ORIGIN

Chartreuse eyes slipped open, and slid to regard Orthoclase-Alpha. Vargas was not, at that moment, calculating. He wasn't thinking of every action of his, of how it might spur a reaction in his spawn. He wasn't trying to play his clumsy game of chess in any attempt to "fix" it.

He was thinking of children, tumbling about at his feet: snapping little monsters, innocent and fierce. He was thinking about the hope he'd held in their futures--in their shared futures--and what a strong start he'd thought they'd all had. He was thinking of bright light and warm sand.

It showed, in the faint absence in his expression, in the distance of his glance.

What a tragedy it was, that this strong start had petered off as it had. The first spawns broken, failing, some of their parents now dead or missing. Ruby-Beta sleeping its days away, avoiding all possible work.* ...At least he had Cain.

But to admit such things as they were was... well, he didn't want to damage Orthoclase-Alpha's confidence even further. He looked off at nothing again, and chose his phrasing carefully. "I think... Hmm. I know that I made mistakes." A massive forelimb gently broke the water's surface, claws tracing an idle ripple across the water. "I didn't know that then. I didn't know I would. It was a... a hopeful time, even for me. New children. My memories are brighter when considered as they were, yes-? If I look back now, there is regret. But then? It was warm, and bright, and there were happy children. Even if you did try and eat one another," he added, and a brief, almost fond grin curled his rigid face.

And he did remember. He remembered assuring the children that they would better learn to use their clumsy limbs, in time. Telling them that hitting their own faces wasn't a valid combat technique, and-

...Vargas started to laugh quietly as another memory hit him. It was a low, quiet chuckle, and he shook his head, glancing with some amusement back to Alpha. "Do you remember Vakornol-? She was an old friend of mine, from--before the great sleep. She turned up just in time for your hatching. In time to see me failing to corral you. I, and the other life- and stone-givers, with the children falling all over one another. You were throwing yourselves blindly in an attempt to fight. I do remember having to try and explain to her that everything was well in-hand, while trying to keep you all from actually harming one another. It was... chaotic." His amusement slowly bled away as he considered.

Vargas did not need to sleep. And while he'd not loved the children, he'd been proud enough of them, invested in their care, and he had cared for him in his way. He remembered remaining awake--working, sometimes, or at others simply keeping watch--when the mass of fresh spawn had slept in the little caves. It hadn't been often, but it had been enough that the memory was there.

Ahh, but things had gone south later, hadn't they-? Orthoclase-Alpha's memories of that place were likely tainted. There was... Lord Dhracia, after all.

Perhaps the place felt more like a nightmare to Alpha. Vargas grunted, glancing over. He could have asked, but... maybe it would offer on its own.

Ahh, oblivious Vargas. It didn't even occur to him that Orthoclase-Alpha might take 'mistakes' to mean the children themselves. Instead he remained at ease in the water: calm, his mind drifting back through his memories at the question.

He was... considering, thinking. The faint sense of fondness, of nostalgia, lingered behind it, perhaps a strange taste for Orthoclase-Alpha's mind to sample in Vargas's thoughts.

"Yes. If I knew precisely what my mistakes had been, I would be better equipped to avoid them in the future; but that is the problem, isn't it?" He half-glanced at the Orthoclase, but truth be told his mind was half elsewhere. The faintest regret tinged his thoughts, easy enough to pick up on. Superimposed on it, a sort of sad confidence. Yes, he'd made a mistake, but he was not anxious about it. Not self-doubting, so much as self-examining. "All of you were... different. Each of you needed a different approach, and I did not realize that."

An Overseer--a hunter and a killer, if admittedly also a Valkhound intended for looking at a creature and summarizing all its capabilities--being a parent, instead? He'd had no idea what he was doing. He'd treated them like soldiers, and where a couple had thrived like that, most of them had faded, stumbled, or even broken. But how to put that into words? He grunted. "My tasks as Overseer did not prepare me for raising children. In my era, creations hatched fully grown. I could assess them, yes, but--raising them? From half-formed... hatchlings?" He shook his head a little. A memory of striking Orthoclase-Alpha flickered past, nothing the weaker Empathy would pick up directly, but it reminded him of the entire problem with his situation nonetheless. The cruelty inherent in a survival-of-the-fittest world of monsters--no, in bringing children into such a place. "The problem is, I am not sure how I could have done better. What I should have done differently. This cave, this Nest--it was never meant for children."

He'd never raised children. He'd only been sent to hunt them.

Vargas glanced over, a bit puzzled. "Pity that you were of the Forge, you mean-?" and it was confused. He supposed he could see it, if that was what Orthoclase-Alpha meant; those creatures that imagined themselves "free" (kept alive only by the Masters' efforts) might decry even tending to their responsibilities. Responsibilities that, realistically, should be shared by all within the caves.

But perhaps Orthoclase-Alpha meant something else. Meant the Overseer rank. Meant its own inability to perform these roles at all, and the pity it garnered.

Pity...

That, he could understand: despising pity. He tried not to heap it onto others, Orthoclase-Alpha in particular. Certainly he tried his best with it, but pity was too-often an insult.

The last thing it said, barely a murmur, turned his head again--this time in surprise, more than confusion. But there were a dozen things he could respond to that. His momentary silence was spent sifting briefly through them. Self-deprecating humor was not appropriate, certainly. So... what? An apology? An assurance it didn't have to..? An explanation that blind faith was never good? Vargas didn't know what it meant, exactly. So he settled on asking.

"Do not believe in me, in what way?" he asked.

Certainly he existed. Alpha wasn't that far gone. But didn't have faith in his leadership? In his vision? In his honesty?

He realized, belatedly, that one hand had started splashing lightly at the water--absently, not in Alpha's direction, even but hardly fitting to the solemnity of the conversation. He submerged it, hoping it hadn't really been noticed.

Vargas was grateful Orthoclase-Alpha was speaking. That was a step, and a powerful one. Without communication he could do nothing. Without knowing what was wrong, all he could do was guess, and his guesses had always proven wrong.

He was still on the fence about the molt thing. But that aside...

Despite his relief at Alpha's speech, he found himself puzzled yet again at the words. Or rather, how they related to... what was wrong with it. Why would his promotion have bothered Orthoclase-Alpha? Were the stakes too high at that point? And what 'promises' did it mean? Vargas could remember offers of rewards, but he'd always granted those. And he could remember threats, but--surely it was not upset that he'd not punished it more..? It was admittedly just a little crushing to hear that it had cared only about its loyalty to him. It made him feel even more deeply the extent to which he'd failed it, but how had he 'let' it-...

Don't keep guessing, he told himself, stopping that line of thought. Why fall back into that trap? He'd take advantage of this new line of communication Orthoclase-Alpha had at last opened between them.

So Vargas carefully considered his words, then spoke, peering sidelong at his spawn. "Let me see if I understand right so far. You are saying your loyalty was to me alone, is that right? Your--care? That my becoming a Master put me out of reach of you?" He paused, giving it a moment to think, to breathe, before asking that last question. "What promises did I fail to keep, Orthoclase-Alpha?" he asked, struggling to think of any. Any that would have been good, at least.

He wanted to ask, too, if there was anything he could do to fix it. His mistakes, that was. But he didn't want to overload it, to risk it shutting down again, so--one thing at a time.

Vargas wished he were a mind-reader.

This was hard. This was hard, but he'd sworn to be patient, at least to himself. And truth be told, he was too busy trying to puzzle together the fragments of thought that Orthoclase-Alpha was voicing to actually be frustrated.

It left him silent, for a time, visibly hesitating as he half-looked away and then at the water beneath Alpha, at least careful not to stare in a way that might be... misconstrued as anger, or glaring. Is it saying it wanted me to destroy it? That breaking that assurance destroyed its faith in me? He'd just told himself not to guess at things, but how could he not, when Orthoclase-Alpha could not fully verbalize its meaning? He was left with only pieces, shards that lay in his hands and threatened to cut him to ribbons if he did not treat them with the respect that they deserved and yet--he did not know how to piece them together.

Only loyal to you. The words twisted something in his gut, something painful and old. Guilt? No; it was almost... grief.

Others pitied it for being in the Forge, having its tasks; I have run into that before, he thought. And it despised them, perhaps afraid of failing and refusing to... what, admit that to itself? So it reacted with anger? He wasn't sure on this. It wasn't like those pieces fit neatly together. He exhaled, nostrils briefly flaring ever-so-slightly. "I am trying to understand," he tried, as gently as he could. "To understand what you mean." Clarification offered, he hesitated again, and once more fell to trying to... summarize.

"Are-... Am I understanding correctly if I say," and he thought, trying to organize all of this more neatly into words, "that you lost... some sense of stability, because you imagined there would be some punishment for your failures, and you believed you deserved that and then I did not... deliver?" He'd spoken, before of worth to Orthoclase-Alpha. Demanded, even, that it understand that he was the arbiter of its worth, though not in the way that one might take such a thing: no, that it could not simply deem itself weak or unworthy. That he saw value in it, worth, even when it did not. So there was no point in going over that again, not now--and not when he wasn't even sure of its meaning.

"And you are saying that I had your loyalty, and... you feared being destroyed, and so you lashed out at those who pitied you?"

Vargas was trying; he really was. But he had that feeling again, that feeling like he might be drowning, despite being well above the warm waterline. The feeling that Orthoclase-Alpha was floundering, breathing in water and couldn't swim. The feeling that he was just so in above his head.

He couldn't imagine how it must be for Alpha; and worse still, he didn't know how to save it.