ORIGIN

Despite all that'd occurred not too long ago, the monstrous hybrid returned to self-isolation; the thought of initiating, of feeling a greeting pass between its own crooked teeth sent roils of revulsion through its body. It always tasted the coppery tang of blood on its tongue when the idea bloomed into mind, and its head swarmed with TV snow—but, that was fine. It could hunt well enough, it could listen as the Sentinel talked at it and it never found the words or will to respond. It could watch and it could learn.

An unfortunate effect of its observations was that Orthoclase-Alpha had become quite skilled in the art of avoiding people.

Putrescent eyes stared and they observed; and so, Alpha knew the comings and goings of the Forge. It knew when they might yawn awake, head to whatever assignment was theirs for the day, return for rest and relaxation. It could mentally categorize those that clustered together, when their tasks alternated with the passing of the days.

With this information in mind, it could be tactical about when it decided to watch Tunnel G swell only with the lives of monsters, or when it braved the fields of Pegasus to return with rabbits in tow—having only eaten those that'd decay too quickly to bring back, spitting out their stones when it was done. It could dodge catching a flash of amaranthine carapace in the corners of its eyes, the gooey-warm lights that accompanied such a sight.

It could live out the rest of its days as a ghost.

It might be a failure to not try at all, but... Orthoclase-Alpha promised itself that it might be better like this: depositing a mouthful of dust-covered rabbits dug up from earlier hunts. Some were far more intact than others, but... it was sloppy. Getting better. Rusty. Still hardly able to stomach the idea that it did need to eat, and that rabbits were a perfectly edible item.

The monstrous hybrid, crouched down to make the deposit as quiet as possible, glared into the nearest Lesser's glassed-over eye. It blinked—to no response from the dead little beast with its neck utterly crushed—and stood with a sharp rattle of its quills. Putrid eyes slipped to either side of it—it shouldn't be noticed at all, it could go back to Pegasus—and it shook itself out before making to make its hasty retreat.

Through some sixth sense, it felt a sort of presence approach, a glare making the quills along its nape stand on end. Putrid eyes flicked over a spined shoulder just in time for a barely familiar voice to spill from a nearly unfamiliar face. Its correction of "Orthoclase-Alpha" died in its underused throat as its gaze moved up and down. Some part of its mind could recall who that voice had belonged to, but... the face it'd put to that voice had changed. Fins, scars, demeanor—making an approach in all its uncertainty—and everything but the general shape in its mind.

A shape so similar to its own, and yet just different enough and draped in a veil of Oil, sanguine and stained sheet-white spattering aside. Alpha recognized the stone in all its variegated iridescence more than anything else belonging to the Labradorite.

This wasn't to say that it'd failed to recognize its own spawn entirely. No, it just... hadn't been this close to it. Not enough to take note of what ought be insignificant details.

It turned fully to stare at the other six-limbed beast. Mane stirring into a prickly halo around the back of its skull, it stared. Stared, stared, stared, wondering for far too long what might come of this, what method would be the best for it to escape as quickly as possible—and scots free.

Alpha remembered too late to blink and flare its nostrils in a singular sharp breath. Steeling itself for the long con. "Fine," it grunted by way of a monosyllabic response. Before it spoke again, it gnashed its teeth together; a terrible attempt, too much pitch, too much force for its immediately-sore throat. It hadn't spoken in days. The orthoclase repeated itself, assuring no one, "Fine," and glanced back at Labradorite's general... being.

Curiosity could not be helped. (Is that a stepping stone?! Engagement?!) Cracking voice aside, it forced out, "Y-ou?"

"I'm fine." An age-old adage, often coming off of its own tongue despite the lie that lay in it. Even just seconds ago, it'd been a little bit dishonest—as much as the orthoclase tried (or didn't) to will it into truth. But, unlike Master Vargas, who'd heard it over and over and saw the phrase for the white lie that it was, Alpha couldn't take it for anything other than what it was: a genuine answer. Fine.

Orthoclase-Alpha did not look any less apprehensive. It now mulled over the ghost of one of Vargas's objectives for it, rescinded when it confessed to the sickening failure of its own social skills (or... want, squandered and repressed as it was.) Talk to them, learn what their tasks are, report to me, he'd said, not quite verbatim. The latter two-thirds had been cut out for simplicity's sake, to start from the ground-up.

It choked down the choking sensation of What do I do now? and its brain's woeful inadequacy to supply any decent response past "that's good"—and that was said without any prideful edge, any encouraging lilt, any upward squint of eyes indicative of a genuine smile. No, its voice... wobbled, wavered, nothing like the cold steel of before.

(How long until this one calls me its mother too?) (Stop.)
All the quills lining its throat bobbed as it swallowed, fumbled for more to say, more to stutter through; it hadn't been dismissed yet, it couldn't run walk away again now. It was a pathetic ruin, but it could claw its way out. Alpha merely needed to find the quickest path out before it started to drown (even though it could already feel the burning of saltwater in its lungs—) An answer came to mind, but it smothered it, stomped it down the very drain that it circled. It couldn't. A coward's way out.

I'm a coward.

Too long after it spoke, it relented; it forced itself to rock back onto its haunches before its jackhammering spurred it into running away anyways. A shoulder rolled, arm lifting to smooth down its quivering mane with far more shakiness than it ever wanted to demonstrate. Its teeth felt numb, mouth full of cotton and fried nerve endings from clamping onto a live wire.

Speak, dog.

Alpha's snout tipped perceptibly, scanning up and down the Labradorite's form, still the same but still different. It asked quietly, rasping, "When did... you— change?" A claw went gesturing across the somewhat appreciated distance Labradorite had put between the both of them. The word the word the word what's the word you're floundering STOP— "Mutate?"

Cycles ago. A reward.

Pried from the labradorite's Oilstained teeth, that was enough of an answer for it, though Alpha was far from… content with it; there was hardly any question in return, any proverbial lead offered up for it to adjust its white-knuckle grip to fit around. All it could manage in response was an acknowledging grunt, the minimal downward tilt of a snout. Still no encouragement or follow-up. Its attention was diverted too far elsewhere to even bother properly dissecting the vagueness of such an answer. No names, no places, no details…

Orthoclase-Alpha flexed all its fingers, claws—whittled and worn and cracked by pacing, in lieu of sedentary overgrowth—silently scraping against the Womb's floor. Knuckles bled putrid beneath sandy chitin, and it took all its will to not let its gaze linger too far where it'd drifted downward. Furthermore, it scraped at the top deck of its sinking ship, tying itself to the capstan and anchor in a vain attempt to keep its heart from running away with its body.

"You were gone for a long time." Teeth ground against one another in lieu of the natural motions of breathing. "Why didn't you return?"

It stuttered to something resembling a halt: its heart skipped a few beats, fluttering somewhere into the twisting and snarling pit of its half-empty stomach; putrescent eyes, wide for just a split second, narrowed into a piss-poor imitation of… annoyance, perhaps?; a thumb claw carved a shallow rut in the stone beneath, straining the quick beneath enough that it began to bleed just that little bit and sting.

Alpha ignored that sting. Its chest hurt far worse. Make it stop. Get mean.

"That's—" came the growled syllable, dying in its throat with a pathetic sort of wheeze. Teeth bared, the grimace not quite meeting its eyes or its quills—flared into disarray, but not rattling. Alpha sputtered between its yellowed, crooked fangs, air whistling through its broken (and never properly reset) nose, "n-one of y-you', your con-c-cern."

It nearly bit its tongue off snapping its jaw shut, voice scraping and raw against the lump in its throat; and it strained its neck to sit straighter, paste on a façade of composure that was betrayed by its lack thereof—quills in disarray, haunches twitching, toxic eyes glancing (however invisibly without dark pupils) anywhere but its own spawn before it.

There was a songbird trapped in its upper chest. Fluttering wings bound by bone and lung and liver, claws scraping and twisting guts into ribbons. Quarreling against the foolish rationalization that it'd made before the stuttering snarl left its lip. It twittered, whinged, shrieked as the orthoclase's spawn stilled into unresponsiveness; calm before the storm of hurt—like it'd been struck just for caring—twisted its face.

Its Heart dared to seize and bleed again, and Alpha… hesitated, this time, to quash it beneath gritted teeth and a piss-poor attempt at a steady glare. Warning it, that's all it was doing. All it was doing. Nothing wrong with this (it knew better than this, at least) and walling off every little inch of that which made it Orthoclase-Alpha (it knew better than this).

V-Labradorite-One, much like V-Zoisite-One, must have simply taken on the same curse. The same failure to be emotionless perfection, the same penchant to be doomed to an end. Cycles would pass and here they'd all be still circling the drain. Alpha had been sucked in first merely by virtue of age.

It'd not died for Labradorite to live, but there was still that piece of it in the claws that ate at earth, at the looming silhouette (and there was the faintest memory of its own mother live-giver there too), at the shape of its skull and the biting at air it did even now. There was still blood between the two of them, always bound to be thicker than water—right? Orthoclase-Alpha had simply soured it and spilt it across the floor.

The monstrous hybrid made no move as its spawn did, though its prickling quills betrayed the turmoil sparking in narrowed toxic eyes.

Labradorite had split its ribs in just a few gestures and made to leave, and though the bird could free to fly, there was… no delight to be found in it. No gratification by yet another bridge burned, another isolationist policy signed into law. Nothing but the nagging sense of self-destruction and cyclical self-sabotage.

Alpha could not help the empty stiffness of its acknowledging nod. Go away, it threw out into the void like it believed it. Like that was really what it wanted.

(It believed it about as much as it did the excuse to leave. It didn't want to know what it really wanted.)

Pupils slipped downward. One eye, dulled by death, stared back judgmentally.