ORIGIN - A Hot Mess

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Vargas shoved to his feet, and despite its confinement and still-raging conflict between squinting into the light and cowering in the dark, the orthoclase nearly broke cover just to look. Most of his footfalls were muffled or smothered by the sandstone walls pressing in on it, but it needed to know where he was—approaching? Leaving? Abando—

"But I will come back." Promise?

The thought was just as jarring as its suddenness was. It clung desperately. Hooked talons dug into whatever crevices they could, stone or chitin, and curled tight. Not enough to draw blood, mind you, but enough to feel them. It wasn't grounding in any capacity; if anything, it just made the space seem that much less cramped. A ragged sigh tore its way out of its throat, halfway to sounding like another sob. The half-baked sound was aborted with the weak snap of its jaws.

"I will return in a couple of weeks."

A couple of weeks. Seven days multiplied by two. Fourteen. Fourteen days—remember that. Was that a long time? Or was it short? The concept of it coagulated in its skull where collapsing brain met exhaustion; it had no such grasp of time, anymore. The hyperawareness of that was enough to nearly drown out the abrupt sharpness of Vargas's voice ("... so that I can replace you. And not kill you.") and keep it from audibly flinching. If it were ever asked why it jolted so harshly, it'd have answered more on the side of what that implied.

Were it—oh, what a common thought these days—more present, it would have realized two things: the Master was leaving the door open without consequence; and, he had not yet replaced Alpha, and wouldn't without its word. Alas, it sank deeper into its confines, unheeding of the way a cracked arm spike dug into a forearm or its upper back was angled just so to be uncomfortable. It slogged in and out of consciousness.

"Is there anything you would say before I go?"

And, it thought that it'd lifted its head back up, offering the question that now burned in its skull: How long have I been gone? It thought, too, that the attempt had failed, and that the coughing fit beating at its ribs was not the aftermath of even inhaling to say a single word. No matter how tightly the orthoclase clenched its jaw, it couldn't fully muffle the noise.

It petered out the same as its wakefulness did: with the hasty drawing-shut of curtains, a fade-to-black.

exit Alpha
@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Nothing.

No response.

Just those rattling breaths, the wheezing. Vargas suppressed a sigh. "I will take that as a no, then," he responded sardonically. His tail flicked behind him, for a moment, and then he turned fully away.

Swift strides carried him from the tunnel; already that sour pity was bleeding away, to be replaced by his businesslike air. Orthoclase-Alpha had been found: that was good. It had been... hopefully, recovered; one way or another. His tasks were clear ahead of him: return back to Draco, forge his creations, return here in a week or two to check on the Orthoclase, as promised.

From there-?

Well. I will see.
It depended, really, on the Overseer.

exit Vargas

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