358 CHPT 358: Beneath the Skin, Bound to Life....

Claude had long since become rather familiar with using his full Lupine power. But doing so with a completely sound mind was an entirely new experience he was still having trouble fathoming. As he lightly bounded and dashed through the cursed sands of the desert with the setting sun glowing behind him, the feeling was like flying. All the power-- the explosiveness, the feral intensity, the electrifying jolt of fresh energy. It was unexplainable with simple words.

And it was all thanks to two people. Two people who were nothing alike-- to the point that they were almost like two opposing ends of personalities in his eyes. Ursula Legrand of fine-- yet bigoted, noble stock. And Fenrir, Son of the deceitful and monstrous. One was warm, passionate, independent, rageful and fiercely protective of her friends since family was out of the picture. The other was once young and naive-- made hateful, callous, vindictive and cold by a family born from lies and distrust.

In spite of this difference. They both played major roles in his development. In the development of the crux of his transformative trigger.

Ursula in her hibernation-like daze upon a log, faintly mumbling profound understandings and realizations in Claude's failure to understand that acceptance didn't oppose disgust.

And Fenrir's constant rantings about Claude's asinine set of morals that were predicated on lies and presenting a false image. "WhAt wOuLd ThEY ThINK....iF thEir SaVioR WaS a MoNStER?....WoUlD ThEY GiVE yOU tHE....SAme GrrrRace iN RetuRN?"

Both solid arguments with different preferred results. But, that didn't matter much. Their message clicked together in Claude's mind all the same when the time required it.

His trigger wasn't acceptance-- it didn't come from simply sitting with what he'd done. What his mind wanted him to do-- and what he could do. It come from taking it all in. The bad, and the good. It came from embracing all of it.

The opposite of disgust and suppression was to embrace that very thing.

A small adjustment. More power, more evolution, more understanding of himself.

He was beginning to understand the genius of Romulus. Despite all the dark being a Lupine had brought him. There were parts largely undeniable. Romulus wasn't just searching for power. He built the Lupines for enlightenment. In all aspects. Every single piece of their magical making. Their hybrid origins, their transformative triggers, their focus on willpower and inner understanding. Romulus was trying to awaken his people and the world in a way Claude still couldn't fully fathom.

But, through unlocking more of said power, he felt undeniably closer. He wasn't sure in what regard, but (Partial Embrace) as a skill wasn't his only breakthrough. Not entirely...

***

The exhilarating-- yet incredibly dangerous, run through the desert with Ursula at his back, ended as a safe travel. One that was quite a bit quicker than it took to run there hours before.

Before he could fully enter the forest, Ursula had grown tired of being carried and practically pushed herself off, forcing herself to walk the rest of the way despite her injuries.

As they walked the rest of the way, Claude's senses began picking up heightened smells of all things relating to nature. The forest felt more potent-- shockingly so, to the point that both he and Ursula were taken aback by it. Other than that, all was the same.

When they eventually emerged on the field, Claude was given enough time to remember Rollan had sent them into the desert blind with all the odds stacked against them. So, when he found the man seated in a wooden chair in the center of the clearing around his home, mashing away with his flattened broadsword at a bowlful of objects that resembled an over-sized mortar and pestle, he half wanted to throw the cloak-full of fangs in his drunken face.

Ursula beat him to the punch, "Hey, plantman! Why didn't you tell us the serpent was a Uktena?! That shit sits well within the bounds of need to know information!.....goofy ass gardener, we almost died out there."

Rollan turned as calmly as one would when given a warm greeting by a fire. When he stood, the action was slower than usual and his legs shook from within the baggy spaces of his pants. Even under the setting sun, Claude could see the beads of sweat, dried and new, marring his spotless dark skin and long neck. The veins in his temples and slim hands even bulged visibly.

He'd been working all day.

He brought his left hand up as he watched them sternly before taking a drink of from his brown bottle that was very near empty. "Monsieur....Mademoiselle....Iron-Bodied Wolf....Blackbeak. You are all...ehhh...late as shit, hm?"

Ursula growled and icy air shot from her nostrils like a bull ready to charge.

"....Monsieur. I had to continue to keep your reward fresh for the entire day....due to your...untimely rate of work, no? Tell me you have my fangs...." Rollan added, slightly slurring his words.

"...So you just didn't hear the part where we almost died? The Demons were playing follow the fucking bread crumbs with a snake as big as your house!" Ursula pressed, eyes glowing like glacial orbs of fury.

Rollan slammed his broadsword/cane into the ground, emphasizing his anger and causing them both to stumble due to the ground rippling like a shook rug as green arcs of natural energy echoed from where his cane hit the earth.

"What the...." Claude and Ursula said in unison.

"...Whoops..." Rollan said before burping loud enough to awaken the demons in the desert.

After he collected himself, he leaned on his cane and looked to Ursula and Claude like a teacher speaking knowledge to two students, giving them no room to question what had just happened. Ursula may have simply been to stunned to speak.

"Young lady, I am a Druid. My people know death is not the end of any living soul....so it's not much of an end at all, is it?" Rollan said.

The glow in Ursula's eyes faded for a moment, "So....you're not a gardener?"

"I am many things....just as the two of you are, no?"

Before either of them could fully process what he said Rollan grabbed their attention again, "Oi. We are burning sunlight here. Do you have my fangs or no?"

Frosty trotted past them and dropped the cloak at his feet, pushing it open with his snout to reveal the glistening white fangs inside.

"Very well done, Monsieur pooch.." Rollan said before awkwardly patting Frosty's head in his slightly drunken daze.

"Now....we must begin." Rollan said before grabbing the fangs and dragging them to his seat where he began filling them with whatever was mashed into a oily dark liquid in his bowl.

The two Lupines approached the set up in silence, stopping briefly to notice the insignia cut into the ground where he sat.

"Have a seat, Monsieur. Your Ancient Markings await you." Rollan said while motioning for him to sit in the wooden lawnchair.

Claude warily approached and stopped in front of the chair while he watched Rollan tend to the hollow fangs in silence.

"Man, hurry the hell up!" Ursula fiercely whispered before pushing him to sit.

Due to the shape of the chair, he was forced to lay beside Rollan, smelling his drunken breath and sweaty body completely. The vast undertones of wood and grass that wafted from him were unnaturally powerful.

"Can you tell me what these Ancient Markings are now, Mr.Vague?"

Rollan took a final swig of his drink before filling the last fang with the oily liquid, "I'd rather not...you tend to be.....uhhh..--oh, yes, the anxious one. It is better to just get straight into the swing of things, no?"

"No...hell no!" Claude protested before being silenced by Rollan's magic.

Fwshsshhs!

With the twist of his glowing large-knuckled fingers, a spiraling braid of wooden tendrils rose from the ground behind him. They continued to rise and slither from the earth, arcing over his shoulder to reach the Uktena fang that he held like a pencil.

The twisted thin tendril of wood wrapped around the fang and oily inky black liquid began dripping from it as even thinner tendrils inside pushed out the fluid within.

The flaming light green-- almost yellow, glow of his Nature Magic coated the entire thing like it had all become one. Forming a sort of glowing magical pencil connected to the deepest and most natural portions of the forest. The intensity of Nature felt stronger than ever.

"Monsieur, I need you to remove your shirt." Rollan added while he held the fang pencil in his hands.

Suddenly the realization dawned on him and Ursula.

"[Well shit. Another tattoo. Maybe Samuel referring to you as a Barbarian wasn't so far off the mark, mate.]"