[ Said easily enough since it falls right in line with his earlier 'advice' but now he looks at how exhausted Sylvain is. No wonder - blood loss will do that even before everything else is included. The worst of the injuries are bandaged though there's still smaller ones to go yet. Those can wait in favor of some rest, so Claude crawls over to sit next to Sylvain and to tug him over into leaning. Rest finds him eventually, but equally as unfortunately as before: it also finds Claude.
Sylvain had warned him. As he finds himself kneeling in front of the altar after awaking all alone, it occurs to Claude that he hadn't really listened. It'd seemed impossible somehow even with the evidence littering Sylvain's skin that it was very real. Damaging. Abhorrent. The list of ways to describe it is near endless, and yet each entry on it doesn't begin to scratch the surface as the ritual draws on and on.
Like Sylvain, when he finally stumbles out of the dark passageway into more familiar surroundings and back among others once more Claude isn't breathing normally. But unlike Sylvain, his struggles are from a harsh cough which developed incrementally ever since the pollen exploded over him - like it'd taken root, he thinks with dim and detached horror. There's a decaying tree nearby and he leans on it for a second, head still spinning, and when he drags a hand over his mouth Claude hasn't the slightest idea of whether it's from coughing or his torn up hands.
Or maybe it isn't his at all. There had been so many others in there with him, and yet only a handful of them left. ]
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[ Said easily enough since it falls right in line with his earlier 'advice' but now he looks at how exhausted Sylvain is. No wonder - blood loss will do that even before everything else is included. The worst of the injuries are bandaged though there's still smaller ones to go yet. Those can wait in favor of some rest, so Claude crawls over to sit next to Sylvain and to tug him over into leaning. Rest finds him eventually, but equally as unfortunately as before: it also finds Claude.
Sylvain had warned him. As he finds himself kneeling in front of the altar after awaking all alone, it occurs to Claude that he hadn't really listened. It'd seemed impossible somehow even with the evidence littering Sylvain's skin that it was very real. Damaging. Abhorrent. The list of ways to describe it is near endless, and yet each entry on it doesn't begin to scratch the surface as the ritual draws on and on.
Like Sylvain, when he finally stumbles out of the dark passageway into more familiar surroundings and back among others once more Claude isn't breathing normally. But unlike Sylvain, his struggles are from a harsh cough which developed incrementally ever since the pollen exploded over him - like it'd taken root, he thinks with dim and detached horror. There's a decaying tree nearby and he leans on it for a second, head still spinning, and when he drags a hand over his mouth Claude hasn't the slightest idea of whether it's from coughing or his torn up hands.
Or maybe it isn't his at all. There had been so many others in there with him, and yet only a handful of them left. ]