99 TELLING

Quickly, Claude turned away from the blood and viscera and vomited.

Or at least he tried to.

He had more than enough experience in his new body to know that he wouldn't be able to. His body was performing his usual task. The hunt. The kill. The consumption.

Accepting the reality of it was liberating.

He calmed with a ragged breath and stood up straighter.

"I'm not sick….. I'm not unwell. I'm not the one who tried to kill a child. It's not me. Not today... and it wasn't yesterday." Claude huffed.

As he turned back around, he found himself looking down at one of the "heroes".

A tank wearing a helmet modeled after the shape of an Orc skull.

His ear twitched as he looked down at the body in the snow.

In a blur, he lunged forward and stomped the bodies face in. More blood splattered. He dug his heel in with a snarl, slowly transforming further as he released his anger.

After a while, he lifted his foot and looked up to find Crysta and her Skylodraki Kobolds staring.

"He moved." Claude wiped his eyes.

"So did you." Crysta replied, "For a second, I didn't think it would be in the right direction. Then again, Fenrir wouldn't choose any whelp. That's what Scylla says at least."

"How often do you speak to your god?" Claude asked.

The kobolds began picking up and piling the bodies.

Crysta helped them as she replied, "As often as discussion is needed. Scylla doesn't do much verbal speaking, though. That's left to me. To those raised by man. Do you speak to Fenrir much?"

"We just met." Claude replied.

"I've never heard of him picking two….." Crysta looked from Frosty to Claude, "I wonder what circumstances could've caused that."

"Don't."

Crysta raised an eyebrow, "Why? You think I can't handle the details?"

"….i think I can't." Claude said quietly.

"I see." Crysta replied, "Well, for what it's worth, you have an edge. There's two of you. Two chosen. Double the progress— double the determination. You can ascend faster. Something tells me you'll need it."

"What?" Claude felt his paranoia heighten.

"There's something magnetic about you." Crysta said as the kobolds behind her began tearing apart the corpses and burying them beneath the snow. "That scream-wing chose you. Beast-tamers don't get chosen. They chose. They collaborate. They don't get selected. You broke into my home. I should've killed you. But I didn't want to. You take up space. You're….. curious. A wolf-man…. but something else as well. The same way your wolf-friend is something else as well."

"[What a flattering little dragon-child.]" Arne said.

Claude didn't have a reply right away as the two stood gazing at eachother. He was oversized, covered in blood and sprouting fur. She was short— elven and scaled in her young form and spotless. Somehow both canine. Somehow both chosen by the gods.

"What happened back home?" Claude asked her.

Crysta blinked twice in quick succession before turning over her arm and lifting up the sleeve. On the underside of her arm, the scales were gone, leaving only pale flesh where old ulcerous burn wounds sat.

"They were worse on my back but the scales healed over them." Crysta said casually.

Claude didn't have any more shock in him. He just killed six people in brutal fashion. But he had all the anger and then some.

"I almost brought her back to that." Claude thought.

"[It happens all the time. Unfortunately.]"

"And this is why you ran away." Claude said.

"I didn't." Crysta said. "I barely escaped the sloppy rage of a drunk with my life. While my mother watched— like a coward. I think I would've died if it wasn't for her." Crysta looked back to the bear.

The bear huffed lovingly.

"My father hated bears. His father was eaten by one. Seems the trend should've continued a generation." Crysta said.

"[This kid is stone-cold….. no pun intended.]" Arne commented.

"Have you ever thought about going back? Now that you're stronger?" Claude asked.

"I've tried— but I can't. I become my old self in his presence. I need more time to heal and grow. I'm sure you need the same." Crysta said.

"Except there is no time." Claude thought.

The two returned to Crysta's glacial home with the kobolds and ate freshly hunted polar-seal.

It was during their meal that Claude saw more of Crysta the child instead of Crysta the chosen of lizard-kind. She traded softer cuts of meat with hatchling kobolds and laughed as the mastiff Kobolds wrestled for extra left overs.

The scream-wing joined them in time— surely drawn to the smells of smoking meat wafting from the ice.

It was nice. But things nagged at the back of Claude's mind.

Words.

Avenging. Good and evil. Fight and flight.

Images.

Burns and cuts and tears and eyes under white skies.

Night came in a wave of frosted shadows and smoking embers of ash and bone over impenetrable ice floors.

The sky was beautiful.

Northern lights shifted across the dark expanse in shimmering waves. Claude almost felt like he was back at the university.

He had to look elsewhere so familiar faces didn't follow-up the familiar memories.

"[Youre not going to sleep, are you?]" Arne asked.

Claude shook his head.

"[Im starting to think you're stubborn to a fault.]"

"Maybe." Claude stood up.

Frosty rose up with him until they were both towering and sneaking over the sleeping Kobolds.

"You're leaving?"

Claude turned around at the end of the tribe grouping to find Crysta sitting up watching him.

"...yea."

Crysta watched him.

"You're right. I am magnetic. But not in a good way. There's….. others after me. Wolf-men. I'm not making you have to share the weight of that with me. You escaped your tormentors. Now it's my turn. You deserve a break. I'll get that for you on my way out." Claude said.

The steppe-bear sat up and nodded at Claude. Claude returned the gesture.

"And how will you do that?" Crysta asked.

Somewhere deeper into the nightly tundra, a pack of wolves howled.

Claude transformed— his dark fur blended into the shadows surrounding the fading fire.

Crysta bowed to the dark, "It was nice meeting you, wolf-man. Maybe in the future our paths will line up more fittingly. A time when I'm not developing a tribe….. and you're not an uncertain avenger."