Oh, and there's a thoughtful rise from him, and an interesting response. Their respect for one another's strength, at the very least, is mutually understood; and there the wager is settled with a crooked grin of even some of the teeth along her jaws, even before Vargas continues speaking. "You're an entertaining fool, Leviathan," she cuts in at his dismissal regardless, giggling. "Cutting yourself down to be eye level with them."

This is relevant, too, to the enduring question of control. To which Draconua barks out another laugh of her own, and strolls forward with idle intent and further chattering laughter. "If mine own seeks nourishment from 'rewards and incentives', it will have to fight for its teat. I need not offer if they will just be willing to take it. I will cut them down if they are found undeserving."

Her mask casts itself to the side, a dismissive gesture in its own right, and a grin to match Vargas's own challenging one. "Yours were ruined before they even darkened my doorstep. Nothing but dust for a spine."

A pause, and her head cants in the opposite direction; thinking on that bothersome serpent that Vargas had tormented her with once or twice. "Sometimes a void where their brain should be," she laughs, utterly unaware of the irony and entirely distracted with prowling closer, and closer, and closer—

She lowers her crown with anything but deference in mind, runs her tongue over her teeth and drools onto the floor with anticipation. "All the lives I've witnessed, I've never been the mother that has watched her child be ripped in twain. I bear no advice for you, and you bear none for me." A huff of air escapes her, and she heaves up a mass of gnarled flesh and splintered Oilstone onto the floor in front of Vargas with a single, focused retch.

Her crown lifts to regard Vargas again, tongue curling over her bloodied grin like a satisfied carnivore lapping up the remnants of its kill. She rasps around the bile and Oil in her throat, "This stone is precious, Master Vargas. You'll never see me share it so freely again."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Her usually floral speech--if that was the word for overly poetic but madly garbled--was easier to understand. Was that a matter of his simply getting used to her? Or is she calmer, in this moment? More focused?

Also-... Did she just -giggle? Vargas paused, midway through picking the stone up from the gore with one hand, and narrowed his eyes at her. He decided to just ask. "Did you just giggle, Draconua?" He said it in a tone of accusation, her stone sliver held midair.

He looked down, paused, and... shook the Oil off her stone. Gently, but he did. Disgusting, he thought, but it was almost fond; he lifted the stone in his hand, and studied it. "You bear little but disdain for me, I believe; so what do you imagine will come of this one? -I will care for it, and train it well. But do you think it will rival your power?" Vargas held it up to the voidlight. "One can only hope, I suppose. And you are wrong--I do have one piece of advice." A flicker of his power fled into the stone, the faintest touch enough to spark new life.

If only to be a smartass. And it had taken him a second to think of it.

Vargas leered up, his rigid face as much a grin as he could manage. Humor laced his tone as he finished: "...Have food ready."

Valkhounds were ravenous little shits, he'd found.

@Draconua (exit Vargas, maybe??)

Draconua bruxes in response to the accusation, baring more of her teeth in a grin.

"It is not disdain that I harbor, Leviathan. Not for you," she states, cryptically matter-of-fact despite the wheezing rasp of continued giggling underlying every breath.

A step back brings her closer to her wondrous, wretched den of chaos, Oil-encrusted claws scraping the earth underfoot as she goes. Her grin is pointed, then, at the Oil-stained rock pulled up to hide that little sanctum from sight; and back to Vargas once more as she turns her body to face it. It splits wide with another laugh of an answer to his question. "You hope, but you will not permit yourself fulfillment. Mine true Chaos is beyond your control, we know. And so this sliver will never fathom such a might as it."

Her teeth catch on her own neck as she sobers, turning away. "But, I know that it will be a mighty thing even without, lest you clip and condemn the slavering teeth and claws that it will inherit."

... a twisted sort of advice, offered in turn. "Go, Leviathan. Plant our contest."

It's the last piece of preamble before Draconua sinks her claws into the earth before her blocked-off nursery and finds herself merely steeping it ever-more in the Oil weeping from her abused quicks.

She hisses and bristles, and resolving to flop down with the Black Spire's seething warmth at her back, head heavy on her forearms as she lies in silent, quivering anticipation instead.

"Exit" Draconua. @Vargas for visibility, mostly.

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Not disdain..?
Well, another option would be hatred or the like. But that'd probably include disdain. What if she was in love with him, or something equally awful? Vargas suppressed a shudder at the thought. Somehow, that idea was more horrifying than the thought of Draconua hating him. By far.

She was back to poetic snarling, now, and he did not have the patience to make sense of most of it. She was a creature of dramatic postures and screaming roars, where he was one of straightforward speech or direct murder.

So Vargas simply shrugged, palmed the stone, and made to go. "Let me know how they come out," he said, more in a conversational manner than any demand. He was, truth be told, triumphant--not in a gloating way, but in the way of one who's just been given a grand treasure for nearly free.

Yes, it was a pain in the ass to deal with the creature of true chaos. But now, the Chaos Forge would have her genetics (so to speak) within its ranks.

And that was only good.

...Vargas grimaced at that thought as he strode a little ways away. Not only good. Actually-... do I even want this to be Chaos? Hmm.

They could always alter it later, if it chose. Perhaps it was best to start it off with his element... and give it the choice later on.

exit Vargas, @Draconua (for visibility)