The orthoclase'd made its rounds in Canis after the Olympics: went for a brief hunt, even though it was still full on low-simmering rage and anxiety; took a drink; made a piss-poor effort at cleaning all of the blood off itself. More of its front half was smeared red than not, and it'd been given time to sink into every little crevice it could. A faint pink silhouette marked every spatter, and larger spots were still close to red, half-coagulated on its hide. The best thing was to just wait for it to wear off. Nobody'd discovered hydrogen peroxide or vinegar tricks in the caves yet.

Alpha could, at least, straighten out its quills somewhat. Some of them were bent at the tips or painfully half-loose from a lack of preening in the past few weeks. It'd caught its reflection in the water while trying to wash itself off, and it had not liked what it'd seen: an absolute wreck of a creature with no sense of control. Every bit of its cognition was geared towards being the superior one, being the one with the iron grip on the situation. But, it was now being confronted with the opposite.

It'd never known itself. Never bothered trying to, because then it'd be someone instead of something. A weapon to be pointed at a target, a hound to be pointed at a fallen duck. Anything more would've been dangerous. Anything more, and it would've thrown down its gloves and left a long time ago.

But, it was scared of what was outside this little bubble. This little nook hidden by a vast, magical wall of cobbled-together stone, filled with promises of chaos and destruction. A production line dedicated to churning out monsters with singular purposes that needed to be taught, instead of ingrained. There was a vast difference between being fed something and understanding it. Time and time again, Alpha'd been asked "What are you doing?" "Why are you doing that?" "What is it that you're fighting for?" It scarcely had immediate answers that weren't regurgitated bits of information or a plain to survive.

What - no... who was it, if not an emotional wreck incapable of handling the one thing it was good at over what was ultimately punishment for the future? An emotional wreck incapable of thinking about itself as a person even though it'd earned that right and a name? A name.

Hooked talons curled into the dusty floor. Alpha shifted where it sat by the closed-off entrance to Tunnel P, toxic eyes glancing over the boneyard in a haphazard - and blind - fashion. Like it was actually guarding, and not occupying itself with the downward spiral playing uncontrollably in its mind. The monstrous hybrid was half-groomed, hunched over, barely pricking up when "Master Vargas, sir" made his approach.

It watched his every step and movement, but otherwise stayed right where it was sitting; the only movement it made was rolling its shoulders up and head down, withdrawing slightly into a bow. The picture of guilty, kicked dog.

The Master settled further than it thought he would've. A sizable distance was between them. Despite knowing Vargas could cross it in a short few seconds of fury, the orthoclase loosened up some. Its head followed the landscape between them as it swung up to regard him more directly. Alpha's claws relinquished their superficial hold on the earth. The shoulders stayed up, at least.

"Are you injured?" he'd asked.

A few bruises and chips in its hide, but otherwise? "No." It lifted its bloodstained right arm, gaze not moving away from the Leviathan. "This isn't mine." Nemesis had taken the full brunt of it, and left barely a scratch on itself. It'd either been outmatched and she was holding back, or - she hadn't wanted to hurt it. Alpha couldn't possibly fathom why that the latter would be the case. It'd given her no reason not to gore it until it stopped attempting to rip her to shreds.

Why was a question often on its mind.

"Good. Now;" Here it is. "What happened?"

It averted its gaze slightly, like it was considering that for the first time. Multiple attempts had been made to find an answer to that, but every little detail pointed to I don't know.

One moment, it'd been caught in the thrill of nonmagical combat against an opponent that was every bit of competent and strong. The next, every bit of stimulus snowballed into a wretched lump that was impossible to digest; essentially a complete blackout in its memory. Even what immediately followed Vargas's intervention was an autopiloted haze. Only when it was a cave away did it manage to touch back down on reality.

The tragedy of it all was Alpha's lack of emotional intelligence. It could not connect the dots between that one, single strike to the face being a trigger for that overwhelming surge of violence - for its lashing out at something it knew it could wail on without consequence, and refusing to lash out at Vargas despite that constant niggling voice that called for rebellion. It could not connect the dots between itself and its mother's death in a Trial it could have prevented. It could not connect the dots between its own personhood and every downturn since. It could not connect the dots between its success and the hollowness of it all.

All the orthoclase had was a faint clue. That wasn't enough for a confident answer past I don't know...

But... would Vargas take that? It was an excuse. Toxic eyes bore back on him abruptly, widening slightly. "I don't know," rumbled halfway out of its throat, but was indecipherable as it tightened its jaw and gnashed its teeth. All it could think of were excuses: I got excited by the blood. She drew first and I wanted revenge. She talked shit about the Masters and deserved to be made an example of. Nothing worthwhile. Nothing worth lying about. All of those would spawn more questions it didn't have answers to.

It worked its jaw, inhaled sharply, and murmured: "I don't know." Quills pricked in tell-tale anticipation.

Of course it wasn't a good enough answer. It should've picked any of the other options and improvised until it was inevitably caught in the act and forced onto another story. Rinse and repeat until the trigger goes click! and a boom! rocked through its skull.

Alpha's jaw clenched nonetheless, and it hesitated again. What it knew was that they'd been sparring, at rather perfect odds with one another. It would've won by the standards set if it hadn't snapped at the last second. "Nothing."

Slow down. What happened before then? The last thing it remembered - its bloody arm lifted to scratch idly and subconsciously at its chin - a leg buckled and landed it underneath Nemesis. All the rest smeared and burned like an old tape. A ball of complicated spaghetti and knotwork that couldn't be unraveled without a deep dive from outside.

"It was fine until my leg got kicked," it doubled back, fully aware of how unsatisfying that and its addition was, "I don't... fully know what happened after that. A lot of blood." It could've figured that out from the bloodstains. Was that a conscious detail it remembered? Or just a part of the haze it filled in for itself? Alpha grunted, shuffling a little further away to lean against the wall.

Divulging felt dirty, unsafe, made it vulnerable. The wall covered its back.

It didn't trust Vargas - or anyone - with this, but there was an inherent pressure to give him whatever he asked for, even if he wasn't particularly pushing for it. The potential consequences of not answering were too great to risk.

It watched Vargas warily as he considered and considered, a suspicious squint in his gaze. He still thinks I'm lying was the clearest assumption to make in that period of silence. Alpha had no way of baring its brain - nor would it? - to its master to prove something so ridiculously intangible to be correct. All it had was conviction; and it won out into a conclusion.

A conclusion that, for all the wrong reasons, the orthoclase thought was false (for a moment, at least) - and felt a faint prickle of hot-blooded resentment surge up. Magical sabotage couldn't have been part of it. It'd never seen magic to cause such an overwhelming loss of control so quickly. There'd been that of a reality-altering witch not too far away, but it'd been lucid for it. But, Vargas was ancient and fundamentally knew a hell of a lot more than it did about the various forms magic could take. Alpha mulled briefly over how it could have been magically pushed over the edge. Wouldn't it have felt it?

But, there'd been nobody there. Not down there. Nobody it'd met, with reason to go after itself or the Master - ah, there's that simmering rage again. Always attached to Vargas. Always a target on his back and its own. Alpha didn't know the first thing about its own wants, but it was steadily learning that it did not want what came with being an Overseer. Responsibility, self-determination, politics. Sure, it put it above the common rabble, gave it power and authority, but having to (poorly) explain to every little beast what Overseers and Masters were didn't convince it of that.

It'd just been lucky, and now it was a fucking wreck that wanted to - I'm going once this Two-shit is over and he doesn't need me. Alpha blinked, almost... shocked with itself. That determined? No, no, it'd wait. Wait until the coast was completely clear. That or be bitter enough to go for the throat -

It didn't disagree with Vargas's hypothesis. Let him waste his time on that fruitless endeavor and leave itself be. Alpha shook its head, "no." No need to add any more words to that. It rolled its shoulders deliberately, smoothing down its quills where they'd started pricking up.