ORIGIN

Most of them had come to him, after the meeting; had marched their way over, had their conversations, been given their instructions, and then moved on. It had proved... enlightening, for the most part.

He had too long neglected some of them--not only their (and oh, was this word losing its shine) training, but their talents, their skills, and their interests. Their strengths and weaknesses, their desires. He did not know them, and that had been a failing on his part.

When the day had wound away, drifting the hours from one face to the next, one voice to the next, and at last left him in dimmed silence, he considered. He ran back over all of the day's discussions--from the meeting and the death of Kethri to his assessments and orders for Khavur and Zoisite, for Aurelia and Nidhogg and the rest. Am I missing anyone? he thought, and his mind at once swept to a single face he'd made a note of in the meeting, but not yet spoken to: the Selenite.

Such potential, in that shape; yet it had, to his knowledge, no instructions and no duties. Had it even been (ah, here it came again-)-trained?

Hm.

It took him a few moments to find it, perched atop a rock and sharpening a knife. Vargas came to it at a slow but ground-eating stride, peering at the weapon--wondering where it had gotten it. Had it made it? Scavenged it? Commissioned it from some subterranean smith?

"V-Selenite-One," he greeted. He couldn't remember who this one's stonegiver had even been--it hadn't been one of his creations. Attikias's-? Did the elf even know, if that were the case? Does Erebos? he wondered. Did they know they were half-siblings, here among the other monsters? Again, a Hm.

"All of those without duties were instructed to report to me," he said, and his tone was as measured as his approach had been. The following question was genuine; he had no way of knowing if Cain had granted it some duty of which he was unaware. Or maybe the Orthoclase had left it with one, one it had chugged away at in the background, inconspicous, forgotten. "Have you already been assigned duties? Either way, I wish to speak."

Vargas hesitated, for a beat. He was half-tempted to menace the Selenite, old habit instigating a snarled warning for it to be more responsible next time, to find him sooner, but those urges had been ferocity born of warning. In those days, if they hadn't learned fast, someone else would teach them. Now Vargas was the one to teach--he would still grant his warning, but perhaps... not so harshly. But that wasn't why he hesitated.

He was wondering, instead, if the Selenite had been close to Kethri. If the reason it were out here, distracted, were grief, sorrow, loss. He studied its face, saw no sign--but could it express such things? He could not, with his rigid lips, his unbending and snag-toothed snarl of a grin. And what if it is lying-? he wondered; to blame one's previous inaction on the now-dead would be an excellent way to avoid punishment for said inaction, since he'd not be able to verify the truth. There'd have been no point in it, of course; he wasn't really punishing anyone for inaction, not if they hadn't actually been granted a task to fulfil and then simply not performed it. The only one fitting that description, so far as he knew, was Garnet-Epsilon; and that would be dealt with not by him, but by Overseer Cain. It was the possibility of the lie itself that interested him, but as he had no way of finding out, he set that aside, for now.

"I see," he began, studying it, eyes tracking the thrown pebble for a moment before swinging back to Selenite. "I have been finished with the others. It is your responsibility to follow up on what you are assigned, even if that is simply 'speak to me after the meeting if you have no duties.'" But rather than a snarled warning, a savage threat, these words were delivered with measured (if authoritative) calm.

Then Vargas moved on, shifting to settle on his haunches in an awkward, towering hunch.

"We have not spoken much, you and I. I do not know what training you were given, what your strengths are, where your weaknesses lie. I do not know your ambitions or your desires." It was much the same speech as he'd given the others--Zoisite and Khavur most of all. But the words weren't empty or indifferent; he was speaking with honesty. "This was a mistake on my own part, and one I intend to rectify. My goals in this discussion are to find out more about you. I will start with the basic questions: what have you been trained in, if anything? Do you have a specific task that you wish to perform?" He paused, to give the questions air for a moment, to allow the Selenite to think, or to answer.

"Do you hold opinions on the rules and punishments I've laid out today? Are you generally content within the Forge; is there anything that you would see changed?" It was... odd, for Vargas to be asking the opinions of all the rank and file. Or at least, it would have seemed so to those who'd known him in ages past. He was struggling with leadership. Overseeing, performing a set and controlling and savage task and using mere brutality on all those beneath him, had been easy. Enjoyable, even. The rules had been simple; and he'd simply enforced them. But inspiration and motivation, twinned with discipline, and the balance of them both-? Harder.

Much, much harder.

But Vargas was no fool, and as he studied the Selenite--the rise and fall of its quills, the shifts in its expression (it was capable, it seemed)--he realized that there was one other question that he should lay out.

"Were you close to Kethri-?" he asked, and though the question wasn't soft or gentle, nor was it demanding. If the Selenite were upset, he wanted to know--he would need to compensate, if it was, and to consider how to handle it.

It was to his dismay that he thought he recognized some of Orthoclase-Alpha's utter indifference in this one. Its... apathy, its lack of true interest in anything. This was how it had started with Alpha, after all, wasn't it-? "Yes, I'm fine," no real interests to speak of, neither pleased nor displeased with quite literally anything. It had become gradually more difficult to wring out any sort of sincere or concrete response, until the beast was feral.

And-... They both had exoskeletons, didn't they? Maybe it was a feature of molting? This wasn't, in his mind, a flippant consideration--physical changes brought with them emotional, mental. Maybe there was a physiological link between the two--between shell and apathy, between Orthoclase and Selenite.

None of its statements expressed a personality beyond "amiable:" "I did what she asked." "I'm all right where I am." "I did not mind." "I don't see a need." "I can do anything you need me to." None, except one: "I like to make things." Had Alpha ever expressed such a singular sentiment--a single "like" for any one subject or activity? Vargas wasn't sure--couldn't remember. But he noted the Selenite's unspoken imitation of his posture, and he studied it.

"Can you show me some of the things that you make?" he asked. Perhaps when it came time to build, he could put this one with Attikias: crafting, creating, if that was its preference. Or maybe--like the others--it had unseen secrets, hidden skills he'd have to work to uncover.

That, he reflected, would be nice; it would give him more to work with, and maybe prevent a repeat of past disasters.

Vargas listened with growing interest.

"You enjoy crafting?" he asked, almost... hopeful. He'd been hoping to find a blacksmith, or someone to train as one. Maybe an enchanter and a weaponsmith, too. Once upon a time he'd hoped Maximus would lean that way, but it hadn't happened and he had no intention of forcing them into roles they didn't want or like.

He gestured for the knife--to take it, examine it closely in one hand, and hand it back a moment later. He didn't know enough about weaponry to really gauge it, but it was a knife (confirmed) and that was good enough. "Tell me, Selenite-One," he said, mulling the words over along with the idea even as he spoke it; "would you have any interest in learning to forge?" (To Forge for the Forge, ha.) "I could find you training; you could create weapons, armor, and tools for those who require it. There is someone who could teach you, and perhaps you could even learn to enchant these objects with magic. It is a highly respected role and one that would gain you some fame, I think, among all the Forge. Is that something you might be interested in?" he sort-of repeated. He doubted that it cared for fame, much--most of them wouldn't--but he didn't know it enough to be sure. What was important was that he laid out all he knew so that it could accurately decide, and this was pretty much it.

It was always nice, finding a role in which someone would shine-something they'd enjoy, something they could do and do well and lose themselves in. A role that one would look forward to taking up, day by day, and take pride in their own work.

But was this a role for Selenite? Only it could say. "If you aren't sure, we could try it out."

And he wondered what the floats-on-water thing was, but--one question at a time. Right?

Vargas studied it closely. It was hard to miss the signs of discomfort, but it was possible to misinterpret them. But the frown, the quills--he was familiar enough, by now, with the quills. His own didn't raise and fall with his emotions, normally, but Orthoclase-Alpha's had and he knew that it was uncomfortable.

He responded with reassurance, but also with amusement. "You do not wish fame-? You do not need to become well known. It is only that good work is sought after, and there are not many who can do it. As for what else there would be? Satisfaction, I suppose. Joy in a job well done, or contentment in the work itself. I would prefer," he went on, and pushed up to do a slow, pacing turn around the room, speaking as he moved. It was a thoughtful tone, a thoughtful movement, too. "I would prefer that the Forge members each find something that they enjoy," he explained. "It is not enough to find something that you are capable of. You ought to have passion for it; to enjoy it. If you think you would like to create, but not be well-known, we can arrange that. But if you are unsure... we could visit the Blacksmith," he suggested, "and see? You might try your hand at it to figure out whether it is 'for you,' or not."

Vargas was, aside from Selenite's discomfort, relatively pleased with himself. His skillset had been gauging strengths and weaknesses, as Overseer. But matching "his people," as he was coming to think of them (in a sort of happy managerial sense) to suitable work--work at which they'd both excel and find contentment--was both an unexpected and pleasing new application of it.

He only hoped that he would not have members who had no passions: like the Alpha, for example.

At least most of these knew what they enjoyed.