ORIGIN

Vargas stepped back.

His response was matter-of-fact, though without its overbearing, booming quality. He bore his usual stoic patience as he spoke. "We are sparring, Orthoclase-Alpha. You asked me to spar," he reminded it, hoping that reasonable... well, reason--would jar it back to reality some. "You do not need to apologize. Do you want to stop?" he asked it. He was disappointed, of course--in them both--and confused; it had faced its fears to some extent, and now it only crumbled. In himself, too, for misjudging so poorly. He'd given the Orthoclase the benefit of the doubt, judged that perhaps it was ready for him to honor its own request, but it clearly wasn't

Still, he laid the offer out there; the decision was its own. The question was: would Alpha be able to make that decision itself? Or would it simply topple again, writhing on the floor in mute misery?

....Riiiight.

"I don't know" was fast becoming Vargas's most hated phrase. And on the heels of that thought, the growing concern that his magic spawn, his would-be children, were horrifically pathetic and defective was lingering, growing, a paranoia at this point. It was one thing to have feelings; he'd have expected that. Even a healthy spice of trauma was to be expected, the way that he was raising them, the world they were being raised in.

But he'd given it a vacation! And when that hadn't been enough to make up for the lifetime of military abuse, he'd tried to be nice to the damn thing. What more could anyone want..? ...Black humor aside, he really did think that by this point Orthoclase's reactions were far beyond rationally equivalent to whatever horrors it might've seen. It had somehow made itself worse.

He didn't know how, but it had.

Once again, for the thousandth time, he wondered vaguely if it were molting.

With a grunt, he sat back on his haunches, puzzled and growingly irritated, and disappointed, by the puzzle that was Orthoclase-Alpha. It was a puzzle he was missing far too many pieces to complete; it couldn't fix itself, that was for damn sure. It seemed like it'd taken a few pieces out back and burned them when nobody was looking, actually. "Did Lord Dhracia speak with you?" he asked, at last. Maybe she'd made some headway he could draw on. Maybe distracting Alpha from... (Vargas eyed it over) from whatever was going on now in its impenetrable headspace would help, somehow.

Then, with a mental shrug, he fell back on plain honesty. "You are consistently afraid, and I do not know why. You do not eat, and I do not know why. You vanish for weeks on end." (And Vargas didn't know why, but that bit was becoming rather repetitive.) "This leaves me concerned for your well-being. It would be useful if you could at least communicate why. Or offer something other than 'I don't know.' Maybe you don't know. That's a shame, because though I am certainly powerful, I am not a mind-reader, Orthoclase-Alpha."

Vargas trailed off, studying the Orthoclase almost absently. I've tried talking to it before. At length. It's probably already receded back into that 'I can't hear you' mindset. He knew--again, vaguely--that it did this; he could talk to it all day, concerned and gentle, and it'd miss most of what he said and pass out in terror by the end of it. Is there even a point in trying?

Perhaps normalcy. A new routine, he decided, and then rolled with it, because it was as likely as anything else to work--or not. "Come," he said, pushing up and turning away. "We will hunt, instead." Maybe if he could just get it working alongside him--hunting, scenting, tracking, killing prey instead of cowering at the sight of him--they'd forge some new tenuous bonds. Something he could work on; something he could strengthen.

Creator knew he needed some form of lifeline, because otherwise, Orthoclase-Alpha really was lost to him.

The question--an actual question, spoken words from his wayward half-mute spawn--took him by surprise. He paused, head cocking to one side, as he considered. It took him a moment to try and calculate the days. "Hmph," he began, amusement in his tone, staring off at the treeline in thought. "That is a good question. Five cycles? -Six, seven? I am not certain, but too long, I think," he answered, and his tone was not condemning but instead rather careless. "I did tell you to take however long you needed, of course, but you do not look better." Again, careless, blunt, his grasp of social niceties in the face of a delicate persona absent. The fragility of the Orthoclase was far beyond his comprehension.

A rolling shrug of massive shoulders and the Leviathan pushed upright, turning half-away to peer out at the fields. His chin lifted and he sniffed, multitudes of nostrils deeply inhaling Pegasus's petrichor.

It occurred to him, briefly, that the question might have been designed to deflect his own--perhaps about their shared Lord--but Vargas dismissed this idea, if tentatively. I doubt it has the presence of mind to be manipulative, he mused.

Beyond this, he simply waited: alternating his long gaze out into Pegasus with a brief glance or two back at the Orthoclase, to see if it were interested in a hunt. A distraction, really. Vargas only hoped that it would say 'yes': maybe he could engage it in a more useful conversation when its mind was focused on more primal things. A glint of magic through his Oilstone set red shapes dancing in his vision: rabbits here, birds there, and beyond--over the rolling meadow and beyond a stand of trees--the massive meadow deer.

"There are deer just out there, if you are ready," he said. He was trying not to rush it--pressure would not help. But a distraction, the way he'd wondered if Alpha were trying to distract him? He hoped that it might help.

Vargas paused to watch Orthoclase-Alpha, for its moment of long silence, though he was careful to keep the whole of his body--his shoulders, the line of his spine--facing away. The creature was, he felt, too fragile at least to bear even the weight of his gaze should he face it full-on. Why? Why? That is the question.

Likely because you tore into it without purpose, he told himself, at least from its perspective. Well! Carapace-splitting attacks aside...

His observations dictated that the Orthoclase was ready to hunt. This, based on the fact that it had pushed up quickly--eagerly? This potential, a tentative in Vargas's mind, was borne out by the saliva that it lapped from its jaws, and by the push to come to his side. Ready, in any case, he told himself: and thus satisfied that his spawn was prepared to work with him, rather than flee, he looked ahead and pushed forward.

If Alpha was intending to flee, or even to attack Vargas from behind, it was likely now its best chance: he was just in front, now turned away, his attention shifting to the fields beyond.

And if it did not flee-? If it did not strike at him, maddened (neither of which he expected, or even really thought of)? Why, then the Leviathan was--true to his word--about to lead the way in a long and easy-limbed stride over the grassy hills. It was almost utopian, this place, and the day: warm weather broken by cooler breezes, a dappled shadow wherever orb-light was interrupted by the shifting leaves. The scent of grass and earth filled the air.

Vargas offered an olive branch of speech, as he walked; the Orthoclase had managed only one word, and he wanted to encourage more. The more it spoke, the more--perhaps--it would grow used to speaking, again. "Seven, yes; much has happened in that time. New members, the return of another Hand, others leaving us. It has been busy!" And then, a risk; "It is a shame you have missed it; it would have been good to have you there."

Was it even still behind him?

Vargas was pleasantly oblivious, or at least so it seemed. Inwardly he was keenly aware, of course, of its silence; but was that silence born of trauma, or had the Orthoclase simply nothing, now, to say?

He didn't dare guess, nor plan around his guesses.

Instead, as they drew closer--as the stench of wool and hoof grew closer--he skirted down into a lanky crouch. His body angled away from the herd, still out of sight physically (and now his red blood-sight had faded) but the herd was faintly audible, the snorting and stomping just over the next hill. But his head faced toward them, the full attention of his senses fixed upon their prey.

Vargas moved for the treeline, intending to circle a little more, and then he looked to Alpha. He spoke, very quietly. "We can one of us spook them at a distance, and the other lie in wait, hidden on the other side--and attempt to take any straggler as they pass? Or we can go out together, circle, try to break them up. They tend to form a defensive line that won't break, so that will be hard. Or, we can try something else, if you have anything in mind. Do you want to choose-?" he asked, and waited.

Would it choose?

Choose a method of hunt, choose a role to play?

Or would even this mild demand force it flat against the ground, drooling and trembling?

The Leviathan shifted his gaze back forward, so that whatever terrible pressure his eyes pressed on Alpha would be ameliorated. But he had to know it was capable of this--of a single choice, of the hunt itself--before they could proceed.