Vargas was rumbling, and it was important for the zoisite to listen to Vargas, but the grub only had eyes for the slime-serpent-brother. The zoisite felt a brimming pride as it watched V-Chaos-One gulp down the remaining scraps it had brought.

Yes, good, it thought, pincers opening and closing with slow, deliberate motion that was very pleased with itself. It scuttled back to give Labradorite-brother some space, but paused when the younger hatchling began to squeal on a single pitched note.

...

Zoisite tilted its head toward its sibling, slowly angling its head to get a better look (at least, with half of its eyes) at the black slime creature. Hm, quite, it agreed in its head, and then parted its jaws and echoed:

"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

This was a good sibling, it decided, taking note of the little details as it made the tiny, constant squealing sound. Nidhogg (as soon as it knew that was the name he preferred, it would make a point of calling it that) had a bunch of little spines and pokey bits, just like Zoisite-grub. Labradorite didn't have much in the way of quills, though it was pretty lumpy. Zoisite really liked the different ways they were all similar.

Oh, that reminded the grub that the rest of its siblings were also hatched now. Tilting its head back, it shuffled around in place, getting a good look at the others. "eee, eeeee, eee," it chirruped, trying to get the others to join in.

@Nidhogg

The Labradorite had been curled, half asleep, in the darkest, coolest, dampest crevice it could find that it could fit in. The tunnel was almost unbearably hot and dry, but this helped, somewhat. It had been half-asleep, until loud voices and hissing woke it up. It'd poke its head out, curiously, and then see several new creatures. Three, to be exact. While the other two were interesting in their own right, it was more interested in the dark, slimy creature that rather resembled them.

It crawled out from its little burrow and trotted over to the new creature. It spotted it's insectoid sibling, who seemed equally interested in the newcomer. It also noticed the scent of meat, but it had already eaten recently, evident by the higher than normal amount of oily slime covering it's skin.

It wiggled excited, flecks of goop flying off it's tail. This creature was almost exactly like them! That meant they were going to get along, right? Labradorite had gotten along well enough with it's siblings, so it had no reason to think this would be any different.

When its sibling started squealing, so did it. "EEEEEEEE!" it squealed back, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" It glanced at Zoisite, who was also squeaking. This was fun! It scooted back, dropping into a dog-like play bow, except it almost lost balance and fell forward. It straightened slightly as it regained balance, but it's tail kept wagging, all six eyes staring at its siblings, waiting for one of them to (hopefully) start playing, or at least do something.

@V-Zoisite-One @Nidhogg

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee said the other child. And eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! the third.

V-Chaos-One stared among them, then tilted its head back. It would prove itself the king of... eeeeeee-ing. Toxic maw snapped open! Oily hide glistened as the eldritch beast stepped forth from hiding. Puffing itself up, claws gripping rock and quills on end, it emitted a-...

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee-sneeze-"--which is to say, it didn't say 'sneeze' but maybe something was in the air, or maybe it simply imitated Chaos-Two but whatever the case the high-pitched squeal was abruptly ended.

When Nidhogg blinked, afterward, it was unevenly--one side of eyes, one after the other, then the other side. Its tongue was still stuck from the front of its mouth. The other creature--the other glossy black one that looked like him, but with red to his green--was now there, and it looked inviting and challenging and so Nidhogg dove for it.

"Dove for it" a euphemism for flung himself in its direction, tripped, and landed on his belly a few feet away.

...Well, it didn't look like Alpha was answering his summons anytime soon. At least the other brood seemed well-fed, judging by one's presenting of meat to the other (and Vargas certainly took note of such behavior: good for teamwork, bad for individual survival).

And at least Khavur could grasp language. That was good: the sooner it could speak, the sooner it could be of use to him. "You will all be strong," Master Vargas told the entire troupe, even as he strode into their midst, even as he lowered himself to lay between them all. Let them use him as a playground, for now; he'd have to watch them until the Orthoclase showed itself.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

"Soldiers of this Nest, created in His image, to sow-" eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

"-...destruction and chaos in His name. You will be the pride of the new era, the-" eeeeeeeeee-sneeze!

"...ORTHOCLASE?"

@V-Labradorite-One @V-Zoisite-One @Khavur @V-Chaos-Two @V-Selenite-One (ORTHOCLAAAAASE?)

Chaos-Two let go of Selenite to face the giant form that had suddenly laid down, peering through the haze to wibble-wobble its way towards the glow of its eyes. It stood shakily in front of its creator, shaking gently as it sniffled and bleated gently, its legs twitching and dragging on the ground as it walked.

Bumping its nose into Vargas' snout, Chaos-Two bleated, tail wiggling as it shook its head and whapped a paw down on the snout before him and started to try to nibble on one of his nostrils. Where there wasn't gem and loose teeth, there was soft gums, suggesting that he wasn't even supposed to have any yet, if not for the deformation of his gem. He gummed as best he could and latched on, pulling and tugging and making an odd growl in the back of his throat before his grip slipped and he fell onto his back with a startled, "BLEHHH!!"

Shaking its head out, it forced itself up and turned towards the shrieking mass of baby gembound, stopping before it to try to figure out who was who. It honestly couldn't tell.

"BLEHHH!!!", it cried instead, to try and join in on the orchestra of screaming.

Tiring, it sat down heavily on it's rear, back up against Vargas' nose as it reached up to scratch at an itch before overbalancing and tipping over, wiggling to try and save itself before flopping onto the ground. ”This is my fate now,” it thought, and started to try and lick itself clean, limbs waving around in an effort to get everyhere it could, with minimal success.

@Vargas

Sprawled haphazardly across the big beastie's snout and still scrabbling to pull itself up, Selenite squealed with each bobbing motion. Two hands patted angrily against its pebbly hide, a sort of "stop moving!" punctuated by a thematically appropriate "eeee!"

Little claws gripped its tail for a moment, and the limb shot straight up and out of reach. In its hair-trigger twisting-around-to-whap-at-its-playmate, the pudgy infant toppled off of Khavur's head. It shrieked the whole way down, and its meat-cutting chunk of zoisite was lost to the wastes of Tunnel P. Quills puffed up petulantly and it scattered for the big purple beast that'd come with food before and was now lying down among them.

Despite the vaguely irritating sensation of those bright-glowing quills on Vargas's back, the Selenite clambered up and into them if allowed. Gripping with all four arms, the youngling pivoted on the spot and settled in to watch its hatchmates with a dramatic little squint.

Ears pricked up as the master's voice boomed, and it caught onto the name - designation? - name this time. Like a question? He didn't know where their parent was? It hopped back down, crawled around the leviathan, and peered into his big 'ol eyes on the right side.

Selenite gawped a few times, mouth opening and closing like a fish with failed attempts at words: "ee - Ort - ah - mmrmregh..." Speak, child! It plonked down into an odd squatting-sit, tail lashing. Bright ears pricked and eyes widened, and it shuffled abruptly to hastily scrawl into the dirt a very shitty drawing of its Overseer-parent's head and a rat.

"Eee!" it crowed, gesturing towards the Orthoclase-drawing, and then drew a line towards the rat. Getting overly excited, the Selenite tore its claws through the rat-drawing and completely vanquished it.

Somehow, the doodling and storytelling'd formed some brain cells and neural pathways, because it finally caught onto the context of the word "hunt!" Blink. Oh! Words! That sounded like something Master-Leviathan would say. Quills flared up, clearly ecstatic with itself and grinning with all its teeth. "Orth-hunt! Go-hunt!" Selenite did a very ape-like half-cartwheel, pivoting on its arms again and tail lashing like an overclocked whip.

@Vargas (for visibility)

Contrary to the little Selenite's beliefs, Alpha wasn't actually that far off nor was it hunting. It set a Sentinel or two on watching the spawn and making sure they didn't stray too far or interfere with the Oily chrysalises Vargas had. The Master'd gone off to Cetus to find the spawn that was in there, and was due back soon. The orthoclase just secretly wanted a brief break from the chaos of three children that lacked the cognition to actually take orders and thought any attempts at swiping were just attempts to play. Ugh.

The cover story, though, was it going to fetch a drink from the Doctor's alcove. Which it did do. Before it even left the children, though, it set to keeping them in its senses and generally staying aware of everything that walked in or out of the tunnel. The magic was weaker than it would've liked, but present nonetheless. A perfect way to keep a tally of spawn, Sentinels, and Masters strolling in with his own newborn in his mouth while it gulped down water.

"ORTHOCLASE-ALPHA?" "... ORTHOCLASE?" boomed Vargas, increasingly more urgent.

Back into the fray, then. The Overseer gnashed its teeth as it stepped back from the vulture's store. It offered him one nod, and took to a galloping pace. Time to do the bare minimum of supervision. Hemlocke winged away once it came into view, and Alpha glanced over the veritable gathering of children blankly. Three of them were new, and two of them put an immediate squint in its eye: the largest, Vargas's deliberate creation (it assumed); and the smallest, a stumbling creature currently toppled on its side.

It didn't say anything of it, though.

Quills prickled at the constant cacophony eeeeeeeee. It might've found the entire situation of Vargas being used as a jungle gym if it wasn't feeling a sense of worry at the spawn clambering over his prone form. About the spawn? "Hmgh," it grunted aloud, shook its head, and settled on the outskirts. Alpha acknowledged "Master Vargas" with a nod, and answered the question it was sure was coming up, "I was getting water. Hemlocke was watching and I watched them with my magic."

May as well nip any conversation about itself in the bud, right?

It appeared as though the rider of Khavur (REAVER OF THE DARK ABOVE!!!)'s small-horned head was... upset? Saying 'eeeeeeeee'. They all were. Naturally, the giant beast would join, in its own lower pitched, softer "Eeeeeee..." It didn't need any other reason besides bandwagon logic. Mob mentality. Maybe it was more of a pack, actually. Unfortunately, Khavur wouldn't be able to stop the motion of the head before the tiny rider went falling down. Khavur of the Long Name wasn't particularly worried about it though. What exactly happened when something fell? It seemed to be... okay. Not terrible. The rider just went to ride on the big purple friend instead.

The big purple friend said they would all be 'strong'. How curious! Khavur-excruciatingly-long-title looked around at who composed this 'you all'. Two oily noodles, two creatures that looked like they were meant to ride things, a prickly confusing-looking noodle, and Khavur, Reaver of the Dark Above. They would all be "St-- stroooo...ng." The beast mimicked with its large-horned head. "Strong!" The meaning of that word felt... vast, to Khavur. Like it could really be anything, but only a few permutations of it made sense. Perhaps the purple friend would teach them what 'strong' meant.

A creature called 'Orthoclase-Alpha' was called in by a booming purple voice. The attention of both heads were caught, trained, and fixed on who answered to such a calling. Ah. A big sepia friend! Khavur would call to the sepia friend itself, "Eeee!" with one head and then "Bleh!" with the other. Because it seemed like everyone should be eeee'ing right now. Or bleh'ing.

And Khavur's magic once more tried to reach out, like some kind of grasping, hungry spider, spindly legs crawling forth to seek an emotion that wasn't Khavur's own...

And it just barely managed to grasp and reel in the annoyance. Very, very faint traces of resentment laced through its brain, as though annoyance were the ice cream and resentment were the single drop of caramel topping dropped in. Or perhaps it was the underlying tone of the entire flavor... Khavur wasn't sure. It had only gotten just a lick of a taste. The feeling was already fading away...

"Hunt?" Khavur questioned, tilting both its heads in opposite directions. It heard the word floating about the room (Khavur didn't know exactly who had said it). The question seemed directed at 'Orthoclase-Alpha'. Was this yet another attempt to understand?

Vargas' head was PRETTY HIGH UP, even when he was laying down, so when the broken--is it damaged? spawn began tugging at his nostril he gave a grunt of unwelcome surprise. He swatted lightly at it, not wanting to damage it further but... ugh.

When Orthoclase came in, he glanced up at it. "That's fine," he hastened to say, "But now my spawn have been added to yours. Do you want to go hunting, or do you prefer to keep watch?"

He then nodded amongst the children. "V-Chaos One, V-Chaos Two; and Three will be known as Khavur, Terror of the Dark Above." Wait, no. "REAVER of the Dark Above," he corrected. "We will both train that one, but I want you to start groundwork with it as soon as possible."

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Chaos-Two had whapped itself, but thanks for the effort, Vargas.

The child dragged itself back over to the huddle of adolescents and analyzed its second sibling, the oily noodle. Well, one of two oily noodles. It couldn't tell them apart, the two dark blobs looking nearly identical. So it took a moment to identify scents, instead, though that didn't work either. They both smelled like swamp. Giving up, it followed the scent of sulphur and dry scales back to Vargas, where it looked up at the monster before planting its paws on his nose... and sneezing rather mightily.

As if triggered by the sneeze, magic sprung up and massive shards of glass erupted out of the sand, springing upwards in tall spikes all around. The sound of glass cracking off each other echoed around the cave, some of it breaking and falling to pieces on the ground, with others managing to stretch taller and taller, like peaks and spires. They stopped growing after a few seconds, creating a wave of shards in the sand about ten feet in a semi-circle behind the child, some so tall that they were bigger than Vargas. Others were bigger than Chaos-Two, growing smaller towards the outside of the circle. It was rather pretty how it turned out, with the glass reflecting light in every direction, forming little spots on the ground.

The child shook its head out and seemed a bit dazed after, and turned around, facing the field of glass with awe. It looked up at Vargas with a huge, derpy grin, tail wagging as if to say, 'I did that!'

@Vargas