitri now, and smell him, too - that old warm musk with the faintest tinge of blood to it. Dimitri can't lean against him completely, not with the bars of his cell in the way, but Claude can still feel him pressing through the gaps that are there. There are claws against his throat, and a tired weight at his back. His heart aches. "That... I'm not going to be as I ever was," Dimitri says, so quiet he could be drowning. "You're just coming here for a corpse..." 

His claws twitch, then, but Claude's body starts to relax. Dimitri won't kill him here, he realizes. It's debatable if Dimitri would ever kill him on purpose at all. "I didn't expect you to be totally unchanged. Not even in my earliest daydreams." Claude leans his head back against the bars, throat curving up against those claws. They back away, don't dig in. "I just thought... you'd still like me." And that is so much harder to tell with Dimitri. 

No answer, not immediately. Just that same breath, deep from the very pit of Dimitri's lungs and flowing through Claude's hair that he so often tries to keep swept back. Maybe if the two of them stay like this long enough, his hair will fall back into the loose curls he so often preferred as a child, the ones that he got told off for being messy.

"I... don't even know," Dimitri admits at long last, sounding more tired than he's ever been. His hand drops from Claude's throat, and his claws catch slightly at the front of his shirt. They don't tear... Just a little snag, here and there, while the rest of his fingers hang limply. "You're still here..." 

"Yeah," Claude agrees. There's nothing really complicated about the answer. "I didn't think I'd be restarting at square one, but, if I have to, I will. I might not be happy about you not liking me anymore, but - it was never a prerequisite." He smiles a little, finding his stride again, his confidence and ease. And he still has a step one, here. As long as he has that, nothing is hopeless. "I'll just earn it back. It takes a lot more than a little thing like not liked to stop Claude von Riegan, I'll have you know. Otherwise I would've curled up and died years ago." 

Worn out by the conversation, or perhaps living in general, Dimitri only slumps further against the bars, against Claude. He sounds tired when he says, "This is beyond merely square one. This time... I could kill you. Even without meaning to." His claws twitch where they hang against Claude's shirt. 

Ah. He thinks he's starting to get a handle on Dimitri's thought process... "You could. And if you do, then you do. I won't be around to complain about it, obviously." Claude shrugs, still projecting that air of ease. 

"So your own life means that little." 

"Honestly, the person I'd leave behind who's ever been closest to me is you... So it wouldn't be that huge of a loss to anyone that cared, right?" 

There's the silence of thought, stillness, and Claude focuses on how warm Dimitri's breath is against his hair and the back of his neck. Probably, he should be more concerned about his position.

He isn't. There's something almost comforting, honestly, about being this close to Dimitri now that those claws aren't threatening to tear out his throat. Almost the second he thinks it, those claws begin to knead slowly against his shirt - a quiet movement filled with an almost anxious energy. "Will you think the same when I die?" Dimitri asks into his hair. 

"No," Claude says immediately, without having to even think of it. "But you mean a lot to me. You always have." 

The claws still along Claude's shirt. "...You meant a lot to him as well," Dimitri says softly before the claws pull out of Claude's shirt, away from him completely. Even before he turns his head to look at him, Dimitri is shifting away and padding quietly to his usual spot in the cell. He curls up, limbs held close, tail flicking to curve around him again as though it's more a barrier than the actual metal bars in the way. "Go away, Claude von Riegan. Stop coming here." 

"No can do," Claude says, still watching Dimitri over his shoulder. "I got a friend to win back." And he's starting to think he's at least a step further than he thought he was. 

Tucking half of his face downwards, Dimitri glowers at him over his arms. It is not, however, a glower of surprise. It's just miserable, but mostly exasperated. "You asked... if I had ever imagined meeting you again," he says, revisiting a question that, frankly, Claude had almost assumed he'd forgotten. 

"Yeah?" Claude says, more a question as he wonders where Dimitri is going with this. Something occurs to him, however, and he shifts against the bars until his side is more against it than his back. "By the way, I'm not talking about the hallucinations you're tricked into thinking are real," he adds, which he probably should have said long before. "I'm talking about... just thinking about it. Imagining it, while knowing you're imagining it." 

"I know." Dimitri stares at him blankly. "I have experienced both." That's a good thing to note: even if only in hindsight, Dimitri can at least tell the difference between what are hallucinations and what are his own thoughts. Claude will hoard any scrap of information he can on Dimitri's state, because he honestly doesn't know. As he does this, Dimitri takes a slow breath, and shifts just enough so that his mouth is clear of his arms. "When I was younger, I had imagined... many things. Ways to thank you, for what generosity you had shown." 

For a brief second, Dimitri squeezes his eye shut, and then eases it open again. "There is nothing that person from back then can give you now... So this is all I can do. Go away, for your own good, before either one of us dies." 

"I appreciate the misguided consideration, Dimitri," Claude says, with a slight smile. Yeah. Not so far back to Square 1 as he thought. "But I'm not gonna accept that's the only way this story can end. And if I do lose you again... well, it's not going to be because I walked away. It'll have to happen the same way it happened last time: some external force is gonna have to drag us apart. Because I'm not leaving by choice." 

"Then you're a fool." Just like that, Dimitri turns his head until his blind side is to Claude. It's a very obvious little bit of body language, but, unfortunately for Dimitri, he's given away his true feelings in the actual words from his mouth. Claude doesn't leave. Good thing, because Dimitri keeps going a few seconds later. "You've seen how easily I can end your life, and yet you won't pursue better for yourself. Perhaps you would be better as a spectre." 

Yet he still didn't do it. Claude's smile stays on his lips. "Probably, for unrelated reasons," he says amiably. "But in this case, I think we just have different opinions about what the worst outcome for me would be. And not losing you again is worth a lot of risk." He shrugs. "Hell, I run risks for the church, and I don't even like them. Don't you think I'd be willing to go a lot further for someone actually important to me?" 

Dimitri stubbornly keeps looking away from him. "Inform me, then, when you find them," he mutters. 

"Do you really think I'm that easy to dissuade?" Claude asks him, almost too amused for words. Dimitri really isn't slick, and Claude isn't shy about letting him know that with his very next sentence. "Or that you're being remotely subtle at this point?" 

"Neither bluntness nor subtly seem to work with you." Dimitri huffs, and his tail starts to thwap around in clear aggravation. Unlike prior nights, Dimitri seems incredibly aware of what his tail is doing without, apparently, his permission. He turns his head to glare down at it, and slowly extends one foot until he can pin his tail into stillness.

For a second, Claude thinks that's going to be it, but Dimitri has been full of surprises ever since he saw him tonight, and it seems to be a streak the Voa plans to continue. After a few minutes of just staring at a wall, Dimitri tilts his head enough so that he can look over to Claude.

"...How long do you have tonight?" 

Claude looks up to the position of the moon hanging high over them, first, and then down to the shadows stretching out along the ground. He only needs his eyes to measure it all, match it up with many other nights where it's just been him and the moon. "Mm... Another twenty minutes, I think." 

Not for the first time, he wonders how much that exactly means to Dimitri. How do you translate twenty minutes into the movement of the moon, since that's all he's had for years to go off of? Well, it's not an answer he'll get tonight. Dimitri stares at him for a moment longer before letting out a slow breath. "...You said you're not accepting how this will end." 

"Nope." Claude smiles up at the stars. "Maybe there aren't any better options at the moment... but since none of the existing ones appeal, I'm going to do my best to write my own ending for this story." Feeling hilariously a lot more relaxed than he was only maybe fifteen minutes ago, probably more than he should be feeling, Claude stretches his arms over his head. "But that's one of those things I won't ask you to believe until you see it for yourself." 

"Such effort for a lost cause seems a waste of energy..." Dimitri blows out a puff of air, and his ears have lowered when Claude looks over his shoulder again. "Will you take responsibility, then, if I do start to believe?" 

"Of course. I mean, I was already promising to, wasn't I?" Claude smiles sidelong at him. "Saying I don't expect you to believe anything I don't show you that you can put your faith in is basically saying that I'm going to give you good reason to have faith in me, right? Because the faith and its reward will go hand in hand." 

"Unless the faith comes first." Dimitri frowns at him. Underneath his foot, his tail gives a small and annoyed twitch. "What will you do then, when that brings only ruin with it? Your idea of faith is hardly a perfect thing, or wanted." 

Claude laughs out loud, although not loudly. "Dimitri," he says, amusement curling in his chest, "I'm not exactly worried that's a likely scenario. I don't think you even remember how to have faith in something." 

Dimitri's nostrils flare in annoyance. "I don't," he replies, reaffirming the very obvious fact between them. "Yet it is still a chance you would have to risk, is it not?" He narrows his eye. "And you have already ruined things with your presence as it is." 

"I know; I'm very naughty that way," Claude says, deeply amused, more than a little irreverent, and not afraid to show either of those things. He turns away from Dimitri again, folding his arms behind his head. "I really don't know why you'd think I'd have a plan in place for a total impossibility happening, Your Prickliness." He smiles up at the sky. "But when it happens, I'll already have made the impossible a reality, so at that point I'll be able to accomplish anything I care to." 

"I'm fairly certain that kind of arrogance doesn't have a place in any religion," Dimitri mutters behind Claude's back, which he's absolutely wrong about, but Claude doesn't find a need to say so just yet. There are a couple more rustling sounds, the tip of his tail no doubt smacking against the ground again. "For someone who cares so little about his own life, you seem to have a great deal many plans." 

"Plans are just dreams you believe you can make real," Claude replies, staring at the stars. "Anyone can dream, and anyone can believe in something - whether or not it makes any logical sense to believe in it. Whether you can create a feasible plan and carry it out, and actually turn dreams into reality... Well, that's what separates the truly great from the idle dreamers." He supposes he hasn't really replied properly to Dimitri's statement, however, and Claude closes his eyes. "But I do have a lot of plans, yes. Whether any of them will bear fruit... Time will tell, won't it?" 

From the little fruits, like making friendly with various guards or people like Quartermaster Henning, to larger ones like getting Dimitri free... to even bigger ones than that. Things that require a lot of sweat, dirt up to his throat, and weathering harsh winters. But Claude will get there. He's positive of it, so long as he doesn't die. 

It's just that he can't tell Dimitri any of this, not yet. Not with how questionable his stability is, not with how much he speaks to himself in his spare time. It's for the better, and so it can't be helped that Dimitri sounds more than a little dismissive when he says, "I imagine this is why the church cares little for your personality." 

Considering what not only this particular branch, but the church in general, gets up to? What it's like? Claude will take that as a compliment, and he barks out a laugh that's not particularly humorous. "The church doesn't care much for any part that's an outsider," he informs Dimitri. "My personality's just the icing on the cake, really." 

They both know that's a truth Dimitri is well versed in as well, just to the absolute worst degree. Maybe that's why Dimitri falls silent for a while longer. When he speaks up, it's once again returning to a prior topic. "So do no plans exist without a dream behind them, for you?" 

The question gives Claude a moment's pause as he thinks it over. "I suppose you could put it that way, yeah." 

"...I wonder, then, if such an existence would be empty to you." 

"What kind of existence do you mean?" Claude asks, raising an eyebrow as he tries to tilt his head back enough to glance at Dimitri. 

"Was I not clear?" asks the guy who has not been clear a whole lot of times since they've reunited. 

Well, it's not like Claude can blame him... "Just a bit, no," he says. "So try again. What kind of existence?" 

"One... going through the motions, I suppose." Dimitri doesn't look up at him, instead keeping his head and his gaze turned downwards. Slowly, he shifts his foot off of his tail. After being pinned for so long, his tail swishes back and forth to no doubt get rid of some aches and energy. Dimitri stares at it like it's going to betray him at any second. "If one has no dream, then they have no plan. That is the logic you have described to me. " 

Claude slides his hands down from his hair, hooking his hands around one propped up knee until his fingers lace together. "And I guess you could say that you could have plans without dreams, too, if you consider some things too mundane or undesirable to be called dreams. You could make a plan to go to the market, or to the dentist, and while technically you could say those are dreams that become plans, in the sense that you take a thought in your head and take steps to make it reality... Those aren't the kind of things people tend to dream about, either. So you could say they follow the letter of my statement, if not the spirit." With all that said, he takes a subtle glance back at Dimitri. 

All this sidestepping around what they know Dimitri really asked is possibly a little obvious... or perhaps Dimitri is merely starting to get to know him enough to know that this is all just long-winded lead up. Seeing the way that eye is focused on him, expecting something even if he's not sure what, makes Claude laugh a little. Although maybe it's just this conversation that draws it out. 

"But this is all way overthinking what you mean. So shall we just come out and acknowledge that you're coming as close as possible in asking me what I would've done in your place, without actually asking me? How I would've managed, or turned out? If I could still talk like this if I were on your side of the bars?" Using the hands on his knee, he draws himself forward, away from those very same bars, until his chin is resting atop his knee. "Or maybe you're asking what I think you should do or feel about the stuff I'm saying... Honestly, I have to say I don't know the answer to either of those questions... And it probably wouldn't be too respectful to you for me to speculate on them, either." 

The entire time, Dimitri listens to all of this silently, eye still narrowed. The silence stays a good few seconds after Claude finishes, until Dimitri softly huffs. "I do not like how you can read me so easily," he mutters. Still, it's out there now, and Dimitri seems to realize that as he shoves aside all attempts at subtlety. "So you never bothered, then, to think that your dreams are more cruel than the alternative?" 

"I wouldn't say I've never bothered to think of what it's like for you," Claude corrects immediately. If Dimitri is trying to think beyond the life he's always been stuck with since Claude left, if he's actively engaging with Claude, then that's all good, and he'll weather through Dimitri's need to vent.

That's what he's pretty sure at least some of this is, anyway. Probably it was always going to come out at some point; Dimitri has a lot of anger he needs to vent with a source that can finally understand him. But Claude won't let him get the facts wrong, even in the midst of that venting. 

A conversation like this isn't one to have while his back is turned. Claude pushes himself forward, gives himself enough room so that he can turn around. He adjusts himself, sits with his legs crossed again. "It's more like... I could try to imagine what it's like caged up and forced to kill people, but even if I did... Would I even get close to understanding? Could I understand how it feels to go through that, not just vicariously through my head for a few minutes, but be forced to live that reality for years?" Claude shakes his head. "I don't think I can know what you've been through, Dimitri. Not without living it. So I'm not going to tell you what you should do, or how you should think, or what you should believe. I'm not going to tell you how to feel about it, or pretend I understand what it's like to be you. I don't, and that's that. All I really know is what it's like to be me." 

For a moment, he looks back up to the stars again as though they'll give him any help, but he pulls his gaze back down to Dimitri soon enough. For this part of the talk... He can't do anything else but look straight to Dimitri. The cell the church has placed him in is more than merely physical... but at least Claude can work on the lock for this part of it a lot easier than he can deal with the physical one. Or maybe, in some ways, it's a lot harder. 

"And being me - which is something you can't know any better, by the way, just as a side note - I don't think I could have survived without dreams. Some of them were just dreams, but some of them became plans over time. Some of them needed time to become plans." Claude shakes his head slightly, and finds himself looking back up towards the sky again. "But my village being wiped out... Being forced into the church that branded my people as savages, heretics... Who had that whole campaign started against them in the first place... Being punished for speaking my own language, or holding onto any of my culture... Looked down on by everyone, mocked and blamed for everything...

"How would I have even been able to get up in the morning without dreaming that I could make today better than yesterday? That someday I'd make things be different? Without dreaming of freedom, or revenge? Both, preferably." 

Claude pulls himself out from the stars, looks down, and it almost feels as though he's brought some of that cold night into himself. It's... not often that he thinks about everything that's happened to him, not this deeply, not this revealing to another person. There's just no time.

If he spared time and energy on thinking about what it's been like, living this life, dealing with every shitty and horrible thing that's been done to him, then that would just be time wasted. He has so many plans, so many things he needs to do just in order to survive... let alone surpass that simple goal. 

It doesn't hurt to think about it all, not... exactly. It just aches, down to his bone, like old scars exposed to sharp winter air. So often, he wears a smiling and light mask, because that's what helps him survive. To a certain degree he has to admit that it affects himself as well. Act a role long enough, and such things naturally happen. The reflection shines inwards, to a certain degree.

But Dimitri... won't understand that drawn on smile. He won't understand the things happening outside of himself, outside of the self-centered life he's been forced to live, unless Claude shows him just how deep things go. Unless he can see all the detail. 

...And maybe Claude is tired of the stifling weight of such a face himself, the way it smothers him. 

He's calm, of course. Calm, and maybe more serious than he's ever revealed to Dimitri. It can't be anything special. Yet from within Dimitri's cell, where he's watching... something must show in his expression. Something must be different. Dimitri stirs, pushing himself up as he stares right back, unblinking. Claude isn't entirely sure what has him so transfixed, what has Dimitri push closer as though Claude's now the skittish animal who has to be approached carefully... but he'll take it. 

Whatever keeps Dimitri's attention on him, and gets his words to sink deep into his mind where they'll hopefully take root. 

While he has that attention, Claude keeps going. "That's what I had to do to survive," he tells Dimitri as his friend continues to approach him, slow, careful. "But I'm a different person than you, and I was in a different situation. You don't have to take my talking about my dreams as some kind of encouragement to do what I did... especially if you don't want to." 

Dimitri is close enough for them to easily touch each other, now - and then he does, reaching carefully between the bars of his cell until he presses one hand against Claude's cheek. No, not his whole hand, although it almost seems for a moment as if he might do so. Just... his fingertips, the pads, claws pointed away from skin or his eyes. Dimitri's ears are perked forward, towards him, taking in every word he says. Or maybe it's less about his words, and more about something else that Claude can't detect from within his own self... 

Claude takes advantage of that attention, raising an eyebrow as he points out something that's become increasingly obvious throughout this whole night. "But really, you sound like you might be starting to have dreams you don't want to have with me around. I guess you could blame me for those if you want, but I don't really see how that's any different, or worse, than the hallucinations you were having before I ever got here." 

As is the norm between them, Dimitri doesn't answer right away... but Claude thinks the reason behind it might be different, this time. It feels different... How those finger pads are still against his cheek, and how they're so close now that Claude can actually see the details in Dimitri's eye.

Normally, from a distance, they seem an almost opaque blue... but there are shades within it, depths, that are only visible when they're close enough that Claude can feel his breath flow along his face. This close, he can see Dimitri's pupil, the subtle twitches of it as Dimitri looks over him slowly. 

"You," Dimitri says quietly, at long last, "are no hallucination." 

That makes Claude smile, only a little. He still feels lost in the blue - of the night sky, of Dimitri's gaze. He leans into Dimitri's touch. "I'd like to think you're saying that as a good thing." 

Now that Claude is reacting, Dimitri in turn reacts to that, and his fingers start to brush along his skin. Still so slow. Still so careful, as though Claude is the most delicate thing in the world. "Is it?" Dimitri asks, leaning forward until his forehead is pressed against his bars. His hair folds, crumples, against the pressure, disrupting the otherwise limp mane. "Before... Everything was the same. I could accept that I was nothing, and so nothing hurt. The hallucinations... would never change anything. They could never truly touch me." 

As he talks, a claw strays slightly, grazes Claude's cheek, and Dimitri stops himself to correct its path. Reasons like that... Reasons like that are why Claude doesn't feel any tension, any worry, despite how close those claws are. It's completely different from when they were at his throat... Or, maybe, how he was seeing things at first when they were at his throat. Now, near his eyes, his mouth, he feels no worry at all. 

"But... you are here now," Dimitri murmurs, still watching his own claw so carefully, still making sure he doesn't leave so much as a scratch on Claude's skin. He watches as that brilliant blue eye shifts to his own gaze once more. "Everything is different... whether I believe it or not. Everything aches anew, now, when you are gone, and I can do nothing." 

"That sounds a bit like a philosophical question, and most Voa I've come to meet love those," Claude replies. If he weren't more of a realist than anything else, he'd find those lines romantic... but he doesn't think they're nearly as romantic as one might think. Dimitri was so cold to him only a week ago... No, if Dimitri is frustrated on anything - well, who knows. Perhaps he's just actual stimulation, after a life of absolute nothing. And speaking of which.... 

"Is it better to live a life that's a flat, unchanging plane, or to live a life with a series of highs and lows?" Claude asks. "Does the height of the peaks make up for the lowness of the valleys? Is a state of equilibrium in between, where you never experience either extreme, better?" When he smiles this time, it feels a little more like what he normally uses while around Dimitri. "Like a lot of philosophy questions, there's no objective answer. All you can decide is which you prefer." 

Stewing over the answer, Dimitri brushes his thumb along Claude's cheek - right beneath his eye. Despite that, he doesn't feel anything but at ease. It must be obvious... or something must have Dimitri's attention, because he seems utterly entranced. "I don't know the answer," Dimitri admits quietly. "Such a life is not what I had ever desired, and yet it is what I was given. If I were to relive such pain, again and again, would that not merely be a process of breaking something repeatedly? Just once... That is more than enough. Is there any goodness that would justify that, any happiness, when it would go to waste on something too low to bring back once more?" 

Claude cocks an eyebrow at Dimitri. "Why are you asking me?" 

"Because you are the only one I have to ask," Dimitri tells him, simple, quiet, not looking away. 

In his heart, something catches, aches, and Claude focuses on the slow rush of breath into and out of his lungs. Dimitri isn't wrong, on that front. It's just an obvious fact: Claude is the only person who listens to him, and perhaps even the only person who can understand him in the whole city. Yet hearing him say it... It almost hurts. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Dimitri still has his fingers along Claude's face. "You're the only one who can decide whether the payoff is worth the risk," he tells Dimitri softly, feeling so damn close despite the metal in the way. Close enough that the bars almost don't matter. After a moment, he closes his eyes, and forces himself to say the last thing he wants to say. "And if you decide that I'm really hurting you more than I'm helping you, and you want me to leave you alone... I'll leave. If you ask me to. Some pain might be inevitable, but if it outweighs any good I'm doing, then I don't want that for you." 

Dimitri's hand presses closer, palm against cheek now. Claude opens his eyes, and finds Dimitri's sole one is completely focused on him. Such a clear blue, and yet his thoughts aren't clear at all... 

"Although I hope you don't make that call before you've even given me a fair chance," he murmurs, lost in blue. 

Slowly, Dimitri's fingers drift upwards until they're curving along the side of Claude's face, into his hair. There's a soft sort of prickle, a shift, as his thumb ghosts along one eyebrow. With every second that passes, the more Claude wonders about Dimitri's answer. He wants to say, with how responsive Dimitri has been this entire night, that he'll at least agree to Claude's visits for a little while more... but the truth of the matter is that he has no idea. Other people are unpredictable. Dimitri has proven to be especially so. 

"...You used to have a braid." 

Claude blinks at the non sequitur. That's certainly not an answer to what he'd said at all... but perhaps that's an answer in its own way. He decides to roll with it. "I did," he acknowledges. "The church didn't like it, not that they like anything about me." Claude tilts his head to the side, pressing further against Dimitri's palm.

Theoretically, he could still braid some of his hair if he didn't style it so much. No product to keep it swept back in that church-approved style, no pins carefully folding the longer parts out of sight, a little string here or there... He could manage. Claude has certainly worn it in a braid when he's been far enough from this city. "Do you miss it?"

He can feel the awkward sensation of his hair being bent opposite of where it's been resting all day, Dimitri's finger toying with it slowly. "So you stopped for that reason," he murmurs. Still no answer to what Claude had asked him, on either front.

"Well, I don't intend for it to be permanent..." Dimitri's fingers shift again, fur tickling against his skin where it brushes. It makes him want to sleep, or lean against the bars. "I happened to like it. But while I'm still going along with the church..." Claude shrugs. It can't be helped. If he wanted to, he's sure he could run away... but for the things he wants to do, he needs to stay close for now.

"... I see..." Unfortunately, inevitably, Dimitri pulls his hand back... but he seems different, somehow. There's something indescribable to his gaze as he looks down to his hand, fingers gently spread out. He's almost - transfixed, staring at something, feeling something, that Claude isn't privy to.

Claude lets it ride, for the moment. It feels as though something important is happening here, a quiet but undeniable change. It's not just in how softly Dimitri had touched him, but something in Dimitri's own mind. If he breaks the spell... Well, Claude doesn't know what would happen. He doesn't know what's happening now. He just knows he's afraid to rush it. So: he lets the moment ride out.

And in the meanwhile... Claude watches his friend, and remembers how warm his hand had felt along his throat, against his chest, curved against his cheek. The ghost of it all lingers, and that residual warmth tingles inside of him.

He can't stay outside of Dimitri's cell forever. After around three minutes, he figures it's best to leave Dimitri to... whatever change is slowly curling through him. Carefully and quietly, he pushes himself up onto his feet. "I have to go now, Dimitri," he murmurs to him. His friend doesn't look up. "I'll try and see you tomorrow night, okay?"

No answer, not a verbal one at any rate. Dimitri merely nods his head, the movement almost more subconscious than an active choice. Claude makes his way across the courtyard. When he looks back, looks to Dimitri's cell, he can see the Voa still silently staring down at his hand.

....Claude hopes it's a good change that he's going through. He hopes it's one that makes Dimitri happy.

The guard on patrol in the church doesn't hear him when he sneaks on by, and the lights are off in the library when Claude slips through the doors. Unlike a lot of other places in the church, it's not a particularly grand place with enormous heavy doors that moan and creak at action.

There's a bit of clicking, a squeak of the hinges that Claude notes, but it's not the loudest thing in the world... especially when he's fairly certain that the guard is on the other side of the building. He's not here to take anything yet, just... glance over at some of the more valuable books that common plebs like him aren't allowed access to. And then he's out again, door shut behind him once more.

A couple of close calls, the mundane janitors and the more sly clergy all out and about, means it takes Claude a little while to get back to his room, but he manages regardless. Everyone else is asleep, and his door is well oiled from when he first dropped by. Claude goes through everything automatically, without thinking about how he's removing his clothes, or where he'll put the wax paper he took from Dimitri so there would be no evidence of his visit. For once, the practicalities of his life are just... put to the side.

He can't stop thinking about it - all of it, his visit with Dimitri. His heart still flutters when he thinks about how Dimitri had reached out, had shown an interest in learning Fodlish again so that the two of them can communicate, can share parts of another. His heart aches when he considers how gently Dimitri had touched him, palm settling so sweetly against the side of his face.

And then, in darker shades, how large it had been not only against his face, but, earlier, along his throat, and the gentle pinpricks of claws he now feels would never actually pierce his skin on purpose...

Claude's mind is right in the middle of thinking about how it would have felt if Dimitri had used more of his palm against his throat, and how his heart had been beating so wildly, when he realizes just what turn his mind has taken. And when he realizes that, he looks down as he removes his pants. Claude swears.

Honestly, he should have known this would happen. While he's had some experience in regards to sex, he's never really done anything with a Voa... But Claude knows his own tastes pretty well. For crying out loud, he recognized that Dimitri was attractive before he realized it was Dimitri. It's in that towering height which makes Claude feel so small, and the powerful build of him whether he's slowly uncurling himself, all tense muscle, or how he moves... Even his fur, which hadn't been a thing Claude had thought he'd been into, is just so soft-

He swears, again, and dumps all of his clothing into a corner. That's it. He needs to do something about this, or else he's going to go to sleep with a hard-on. Worse, he might actually entertain the thoughts that are threatening to intrude upon his brain.

And it's not that he has any feelings of shame about his sexual desires, exactly... Although he's certain that the church wouldn't mind if he never had sex with anyone, assuming they ever learned about it. This branch especially. But while he might be fine with the occasional fling, although he never lets anyone tie him down -

Dimitri doesn't deserve to have this potentially affecting what's happening here.

Claude tugs his blanket off of his bed and smooths it out against the floor. While he's always had a lot of self control, necessary as it is to so much of his plans, he doesn't want to entertain these thoughts about Dimitri when his friend is still in the state that he is. If he can get Dimitri to even like him again, that will be enough.

If he starts toying with daydreams about the things he might want Dimitri to do to him, like those claws tracing along his bare skin or the feel of that hot breath against his neck - Fuck. Straightening up, only in his underthings, Claude grinds one palm against his face.

His problem, he decides, is that he hasn't either indulged himself in anything sexual for a while, or he hasn't been meditating properly. The former, well... The former isn't really that surprising. For a little while now, he's had to do quite a few jobs in order to make himself look good for his higher ups, remind them why they keep him around so much.

It's a position that allows him access to their ears, or their eyes, and that's a special thing all its own. As long as you can get someone to look at you, or listen to you, you can influence them. He's known that for a long while, and used it to his advantage.

But it has filled up his schedule... and that has made it harder to stop by with some people he has a more casual arrangement with in other cities, far away from this miserable one. Settling down on the blanket, Claude sighs. It's also been a while since he's touched himself, too.... And maybe that would be the quick and easy solution to the current problem straining inside of his underwear. It just doesn't feel right to try.

So. Meditation. Meditation to get these thoughts out of his mind for the time being, to settle down the hot blood coursing through him. Meditation to help ensure that he won't slip up around Dimitri. Resting his wrists against his knees, Claude takes in a deep breath.

More than anything else, besides getting Dimitri free in the first place... He wants his friend to have freedom of the mental kind as well. He wants Dimitri to be in the state of mind where he can look out into the wider world, and can decide on what he wants to do for himself instead of the pressures of another person demanding nothing less.

Living within a society is always going to ensure those kind of things are an influence, of course... Although maybe Dimitri won't want to live near people ever again once he gets free. Maybe he will. That's still far in the future, something they'll work through then. But regardless, there are still some things that a person can always do through their own independent desire instead of succumbing to outside pressure. At least, that's what a person can do when they aren't locked in a cell and forced to act as an executioner for those who don't even acknowledge they're a person.

Deep breaths. In. Out. Slow. Claude lets his eyes stay closed and focuses on the tension in his body until he can work ease into each muscle. Shoulders and downwards. Right... He's not going to influence Dimitri like this.

He's going to encourage him to find his own life, his own thoughts and opinions outside of those he's been forced to take. Another breath. And to do that... He won't let his own feelings get in the way. Dimitri doesn't need him being horny to be a distraction... or, worse, offensive.

His mouth starts to twitch into a frown before Claude catches himself, and he spares a few moments to relax his own expression. Honestly, that's guilt starting to set in, and he knows it. What kind of guy feels attraction, feels sexual interest, in a person living in such a miserable situation? An asshole, probably - or at least Claude knows that's the first and most automatic of feelings when thinking about it.

But it was just a thought. Claude reminds himself of that as he sits there and breathes. It was just a thought - well, a series of thoughts, but only mental all the same. He's aware of it. He won't let it happen. He'll only focus on Dimitri, and getting Dimitri out of here. Maybe after all of that, maybe then he'll entertain such sexual thoughts, romantic ones. Until then, however...

He won't let himself get tempted.