Church Ch 5 (time capsule for the future)

[warmskies]

The world calms.

Or is it him who calms? Dimitri can't entirely be sure, has no better way to explain it. All he knows is that the world starts to exist, in a way that it never seemed to previously, and he finds himself... able to accept that.

Claude continues to visit, on the nights that he can, and he takes the care to let Dimitri know of nights that he can't. Before, Dimitri thinks - knows that he would have been suspicious of this. What could his intentions possibly be? Certainly not what he told Dimitri. And yet... maybe that's true.

There's no reason to go this far for a mere beast. There's no plot that could warrant placing one's throat willingly in his hands, allow such sharp claws near an archer's eye. Logically... Dimitri understands this. When he wrapped his fingers near Claude's throat, it was simply to make sure that the other man actually felt something, yes. He can't deny that. But the second time, it...

Sometimes, when he's not thinking, he finds himself staring down at his palm, and remembers how warm Claude had felt. It had been holding his hand that first night all over again... Simple, and warm, and soft. Real.

Real, like his intentions must be.

"It was braid, in Fodlish, wasn't it?" he asks one night, when Claude has once again brought him some food filched from the kitchens. Nothing particularly elaborate or fancy tonight. That's fine. Dimitri would never ask for too much. Even warm bread is better than the slop he's given.

Claude grins at him. "So you're still thinking about it?" he asks, as though he actually doubts the words he's saying. Some nights, Dimitri wonders if he has ever felt doubt at all, and then realizes that's a foolish question. With the life that he's lived, the things that he's said, of course Claude has to have some doubts. It's just that he never shows them. Dimitri would be envious, if he thought it mattered. "I suppose you really do like the idea of me with a braid."

Whether he likes it or not shouldn't really matter, Dimitri thinks, so he shakes his head. "I've learned the names of foods, now," he says, glancing down to the strips of jerky that Claude has brought tonight. Venison, he thinks Claude had said. Deer. "And I can remember basic manners... So there has to be something else." Something else that he can practice, in the times that Claude is gone, something to keep his mind occupied and that may help him not look at the warped figures he sometimes sees. For a long time, most of his life now, they've been his only company... but Dimitri thinks he's outgrown the desire for them.

Curled up again, arms wrapped around his legs, Claude taps his fingers along one calf. "Well then, if it's something new to have you learn... We could try fairy tales. Stories. things like that." Even as he's speaking, Claude's mind seems to move and grind, and he adds something on almost immediately. "Actually, you can see the stars from here, can't you?"

Dimitri tilts his head up, towards something that is mostly stone, a little metal where the bars connect, and a hint of something inky and strange beyond both of those things. "...I suppose." He looks up only in order to tell the time, or when he's so sick or tired or injured that he can't do much besides lay on his back and stare upwards. Otherwise.... Otherwise, he doesn't care for it. All of that is too much a reminder.

Claude doesn't press on his tone. All he does is crawl forward again, as though he's already forgotten the way Dimitri gripped at his throat not that long ago. "Then come closer," he says encouragingly, looking over his shoulder to Dimitri. "I'll point out the different stars to you, and tell you the constellation names in Fodlish. I'm afraid I don't know what they would be in Voali..."

Slowly crawling forward, Dimitri looks not to the sky but Claude instead. "You don't?" he asks, brows rising. Somehow, that's the truly surprising thing. Claude has spoken Voali so well, better than even Dimitri feels he can speak it nowadays. For him to not know something in that language... Is he supposed to feel relieved, disappointed? The emotions don't make any sense, and all he can do is tiredly put them to the side for later.

An amused chuckle slips past Claude's lips. "There are some things Voa aren't exactly eager to tell to people outside of their pepople, you know," he tells Dimitri, settling his legs again - one crooked up, the other sprawled out before him. "And sometimes there are simply things that don't come up in conversation. I've been able to travel outside this place a lot, and farther than some might dare to... but I've yet to really go where Voa are really plentiful, let alone where they'd be eager to teach some random human from the church their language." Winking, he taps his lips with one finger. "I'm an untrustworthy sort, you see."

"...Wouldn't that be because of your personality...?"

Claude breathes in too sharply, wheezing that quickly becomes coughing, and he ducks his head with a choked laugh. "Wow!" he gasps, hands covering his mouth so that his sounds aren't so loud. "You really don't hide anything, do you, Dimitri?"

"It is not as though I am wrong," Dimitri insists, fingers twitching as he considers poking Claude's back with one claw. That's the kind of thing they would have done when they were young, right? Perhaps it's for that reason that he doesn't, instead, wrapping his fingers around the cage bars and looking up. "But you present yourself as so strange..."

"Am I really that strange?" Claude's smile shifts once he's straightened up, no longer like the smile that Dimitri thought he saw before all of this. "I'm quite well liked by a lot of the people working here in this church, and in this city. And that's quite a feat, considering how this city is." 

In a single word, Dimitri thinks he understands a lot, although he doesn't have the time to gnaw over it like the bones that are sometimes tossed to him. But for how this city is.... He looks past Claude for a moment, towards the cold and empty hallway that opens up into the yard. In his mind, memories all blur together from the life he's lived simply watching people walk through and out of that hallway day after day, month after month, year after year. But, even ignoring the physical reality of everything....

They've always seemed distant. Even to each other.

"Anyway, we're getting sidetracked," Claude says casually, looking up towards the night sky again. His view of it must be so much more open than Dimitri's; he smiles when he tilts his head back. "So, the Fodlish word is star." And he does indeed say it in Fodlish, a single syllable word that exists so simply in his mouth.

No matter how many times Dimitri hears Fodlish, he's never going to adjust to how small it seems sometimes. "Star," he says, savoring that single syllable since he has the time to do so. "It seems.... far too small for what it is."

Claude chuckles at him. "The Voali word is much more of a mouthful, isn't it?" He rolls his tongue in his mouth, as if he's physically tasting the word in all its length before allowing it to escape into the night air. Maybe that's why Dimitri pays so much more attention to it. "Mihrashiosuah. In Fodlish, that can be broken down into multiple words, on a technical level. Do you want to know what they are?"

That has to be a hypothetical question. Dimitri decides not to bother with an answer. Instead, he continues staring up towards where the night sky glimmers. "That sounds confusing... "

"Trust me, it's more confusing to some humans who try to learn Voali." Claude points up, dragging his finger through the air - across the sky. "Mihra is one word all on its own, you know that much. It's for what humans would call night. And shio is circle.... Or, well, I suppose it could be orb, too."

"Is there a difference?"

Claude nods, and his finger drops down to the earth where there's plenty of dirt for him to draw in. "A circle would be something more flat. You can draw a circle, or walk in the shape of a circle, and that's it. But an orb is more... physical. Three dimensional. An apple is an orb. An eye, too." His finger pauses, right in the space where his finger has reconnected with the space where he started. "That reminds me... Circle is also something philosophical in Voali culture, isn't it?"

It's been a long time since he's had to talk about that kind of thing... and yet, Dimitri is surprised to know, he can still recall those lessons from his childhood, and the way it would come up so often in people's names. Amazingly, it was such a common word. So common that he feels he took it for granted.

Shaking his head, Dimitri pulls those memories together. "Yes... Because everything returns to itself." His gaze drifts back down to Claude's finger. "Nature. People. Cities. It is a flow that always is the same, even if things... seem to change."

"Heh..." Claude removes his finger, taking care not to disrupt the circular outline he's drawn in the dirt. "That sounds just like the Voa I know. All philosophy. Well, every culture has something that it idolizes... Well, let's continue. So that leaves suah, and that translates to small in Fodlish." Claude grins. "So, if you put it in the most strict and technical way possible, then the Voali word Mihrashiosuah becomes night circle small in Fodlish."

Cocking his head to the side, Dimitri considers the night sky once again. "...But only the most strict and technical way," he says after a moment, having chewed on Claude's sentence a little more.

Claude beams. "I knew you had a bit of cleverness in you somewhere, Dimitri. Yeah, that's how it would be only if you stuck to the most bare bones way of translating things. It doesn't work perfectly, because that's not how different languages work. If you wanted to be a little more accurate, then you'd put the describing words before the object - small night circle would be closer to the correct order. It's small, and it appears at night, and those two things are considered important to go before the word circle. That's how you would describe most things while speaking casually."

"But that is not star," Dimitri says, frowning. "Small night circle and star are different..."

"Right again~," Claude says, voice quiet but in a definite sing-song kind of way. "That's only a step closer to a more accurate translation. With Voali, we're simply looking at how its different working parts would translate into Fodlish, but we don't need to do all of that. We already have our own word, star. So all it ultimately comes down to is finding what other people mean when they speak. It seems complicated... but all you need to do is look, and you realize that their little word means something very specific, or that another person has many words bound into one. Even if it seems strange, it isn't really..."

Claude... seems so animated when he speaks like this. Dimitri looks down from the sky to that shining face, with eyes that are as bright as the very stars they're talking about. Back when they were children, he was like this as well: always so excited and animated about whatever new things he could learn. "So you're still as talkative as you ever were..."

"And you sound surprised every time," Claude notes in amusement, before he points again. "Anyway, that's moon, and the ahnshio of Voali would translated to silver circle."

Under his breath, Dimitri quietly repeats the words to himself, and their matching counterparts. Despite his rough words, he understands why Claude is going the roundabout way with his translations. It's one thing for Dimitri to learn star. It's another thing entirely for him to learn small, or night, or how descriptive words go in front of the object they're attached to. It's further effort... done for him.

Sometimes, he wonders if Claude really expects him to use this other language at all. He wonders if there's a point to it, or if it's only meant as something that the two of them can do together. He wonders if Claude knows how much it means for him to have something he can focus on, and not look at the blurriness in the corner of his vision even now. "What are their names?" he asks, when he feels he's properly committed the words to memory for him to practice later.

"Names..." Claude taps his fingers against his leg. "I take it you mean the names of the individual stars?"

"Yes. Or... What they are as a group."

"Constellations," Claude says, with no judgment to the fact that Dimitri needed a little help in remembering something from his own tongue, and giving the Fodlish word soon after. "Honestly, from this tiny little hole in the middle of the church, you can't see a lot of them..." He falls silent for a moment, staring up, before those too-green eyes focus back on Dimitri. "...Do you remember any star names, Dimitri? Or constellations?"

Frankly, he suspects he could remember a lot more when he was younger... But Dimitri does his best to shift through his memories regardless. It's easier to actually look up past the bars, and see the shine and swirl of stars. "...I think so... But it's been so long. I might be wrong..."

When he looks down again, Claude is still smiling at him, but... gentler. Quieter. "That's alright," he says, voice matching his smile. "It's okay if you're wrong. I can always help you figure it out... and I can still tell you what their names are in Fodlish. Right?"

Well. Dimitri can't argue with him there. Looking back up to the stars, he searches for one in particular. "I am not sure if it is here.... But... Ahnmehn."

"Silver finger," Claude murmurs, the latter word which Dimitri takes into himself as well. "That's a rather unique name. Is it a star or a constellation?"

"Star. I remember... being told the story when I was young." When he was younger in his captivity, he would tell it to himself - or his illusions would tell it for him, something to help drown out his situation. "One of the gods wished to go on a journey in the beginning of everything, when all of the world and the universe was still new. So she dipped her fingers into her own soul, staining them in that color as though they were only droplets of water.

"Wherever she went, she would reach up, and her fingers would press into the darkness of the sky, leaving behind the brilliant shine of her soul in small dots. However, she wandered about so much... and left behind so many marks... That she soon realized that she had made herself lost all over again."

Covering his mouth with one hand, Claude laughs a little. "Well, she sounds like my kind of person - curious and with thought out plans that go awry. So what happened to this god?"

"She decided that she'd simply make a home for herself, and that would be right where she'd ended up." Ignoring more of Claude's snickering, Dimitri continues. "So she decided to celebrate her newfound home by scattering the rest of her soul nearby, and made the core of herself the brightest light of all that would go nowhere, unmoving and not budging against the shifting tides of the night sky." Dimitri rubs the pad of one finger over his thumb claw. "My father... always told me that if I headed in the direction of Ahnmehn, I'd always be heading north... And I'd always know my way."

Claude makes a soft noise of understanding. "Oh, so it's that star... Yeah, there's no good way to look at it from here," he agrees, his gaze already scanning the sky for any sign of it. "In Fodlish, that's called the Mother's Star... In no small part because of the church."

It's hard to be particularly surprised about that bit of news, Dimitri has to admit. Everything seems to revolve around the church... whether he or Claude or anyone else likes it or not. At least, that's how it is in this country.... wherever it may be.

Down that path of thought, however, lies nothing but unpleasantness. So he looks back at Claude again. Claude, with that dark curly hair, and his brown skin, and the various little details to his features which make him not seem like anyone else here. "...What about Almyra?"

Blinking, Claude looks away from the stars and at him. "Almyra? You mean what the name for Ahnmehn is in Almyran?" He looks away quite suddenly, and Dimitri wonders if he's said something wrong. It doesn't seem as though he has, because Claude continues to talk. "Well, I'm a little embarrassed to say that whoever came up with the first name wasn't really the most imaginative... It was just Rucaba - and that just means 'star' itself." Claude chuckles. "But I guess the first people who came up with it weren't poets, or spiritual types, or anything like that. They were simply hunters, and they only needed to know the most important star in the sky was the brightest one that never wavered in its place."

"What a simple life..."

"Ha, I know, right? It's almost enough to make you jealous."





Sometimes, he thinks about the childhood daydreams he used to have when it came to Dimitri. About somehow rescuing him from his imprisonment, and the two of them just running off to Almyra, where they could be some measure of safe, and welcomed, and everything would be alright. Claude knows it's not that simple, especially with how much their lives have changed... But he still thinks about it, sometime.

However, he can only afford to think about it sometimes. There are more important things in his life than childhood dreams he used to entertain, and so Claude works hard. He works as hard as he possibly can, taking on every task he possibly can. It's more than just to endear himself to various people, although he absolutely needs that if he wants any plan of his to work out in the end.

"And this guy!" one of the drinking night regulars says, faux-indignant as zie takes his ear. "Just the other day, I saw him dropping by the kitchens! Trying to get on the cooks' good sides, are we?"

Laughing, Claude allows himself to be tugged a little bit. "Hey, don't blame me for thinking of the idea first!" he jokes, cradling a small flask of booze that's been passed around the circle a good couple of times now. None of his current partying companions have realized that it's still as full as when he received it; Claude doesn't intend to get so drunk that he can't visit Dimitri later on. "Isn't it just common sense to kiss up to the cooks?"

A round of laughter passes through the group, just like he passes on the flask, and the person next to him takes a sip despite the quality being more than a little regrettable. Claude knows from the smell. But that can't be helped, just like the next thing someone deigns to complain about. "Honestly, if we got more impressive food, I would prostrate myself before them as though they were the next saint incarnate!"

"Don't let one of the monks hear you say that, or else you'll really be in it... And anyway, I didn't hear you complaining last harvest festival, when you wouldn't stop stuffing your face-"

Just banter. Like it is every night that this little motley crew manages to meet up. It's just banter, and playfulness, and a bit of respite. Claude knows what they all mean, of course. He understands that a certain level of care has to be taken here. Frankly, he's fortunate that Henning liked him enough to introduce him to these drinking nights, with its range of different people. Anywhere else...

Someone tells a joke. He laughs on cue along with everyone else. Humans can only live so much of the kind of life that the church wants them to, as a general rule. It's in their nature to try and find some form of happiness, of ease, even in times of strife and misery. Out past the walls that Claude can almost see from their chosen place tonight, there's a whole world to explore... that most of these people will never see. A world where they could be a little happier, instead of huddling together, in a place that can't be seen by most monks or nuns and the like that pass through the halls at this time of night.

Maybe if they were all happier, they'd find it easier to be better people - people who don't so carelessly talk about the last execution as they all pass the drink around, marveling at the gore they'd witnessed. Maybe they'd be able to refer to Dimitri, their "Executioner", as a living person instead of the soulless corrupt monster that the higher priests pass him off as.

Or maybe, Claude muses as the flask comes around to him again, they'd still be the very same. Just like the priests higher up on the ladder who must surely know the true sins that they're committing. But he can't afford to think too heavily on that.

Instead, his mind drifts off, thinks of the last lessons he had with Dimitri. The two of them had pointed at the stars, and Claude had done his best to recall various myths or legends he'd heard about them all. What purpose different stars and constellations served when one was on the road. When he manages to finally free Dimitri, and the two of them are on the road... Will Dimitri remember all of that? Will he be able to find his way, even if they're separated?

Even if Dimitri decides to go off on his own, without Claude?

"Ahhh, maybe I should become a teacher," he says suddenly, and takes at least some amusement in the befuddled blinks of his companions.

Recovering, the person on the other side of him laughs a little. "Now where did that come from? Are you sick of the hunting life already? But you're so good at it- you're one of the people I have to thank when we get particularly plump pheasants!"

"And you were teasing me just earlier about sucking up to the cooks," Claude laughs right back, glad to play off any melancholy one of them might have noticed with this kind of joking. "Is that all I am to you? The pheasant hunter?" Lightly, he smacks their shoulder. "At any rate, I was thinking about my future, thank you very much. One of these days, I'm going to be too old to go hunting, like Henning."

That earns another round of laughter, and even Henning is grinning as he shakes a fist at Claude. "Remember who gives you your jobs!"

"Yes, yes, I apologize to my great and benevolent overlord," Claude says, giving an over-exagerrated bow which earns more laughter. "And if this humble hunter may make a request, it's that I don't get the kind of heavy job that you have to do every day of your life, when I become older myself..."

More laughter, more teasing, more talking about how long Henning has been at his job. Soon, he really will deserve to live a quiet life where he can hopefully watch his children grow up. Claude doubts it will happen in this city. He certainly hopes he won't be here long enough.

And yet, unaware of his plans, one of the group turns to him with a light chuckle. "Hey, maybe if you're lucky, you'll get placed over at the gate out of the city. That old geezer there is lucky... He doesn't hardly have to do anything on the night shift."

Someone across the circle grumbles. "Ugh, tell me about it. Half the time, he dozes off.... When we're attacked by robbers or barbarians from the south, I will bet cold hard money that they'll make it in on his shift. When is he going to kick the bucket already? Better people could be put to work there..."

"Hey, hey, don't speak ill of innocent men, you know the scripture..."

Something in the air seems to shift uneasily, and Henning helps move the conversation along towards something else. Still, nothing escapes Claude's attention. He glances over the person who had initially complained, and at someone who's fallen silent with a certain heaviness to their expression. He keeps their faces in mind, and makes a mental note to check in on the exact people who man the gates out of the city.





"So the twins made themselves a home up in the sky?"

"That's right." Claude lowers his hands, relaxed and comfortable right where he is. This is despite the fact that "where he is" would be leaning against the hard metal bars of Dimitri's cage. Dimitri has always had to make due, but he has to admit he's impressed that Claude can do the same even though he's surely had access to better things. "That's how a lot of Almyran tales are. We have the fantastical, the historical, sure... but it's not a culture that believes in being saved by anything 'higher' than you. If there's anything that's high, and seemingly out of reach... You work to get it yourself."

That sounds more fantastical than any of the creatures or magic that Claude has talked about tonight, and Dimitri reflects on it with his face pressed up against the bars. "They sound... very independent," he says slowly, wondering what it's like.  

A smile crosses Claude's face. "That's certainly one way to put it... There are a lot of problems if one follows Almyran culture too narrowly, I think, but that's true for everywhere you go.... And I don't think that takes away from the beautiful parts of any place or people. And if there's one thing I have to appreciate about Almyran culture... It's definitely how they believe that things happen because you make them happen."

What an interesting view of things... and yet, even as Dimitri admires that kind of initiative, he can't help but wonder at the way Claude phrases it. As though it's something separate from himself. A part of him wants to ask more about Almyra, like when they were children, but he refrains this time. Instead, he stars up at the sky again. "...I wonder what it looks like, from so high above."

"You mean if you lived up in the night sky too, like those twin stars?" Claude asks. "Who knows... You must be able to see the land stretching out forever from underneath your feet." He hums. "Although I wonder if that really means anything in the end."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if you lived that high up in the sky, you could certainly see how far the land stretches out, all the large lakes or rivers and maybe even the sea... But you'd lose track of the details." Down in the dirt, Claude begins to doodle again. When he leaves, Dimitri will have to take care to wipe away every trace he's ever left behind, even if the guards of this place would think it simply him getting bored. Even so... He doesn't want anyone else to find out about Claude's presence. "You'd miss the smaller ponds and creeks... And if you could see villages and towns from so far up, you might miss all the individual people going about their lives."

Little details like that... are important to Claude. Dimitri learned that a long time ago. So all of that makes sense. And yet... "But on the other side," he murmurs, staring at the stars that really do seem so out of reach, "they would not see you, either."

No one to look at him twice. No one to think of his existence. No one who would be terrified of the monster that they chained of their own free will, although he has never harmed something without them encouraging it. What a life it would be, if he could live so high up in the sky.

"Is that what you would want, then?" Claude asks him quietly, eyes still brighter than anything Dimitri has ever seen from his cage. Those bright green eyes.... They remind him of somewhere that seems to slip out of his grasp with every passing day. Or, it used to. "To live a life completely away from other people?"

Is it? Dimitri falls silent, rubbing the pad of one finger against his cage's bars. "I've never thought about it before," he admits quietly, which he doubts is a surprise to Claude. "It doesn't really matter, I suppose." And for a second, he thinks that Claude might press, might talk about more of the life that's outside his cage.

He doesn't. Claude only nods, because there was really no other answer that could have ever emerged, and he laces his fingers over one knee again. Dimitri looks back down at what he was doodling, and finds something almost like a map. Like what a person would see, if they lived high up in the night sky, and everything could be divided so easily. "I suppose that's fair. At any rate... With how quickly we're going through the stars and constellations, I'm starting to think that we might need to find some new material."

"There is not much to study from within here..."

"Then I'll just have to bring it here instead." Claude smiles, drawing another circle around the little map he's drawn, as though it's part of its own world. Dimitri wonders if it's anywhere in particular that he's traveled to, or if he simply made it up based on those travels. "It's not that hard, you know. I can read books, and find more stories for us to go over. If there's one thing this church is good for, it's that it hoards books and keeps them in good condition." A pause, and he cocks his head to the side. "Well.... So long as they're certain kinds of books."

Certain kinds of books... Dimitri makes a low noise of disgust, tail flicking through the dirt floor behind him. "I assume that they have nothing that would disrupt the image they're trying to make of the rest of the world," he mutters.

Yet another subtle change in Claude's smile. It's become a pasttime of Dimitri's to figure out the sheer range Claude can produce. This is one that blossoms occasionally on his lips when talking about certain aspects of the church. "Anything that might drag a poor innocent into sin has to be condemned completely and utterly," he confirms. "It hardly matters how it's depicted... Although there are some folks who definitely argue about that. But to keep a holy place holy, a lot of it doesn't end up in the library unless it's really over the top."

"How so?" Maybe he shouldn't ask. Why should he care? Dimitri knows he'll never see what this library is like, never get to hold a book in his hand - well, no, perhaps he will. If it's Claude, who so eagerly loves to slide food inbetween the bars of his cage, perhaps he can't say "never" for something as simple as a book. Still.... He's never seen the library of this place, although he knows, in theory, what it must look like. Still, there's no reason for him to care.

...And yet he can't help be curious, staring at Claude, watching that expression shift through so many emotions and brightness as he talks.

For something like this, there doesn't quite seem to be brightness, not if the way Claude blows out a breath is any indication. "Well, let's see... There are a lot of things that we could choose from. Like..." Claude pauses, glancing over Dimitri again. No doubt he's choosing his words carefully. Claude often does that with him and it's... strange, to consider. Dimitri never knows how to respond in the face of it, and so he chooses, like he has multiple times in the past, to not. "Oh, I know. Violence and murder is a good one."

Of course it's something like that. Dimitri's own scoff mimics the way Claude blew out his breath a moment ago, and that sharp grin turns more amused for only a second. "Is the only violence in those tales violence done by an executioenr, then?" he asks, curling up on the ground again.

"Surprisingly, less of that than you might think," Claude says, adjusting himself so that he's leaning more in Dimitri's direction. There's only so much the two of them can do... and that might be for the better, Dimitri thinks. Frankly, Claude still getting this close is still strange and not something he'd ever recommend, but here they are. "A lot of the stories only have violence or death if it's from something that humans can't control... And only if it's in the form of some lesson or another. It may shock and surprise you to know, but those lessons often end up something like... Oh, you were struck by lightening because you didn't do your nightly prayers!" He waves his hand flippantly through the air. "Or something along those lines."

Dimitri wrinkles his nose. "....Lightning as a punishment for no praying?" That... is hard for him to imagine. It's such a little thing. Even in his life, filled so often with little to nothing, is one where he could easily imagine slipping up and not doing something so minor as that. His average nights are one thing, but the nights where he's put into that ring? Where he can barely think, can barely breathe, from the blood he's swallowed? That... is ridiculous.

"That's how it is," Claude says, voice taking on a certain dry tint to it. "The best way to control people is with fear, sometimes.... At least, if you're looking for fear and not understanding, or wanting what's best for them." Almost immediately, he shakes his head, as if trying to beat away some particularly unkind thoughts. "Or... sometimes it's not about what's best for other people, but because you don't have any other idea of what else you can or should do."

There it is again.... Claude's eagerness to see the best in people. Is 'eagerness' even the right word? Dimitri wishes he could say, one way or another... but he can't. Instead, he looks down to that little map, with the circle around it. "...So all the stories are like that, then. Are they?"

"More or less," Claude agrees. "There are no shades of gray, just strict black and white, and you better hope that the white is more prevalent than the black. But even that can be difficult to accomplish... Because that's not how people are designed. There are so many things that the church denounces as a sin, or monstrous, or evil, that are simply.... what people do, for whatever reason."

Claude needn't look at him for Dimitri to understand the most notable example of this worldview. He knows that he is the most prime example of it, even if he has never read a single book in the church's library. He only need exist... and they find him revolting.

Although, while he may be the most extreme example.... Dimitri frowns, thinking of that tale of lightning and prayer. There's a question teasing at his tongue, one that he can't help but give voice to. "Do... all of them believe that?"

Once again, there's a rhythm of tapping along Claude's legs, his fingers seeming so - elegant in the way they move. Dimitri can imagine them doing so many things, nothing at all like his own filthy bloodstained fingers. "Well... That's the complicated thing. In general, of course you would have every other person saying that of course they're on the same side... But it's the details that get complicated."

"I suspect many things are agreed on in general... and get complicated when it comes to the details."

Another shift of that grin. Amusement. "Ah, so wise and world weary already," Claude drawls, before nodding. "But you're right. For example... Some people say that any depiction of violence in a tale is a terrible thing that might tempt someone to commit such a terrible sin. It doesn't matter if you're telling it explicitly to condemn it at the very end with some feel good ending. It doesn't matter if you're writing a biography of your own life, as someone who had to survive abuse, or war, or anything else. The existence alone is the terrible thing. It's a sin that deserves punishment."

Dimitri flexes his hand in, out. His claws prick at his palm. "....And the sinners are sent to me."

"If it makes you feel better, then I don't think any writer was ever sent to you," Claude says, almost... soothingly. "As long as no one actually dies, then it's not like it's real murder. The church just judges regardless, and makes their life miserable in other ways. Depending on things... Sometimes even with violence."

A pause. Dimitri squints. "...Even though violence can lead to death?"

"Yup."

His ears start to lower. "Would that not be more of a sin than simply writing about violence, or even death?"

"You would think!" Claude says, in that overly cheerful way that means he's absolutely being sardonic. It disappears quickly enough, another low breath. "But for some people.... They think it's only right that people they believe to be 'bad', whether or not that's the actual upfront truth, should get whatever punishment is available... It's as though the rights of a person cease to exist in their eyes."

Both of them fall silent, thinking of... many things. Dimitri can't speak for Claude, of course. Still, in his mind, he thinks of the boy from back then. The boy who would show up with bruises, and all on his own. A battered lonely boy meeting an imprisoned one... Both of them, for different and similar reasons alike, treated lesser.

Slowly, Dimitri's eyes drift, seemingly without any particular goal at first. He looks away from those restless eager fingers, hands that seem as though they would grasp the stars themselves if they could. He looks away from the little map drawn in the dirt, a circle holding a small portion of the world.

He's almost not sure when he does it but, before Dimitri knows it, he's reached through the bars and taken a small bit of Claude's belt to hold inbetween his fingertips. "I suppose.... that's the true root of evil," he murmurs. "Of thinking so lowly of a person that..."

His words trail away, lost in the memory of a hundred different painful events. How many times has he seen someone be pushed into the ring that bore bruises from events before their own imprisonment? How many looked too thin to be truly a problem? Perhaps some did deserve to die, with something in their eyes that always set his fur bristling... But did they deserve him?

Has anyone deserved him?

Fingers brush against his own, a whole hand, and that would be Claude. Not close enough to grasp him, but close enough that it's an offer. "Yeah," he agrees quietly. "But that's some pretty dour thinking, and here I was talking about how I'd bring you some stories so we could keep up with our lessons."

Oh. Right. That was what they were talking about, wasn't it? Dimitri stares down at Claude's hand, as patiently as always. Just sitting there, waiting for him to take it.

Dimitri doesn't take Claude's hand... but he does look up at him, at the way the profile of his face is lit up by the passing moon, and says, "If I get to choose the stories... Then, heroes."

"Heroes... Heh." Claude is looking down, too, at where their hands stay so close together - his in offering, Dimitri still holding onto his cloth belt. "Like the ones who go on grand adventures, and save innocent people, huh? I probably won't be able to find any of the really good ones here... but there still have to be some things. They can't tell the story of their saint without a good story or five to convert followers and excite believers.

"Yeah... Next time I visit, I'll be sure to have some exciting stories to tell you."





One day, Henning pulls him to the side, over in the warehouse for all their dried goods, and whispers to him, "There won't be any meetings after work for a while. Hopefully your name stays out of it, but, basically, do you remember from a couple of weeks ago, when all that talk got turned around to the guy who does night shifts at the gates?"

Claude does remember very well, in fact. He remembers the grumbling, how quick people were to put it down, that sullen silence from one person in particular. With all of that information in his hands, he's completely unsurprised to hear that the sullen individual ended up snitching on the other, although the why is still interesting all on its own. Apparently, the person who'd fallen silent had gone that way because someone in their family had gotten married to the gate guard, and, well, insult family, no matter how newly made that bond is...

Heh. Well, one needs all the allies they can get.

That's why, immediately after Henning leaves him to it, Claude contrives a reason to run into good ol' Mx. Sullen.

It doesn't take much. All this time spent in those little afterwork drinking sessions wasn't just to have a good time, to find some bit of relaxation in a city that still feels far too stifling. He's long since taken note of every single person's name, and what they do throughout the church, the city. With what he's trying to do, it's a vital step.

And so one day they happen to stumble upon each other in the vegetable gardens, and he smiles, and charms, and does all the things he's really good at, because he's had to be good at them. It goes perfectly according to plan, and he sees them soften when he hands over some fruit from the latest delivery into the city.

The finishing blow is a pat on the back and a lowering of his voice as he says, "Well, it was good to see you! We should all get together for drinking again. You like that sweet wine from the coastal cities, right? I was thinking of picking it up the next time I'm sent out for trading!"

There it is - a little bit of hesitation. "Actually, that might not be a good idea... Hey, you don't have a job to do right away, right?"

And that's how Claude gets told things from Mx. Sullen's side of things, and how the grumbler from before didn't get in too much trouble. All that happened was just some light disciplinary action for a little bit of wine that was drank for one night.... Or at least that's what was reported.

Still, now the church is on the alert for any other troublemaking boozehounds. Overindulgence is a sin, after all. Mx. Sullen insists that the person who got reported in the first place won't be that big of an issue in the future.... Maybe they'll even learn a lesson about badtalking others!

It's an excuse, and Claude is pretty sure they know it as much as he does. Still, he shows sympathy in all the right places, nods where he should, and ends up agreeing to take on a little favor for them. You know, run down a late lunch down to some family. Not the guard at the gate... But Claude does it anyway with a smile and some well wishes.

Grains of sand add up to a desert... or a beach. That's a philosophy he's lived by, and one he doesn't plan on abandoning anytime soon. What's really difficult is juggling all the corresponding pieces, even as he makes himself welcome to the poor family that's been "slandered" and makes some good excuses to the grumbler from before. It takes skill. It takes time. It takes a lot of honey sweet words, but he manages to slide through things without any consequences falling onto his own head.

One day, on the way out of town for another round of hunting for a summer festival that's coming around the corner, he stops by for a quick chat. It's not surprise for him to find the wife and kid of his dear "party friend" drop by with their child in tow. He lingers a little longer, smiles and makes polite conversation, before he notices the book the girl is holding tightly in her arms. "A reader already, huh?" he asks, feeling fond memories tug at him.

There was a time when he too was a heavy reader. He'd store away in the library so that the usual bullies and like wouldn't dare harass him, lest their noise draw the aggravation of the librarian. Hopefully, the girl in front of him has a simple and pure love of the activity. Certainly he wishes he could have.

For his nosiness, the girl immediately shoves the book up at him, and Claude laughs a little as he accepts, crouching down to browse through it. He waves off the mother, not minding the task, and lets the adults talk while he reads through the book with the child. If it's something she's proud of, then it's the least he can do to accept. What can he say? He supposes he has a soft spot for kids... Maybe to make up for how no one had a soft spot for him, or Dimitri, when they were younger.

It's honestly a good story, in the end. Claude keeps it in mind when he waves good bye to the guard and the mother and the kid. Even if it was simple, and maybe a little idealistic...

He hopes Dimitri will like it, when he tells it to him later that night.





As a general rule, Dimitri does his best to sleep throughout the day, because there's honestly nothing else for him to do. That was true a year ago, when it was only himself that he had to bother thinking about. Now, he stays awake at night for better food that settles his stomach. He stays awake to practice foreign words that still seem awkward on his tongue, and that don't come to him so quickly. He stays awake for the sight of a careful shadow slipping through the courtyard, those bright green eyes catching moonlight when there's any of it to spare.

Yet sometimes he manages to wake up when daylight shines bright, and the sound of many footsteps and noisy voices interferes with his sleep. It's stays that way for a few days, and he's not particularly surprised about it. Days pass him by meaninglessly, and he has no names to describe the changing of seasons here. And yet, every so often, it's been impossible for him to ignore how sometimes the people of the church get worked up. Sometimes, it's because of an execution, and that's the only thing he *truly* cares about. It's the only thing he's kept alive for, after all.

But other times... Other times, it for different reasons. Happier reasons, as far as Dimitri can tell when he looks into the hallway and sees smiles on people's faces. There are no plants in the courtyard, save for short grass, so the difference between spring and summer and fall is negligible.... Still.

He can sense the heat in the air, his fur feeling damp and annoying. He can see how long the sun lingers in the sky. Their happiness is a familiar thing, not because he has known it or felt any kindness from it, merely because it has happened time and time again throughout his whole life.

"It's a festival," Claude explains when Dimitri finally feels like asking, peeling an apple in his hand with a short knife. Dimitri watches it carefully, and wonders if he can do the same with his claws. Certainly they're long enough, and little help with other fine details. "Academically, they say it's in celebration of the day the Saint cleansed this land, and bade the forefathers of the city to build here. If you ask me, it's simply a day to throw to the masses, something to momentarily make them happy as though that makes up for their living conditions otherwise."

When Claude says things like that, it seems so obvious, even if Dimitri has never been allowed familiarity with the city itself at all. "Does no one notice?"

A low hum. "When you've completely exhausted yourself just trying to stay alive... You don't really pay attention to why you'd be allowed to sleep for a long time, right?" And Dimitri can't argue with that.

Well, he supposes it doesn't affect him anyway. That's what Dimitri initially thinks, until a thought slips into his mind, like the man who sits before him slips through shadows. "...Will you go?"

"I suppose I should," Claude muses, taking the apple skin and leaving it right on the small bit of cloth outside of Dimitri's cage. While Dimitri has seen humans in the courtyard toss away apple skins out of distaste, or simply bite into the fruit whole, he likes to eat them as a separate thing, he's learned. There's a particular snap to them which he enjoys, something softer than what he usually snaps between his teeth. "A lot of people are going to be there, probably the whole city if they haven't been punished in some way or aren't otherwise busy. I'm a pretty popular guy. If I'm not seen, people would just be heartbroken."

Sometimes, he really can't say just how genuine Claude is acting. Now is a perfect example, and he frowns slowly. "But you can be annoying," he says, and waits out Claude's wheeze of laughter.

"And yet you haven't tried to chase me off again," he counters, eyes glittering brighter than they did talking about the festival. "A lot of the people I work with haven't even come close to that, so I'll pretend I can stroke my ego a little bit and say that I'm popular instead. How about that?"

That's the thing about arguing with Claude - Dimitri is fairly certain he's never really won in these sorts of exchanges. He huffs, and leaves it be. "Do as you like. Are festivals like that worth going to in the first place?"

"They aren't bad." Claude shrugs. "You see people's better sides during them... Although I won't lie, you can also see their worst sides, too. You can ask..." He trails off, then, and considers Dimitri. "...Hey, do you remember festivals from when you were a kid?"

Dimitri looks not into his eyes, but down at the apple. It's become frozen in Claude's hands, the knife still notched right into its flesh in preparation of a slice. Claude has such clever hands; it's something worth admiring since it is something that Dimitri knows he'll never have. "Bits and pieces," he says, and Claude's hands go back to slicing the apple into the neatest little half-crescents. "There were a lot of festivals. For seasons changing... And for the gods."

Finishing a couple of slices, Claude places them down right besides the skin, and Dimitri finally reaches out to take one. The skin comes first, while it's still crisp and fresh. "I've heard that the Voa know many gods as well, instead of just one and numerous saints. I really am curious about it, honestly... But as you might expect, it's one of those things that is rarely explained." A soft laugh. "Maybe one day I'll be able to travel far enough to the right city, and someone will take pity on a guy too nosy for his own good."

"It will have to be someone with patience as deep as the sky, then."

"Because I'm annoying?"

"Because that's at least how deep your curiosity is." Claude bites back his laughter so hard and suddenly that he snorts as though his brain might pop out from his nostrils. Dimitri lets him have a moment to recover, snapping through the apple skin in satisfaction. "If there is any Voa who could withstand your endless questions, I would think them a god in disguise, surely."

Wiping his face, Claude grins at him. "Then they'd best hope their acting skills are just as divine as their existence, because I'd have even more questions if I found out what they were," he says playfully. "Do the Voali gods do that often? Disguise themselves and wander amongst the people who worship them?"

"There were a few tales like that, I think..." He wishes he could remember more. Once upon a time, it was him, and his friends, listening raptly as an older brother excitedly gestured and talked. "I wonder if that's how one of the holiday festivals came to be... Although I can't remember if I was ever told."

"A holiday celebrating gods walking among Voa?"

Dimitri shakes his head, nibbling upon the apple skin a little more. "No... But, I remember there being lots of costumes. It was something special to do with the changing of seasons... As the air began to chill. There would be a rainbow of colors, with certain people dressed up in ways."

It had been such an exciting time - warm and bright and merry despite how the air was turning colder by the day. Even now, after so many years... He's surprised that, if he tries, he can actually remember watching people running amuck. He'd be with his friends, laughing and cheering at the shows.

He doesn't realize Claude is watching until the man speaks up. "What did people dress up like?"

His claws are so clumsy with something as thin and delicate as an apple skin. Dimitri turns it over in his hands. "There were... seven things you could dress up as. They were all connected to a particular color... I remember that my friends and I all wanted to take part in the adult costumes... There was a green one where people could relax from all the activity, and a deep blue one - sometimes their eyes would be covered, and they'd have coins in their clothes."

"Blindfolded and with coins in their clothes... That's certainly rather unique. Do you remember why they did that?"

"There were others who also wore deep blue, and had their fur covered in paint," Dimitri explains quietly, lost in thought and memories. His best friend... He'd been so eager to mimic that same game with the rest of them, and he'd even one day gone to try and fetch - "Bells... The ones without blindfolds wore bells. And they were always sneaking up on their other halves..."

They'd all made quite the ruckus, hadn't they, when his friend's brother was old enough to take part? They'd chased after and hounded him for ages on what he would do, and if he knew the others who decided to take part. That was him who'd clung so much, wasn't it?

Claude's voice is soft. Gentle. "Sounds fun. Sounds like they had to take the coins. That must have been exciting to watch. You said you wanted to take part, right? Did you want to wear that dark blue costume?"

Once upon a time, Hralevon had wanted to do it with him. They'd argue over who would wear coins, and who would wear bells, and if they were better at one or the other. But he'd been interested because Hralevon had been interested. In reality-

"There was a different one that I was curious about. One that was a lighter blue... Like a clear sky. They wore a veil across their face, and kept their horns hidden. People would whisper things to them... My parents wouldn't tell me what, only that I was too young to bother with such things. But sometimes I'd see one person speak to them, and they'd guide that person to another... And they'd seem happy." 

He had loved seeing that happen, to the point that, if his friends were busy with other festivities, he used to follow the ones in that bright sky blue around and hope that would happen. That people would be pulled together, with that bright brilliant look on their faces. He, too, had wanted to be entrusted with secrets whispered to him, and use those for good. For the sole purpose of making people smile like that at one another.

Even now, he still doesn't quite know what people whispered to the those in sky blue, but he can spot understanding light up Claude's eyes. "Something like that, huh...?" He smiles, endeared, sweet. It's the kind of look that Dimitri thinks he'd like to see more on his face, genuine as it is. "Well. That kind of holiday sounds really exciting. What others can you tell me about?"

It's funny, the things that stick in the mind. Dimitri hasn't celebrated that holiday in years, and yet he can still remember so much about it. There'd been songs for children to remember the colors and their roles, food he can almost recall the scent of, being with his friends... It doesn't feel as though he should remember, but he does.

He remembers, and he passes those memories onto Claude.





"You know, you really are like a stray cat. Always popping in and out whenever you please?"

Claude laughs, and turns away from the wagon that he's escorted this time. For the first time in a long while, it feels as though he's able to laugh honestly and without holding himself back. He's slowly started to laugh when he's with Dimitri, of course, especially with how much more relaxed the Voa has become in turn around him... But even then, he has to restrain himself. Loud laughter could draw attention to the fact that someone was visiting the fearsome executioner, and, well... That would be suspicious all on its own. Claude can't afford that.

But here, in the small town of Aile, a good distance away from the cold church walls and all its land, he can laugh. He definitely has reason to, seeing that familiar smiling face.

"Hey, don't blame me that the jobs the church sends me on are so inconsistent," he teases as Leonie walks forward with a worn pack of her own slung over her shoulder. There's a bit of a shine to her hair, and dirt underneath her fingernails - no doubt she's just come back from hunting, with fresh good to trade. The antlers strapped to the outside of her pack are clear to see, and in fine condition. "Do you think I'd really be the same if I worked for them?"

"Maybe you'd be worse," Leonie says, and he laughs again. Both of them together enter the merchant's general shop, with things to trade and exchange. With his lot, it takes quite a bit of time, and yet Leonie still waits for him. She helps pass the time as the two of them talk about the changing seasons, any peculiar or noteworthy movements from the animals, the jackalope she carefully hunted only this morning before the sun had even peeked over the horizon. It's nice. Helps make dull work a little bit easier.

It would be a shame to leave the town when he's only just arrived, and there are other things he wants to look into as well. The wide plains which stretch out past the town borders, where the mountains are a distant daydream, make for excellent ranches, and Claude always feels his blood pumping whenever he looks out at them. It must show on his face somehow, because Leonie chuckles. "I hope you didn't push that cart horse of yours too much," she says as the two of them make their way out of the shop.

"I love horses too much to torment them, thank you very much," he replies with a cheeky grin. "Besides, you can't properly go racing through the plains with a wagon attached. I have my own steed for that."

Leonie hums, as though she doesn't believe him. Ah, disbelievers. Claude leaves it as the morning marketplace comes into view. It's filled to bursting with other people who've traveled here to also sell or exchange their goods, full of noise and smells.

Claude knows he's lucky in this way. With how the church has made a connection with that one store, the exchange is done in the blink of an eye, relatively speaking. He's become well known in both hunting and transportation, so there's no need to doubt his word anymore... at least, not with the same people they've been working with all this time. All that's left to do is wait for them to unload what he brought, and pack up what he's here for.

And in the meantime... He can take care of his own business.

"Around this time, you usually move on, right?" he asks casually when they stop by a stall of secondhand swords and other weapons - things picked up either from the dead or those who can't pick up a sword anymore, or those who never had any desire to. There's word of other weapons being made in the bigger cities, but the research is coming along slow, apparently. For now, magic or good old chunks of sharp steel never fail to work out. "Going to stop by Raphael's farm on the way?"

Investigating a secondhand bow with a frown on her face, Leonie glances back at him over her shoulder. "That's how it usually goes," she says. "But I've heard there's some good hunting to be had in other areas, and people always need mercenaries for things that churches or mayors overlook. I heard the north just finished up with some sort of religious holiday, right?"

She knows because he's told her before. Claude smiles, appreciating all the openness. "That's right. I've heard that, because of all the festivities, a few people have snuck up that way and made trouble for the local towns. If you're looking for work, I don't think you'll be lacking. And it's early enough in summer that you won't have to worry about that dreadful cold!"

"You know, for someone who loves seeing the world, you certainly do complain about the things that come with that sight," Leonie chuckles, putting the bow back. Her own no doubt is still doing as fine as ever. "Well, I'm glad for the recommendations. I always need more work."

He knows she does. With both of them done with their browsing, they head back to the local tavern. In a place like Aile, people are constantly coming and going. This particular part of the plains may not be the most exciting or profitable place, but it is the simplest and most straightforward path between the more populated towns. Simple, too, so long as one takes care to pack everything they might need for a long boring journey and makes sure not to run into bandits or other similar types.

Thus, while there are a couple of different towns that have scattered into existence, Aile is the one that is smack dab in the middle and has thus made itself quite a comfortable reputation as a traveler's middle ground.

Claude loves it. It's not the biggest city in the country, let alone the continent, but it gives him a taste of what he's always searching for. Well, a taste in a vague metaphorical sense.

It also helps give him a taste of things in a more physical sense as him and Leonie enter the bar, and he smells warm food already cooking. With the constant trade passing through here, the food is honestly not that bad... Certainly, it's better than some of the average food in the city. Yet even as he looks around to see what table or seat might be open, he pauses. "Well, that's interesting."

At his words, Leonie glances over too and makes a small hum of acknowledgment. "Oh, that group," she says, unsurprised about the small cluster of Voa sitting rather stiffly in a table near the back. No surprise - they're a bit too big for the seats that fit around here. The only one who seems most comfortable would be one with dark and ashen patterned fur, horns curving into a sharp hook back. Leonie's lack of interest tells Claude all before she continues with an explanation. "They've been here for around a week now, I think. They'll probably move on soon themselves."

"I wonder if they're heading to one of the bigger cities," Claude muses, following Leonie as she spots a couple of seats available up at the bar. "Although some Voa pop up a little more north..." Just not so far north that they'd be a regular sight to certain people Claude could name. Still, those types tend to be wandering traders and merchants as well. Maybe it's the same for the three he can see chatting. Whatever their conversation, it's too far away and low for Claude to hear.

Hopping up onto a bar stool, Leonie shrugs. "I haven't talked to most of the group too much... Just the one with the hook horns."

That's around the time that someone comes over to see what they'd want, and they quickly put down their order. In a place like this, there's not really too much variety... Just whatever the kitchen has a lot of, or whatever they need to get rid of in a hurry.

Today, that happens to be a nice filling stew, and Claude doesn't complain, just picks up his spoon. "That's still a pretty big deal with how Voa keep to themselves," he says with a smile, taking in a deep breath. Ah, yes. Food that knows how to use flavor. He really did miss it. "What have you two talked about?"

"Mostly he wanted to see how I hunted out in a wide open plain like this." Leonie begins to scoop up the biggest and meatiest parts of the stew first, the kind of woman who prefers to slurp the more liquid stuff down all at once. Claude can't blame her; he does the same when it gets cold up north or when he's camping on his own. "He's a little pretentious, like a lot of Voa I've run into, but he's really quick to get over himself. I was honestly pretty surprised."

What a compliment to be given. Claude glances back at them, and the variety of their furs. There's the one that Leonie clearly talked to, plus the tallest of the bunch with a really striking red hue to his fur. It's kind of adorable, honestly. It reminds Claude of alleycats he's seen in larger towns, or guarding the storehouses of various places, like the one he so regularly returns to himself. Of course, he knows better than to say that out loud. Exactly like it's an insult in Voali to be called toothless, it would be an insult to them to be compared to a simple tomcat prowling around streets.

Faintly, he thinks of Dimitri, and his own smooth fur. It's the kind of fur he and any other hunter watches out for when they're hunting in the mountains, fur that belongs to mountain lions as they too prowl the trees. It suits him, in some ways, like it suits the Voa whose fur has a similar shade of dirty blond.

Compared to the Voa gathered over there in a group... Dimitri really has grown different in comparison, hasn't he? From what he can see of them, the one with the vibrant fur is the tallest and most broad shouldered out of all of the lot. When he observes carefully (and subtly, as not to be a complete asshole), he can tell that Dimitri's base frame is probably similar.

And yet.... Even at a distance, he can tell that Dimitri is more broad shouldered than this guy, simply by virtue of being more muscular, of having more weight to him after a lifetime of having to fight for his own life. His body is more scarred up, bare to the elements and any eyes that might land upon him. And his eye...

The group of Voa over there don't know that kind of life. Their bodies haven't ever experienced even a fraction of it, Claude would bet. If Dimitri hadn't been kidnapped, if he'd been allowed to live a normal life still with people who cared about him... Then he'd look like them. He'd be ducking his head, exchanging words in Voali, and able to smile in a way that Claude hasn't seen... ever since they were little kids.

He returns to his stew instead of his memories, reminding himself that he's working so hard to see Dimitri live that kind of life again in the first place. For more than just Dimitri, even... Although he can't deny how much he would give away in order to get his old friend out of there, and smiling again. Stew now. Illegal prison breaks later. Well, not only stew, but...

"Hey, whenever you do go down to visit Raphael's place," he says to Leonie, "do you think you could see him about some metalwork? I have something I need to make an extra of, just in case it gets lost, or something. I want to see if he or some of his friends have the time to get that done."

Leonie smiles at him, reassuring in a quiet and subtle way. "Of course. Maybe if I take up some jobs in the north, we might even see each other. Here's to hoping, right?"

Raising up the cup of ale he was given along with his stew, Claude grins. "Here's to hoping."

And they toast to it.





There's an immediate flow of almost sour along his tongue, and Dimitri blinks in surprise at the cheese he has in his hands. "Ah, this.... It tastes, hm." He cocks his head to the side, curious at the latest foods that Claude has brought with him from his journeys. He was gone a good few days now... and it always seems as though he's gone longer, sometimes. The church must be putting him even harder to work... but that's completely out of Dimitri's control.

All he can do is survive when he's brought out, and that's it.

Well, that, and, in the current moment, eat whatever Claude has given him. That includes figuring out exactly how he wants to describe the cheese he's taken a bite of.

Claude merely chuckles, amused as always to see him working on it. "Need some help finding the right words?" he asks.

"I can figure it out in Voali," Dimitri says stubbornly. He can't rely on Claude all the time, even if it's only for a trivial matter such as this. Besides... He knows he knows the answer. It's just... a matter of knowing what he knows. Putting the cheese onto the parchment paper he knows Claude will steal away again when he leaves, Dimitri doesn't pick up any of the nuts that Claude brought. He just stares, doing his best to dig through his mind. "A part of me wants to describe it as sour, but that does not seem to be quite right."

As he's taken to doing whenever he visits, Claude murmurs a translation for him - what sour is in Fodlish. "Well, what part of it doesn't seem entirely right to you?" he continues, glancing down towards the other foods he'd brought: bread that's a little hard from travel but still soft on the inside, strips of dried meat with bits of spice stuck inside of them, and some long thin little vegetables that Claude had called 'beans'. They all taste good, because of course they all taste good. Everything Claude brings does. Sometimes it's just a mystery in the how.

Dimitri doesn't want to gobble up the cheese so soon, so he's loathe to take another bite simply to try and confirm what the taste was. If he makes an excuse for one bite, then he'll make excuses for all the others that follow, until he's eaten up the cheese completely. That means no pleasant dessert to tie up his meal. So, doing his best, he runs his tongue along his teeth, and gathers up the saliva in his mouth so that it lingers there.

Nothing can recreate how it felt to have the cheese freshly bitten and gushing in his mouth. Despite that, with these lukewarm imitations, he thinks he understands what the difference is. "Instead of merely being sour, there was a kind of sweetness to it. That shouldn't be unusual in food, but it seemed to make the cheese somehow different than merely sour." It makes sense, in his head. That can't be said for what it sounds like leaving his mouth, and Dimitri frowns with his ears flicking downwards.

But Claude never judges. That's... the nice thing about Claude, he's come to learn. Now that he's let himself learn, acknowledge, see, Claude simply listens to him and takes in what he says. "That sounds like you think it's tart, then. That's a word that's often used when something is sour, but in a kind of sweet way. Well, I say that because it's used with dessert-like things more than anything else." Another smile. "And in Fodlish, it would be..."

As always, a lesson. Dimitri listens, takes it in, wonders if he can practice stringing together proper sentences soon. Right now, a lot of what he knows are simple manners, and a lot of words that don't quite make sentences. Claude has done his best to impart some advice to him on the subject, on how sentences in Fodlish should sound... Still. It sounds strange when he has to string them together on his tongue.

Maybe that's simply the way of all languages, and Claude doesn't seem particularly surprised when he voices this idea. "Yeah, that's how it is for a lot of people," he agrees mildly, no apple to work on for those restless hands of his tonight. "Some languages are trickier than others. Some people adapt to a particular language quicker than expected. It's all a huge variable.... That is to say, there are a lot of different ways that it can go when someone learns a new language, depending on the language and person in question, who their teacher is, all sorts of things."

Variable. Dimitri tests it on his tongue, both in Voali and Fodlish, once Claude teaches him that. "I see..." Then, perhaps he's lucky that he learns from Claude, instead of the other humans of this place. He's listened, knows a couple of the words that they use regularly especially when it comes to executions... But Claude teaches him things beyond that. Things Dimitri knows he'll never see, living out the rest of his life in this miserable cage.

A part of him wants to be bitter... But, when he sees Claude sitting by him, still there, still patient, his hand in offering... Dimitri thinks perhaps he could be fine with this. That maybe... It's alright to enjoy the peak of a hill, where he can catch his breath.

It won't last. He knows that. But if Claude can still exist, can still be something good in the world to counter for the wretchedness of the church and Dimitri's own terrible existence.... Then he'll accept that. It's something he's decided on, in the months that Claude has continued to steadily visit him. At least one of them has a way to run from this wretched place in the cliffs.... right?

As he works through the food again, he rolls the taste of bread around in his mouth. "Where did you go this time?" he asks, tugging off another bit of bread to use alongside the jerky. Ever since he started making little sandwiches, Claude has made sure that he always has bread in his meal packets. It's... soft, to be cared for like this. The softest thing that Dimitri has access to in this bare cell, with hard ground beneath him and bars blocking him from the rest of the world.

"There's a small expanse of plains south of here," Claude explains, gesturing out with one hand to show the vastness of such a place, even if Dimitri can only imagine it. If he thinks of it like the ocean from his childhood, then maybe... "It's one of the places that kind of disconnects this northern area from the rest of the country, although it's honestly not that insurmountable. Just a bit bothersome. Still, it's vital to get across if you want to make it to a lot of the other towns and cities to trade with them. While it might not be insurmountable, a couple of towns have still sprung up throughout the stretch of it. It helps smooth out the journey, you know?"

Dimitri nods. He's never traveled, but he guesses it makes sense, if he thinks about it in theory. A person can only walk for so long before their body asks for sleep, or food, or other such things. Camping must be manageable for a while, but plains... There's nothing but long stretches of land, from what he understands of Claude's description. It must be difficult to manage on one's own. So, that is how towns are made.

"I didn't know they grew things like this in the plains," he says, holding up a certain green vegetable inbetween his fingers. It's a little interesting, popping the beans out from their natural casing to chew on. It makes the whole process of eating feel.... more involved. Dimitri didn't think that was something possible, or that it would matter to him this much. "What other things do they grow there...?"

"Things that would be harder to slide through the bars!" Claude laughs, eyes twinkling. "It's a really common farming technique out there to grow a series of plants in a very particular way: rows of corn followed by beans which grow up along their stalks, and then squash grows at the bottom to help protect against animals that would nibble at them or weeds that would infringe on the soil. Honestly, I find it pretty fascinating, even if not fascinating enough to become a farmer..."

Corn grows high, beans grow along the corn, and squash at the bottom. Dimitri turns the bean shell over inbetween his fingers again, trying to imagine that sight. "...I don't think... we ever grew corn on the islands." If they did, then he can't remember it. Although maybe that isn't saying a whole lot. "I don't even know what it looks like."

Promptly, Claude leans over with his finger in the dirt again. "I'm not surprised. The Devan-Voa are all islands for the most part, right? Corn wouldn't really grow there. I don't think it's really the climate for it. Besides, out in the plains, the fields of it can grow for acres... That might be a bit unmanageable on islands, although I'm not really sure of what the real answer is." Not yet, anyway. Dimitri suspects it's only a matter of time with Claude, like it always is when it comes to information he doesn't yet know. He's snapped out of his head when Claude taps the dirt. "It looks like this."

Dimitri leans as close he can. Corn: something with a long shape on an even longer stalk, with little circles that look like peas in Claude's drawing that cover up the the thing from top to bottom while protective leaves hang from it. It's a strange thing to eat, although maybe he only says that because he has nothing else but Claude's drawing to go off of. "What color is it?"

"It depends. I know that the church up here prefers a corn that's bright yellow above all else. Something, something, representative of the sun and the divine..." Claude waves his hand dismissively. "But down in the plains, there are entire families with farms that produce various colored corns, some focusing on one color in particular. There's a beautiful deep red corn, yellow corn with speckles in the different kernels - that's what you call the small bits of the vegetable that you eat - and then there's even a couple of families that produce a corn that practically glitters with different colors as though they were jewels. Some towns want different varieties depending on local beliefs, or certain holidays."

"For someone who claims he doesn't want to be a farmer... You seem to know a lot about corn."

That makes Claude laugh into his hand again, eyes shining. "What can I say? I visit that area a lot, and you just pick things up that way."

Well, with Claude, Dimitri supposes that simply makes sense. No doubt he keeps his ears open for all sorts of information. Anything said near him, he likely hears. Quietly, Dimitri finishes off a simple sandwich of bread and jerky. It's soft, and the juice which flows out of the chewed up meat is flavorful. Is it greedy of him to...?

Something about his expression, or the stillness of his tail, must grab Claude's attention. "Something on your mind?" he asks, head tilted to the side.

There are a lot of things on his mind. There always are. Dimitri doesn't speak of them, and instead looks up at the night sky. "It's starting to get around the time that you need to leave, isn't it?" he asks. "You said that there were tasks you had to do for the morning..."

Glancing down at the way shadows stretch across the courtyard, Claude nods after a moment. "I think you might be right, actually... Be sure to eat up your food quickly, alright?" He waits, just a moment, for Dimitri to gather his food up into his arms, and then takes the parchment paper they'd all been resting on. "I'll be back tomorrow, but I think they might send me running again, so take care, alright?" And there's that pause. That moment where Dimitri thinks Claude might reach out for him again.

But in the end, there's only a twitch of his hand, a smile, and then Claude vanishes into the shadows again. For a moment, Dimitri watches his back, and he toys with the question that had been on his mind. He tries to distract himself. He reaches down, swipes his palm across the drawing Claude had sketched out with his fingertips. Yet that question still lingers in the back of his head:

Would Claude have brought back corn if he'd asked him to?





Not a lot of people really have access to Dimitri's cell, even taking into account that not a lot of people would want to in the first place. The only time the fearsome Executioner is brought out is, well, executions... or to be disposed of when it's clear that the current executioner is outliving their purpose. No one is talking about disposing of Dimitri, fortunately, but, well... It's something Claude has read, when he's managed to slip into the library for information.

Whatever the people of the church may believe, whatever lies the higher priests may spill from their lips, all Voa - all "demons" - are mortal creatures in the end. Death comes to claim them eventually. In the forced role of an executioner... that end comes even sooner than it might otherwise.

So only a few select people possess the key to Dimitri's cell. The first would be the head of the Lore Keepers, who are somehow responsible for "finding" Executioners in the first place. The second would be one of the Cardinals, who keeps it more as a back up than anything else. And then, at last, those who handle the executioner directly when he has to be trotted out for the punishment of a criminal... Their handlers. The controllers.

One of the most known would be one Narcian Sampher. Unfortunately he's not the kind of guy who's known for good things. Even when Claude did his absolute best to not linger in the city for too long, it was a name he'd hear from listening in on other people while he waited to turn in his own catches or report on a task he'd completed. Now that he's been making an even bigger effort to stay in the city and make friends with people there, instead of only friendly faces, well. It's a name that's come up even more.

So of course, when he overheard a good ol' "friend" of his complain about having to travel alongside the man on a journey elsewhere, Claude had sincerely volunteered to take her place. You know, to help her out, since she'd been so stressed from recent events as it was.

Narcian looks down on him almost immediately, with an expression Claude is more than familiar with: the arrogant turn up of one's nose, that critical shine to his eye, the rigid steel of his spine. That's fine. With something so familiar, it's easy for Claude to let it roll off his back, and to put on an easy smile. "Hello, Controller Narcian. I've heard great things about you. I'm truly fortunate that I was able to convince those in charge that I would be helpful on this short journey."

And there it is: his shoulders ease up, appeasement radiating from that smug smirk, and he looks away. "Well, it's good that people understand what an honor it is to travel with a great man such as myself," he drawls, returning his attention back to the carts that will take them to a proper city. It's a journey that's going to take a while; Claude had made sure to tell Dimitri a lot of stories to remember in the time that he's away. "Mine is a presence that is second to none, save for the great voice of our church."

"Of course. Your presence is certainly one on everyone's lips even if you do nothing but show up to lunch." Narcian hums, satisfied and allowing Claude to work on readying everything in the carts. Claude lets him bask in his own self satisfaction. If the guy isn't clever enough to realize that a presence like that isn't necessarily always a good thing, well, better to live a life of ignorant bliss, right?

Relatively speaking, Narcian is an easy guy to handle. It's just that he's so insufferable a personality that most people are visibly on edge or walk on tip-toes. Give the guy someone relaxed, who responds favorably (if in short sentences sometimes - Claude can tell he hasn't noticed), and he's simple enough. In fact, he takes a liking to Claude fairly quickly, soon deferring minor things to him as they make a stop at a smaller church closer to the borders of this "land" of theirs.

"You should be quite pleased, you know," Narcian says one night, after prayers have been said which he clearly doesn't truly believe in. There are a lot of guys like that in the church: believers from habit, not sincerity. A lot of moral rules get skipped over that way. "You are the perfect example of how one need only follow the instructions of the church, and even one of savage blood can become a model of purity that knows their place in the world."

It's not the first time he's had his ancestry called into the light like this, as though it were something impure, sludge along the crystalline river that is his personality, said as though he should take it as a compliment. It's not the first time he's thought of the looks people have given him, people with similar dark hair and brown skin, when they see him wearing the church's white and red. After so many times of having experienced the same thing, he should be a natural at feeling nothing at all whenever the subject has come up.

Funny. Despite that fact, it never seems to get easier for the churn in his stomach or in his blood.

At least his acting has become all the more polished for it, and he pours out some tea for the two of them. Perhaps he should feel honored that he's been able to become one of the only people found tolerable enough to have tea with Narcian. Mostly he just feels pleased that he's managed to get this close, and he lets that be a balm for the heat in him. Hell, why not say that out loud? So he does, with a smile. "If there's anything I'm pleased about, it's that I can have tea with you, Controller Narcian. That's not something that can happen every day."

And it really is good he's gotten so close. He knows for a fact that he'll be able to get into Narcian's things, one way or another, and look for a certain key he always keeps on his person. For something like that... The safest place for such important items, in the eyes of these types, is near their immediate person instead of a safe or hidden place.

Fortunately, humans are not complete creatures of clockwork. Narcian might often have the key on himself, but "often" isn't "always and forever"...

They stay in the city for a short while. Narcian looks over things related to the relations between both churchs, updates to holidays or recruitment or promotions - things that are generally supposed to be over Claude's head. He keeps an eye on it all regardless.

In that time, it hardly takes any effort at all for Claude to find the perfect time for his little bit of theft. He breaks into the room Narcian is staying in, one night when the man is having some rather impressive bathing facilities shown off to him in a more private suite than his own. It's not very hard to find the key he knows is used for Dimitri's cell; it's not particularly hidden. Who would want that sort of thing anyway, could recognize it? He tucks it away, and then goes out for a night with the others that came with Narcian.

Leonie doesn't even look at any of them when they all stride into the tavern. His companions are already rowdy, and it seems like pure chance when their group gets drawn in for a round of cards at a table she happens to be at. It's a good time. Lots of alcohol gets passed around that he doesn't drink and, by the end of the night, everyone else is red-faced and singing obnoxious drinking songs.

No one pays any mind to him when he laughs and clasps hands with the redhead who managed to rob the rest nearly blind. It's all just fun and games, a little bit of respect passed along, right? Absolutely no one realizes that he's slid her a key, and one she'll surely return to him soon.

Predictably, the loss isn't realized until they've all returned to the city once again, almost the second the carts are pulled back to the stables. It's quite the explosion, honestly, and it's impressive to see the way Narcian turns on his otherwise loyal and hardworking subordinates. In no time at all, he finds a suitable lacky to blame for losing it in the transfer from city to city.

What can Claude do? In the end, just watch as the monk is dragged away for a long punishment involving penance before statues of the saint and long hours cleaning disgusting places no one else even wants to look in the direction of. Narcian gives a dramatic sigh, as though he regrets a single thing. Claude knows he doesn't. People who throw others under the cart wheels rarely do. "What worthless help there is these days... I suppose I should be glad that the Saint blessed us with the forethought to have multiple keys of that wretched thing's cage. How else would the execution have gone on without me here?"

Claude feels his heart turn to ice.





After every execution, it's always the same: Bound. Water. Pull.

Dimitri doesn't know how he forgot any of it. It's kind of a ridiculous thing to forget, because it's his entire reason for living.

Yet still. Yet still.

There's the burn of magic around his throat, his wrists, inbetween his teeth so that he cannot tear out the throats of anyone he is not meant to tear into. It is like that from the start, when they first drag him out of his cell. It is like that to the end, when they're pulling him away from the mutilated and bloody thing laying in the midst of the killing floor.

He's much bigger than any of these humans, and yet that never seems to stop them from grabbing at his hair, kicking at his legs. Dimitri used to notice it, when he was younger. He'd cry out, fur still stained with tears, and clumsily use what Fodlish he knew in a desperate attempt to communicate. To ask what was going on, to ask for help, to ask for any kindness. They never gave him any. If anything, they were worse when he spoke their tongue. He learned to fall silent soon enough.

He learned to stop caring at all about it, soon enough.

Everything is a blur. The only true sensation is the copper taste vivid on his tongue, and he's tugged into his cage before he knows it. There's so much in the world, so much bearing down on him, and yet there's just that taste in his mouth. That taste, and the figures filling up his cage. Crowding him, but never quite touching.

It's been a while. How long has it been? One of the figures is taller than him. His cage isn't that tall, is it? There's blood still in his mouth. They never wash the blood out there. Only his fur, his hair, his claws. Not a single figure touches him, and yet he can't breathe, can't move, can't do anything. Nothing is here. He's nothing.

Why had he forgotten all of this? Stupid of him. Stupid. Foolish. He ends up on the ground, and can't remember the journey downwards. They're still as big as ever.

"Dimitri!"

His entire body jolts, and Dimitri breathes in deep - sharp - burning. He breathes, and the shock of knowing he's breathing makes him jolt again. Everything still seems so dark, so crowded, but there are no figures, he realizes. Just the darkness of his cage, the same as it's ever been, looming over him. Everything is still too tight, too much, and he digs his claws into his arms.

The voice again. His voice. "Dimitri." Closer now. "Can you hear me? Are you alright, Dimitri?" Dimitri looks up, and... Claude is there. And yet it seems as though he's not, as though he's somewhere completely different, somewhere Dimitri can never reach.

Deep inside of his chest, his lungs strain for air, and his fingers strain for - something. What is it? What is he supposed to reach out and grab? All he can do is reach for the nearest thing, and-

"Hey." He's against the bars, suddenly. When did he get so close to the bars? When did his claws tangle into Claude's shirt? Dimitri blinks, and realizes his breathing has sped up, become more shallow. Claude is still staring at him, the same way he did the night they first met when Dimitri could so easily press his claws into his throat - calm and quiet and so piercing. Dimitri gulps a breath, frantically looks around. Everything still feels too tight... Claude speaks up again. Claude, there in his grip, looking up at him. "Dimitri. Can you hear me?"

He can hear. In the frantic buzz of his mind, he can still hear. Dimitri swallows, harsh, hard, tries to find his voice. Tries to remember what his voice is like. "...Again." Is that him? It has to be him. Dimitri struggles, pulls his body together, tries to do what he just did. He can speak. He remembers how to speak, even if it doesn't feel like him at all. "You're here again." Is that what he meant to say? It's what comes out, regardless.

Claude nods. "I'm here," he says, still as quiet and calm as ever. How close are Dimitri's claws to his heart? It feels near. "Dimitri... I'm sorry I wasn't here for you. I had no idea that an execution was supposed to be scheduled yesterday... Not until I arrived here tonight."

...Yesterday?

Realizing what he's doing, where his hands are, what's happening to him, Dimitri lets go and stumbles back. It doesn't escape him that, as he does so, Claude drops slightly - had he been holding him up? What else has he been doing?

Dimitri doesn't feel like himself at all. It's as though he's besides himself, watching himself, a spectator to his own movements as he stumbles back and curls up in the center of his cage. "You're real," he gasps, and it doesn't sound like him saying it. Is this what he always sounds like? Too guttural, too hoarse?

"I'm real," Claude says, quiet as always, gentle. Slowly, he draws himself into a crouch on the other side of the bars. It really is the first night all over again, even the buzzing and noise in his own ears. Is it real? Dimitri doesn't think so, but, times like this, he's never sure of what's real or not.

Besides Claude. Claude was real. Claude's shirt in his fingers, his claws resting against the skin over his heart. All of that. Real.

Real enough to end up like the pile of blood and flesh and bone in the killing circle floor.

"You should go," he rasps, bristling, "I'm - you'll get hurt. I can hurt you."

Claude doesn't go. Claude goes, and also never goes. All he does right now is crouch where he is, right against the bars of his cage. "Anyone in this world can hurt me, Dimitri," he says. "But I don't think you will. I won't ask if you're okay... but are you injured?"

Every person who steps into the killing floor is marked, and every mark has its types in it. They'd all wore the same brand, pitch black against their skin, and they'd been so thin...

"They tried to run," he murmurs. "They didn't know how to wield the swords they'd been given. They..."

A hand. Inbetween the bars, Claude holds out his hand to Dimitri once again, and those eyes of his are a steadfast green. Green like he can remember trees turning in the welcome spring and summer of home. "It must have been a lot," he says quietly, hand still outstretched. "But I'm here now, Dimitri. Whatever that might mean. And I know you won't hurt me."

How can he know? How can he exist in his own body, in a world that does not bear down on him with shadows and noise and tension? Dimitri feels his heart clench, longing and jealous and scared all together. He shouldn't take Claude's hand. He's a monster, and it was wrong of him to forget his place. He's a monster, and all he can do to other people is hurt them.

But he takes Claude's hand.

Shaking, trembling, watching for the second his claws dig in, he reaches out and takes Claude's hand. He doesn't know how long he holds it, stares down at it. How can he know anything? He had thought he had just emerged from the execution, and yet.... It's hard to keep track of his own thoughts, constantly circling and twisting and repeating. When he becomes a little more aware, he's begun to lean against the cage bars. The world seems a little more clear. Claude... is still there.

"I could hurt you," he says quietly.

"You won't."

"How do you know?"

And Claude looks him in the eye, steady as always, and tells him, "Because you don't want to hurt me."

Things cannot be that simple. Dimitri feels positive that they cannot be that simple. Yet Claude can say it so easily, as though it's an obvious fact. There are stars in the sky. His hand is warm in his. Dimitri will not hurt him.

If only he could possess such calm confidence... Dimitri closes his eye, and is finally aware of his own body again. "...I'm tired," he tells Claude, not removing himself from the bars, or letting go of the fragile hand he holds in both of his.

"Do you want me to go?"

"No." Yet even as he says it, his stomach suddenly rumbles, and the weakness in his body finally begins to penetrate into his mind. Dimitri forgot they do this sometimes - that his captors don't seem to mind if he doesn't eat in the days immediately following a murder. He knows why. If he's not a person, not a living thing, then he can't possibly feel things like hunger, or thirst. They look at him as though he survives through the death he causes.

Claude rubs his thumb along one of Dimitri's hands. "Dimitri... I should have thought to bring you food. Listen, I'll grab you some bread and stuff, alright?" He doesn't even finish his sentence before Dimitri tightens his hands on his, and Claude reaches through with his other hand to grip Dimitri's wrist. There's no intent to pull, or harm... just a light pressure. "I know. It's okay." Does he know? Is it okay? Dimitri has no idea, and can only listen as Claude continues. "I'll leave my belt with you, alright? I'll come back for it. That way you know for sure."

Claude's belt isn't anything like his hand. It's too slippery compared to the sturdiness of flesh, and the texture is all wrong. Yet it's still something that belongs to Claude, a bright red that burns brightly in Dimitri's own hands. If he moves it carelessly....

Dimitri's own pants, brown and gray from years of living this life, are testament to how clumsy and careless he can be. They're riddling with small pinpricks and holes that have grown from those pinpricks, and tears when he wasn't able to properly pull them on right. If he's careless here... Will someone realize what Claude has been doing?

So lost in his own thoughts of disaster, he almost doesn't realize Claude's absence until there's the returning sound of his shoes in the dirt, and Dimitri jerks his head up. Claude so rarely makes a sound, sometimes. He's a hunter who's mastered what that means in every way. Dimitri doesn't need to see him hunt to know it for a fact, simply with how Claude can slip through shadows and move without a sound. So for him to make noise...

"Here." He presses a loaf of bread - the kind that Dimitri has learned is from the church, the mostly good kind that's better than the stale stuff they feed him. Not fresh, not hot, but more than good enough to eat. Dimitri takes it without hesitation, takes it automatically, and allows Claude, in turn, to take back his belt that burns so bright red in the dark of night.

It's one thing for Dimitri to know he's hungry, because his stomach tells him that he is. It's another thing to truly feel hunger, overwhelming and seizing control of him at just one bite of bread. At the first taste of it in his mouth, something that manages to soak away some of the blood he swears he can still taste, Dimitri shoves it in without a second thought. He ceases to think at all. Before he knows it, there's only crumbs left in his hands, and a thick swallow that leaves a weight in the pit of his stomach.

On a normal night, Claude would no doubt make a comment about something like that... That's not the case for tonight. Instead, he holds out something else - a fruit of some kind, one that he never learned the name of back home. A pear. Now that Dimitri has realized his own hunger, he grabs for that eagerly as well, and doesn't care how much the juice splurts out from his mouth and leaks all over his palms.

"I should have brought more meat from the supplies cart," Claude reflects, not caring at all how messy Dimitri acts. "Hindsight and all that... I'll be sure to bring you more food tomorrow night as well, alright? There's no telling what these guys will do, while you're still recovering..." He lets out a breath, his own forehead coming forward to lean against the bars. "...I know there's not much I could have done on my own. Not in this kind of situation."

With the fur along the lower half of his face now sopping wet with pear juice, Dimitri pauses and stares down at the fruit in his hand. No.... There's nothing Claude could have done at all, even if he had been in the city from the start. This is what Dimitri is meant for, in the end, and there is no one way a single human can stand up against all of this church, with its many corrupt devotees, and come away victorious.

He tilts his hand, ever so slightly. There's not much light tonight, with the moon shifting away into its darker phases, but he manages to catch the light just enough for the juice to shine against the pear's flesh, against his own fur where it will no doubt dry sticky. "....I am glad you are here," he says quietly. "Even if I am scared. I think that makes me selfish."

Between the bars, Claude reaches out again, and his hand lays gently against the wet fur still clinging to Dimitri's skin. It'll make him sticky, too. Dirty and filthy and uncomfortable. Claude doesn't seem to care. All he does is hold his hand in place.

"If there's anyone who deserves to be selfish... It's you, Dimitri."





His plans have to be pushed forward. They have to be. Claude doesn't feel like he can get a moments rest doing anything besides working as hard as he can. He has to force his nose to the grind stone. He has to keep working. He can't do anything else when he can still remember Dimitri's state so clearly, so sharply.

Of course he's always wanted to get Dimitri out quickly. There was never any doubt, ever since he first saw him down in the execution ring with that haggard and angry look in those one blue eye.

But it burns at him, the image he'd seen when he'd come back from that trip alongside Narcian. The way Dimitri had been so tense and still inside of his cell. How he'd snapped his head and looked at the slightest sound without any recognition. The sway his body when he'd approached Claude. His despair, his terror, his pain - all when he'd finally snapped out of his panicked fugue state and taken in his situation.

In the nights that have followed, when Claude has met up with him again, Dimitri appears to have recovered from that first and dreadful night. Or.... Claude almost isn't even sure if he can truly call it a recovery. Dimitri has simply gone back to his usual moods, and brushed off all attempts at concern. In his view, there's no reason for any particular worry to be had over him, and the most recent execution. He'd told Claude as such.

"It's been some time," he'd mused, when Claude had tried to breach the subject. "How my days usually go has now changed. I suppose.... I had simply forgotten how it had felt for a brief moment. Or something like that. I will adjust as the killings continue." And he had curled up, and not spoke of it anymore.

No doubt some of that is true, in some way. Before they reunited, Claude understands that Dimitri's life had been a simple one with little else to it. When he was not being trotted out as an Executioner, then he was wasting his time away doing... pretty much nothing, as far as Claude knows. Sleep. Eat. Maybe cause the occasional spurt of trouble to those who worked in the church. What else could he do, locked in a barren cell in the midst of a place that doesn't even see him as a person?

In a time like this... It's impossible for Claude to not think what Dimitri and him had talked about only a month or two beforehand. How Claude would go, if Dimitri truly thought that his presence, his activities with him, were harming more than helping. It's something that's been weighing in the back of Claude's head every time he's visited Dimitri. Only recently has it started to ease up with Dimitri's growing interest in learning Fodlish. Yet, with something like this...

Dimitri doesn't tell him to go. He falls silent, for a couple of nights, doesn't participate in the Fodlish lessons like he did before Claude left. Then he pulls himself back up onto his feet, with no real alternative available to him. He listens to Claude. Starts to talk again. Asks where Cladue went, if he did any hunting. Little bits and pieces, all pulled back together again, and soon he's back to how he was before.

It's... good. Claude reminds himself that it's good. Dimitri can still pull himself together, no matter how many times he keeps being shoved through that same terrible experience over and over again. That means there's still hope that, when he finally manages to get Dimitri out of this situation, his friend will be able to truly recover. In a place far away from the church, no longer being forced to kill innocent people, Dimitri will be able to recover from the multitude of scars that he's been left with.

Yet it still makes him sick that those very same scars keep being torn open again and again and again. For a while, he goes out on smaller hunting jobs. Nothing fancy, just stocking the larders and pantries of the church.

That way, their gluttonous and greedy priests can live comfortably. That way, those lower on the ladder (himself included, Dimitri included) have enough food that isn't stolen from under their noses. It makes him feel better, to be out on his horse and with a bow in hand. If he wants to succeed in all of this... Claude can't allow himself to lose his temper.

All he needs is a couple days worth of this. Of getting out some of his frustration - some of it directed at the church, but a lot more directed at his own helplessness. Yet if he wants to do a good job, wants to do a job that won't get him and Dimitri caught... Then he has to go slow.

Because everything can turn out okay, can turn out for the better, so long as him and Dimitri are still alive. That's the important thing. Everything else, whether the good like a taste of nice food or the bad like these executions, is just a side diversion.

Claude tells himself that. He tells himself that over and over. He tells himself that as often as he needs to hear it. Some nights, when he steps into the courtyard, and Dimitri looks particularly striking with his gold fur encased in ugly iron bars, Claude has to tell himself that a lot.

But it's not the first time he's had to tell himself something until the words almost stop looking like words.

"You are tired," Dimitri says one night, clumsy in the Fodlish that leaves his tongue. This is where they've managed to get, with the lessons that Claude has been able to impart upon him. Dimitri knows a lot of individual words, now, from the names of stars to the kinds of food that Claude has smuggled him. Now it's simply a matter of getting him to pull them together in sentences, and listen when they're spoken to him in turn.

For the time being, he only knows very simple sentences, and this is an example of one of them. Things like I am. You are. I am yellow. You are Claude. You are quiet.

You are tired.

Claude smiles a little bit, wry and amused in equal measure. With how much he's been sticking around the city these days, he's not been able to get the really nice foods that he likes to pamper Dimitri with.

Tonight, it's simply some good old fashioned jerky that the hunters take with them on their trips, bread baked that morning, and a simple chunk of cheese that. As usual, Dimitri takes small nibbles of the last one before placing carefully to the side. And yet, even absorbed in all of this as he is, Dimitri still has the time to look at him and take in his condition.

"You know, I wasn't expecting that to be one of the first sentences you'd start using," he tells his friend, watching as Dimitri makes his way through the bread. It's a good food for him, Claude reflects. It'll help fill him up, get more flesh on his bones. Dimitri isn't skinny by any means, but Claude would rather he have a bit more fat than muscle. Who knows how things will turn out when they make a break for it. "What makes you think I'm tired?"

"It hasn't been hard to miss," Dimitri starts, before he pauses at Claude's head shake and his ears flick back in annoyance. Still, he understands what's being asked of him. Dimitri tries again, forcing Fodlish to work with him. It can be tricky; there are sounds in Fodlish that aren't natural to Voali. "You are... low. You are... not fast."

Maybe those aren't the most accurate words, or said as eloquently as they could be... but Claude understands what he means regardless. He hums, tapping his fingers against the dirt.

"There's just a lot to do," he says, not admitting to Dimitri even now that it's all for his sake. That it's all to break him free of this miserable cell, and these walls that are too high and suffocating. "In a couple of days, I'm actually going to have to leave for the first time in a bit. There's some minor trading and errands I have to do in a couple of towns in the territory, and things like that."

Leonie is ready with the key he had her make a copy of. Claude already knows how he'll let the original one be found, and he's not particularly concerned if Narcian will tattle. For a person with pride like that... Failure or mistakes never reach open air of their own volition. All he has to do is make his way to the next town, fulfill what he needs to do, and....

Smiling, Claude slips his hand through the bars of the cell and lets it rest there, palm up, as a simple offering. Sometimes Dimitri touches it. Sometimes not. "But it'll only take a short while. And when I come back... I'll have better food for you."

And one more vital step in hand for freeing Dimitri.