M0R1BUND

A sketch page of some more monstrous blighted Trahearnes, among other things. He is vaguely sphinx and vinetooth-shaped, with a big mane of thorned vines and strong, wooden limbs. His face is visible, but his actual body is enveloped within the more monstrous frame, kind of like Vinetooth Faolain.

The Lastborn appraises the new look impassively, watching as Trahearne cuts himself out of his own body. He says “I get that the war within you never ends, or whatever, but do you think you could battle your fractured psyche a little quieter?”

Commander Yuri Six-Cants is a little bit kinder. He looks Trahearne up and down and says “Well. At least you can reach the top shelf now?” Trahearne hangs his head and sticks his face in his hands.

Other vignettes show Yuri coming across the Marshal for the first time since the Pact’s fateful crash-landing, out in Maguuma. He catches sight of Trahearne’s shadow on a rock wall, and hears his voice echo from within the cave, shouting “Commander! To me!”

Yuri is stopped in his tracks. He calls out, “Marshal? Marshal! You’re alive—”

Yuri is cut off as the Marshal comes leaping out of the dark, pinning down two unfortunate Mordrem Guards with his lethal claws. The forest has left its mark on Trahearne, blood-stained, wild-eyed, and changed by his brush with Mordremoth.

Yuri’s pistol clatters to the ground. He’s too stunned to react. Trahearne shouts “Quickly! They’re upon us!” but Yuri just stands there, frozen.

Somewhere in the aftermath, Yuri daubs blood off of the Marshal’s forehead with a wet rag, as he lays his head in his lap. Trahearne stares, unseeing, into space. He croaks, “My body burns, and I can’t see…”

The view pulls out to show Trahearne’s formidable frame lying in a shallow pool, dwarfing Yuri. But he looks fragile, somehow. Yuri touches his shoulder comfortingly, as Trahearne says “Commander, I think something is… Wrong… With me…”

The remaining miscellany shows a defiant (if slightly unhinged) Trahearne cutting free from his own monstrous body, or maybe Mordremoth. There are some unabashed Lord Huron lyrics sprinkled in: “You were a wild thing when you were younger, stomping through the jungle / you were mighty and you were stronger, but I bow no longer.”

Finally, there are some margin doodles of Trahearne’s hand finding Yuri’s. Yuri responds by wrapping his hand around Trahearne’s and squeezing tightly. Vines creep out of Trahearne’s wrist and arm to reciprocate.]