ORIGIN - growing limbs of odd proportion

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Alpha didn't really have laughter figured out. It was seldom-heard by it and elicited not once from it. But, at least the Overseer seemed pleased. He hadn't seen some outlier that ruined its conclusions, like a non-Sentinel with three heads or a massive, fire-breathing dragon. All of these others - the new ones - were just flimsy and fluffy. They had no substance. Nothing to protect them. Yet, the others lacked the scales and protection it had. The only thing that came close - the cross of Vargas and Palefur - wasn't even plated or armored.

When species were explained more like designs, they immediately made more sense to it. Something clicked in its mind, and it nodded, "like Okapi! Leggy, brown thing with hard feet and -" Alpha gestured, looking for the word, "stripes." It hadn't seen many of these new things, but felt the need to add, "only seen one. It talked a lot and said it had - had a long tongue." What could that even be used for? It'd looked like prey, more than anything.

The orthoclase moved on a bit too quickly for its mind to catch up, and it had to take a number of moments to consider again. This time, at least, it thought aloud - that's the point, right? It started with Gamma first, mostly because it had the most time spent with the selenite: "Selenite-Gamma is little, fuzzy - but, not flimsy. I throw it and it gets back up. It hides well, too. I hunt it a lot, and it escape. I think it will survive most, if it do not have to fight." Slight grammatical misstep there. Oh, well.

"Garnet-Delta have wings and long legs. It is curious. Look into little dark places and flees from danger if it has to. Uses magic, too - it sees in dark and red, like you. Lots of - skills. Most successful, I think."

Then, the last and more obvious of the observations, "Ruby-Beta the strongest. Big, fast, many eyes. It hunts well. Climbs better than me. Does not glow as much and hides well. Fights are hard against it. It pushes back and wiggles out of pinning when I do it. It's good hunter and could be good fighter. Need practice."

Alpha blinked up at Vargas, head tilting again.

@Vargas

He had meant to test it, but... to his sudden surprise, after a few moments spent contemplating Alpha's words, Vargas realized he was considering its opinions, instead.

It had perspective he hadn't seen. He hadn't seen any usefulness whatsoever to Selenite-Gamma; to him it seemed a weak, stupid, stuttering mess. But it hid well? This, Vargas decided, must have been from its cat blood.

Slowly, still monitoring the Hydra situation beyond, Vargas asked another question.

"Tell me, little one. Were you forming a great army, with scouts, and messengers, and soldiers; with front-line warriors and skirmishers, assassins and heavy forces, air attackers and so forth. What tasks would you assign these siblings of yours? What would you task them with?"

Vargas side-eyed the child. He knew this was too complex a question for it. It likely had no concept of armies; it might not even know what scouts were. But he wanted its answer, nonetheless.

Thus far, it had not failed to rally with its cunning; he would see how far that went.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Vargas had it up until the point he began throwing sizable and unfamiliar words at it, only a few it really understood. Army wasn't among those, but it could somewhat figure out the scale of it from what little context other familiar words gave. Warriors, air attack, scouts.

It balked, giving a few clucking "um"s to the Overseer.

Well, tasks were simple enough, right? Even if it didn't know half of the words Vargas said, it could manage.

"I would make Garnet-Delta a - a scout? No, a spy. It's little and flies and doesn't have a lot of colors. Get into small spaces and watch. Make itself not seen, but see others," it began. Blinking slowly, it considered for another few moments. "Ruby-Beta be sneak-hunter." (So, basically, an assassin.) "Big, quiet, hunt for rebels! Or important things! Attack fast and kill fast, and escape faster."

Despite the momentum, Alpha faltered when thinking about Gamma. It could hide well and do fine as long as it didn't have to fight or speak. The selenite couldn't be as good of a spy as Delta, for a number of reasons. Most glaring was its lack of wings. But Vargas had said something about being a messenger. "Gamma not good at words but - train to talk better? - it remembers things. It can carry messages and little things and escape from -" big word incoming, "from in-ter-cept - interception. Protect itself with glass spikes."

Yet again, Alpha peered up.

@Vargas

Again, somewhat to his surprise, he found himself slipping from evaluating the child's abilities to considering its actual words. He found himself about to consideringly suggest that Gamma--without wings--would always be a sub-par messenger; and then he blinked three of his six eyes and studied Alpha afresh.

He did not want to discourage it. Hell, no; it needed reward. Praise.

"Very good," Vargas growled; "you have a sharp mind. You're observing--taking note of traits, and the world around you; and you're deducing--coming to conclusions, making your own answers. And they're right. Your mind will be one of your own strengths," Vargas said, facing forward.

He felt a twinge of pride.

And then... of guilt.

He'd left Titanite behind, for now, hadn't he--and why? Because the thing, while cunning and attentive, was a dreamer. It was often drifting off, staring at nothing, wandering away without realizing it; it wasn't, and would never be, a successful test subject. A successful design. But this one-...

Vargas glanced to Alpha.

This one was a success, if he were any judge--and he was. He struggled internally, for a moment, with the unfamiliar feeling of inner conflict--guilt versus pride, and should it matter?

He pushed the thoughts away. "Does Ruby share your mind, as well--err, is it smart?" he corrected himself, lest the young one misunderstand his meaning.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Alpha took the praise with a childishly bashful bow of its head. The majority of its conclusions came to mind as soon as it'd been asked for them, but it felt like it'd done well regardless. It was a practical sort of creature, living in the moment rather than being concerned for the future (except when surviving tests and not being culled were concerned, but it'd already forgotten about that question.)

If the child were a little more emotionally observant and... well, aware, it would have studied Vargas in his silence. (Not that he was very emotive.) Instead, it simply stared up, waiting for whatever else he had to say.

Finally, it was "Does Ruby share you mind, as well--err, is it smart?" And did Alpha think it was smart? The child didn't have a very good scale of reference for intellect. On one end of the spectrum, there was the scruffy white-and-black dog. On the other end, there was Vargas (who it presumed to be the peak of wisdom, strength, and every other thing.) It wasn't sure where Beta lay on this scale, and made a soft theremin noise of yet more contemplation. Way to make the gears turn, Overseer.

The orthoclase spent a while trying to bother Beta into fighting - it was so good at it, and Alpha wanted to learn from it! But, it never wanted to and gave either a half-hearted effort or plain rejected its advances. The cat-beast hardly did anything it wasn't explicitly told to do, lying around aimlessly. That was what Alpha thought was dumb about it. But, otherwise? Otherwise, it was a good hunter and a good fighter. It could see and react quickly. Alpha still had yet to get a good pin down on it, and gave up on trying to get Beta to let it figure out how to.

"Sometime," it finalized, acidic eyes flickering in the direction of the warren, past Vargas's gangly arms, "it won't fight me and lazy! (Alpha grumbled this, clearly frustrated.) But, it's good fighter and hunter. Still can't get it down when we do fight." In short conclusion: "Smart, but don't use it when I want it to. Ruby only does stuff when it's told to by Desert Rose or Hemlocke or other adult."

@Vargas

This response had clearly been conceived through a half self-centered lens, but Vargas grunted his acknowledgement of the answer nonetheless.

"I will have to take the two of you aside and train with you. To conserve energy is not a bad thing, but to refuse to train and grow is weakness," Vargas informed it, referring, of course, to Ruby-Beta.

He fell silent, then, watching through the barrier ahead. His mind shifted back to the trials, and he wondered who would live, and who would die. And to that end--"What do you wish to learn, Orthoclase? What would you know, what would you become skilled at, were you to choose what you could train? And you can," he added, offering it a knowing look.

He had the feeling that it had already found that out, that it was already honing what skills it wanted--but if there were more it wanted aid with, he would help it. That was part of his job, after all.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Alpha just nodded - restraining its eagerness at having someone tell Beta to fight it.

Then, yet again, it fell to considering. Living in the moment had, apparently, only taken it so far. The orthoclase was clearly unused to having so many opinions asked of it, and even more unused to being asked what it wanted to do.

Up until this point, Alpha had just been doing stuff fairly aimlessly. It attended routine training and lessons when called. It did some heavy lifting when requested, dug out more parts of the warren until its pads were cracked and claws worn down. When it wasn't being ordered around, Alpha either hunted or meandered around Canis (sometimes being a nuisance, apparently.)

Desert Rose had told it not to fight random things for coming near the Warren - something about maintaining a good image - but, outside of that radius? Alpha didn't know how to engage in the inbetweens of battle. It either sought only to pin down or to kill like its opponent were mere prey. No defense was available to it. All of its strategies fell on brute offensive, because it got too animal-brained during fights to do anything different.

"I want," and wasn't that a strange word to use for the first time, "to learn how to defend self. Not always attack and attack and attack. Want to know when to attack first, and when to attack back - react." Alpha stretched out its forearm, showing the Overseer the small, spiderwebbing cracks down its forearms, "I hurt myself - sometimes! - when always attacking."

@Vargas

Vargas studied the forearms, briefly, and then Orthoclase as a whole. He pondered this, for a moment.

"I imagine you will be very large, when fully-grown, and very little will attack you! But if it does, you have benefits. The quills, for one thing--if you turn them toward an enemy. Mine, at least, are toxic. And your skin-" and here, Vargas reached out to lightly rap with thumb-knuckles on one of the harder armor plates the child was growing "-will provide you with armor. There is always magic, too, to stay hidden, or to throw enemies away, but I would not rely on that. There is another option," he added, thoughtfully.

He eyed Orthoclase. He remembered its stone-giver, Elyon, and its own predecessor design. He recalled, too, their different stance. "If you practice, you may be able to stand on your rear four limbs, and use the front two to hold items. Weapons, or shields. That would help you with defense. Try it," he suggested, and then eyed the barrier again.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Maybe there was something to just constantly being on the offensive. There was a lot of natural defenses to compensate and - maybe, just maybe, it would be just as big as the Overseer! It didn't know that its stone-giver was actually leagues shorter than Vargas, but oh, it could hope. "I don't think... quills toxic," it drew its forearm back to brush down the prickly mane, "little siblings sit in them." It sure hoped they weren't toxic. Gamma had to have pricked itself on them at least a few times.

Anyways. Maybe, training in defense was a waste of time - just working on not being so harsh on its own body would suffice. These fuzzy Gembound were flimsy enough; Alpha didn't need to wail on them as hard as possible.

Acidic eyes blinked up, head adopting a puppy-like tilt at Vargas's suggestion. It hoisted itself up on its upper half fairly often, but never without some support in the way and never to a full vertical stance (its back plating, unfortunately, limited such endeavors.) "I try," Alpha nodded, giving a few clicks of thought and straightening. It scuffled to its feet, scanning its surroundings for a rock to at least start out on and give itself a boost.

Padding towards one, the child placed a meaty forepaw on it and shuffled so it was standing parallel to the stone. It leaned a little heavily on the rock at first, arching its upper torso and drawing up its opposite forearm until it was just barely touching the ground. A few level breaths later, and Alpha shoved off. The motion was abrupt, sending it scuffling sideways a few steps on just four feet. It managed to stay up until an impeding fall forced it to put its hands back down and steady itself.

It would never have a perfect centaur stance, but it could at least mimic about thirty-five degrees of it.

@Vargas

Vargas observed, considering. For a brief moment he thought about a possible harness, something to keep the child's torso secured upright; but what was the point? It, like Vargas, had formidable natural weaponry.

But it had the issue--as he'd known it would, from the moment of its hatching--of ungainly shape.

"Another good defense is to kill something before it can hurt you," he informed it drily, turning away again to watch Hydra. "But I knew when you hatched that you might have issues. You have too many legs, and it does not make you faster. And it is hard to use extra legs as weapons. You are too heavy, I think, to ever be a climber, either. But if you are careful, it won't matter. If you'e careful, and stay hidden, you are strong enough to overpower something in an ambush before it can react. Your weight alone is a good advantage--use that. Stealth, and strength, size. Don't try to be faster than something, because I don't think you'll be very agile." He wasn't sure how large the child would grow, but it was bulky, and he was pretty sure it'd be larger than the average creature the caves were now producing.

His mind shifted gears, looking at it through the perspective of army, and he eyed Orthoclase with new thought.

"What your bulk is good for is front-line fighting in a group," he told it. "It is all about training soldiers; and I think your place in combat would be as a powerful shock trooper. Rushing in. Scattering your foes. You would be hard to take down. Even breaking one of your legs would hardly matter, with the extras. You could break the way for others to pour in. It may be wise to form an alliance with something smaller, faster--something that can scout for you, something that can do magic on your behalf."

And Vargas remembered the many hunts he'd had with Nemean, and grinned.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

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