"Who... knows?" He mutters, but lacks the heat that might have turned honesty into ridicule. The back of his hand wipes his bandages face, brittle skin revealed in fractions, before the stained fetters return on his slashed cheeks. "Animals... are not. Humans. They follow the gut. The... smell. The memory."

More than the deceptive, winding paths of strategy, of human corruption. There is a simplicity to speaking with beasts that common conversations cannot hope to emulate. Small wonder that, even now, as the Beastmaster chides them, and seems to pick at his pouch for scraps of dried meats to lure them close to him — he is not angered.

"This... was their land first. Their forests." Everywhere, removed to make space for the sprawling bruise that is a village. "We... must be theirs, to them."