Something dry and ugly rasped in his head. How would you know? The grub had not been loved before. And still, what they experienced now was a fraction of its full weight.
He let the bitterness rest, to fade silently in its own time. ”Yes. Feelings, thoughts. Memory. It is all to share. In this way, we are one.” A unity impossible without some sacrifice of individuality.
It would not let the anxiety Zoey brought rise to the surface. It was not that he didn’t trust her magic; The idea of a connection outside of the network was daunting. Would it separate him? Could he be separated? Would they be alone with eachother’s thoughts?
That, and… He envisioned the bracer chafing against his carapace, a lone blemish on his design. Asymmetrical.
He had suffered worse.
”We will see. I am… Willing.” But only if it was temporary. Please Dontaceal, let it be temporary.
Was that what bothered her? She wasn't sure even still; and part of her just wanted to lay still and bask in the warm embrace for a while longer. It was comfortable, and sad, and she longed to curl up and have a good sob about it all.
But she worked on regardless, for the sake of doing right by Juggernaut, who had shown her... Kindness? No. Mercy, certainly. As the one piece of the whole Hive that offered her a way to reach in and comprehend her enemy, even if it was hard. Especially because it was.
"It may take a moment," Zoey chittered, as if to temper his expectations. "I have to prepare the item first to accept the magic." It was a process that she was familiar with now, and the magic flowed easily from her touch into the old piece of armor.
Step one, complete.
She hardly remembered that moment thanks to her mind working overtime to protect her-- she had mentally retreated then. But it was hopefully enough to reach that magic now, and to fill the bracer with the capacity to understand another individual.
Maybe it was the nerves, having Juggernaut staring down at her. Maybe it was the lack of physical pain to drive the magic.
But she was determined not to give up.
Of course it was hard to make a piece of metal feel. But if she could reach -- ... Who had she reached? -- she knew she could reach Juggernaut, too.
... Who had she reached? For a moment, her mind flooded over that missing memory. She had reached someone who couldn't be reached? How had she done it? Had it been with this magic, just the same? If it had, why was it so hard now...?
"Come on," she whispered. As she leaned into the feelings given to her by chemical induction-- the spores that were spreading through her-- she touched a bit closer to her magic. Finally, with a little spark, she felt her magical energy drain. It was a heavy spell, one that left her gasping for breath.
She didn't have a lot of that magic left in her. It would take time to recover, wouldn't it? But as she looked over the piece of armor, she knew it had worked. She craned her head up, golden eyes blinking away tears from the effort.
"... It should work. I think we may both have to touch it, so... If you're ready," she raised her taloned grip, holding up the bracer to Juggernaut. "You can put it on, too. It's yours, if you'll have it. A gift."
She hoped he liked it. She hoped that it would work how she envisioned it working, and she hoped it would let him reach her-- and her, him, maybe? ... To give that connection he was seeking. Would they be able to understand each other, closer to how he wanted them to understand each other?
To see each other as more than just enemies, as strangers, but as living, breathing people. Individual people. People worth loving and people who loved.
@Juggernaut
Juggernaut did not understand the mechanics of magic, nor did he rely on it - but as he stood, waiting patiently for the spell to take, he got the sense that it was more challenging than he’d assumed, especially when it took so much effort to recreate an experience that had been innate to him. Outsiders had to work themselves to death for a taste of the same comfort; He had been blessed.
There was a hesitance as it moved closer, eyes fixed on the bracer. It’d be impolite of it to refuse such a kind gift, when it’d just witnessed the effort it had taken firsthand - but its feathers still bristled as it slid a tendril through the straps, the material rough and unwelcome on its skin. ”Thank you, very kind.”
He felt a channel open as it the energy running through it buzzed to life, awaiting broadcast - he could feel Mother’s warmth humming through both of them first. (Was it Mother’s or was it just… warmth?) and then his body flushed with embarrassment, realising that these feelings were no longer private, and there was no way of hiding the inherent discomfort wearing Zoey’s gift brought him. Don’t take it personally, he thought, in case she could hear those too.
... he felt. Uncomfortable, though she didn't know why. It made her want to squirm, but she redoubled her own efforts to break the cycle of anxiety. She focused instead on her joy-- though it was still a bit bashful, fretting over why he would be embarrassed (should she be embarrassed, too?)-- and her pride that it worked.
Their connection opened, blossoming like she imagined all of the Hive's connection did. A network of feelings, overwhelming, reaffirming, comforting. It must have been deafening, but how safe it must feel. Her curiosity and wonder murmured softly under her own satisfaction; a longing that did not end with that singular success.
Could he see the complicated mess of emotions that made up all of her? She was still trying to untangle his: there was the heavy warmth of Mother, but underneath it was... it was like looking at a sibling, she thought. Full of uncertainties and flaws, and how beautiful they were.
How alive they felt.
Her mandibles opened as if to say something, but the silence felt... correct, in its own way. Could two beings communicate solely by emotion?
@Juggernaut
It was an adjustment. While secrets were impossible under Mother's watchful eye, within the Hive there was some control over what was shared and how strongly. If Juggernaut desired, it could fade into the background noise, barely perceived. There was little controlling this spell - Like Mother, his feelings were not his own to keep, but shared and changed by another mind. But this wasn't Mother. This was someone else: mortal, complicated.
He felt his attention drift away from the network, a tiny transgression. The warmth she echoed was more intense than Mother's, somehow; like all that She was had been concentrated into a much smaller vessel. But there was vulnerability, and questions, and he knew that Mother did not have either.
And even then, it was hard to tell where She ended and Zoey began, or where Juggernaut was in all of this. Was this... Chaos? Or was it just the cost of flesh; To never have answers, to change against your will. Awful. Wretched. The words came, a reflex. Discomfort rose again - Zoey had cycles of practice to manage their anxiety. Juggernaut had known little else.
He wondered if this weight had been the sadness it'd described. A love that bordered on grief, or maybe could only come from it. Maybe it was his, or theirs, or Mother's, or
His eyes began to squeeze shut, overwhelmed.
He reached for something simple from his own mind - the hum of Order, ever present. Of submission to something greater than you, the ferocity required to guard that idea and serve that vision. Huddling together against the storm, family, outnumbered but never conquered. Never dying. They could always come home. They always would.
The Zoisite understood family, but could it understand this?
... Patience. She breathed as he closed his eyes, letting him work through those feelings. It's alright, she thought as though the words would reach-- they wouldn't, of course. It was enough to still her own feelings, to center herself in that moment of uncertainty.
As she did so, Juggernaut's own pool of emotions shifted, a sensation that caught in her throat. The feeling of being apart of something so grand and impossible to fully know. She was brought small: a writhing worm before some unknown thing she couldn't picture
But overwhelmed, she had her family. A guiding light to protect her. A deep, instinctual desire to become that light herself, to become strong enough to protect them. To kill or be killed, to fight even when fighting felt so horrible and wrong. To struggle, and give every breath to the last for those who mattered most.
There was something else here: Juggernaut's feelings felt... secure, as though death could not touch it.
Death could touch them, though. Zoey knew this, instinctively, and struggled to-- to reconcile with this immortal lightness that felt so inconceivable. She knew life as something different, she knew her life as something different. Something finite. Even the magic she had just given Juggernaut would fail when she did; a flower held in stasis, not forever, but for as long as she could survive.
Zoey understood life and death, as simple and crude and messy as it was. Right then, her mind's eye flickered to that of a rat, bleeding and dying a slow, agonizing death. A mercy to kill, rather than to prolong the suffering. How that death fed her, fed her family, how even the plants lived and breathed and died to feed the Forge. How the Forge fed something else, something bigger.
... she wondered, half-dazed in the slurry of mixing feelings, foreign and yet so familiar, if the lesser drones that preached with Mother's voice (how foggy that memory was, yet still more clear than the image of her own
It was-- she was assuming too much. She was letting her imagination run away with her, failing to keep her mind open. Master Vargas had failed to kill Alcina, certainly, but that had been... That had been the magic of her stone. Not some impossible ability of the Hive.
Curiosity continued, rising over the disbelief that had momentarily taken hold of her feelings. She was in part apologetic; she wasn't intending to be dismissive of the feelings that Juggernaut had. They just seemed... Unbelievable.
And Mother had wanted her to believe things that she knew simply weren't true. Mother wasn't everywhere. (Was she?) (She couldn't be.) (She wanted to be, certainly, but she wasn't.) So--...
@Juggernaut
The tide of their feeling ebbed and flowed, shifting between confusion and comfort. A strange, hypnotic dance - a silent waltz in their minds. He wondered, in a dull, uninterested way, what this exchange looked from to an outsider. He couldn't tell if he'd moved, or was moving. It wasn't something he cared to check.
For a moment, they were both swept up in Dontaceal's vision, his promise to those who served him. It was happy to share it, happier that it had been well received; At the very least taken with an open mind. A rush of anticipation: Did she understand? Did she?
And in a way, he felt Zoey did. But it didn't stop them from chafing against the idea. It was a hard pill to swallow - they had gotten so far - and it took the drone everything to not spill the Hive's secrets just to prove a point. They were not family. It was easy to forget that fact. All he could do was insist on that security, the immortality that came with submitting to Order. All one.
Many things would end, but there was another way. Always another way.
The doubt only grew, drawing it to speak aloud. "You misunderstand. We are different. We cannot be killed - not in a way that matters." It would say no more, only doubling down on its faith. It could do nothing to truly convince her. It could only remain steadfast in its belief, that the only true end was the one Mother had planned, and all of her children would be there to see that happen. Death would not stop them.
The Forge could never promise them that.
@Zoey [tagging gm!!]