ORIGIN - Show Me What I Chose

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This thread is backdated to being after Run for the Hills! For those curious that places it about 4-5 months ago. Shh.

Finally... Canis. Room of bones, and one red dog. They would get to that one soon enough, but as they walked among the bones, the potency of Khavur's guilt only grew... and Maximus could probably feel it as well. She had kept it in stasis for far too long. Now the memories were cascading back; laughing skeletons, a party of the past, and all at her expense.

'Maximus...' she began, feeling a creaking in her heart as if some weight were being lifted, or settled onto place, she couldn't quite tell yet. 'I... want to...' Well, she did and she didn't. She didn't want to be a coward. "I want to explain what happened... when I first returned to Draco."

It all came down in Khavur's mind like tumbling stones, the process of entropy: the guilt of the long sleep, Vargas's lesson, what she had been slowly growing towards, perhaps growing into, all along... But even that was not the start. It was not at the second awakening but the first. It was not at the second round of wicked cackling but the first.

Lord Dhracia.

This had been a long time coming.

And it all felt like fate, the way the lines strung together; red and green and orange and yellow and brown and black and purple and blue. The rainbow weave strewn from the fingers and claws of three. Who were they? Who was she?

@V-Chaos-Two

Maximus had felt it. They were so emotionally sensitive that they couldn't possibly ignore the feeling that only strengthened the longer they walked, a journey with an end Max couldn't see quite yet. But they were scared, an emotion that they couldn't help but project, too. Not of Khavur, never of Khavur, but of what had to be plaguing their sibling for such a heavy emotion to be weighing on the both of them now.

"I'm here to listen," they said instea of any, 'you don't have to' or 'are you sure's. Khavur wouldn't have offered if she wasn't sure. What Khavur needed was their support and their love, and they had plenty of both to give.

Maximus picked their way carefully through strewn bones, unsettled by the sheer amount of them. There were thousands of corpses worth of bones here, so carelessly tossed as if they didn't matter. Someone had to honor the dead, here, and though Max didn't know any last rites or prayers, they could take care not to disturb their final, desecrated resting place.

"Remind me of what happened? Was that...?", they trailed off and offered a general... summary of Khavur's fight with Labradorite and Zoisite, put into simple thoughts without any sort of imagery. Meant to prevent hurt or worse, an attack.

@Khavur

Khavur's foundation crumbled further at the evidence of Maximus's fear. She knew it wasn't caused by herself directly, but... as it had been back in Draco, it almost was now. She was still the cause. The last thing Khavur had ever wanted was to invoke fear in their sibling for any reason...

But what about the labradorite and the zoisite?

Khavur winced. It wasn't fair to treat Maximus like a special case when Khavur had wanted to protect and grow with them all. And yet, something within itself fought that belief -- not that Khavur had done the complete and utter wrong thing, but the belief that Khavur had had purely malicious intent. She wasn't evil. She had been trying to help. So why, then, had it come out differently with them? With Maximus...?

"Thank you- and yes, it was when I... fought our siblings. When I hurt them." Khavur could still hear the fracturing carapace and the thud of body against rock. For a moment, she almost smelled it again -- red. It made her panic instinct soar in an instant- then settle down.

"I came in and announced my return. Zoisite-One came to greet me, but was taken aback by my fury. I was more like an angry beast than a soldier... dripping with malice. Labradorite-One followed after Zoisite-One." The emotions were only just beginning to stale. It hadn't even been a cycle -- it hadn't even been a full week. "There... there was... my mind, I just--" Khavur sputtered, trying to untangle the heaping ugly mass of reasons why. Khavur hadn't attempted to make sense of it back then, and as a result it had only grown more knotted. Foolish. "I picked at any reason I could to... not to hate them, I did not hate them, I... wanted to attack them. More than just physically. I wanted to..." Khavur had stopped walking. They reached for a bone, something with a joint. They bent it against its angle, testing the force it required until... snap! "It does not make sense yet. Not until I explain what Master Vargas did..."

The setting in Khavur's mind shifted. It shared the memory -- the guttural, visceral emotions of that memory -- as best it could. "I had awoken from my accidental long sleep, and was reporting to Vargas. I had just sparred with Orthoclase-Alpha..." And lost. Here there was shame, and fear. Neither of these would leave, not for the whole memory. Maybe they were still there now, the coals to be shoveled into Khavur's furnace. "He told me to fight him... and if I did, I would earn my right to travel." Then came modest hope in its most common form: a speck. That, too, wouldn't be leaving, but it had since been buried under mounds of dirt and ash. "So we fought." Khavur stood up, and began circling around Maximus. "As I recall, we circled each other..." This gave time for Khavur's ambition to well. She sent it to Maximus, dripfed it into their link. Ambition, too, was a mainstay for the Reaver. "...then he lunged at me, came quick, held nothing back." Khavur would use Maximus as the phantom Vargas she knew they could never be, simply for perspective. It would all make sense soon.

"I sidestepped him." Khavur threw herself out of the way of some ghostly strike. The surrounding bones rattled in applause. "I flung my tail at him." She still didn't know why she'd done that. Foolish. She should've calculated it all faster, thought of it all sooner. At least she knew now... "He caught it and tried to fling me. I made it hard for him." Khavur stuck their tail out and scrambled backward, still moving with Maximus as their centerpiece. Khavur then twisted to stick a killing claw out, as if to plunge it into phantom Vargas's side. Khavur fell over on her side in the process, inciting a chorus a chorus of boo's from the skeletons.

"I drew blood. Finally, so did he." Khavur swung its claws violently, feverishly into the air above it, and attempted to writhe and squirm as if the same were being done to it. Khavur was one for theatrics; sound, they realized, made it seem all the more intense and life-threatening. So they would try to mimic the grunts and snarls... but not the gurgling acid of blood or the plops it made when falling upon stone. They had too much dignity for that I guess.

She wondered, now that she was reenacting this... why hadn't she flown?

"At last, he winded me." Khavur suddenly stopped struggling with the vacant air and recoiled pitifully. "I couldn't get away." Khavur's voice began choking up. She knew what was coming next. She might never forget. "So, without ever stopping in his barrage of attacks, h-e asked me if I gave up... I c-ould not answer." She hadn't the air. Here, the fear was overwhelming, and the shame, and the hope was so far under it had practically been smothered out. It- she had needed air. "S-so he thr-eatened to kill you. Un-less I stopped h-im."

At last, Maximus would know how angry she had been. How violent and raving mad. All that fear and shame and envy, there was envy that slithered in silent as a snake... and there was love in there as well, commander of the army, driving the charge... it all built into a bonfire so crazed that- "I f-ound air. I m-...must have willed it into m-e. I r- I roared and flew at him, and I did not hold anything back." Khavur's molten voice solidified like steel. In that moment-- during that whole spar, actually... she had attempted to become his mirror image. It was only at the very end when at last she had succeeded.

"He said I had won. I yielded. I did not want to." A shaky breath. "Sometimes I wish I had not stopped." Familiar malice began to drip out of every pore. It smelled like cherries.

She turned both heads back to Maximus. "Do you remember this anger? When I returned. He called you my spark during his 'lesson', I remember telling you. I left on that first trip looking for Canis, I left with that poison slowly spreading through my mind, and... what did I say to you? After the fight with Labradorite-One and Zoisite-One... that I was a bird... or that I could not stop. I could not stop. I came here," Khavur looked around, swept its tail around as a broad gesture. The skeletons chattered amongst themselves, judging the performance. "and all I could find were bones." And how they had laughed at her. Shame built, fear climbing with it, in some terrible dance, wavering and trembling around Khavur, the Reaver.

"...I missed you. I wanted... to be around you, and- and- at the same time, I... did not want to be around you..." It was hard to admit. All Khavur could do -- all Khavur had done -- was worry. Worry about what Maximus would think of that. Of all of it. Khavur wasn't sure if they wanted sympathy or not. "I ran back, I could not stop, and when I finally arrived... as I told you, all I could see was red." Misshapen, dry twigs, like the labradorite and the zoisite. All of the emotions from before, sans hope, had grown enflamed and burst like a firecracker.

"All I could see was red. Imperfections, like my own; things I had to destroy. That whole battle with Vargas, I had tried to imitate him. For Zoisite-One and Labradorite-One, I tried again. I think... I believe that I wanted to help them. That, in that instance, for some reason, I had to break them down," The bones quivered, they did not want to be touched again. "so that they could grow stronger."

It wasn't the full extent. It wasn't even the actual beginning. Khavur didn't know if it had the words to display the full extent or the origin of that anger, because... they hadn't threatened Maximus's life like Vargas had. Khavur hadn't been afraid of them, or ashamed because of how they criticized her. And yet Khavur had felt those same agonizing emotions: shame, fear, and envy. She had envied them, and feared for them, and... been ashamed of them? ...Yes.

Khavur sought out Maximus's eyes. Radiant green, bright, and caring in a way Vargas's had never been. Would Maximus realize... just how different they were? Just how close Vargas was to Khavur, of all people? Never before had Khavur felt so undeserving of what wonderful things Maximus had given her. Butterflies, and life, and love -- they were the Bringer of such things. Khavur could only hold them. Reave them. ...And let them go.

Now, Khavur no longer knew what to say. "I... do not..." know what overcame them? They did know. It hadn't overcome anything. It was built into the program. "want..." to repeat the mistake? It wasn't a mistake. It was fully intentional, it was designed to help. The only thing it had been, then, was a failure. Khavur could not know now if it would repeat. "I am sorry." The keystone of Khavur's structure clattered to the floor. She had said this before, a few times before. This was what she made: errors. This was her creation.

Here, she placed it in Maximus's hands, for them to hold.

"I do not know..." what to do with this instinct. Again, it was embedded in Khavur's design. But did Maximus believe that?

She waited, begging with her expression for Maximus to... respond, react somehow. Console her, consult her, command her to do differently, tell her what she longed to know. What she worried about every day. Was this okay? Was she okay?

@V-Chaos-Two

Over the course of Khavur's whole tirade, her ranting and venting and sweeping around demonstrating the battles, the fights, the valkhound might notice that not a single loose thought or emotion slipped over from Max's end. They both knew how good this walk was for them, how they'd been growing happier and happier, able to slip into a personality no one knew but the two of them. A silly, fun, happy Maximus who liked to point out flowers and gape at the vast herds of deer they saw and the birds flying high, a Maximus who liked to use their magic to create wings to fly up as high as they could just to see how far they could get or to check out a bird's nest, cooing at the babies within.

Their emotional balance allowed control, allowed them to stare down Khavur without flinching as she went in for a killing blow, showing such trust and faith in their sibling that they weren't even worried about flying debris. They didn't move aside from turning to watch Khavur, observing and listening silently.

"... You are looking to me for reassurance, for something I, in good conscience, cannot lie to you about," Maximus said softly, finally letting emotions slip. Calmness, fearlessness, trust.

They walked forward towards her, putting a hand on the great big snout of their eldest sibling, eyes soft and full of love, full of caring.

"You and I," they said softly, leaning their head against her, eyes slipping shut as tears welled up at the words they were about to say, that they had to say... they couldn't deny it any longer.

"We are monsters," they said softly, their heart breaking with every syllable, "But do not despair yet, Khavur. I have much to say and I need the time to explain."

Maximus pulled away and paced, picking up a bone and holding it gently as they did so, quickly creating a space in the bones where ground could be seen. Where they were walking and clearing away, walking and clearing away, their thoughts roiling like an ocean storm. There was love, confusion, fear, sadness... and there was rage.

The bone snapped in their grip as their quills rose, a cold, quiet, terrifying anger welling up within them, the first emotion to address.

"Master Vargas should not have used me as a game piece in order to get a reaction from you," they spat, tossing the bone into the rest of them, unable to care for them as much as they did for their hurting sibling, "He left a mark on you. On the inside where no one can see, a scar that will be there forever and that fool cannot grasp the gravity of what he has done! Of the pain he inflicted unknowingly, of the turmoil and grief and rage he stirred up within you, emotions that seep out the cracks no matter how well you seal them."

Maximus whirled around, emotions radiating off of them like a heatwave, so powerful that if they channeled such emotions, any reasonable gembound would bow before them.

And like that, they were leveling out, evening into a calm pool once again. The emotions were felt, acknowledged, and left to trickle between the fingers of their outstretched hand like sand. They reached for Khavur, offering a physical hand to them, their rage sated.

"Could have. Would have. Should have," they said softly, "You could have flown. I should have done more to help you. It would have been better that way."

Things said so off-handedly that it sounded like they weren't important. Like Maximus was explaining something so boring even they couldn't find a way to make it interesting.

They tossed the bone away gently and looking Khavur head-on, their soft belly and chest turned towards her, "What has been done can't be changed, and if you dwell on the past without trying to fix... then history is doomed to repeat itself. If you focus on what has been then those feelings will continue to overwhelm you and choke you and fill you up with this guilt."

Maximus stopped for a moment, gathering up their thoughts again, turning towards the interior of Canis as they did, fixing their eyes on a point in space and zoning out for a moment.

’But Khavur,’ they thought, ’That does not mean your feelings, your thoughts, your fears... this doesn't mean they aren't valid. It is not as simple as I am making it, but in order to move past your guilt and grief, you have to acknowledge them as valid and let them go.’

Maximus presented Khavur with a memory.

Chaos-Two lay curled up on their side, alone, all alone. Khavur was sleeping in their chrysalis, leaving Chaos-Two ALONE!

Tears welled up and fell as they whimpered and sobbed, the rain and the humidity causing swelling in their hips and extra pelvis, each twitch absolute agony. There was no relief, any herbs or teas they tried having little to no effect. But the worst part was the rage, the anger.

Khavur had left them all alone to face this alone. To deal with Vargas, to deal with the pain and suffering they had to face constantly. There was no warm body to snuggle up to, no relief in gentle touches and murmurs telling them it would be over soon. No... Khavur so selfishly left them, and they weren't forgiving them.

Guilt rose up suddenly, and they hissed as they stood up, crying out in agony as they slowly but surely limped towards Khavur's chrysalis, unable to help but cry as they collapsed against it, trying to find that comfort in what was nothing more than a hunk of rock. They sniffled and sobbed against it, muttering apologies for feelings that had risen up in a time of great pain and suffering, feelings that they couldn't help but feel but felt terrible for anyway.

"It isn't exactly the same, but it's the most similar thing I could come up with," they said, "But this is one of the few times I can remember ever feeling negatively towards you, when you weren't there. But how could you have been, when you were gone for a reason out of both of our control? It wasn't fair of me to feel that way towards you and yet I was! But those feelings were valid, despite being wrong."

Maximus straightened and clenched a hand, the one that hadn't been held out to Khavur, "We were created as monsters. We are Valkhounds and we were created for violence, for Chaos. But then... why aren't we like Vargas intended us? Why aren't we contributing to the Chaos Forge as soldiers or fighters? Why don't we win fights and why are we so soft?"

They reached forward and touched Khavur's chest gently, placing their hand there.

"Our hearts. Complicated emotions," they said simply, "Monsters don't have those. They can't feel love, like Vargas can't. And though it is a gift, a heart is a heavy burden. For where there is love and happiness, there is also sorrow and anger."

"You have to learn to let go of such emotions," they said, "To acknowledge, but to let go. To validate your anger, your hatred, but to let them slip through your fingers like sand. And to accept that what happened cannot be changed, but that you can better who you are so that it doesn't happen again."

@Khavur

Khavur might've shrank down to the size of house cat. She felt Maximus's torrent of emotions, from those she knew she could never accept in her current state, to those she had never seen so much of before. All at once, she felt... validated, connected to Maximus in a way she was not connected to anyone else, and afraid... because, while they had admitted to her being a monster, it almost sounded like- it almost seemed like--

The power radiating from Maximus when they displayed their anger was like none other Khavur had seen before. This was Maximus, in full glory; unafraid in their emotions, loathe to cower or have cowered under any other force; a monarch of hearts, a butterfly. Once again, Khavur was choked up, but they watched and mimicked what Maximus had told them to do. To forgive herself, and to relent. She took their hand.

And the memory brought forth made Khavur feel as though... feel immense pain and guilt, but from far away. Like it was coming from another room, like she was watching it writhe and shriek from a glass box. She was part of this memory, part of Maximus's agony, but removed from it now, because clearly Maximus had forgiven her. The dissonance was uncomfortable. Should have, could have, would have been there... but hadn't been. Khavur only wished she could promise that it wouldn't happen again.

All at once, she was swaddled, and left cold on the shore of some beach, watching the sand drift from Maximus's fingers, and trying to hold out her own so that the sand that adorned her soul might do the same.

But it wasn't all drifting. Some of it clung. Some of it was a part of her, Khavur believed. She could look upon Maximus's body -- how soft and kind it was, how it longed for peace and company -- and she could watch the sand pepper that fur and sting those eyes, but she had never, ever seen it cling. Maximus was more like the water of the beyond than the land Khavur trampled over. All this to say... Maximus was different. Unremittingly so. Different, familiar, and the same. This did not mean Khavur couldn't learn from them.

Maximus was... half-right. Right in all the ways Khavur had expected. Maximus could see her heart, and heal it, and hurt it without trying. They were monsters, but Khavur was also not, because she did have that burden, the burden they shared as siblings share most things. Then what were these two? Together, people? Apart, monsters? This is where the flaw remained: Maximus was less a monster than Khavur. Deep down, she had known this, and that moment when Maximus had come racing from Pegasus to stop her from mauling their siblings, she had been made sure of it. And now, she was made sure of it again when Maximus listed all the things they didn't want. Victory, to be a soldier, to be soft and free.

Khavur was not soft. Maximus should have known this more than anyone else. Khavur was made of scales and bark, rooted in the earth, capable of withstanding all things. Eons of fires, and blades, and destruction. Khavur was built to last. And she craved victory -- perhaps not as a soldier, not as something mindless and loveless. She wanted to succeed. She had worked, trained, fought with herself, so that she could fight with others, and win. In other words, violence was in her blood, put there by the Master who created her. But since she had not been made completely as intended (that was true), so was love... So what did that make her?

An abomination.

As she had always known. And what would that mean for her? Death? Replacement? No... if there was any truth in Maximus's words -- and there was, Khavur could feel that there was -- then there was also hope. Hope for the both of them. Maximus was a monarch of hearts, an understander. Maximus could help, teach, and guide as they always had. Maximus was their eyes.

But even they couldn't see everything.

In the end, the Holder was mainly just... confused. In awe, comforted in some ways, feeding a deeper anxiety in others. The comfort, confusion, and anxiety made it through the Link, but the reasonings behind each were held back. Longer, she would keep this secret. Longer, until it felt right to reveal.

A moment of silence while she absorbed everything, every word. Her hatred, and Maximus's, these were alright. Emotions were their burden, their responsibility, and their gift. If there was no need to push them away... then what was self-betterment? 'It is the action,' the response finally came, 'that must be improved. ...Thank you, Maximus.' Khavur was once again glad that they shared this Link of theirs. Sometimes she wished it were not so, but in times like this it was wonderful, because Khavur could finally show her sibling just how much this 'thank you' meant. Just how grateful she was.

The waves reached out for the shore, and swallowed it whole. All grains of sand were washed away, except for those that stained Khavur's blood and would do so until the end of time. The outside was softened and the inside was freed because Khavur let it be. Maximus could feel this in full, a meditative calm washing over them from head to toe.

Khavur did not know the future... not yet. They did not know the truth of their own self, but then, that was an ever-evolving matter. What had changed for the better was finally admitting what they always had been, and clinging to the hope of what they would become. Khavur would, could, and should change. The events of the past would not be repeated, because not only were they guided by their monstrosity, but also by their heart.

"If I begin to see red again... if all imperfections, come to light, what do you think I shall do?" In moments like that it became nigh impossible to not want to tear them down. "If not endanger our siblings and my own heart..." The truth was, by asking this Khavur was making its heart wish to beat out of its chest. She knew what she did not want to hear, and she did not know what she needed to hear. So she awaited, anticipated... what would become of her, when placed in the hands of Maximus?

@Maximus

Maximus couldn't see the future. Wouldn't know the irony of their words, of the suffering they'd endure only a few days from now. They knew the present and they knew Khavur was here, right now, and that she needed them. If only they could, if only they could adjust what they were going to say, to change the future ahead of them.

"If you love someone, you respect them. But it is those we love who we lash out at, trusting that they, no matter the abuse they face, will continue to love us," they said softly, "And we can't take that for granted. So when you feel rage, take it out on those who would hurt, instead. On those who would hurt your loved ones, or who are needlessly cruel."

They were reluctant to admit that in this regard, they were out of their element. That they didn't have the rage simmering within that Khavur did. The proper thing would be to ask, 'what do you think?'

"In the moment," they said instead, "Think about it. If you need me, I will be there, but try to sort through it all. What triggered it? What calms you in those moments?"

Maximus wanted to help. Wanted to be there for Khavur every step of the way, but they knew that there had to be a level of independence. Maximus wouldn't be there for the other always, there would be a distance too great to travel in a short time, or they would be asleep or in chrysalis, leaving Khavur without their guidance. So they had to prepare for these, to make sure Khavur was okay.

Not once did they spare a thought for if they were left alone, alienated against something they couldn't handle.

@Khavur

Khavur could take out her fury on anyone, that was true. Anyone who would hurt her loved ones, her siblings. She supposed that that was sort of what she had promised to do, initially... to protect them. But Maximus's suggestion left Khavur feeling misunderstood. Khavur had not hurt its siblings to abuse them, expecting them to love her anyways. Khavur had done it to protect them from themselves. So that they would not have to... to face Vargas head on, as Khavur had... to deal with what Khavur had dealt with for the first time, to deal with that unpracticed. ...Oh. Khavur had attempted to be their test Vargas.

Could they admit that to Maximus?

"Sometimes it is triggered by... Vargas," That was half-honesty. More like vague honesty. "and sometimes it is triggered by life itself. It is... chaotic." All the implications were there, but Khavur wasn't spitting it straight out. "And what calms me..." Is to be sated. More than Maximus, it was to be sated. To feel that all that imperfection had been addressed, had been changed. "...is..." Khavur couldn't say it. She didn't want to keep lying. They were here! They were open! They were safe. "Maximus, to tell you the truth, it is not just mindless anger. That rage I felt already had a purpose, a direction. To redirect it would have been to make it meaningless." That fire, then, had to remain controlled, lest it burn down everything that was good along with the bad. "I would have become the needlessly cruel that you tell me to fight against."

Khavur had tried to tell Maximus in its tirade what the purpose had been. Heck, she had tried to make them feel that purpose themself. Was this still love? Was this still the product of her heart, or was it true monstrosity? Either way, Khavur had now decided that it would be much more dangerous to let loose on anyone at all. Hiding the flaws only saved the problem to be seen later. Hiding away the flaws, hiding away the emotions, these had never been an option. Not for Khavur.

So that settled it then: Khavur had to be honest.

@Maximus

Max finally faltered. It was visible as their expression fell, turning almost to dismay. Their mind whirled as they tried to think of how to help, any ideas falling through the mesh of their brain. Nothing came, not even a scrap.

"I-I... Khavur I-", they stuttered, unable to even grasp a simple sentence.

"... I don't know," they said, finally being honest, too, "I don't... I don't know how to help with this. I can't experience what you can and... a-and I want to but..."

’All I can do is be by your side, but what good does that do?’, they thought instead, for lack of words. ’How do I help you? How do I fix... no, how do I support you?’

Perhaps they were getting somewhere. Maximus, no matter their wisdom, was young. Months old, in reality. They'd been through a lot but they lacked experience. Mentally they could have been an adolescent, if not a toddler in how little they'd actually experienced the world.

Maximus felt horrible for not just being able to whip up a solution. That's what they did! They fixed things, they supported Khavur, they... they were her Eyes, how she saw the world. But Khavur was right. Maximus couldn't see everything.

@Khavur

Maximus turned so quickly from boldness bright as Orion's stars to the swirling, inky confusion one found in the face of the Black Spire. Khavur couldn't blame them -- she had just dragged them into uncharted territory and expected them to have a map. Their questions probed a fear within Khavur, the fear upon which all this bitterness was predicated. It made Khavur tense up, turn away, and think. "All I can do is be by your side, but what good does that do?"

What good does that do?

...Khavur trundled over to a pile of bones and retrieved from its midst a jeering skeleton's skull. The pile itself rattled in displeasure, but Khavur was too lost in thought to care. She held her prize and studied it carefully, one grasping hand supporting the skull in a sort of "here lies Yorick" hold, while the other slid over every surface and tested the resistance the skull provided against varying pressures. She puzzled over this, and puzzled over the elephant in the room, the question of what Maximus could do...

After a while, Khavur seemed to understand that "For the future, being by my side is enough." She would turn back to face them again. 'As long as you are with me, in some way... for the future in which we are apart, the future in which you fear me or hate me because of the parts of me you do not understand, that is the future I cannot... that is the future I dread more than anything.' That had been her anxiety from the moment these monstrous impulses had risen to the surface. Now it was laid bare... and Khavur felt bare as well. This was her form of trust. Showing Maximus her errors, her faults and flaws, and trusting that they would not attempt to reshape her.

"For now... I do not know if you can parse through the experience, even if I shared it with you directly, but perhaps we can find a way to better myself, as you have said. I do believe... well, my goal had- has been to help you all develop strength. Strength so that you can reach your full potential, and gain the freedom you seek. Sometimes I wish to see you embrace what others call flaws, and sometimes I only see the flaws that need to be effectively removed or otherwise nullified. I do not know if that is a product of my monstrosity or my heart, it could be both. Anyway, I do not want to hurt any of you... if it does not help you. But then, how to criticize weaknesses constructively, how to get my point across... and how to separate all my other angers and fears from that burning urge to remove weakness?" Khavur was hastening, pacing and thinking, speaking fast. 'Do you think this urge would be any less dangerous if it were not so personal? If it were more like... training?'

A vision was starting to formulate in Khavur's mind. If she could take out that envy and suffering from her own self, would that neutralize the poison? When she saw all red, could she try to be calm instead? What would she do, then, with all the excess anger? She supposed Maximus had already told her: simply let it go. Could she treat that and this redness as two separate issues, would that work?

@Maximus

Chaos-Two approached, gently setting a hand on Khavur's flank, "Then... I will be here. Through all possibilities, though I can't imagine hating you. What a cruel, horrid person I'd be to hate you, my sweet Khavur."

They thought for a moment. Yes, these were uncharted waters, but as long as they kept floating, perhaps they'd make it through and swim to shore. The shore being a goal of allowing Khavur peace of mind.

"Maybe make peace with it?", they suggested, "Instead of trying to force these flaws away, you can confront the issue with whomever and do as I said before. Let it flow away. Wrestle it down like a pig, sibling, overpower it and show it who is in charge. Take it's advice but don't let it dictate your actions without your say."

Chaos-Two watched her pace, thinking too. There was a lot to think about, that was for sure.

"... If it were more like training, I think then it would end up being something along the lines of beating up whoever you are teaching," they said, "And while that is crucial in learning to fight, you cannot learn by being beaten down. You must encourage growth. You can't leave a plant out to weather a storm and then leave it to try and regrow. It needs nurturing, sunlight, water. As a student needs guidance, acceptance, and reward, as well as discipline and punishment."

There were layers to this.

"But I am with you," they offered softly.

@Khavur

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