ORIGIN

Long strides carried him into Tunnel P. His was a cursory check; he'd been here just the other day, after all.

He didn't often leave Draco, but when he did, every cave through which Vargas passed was subjected to heavy scrutiny. His magic checked each one--no matter how many times it took--for the red-blurred pulse of beating hearts. And though it (of course) found many, none ever matched the Orthoclase.

Let it be said that he had no intention of punishing it. Not now, at least. No: his was concern. The last he'd seen the Alpha, it had been lethargic, without drive, without emotion really beyond the miserable. Despite asking the others in the Forge if they had any ideas as to what might be tormenting the Overseer, he'd never gotten any answers. He'd tried asking Alpha itself, but it didn't know what was wrong--or so it claimed; it didn't know what it wanted.

That left Vargas clueless.

It was a strange feeling. As Overseer he'd had all the answers. Observe. Note. Hunt. Kill. Job: done. Questions of morality and motivation had not really factored in: death was the threat, life was the reward. That was motivation. But several of his spawn--his children--he had to wholly admit were... defective. Was that his fault? He'd come to the conclusion in recent days that in his failure to attempt to impart a specific personality, he had left them with drifting minds, unable to latch on to any real emotions. They didn't know who they were... because they were no one.

Was this the truth? No, undoubtedly; it was almost certainly more to do with being raised in a rigid military setting with no true childhood to speak of, and the emotional support of little more than a professional soldier with an empty heart behind them. But to Vargas, it was baffling. How could he understand what he hadn't understood to begin with? He'd never been made with love in mind, with empathy at his core. He was insightful, but there were limits, and the Orthoclase had gone beyond his.

The violent purple of his spiderlike limbs swept down the dusty slope, claws punching through dust and against rock to keep his grip. That same red dust settled along his six-foot arm spines, and he paused, lifting his head to take in scent. It was dry, here, and hot--the worst possible conditions to carry odor. He smelled nothing. He might have walked right past the Orthoclase, were it still hiding, without seeing or smelling it at all. But then, this wasn't the hunt of a rebel; it was a half-hearted, quick check of a place he'd been only days before.

When the Orthoclase had vanished, he'd waited. And waited. He had told it to go: to take a vacation, as long as it needed. To shed its stress (maybe its shell? "maybe you're molting" had been another of the Leviathan's strokes of genius), to find itself.

It had never come back.

Hot wind blasted past, the sand carried strong enough to scour his violet hide. He squinted against it, and tried to do a check, with his senses, for anything close by.

He found nothing, and after a pause he carried onward, striding for the entrance of Hydra.

He moved, again, to the entrance to Hydra--and he stood there for a time, staring out (squinting out) over the blinding heat of the Salt Flats.

Memories flickered through him, but Vargas was not really the sort to dwell on ancient memories. Some of them, anyway, were fond; they were not (as they undoubtedly were for so many others) horrible and traumatic.

For him, his time pacing across the desert sands had been downright fun. And not, perhaps, for the reasons most would have assumed. Oh, trailing behind the stragglers--picking off the hindmost, giving those who were failing a merciful end--had had its charms. But watching which of them succeeded (and feeling that vicarious thrill as they triumphed against all odds) had been his true enjoyment. He'd been proud of those that had managed; proud of his work, too, in managing them all.

Now, Hydra lay empty, unused. Would he fill it again, given time-?

Did he want to?

The Master turned away, at length, looking up the slope back to Canis. Full of bones. He cast out his magic again, but nothing came; he resolved, instead, to do this the more mundane way.

His long strides carried him up at even pace, and head dropped lower to the ground. He was taking scent, now, even against the dust, but he caught nothing but faint musk. There was no way of knowing who or what it had come from, and so he paced a little forward, nostrils flared, and contemplated it.

He paused outside the old warren, the little tangle of holes some of them had dug into the wall. And there he paused, sniffing at it. The scent did sort of come from here, he thought; but was it anything important-?

"Orthoclase-Alpha?" he called in, just in case, though he expected no response.

Vargas squinted into the hole. He couldn't quite make out what was inside; the response to his call sounded rather like a bunch of cave rats scrambling around for purchase. But cave rats didn't tend to do that--they held still. What, then, was this-?

He had imagined that the Orthoclase, at least, would have answered. Had the Leviathan known of its terror of him, he'd have been utterly baffled. The last time he'd seen his Overseer, he'd been urging it to take time off. To destress.

This was the opposite of that.

For a moment, Vargas stared in, one massive limb gripping the stone ledge above the hole as he leaned down to stare inside. Then he tried to really see. Though he didn't expect it to be Alpha, he did wonder if it were some other Gembound--another ancient Champion, a Valkhound, anything--hiding from his approach.

But when his magicka flared up, trickled in, to his utter astonishment it was Orthoclase-Alpha. At least, that, or a pile of rats that looked distinctly like it. "Orthoclase..?" he asked, and his surprise was evident in his tone.

Still oblivious to its terror. Still confused as to its silence. Still concerned as to its absence.

"Are you injured?" was his next question, equally as puzzled as the last. He leaned down, but could make nothing of the tangle of dim quills in the darkness, and so he pushed back--made room for it to emerge, as he assumed it shortly would.

It was hardly like it would be going anywhere else, after all.

There were no answers forthcoming. No signs were lifted in the dark of the hole to tell Vargas what had happened, or how to proceed. There was only that shuffling, and then two stammered words, words that left the Master even more bewildered than before.

It's--sorry? What did it do? he wondered.

He'd half written off the Orthoclase as useless to him cycles ago. He was not--needless to say--here to make demands of it, or haul it back. Where others of the Forge had failed him truly (or proven wretchedly weak, with no spine whatsoever), Alpha had held a place in his... If not heart, gut. A wrenching reminder of his own failures, of his inability to gauge his own creations, to guide them properly. His inability, earlier, to protect them. It was the only one of them he ever considered his child; the only one he'd apologized to, had regrets over. But he hadn't truly thought about it in some time, bar vague concern.

Now he was confronted with the Orthoclase's self-destruction--though not, yet, in all its questionable un-glory. He saw now only the shadow of it, the glimpse, and-

"Sorry-?" he blurted, a word parroted in blank confusion. What did it do? he thought, again. Surely it must have done something atrocious, then--started a fight somewhere, killed something--and gone into hiding to avoid punishment..? Did it think that he knew of it?

"Orthoclase-Alpha, what have you done wrong? -Come out of there," he added, and it wasn't quite annoyance, yet. "I did not come here to punish you."

He had no idea, as he squinted there in the swirls of red dust, of the severity of it all. Of how far Alpha had fallen. Of the self-imposed self-destruction. A creature such as Vargas--made of brash muscle and bold ferocity--could not fathom its mentality. Could not empathize, in the slightest.

The Leviathan stepped back further, his shadow falling away from the entrance as he waited--as he assumed, accepted as simple fact, that the Orthoclase would obey.

Once he could see Orthoclase-Alpha--once he could gauge its state, and have a conversation about what it had been doing, where it had been--well, the former was the important thing, was it not? He'd sent it off to get ahold of itself.

And now look at it; hiding in a hole, apologizing for... something. Vargas only hoped that when it emerged--if it emerged--it would look better, healthier, than it had done. Surely such a long time away could have only done it good.

...Ahh.

Something--something--pitched downward through Vargas's gut. He did not know why the Orthoclase was apologizing when it had done nothing wrong (so far as he could tell, at least). Why it began to shift itself from its hole, only to jerk back into hiding. Why it was stammering, half-incoherent with fear.

But he did not grow impatient with it. That thing that fell through him was... what, some sort of pity? Disappointment? He'd never been very good with these emotions. But it was something sad and sour, something cold and knotted, as if he'd swallowed rotten meat and simply could not digest it.

A poor metaphor, but alas, the brute was blunt.

For a moment, he hesitated outside the warrens, and pondered what to do. The obvious was to speak, and he did that, but beyond it-? He had no idea how to handle this scenario. "You are not weak, Orthoclase-Alpha. I have seen weakness; you are not that." His voice did not bellow; it wasn't commanding. It was... conversational, even quiet; the Leviathan did not often do gentle and this did not approach it, but it was closer, perhaps, than usual. "You are not... bad. You are not a failure, if that is why you are apologizing." He paused, then.

Still considering.

After a moment, he moved farther away. Stepped out into the center of the tunnel. Turned, facing down the slope toward Hydra. Like a great dog he settled himself with a flop to lie against the rock, idle, the spines of his forelimbs turned outward. He had to raise his voice, a little, for it to be heard in the Overseer's little den. "What are you afraid of, Orthoclase-Alpha? Is it me?"

He wondered. Was it him? Was it the idea of failure itself? Toxic eyes stared off toward the bright gate of Hydra, those distant memories flickering. Why had it come back here-?

The Boneseer's words were still buzzing, an unpleasant static, through his mind. It was looking like she might be right; and if she was, he had few complaints with that course of action. But he had things to say, first; he absolutely could not leave the Orthoclase in this state.

He doubted it would survive much longer--even without seeing it firsthand, Vargas guessed that it had been barely living at all.

He just could not understand why. Or, indeed, what the hell he could do about it. But... he would speak to it, at least. And perhaps figure out where to go from there.

He'd been wondering--when he thought of Alpha--what it wanted. And it had never known. He'd asked, of course; but it had never known its own mind, never truly been able to make even the simplest request on its own behalf. How had it gone from confident beast to shivering wreck? This wasn't the weakness of a lack of will; and that was, perhaps, the defining feature that kept it from failure in his eyes. It hadn't given up, no; it hadn't deliberately chosen to simply throw in the towel and die. It was, if anything, the other way around. Something had pushed it to this point, and now, finally, it had told him at least one of its desires.

It didn't want to die.

Vargas glanced over at it sharply--at its again-retreated shape, lurking there in the dusty dark. That was right, wasn't it-? It doesn't want to die? Or is it saying that it does?
He wasn't sure which would have been more tragic.

Confusion again washed over him. Someone told it I was coming for it..? Vargas again wondered, distantly, if one single strike to the face was all it had taken to gradually shatter the crustacean-monster's shell. Physically, he had split it. Mentally-? Emotionally? Surely it would have taken more than that? Had it buckled so badly under the general state of the caves; the return of militaristic march?

"I am not going to kill you, Orthoclase-Alpha," Vargas answered, in some surprise. "If someone told you I was coming to harm you, told you to run--they lied." He wondered who it was. He wasn't going to ask, though--not now. Alpha was clearly not in a state to have a detailed discussion. As lacking as he might have been in the entire psychology department, he could tell he'd need to keep things very, very simple.

"I promise that I will not kill you, hm? I will not harm you. I have been looking for you because I was concerned for your well-being." A strange thing, he reflected; the old Overseer would never have recognized Master Vargas. Or--would it have? Was a quiet lifting of a Titanite gemstone between old claws not a symbol that what was, had come from what had been? Given the freedom to choose, he had changed things, if only a little. Perhaps he himself hadn't changed that much after all. But this wasn't about him, and after giving the Orthoclase a moment to process his words (as he assumed it required), he spoke again.

"You were confident once, but I do not know if you were ever truly happy. I think I may have failed you, there, in your very creation. I have sought ways to improve your state--for your own sake," and why couldn't he just say 'I wanted you to be happy?' Who had programmed him so poorly?

"You began to grow... distant, lethargic. I thought that sending you away, giving you some freedom, to sort out your mind at your own pace--that it would help. It has not," he added, a little grimly. "But I imagine asking you to come back to Draco would not help, either." Vargas paused. Would the Orthoclase even understand him-? Was it in a state where it could comprehend? It seemed almost half-feral, gasping with fear.

"Orthoclase-Alpha..." he tried, going back to the beginning as best he could. "When I was Overseer, I had to do things a certain way. A harsh way. As Master I have the choice to try something new, and I have been. I have not killed any of the Forge. I am not punishing them harshly. They are not... particularly productive, but they are not being killed, and I am not about to start with you. I have no reason to harm you, do you see-?" ...No, that was far too... practical. Remote.

Was it even hearing him-?

He took a breath, and glanced toward its hole. He tried again. "I do not want to harm you. I never did. You are safe in my presence."

...Was that right? Not "the right thing to say," no. He wasn't looking for excuses, or even reasoning, to plaster as lies over his spawn's fears like some sort of wound glue. He just... wanted to express himself. To reassure Orthoclase-Alpha.

Why did it believe that he was out to harm it..? Who told it this?!

He considered asking it if he should leave. Promising to return to ensure it ate, and drank, at least--so that he could in good conscience stay gone. But he felt it might simply disappear, again; and he doubted it would eat. He thought he'd been clear when he'd sent it away--he'd told it so distinctly that he was not casting it away. If it hadn't grasped his meaning then, if it somehow had misunderstood that, then it might not be in a state to understand him now.

And so, Master Vargas tried again. Looped back to the start, to the unproductive confusion, and spoke quietly. "I do not want you to die, either, Orthoclase-Alpha. That is why I am worried. If you are not caring for yourself, you may die, and it will not be by my hand." A pause, pensive. "Is there something I can do to help you?"

He could find the time, surely, between his duties for the Forge-... But would it even grasp his question?

Did it have the sense--the knowledge of self, even--to have an answer?