She had to take deep breaths to control herself, to ease the rage in her eyes. The whispers that now clung to her--since her mastery of her magic--had grown to a near-roar, but they now eased.
Slowly--once it was clear there was no attack coming--she lowered herself to her haunches. Her hackles still stood on end, heart hammering in her chest (she fucking hated him for this)-... and his demands on her wounded child were cruel. She hoped Vargas felt bad, because he'd just damaged this one's trust in him. A trust he might have otherwise offered implicitly. Now? Now Vargas would have to earn it back--not an easy feat.
She glanced to Ravage. She wouldn't intervene, really. This was for him to answer, and she had complete faith that whatever he said, it would be good. He was a good kid, for the most part. Destructive, sure, like a bored dog sometimes--mischievous and a troublemaker--but good-hearted. And right now his back was up. He was showing more maturity than she'd expected, and she chose to simply trust him.
A single thought, though--imbued with the most powerful of her magic--swept to Ravage from her mind, a reassuring and warm confidence in every word.
He stared up with resentment, a dislike that could easily blossom, if nurtured, into hatred. This brute had come in, threatened them, and now made demands-? Before he could snap something unwise at him, he felt his mother's presence brush his mind. It was warm, it was encouraging, and it... She had faith in him.
He glanced to her--it was steadying, somehow--then back to Vargas. Ravage took a breath.
He wasn't old enough, mature or experienced enough, to recognize fully that they had different values and perspectives. And he certainly wasn't experienced enough to address them, nor eloquent enough to explain it properly if he could. He was barely out of childhood, and all he could feel right now was a buzzing anger at the unfairness being perpetrated here.
It was rapidly growing clear that Giggle had not impressed upon this child the truths of this cave's hierarchy. Vargas stared at Ravage, half tempted to immediately put him in his place, but that would not be... fair. And all else aside, the Leviathan was fair. Or--he tried to be, at least. No; this hybrid's perspective came from a wholly different place. A place where he'd been taught everyone were equals. That all deserved respect. Vargas took a breath, noting to himself that this could prove poor for Ravage's adaptability, in the long run--and addressed it.
Had that been a mistake-? He'd learned much of the child even from that brief encounter--but he may have slammed the door on further learning, unless he chose to press hard enough to damage Ravage.
He studied Ravage, wondering what the spawn would make of this. Whatever his answer... Vargas would learn from it.
This post contains potentially sensitive material:
Vargas spoke. Ravage listened. At first, he paid attention to the words, giving them--as best he could--his consideration. But the more the Leviathan said, the more something tugged at Ravage's subconscious.
There was something... disturbing in Vargas's words. Something... familiar. He found himself focused not on the content, but the timbre, of this speech. And suddenly--halfway through the Leviathan's plodding explanations--it clicked. A memory--a fragment of a memory--shot through Ravage's mind.
'"Navea," pleaded the wolf again, its body trembling against the children. "Please. We can relocate, we can—"
"That's enough, June. This will buy you plenty of time. Perhaps you could try for the refuge?" Navea's voice was becoming resolved and it could feel that resolve in its heart, and in its stone, its core: this had to be done.
"Come out, come out, little mouse," slithered a voice, its deep tone carrying across the bones like dense thunder. The hidden creatures all paused, their breath held, and then Navea gave them a final smile.'
Images of a gemstone cleaved in half, a body torn, a family split-... He reeled, physically jerking back, and abruptly his stomach heaved. His head jerked down and his jaws hung wide, and this time instead of flames, the contents of his stomach lurched out, spilling to the rock below. The sting of acid on his burned throat drew a cry from him and he stumbled back, shaking his head and neck in slow refusal of this realization.
When he looked up at Vargas, it was with fresh eyes, with new horror. He didn't see a bastard who'd come in and acted rude. He saw a monster, a real monster, someone who'd slaughtered the innocent and killed parents and-
Part of him had thought the vision to be a nightmare. Or he'd hoped it. He'd known better, of course: it had been a memory he'd seen, and every facet of it had haunted him. The names, even--he'd kept those close, even when they'd brought him dreadful dreams. His own mother had gently explained it, when he'd gotten a little older, but he'd thought it to be ancient history. Something so far in the past that everyone in the vision was long gone and forgotten. He'd never imagined that the killer still walked the caves. That they--that he-... That it was his own grandfather.
His stomach heaved again, and he staggered further back, wanting to be as far from Vargas as he could.
She hadn't interfered. She didn't want to; this was Ravage's moment, his own relationship to build or to deny. That was up to him. Her mind had flicked half-away, going to reassure Omen that there was no immediate danger. The other half listened, tried to also register all of what was being said. But now-...
She pushed up beside him, looking to Vargas as if for explanation, and then back to Ravage again.
It was only at the mention of the name that it clicked. She knew what he had seen--had seen it, herself, in a linking of the mind but in a confused, jumbled way. It hadn't held the same impact, to glimpse only a snatch of it here and there. But--was he saying that it was Vargas that had killed the one he'd seen? Vargas, who'd left a newborn with this trauma? And what were the chances..? It was as though the victim had lain in wait, storing this memory in their grim bones, as some trap to spring on his descendents.
She looked up, grimly silent, to the Leviathan--as if to say, 'this is your mess to clean up.'
He had to make this right; the only thing was, Giggle didn't think he could. She sure as hell didn't know how.
He'd fully been expecting a turnaround to the conversation. He thought he'd been wholly reasonable, now. That his words would surely strike a chord, open a door to a new interaction, but-... No.
Ravage, apparently, had seen something of the past and even though Vargas had just told him that he'd once killed on a whim, it was somehow horrible news. He had the good grace, at least, not to blurt his first thought when the hybrid named the victim:
He glanced to Giggle as she moved--and the look she gave him he met with a baffled, fractional shake of his head. He didn't know what to do with this. Reason wouldn't work: he had already explained all he could, and the spawn's back was up, their emotions running far too high to simply hear him and calm down. No, he could see and recognize trauma, at least.
It was irritating that this one had apparently been confident and well-adjusted until he turned up today, and then-
A revelatory thought, that.
Well.
Was it even worth raising the other in the Forge at all-? His mind went over each of the Forge's members, and tried to think of a single one that was... normal. Well-adjusted. Some could look him in the eye and speak, but even those were half-mad with Chaos. He could not imagine, for example, taking The Sentinel to a Palace party.
Ravage?
He imagined Ravage would do just fine.
A sharp exhale escaped him.
His breath was coming in fast, frightened gulps, as though he were trying to swallow down the air. And though disgust and fear and horror all drove him back, away from the Leviathan, he didn't turn and run.
Didn't panic, though it was a damn close thing.
He just stood there, heaving and gasping, struggling against the nightmares in his memory--struggling to reconcile with the fact that the murderer was standing here, now, right in front of him and that he was related to him. He'd always thought of that voice as a villain, an iredeemable monster, and the knowledge that it was his own, direct ancestor-...
He wasn't--was he?
He had a bloodthirst to him, certainly. He enjoyed a good hunt, though Giggle had taught him never to draw it out in cruelty. That Lessers had feelings, just as much as they did, even if they couldn't think and speak like they could. But if they had feelings and he ate them anyway-...
If his bloodline came from--from that-...
Oh, how she wished this was something she could heal with magic. Split it half-and-half, take on this agonizing burden for herself, because the weight of it on her four-cycle-old son was just too fucking much to bear.
Vargas had made a long habit of trying to support those within the Forge. To build them up, rather than simply break them down. His initial impulse was the same as Giggle's, though untouched by her deep emotion--an urge to reassure the child that no, he was not 'evil.' It wasn't from a place of empathy, but simply fact.
To elaborate, even, and agree that he himself--Vargas--was not 'evil.'
Was he-?
That thought silenced anything he might have said. It was a foolish question, to wonder at the nature of 'good' and 'evil.' They were only words. They meant nothing.
One did what one had to do. They followed their orders, and pressed forward in the tasks that they'd been made for. They advanced the designs of their maker.
Never mind that he'd secreted away a few of those stones, wondering if perhaps the time would come he could revive them, in admiration of their strength--or even pity. Never mind that sometimes he had loudly killed one of them, knowing full well that the rest would get away. That hadn't been 'good.' Or acknowledgment that what he'd been doing had been 'evil.'
It had just been... his choice in the moment. That was all.
Yet still he stood here, lingering, fighting down what he identified as 'a faint unease' as he watched Ravage's internal torment. The creature had seen only one of his many acts and had immediately gotten sick, lost all faith in itself-...
Vargas wavered, for a moment, between two disparate responses. The first--his kneejerk, his old standby. To mentally sneer that the modern Gembounds were weak--and to return to Draco to continue his work. The second, to entertain the faintest feeling of guilt. But that would to be consider guilt for all his acts. To admit that he'd done wrong, and he did not feel that he had. To take on the burden of a thousand such acts--and could he carry such a thing?
Why was he even dwelling on this?
He had work to do.
He eyed the hybrid--a monster the size of a horse, trembling with its head tucked against its mother's flank--and turned away.
He would have to see if the other one hatched--and how that one might turn out. Perhaps see if Ravage came to him, in time, to talk.
Then he could compare them.
In the meantime-... Vargas paused, without looking back. His tail flicked slightly behind him before he spoke.
It was no admission of failure. Not at all. Just... an invitation for new perspectives, that's all. He'd assumed from the start that he might learn something from her methods. Everyone had something to teach, after all. And-...
He would not dwell on this.
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