Reprimand came, punctuated with horror. Was that disgust in their squinting expression? It so easily could have been. But their voice, the way their throat gurgled and hacked, trying to expel the nothingness inside of it-- betrayed them. They were helpless, unable to end the cycle of suffering.

But, but that was okay. It meant that they... They cared, too. Even if they couldn't. Could they? Impossible. They said they couldn't. How could they not understand and still be so afraid...?

Orthoclase Alpha took a step back, and another, and another, farther and farther away. Zoey's shoulders shuttered, straining against her crushing weight. Pushing, heaving, forcing herself to her feet. She didn't dare take a step forward, lest she collapse, lest they break into a sprint to get away. She couldn't chase them, couldn't keep up. They always had longer strides, could always outrun her.

"I have to," Zoey wheezed, unable to raise her voice against the din of clattering carapace and quill, no matter how hard she pushed. A whine rattled through her lungs, low and reverberating. "If I don't, who will?" She challenged the cruel world that closed in around them. The one that pulled her down, held her back, as Alpha's form receded. Bleak shadows crept around the edge of her vision, until she was staring through a pinhole at the shrinking shape. Was that the closest she would ever be to them again?

No, no, no, no, no--

Couldn't move. If she did, she would charge, she would barrel into her mom and, if she could only reach, she would latch on. There would be a struggle. Someone would get hurt. And that was the best case scenario-- worst, Alpha would bolt, and disappear forever. Both thoughts made her head ache with the rattling that rained down her whole body.

She wanted to scream. All that came out was a half-crushed, wheezing, desperate squeal, "If I don't love us, who will?"

The Zoisite stood, frozen in place, helpless as their question was met with a damning demand to stop.

They both knew the answer, didn't they? If Zoey didn't, no one would.

The Orthoclase's form was becoming a blur, too far away to focus on. No, no, no, no, they were getting too far away, they were-- they couldn't leave, not now. Zoey couldn't lay herself bare and then be left to pick up the pieces. She couldn't. Alpha hit the leaves, and then began to bolt. The sound of branches snapping pulled the switch in the Zoisite's brain. No. No. NO.

A sharp inhale through pincers, a twist of a knife in the ribcage, an a violent snap of a tail. "Wait!" A sudden inferno, starting from the blackened hole (that burnt charcoal still could feed a flame, it seemed), grew and burst through her insides, setting it all ablaze. Her organ were scorched, her blood boiled. A hot, golden light flared from every crack in her armor, filling her dark pinprick stare with a wash of brilliant gold. She shut her eyes against it, but the light was coming from within. Her jaws clenched, keeping her from wailing with what little voice she had left. Only a long whine and the clattering of quills filled the air.

I'm sorry, some small part of her whispered to herself. I can't stop them.

Zoey wanted to collapse. Her carapace stung painfully, and it felt as though blisters were forming underneath her armor. Her head held low, she brought up one set of talons, reaching them to the cracks, sinking the hooks into the chitin. To scratch, to break, to release some of the heat within, to find some amount of relief.

"Stop," Zoisite whispered to itself, echoing their mother, "stop." The little nicks and scratches had yet to become trenches, only minute chinks in the armor. "Stop, sst-- ssttop..."

Sobs broke their voice, hot spittle dripping down their jaws and acid bleeding from their tightly closed eyes. They trembled there, struggling between the precipice of destruction and the endless stretch of despair ahead of them. Somehow, it managed to breathe, cool air into shriveled, ash-riddled lungs. They slowly sank into the earth, talons pressed tight into their face plate, alternating between whimpers and breaths.





Eventually the flame inside of them burned out.



The Zoisite shuttered, blinking eyes open to see the scene of destruction laid out in plain. The lights of the Pegasus had started to dim, but there was still a few lights of Zoey's creation that gave enough to see by even during the evening hours. The garden was in a state of disarray, from their corner where they had crushed and uprooted several plants, to the track lines where the Orthoclase had tore through the earth, back and forward and back again.

It was a mess, a terrible, awful thing to behold. Yet, it was so much easier to focus than the all consuming void-- the spiral that would set them back into a crumpled mess. Focus on... The practical. The actionable. What can it do with itself. The Zoisite walked away from its hole, staggering steps that lurched like a broken machine, chugging along with a missing wheel, to the rows that had been torn through. A few plants could be salvaged, maybe.

It could at least try to put things back in order, here. Easier to focus on work, on a task. It kept the mind busy while Zoey was away.