"Hail, good sir!" one soldier says as they are stopped.
"Hail yourself," Artie grunts, spitting to the side for good measure.
The soldier approaches, pulling out a poster. "We have reason to believe there are wanted fugitives in this area. We'd like to know if you've seen any of these suspicious-looking characters…"
He hands the poster to Artie, who peruses it for a bit. It's the fire-breathing Kurtasaurus from before, with a few addendums towards the bottom in the form of names and crude sketches of the rest of the gang.
And when Artie says 'crude,' he means very crude. Like… there is a stick figure sitting down. That's him. A stick figure about twice as tall as the others; Finn, obviously. A stick figure drawn in brown with a slightly thicker brush, Mercedes. And a stick figure with curly hair, listed as 'unknown,' and pretty plainly Blaine. His own name, he can understand them knowing, but Artie has no clue how they got the rest of them.
"Nope," Artie growls, tossing the poster back at him.
"Are you sure you haven't seen—"
And here, Artie makes a controversial acting decision. He reaches out and grabs the guy, pulling him close enough to smell his breath. "You want to know what I seen, son?" he grunts. "I seen a platypus bear tear a man's spine out by his tailbone. I seen fishing boat turn over in a river full of piranha snakes and every last man onboard stripped to bones in thirty seconds flat. I seen skull beetles dig through a man's skull, making a hole so big his brains dribbled out of it like oatmeal. And that's just the fluffy fun stuff. Now you want to ask me again if I'm sure exactly of what I seen?"
(c)
p.s. На самом деле мне хочется сделать копипаст всей этой главы. Но это целая глава. И я не могу вырвать из нее даже кусочек, потому что я не знаю какой кусочек лучшей, она безбожно великолепна от и до. Я ПРОСТО. Я.