Kapitel 264: CHPT 264: Nature Calls, Nature Responds...
Sunday Evening, November 25th, 2240
Moments before the beast and his Wolves awaken,
Rollan groggily rose from his assumed drunken stupor. His fowl breaths bounced off the dirt ground he faced and traveled back into his sensitive nostrils threatening to singe his nose-hairs. In a rush to escape his own pungent morning breath he rolled over like an elderly bed-ridden man inches from death.
The small movement reminded him of his sore joints, a dull ache that screamed to life in response to any sort of movements, ripping from his knees and elbows to travel the length of his limbs like internal razor blades. Getting up was going to be a pain in the....behind.
For the moment, he lay still. Feeling the heat of the evening sun focused heavily on one side of his face as if he were facing a campfire. If he wasn't so painfully sober he would've smiled.
But, he was. In his most natural state. Taking on the world in it's rawest form. No hazy lenses to witness it through or painless travels to embark on. Just him laying in the dirt and left to sit with the truth of himself....something he didn't hear when he drank himself to internal deafness.
"You did not save them. You will not save your people.....you have failed both sides."
The distant voice was returning. Like a ghost stuck to the home it died within, the words never wandered far from his psyche, they merely floated and meandered around the drunken cloud he forced onto himself. Simply waiting.
The cloud was gone, forcing his sober face into a scowling mean mug tough enough to make prisoners piss themselves.
If he didn't get moving anytime soon, he'd be forced to sit with his truest thoughts and fears. So, engaging in the task of getting up from the ground despite his aching and deceptively old joints was all he could do to thwart the oncoming mental onslaught.
By the time he'd gotten to his feet, he'd let off every curse word he'd ever known in every language he knew. Pain had that effect on him. It may have been something he'd known since the beginning of his short-- yet long, life, but it never got old. Pain was always fresh.
A thought that fluttered to the back of his mind as a familiar myriad of scents entered his nose and painted a picture of the green world around him in a way his closed eyes couldn't. Even blind people needed to rest their eyes.
With every inhale, a collection of scents accompanied the wind that entered his long and slim nose.
Dirt...an earthy cold scent-- one that was easily forgotten. Flowers, a mixture of fruity and putrid scents, accurately expressing the vibrant variety of life within his home. Honey....that one was new, in terms of how naturally fragrant it was. And then the strong yet distant scents. Scents that would only get stronger as he went deeper into the wild. Blood....feces.....rotting....urine.
And the closest scent. The dominant scent of Wolf lined with an afterscent of all predators and magic. It felt like he was facing the entire animal kingdom in his front yard.
The beast that laid amongst his wolves had a weird scent like that. He'd never smelled it anywhere else. But the beast did hold one faint familiar scent. Demon.
They'd need to speak about that today. He needed to know the beast's relationship with them. Had he killed one? Had he killed more than one? Did he almost die to one?
The answers were important. They'd determine the future of their working relationship and how he'd fair against what lies in the desert.
Similar thoughts continued to swirl in his mind, leaving him tensed with his worn and dark-skinned hands balled into tight fists.
"Putain de merde!...." He mumbled the French equivalent of, "Fucking hell." in anger before adding with a sigh, "....I need to get back in shape."
Something moved in front of him. Big movements full of power and protective instinct. He may not be able to see in the classic sense, but he could almost feel the bulky wolf rising to it's feet to sit between the beast and him as a protective shield.
For a moment they stood in silence, just sizing each-other up. It was odd to face one on such relatively calm grounds.
His home forced him to harbor a hefty level of disdain for Wolves. They were and still are horrifying back in his homelands, cunning and vicious predators that roamed the mountains/forests surrounding his home, following the orders of a mythical being many still know little of. He could still hear their howls if he let his mind take him back to his childhood. Howls lined with hunger for humans and a never-ending hunt for blood.
He'd always seen them just as that. The people of his homeland didn't like animals much. Especially members of the canine species-- it was too dangerous.
And yet, here this sentient beast was, roaming with a pack of them. Their loyalty and familial ties visibly stronger than steel itself.
It was nice to see. Nice to be reminded that although Monsters are monstrous, they don't always have to be. Of every being living on earth, he knew that fact better than most....
If he was happier, he would've said something nice to the protective wolf. But he wasn't. So he settled with getting his salves and cleaning supplies ready to help the beast's human partner of sorts.
"We'll need to speak about that as well.." He thought, mean mug hardening like stone for a fraction of a second before he headed for the door into his home.
As soon as his rugged palms were about to close around the wooden handle of his door, something big moved fast with a snarl.
Rollan turned on his heels, holding his great-sword-cane in a tight grip as a volley of rumbling growls rippled along the dirt ground in his direction.
"...Monsieur?" He mumbled before turning his head to listen better.
The beast snapped at him in the distance, silencing the forest with his powerful jaws.
It seemed his protective instincts were malfunctioning. Rollan knew all about malfunctioning...
"Monsieur...it's me, Rollan." He said calmly before quickly loosing his patience and replacing it with sober anger, "Come on god dammit! What are you doing?!"
Mistake.
His ears picked up on the beasts breaths rising higher and higher off the ground.
He was standing.
Rollan swallowed loudly and backed up closer to his home, making sure his main means of protection still stood between them in the form of a wooden outdoor entryway littered with dark blue flowers. They held an almost magical glow.
The beast didn't seem interested in appreciating their magical beauty and instead charged at him, flanked by his snarling-- yet confused, pack of wolves.
"MONSIEUR WAIT!"
CRASH!!
His words didn't reach the once sentient monster's ears as the beast charged at him, smacking straight into a once invisible wall of blue that emanated from within the entryway.
His body hit the magical barrier and shook the ground around his home for a few seconds as the loud sound of magic straining threatened to deafen them both.
He really hated when Monsters tested his wards. Not because they'd eventually break through or anything, but because of the sound and their persistence. Beasts were beings of persistence, a successful hunt demanded it. And that meant, Rollan was often subjected to hearing them bash and claw at the magical barrier for hours on end until his ears bled like red fountains.
That's what every other Monster had done. Except this one.
The beast didn't rage anymore. He could still hear it's snarls, but it was focused on something else. The ward. He could hear the beast sniffing and touching it with interest for a long stretch of seconds, then something unbelievable happened.
It took in the deepest inhale he'd ever heard-- there was something different about it....like the beast was taking in something other than air.
What followed was something he could only describe as a dampening of power. In unison with the beast's monstrous snarling inhale, he felt his Wards lose their defensive might in a matter of seconds and then the life around him heightened with a feral edge.
A sudden pulling sensation grabbed hold of his skull in response.
He stumbled back further in shock as the beast seemed to absorb the magic within his wards. The ground beneath his feet vibrated with power as small patches of grass erupted from beneath the dirt. The trees surrounding them even began to shake and hum.
"What the--...."
Before he could say anything else a loud slashing sound rocked the forest as the beast slashed open the wards, letting them fall to the floor as something similar to glowing blue shards of broken glass before fading out of existence in a cloud of steam.
The sound of the beasts footsteps followed soon after, a high-speed tapping that closed in on him in seconds, followed by a pair of pawed hands closing around his throat and attempting to slam him into his home.
Luckily, he was already moving to defend himself. Not with his arms or legs. But something he hadn't used in a few days. Something he didn't think he had enough energy for yet.
Good thing he did, or his skull would've probably been splattered against the outside walls of his house.
To his surprise, something similar had been cast upon himself. To confirm his belief he wiggled his long legs, feeling them tug and pull on the natural binds that climbed up to his knees. The pulling sensation on his skull felt stronger than ever.
As if a beast absorbing and breaking through his SpellBloom Wards wasn't shocking enough.
For a moment they stood in silence. He could practically feel reason slipping back into the creatures body and mind, leaving them to stare at each-other in shock.
He was coming back into his own mind. Good, because his hold on the natural binds around the beasts powerful legs were slipping.
By the time it was over, they both could only mutter a single sentence in unison as if their minds were running on the same wavelength.
"....You have the Nature Element?"
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
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_Avatar0FFury_ YO! Thanks for reading, and thank you all for helping the novel get to 500k in advance thats such a crazy number! Also shout out to all the theorists who guessed it, but ive given you more to theorize over with this chap so have at it! Thanks for the powerstones frenandoi, alex99, warriorwolf, krissch_, TheLucidParagon, 23Dark, KoDiaK, XX_Osiris_XX, AnnabelleXD, shadowwolf, Bop_, Bonb_Crusher, train_master, Aaron_Lobo, Sonius, Zombireno, Deadra606, Ominous_Reader, Amith_Sydney, and omeroford!!!
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