Five times, he'd had to rein in his bratty spawn. Chaos-One was a damned menace, and not in a good way. Though its stone was Oilstone, it was no creature of the Creator's magic: yet the element of fire that infused it seemed to provide enough chaos for a generation of more Oil-slicked Valkhounds.
Not that Nidhogg was not, in itself, Oil-slicked, which was a confusing topic all its own. Vargas had never quite understood this one. The creature he had found in the swamp--a perfect apex ambush predator, massive and dripping with Oil, formed of single words and powerful jaws--had not been like V-Chaos-One. It had been feral, yes, but the feral of a monster of legend: silent, mysterious, patient. When this creature had provided its element to a shard of Vargas's stone, the Leviathan had expected a tractable and devastating soldier to result. Chaos-One, however, held the fire of its grandsire, the alligator Dragon, and Dragon's son Imp: ferocious, unpredictable, defiant, and utterly self-serving. Ferocious, Vargas could use.
But self-serving and unpredictable? That was what he was here to... correct.
Five times--once for each cave they had passed through after Draco--he'd had to chase and snare the idiot serpent. In Pegasus it had immediately become distracted by Meadow Deer, and tried to bolt for the herd, a mistake that would have undoubtedly been fatal. Vargas had barely managed to catch Chaos-One, to pin it and grip it by the jaws and growl that it was not to do this again.
This lesson had left it cowed, until it was promptly forgotten in Cepheus: at which point Chaos-One had gone for the Hellswans. Like a dog off its leash, it had bounded for the water, plunging in with a splash. Thankfully, Vargas had managed to yank it onto dry land before it had harmed a Hellswan--because they'd have eaten it alive. Again he had chastized it, even smacked it across the jaw in light warning.
A lesson that had humbled it until Ursa. Here, it had gotten distracted by the snow, of all things, and here Vargas had been more patient, watching it leap fox-like down into the white and burrow. He'd let it explore, some, thinking that this at least was more natural behavior and that it might expend its energy here and be more tractable the rest of the way. Cold had at last forced it to lose interest, and--tracking Oil behind it--Chaos-One had moved on.
It had lost, as it turned out, exactly none of that energy. In Polaris, V-Chaos-One had tried to eat a Skystone crystal. This time, Vargas had lowered himself to his haunches, watching with six eyes half-lidded in exasperation, as the serpent had gnawed on the crystal, trying to chew rock, with all the blank fervency his idiotic line embraced. It had jolted each time a magical spark shot through its jaws, only to renew its foolish efforts seconds later, again and again, untiring.
Vargas had at last dragged it out by the back of its neck, snarling at it when it snapped at him, and threw it bodily into Cetus. And here, it had at once tried to bolt off into the fog of the swamp--for what purpose, Vargas did not know. But he gave chase at once, flattening it to the ground.
He'd been patient, thus far. Where once upon a time he'd have at once resorted to violence, the reactions of Orthoclase-Alpha following a simple backhand (if a bloody one) had given him pause with such things. But now he realized that there was nothing else Chaos-One would respond to, and he pinned him with his weight, hands wrapped too-tightly around the jaws, and snarled down with his brimstone breath.
He stared it down, giving its foolish mind a moment to process his words--it would need it, he knew--before speaking more slowly and clearly.
Admittedly, he was less harsh on others in the nest who had not made themselves useful. But they, at least, had a personality beyond trying to wreck everything Vargas tried to do. Chaos-One had lived up to his name, unfortunately, and Vargas was fed up with it.
Would he remake it? ...Perhaps. He didn't want to. But it responded only to very clear demands, and to power, so that's what he gave it now. He released it, but the moment it tried to squirm away he shoved it back into the mud.
He turned his back, marching off into the mist.
Nidhogg would have been very upset with Vargas's cruelty if he'd been reflective enough to think on it. But he was a creature who lived in the moment. When Vargas pinned him and struck him, fear and hatred twinned and he obeyed, glaring up but too afraid to strike back. With his feral nature, he'd undoubtedly have killed Vargas--or anyone else he could--if he had a reasonable chance; but fear kept him in line.
As it was, he still bit his fellow Chaos Forge members whenever he thought he could get away with it.
Unfortunately, out of sight was very much out of mind for Nidhogg--V-Chaos-One by Vargas's definition, though it'd never thought of itself as anything but Nidhogg--and memory counted for that. The instant a lesson was over, he'd forgotten it. A punishment? The instant it was left behind, in another cave, it was as though his mind reset, reverting back to instinct. That wasn't to say he didn't hiss and try to slink away, those memories rising back up, whenever he saw an exasperated Vargas charging toward him. It was just that, in the moments in between, other things eclipsed his mind.
He had trouble focusing on more than one thing at once: so spur-of-the-moment impulse generally took the wheel, leaving the rest of his body gleefully following whatever instinct might decree.
Here, in the swamp, he trailed behind with reluctant dislike. He gaped his maw at Vargas's back, miming a snarl-fanged hiss at the Master, but was smart enough to keep it silent. Ironically, though Vargas wasn't aware, the Leviathan walking in front was enough to keep Nidhogg in line now: it kept him in Nidhogg's sight, and therefore, at the forefront of his mind. It was hard to forget the Leviathan when he was right in front of him.
As for the reason for their journey, and who they were here to meet, Nidhogg was clueless. (Vargas had, in fact, explained it back in Draco; Nidhogg, unsurprisingly, hadn't listened. What he had heard, he'd immediately forgotten.)
So now he slinked along, sullen and resentful, wishing he could charge off into the swamp and destroy everything he could find. And then hide away in the dark, grinning while he watched it burn.
That wasn't even out of malice for Vargas--it was just how Nidhogg worked.
Dragon heard the bellow from a distance, and recognized the voice. Some part of him didn't want to have to slog the whole way over there; another, stronger part saw little point in rushing to meet the Master.
He decided to let his magicka decide, and pushed it into his ethereal wings, testing.
The magic answered powerfully;
It had Nox's oil. Nox and he had, long ago, formed a spawn: that spawn had been Hunger. Nox had, he knew, made other children, though those were not his own. Chaos-One had been born of Vargas and Hunger: so it carried Dragon's blood, and Vargas's, and Nox's as well. Fire, brutality and Oil.
This would be an interesting challenge to tackle, then.
Vargas's six toxic eyes snapped to Dragon at the address.
He summoned chaotic power as he spoke, intending to allow it to display his power in some regard. And he paused, to let the warning really sink in--let Dragon search for some cunning comeback for that, but Vargas stared him down in challenge. Down, in particular, because the magic had chosen to levitate him, raising him several bristling feet off the ground as if to emphasize his immense size.
At last he turned, floating (somewhat clumsily) aside and looking to Chaos-One.
If he'd known that Nidhogg had had more of a role in the caves than he'd realized--helping to open Lacerta, and the like--he might not have been so impatient. As it was, Nidhogg hadn't yet even thought to report such things, because--again--out of sight, out of mind. But for now, Vargas simply thought of him as an irritation. A thorn in his side. A problem, to be solved.
He looked back to the alligator--doubting that Dragon could do much with Chaos-One at all. But at this point, he was willing to try anything.
Nidhogg, still sullen, peered out from behind Vargas as this new red-swathed stranger appeared. He studied him, unable to remember if he'd ever seen him before.
He was big, but fat, and looked slow. Nidhogg was pretty sure he could eat him. Resentfulness, and malice, flickered up in him as he stared, trying to gauge Dragon and his combat capabilities--not in any real, strategic way, but in a bestial "can I eat him before he eats me?" way.
Wait--his gaze snapped up to Vargas. Something resembling actual thought zipped through his mind like a fleeting ticker-tape message.
...Vargas was floating.
Nidhogg blinked, immediately distracted, and slinked a few feet away, avoiding the drifting Leviathan--then froze as Vargas looked to him, gesturing down at him. Alarm shot through him.
Instinctively, his quills puffed up, and--crouched low to the mud--he hissed at Vargas.
Vargas was scary on his own, but floating-? No. Nidhogg did not like that.
He turned his attention back to Nidhogg, now, the slinking black thing clearly both vicious and afraid of Vargas.
Almost at once he recognized what needed to be done.
He wasn't about to suggest that Vargas rip out Nidhogg's eyes, so--for now--he nodded. He wasn't sure responsibility would work. Wasn't even sure, really, that he could get Nidhogg to focus long enough to try. But it was his first thought, and his instincts were usually good.
He had no fear of Nidhogg trying to escape. Dragon was slow, but the caves were finite, and his magic would bring him to the serpent eventually--and he'd teach him that there was no point in fleeing. Not through violence--but through persistence.
The Gembound gave him no concrete assurances--but in fairness, Vargas could hardly expect any. If he had the spare time he'd try to focus purely on Chaos-One for a cycle himself, but he did not. More importantly, Dragon had experience tending his own brood, and this little fool had far more in common with Imp than with the Valkhound that had ripped out his eyes. He spared Chaos-One a glance, then disregarded its instinctive hissing--there was no point in punishing what was essentially an animalistic fear response, and even the Leviathan recognized it as such.
Vargas settled back into the mud, magic fading--his immense weight sinking him up to his arm-blades--and he eyed Dragon more closely.
Despite his own insistence that he was 'fed up' with V-Chaos-One, some thread of concern struck him now, winding its way through his thoughts.
Even he knew it was a weak excuse. He should have killed Nidhogg cycles ago. He should have punished him severely for his first misstep along the route here.
Instead, he cleared his throat, and stared at Dragon.
Dragon eyed Vargas in turn. If he could have perked a brow, he would have.
It wasn't effective, for one thing.
He shook his massive head, the little his thick neck muscles would allow.
Dragon edged to the side, sizing up Nidhogg.
He kept it simple, to the point--Imp, for one, had never had the patience to listen to long speeches. Imp had, however, been more intelligent; Hunger, for all his tractable patience, had often seemed as blank as a rock. Dragon knew now that he was dealing with a combination of Imp's fire and Hunger's instinctive existence--it would be difficult to break through.
Nidhogg... listened.
He'd rarely been addressed as something of an equal. Some tried--even Vargas had tried. It wasn't that the Leviathan was so monstrously unfair that he'd only ever treated Nidhogg with cruelty--he hadn't. Far from it; he'd tried to nurture some semblance of a working relationship.
It was just that Vargas had tried long words and slow speech, where Dragon was loud, blunt and to the point. He was familiar with what would keep Nidhogg's attention--and it did. For the most part. Well--the mention of bloodlines sparked no sign of recognition in him, but...
...But then he'd probably have to go 'home,' to the boring Forge. To Draco. Ugh.
He scampered a few steps closer, then paused, cowering down to stare up at Vargas--as if waiting for permission.
'Is your Forge's solution to such things generally violence-?'
Vargas eyed Dragon, his first reflex--to lash out at the Gembound for daring to challenge his methods--forcibly quelled as he recognized real surprise there.
If the alligator thought he could do better--let him; Vargas would listen.
For now-?
He looked down at V-Chaos-One, and nodded.
The Leviathan looked back to Dragon.
Then he was gone, turning to stride off through the muck, leaving the alligator alone with his intractable grandspawn.
exit Vargas