As soon as you are ready... V-Zoisite-One was not sure what 'ready' entailed: it wanted to go now, to see the place it would learn to thrive and nurture. Would that eagerness be too much, just then? It hesitated, and Master Vargas prattled onward.

To talk about her name. How she would earn it, though the details were a touch vague. It would take time to make all the lights, but that was something she could set to work with immediately until she likely passed out from the effort. How many days would it take? It didn't matter much; it would be infinitely shorter than the daunting unknown of having no task put before her.

She nodded, then.

Then Master Vargas mentioned the Deathmatch, and Zoisite's quills rattled quietly. Disconcerted, it hesitated. It didn't want to fight, and it certain didn't want to participate in something called Deathmatch. That would be a good way for its mandibles to end up lopping off the head of something with more life than a rat, and it couldn't face that idea.

Finishing training was a bit easier to swallow. Again, it nodded. That would be determined more by Diot or Oliver, then, wouldn't it? If they were teaching it.

The last two methods it did not see itself doing: finding a new member of the Forge, or capturing a rebel. It hoped it would never meet a rebel of Order. It worried, privately, about what Order was like.

But Zoisite had been quiet this whole time, leading up to Master Vargas asking it if it had a name in mind. This it was torn on telling Master Vargas about: if Pollen called her Zoey, it would get in trouble... wouldn't it? Was it honest, then? Maybe it wouldn't come up. The Zoisite hoped it wouldn't.

She did want to tell Vargas, though. She wanted to speak the word so badly that it burned the inside of her throat, and she lowered her mandibles quietly until even peering up as much as she could, the top of her head made it impossible to see Master Vargas. What would he think? Her quills rattled gently, fur bristling along her underbelly. She focused so hard on his presence looming over her as she held on to that one, quiet feeling of her own. A gaping desire for approval.

Then, her jaws parted.

"Zoey," was the one word that clicked from her jaws, quiet and uncertain.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

It had gone quiet--attentive, certainly, but the way it seemed almost to shrink was... worrying. He saw in it too much the mirror of its predecessor--its lifegiver--and he waited with mounting concern.

"Zoey." It was somehow both simultaneously ridiculous (it was Zoisite shortened, was it not?) and endearing; a soft diminuitive that did not seem to fit with the bristling, mandibled creature before him. "Zoey it will be, then," he answered calmly, without either mockery nor enthusiasm--his tone was even, accepting. "Once it is earned. Now: do you have any other questions, or anything else to say? And when, do you think, you will be ready to visit Pegasus?"

He pondered, for a moment. "Would you be averse to guarding the farms, as well, while you are there? I believe you will not be the only one, but if you are already trained in combat it may be useful to have another of the Forge protecting the food, and its caretakers." His question was carefully-phrased: not an order or a demand, but a check, tentative. Emotions had faded to the back, to now be replaced by the old standbys: planning, assessing, summarizing. Vargas, now focused on the task at hand, was returning to familiar territory--for now closing the door on the unfamiliar sensations that had swelled like breakers against a shore.

They would not, however, be forgotten.

@V-Zoisite-One

There was nothing to pry from Master Vargas's tone. All that she was left with was the task of earning her name, though both of them now knew what she desired to be called. Something about that burned at her, but it felt too hammered into the stone of Draco to be changed. It felt like the one thing that Master Vargas would never waiver on.

Of course, no one asked him. There had been a small protest, a long time ago, but that had been filled with demands. Maybe if the Zoisite had worked up the courage to ask why a name had to be earned, when outsiders were treated with more respect than those shuffling in the ranks of Meat, maybe then it would have its answer.

It was a great shame that it didn't, then.

The Zoisite considered other questions or remarks, though. Truthfully, it didn't know what else to ask or say to Vargas, nothing immediately came to its mind. But when its Master prompted it about Pegasus again, it raised its head, craning back so its golden eyes could peer out at the Master.

"I'm ready now... or later, when you are," it-- she-- insisted, talons shuffling underneath as excitement brewed beneath her carapace. "And of course," it went on, jaws snapping quickly, "I would protect the farms like I would protect any of us." No, it did not like violence, it certainly did not want to bring harm to another... but if someone were to attack them, if someone attacked Oliver or any of the others, it would not hesitate. The fierceness of this feeling was... uncomfortable, yes, but it answered with confidence, at any rate.

Again, she shied away from mentioning her displeasure aloud. A monster bearing a form akin to an assassin, pincers capable of guillotining in an instant, that was repulsed by causing pain? Even if Master Vargas had been attentive and even kind, this was something deeper than anything he had placed into her. It was a standard that the world had stitched into the very fabric of her heart, and she knew well that it meant something was wrong with her.

She wasn't ready to confide any of that with him. She knew it was capable of acting regardless, and it would fight and defend if it had to.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas gave a little nod, and studied Zoisite a moment longer.

He was troubled, a little, by what he felt: there was no room for it, a liability that would only get one or both of them killed should it be found out. But it wouldn't be.

He would simply... look out for the Zoisite. Ensure that it was safe.

That's all.

He glanced back at the gathering, still breaking apart, in Draco proper. "Hm. We will go shortly, then. Let me meet with anyone else who wishes to, and then we will go--give me an hour, yes? Make any preparations you need, before then."

He looked back to the Zoisite (a pair of mandibled faces only a mother grandfather? could love) and then pushed up.

"Dismissed, for now," he said.

exit Vargas?
@V-Zoisite-One

An hour, then. V-Zoisite-One nodded stiffly, turning away to creep off to a quiet corner until Master Vargas was finished speaking with the others. Though it didn't know, exactly, how to prepare, it wandered to the spot where it lay, and dragged its talons through the loose stone and rubble.

Maybe, while it waited, it could work on making some lights. They would want proper lights, the Zoisite suspected, not made of stone... But for now, Zoisite grasped at one of the smooth stones that it had about its nest.

Its talons closed around the stone, and its eyes closed. It poured its soul into the stone, until the warm light broke through the dark of its eyelids, and when it opened them again to see the golden glow of its magic, it felt warm.

Things were changing... and... it was going to be okay. Hopefully the others would find their own happiness, too.

exit!