WE ARE MADE OF WORMS - Printable Version

The Zoisite was still, low to the ground, eyes closed; their fake eye-spots on their tail raised up to "stare" blindly ahead while they breathed. In, and out.

Master Vargas left with Her.

Scampering, footsteps, conversations.

The grub cracked open an eye, then another, then another, and cocked their head enough to peer toward their ~~mother~~ Overseer. Mandibles slowly clicked close.

Master Vargas returned, with a loud voice that froze them from head to false head, and so many words that all poured over them like a drum pounding away in a marching band.

The Zoisite waited until Vargas was finished, and then hesitantly raised a set of talons, and scuttled ever so closer to Orthoclase-Alpha. Its claws scrapped the earth, grunting an instruction to one of the other adults, and...

they felt so small.

...

They stood, back slightly tensed, still growing quills stiff. All they could do was blink, unequipped to speak their feelings and their concerns. "mom?" The puerile grub clacked softly, craning their head back to peer up at the life-giver. They could only ask for guidance as they stood like a tiny, miniature statue at the Overseer's feet.

V-Chaos-Two swallowed gently and looked down. They were weak. The weakest, in fact, with a chronic injury from birth that prevented them from reaching their full potential, along with being blind. Bitterness welled up suddenly. That girl... that pudgy toddler was blind too! And yet she was treated better. Why? It wasn't fair! They trained hard, they tried to hunt, to feed themselves, to be as independent as possible. They went to the Doctor and to that owl (Kethri, they recalled), and got whatever they could to help their legs stop hurting. There was nothing to be done for their eyes, but they tried so hard to compensate for them.

They caught a single word, a single syllable, one they hadn't ever used.

”Mom?”

Was Vargas their 'mom'? Their 'dad'? Was that allowed? Did Chaos-Two even deserve to have one, for being so broken?

Their shoulders hunched and they stuck to Khavur's side like glue, eyes and ears down. Vargas... Vargas was their parent, they thought. Shouldn't that mean that affection was given? Not the disappointment that they'd felt the moment they pressed up against Vargas for warmth. They wanted that. Affection.

Maybe if Khavur was allowed out by themselves, Chaos-Two could go.

They wondered when (and if) they would get a name too. They'd choose a good one. A great one! Not like Khavur or Nidhogg, though those were excellent names. No... something like... Maximus.

Wait, isn't that a butt muscle-

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't Luci or Hellfire who'd had enough. It was Koi. Sweet, lovely Koi, who couldn't hurt a soul, who loved her fellows dearly... and perhaps that's why she snapped.

"We! Are leaving!", she cried out, their paws planted firmly in the sand of the tunnel, and snorted, smoke curling around her face, "This is... this is unbelievable! We joined to help people, to protect those who dare brave the deserts and to protect those who need it! you've done nothing of the sort while we've been here! You're not Sentinels... you're monsters."

She turned and snapped at Luci as they tried to protest, and forced their body towards the mouth of the tunnel and towards Canis. They weren't going to stay here, not while this happened.

"Goodbye Zoisite, Garnet-Epsilon, and Garnet-Delta. You all showed a semblance of kindness to me at some point, and I am grateful," she said, before making her departure.

On second thought... she turned around and darted towards Zoisite, gently offering them a soft nuzzle, eyes flicking up to Alpha briefly. Baby has priority, sorry big boy. "If you ever have need of me, dear, you let me know. I'll be in Canis, for now- the cave outside the tunnel, okay? Bye bye darling."

With one last look back and a smile to the small child, they disappeared, wings opening as they took flight, disappearing out of the cave and quickly gaining what altitude they could before fleeing as far as they could into Canis. Was it so sad to believe that they'd rarely even left the tunnel? Past Canis was a world unknown, and they wished to see it. Just once.

Nidhogg was busy embodying all those things that Vargas spoke of--in terms of chaos, at least--but not very destructively. As a child, all it could do was really run around, scream at things, and bite ineffectually.

Its instincts warred within it. It had so many options, so much sensory input fracturing its attention in so many different directions; it could run, climb, bite, screech, and there was so many targets at which to do any of those things.

Run? The tunnel, beneath the legs of the others, jumping over them. Climb? The walls, the ceiling, the boulders that lined the tunnel itself. Bite? Oh, there were so many options, here; the same with screeching. Really, he could screech at any of the present creatures, OR the walls, OR the tunnel, or that puddle of oil that had once been a living thing...

Whatever spark made Nidhogg's entropic choices for him drove him straight to Vargas. He was an oily black streak, toxic-glow quills rattling as he darted for the Master's leg, a snarl on his face, all eyes focused single-mindedly on his 'task.' The words went in one nonexistent ear and out the other. There wasn't even any real aggression in it--nothing personal to Vargas, bar half-glimpsed memories of control he hadn't liked. Instead it was just... who happened to be in his line of sight, at the moment.

Jaws snapped shut on thin air just as he lunged for the Master's leg, one six-thumbed and massive purple hand snagging him just before he could sink in his tiny teeth. Frustration at once overwhelmed him, twisting up into rage, and he squealed and thrashed as he tried to bite the hand that lifted him into the air.

Fruitless! Foiled again!

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screeched, angrily; and this turned into a warning hiss, lips curled to bare his little teeth: "HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

- THE LEVIATHAN -

A grunt, six eyes narrowing toward the tunnel exit, even as Vargas tossed Nidhogg lightly, unconcernedly, away. "I told you not to let them leave," he said, and there was nothing in it, only cold emptiness. A threat, certainly: did they need a reminder, so soon, of the consequences of failure-? And now Orthoclase, directly contradicting him...

Vargas swung his head to stare at it. "RETRIEVE it," he siad in a low growl, and then looked it up and down. If it were too slow, it might need enforcers of its own--winged, perhaps, but tough... "If it proves too fast for you, perhaps you can employ it as your hunter for all those that escape you in the future." This was more bitingly-said, a pointed remark but an honest one. Then he turned to Bloodstone.

Its little rant irked him, and he swept forward on long legs to glare down at it from as close as it would allow him the moment it turned toward Zoisite, intending to corner it long enough to speak. "You did not JOIN to HELP. You JOINED because I said that you BELONGED TO ME NOW, because you are USEFUL. If you do not wish to be, then the offer remains--you may leave--but do not lie to yourself about the whys, creature. You leave because I allow it," and this was a low, hissing snarl, Vargas drawn up to his full height. He was tempted to strike it--to scar it--to set an example; but every step now had to be calculated. "I never claimed that we were 'sentinels.' I have no idea where you gathered that idea from; and if you only now realize that we are 'monsters' you had best find water to stare at your reflection in. You are a creation of chaos, Bloodstone: war and battle--if you wish to hide from that, then do so. But if you come to realize that these caves only exist so long as we ensure that they do against those who would do THIS," and here Vargas' arm swept out to indicate the pile that had once been Scout, "then you may beg that I allow you back. We are not the ones who did this; ALL OF YOU, remember that." Vargas turned, eyes narrowed, to regard the rest--those who would join him, those who would not. The point remained the same. "The MOMENT our work stops, this is the fate of ALL of those in this cave."

Vargas turned to stare at Bloodstone again. "Leave, but keep your self-righteous foolishness to yourself, child. You know nothing of what you speak. The rest of you--retrieve the other child before it harms itself, and then rest. You will need it. A fight will be coming--you must be prepared to defend these caves and all within it."

Ahh, and Khavur had asked a question, had it not-? Vargas had almost forgotten. He hadn't... of course, but almost. "For now, yes. Purely for your protection, until you know these caves a little better." A week or two, he estimated, at most; "I will take you around, and teach you, soon if you wish it: we can train, and then you will have some freedom."