ORIGIN

'Labradorite One, Zoisite One, Khavur, Nidhogg, and Aurelia will all report to me.' That had been his loud decree: and he'd thought, as he eyed them over, that there were a few among them he hadn't spent nearly enough time with. That counted, too, for the Selenite--for those that had been under Orthoclase-Alpha's direct supervision when they'd initially come to Draco.

It hadn't occurred to him, since he'd dismissed the Overseer for a vacation, to take over with those few: he'd been assuming, all along, that Alpha would return. He'd left their training entirely up to the Orthoclase and now, they'd been abandoned--cut adrift, zero guidance, zero training. He had, in many senses, failed all of them.

The Zoisite was one of the first to approach him, and he eyed them over as they came: a perfect monster in appearance, with a fierce-looking blend of Orthoclase-Alpha and of the old Champion it had revived. But what did he actually know of the Zoisite-? He knew only that it was quiet and reclusive; that he had never seen it sparring, fighting, hunting. He hoped it did not share--had not inherited--the Orthoclase's burdens, whatever those might be. But when it greeted him, it was clear and brisk, and he gave it a respectful nod.

"Zoisite," he said, in turn. "I have not spent nearly enough time speaking with you and for that, I apologize," he began, and both his words and tone were blunt. "I had left you under Orthoclase-Alpha's supervision and I had assumed it would return; when it did not I should have taken up your training sooner. Talk to me," he went on, in a manner somehow both businesslike and idle, both to the point and open, unhurried; "tell me what you wish to do, and why--you mentioned lights? -Are you happy here, in Draco? What do you think of the Forge, of the others? Is there anything you would change?"

They were, perhaps, sudden and very open-ended questions--with far-reaching implications--but they were genuine. He wanted to get to know those who he had neglected; he wanted to know what they were like. Their strengths and weaknesses were of interest, certainly, but he had to know what he was working with. All this time, he had been looking for new members of the Forge, when he had had a few under his nose that he'd virtually ignored.

A failing, he thought, that he intended to correct.

Its answers, he hoped, would tell him something; give him a starting point to work with. Perhaps it'd be reluctant, or even reticent; perhaps it would prove well-spoken and insightful. There was but one way of finding out, and that was opening a dialogue: and that, Master Vargas was trying his best to do.

Vargas had come into this--an entire thirty seconds ago--expecting... well, he didn't know what he'd been expecting. Revelation, yes, but only of the sort that would expose some of Zoisite's personality and abilities to him.

And so he waited, expecting exactly that, his businesslike demeanor and patient words opening a path that he now sat beside--allowing Zoisite to take the lead.

"My magic," it began, and for a moment, this meant nothing--Vargas waited, listened, empty and silent. "I use light."

Something... strange, settled over Vargas, then. It began with a realization: the Zoisite was related to him. Logically, he had known that. Orthoclase-Alpha was his spawn. Zoisite was Orthoclase-Alpha's spawn. But-... While he had spent time fretting over Alpha's state of mind, while he'd considered it more his child than any other spawn he'd created, he'd never thought twice about the Zoisite. He had never given it a second glance. It was as though someone had ushered Zoisite into Draco for the first time: unveiled it with a sweep of cloth and said, "here is one born of your child." As if he were, only now, being introduced to his own... grandchild? Family? It was a shift, a sudden lurch in his gut: It holds my magic. That had come from him.

A link, an unexpected softening.

It was not that the Zoisite wanted such things--he had no idea what it wanted. For all Vargas knew, Zoisite was insectoid, monstrous, wholly empty of emotion. But despite himself, he suddenly found himself worrying.

Orthoclase-Alpha had wound up alone.

And now here was V-Zoisite-One, abandoned in Draco by its lifegiver. And alone. (So Vargas assumed: he had no idea if any of these spawn here close to one another and, somehow, it seemed unbelievable that they would be. He viewed them through the lens of his own past, where "friends" were but a weakness.) Alone, despite living in the same cave that he--the giver of its magic, of its lifegiver's life, in turn--dwelt in, never giving it a second glance.

Was that... guilt? -Concern? I do not want it to follow the Orthoclase's fate, he thought, a rather jumbled mixture of two phrases combining into one.

Vargas struggled to take his mind back to the present: the Zoisite was speaking. And to his vague disappointment, there seemed to be nothing there, in terms of its emotion. At least it did not come across wretched, or weak, or petulant. But it seemed empty and to the point, void of any strength of will, any real sense of unique personality--perhaps it sticks to formality because I am a stranger to it, and a terrifying one, at that. That seemed reasonable, but he would not push the creature--and he had to be careful how he proceeded, for Zoisite's own safety. But his decision was already made; he would look after this one, he would get to know it better--he would ensure it did not tumble down the same strange hole that had taken its lifegiver, in the end.

If he could.

"We do need lights," he agreed, at first, his tone perfectly neutral and empty in turn. "That is my magic; you have inherited that from me." He paused, a moment, pondering this--but quickly he moved on. "If you wish to tend the plants, then we will teach you that. All things are necessary," Vargas went on, slowly, "but I believe that given enough time, we will have plenty of members to fill any given role. Tell me: what have you been trained in, thus far?" he asked it.

It did not escape him that the Zoisite hadn't answered his other questions; but he could revisit that in a little while. For now, he wanted to know what it knew how to do--and what it didn't; perhaps he'd find something it was both good at and enjoyed, but simply hadn't been introduced to, yet.

As he studied the bug-like creature, he tried to fight off that faint pit-of-the-stomach sense of warmth. 'Family' is weakness, he reminded himself, harshly--but that didn't mean it wasn't his responsibility to look after this child's--this Zoisite's--well-being.

"Thank you," it said. It bore a sense of gratitude, then--which meant that, likely, it had likes and dislikes of some kind. Vargas couldn't quite figure out what the Zoisite was thanking him for, but he nodded nonetheless.

It can hunt, and fight. It can... make plants glow? Make plants permanent, he realized--preservation magic, then. "Hunting and fighting can be put to many uses," Vargas said, thinking. "Hunting food, guarding allies or locations, warrning against our enemies, or training our young. Those are all options open to you, should you wish to pursue any of them. Have you been trained in further magic-? Do you wish to be?" he asked. "We could use many lights in the homes that will be built here, of course, but as you say that will not last forever."

Vargas leaned back, a little, settling down on his haunches to think further. His gaze remained trained on Zoisite, and he wondered that its eyes resembled his own. -Both sets of eyes, he realized; one false. He'd almost forgotten.

His tone remained patient, considering, as he went on. "But there are always options. You are free to try your hand--so to speak--at other roles, to find out what you like and what you are skilled at. Should you wish further combat training, I will train you myself. If you wish to learn the ways of assassination, or carrying messages or of scouting, you have my permission to seek out Overseer Cain, though your training would be probably secondary to the other messengers and so forth that Cain has to train, first--that would be up to them. Chaos-Two has two gardeners at work in Pegasus--I am partially overseeing them. You can come with me, if you like, and meet them--perhaps they can teach you further, or you can work with them." It would not, Vargas reasoned, be a bad idea to have a true Forge member out there working with them, either--he'd had Chaos-Two gather them, but certainly not oversee their work. It had its own medic training to see to, instead.

Vargas, of course, had no idea that Zoisite had met at least one of those two gardeners.

"Should you find interest in building, tunneling--that is a possibility, too. But you did not tell me: are you content in Draco? Is there anything you would change of the Forge?" he asked. It was a patient set of questions. He was careful to offer many options; he did not want the Zoisite to, like Alpha perhaps had, feel locked into a fate it did not want. And he was not impatient, though he often would have been, at having to repeat his questions.

Vargas did not want to scare the Zoisite off, somehow; to come across more overbearing than he'd meant to. He had no idea how sensitive, or not, this one might turn out to be. Some creatures responded positively to mocking humor; others shut down when faced with it. And likewise, some could not take the slightest bit of criticism without crumbling whereas others thrived beneath it. He was still feeling the Zoisite out, and it would likely take quite a bit of time to learn its quirks. In the meantime, he would be careful.

The ghost of the Orthoclase still lingered in his thoughts.

Vargas gave a little nod, thinking. "My own skills do not truly lie with magic, but I will find someone to teach you," he assured it. For a moment, he cloaked himself in shadow: a brief shroud of darkness that draped across him, and then faded, after a moment's demonstration. "I tend to use it to remove the light, for hunting. There are others more skilled in making it brighter, instead. And with magic in general, for that matter." His first thought--for whatever reason--was of Titanite: another of his direct spawn, and one that had learned more of its magic than of combat. But then, one of the gardeners was skilled with light too, was it not-? "I can think of two possibilities." Perhaps more, if he considered longer.

For a moment, as the Zoisite continued, Vargas felt faint fear: the clinical way it replied worried him, somehow. But why-? That was optimal, really; a dutiful and intelligent nature was virtually perfection, in his book, provided it was combined with a strong will. And the Zoisite was proving to be well-spoken, at least in terms of forming coherent sentences--a bar that had to be set that low, considering the presence of those half-feral creatures like Vjira and like Nidhogg. Those were good things, were they not-? Empty, he thought, and it was a grim and distant word.

To the Leviathan's surprise, however--a pleasant surprise--the Zoisite then repeated words (if paraphrased) that Vargas had given them many cycles ago. This was a very good reflection upon it--that it had listened, and that it had remembered, taking what he said to heart. And this... relief? Approval?--was quickly followed by a sinking sense of disappointment in himself; how much of the Zoisite's potential had he been wasting, and for just how long-?

"I believe Pollen may join in," he answered, wrenching his mind back into the conversation. "And one of the other gardeners--a bird-dog that calls itself Oliver--is quite familiar with light magic. I will take you to meet the gardeners and if you get along with it, and if it proves suitable, perhaps it can teach you some of what it knows. I believe it is teaching Chaos-Two some of its mending magic, as well," he added. He reflected, then, that Oliver's magic was versatile, if fairly useless in combat: it was a creature that had built itself around creating and fixing, rather than fighting--a back-line logistics beast rather than a soldier.

It had its uses.

As for its brief assessment of its own happiness and Vargas's actions, they were... disappointingly without substance. Were these answers noncommital--a reluctance to express a real opinion, for fear of what it might incur? Or was the Zoisite that empty of opinion?

Vargas studied it, a moment, and then exhaled. "Very well," he answered, more quietly, more slowly. "But if you do think of anything, I wish for you to tell me. I will try to be more directly active in your training," in your life "and ensure that you find a suitable role within the Forge" that you are kept happy, that you do not fall apart and shed your shell and starve in a hole outside Canis.

He paused, thinking. "And Zoisite? If you hold any concerns, or if you think of something you would like to try out, or do, or a place you wish to see--lessons you would like to learn; come to me. I will make time for you," he added, firmly. It, he thought, abruptly; I should have said, 'I will make time for it.' For the activity. This sounded too personal, too-... weak. Soft? He would need to be wary of his phrasing, in the future.

In case anyone overheard.

A pause, then, and he spoke once more: "Is there anything more you would like to discuss, while you are here? And where would you like to begin, in all of this?"

The faint expression of surprise wasn't lost on him, and it piqued his curiosity--but the Zoisite was quick to explain. Vargas was unsure why it corrected "him" to "it," and didn't comment on it; this question was a very minor note in the larger scheme of things. It--told Zoisite its eyes are pretty? Vargas thought, puzzled.

...Was this a good thing? But-... Nice, Vargas's thoughts echoed, hollow. Distant. And then came flooding in an unwelcome sort of warmth, an almost-affection toward the Zoisite he hadn't expected. It wasn't a feeling he was familiar with--it was a protectiveness, a sudden determination to protect the Zoisite at all costs as he had the Titanite, hiding it away; and Two--...

Because it meant something, didn't it-? That Zoisite noted Oliver having been kind to it. It meant that it cared about such things. It meant that it had feelings (which could be hurt, perhaps); it meant that it held opinions, and was not yet nothing but an empty (withering) shell. The fact, too, that Zoisite was thanking him for listening... It holds emotions, Vargas realized, beyond that mandibled shell. Did that mean there was potential, for it-? Did that mean Vargas could hold some faint hope that it would not end up as Alpha had?

I need to meet with the others, Vargas realized. He had to speak with each of them, even those of not of his magic or his stone; who knew how much he had wasted them? A cardinal sin, especially for an Overseer, whose task it was to develop and nurture their strengths, and correct for their weaknesses. He had lived how long as an Overseer, and forgotten this most basic of duties? No longer. Though he did not expect to feel any warmth toward any of the rest. But then, this was not expected, either.

Vargas made a mental note to ensure that Pollen and Oliver were brought to meet Zoisite. And when he spoke, it was with that same calm and patient tone. "As soon as you are ready, I will take you to Pegasus, to where we will likely build the farms. There is a small primate there, named Diot, who will also be aiding. As for a name," Vargas went on, "any of the tasks set that earn rewards can earn you a name, as well as pushing you to the rank of Hound. Once you have finished stringing all the lights--that may take a great deal of time, as the buildings are not even begun yet--that could garner you a reward. Winning in the Deathmatch, or finishing your training--once you have chosen it--or finding or creating a new and useful Forge member who in turn proves themselves; capturing a rebel or a servant of Order--all of these will be rewarded, Zoisite." He paused, for a moment, eyeing it.

"Do you have a name in mind?" he asked, curiosity striking unexpectedly. He found that he wanted to know it better--as if all the cycles of neglect could be made up for in a few moments of careful questions.