CHPT 275: Showing is often better than Telling.

Monday Morning, November 26th, 2240

The battle had ended.

The Silver Rank took Claude and the pack in with a cold and bloody welcome that threatened to drown them all. A threat that never became reality. With the help of the Wild and his pack, they stayed above the current and persevered. Barely.

When it was all over, he succumbed to his wounds in the forest full of corpses, forcefully taking in the unknowing black of unconsciousness. The next time his eyes opened, the sun illuminated his vision and the smell of burning wood filled his nostrils.....

***

A sudden flood of adrenaline kicked his body and mind into overdrive, allowing his eyes to burst open in a flash, matching the color of the grass that swallowed up the left side of his vision.

Without even having to move, he could feel the pain of his past injuries, made worse by time and movement. It felt like a dozen fingers ripped into his back and pulled apart his skin. The same odd pulsing pain lined his leg making him wonder if walking was possible.

He let out a snarl in anger as he remembered the battle that resulted in his failure. The thought fizzled away as the scents of smoke and burnt flesh bombarded his nostrils.

Panic jump-started his limbs and had him on his feet in a flash, ignorant of any pain that may have once bothered him.

Immediately, he found himself witness something both beautiful and horrifying in every aspect. Rollan greeted him as if it was a normal morning in the forest.

"You're awake, Monsieur! I must say I was a bit worried that you died in that forest.....but then something remarkable happened..."

Claude didn't respond, he continued to watch the madness taking place in front of him. The Wolves did the same, pacing around it warily in front of him and Ursula as if they too were horrified.

"[Well that's....intense...]" Arne commented.

Rollan continued, "...I heard them. The birds...the Wolves...the yipping Foxes and Coyotes. Even the snakes....I could feel them traversing through the grass. They all moved in unison. They carried you out of the forest, Monsieur."

"Yea they do that sometimes..." Claude replied while his eyes continued to dance around every piece and crevice of the object in front of him.

Right in the center of the field in front of Rollan's "tree-house", a controlled flame of chaos burned like the pits of hell itself, hot and angry as ever. The flames roared and spit embers while they chomped and burned away what looked to be a wooden structure resembling a woman. Burnt roots spilled from the head in a coiling mess of strands and flames, resembling a fiery-flowing mess of hair that cupped a well crafted face made of wood, burnt plants and flowers. The inanimate object projected feminine beauty even under the growing cloak of flames and dozens of Centaur parts interwoven with the burning sculpture.

They were everywhere. The burning heads of Centaurs peeked out from within the burning sculpture with eyes as wide as opened mouths and pieces of skin falling from their scorched scalps like loose clothing. Upon further inspection, he could see more legs and arms mixed in with the wooden strands and knots, burned down to the bone.

"Rollan.....what is this?" Claude muttered.

"A sacrifice. To the ones above. To the Queen of Fire and Healing....something you and your Wolf need more than ever. The arrows, they smell of bacteria."

Claude felt his heart skip a beat, "And you didn't heal Frosty earlier?!"

"I would've if the damn thing let me. Your Wolves have been a bit too busy threatening to kill me if I didn't remove your human girl from the house....but I will say, that one..." He said, pointing back at his house where Gil paced anxiously, "That one might be broken...or he's more perceptive than I would've guessed...."

Claude felt the urgency and discomfort in Gil from across the field, he was about as broken as Claude was human. "Maybe..." He lied as a shiver ran up his spine, bobbing and weaving through the network of arrows puncturing his back.

"Anyway, I'd like you to fix Frosty now." He requested.

Rollan appeared again from behind the burning sacrificial sculpture. "I'd love to. But I think you need to go first. Plus, your injuries are on the brink of surpassing my medical prowess in my current state. I don't know how you're standing to be honest, Monsieur."

"...And I don't know how the hell a blind man made a ten foot wooden sculpture full of the Centaur's I killed..." Claude spat.

"I'll keep some of my secrets if you keep yours..heheh. Now come on, let me take a look at you Beast of the Beasts.." Rollan replied, waving him over to his home.

***

After a few seconds, he found himself seated on Rollan's table that once was littered with papers and writings. Now, it was clean of everything except a mortar and pestle full of white sandy dust. The room reeked of herbs and....Centaur.

"What is this?" He asked while Rollan fished through the wooden cabinet near the cloth wall that divided his house in two. He couldn't help but feel Gil watching it from outside.

"Got it!" Rollan emerged from the cabinet with a handful of objects before replying to Claude, "Grind the bones of the dead. Plants love it, hm? As a fellow being of Nature I thought you'd know this."

"[So like a fertilizer...]" Arne said, giving a second voice to Claude's thoughts.

The mention of plants caused him to once again remember the cascade of events that took place before his battle against the Centaur's.

Rollan used the Nature Element, he somehow knew the Centaur's were coming, he spoke of the beings in the Desert again, sounding more serious than he usually did. Whatever was out there was bad news, and he still needed to know.

"You told me we'd talk." He said as Rollan came to a stop at the table he sat on, sifting through his supplies with the confidence of someone with twenty twenty vision.

"Oh we will. We have much to discuss, Monsieur. But something tells me you won't be in a very hospitable mood when I get to removing these arrows, hm?"

Claude growled an agreement before sitting up straighter, immediately feeling the blade of the arrows move in his flesh. "Let's get this over with."

In a rush, Rollan began working. He pulled out each arrow with a practiced delicateness, sensitive to causing any more damage on the way out. After each arrow was removed, he washed the wound and covered it in a salve that smelled of garlic and ginger before stitching it closed all while Claude cursed and growled under his breath. After a each arrow left his flesh, a memory of the battle flashed across his mind like pieces of a stop motion film.

Only two more arrows remained.

SHLCK!

"GOD!....Dammit!"

Correction. One arrow remained.

A steady growl rumbled from his throat as Rollan began cleaning the wound with a firm hand.

"So far, the wounds show no sign of being affected by whatever was on the arrows. Either it was something less dangerous than I presumed.....or you hold as many mysteries as myself haha!" Rollan joked from behind him.

"....."

Rollan spoke again in response to the feeling that Claude wasn't mentally present, "Monsieur?"

"What?"

"...I-is something on your mind?" Rollan questioned.

"No." Claude replied with a huff. His reply wasn't even partially believable as he hid under the veil of his shadowy hair. It seemed to be growing every day, now hanging down to his chest like limbs of darkness.

Rollan began stitching the wound closed, "More often than not, talking is better than withholding, you know?"

"[He's not wrong...]"

Claude took in a deep breath, feeling the stitches strain with the widening of his midsection before he exhaled and let the words flow with his breath, "They're so real..."

"Who?"

"That didn't come out right." Claude replied with a shake of his head, "They're sentient in a way I've never seen. They felt fear like the rest. But they also felt sadness and pain.....every-time one fell. It was more than just a collective anger at them losing numbers. Some smelled of rage or sorrow more than the rest, sometimes it would fill the forest in a flood. They had real connections....friends....brothers. So many cried before I killed them....part of me wants to be sad. Another part of me remembers they wanted us dead."

"You speak with an odd level of humanity, Monsieur la bête." Rollan replied.

SHLCK!

"RAGH!!"

Another arrow removed.

"But, I suppose that explains your morals. You're intelligent, but you seem to be troubled-- new. I take it you have not seen beings of this caliber first-hand where you're from? I have many questions."

Claude nodded, "You could say that."

"Well." Rollan started as he began cleaning the wound, "I take it, it would be a surprise then. The beings of the wild and the Tangents often have a chilling level of intelligence that is seldom spoken about. I assume this means you aren't born from the Tangents like them. They're more than war and pillaging. More than terraformation of the earth and consumption of man's flesh. They think, they communicate, they love...and sometimes, they hate."

Another chill rippled down Claude's back at Rollan's words. "You speak as if they aren't Monsters."

"So do you."

***

After their unnerving conversation came to an abrupt close, Claude's wounds were cleaned and stitched, feeling raw and tight. Frosty sauntered in soon after, and let Rollan fix his shoulder. But not without letting the man feel the touch of his fangs.

Luckily, it was only a deep graze. Or they may have been stuck in his home for a while longer.

"...And done!" Rollan announced in reference to Frosty's shoulder. "I've never been so close to PitWolf. He feels like a rug wrapped over iron." He added before reaching out to touch him.

The PitWolf served him a look as icy as the blue of his irises before walking over to Claude.

"Still wary? Very well, Wolf." Rollan announced with a sigh before running his long fingered hands over his dark-skinned face.

He looked tired. Claude placed the thought at the back of his mind. They had things to do, "We talk now. What's in the desert and how does it affect the Monsters in this forest?"

Rollan yawned before taking a drink out of his foul smelling brown bottle, "Yes. It is time we talked. But I think we need to travel first."

Before Claude could reply, the man was moving towards the door, grabbing his dull Claymore on the way.

"Travel where? Why can't you just tell me?"

Rollan turned once, his mask of friendliness and light-hearted humor was gone-- leaving a grisly middle-aged man in its place. "We're going to an old home of Monsters. Sometimes showing is better than telling, Monsieur."