Church Ch 9 (up off the ground)

[warmskies]

Dimitri waits patiently for the monastery to fall silent - no chatter echoing down the halls, no distant sounds of horses calling, no clatter of objects being moved around. It takes a while, after he wakes up and finishes the meal Dorothy brings him, but that's fine. It's not as though he has anywhere else to be. Only when the monastery falls silent, with even the footsteps of the patrol a distant memory, does he push himself up to his feet.

He thinks better when he's moving, Dimitri has found. It's something he'd never really thought about before. Back then, all he had to do was wait to kill or be killed in this rotting cage of his, but it's something that's actually true. This applies, obviously, to when he's with Claude, his hands moving about as he tries to mimic or echo back Fodlish words to his dear friend. However, he's honestly been surprised to find that this counts for all sorts of other things as well.

Most surprising is the realization is that he does this when he's fighting in the ring as well. He's only realized it in hindsight, how he paced constantly to get an eye on the area around him, on the person he was supposed to kill, on the guards that would surely get too involved if he dallied for too long instead of even the pretense of an attack. It's as though he himself is a changed creature, extending back even into his memories.

For the most part, however, he moves about when he is practicing the words he's learned properly from Claude, or that he's overheard from various members of the church, including Dorothy. Some things that are said in Fodlish don't seem to match as well with Voali... so it's all the more reason for him to practic.

There really isn't any point for him to learn this language, and there never has been, he knows that. There's no reason for him to work so hard to overcome the syllables which are so awkward in his mouth.

Still... It's something to do. Something to work towards, instead of forcing himself to be patient as he struggles to live like he is while waiting for the perfect opportunity.

Dimitri runs his tongue over teeth, as though he can physically roll the words about in his mouth before he speaks them. He knows that's not how it works, but it makes him feel better.

"Farm," he mutters to himself, practicing one of the first words he learned early on from listening to Dorothy, and that Claude thus taught him in turn. "She is from a farm. There are sheep on a farm." Simple sentences. Nothing fancy, or special, but he feels pleased that he can say them at all after Claude has spent so much time on them. He's still not entirely sure if he can come up with his own sentences, especially in a way to make them feel natural... but he's more than happy to simply mimic words as they're spoken to him.

All he has to do is make sure that he picks up on when someone is coming down the hallway. That's easy to do, even with the aural obstruction that is his own voice, and the sound of his feet as he moves from one end of his cage to the other.

Not that Dimitri really thinks that anyone will come near his cage too much... He knows what those humans are like. Some seem to be particularly lazy, slow, or simply outright scared of him. Even those who try to do their job responsibly only stride right past him, with only the faintest of glances.

Dimitri supposes he can understand that. There's not much that would change his situation anyway... No reason to really do more than look, and at a distance. He lets out a breath, and gives a small hop, a skip, get the blood flowing throughout his body a little better.

Alright. So he's talked about farms, and sheep.... Maybe he should practice his manners better? They're the things he remembered best from his childhood, when Claude was teaching him, and he wants to be good at them... It feels important, somehow-

There's the faintest of footsteps, leather against dirt, and Dimitri jerks about even before his ear has finished swiveling towards the sound. The courtyard is pitch black.... there's no moon tonight, shapes difficult to make out, even for him. His tail snaps through the air, anxious, a warning, and he flexes his claws down at his sides. It's an almost formless shape, nothing like the monks in the monastery-

"Dimitri," the figure hisses once they're - he's close enough to the bars. Dimitri loses every single bit of tension in him immediately. That voice, he knows who it is... and now that he's close enough, he can recognize the features hidden in his hood as well. He can see those brilliant green eyes, bright even in shadow, and the odd smile on his lips. There's something tense about it... "It's me."

It's Claude.

Faint confusion and surprise settle over Dimitri as he stares at his old friend. He can remember what Claude told him the last time that he dropped by - that he would be gone for quite a bit of time, and the soonest he would be able to see Dimitri again would be... maybe a month, at least. As Dimitri stares at him, absolutely boggled, Claude continues to speak.

"I brought your gift a little early." He's still smiling in that strange tense way, and... his words are quicker than usual. They're a speed Dimitri knows he'd be lost at, if Claude weren't speaking in Voali.

Everything seems off, and Dimitri's ears flick back. "Claude...?" he murmurs, as though he still can't believe it. "You were not to return tonight, I thought..." He wouldn't complain about it before, if Claude arrived back in the city, in the monastery, a day or two early...

Yet not only is this far earlier than anything else, but Claude's behavior is making him wary. Now that he's gotten over the shock of Claude's presence, he's picking up on how on edge his friend is, from head to toe: the tension in his shoulders, the way he glances constantly to the side, the strain of his smile.

Dimitri has seen signs like this before, down in the execution ring.

"As far as the church is concerned, I haven't," Claude tells him, grinning - a flash of white in the darkness, visible against dark skin in darker conditions. "I didn't want people to think I was going to return tonight." He steps closer to the bars, to Dimitri. Somehow, the tension is starting to sink into Dimitri as well, making him feel as though he needs to hold his breath. "You haven't asked me what your gift is."

This feels as though it is some sort of trap, one of those trick questions that Claude occasionally teases him with. Dimitri glances around the courtyard slowly, trying to see if he can spot anything else out of the ordinary. Anything besides Claude, at least.

Yet there is nothing there, nothing that would explain why Claude is acting this way. Still so slowly, his gaze returns to Claude, and he wonders again if this is some sort of... trick on his person. "What?" he finally asks, not sure if he wants to know the answer.

Claude raises one hand, right against the lock on his cage's door. There's something in his hand, Dimitri thinks, but he can't quite make out what it is. What he can make out is the very quiet and very slow sound of something clicking inside of the lock. He doesn't understand what's happened, not at first, because Claude reaches into his cloak and pulls out two things. One is a rag. The other is a bottle, filled with a liquid that makes him wrinkle his nose in absolute distaste. It's too sharp, too pungent. He hates it.

Even Claude seems to wrinkle his nose a little bit, although he doesn't have as strong a reaction as Dimitri. He just gets to work, moving to the opposite side of the door so that he can rub down the hinges, and quickly, too. Dimitri doesn't understand the point...

Not until Claude puts the rag away and, with hardly a whisper of noise, opens the door.

He smiles again, a little more confidently, even as Dimitri feels his entire body freeze up. "I know you don't bother with dreams anymore, so I thought I'd bring you something real."

And he just stands there, hand resting against a door he has dreamed and imagined wide open so many times before. At some point over the years, Dimitri thought he had stopped imagining it period, honestly. He'd thought that, just like he had thought he'd gotten over the hallucinations of people he missed, old friends he hadn't seen in years and family that were since long dead.

Dimitri really thought he had moved past all of that.

Wracked with - far too many emotions for him to separate, to discern, Dimitri squeezes his eye shut. The rest of his expression crumples in on itself. "Of course it would be you too," he hisses, fists trembling at his sides. He's not even speaking to anyone in particular, save for perhaps himself and himself alone. His shoulders hunch up, and once again his claws grasp for - something. Dimitri isn't entirely sure what, and if anything would help at all. 

Certainly it can't be Claude, or the trick his mind his playing on him that merely looks like Claude, and Dimitri whirls away from the apparition with a slice of his tail through the night air. Frantically, he begins to pace in short and frustrated circles.

"I want one thing," he continues to himself, claws scraping helplessly in the air, "I have nothing else, I am going to die in that ring, and yet, once again, you are gone, and, and..." A low snarl erupts from him, in lieu of any words that could possibly describe his anguish, his frustration.

It's... infuriating, that, after all this time, as he thought that the hallucinations might be getting better, they've returned again... and in such a vicious way, a way that strikes deeper than they have in a very long while. One of his hands jerks upwards, almost going up to his chest, where he wants to dig his claws in until he bleeds, until he snaps out of this fake reality that he's stumbled into.

It's not fair. It's not fair. He wanted to see Claude so badly, see him again so that he could have that brief moment of light in his otherwise miserable life, he'd long ago accepted his misery, and yet-

A touch. It's soft, but firm, and sudden above all else, coming to a rest on his shoulders. Dimitri jolts, eye going wide, and the rest of the world snaps back into focus. As it does so, he's helpless to his own body as it's moved around, and he's...

He's looking straight at Claude again.

Suddenly... He feels as though he's that young fool from a few months ago, where he'd cradled a hand so much smaller than his inbetween his two palms. The realization that, for once, he's not just deluding himself.... It stuns him, long enough for Claude to meet his gaze with the firmness of all reality behind him. Despite that, his voice is gentle as he says, "It's real, Dimitri. I'm real. We're getting out of here."

"Claude..." Saying his name still doesn't make it feel real. All this time... All this time, he's dreamed and hallucinated the possibility of getting out of this wretched place, but for it to actually happen... For Claude to actually make it all a reality...

Carefully, trembling, he reaches up to lightly rests his fingers upon one of the hands at his shoulder. And yet... He's still there. It truly is his hand, there upon his shoulder. Dimitri's touch becomes firmer, becomes a grip, and then he can't let go. A ragged breath shakes throughout his throat, his lungs, and he looks at the open cage door that lies before him-

The wave of emotions that crashes over him is too heavy, too much, for Dimitri to consider. All he can hear is the frantic pounding of his heart. After all this time... So much time, and suffering, and having given up so long ago...

He has no idea how much time passes as he stares, although it can't be very much at all. All he knows is that time starts up again when Claude slips one hand out from beneath his own, and cups his face... before pulling him down into a kiss. A proper one, nothing at all like the ones that they've had through the bars.

A snarl, a gasp - some sort of mixture of the two leaves his lips even as they meet Claude's, and everything finally settles into place properly again. The world exists; he exists.

And so does Claude, standing here in front of him, holding onto his face. That is enough to spur Dimitri into movement, into action. He grabs at his friend's sides, as though he'll vanish into thin air if he lets this chance slips him by, and he kisses him back. Claude has always been warm, even if not quite as hot as Dimitri. But, before... He's never felt this warm in the night air, in Dimitri's arms, and their breaths are ragged when they finally pull apart - or, rather, when Claude pulls them apart, lightly tugging him towards the open door.

This is not the first time he's been guided out the doors of his cage. Every few months, he is forced out with burningly bright whips of magic around his throat, his wrists, his mouth, anything meant to keep him immobilized and "docile". His captors prod him out this way, jab their staves into his spine to force him forward. Yet there's no pain here - no choking along his throat, or impact against his back.

There is only Claude's gentle touch, there at his shoulders, encouraging his first steps out of his cage of his own free will.

Air leaves his lungs as Dimitri looks up towards the sky in what feels like the first time in forever. He's always... only had a partial view of it, from within his cage. When Claude and him talked about the constellations, he had to strain in hopes that he could see what his friend was pointing out. But now... in a perfect rectangle, it's right there above him: inky blues, brilliant white, deep purples offset by soft pinks, and hundreds, thousands, of welcoming stars that glitter more brightly than any magic he's ever seen...

He feels dizzy. The weight of his freedom is starting to press down against him, and he feels as though his legs might give out from underneath him. If not for Claude besides him, would he still be on his feet, right now? Slowly, Dimitri drags his gaze from the sight above his own head, and looks towards the darkness of the hallway that he's seen a million times before. Despite being so close, despite the fact that he's been made to walk into its depths so many times before... It's always seemed so far away and unattainable on the other side of his bars.

It's not so far away now. In fact, it's closer than ever before. Inside of Dimitri's chest, his heart pumps faster, and he can feel his shock ebb away. In its place... Adrenaline starts to rush.

"Finally," he murmurs, feeling almost in a daze from the excitement that's sending his entire body into a contained frenzy, held back only by his momentary inaction. "They can finally all die, like they were all meant to." The people he's been waiting for a chance to kill, for all these years - truly fulfilling the duty they themselves had bestowed upon him as a killer of criminals, of sinners.

Yet before he can even do so much as take a step forward to the open hallway, the grip at his shoulders shifts down to his upper arms and squeezes. Dimitri could shrug out of it in a heartbeat, but he doesn't. All he does is snarl down at Claude, who meets it head on.

"Dimitri, no," Claude whispers, doing his best to keep him in place. "I've got us a chance to get out of here, for you to never have to be in a cage again, for you to have an actual life. But the window of time we have to get out of here isn't that big. And if you go on a rampage here... If you slaughter people in their beds here..."

Claude takes a breath. "You'll be a criminal. You'll be a public danger. They'll be able to spin your aggression, the deaths you cause, to make you a monster and the dead into martyrs, victims. The church is bigger than just this one monastery, this one city. They'll send people after us. It'll only be a short-lived victory that will end with the church wiping you out."

He won't let that happen - Dimitri refuses to let that happen, and he bares his fangs, ready to argue, to tug his way out of Claude's grip - but then Claude looks at him. He stares up at him with so much sincere pleading in his eyes, shining with emotion, and Dimitri hesitates. For this man, who's given him so much, who's given him a reason to hope...

True to form, Claude doesn't let his moment of indecision and hesitation go to waste. He keeps talking, fingers still holding onto him so tightly. "And it's not just you that they would take out. They would take out me as well, since I would be right there with you. Please, Dimitri. I didn't free you just so that the church could end up killing you anyway. There are other ways to punish them than just tearing through them tonight. Better ways. Don't throw away this chance we've got. You can finally have a future - one you've chosen for yourself. You don't have to be a killer anymore. So please, for that, and for not getting the entire church down on your head-"

"Then I will simply get rid of anyone who chases after us!" Dimitri snarls, lips peeled back over his fangs as he bristles in Claude's grip. "To them, I am nothing more than a monster already! To be a criminal would be to acknowledge I exist, as a person, as someone who commits sin!" The corners of his mouth jerk up, a frenzied desperate grin. Brief. "Almost a victory of its own. But for them to get away with what they've done, to continue to act as though they are free of murder merely because they forced another, tortured someone and refused to acknowledge their personhood-" A low growl begins to pick up in his voice, the current of his words. "This is what they deserve! If they want an executioner, something that can judge sin and punish it with death, then they'll get that! They'll be the ones in the ring as they should have been all along! I'll show them that!"

And he wants to do that. He wants it so badly, so much so that he can almost taste their blood in his mouth, feel it sink into the fur on his hands. But despite all of that, Dimitri doesn't tear away from Claude.

Now that he has the freedom to do anything he wants... Almost as much as he wants to tear apart those who have made him suffer, who have made countless others suffer, he wants just as much to use this newfound freedom to actually reach out and keep something for himself. He wants to hold Claude in his hands and never let him go. All this time, he thought he'd never be able to hold onto him, had ached and hurt at this knowledge, but now, now....

The one good thing in his life, the one good person, is the one that reaches out first. Claude cups Dimitri's face in his hands, and doesn't shy away from the anger raging on his face. "Dimitri, believe me... I agree with you that they need to pay for what they've done. And I promise they will. But what I'm telling you is that just killing them isn't the best way to do this."

He and Claude... have spoken with one another dozens and dozens of times before tonight. Dimitri can remember the bright cheerfulness of him as a child, and the deep darkness he's seen hints of only occasionally. But this... for the first time ever, Dimitri thinks he has seen the most of Claude he ever has, as those brilliant green eyes burn. There's an intensity that Dimitri wonders if even he could match, and his voice...

"Killing them is too good for them."

Hatred. Not passionate, brilliant, fiery. No, this is a hatred that is more cold than anything... Cold like ice, formed into perfect points from the edge of his cage, ice that could fall and pierce through a person's heart.

"We can do better than that. I can do better than that. I can turn the whole world against them. I can get them excommunicated and executed by their own church, let them die knowing the world considers them godless fanatics, have them denied heaven by their own faith. That's what I've been working towards for years."

He inhales deep, takes in everything he's used up on his words, on his anger and hatred and pain, and Dimitri can't look away. He can't think of anything but Claude, here, in this moment. 

"We've lost enough to them," Claude continues, voice low, but no less intense. "A revenge we have to sacrifice even more for isn't worth having. If you want them punished, then work with me for a vengeance we can savor for the rest of our long, happy lives. Not one that'll just make our lives harder. I'm sick of them limiting the good things we can have."

Without thinking.... Without even being conscious of anything beyond Claude's words, his presence... Dimitri realizes he's matched his breathing to Claude's. It feels as though even his heart is pounding in time with his, although he has no basis for that. All he can do... is stare at his friend, intoxicated.

Dimitri... has not had a physical home in for a very, very long time.

The room they first stored him in? Even when he was at his most optimistic, he only ever viewed it as a temporary space. The cage? Nothing but a prison, meant to choke his freedom, his sense of self, away from him completely. Then there is the arena... but that's only been where he's put to use, unleashed upon some person that was never truly tried fairly, even the genuinely worst of the lot.

If there's anything he's treated akin to a home, something to welcome him, something to wrap himself up in... It's his own hatred and rage, his own bloody desire for even a scrap of vengeance. In the face of such a miserable and violent life, it's the only comfort he's ever been able to reliably have: the idea that he could tear apart this rotten system apart with his claws before, inevitably, he'd find a different kind of freedom... One of his death, something he had always thought would be inevitable one way or the other.

Any sense to Claude's words... He can't really tell that, not right now. All he can do is stare into those violently green eyes, and feels himself pierced through. All of his whirling emotions, a storm of anger and pain and vengeance, is, for the first time, blended with another's. The current is redirected, not to the rest of the monastery, but instead to the lone figure that stands before him, and whose hands feel suddenly so searing hot even through the fur on Dimitri's face.

His feelings and Claude are the only things he's had in this life. Maybe he should be terrified, to see them blended together like this... But Dimitri can only take comfort, even as he raises shaking hands to rest up over Claude's. His expression twists, conflicted, as he bows his head.

He wants to tear this whole place to the ground... He wants to turn the stones to dust, dash blood against the ground, see it all burn. He wants it so bad that he shakes from it. But...

Dimitri breathes in, sharp enough to scrape at the inside of his throat. "Alright," he says, voice hoarse, face twisted, all from being pulled back from his innermost urges. Before him, he thinks he can hear Claude stop breathing. "But-" He swallows, tries to wet his throat, and only has a slight bit of success. "But one thing. Let me destroy one thing in this accursed place."

It takes a second for Claude to get his words again, to pull himself back from the vulnerable passion that he'd just revealed to Dimitri, and he squeezes his eyes shut for that brief moment. "Thank you," he whispers, before he opens his eyes again to look at Dimitri. Just those two words alone... tells him that it's not only Dimitri who was absorbed into Claude's words, his feelings. The reverse is just as much true. "But... what one thing are you talking about?"

"The room," Dimitri answers immediately, before he realizes that he might need to explain more than that. "The one where I was pulled into... at the start of all of this. Before you met me." He might have tried to describe it to Claude once upon a time, he thinks, when they were young, and he was trying to find out more about his situation. The description couldn't have been very good at all... Both from the language barrier, his own foolish optimism at the time, and how dazed he had been when the church had somehow summoned him. "I want- I need to destroy it." A snarl of a grimace flashes across his face. "When I'm gone... When I'm gone..."

Dimitri has many flaws. He knows this, and it's the kind of thing that's become all the more obvious now that he's had Claude to compare himself to over these past few months. He's violent, and oblivious, and, as has just been proven right now, bad at long term planning.

Yet regardless of all of that, he's not a complete idiot. Long ago, when he had first become the church's executioner, it had occurred to him that he was just a replacement for another voa. Everything had been too well prepared beforehand, too well used, for him to be the first attempt at any of this. And so, when he thought he would meet his own inevitable and violent end...

He won't let that happen. If he can't raze this entire monastery to the ground, then he can at least destroy one room. And if he's going to destroy one room out of all of them...

Claude hesitates for a moment - or maybe his mind is simply whirring again with thoughts and plans. Dimitri is starting to suspect that the moments of silence Claude had on occasion before were examples of that.

"It wouldn't be the same if I did it for you, would it?" he asks at last, not sounding particularly hopeful, and not seeming surprised when Dimitri shakes his head immediately. "If you're spotted wandering the halls of the monastery, it's going to raise the alarm no matter what. But if you went outside and waited for me while I did it... I could probably talk my way out if anyone spotted me." He studies Dimitri with a sigh. "...But I have a feeling that won't satisfy you."

"No," Dimitri says, his eye narrowed. After a moment, however, he makes himself ease up slightly. The wild anger wanting to burst in his chest isn't the kind of thing he wants aimed at Claude, especially when he's trying to work with Dimitri like this. Then... it's only fair if he tries to work with him in turn. He glances about, trying to think. "I can be careful," he says after a moment, anger shimmering down to be replaced by a kind of awkwardness. "I can hear things better than you can... and not run into anything."

Well, maybe. Possibly. Stealth... is something of a new experience for him.

"...Alright." Claude smiles at him, the strain clearly wearing heavily down on him. Dimitri can't understand just what kind of things Claude has done for all of this to happen, for him to be confident enough in getting Dimitri free... but, just judging by that smile alone, it must be a lot. And yet that doesn't diminish the truth of his smile a single bit. "I don't want another voa to go through this either, so I'm glad you thought of it. My plans were focused purely on you."

He finally lets go of Dimitri, and his face feels colder where Claude's hands once were. Turning away, Claude slips back into the hallway quickly with a quick wave of his hand that motions Dimitri to stay where he is. He's back soon, with an enormous pile of cloth in his arms. He only realizes that it's a cloak, heavy fabric and a fur trimmed hood, when Claude holds it out to him. 

"I brought this just as insurance so that it'd be hard for anyone to spot you and realize you're a voa while we're on the way out of here, but it might be more useful than I thought," Claude explains while Dimitri accepts the cloak. "I paid off some of the guards to leave their posts for fifteen minutes or so on our route out of here, although that time frame will have almost certainly have run out by the time we're finished with the room. Hopefully it won't matter, since I drugged everyone on the night shift anyway." He grins again, but this is less tense, and more sly. "I didn't really know if I could trust them. So, hopefully, we shouldn't run into anyone, or at least no one who's awake... but it's impossible to predict everything."

There's a lot to the monastery that Dimitri doesn't understand. It's not a place where he's ever truly participated in its day to day rituals and habits. All he's really known is his cage, and the arena. Still.... Clumsily, he tugs his cloak around his shoulders, and fiddles ungracefully with the draw at the front until Claude reaches up to do it for him. Whatever Claude has been doing in the times Dimitri hasn't seen him... It's clearly been a lot.

With his cloak done up at the front, Dimitri reaches for the hood and tugs it over his head. Immediately, his mouth turns in distaste. "It's... a lot." There's a weight on his horns, which he doesn't like, but what he likes even less would be how the hood feels around his ears.

Sounds comes through muffled, now, and there's some drag when he tries to move his ears around in either emotional responses or simply to swivel them about in order to hear better in a certain direction. Even his tail feels confined....

Still, there's no helping it, and he steps forward when Claude pats his arm in sympathy. There's only one way to go, now... To the hallway and exit he's seen hundreds of people walk through and into for years, now.

Something occurs to him, however, and he pauses to look down at Claude. "If I pick you up, I could go faster," he suggests. "You said fifteen minutes..." He knows his strength is one of his only good points, and so he's positive that he could pick up Claude quickly, and move just as fast as if he were carrying nothing at all. With padded feet... He might be quieter than expected.

Yet Claude merely chuckles. "I'm not worried about the time limit anymore," he says. "I can't imagine we'll make it if we rush or not. I figure dismantling that room in some way so that it can't be used again, without causing so much noise that we'll be discovered... That's going to be at least a half an hour job, nevermind the time it takes for us to travel there and then out of the monastery. We'll just have to hope that the sleeping poison does its work and keeps the guards under.

"And as romantic and attractive as the prospect of carrying me is... I think it would make more sense for me to go first down the halls, then call you forward once the coast is clear, don't you think? If I'm spotted by anyone, it won't be totally disastrous, so I can be a sort of early warning system." A thoughtful expression crosses his face. "Luckily, there should be no problems getting into the summoning room itself, since there's no real reason for security. Or for anyone to use it while there's an executioner handy..."

Well.... Dimitri shrugs. If that's what Claude thinks, then he's willing to go along with it. Personally, he'd lowered how important caution was compared to speed... but his friend's priorities must be the opposite. As long as they aren't caught... As long as they destroy that room... Those are the two important things for the time being. Anything else can be sidelined... even his own anger and recklessness.

Before he can press onwards to continue Claude's plan, a sudden swear leaves his friend's lips. "Ah, shit, I almost forgot-" He reaches out, into Dimitri's cloak, until his hands can wrap around - mostly around, kind of - Dimitri's wrist. The same wrist that.... "Your control mark, the tattoo - we should disrupt it before anything else, so that they can't control you even if they catch us." His thumb runs over the lines burned in there, ages ago, by a magic touch that had hurt in a way Dimitri hadn't realized things could hurt. "If we break the lines of the tattoo, with a cut or something, it won't work again until it either heals cleanly, or you're given a new one."

Dimitri looks down at where they're connected, where Claude's hand seems so small around the curve of his wrist. It's not even enough to cover up the miserably pale branding lines of his tattoo. This night has already been so full of emotion as it is... Dimitri has always run on his emotions before, when it was only him instead of Claude visiting occasionally, but even this is far too much for him.

"That's all it takes...?" He feels dazed as he says it, off-balance. For as long as he can remember, he's always hated the tattoo that burns far too white past his fur. Yet it had never occurred to him to simply make it... fail. To stop its hold on him. If he'd known that... "I would have torn it off long ago if I'd known that..."

Claude shakes his head, hands digging onto his belt again; Dimitri can't quite see what he's reaching for in the darkness. "They'd have simply restrained you in other ways, and then reapplied it," he says. "It's really only going to be useful now that they can't put it back on you." Claude pulls his hand out and there is a small knife, fitting perfectly in the palm of Claude's hand. "I've got a bandage, so we can stop you from dripping blood, but... This is a pretty important part of the plan. And your freedom. Do you want to do it, or should I...?"

The knife seems like it should be so much more. Instead, in the dark of night, it's hard to see it at all, and it's small in his own hand when he reaches up to wrap his fingers around Claude's. It's a serious question... but Dimitri only hesitates a moment before he knows and gives his answer. "Both of us," he murmurs quietly, looking up into Claude's eyes.

Claude gazes back and nods, his own grip tightening around the knife's handle. "Not too deep, but not too shallow," he says quietly, reaching up with his other hand so that he can trace his finger right down Dimitri's wrist. He goes right through the center... breaking through every single line that makes up his brand. A bisection. "Just one cut should be enough to disrupt the design... but we'll slice through the entire design, top to bottom. Just to make sure."

Never has Dimitri used a knife, even when opponents have been shoved into the execution ring with one in hand. Even when he'd batted it from their grip, or bit through their wrist. It's a strange idea, to hold one now... even if all he does is follow the curve of Claude's own hand, feels his fingers settle over his friend's knuckles. Together, they guide the blade to Dimitri's outstretched arm, where the church's brand stands out even during a night with no moon.

With all his experience in death, Dimitri has a rough idea in how much will kill a person, or debilitate them. Once, in order to make sure he could accomplish at least one goal in the arena, he practiced against... an unfortunate number of people, just to see what a fight could become, and how much a person could get hurt. It was important, then. He hopes it's an importance that has stayed. Yet for something like this... It's far too delicate for someone like him.

Yet that would only be the case if it were him alone doing this. Claude's hand in his is slow, but a bit more certain in where to press the blade, how much pressure to apply exactly. Dimitri knows they're successful by the sharp flash of pain that pops in his arm. He ignores it. There have been a great many times where he's faced far worse than this... even when the blade begins to slide down.

He risks a glance up towards Claude's face, and marvels at the details he can make of it. His tight jaw, the furrow of his brows, the way the corner of his mouth spasms in distaste at the blood that's pooling at the cut along Dimitri's skin.

Maybe it would be better if they went quickly, to wipe away that kind of expression from Claude's face, but Dimitri knows that they can't. Not if they want to be careful, and not go too deep. He knows that would distress Claude far more.

Soon, they've gone all the way through, and Claude hurriedly tucks the knife away in exchange for something else from one of the pouches on his belt - white, in a roll. Ah. "They'll never control you again," Claude mutters as he wraps Dimitri's wrist up hastily in a bandage, before too much blood can pour out from his arm, his wrist, and onto the dirt beneath their feet. His eyes are burning again as he works. Almost as much as Dimitri... He seems to hate the church for what they did to him, for the control of his entire person.

All this time, the idea of freedom has still seemed so strange, so disconnected from his actual self, even when he'd been in a rage and wanted to be unleashed onto this miserable place.

But as he watches Claude's expression... It sinks in even further, and he can't hold himself back. Dimitri only waits long enough for Claude to finish bandaging his wrist before he reaches up with his free hand. Gently as always, taking care for his claws to not scratch at him, he tilts Claude's face upwards, and ducks his own down for a kiss.

It's something that has to be done quickly... and Dimitri suspects he's used a little too much teeth even before he pulls away. Yet none of that seems to bother Claude very much, with a soft smile on his face as the two of them part.

"No one else shall control me either," Dimitri murmurs to him. Not a single other person. There is only Dimitri himself, now... and maybe Claude. Still, even if Claude said the time limit from before doesn't matter, they shouldn't waste any more time. He straightens up, and takes one of Claude's hands in his. "This way."

In the perhaps decade that he's been trapped inside of his cage, Dimitri has only ever gone down one path in the hallway leading from it - the path that directs one down towards the execution ring where he's unleashed to kill another person. Yet that means it's always been very easy for him to remember the way he was brought from: the part of the monastery that once held his old room... and the room in which he was first summoned.

Yet he can't go very far before Claude pulls away from him. "Alright," he murmurs, "Let me go ahead. I'll go as far as the next corner, and, if the coast is clear, I'll gesture for you to follow. Okay?"

Dimitri's tail smacks against the inside of his cloak, producing a couple of soft thmps, which shows his displeasure almost as much as the frown on his face does. "I'll wait," he concedes anyway, as much as he doesn't like it. It's what they agreed upon... and they don't have time for much more arguing on the matter.

Still, seeing that look on his face has Claude stay behind a moment longer. "If we see someone, don't kill first, alright?" he warns, looking up at Dimitri. "Remember, a lot of the people here have been lied to. It's the ones in charge or the ones who are fully vicious that are the ones that should pay, not people who've just been tricked. If we run into anyone, we can capture them, and then figure out what to do."

And just like that, he absconds before Dimitri can say anything to the contrary, and Dimitri's tail thrashes again. So. Claude also has his way of making sure arguments don't happen. He leaves before they can. Curious and infuriating in equal measure.

Dimitri doesn't dwell on his aggravation for too long. He's more interested in watching the way Claude walks. It's honestly... incredibly impressive, in the way that Dimtiri feels like he used to watch small animals when he was a child. Back then, he'd been amazed at their swiftness and agility.

With Claude.... He does his best to walk absolutely silently, as quietly as he can physically make himself. At the same time... He walks casually. He doesn't walk like he had when he'd made his way across the courtyard to Dimitri. Instead, he walks, or at least tries to walk, tries to mimic, that same casual stride Dimitri has watched from behind his bars so many times before, in other people.

Faintly, he wonders how hard it is, because thinking about that helps making this awkward stop-and-wait much easier to bear. It's the same reason why he adjusts his hands so that he can rub at the bandage around his wrist, for a solid reminder of all they have to do. That kind of casual stride isn't something that's done with stealth in mind... There's not much time for Dimitri to contemplate it. Claude reaches the hand of the hall, looks around the corner, and quickly gestures for Dimitri.

With the situation as it is, Dimitri doesn't hold himself back like Claude does. He surges forward, the movement of his cloak more of a problem than his padded footsteps, and comes to a quick stop besides Claude. "Are you certain of where you are going?" he asks Claude, still frowning as he listens. His hearing still isn't as he wants it...

"Completely." Claude flashes a confident smile. "I've been planning to break you out since I found you again, so I did my homework. I've got the layout of the entire monastery memorized." And then he's moving ahead of him again.

There's something... touching, the knowledge that Claude has been working this hard for him for so long, even when Dimitri knows he was at his worst. When he knows he didn't deserve or earn Claude's kindness through any action of his own. All Dimitri can do now in the present moment, however, is tuck those thoughts and feelings to the side of his heart. Claude is on the move again, after all.

The more he's spoken with Claude these past months, the more he's remembers - so much. Words and phrases have been the most obvious things, certainly, but... there are others as well. As the two of them move together, Dimitri finds himself looking at Claude and seeing not the dark hallways of the monastery, but instead an expanse of blue rippling underneath him, underneath the bow of a boat.

There were fish that his father sometimes pointed out, either just barely showing up near the surface, or something caught when fishermen would haul their nets out from the water. He said that the presence of them was said to harbor larger creatures, sharks and the like, so if you saw them swimming ahead all on their own...

He thinks of that now, as he watches Claude move so swiftly ahead of himself, uneventful in his own right, and yet more than his own.

No one intercepts them in their journey throughout the halls. There's not a single living soul. Dimitri had always thought the monastery quiet from within his cage, but it truly seems as though such a thing has penetrated to the very bones of such a place.

Claude moves so quickly, too. Eventually, at the corner of one turn, he gestures for Dimitri to come even as he's already moving around it. By the time Dimitri reaches the corner, Claude is already down the hall, and crouched down before a door.

Dimitri has no idea what Claude is doing, besides witchcraft apparently, because there's a loud click before Dimitri is so much as halfway down the hall. Claude pulls back, looking smug, and completely self satisfied. "What did you do?" Dimitri dares to murmur, blinking.

"I picked the lock," Claude replies, just as quietly, putting away a pair of very thin metal sticks into some small pouches on his belt. "You don't necessarily need a key to get into places, if you know how to make it work..."

That... definitely sounds like some sort of magic to Dimitri. Aren't locks made so that only keys can enter them? Only their key can unlock them? Well... It's a mystery that he can now investigate at a later date, thanks to the freedom he now has stretched in front of him. What's more important is the simple door that is before him now, more physically, and Dimitri looks at it with his heart beating hard in his chest.

It looks like such a plain thing - like dozens of other doors that he has seen before on their way here. The kind of thing one could so easily pass by without looking twice. As the surprise from Claude's talent begins to ebb away, something in Dimitri's stomach clenches hard. This... will be a place that he has not seen since he was a child, since perhaps a decade ago. There's so much past this door... and yet all he can do is reach out, and push it open. Step inside.

Despite how long it's been, despite his only memories of this room being from when he was a child... Absolutely nothing feels changed in the room he steps into. Dimitri suddenly feels as though he has not changed. The gloom of the place washes over him, a tidal wave of memories and emotions that makes him rock back on his feet. Every single breath of air is knocked out from his lungs. All he can do... is stare inside.

It's not a very small room. Of course, in some ways, the cage he lived in is larger, made in mind for all the movement he needs in order to stay fit and active for executions.

Yet this is large for a different purpose. His mind can recall the scene so easily, even now, years later: a small circle of people around him, and then, past them, others whose gazes had seemed so heavy. Back then, he'd attributed it to just his disorientation. He had to be mistaken, hadn't he? Now, he understands what their purpose must have been: there in case he became violent.

Dazed, his heartbeat far too loud in his ears, Dimitri looks around the room. To the side are cabinets, glass revealing all manner of things inside, and a few open shelves with books on them. Opposite of them are a small basin, some space for the preparation of some thing or another, and there before him, right across from the door...

He knows the statue that stands there, towering over all who would enter. He has seen the similar statues along his route to the execution ring. Dimitri might not know her name... but he knows her as the saint this place so adores. Clasped hands held before her, hair that rolls over her shoulders, a peaceful expression... If she were a real person, then perhaps she would be kind, and soft.

Dimitri has always found her cold, and domineering, and cruel. The reason for that... lies right there between the two of them, right there in the dead center of the room.

It's smudged. Dimitri takes that in faintly as he wobbles froward, feet unsteady beneath him. The summoning circle that first dragged him away from his home, and dumped him here, in this terrible place... It's the exact same thing he can remember seeing in the rush and hurry during that terrible moment. It hasn't changed even the slightest. Certainly, there are places where something has dragged over the lines, and it is faded from how many years it has been... Why wouldn't it be? Its purpose was served long ago...

His heart is louder. He can't breathe. Nausea is filling him, adrenaline pumping through his veins, and he can still remember it so clearly, remember waking up dazed and sick and scared surrounded by people-

"I'm here," Claude says, suddenly right there against his ear, and Dimitri realizes that he's started to hunch over, clench his claws with the need to rend vengeance for the tragedy that had destroyed him so much. Claude's arms are wrapped around him, an anchor keeping him tightly wound to the present. "Remember: you're free now. We're getting out of here, as soon as no other voa get dragged here ever again." His arms squeeze around him.

Clumsily, fumbling, Dimitri reaches up to lay his hands over Claude's. Claude's here. He's free. Shakily, he inhales. He's free. He's not back there again - not really, not in the same way as he was as a child. He's not in his cage. He's free.

Another squeeze, and then Claude presses closer to him, until his mouth is near his ear, on the other side of the hood. "The only way they'll ever have any say over what happens to you, ever again, is if they catch us here, so we need to make sure they don't. Okay? Now help me figure out a way to destroy this stuff, quietly."

Shaking, Dimitri presses one of Claude's hands down until it's against his chest, over his heart. The words all make sense. He knows what they mean. It just takes a second for him to remember that.

But soon, he remembers how to breathe, how to speak, even as he shakes wildly all over. "Get the books," he says, voice straining to be quiet. He knows books, can remember them. Can remember their purpose, and how important they are here. "They probably - know how to make this symbol." The one right there in front of him.

Claude nods, and finally releases Dimitri, slowly. Dimitri only watches his friend long enough to make sure he goes over to the cabinets, to see him fiddle with the lock again so that the cabinet doors swing open. When he's certain of that...

More than anything else, he wants to tear the stones from the floor, smash them through some of the pretty windows he's seen in the monastery. He wants to see the entire monastery in ruins, an empty shell of all it once stood for.

But he can't have that. Not yet. So Dimitri does what he can as he falls to his knees, the impact vibrating through his bones. It feels good - solid. It feels as though he still has a body with which he can do things. That reminder has Dimitri lean forward over the white markings that are still so clear in a lot of ways, despite how time has taken its toll on them. Reaching down, he smears his palms against the lines and curves. The stone floor is far from gentle against his palms. Impressive, really, considering they have years of hard work and violence behind them.

Dimitri doesn't mind. Far from it. The burn shoots through him, makes his heart pound faster, and he grinds his palms across another wide expanse of the circle. Again, and again, going in wide arcs to disrupt as much of it as he possibly can before he starts to aggressively paw at the details. His movements draw dust up from the ground, fill the air around him with bits of white that float and twist through the air. It's suffocating - familiar in some manner, although he can't think how, can't think where. There's just the violent scrub of his hands against stone, the soreness grinding through his flesh. Dimitri doesn't care. He barely cares when the smell of something burning begins to fill his lungs, and he just then realizes that he's gone all across the circle.

It was smeared lightly in the beginning, when he first set foot into the room. Now, it is nothing more than white across gray in the gloom, and Dimitri rocks back with a ragged gasp. His trembling hands rise up, sweep against his face, up into his hair, along his horns. The smell of the powder, whatever it is... It's stronger now, sinking into his lungs. He knows it. He does. But from where?

As his mind goes in spirals, Dimitri finally forces himself to look up. The rest of the world is foggy, suffocating, and he searches out Claude - Claude, the person who clears his mind, who brings him back to earth and anchors him in a way he hasn't felt for so long.

He doesn't have to look far. At the water basin, long dry and empty, Claude has gathered a thick tome in his hand. He steadily feeds the flame he's started there, his fuel the pages he's ripping out methodically. Dimitri isn't sure what, exactly, was in that tome... but the fire born from those cursed papers burns bright, and something about the way it illuminates Claude's face, that strange and solemn expression there...

Dimitri breathes in. Out. He stares at Claude, remembers that anger which had wrapped around him like a blanket, and breathes in again. The smoke is minimal, thanks to Claude's careful control of it, along with the size of the basin. It's only thanks to his nose and the heightened sense of smell that comes with it, courtesy of being a voa, that he can smell it so strongly. Feeling a little more stable, with the smell of that powder settled deep in his lungs, Dimitri shakily pushes himself up. He's fine.

He's fine.

Looking around, he scans the room some more. Thanks to even that small fire, it's at least somewhat bright inside the room, and he can see its interior even better than with only his night vision. Leaving Claude to handle the fire he's started, Dimitri does his best to ignore that overbearing statue.

Instead, he drags himself over to the cupboards. Claude has opened all of them, in the time that Dimitri has been preoccupied with his own task. Unsure of what else he should do, Dimitri slowly crouches down in front of the cupboards to get a better look at their contents.

In one cupboard, the absence of the tome that Claude took is more than apparent as the row of books slumps towards one end. None of the others have been disturbed, as far as Dimitri can tell... Well, he'll put his trust in Claude that the book he took is the only one which deserves to be destroyed. Anything else... By Dimitri's estimate, he supposes they must be worthless.

The other cupboard is of slightly more interest to Dimitri. The various vials and bottles and instruments lined up along the shelves glitter almost maliciously in the flicking light that Claude is tending to. Some of them seem old to Dimitri, older than even he would have expected, with a layer of dust and old twine wrapped about them. Some of them seem to be completed concoctions, with labels written upon them in Fodlish. Dimitri can't read those; he can only speak that language. Most of them seem to be liquid, some of them are little items that he can't quite make out through the dust and colored glass...

And then there are a pair that stand out.

Dimitri has to go through the various bottles, putting most of them aside, before he finds them. A pair of carefully preserved bottles are tucked away in the back as though to be hidden from even the saint's cold stone sight. Only those have him pause, staring at them. They.... are of a different shape than the other bottles and vials about. One of them is much smaller than its companion, filled with a dark liquid that he can't smell with how firmly it's been sealed up. The other is a bit larger, filled with some sort of.... white dust...

Dimitri reaches for it almost without thinking, popping the vial open. Immediately, more of that smell - the smell from the circle - washed up into his nose. He knows it. He knows it. Dimitri is positive of it. And yet he can't place it, not with his nose alone. Dimitri stares down into the vial, hesitant for only a moment, before he slides one finger into it. For someone as large as him, it's almost a struggle. Clearly the vial was meant for human fingers and not those of a voa. But he manages, getting just a little bit upon the tip of his claw...

And he places it upon his tongue.

Immediately, the sense of familiarity rolls through him even stronger, and he does know this, he does. He has tasted this so many times, he knows it. And he knows it because-

"Dimitri?" Claude's tone is sharp, snaps through the fog of his thoughts, and Dimitri looks up out of pure habit for Claude's voice. The fire is starting to die, leaving them in almost complete darkness again, but Dimitri is still able to make out the furrow inbetween his friend's brow. "What are you doing? Is that even safe?"

Dimitri... doesn't answer him for a moment. He's so close to understanding the taste on his tongue, so near to the memory he's sure lurks within his brain and is simply waiting for him to stumble upon it. He knows this almost as much as he knows the burn of his muscles, the contempt of his captors, the way he bites down into flesh and deeper, deeper.... Oh.

He looks up at Claude, the puzzled expression that's contorted his face melting away. "Claude... It's bone," he says softly, and can hear Claude go still in the utter darkness. Dimitri rubs his fingers together, feels how the dust grinds down against his finger pads. "I've tasted bone before..."

As a matter of fact, he's tasted bone many times throughout his life as an executioner. In the ring, where he's only ever had his claws and fangs, it's almost been inevitable at times. He thinks he's bitten just about all the major parts of a body, sunk his fingers in as deep as they could go, tore past flesh and muscle and blood until the dirt beneath their feet had become nothing more than mud soaked red.

He can remember doing it himself, and not doing it himself, 'waking' as though from a terrible nightmare with the brand on his wrist burning hot and a mutilated corpse before him. The tastes in his mouth, the sharp biting flavor of blood and everything else... Dimitri has always known that he would never forget it, them, until the day he died.

And in his cage, as well. Sometimes, on better days or when the stew would be too cold for even himself, they would toss him meat still on its bone. So many days spent huddling in sunlight, gnawing on actual bone to get whatever sustenance he could...

How could he have ever forgotten this taste, for even a moment?

"The same smell was in the circle," he murmurs, listening as Claude's footsteps start up again, come closer to him. The shadow that is his friend stands in front of him, staring upwards, before his hand extends. Waits.

Dimitri understands, even if, in a lot of ways, he doesn't. He hands over the vial, and listens as Claude promptly shuts it. Perhaps the smell wasn't exactly the same - some additions to that on the floor, clarity in the vial without any flesh or blood - but still. He's certain.

Claude trusts his certainty as well, because he doesn't argue or question him. All he does is quietly say, "We'll bury the bottle when we're out of here." Before Dimitri can question anything himself, Claude forcefully steers the conversation elsewhere. "Can you help me start pouring whatever else is in those bottles down the basin?" He nods his head in the direction of it, where the smell of smoke lingers. "We have to do them one at a time, because who knows what will happen if we mix them."

Dimitri supposes he can understand that concern. This room is used for terrible rituals, even if it's simply the one repeated over and over and over again. Every single thing in the cupboards... Those are used in these sorts of things, and so they must be destroyed. With one last look towards the vial that Claude is tucking away onto one of the satchels of his belt, something Dimitri can see even in this almost pure darkness, he unsteadily pushes himself up onto his feet before getting to work.

Still, it's a bit hard to do all of this in the pitch black now that the basin fire is out. Claude seems to understand that as well. He lights up a small bit of fire with his kit from before, something that can at least help them both figure out shapes in the room instead of being completely blind.

With that bit of help, Dimitri crouches down before the cabinet again so that he can start gathering bottles into his arms. "I will listen for anyone else who is passing by," he tells Claude quietly as his friend crouches down besides him, looking through the other cabinet. Maybe there's still more to go through in that than he thought.

All he gets in return as an answer is a grim faced nod. Well, this is a grim task. Dimitri can't blame him.

All he can do is cradle the various bottles close to his chest, and go to the basin that Claude was at only a moment ago. It's fortunate that he has some room where he can put down the bottles. That makes it slightly easier as he begins to tug off the various seals and tops, and gets to work.

The sound of pouring liquid, hitting stone, swirling down the drain... It's so noisy in the emptiness of the room, but Dimitri doesn't let himself be bothered by it. As long as he can hear anything that is outside, in the hallway... Then that's all that matters.

Claude helps him by bringing over the rest of the bottles so that they're in easy reach. It's a task that takes up a lot of Dimitri's attention, nose wrinkling in distaste at some of the smells which waft out from the containers. He knows that this doesn't technically mean it's terrible... but he is disinclined to all of it as it is, considering the place where they've been found.

Yet none of the smells he opens up can block that of blood. Dimitri snaps his head around, hackles raised, fangs bared. Claude isn't hurt; there's no sign of another person within.

Claude has simply managed to get up on the pedestal that the saint stands upon... and is dragging two of his fingers down along her cheeks, where a dark liquid drips down. Dimitri's nostrils flare. Even from a distance... he knows what that smell is. He knows it just like he knows the taste of bone snapping in his jaws.

Though he knows that he still has plenty of other bottles to pour down the basin, Dimitri leaves them behind. He walks over to where Claude is quietly working. "Blood as well," he says quietly, a simple little observation.

Claude's fingers hesitate a moment, but continue their morbid work, trying to make the blood look as natural as tears falling from the saint's eyes. More than the cold expression on the statue's face, however... Dimitri is trapped more by the dark look on Claude's face, foreign and heavy.

Unable to help himself, he reaches over to lightly press his fingertips along Claude's cheek. A smear of white is there, left behind. Claude's eyes soften a bit, and he finally pauses properly. "You... know something I do not."

"Guessed, maybe," Claude admits, adding a little more care to the statue's tears of blood. It's coming along nicely now, almost. As though the statue really did begin to cry. "But we can talk about it once we're outside. It's better to focus on what we need to do now."

If that is what Claude says... Dimitri will believe him. There are only a few bottles left regardless, and so Dimitri finishes pouring them as well. They carry the ashes of paper along with them, as though none of it ever existed at all. By the time he turns, Claude is stepping down from the stone, and tucking the vial of blood he'd used into his satchel as well - the same vial that had been right next to the one of bones, hidden away in a little corner of the cabinet. It looks like they're both satisfied now, and Dimitri glances up to assess the job Claude has done. If this is some sort of message... He can only imagine how the people of this church will react.

"Can you think of anything else we should sabotage here?" Claude asks, and Dimitri drags his gaze around the rest of the room. The floor is nothing but a smear of white, practically embedded into the stone floor. In the cabinet for the books, one is notably devoid of all papers, and the rest of its kin are collapsed against it. The other cabinet holds a variety of various tools that Dimitri doesn't know the purpose of.... but beyond those, their shelves lay bare with all the bottles and vials removed.

Dimitri lets out a slow breath, trying to control the heat which seeks to burn through his veins. "I would tear the stones from their place and shatter the glass of their potions... but those are not quiet things to accomplish." It'd be sarcasm or wit on Claude's tongue. Dimitri says it with a simple and tired honesty.... and no small amount of bitterness. Looking away from all of that, he focuses on Claude once again. "Should you not clean your hands?"

Shrugging, Claude smiles up at him. "That's the least of my worries right now," he tells him. His own gaze flicks around the room, taking in what's visible now that the fire has started to die somewhat. He makes no move to rekindle it. "Let's put the room back the way we found it. Give them a little mystery." His smirk holds no humor to it. "Maybe they'll think it was an act of the Goddess."

"Or a demon," Dimitri says bluntly. "I will put the bottles away. Clean your hand."

"I thought all of this was my idea..." Still, despite his humorless musing, Claude obeys him - he's going to be the person to close the door shut again, and act as the one going ahead when they finally duck out into the hallways again.

In the meanwhile, Dimitri patiently goes to put back every single bottle and vial. He can't remember the order they were all in, but he imagines it likely doesn't matter. This place hasn't been touched in so long, judging by all the dust that is around, that he doubts a single human can remember the exact order everything was in.

When he's done, and Claude's hand is cleaned on the rag that he used to oil up the doors - or at least a dry portion of the rag - his friend goes back to the cabinets. There, he can redo the locks that he took care of before. "You know, if they end up terrified that a demon magicked you and all their supplies away, and made their saint cry tears of blood, I can't say I'd lose any sleep over it," he says dryly, before something makes him smile suddenly. Dimitri doesn't have time to ask him what has made his grim mood lighten; Claude finishes before he can, and joins him at the door to the hallway.

Together, the two of them carefully peer out the hallway. It is as still and quiet as when they first arrived, so Dimitri steps out, tail smacking against the inside of his cloak again while Claude works on the lock into the room. No doubt another "little bit of mystery", as he'd mentioned before. Once he's done, he pushes himself back onto his feet. For a moment, just a brief and lingering moment, his hand comes to rest upon Dimitri's arm... and then he turns again, head right back the way they came. As they had agreed on before, Dimitri hangs back until Claude gestures to him to come along once more.

They're heading back the way they came from, just a little bit - Dimitri hadn't realized that was the exit out of this place, but he supposes that makes sense. They wouldn't want their entrance to be so close to the execution ring. There's no reason to think too hard on that. All he does is follow after Claude, and try not to be too bothered by how restricted his ears still feel.

One hallway. A second. Third. It's the fourth that is a problem. When Claude reaches the corner then, he comes to an abrupt stop, and Dimitri's body immediately goes tense. His ears flick back, sticking as close to his head as they can, and his fingers curl into claws ready for anything. It's only at the last second that he remembers how quiet Claude had wanted all of this to be.

That moment of hesitation turns out to be a good thing, just this once. Whatever is happening, Claude doesn't act hastily. Instead, he calmly but with clear concern turns away from the corner.

Dimitri goes to meet him halfway - although with his legs, it's maybe a little more than just halfway. Once they're close enough, Claude reaches up to rest his hand against one arm. That's all Dimitri needs to stop in place completely, frowning down at him. There's that tension again, like back at the cage...

"We need to be careful here," Claude murmurs, voice low. "There's a guard around the corner, down the hallway, but we're fortunate. I can't tell if he's asleep or just about. Still, so long as we're careful, I don't think it will be a problem. We'll walk down the hallway together. Be on the far side of me, so that I'm between you and him. Your feet are still visible under your cloak, but it'll be harder for him to see them - or any part of you - if I'm in the way, even with how tall you are. Walk like you've got every right to be doing what you're doing, but keep your head bowed forward so that the hood hides your face still. He might not even be awake, but even if he is, he's not at his sharpest. Don't speak, don't slow down, and don't look. Understand?"

"The practical parts," Dimitri answers quietly, nose wrinkled and having been that way since Claude tried to tell him how to walk.

It had all been a lot of information, but, fortunately, most of it had been simple, even if it makes his fur stand on its end just thinking about it. This isn't how he does things at all... and he's not confident in his ability to keep calm. Even more confusing and strange, however, are the instructions Claude has given him on how he should hold himself. What does it mean to walk as though he's got every right to be where he is? Where he's going?

"I don't like this..." Still, he takes a deep breath, and tugs his hood further over his head.

Judging by the way Claude is already positioning himself at Dimitri's side... He suspects the guard is going to end up on his blind side. He doesn't like that, especially with his ears muffled like they are thanks to the hood. It feels too heavy, a strange weight on his horns and his head in general. There's an energy burning through him that's just waiting to be unleashed, and this kind of sneaking around... It doesn't suit it at all.

And yet still he tugs the hood up, his toes kneading against the stone floor in anxious energy. "But I will do it," he concedes, pulling his hands back within his cloak so that he is nothing more than some shapeless thing, a ghost drifting through the halls. "And- I will not kill him if something goes wrong." He's not sure how sturdy a promise that is, granted, because he knows no other way to be.

It's a promise worth making regardless, just to see Claude smile up in appreciation, and to earn the softest brush of a kiss along the corner of his mouth. He doesn't say anything out loud. All he does is turn around, and begin walking.

Watching Claude, Dimitri can understand what his friend meant by walking as though he belonged. Claude does it so easily with his shoulders relaxed, no tension, and his steps not faltering in the slightest.

Dimitri.... can't even begin to make himself so much as feel the same, let alone mimic it. Just turning the corner and seeing that figure slumped there against the wall, their head bowed in sleep or something close to it-

His heart starts to pound. It starts to pound so much, so loud, so fiercely, that Dimitri almost can't breathe. If not for Claude right there besides him, just visible enough past the hem of Dimitri's hood - a swing of his hand, the long strides he makes - he doesn't think he would be able to take so much as a step forward. His own breath sounds labored, loud - is it only to his ears? Will it wake the guard up? It feels as if the sounds his body is making should wake everyone in the monastery, should get them caught in the beat of his treacherous heart.

It doesn't. Something about the glimpses of Claude he can see when he dares turn his head relax, and he jolts almost violently when his friend suddenly lays a hand upon his arm, over the cloak. Claude says nothing; it's likely that he's still being so cautious while they're still on church grounds. But the way he squeezes down is reassuring, a comfort. The guard must be deep asleep, then, although Dimitri can't tell exactly.

When they're at the end of the hall, Claude dares to speak up at last. "So far, so good," he murmurs. "We just have to do that again, if we run into any more guards." All Dimitri can do is nod, with his heart now lodged in his throat. More than ever before, the rest of the world has gone strange and blurry, inconsistent. If not for Claude...

Together, they only run into one more guard on the way out, and the encounter happens almost exactly like the one before it. Claude had said something about some sort of sleeping poison being slipped into food... Dimitri would be more impressed, if not for everything else. All he can do is stick close to Claude until, at long last, they reach a door that Claude goes to open... and Dimitri steps outside.

The simple step outside of his cage had knocked Dimitri's breath away. Even confined by four walls still, just being able to see the night sky stretched so vast and deep over his head had made him feel as though he couldn't be contained in his body alone.

But to stop outside of the church itself... For a moment, even with Claude's hand gently tugging at his arm, Dimitri doesn't move an inch. All he can do is stare out towards the city stretched out below him, shadows of varying depths, mostly dark except for the occasional spark of light from what is presumably a home, or those that drift along dark streets. In the back of his head, he feels like he can see a similar sight.... Dark shapes stretched out beneath him, and in the distance, reflecting the glitter of the night sky...

Claude's pulling, and a quiet hurried murmur, finally snap him out of it. Dimitri allows his friend to start pulling him along. The streets are pitch black, lit by nothing much at all, and yet Claude pulls him along without even a single bit of hesitation.

It's more than Dimitri can say for himself. Every deep shadow suddenly becomes a threat as they pass by, and the darkness blurs together as they hurry through the streets with his chest aching. Someone is going to catch them, Dimitri feels suddenly. Everything has been going too good, too smoothly - someone has to catch them. And if someone catches them, then he has to protect Claude, he has to get them out of here, no matter-

Light. It cuts through Dimitri's throughts like the way it spills so easily across the stone of the streets, and he looks away from the shadows of small paths between houses. Somehow, when he wasn't looking, they made it.... all the way through town.

There, before them, is a large set of iron bars almost not unlike the ones that barred him from freedom inside his cage. It takes him a second of staring to realize that the details are a little bit different, that it looks as though they can be pulled up somehow... And that second is all that Claude needs to check over the small separate building attached to the wall surrounding the city, right near the bars.

"The guard is asleep here, too," he murmurs, his hand going to Dimitri's arm again. Focusing, Dimitri realizes that's where the light is coming from, and inside is a man seated, slumped against some sort of tiny wooden furniture - a desk of some sort, right, he remembers now. How much work has Claude done to get his sleeping poison out amongst guards? How will he get away with it?

There's no real time to think about it. Following Claude's lead, Dimitri goes with him behind the guard building, where a set of stone steps are made a part of the wall. It had never occurred to Dimitri that something like this could have a way to get to the top... Then again, he hadn't thought that because, for him, it had seemed easy to simply haul himself up there. Regardless, he follows Claude until the two of them stand atop the wall and, for the first time in so many years... Dimitri looks out to the rest of the world.

At his side, the cloak is brushed away, and Claude's hand slides into his - such a tiny little thing compared to his own, and yet so warm, so comforting. "Ready to leave?" Claude whispers, looking out to the same rolling countryside that Dimitri is captivated by.

Even in the darkness, he can see the pale wind of a dirt road that leaves from the city down into hills and fields. There, various little buildings are just barely visible in the darkness - farms. That's right, Dorothy had said she was from a farming home just outside the city as well... And then, past all of those, there are mountains that reach up towards the sky, covered in a blanket of trees whose strange shapes are obvious as they creep down from the mountain and towards areas nearer to the city.

Dimitri feels so dazed, so lost, as he stares at it all. There's nothing stopping them anymore. There's everything he could have ever dreamed off, could have missed, when he was trapped inside of his cage. Nothing terrible happened. His hand twitches around Claude's. "...Just this?" he finally asks, turning to stare down at Claude's brilliant smile. "It... only takes just this?" Just one little drop, down to the ground?

"Don't think it'd be this easy without all the work I put in," Claude says, winking. "But yeah, this is it. All we have to do is jump down... and disappear." He chuckles. "I'd offer to lower you down, but you'd drag me right off the wall, probably. But with those feet of yours, I imagine you can land pretty lightly."

Considering those words, Dimitri looks back to Claude as he steps forward to the drop. "So I should lower you down," he says, sincere and decisive. A part of him still feels dazed and out of it from how so much has happened in one night alone... but he still knows that Claude really has put in so much work to make all of this happen. That it's gone so smoothly is a testament to that. So before Claude can do anything but stare and blink, Dimitri crouches down and presses his hands against the edge of the wall.

Before, in the arena and when he was young, he often tried to scramble up the walls, hoping that he could somehow escape. While it clearly never happened, those walls were far taller than the ones he stands upon now. It's easy to twist himself around, fall so that he's hanging from the wall. Just like the height of the wall wasn't very high at all, the drop isn't much either. It feels like he's just given a slight jump before he's landing once again - he really is quite tall, he supposes. It's so different to realize this in comparison to buildings and structures, instead of people.

Dimitri doesn't bother to think on it for more than a second. Making sure his footing is secure, he looks up towards the top of the wall again, and holds out his arms for Claude expectantly.

Staring down at him, Claude laughs softly. "Is it just me, or have you been looking for an excuse to have me in your arms all night?" he teases quietly, and that's it. He jumps down, with no hesitation, and... it seems as though the world realigns itself into something right with his weight in Dimitri's arms, the warmth of him against his chest.

"This is all I can do," he murmurs into Claude's hair, wanting to hold him close. Instead, he lowers him gently to the ground. All this planning, and all this work... He can't let a single bit of it go to waste because of his own selfishness. In contrast, what did he want to do? Nothing that would have lead them out here, for however much satisfaction it would have given him. And the entire time, he would have been unaware of how much work Claude has done...

With Claude on his feet, Dimitri looks out once more to all the land before them. Now that they are not on top of the wall, it feels even more vast, as though it will swallow the two of them up. It's.... overwhelming, in a way he's not felt since he was a child, suddenly trapped in a small room with so many people he couldn't recognize. With his heart pounding and aching in his chest, all he can do is reach besides him, and find Claude's hand already reaching back. That same bright and hopeful smile meets his gaze when he looks down. Just like that... He feels himself settle again.

It's okay. It's going to be okay. Even if the world swallows him up... He has Claude's hand in his, to keep him anchored.

Right now, being anchored means allowing Claude to pull him along, away from the wall. They cut across the large road leading up to the city - not following it, or going directly across, but in a diagonal, like a sword's cut. Their route is focused straight ahead, towards the forest creeping down from the mountains. Claude holds onto him tightly, and Dimitri holds onto him just as much, and they disappear into the forest.

Into the shadows.

Into freedom.