"I'll be staying in the Palace," she said. It was comfortable and safe there; Isra and Eggbert had taken care of her for thousands of years and were more than happy to do so, and they were both good company. "You can send it along whenever you see it-- Isra should be able to point it in the right direction if I'm not there."

Worry rose in her gut upon hearing about Orthoclase-Alpha-- distracted and disinterested sounded like, to her, a decent warning sign that someone was about to rebel. Was she just being paranoid? It was better safe than sorry, surely. Emotions could be a good weapon, too, provided you can control the damn things.

"I hope it returns to you soon," she offered to Vargas quietly. She side-eyed him quietly for a moment, quietly mulling over... why he was imparting this agreement with Lord Dhracia over with her.

Some beats later, Aethril asked, "do you fail quite often, Master Vargas?" Half-joking, half-grimly serious. "I've found Lord Dhracia to be quite fair. I'm sure you and your creations have nothing to worry about."

Aethril sympathized, in a way, she supposed. She did get quite attached; but she couldn't quite pin where this-- what she assumed was --fear of failure was coming from. In her eyes, he seemed quite successful.

Her attention was then taken by Nidhogg scurrying by; she stepped closer to the wall to get a look at it as it crawled up. "Half-feral?" She asked. "How often does it listen?" Despite her concern for how often Nidhogg took orders, there was a similar sort of fondness for a cute little murderfuck. "An ambush predator would work well for it, too, no?"

She smiled up at it and then turned towards the Sentinel, shaking her head a bit. It was either slacking or... not doing its job, it seemed, if it were meant to be guarding the entrance to Draco. "I didn't see him," she said, inspecting the Sentinel with a critical eye. "He seems quite... slow."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

The palace. Vargas made a mental note to send Overseer Garnet-Delta to her straightaway. "I will do so, then," he acknowledged. 'I hope it returns to you soon.' Was that sympathy? A vague threat? The faint fear of an Overseer's heart in the shadow of its Master returned. Rank didn't matter, but to lessen the numbers of those he needn't answer to. They still existed. As Overseer Vargas, he had answered to every Master. Now he answered only to the Hands; and if one day he were to join their ranks, for some strange reason--somehow? If he even could? Then he'd be answering to the Creator himself. I'm not sure that's a step up, he thought, wryly.

Still, he gave an honest answer: businesslike and dutiful. Emotion didn't factor into it, really. "I as well. Orthoclase-Alpha is useful--was useful--and it troubles me not to know where I went wrong. But to answer your question, no, I do not often 'go wrong.' I don't often fail." He paused, and debated mentioning Chaos-Two. On the surface, it seemed another failure, though really it was no fault of his own. He'd been nothing but even-handed and supportive with that one, even remaking it for little more than its own well-being. It had, in the end, simply been too weak-willed for his needs. For anyone's, really. A beast of Chaos running away sobbing--sobbing!--in the face of only a raised voice was not suitable for his Forge. And still you haven't killed it.
Was this why she was here-? To prod his weaknesses; to assess his failures? Was that was she was so soft-spoken? Would his guard be lowered, and then her polite words turn to barbs of ice?

She had questions, though. He turned his mind to these. "It listens when I speak. It has learned to," Vargas answered, with the imperious tone--as he stared at Nidhogg--of unsaid threats. He hadn't ever really hurt it, but it had learned it couldn't really escape from him, at least--and it certainly couldn't fight him, much as it would like to try. "But you are right, an ambush predator--that is essentially what our assassins train as. Creatures with sharper minds would be more useful to me here, but as a creation--as an example of what we create--he is decent." Only decent; nothing more.

Acid eyes cut to the Sentinel, who stood silent. Vargas regarded him for a moment. "She did not see you. Did you see her?" There was a nod, and before it could speak, Vargas grunted. "He tends to stick to the shadows. He seems slow but he is surprisingly quick-minded. An interesting heritage, as well. From what I can tell, one of the Gembounds embraced the Creator's stone and magic, somehow. After it died I created this one with its remnants. It hasn't failed me," he added, though if he hadn't arrived in time, the pile of meat that was Effluvium might well have ended it.

"Still, if you don't like that one, I will find you something else." He couldn't trust any of his other creations, really. "Garnet-Delta itself, perhaps, for now. Or I can come with you, if you need a guardian. Do you intend to tour the caves, then? -If I may ask," he corrected himself, just in time. Best not to be presumptuous. But surely he could accompany her; there would be no one better, no?

Draconua wouldn't do. Too damn volatile. Esther-? Maybe, but he didn't know her skills well enough and Aethril wished, he thought, a Valkhound--a proper one. Khavur... perhaps. But Khavur had been a little distant as late--physically and otherwise.

A little belatedly, Vargas realized that he was getting low on decent staff. I may need to open reproduction for a time, he reflected, wondering which of them would be capable of producing strong, and loyal, Forge.

Distant conversation droned on. The frantic thud of her oxygen-starved heart had eclipsed its sound, pounding in her ears, and now she thrashed and writhed wildly in the confines of this brittle womb. At last it cracked, an anticlimactic shudder of stone, a parting rather than a shattering. She felt it give, felt the shift of pressure, and nascent muscles strained.

What tumbled from the malignant rock was velveteen: soft-furred feline slicked with Oil, plush and gleaming with rotten iridescence. She hit rock, and stubbornness flared before realization had truly kicked in; paws shoved upward, pushing her into a tottering stand rather than sprawled, undignified, against the stone. Hacking coughs tore stale air, breaking what had been near-silence. Voidlight shone on black fangs, given back by baleful turquoise eyes.

Lightheadedness came, and passed.

She stood up straighter, and for a moment, she simply was.

The cold of air caressing soaking fur chilled her into trembles, and she marvelled at it. New, she noted; a new sensation. As the last of the fluid left her lungs, she noted that it had a terrible odor to it, and so she leaned down and inhaled its vapors deeply. It laced synapses with chemical sparks, the little rush of perception a thrill she exulted in. Glowing eyes drank in each sight: the dust across dry rock, the dull ivory of shattered bones. The deep grind of the Black Spire, abruptly shifting, drew her ears: she stared up at it, rapt and lost, as it adjusted to a new position. Some part of her Oil-corrupted brain recognized this sound; a sound she had heard, but forgotten, during her formation. During her sleep. It was an old companion, and its groans filled her with pleasant familiarity.

Slowly, she began to walk: to learn to walk, to follow instructions imprinted upon predatory mind like instincts. One paw before the other, then; each two-toed limb settling gracefully, neatly, though she took it slowly at first. The path stretched down before her, winding, and she left behind her Oilstone without a second thought: looking, instead, to the distant lights glinting down below.

The acid green, the rich, light blue. What were those-? Entranced, she made for them, sleek and still wet, still shivering ever-so-slightly as she came gradually into sight. She noted another, standing beside those who were glowing--one in the shadow of the acid glow, blue-skinned and draped in shining cloth. This caught Obieth's eye, this shiver of rustling blues and golds, so different from the violent purple beside her. She studied it, entranced.

Would these creatures turn, stray subconscious warning them of her approach? Would strange eyes cut over her figure (sleek and black as it crept toward them)? There was no prowling crouch in Obieth, not now. She simply strode, slow, elegant by careless design, taking her time and savoring the delights that every sense held out to her.

Perhaps they would not notice her. She padded closer, huntress on silent paws, to learn them. She would listen, watch; she would learn their scent. She would enjoy them, as though they were meals presented to her--sight, scent and sound.

@Aethril

A muffled crack and coughing and Aethril's ear was flicking-- don't show weakness in front of the feral assassin, she reminded herself --but her attention remained trained on Vargas, even as the back of her mind ticked away. Who did the Sentinel miss coming in?

She took a breath. "I'm sure you'll find out. It'll help you make better creations in the future," Aethril offered with gentle optimism. This opinion might have changed had she known about Chaos Two; but for the time being it might have been better to keep her hopes up about Vargas's work.

Aethril was quiet while Vargas went on about the two Valkhound; listening attentively but fretting quietly over the distant sounds underneath the thrumming of the spire; quiet footsteps stepping around Draco. She only began responding again when Vargas started offering-- "you're likely better off here, I imagine. Isra hasn't failed me yet."

She'd just have to. Not leave the Palace.

Eventually, Aethril was looking around-- and soon enough her gaze was honing right onto Obieth. "Who is that one?" She asked, pacing over. It was lovely; sleek a little like the feral one was-- but oddly... damp. Did it just hatch?
She glanced back at Vargas expectantly, eyes a little wider, with something that almost resembled childlike wonder.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas could not remember the last time he'd moved so fast. It hadn't even been a thought--he'd turned, as Aethril's ear flicked, as she spoke, and seen the sleek black Valkhound pacing toward her in utter silence. In a fraction of a second he'd identified it as not one of his own, and therefore an unknown factor, and the Hand was by far too important to lose to an uncontrolled Valkhound. His immense bulk was lithe, his build one intended for speed and agility, and so he was between them before he'd had a chance to even think. "Wait," he said, a command--to a Hand!--before he'd had time to reconsider. Some part of his subsconscious rang with alarm for his own well-being for what he'd just done, but more important was her well-being, and he studied this Valkhound for a moment.

"This is not one of ours," he stated, and then corrected--"or at least one of mine. It may be dangerous," he warned. Regardless of any other reaction it had, it wasn't outright hostile, and so with wary reluctance he took a step back, risking a brief glance at the Hand as he opened the space between she and the Valkhound. Had he overstepped-? Perhaps, but how much worse would it have been to have had to explain to Lord Dhracia that her--her colleague?--here, had been eaten by a Valkhound in his Nest?

Acid eyes cut over the strange creature again. "It looks like a new hatch," he observed, nostrils flaring--because it stank of the oil of the cocoon. "It looks, too, like a cat," he added. And this was said with some approval.

When the slender blue creature moved, Obieth's eyes tracked her as if in a dream. She was a feast for the senses, a delight: colors sparked and danced with her every gesture, and the light scents of flowers and--and other, unfamiliar places--came with her. Exotic. She let herself grow drunk on her impessions, her eyes half-lidded as she watched Aethril approach.

And then this other burst of motion: this one an opposite in every way. Its colors garish, to Aethril's subtly rich; its movements violent to her composed grace. Its size, massive. Brutish. It was surprisingly graceful, but it contrasted so starkly with the soft movements of a moment prior that--past her instinctive flinch from danger--Obieth was once again held rapt. She weighed the two in her mind. Compared soft power to violent vehemence. She revelled in them both: the acid stench and the floral trace. Each was an experience, a delight in its own way.

She tensed, regardless. She couldn't help but to do so. And she would have sprang away, perhaps before Vargas could have seized her or perhaps not--yet he had stopped, coming up short of lunging for her, and so she froze and watched him. Their words--his rough and to the point, hers soft and melodic--trilled through her mind, a harmony that mesmerized her.

Oh, how different they both were-! And her eyes, too, drifted to those behind: to Nidhogg, slinking off into the dark and to the Sentinel, who had tensed and stepped forward (and who had stopped when he'd seen Vargas intervene; Obieth saw this. Vargas did not). They tickled her senses, too, but more distantly. It struck her that Sentinel was almost a mixture of Vargas and of Aethril: upright and slim, with hues of blue, but bulky and spined, flashing with inherent magic.

Fascinating.

She indulged Aethril's closeness--closer than before, approaching. Invading her space-? Not yet. Did she want it to be invaded? Her gaze drank in the colored cloth, the soft-skinned hands. I want her to touch me, she decided at once, the thought half-mad with the suddenness of her desire. It was nothing untoward: it was only a delight in all senses, a wish to rub fur on fingers, to feel them pry at trembling muscles and brush across each strand of velvet coat.

Teal eyes regarded Vargas in passing. He is not attacking. He was therefore disregarded. Forward, she pressed: every dimmed thought pushing her toward Aethril, drawn to the Hand as if magnetized. Her strange ears--with holes through each--pulled back, and there was no thought of distrust to her. No; she belonged to this person, certainly. The magic, the power, the scent of trees. She pushed her warped skull for soft hands; the bone-clad spine for her legs; the ridged tail swayed above and behind her. She would delight in it. She was predator--leopard-sized--but companion; and as she closed the distance, her magic swept out before her.

It pried for the mind of a Hand. Would it be too powerful for her-? She didn't know to ask. She didn't know to consider. She simply reached, the in-built instinct driving her. What do you want? her mind seemed to whisper, without words. Prying unseen, unheard. What was this one looking for-?

Guardian? Companion?

Still, her thoughts were hers alone. The answer, though, was sweet; a nectar to her mind, because--ah!--she could fill that purpose!

At last she spoke, a voice croaking hoarse from coughing into something like a sultry tone--a voice that spoke of decadence, of dark nights in the jungle and blood spilled, of silk cushions and perfumed air. But this one had only just hatched; her voice was simply her.

"I am here for you," she told Aethril, as if to say that she had been created for this purpose. "I am Obieth."

The Huntress. The Queen. The Witch.

With it came the faintest push of her will, wordless but precise: take me with you, it whispered. Take me to whatever place smells as you do, has cloth of golden silk, grants soft hands and a musical voice. Take me to this place. I will go with you. I will protect you.

@Aethril

Aethril didn't bat an eye; but she was unsure what the difference could have possibly been between Vargas's usual creations and this one-- most Valkhound she could remember were often straying on the side of dangerous in the wrong hands, after all.

Though, if Vargas didn't make it, then who did? The Creator?

Her gaze dipped past Vargas, stepping to one side of him with a click of a heel to look at the new creation in a brief moment of silence where, for a moment, all she could hear was the groaning of the spire and the sound of paws on stone. She watched Obieth and suddenly she was somewhere else; a place that smelled of woodsmoke and soup warming up on the stove.

The flash of white paws as the little kitten leapt onto her lap and rolled for attention, purring. Amber eyes warm and narrow and gentle laughter. What had his name been? Why couldn't she remember anymore?

Her hands were touching oil-slick fur again before she could realise it and she had to blink herself away from the memory, force herself back into the caves. She looked down at Obieth and she felt the presence pressing against her mind-- and she let it, why was she letting it?

There was comfort in it, Aethril found. Her fingers pushed against Obieth's skull and massaged the fur around her ears. Tougher than she remembered cats being; almost as if she were touching a metallic impression of a cat, but it brought with it the same sense of... calmness she found with cats.

Was she a gift from the Creator, or was it mere coincidence that the perfect companion hatch just a day after Aethril woke up? She crouched a little, fingers kneading into Obieth's cheeks as she inspected the Valkhound with the same critical eye she'd given Nidhogg and the Sentinel, but she found no flaws except, perhaps, a brazen attitude. Dhracia wouldn't approve of her. Aethril did.

Tigers and lions and jaguars and things were always the perfect predator in her eyes, and here one was streamlined to perfection-- sleek and quick and powerful and, oh she hoped, loyal.

Aethril smiled very distantly, wondering if she should inform Vargas that she was aware of what cats looked like. "She's more than a cat," she said dreamily, entranced, and then told Obieth, "my name is Aethril."

Her attention drifted upwards to Vargas as she stood up straight again, one hand lingering on the top of Obieth's head. "I'd like to take this one with me."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas was... doubtful. He cast a wary glance at first the Valk-cat, and then the Hand. The rippling questions again tapped at his mind: what if a Hand died in his nest? What if this was a trick? What if she wasn't even a Hand--but an imposter? Well. At least to the last, he wouldn't be giving away one of his own creations. But still...

"Understand," he said slowly, "that I do not know this one, or who created it. I cannot vouch for your safety with it. If it turns on you I doubt that Lord Dhracia will be particularly pleased with me." He eyed it; it didn't seem out of control. "You are not to harm this one," he addressed it--would it understand? "I don't know where you came from, but you cannot fathom the consequences of a lost temper here." Was that the correct phrasing, really-? Maybe not, but-

He looked again to Aethril, sidelong. "Allow me at least to come with you for a lesson, at first--at your convenience--with this one. To send someone to train it appropriately. Unless you wish to do so yourself," he added, but he was unaware how much experience or ability this Hand might have in fighting Valkhounds, or in teaching them to fight. "If you wish a true bodyguard it will need to know how to handle itself, and possibly its magic. I would not expect it to perform its task blind."

But he did not press it. If she refused, there was nothing he could do. At the very least, he could say he gave his advice; it was her choice to disregard it, or to take it. If she held the same power as Lord Dhracia, undoubtedly she would not need his help. She might even chastise him for suggesting it--but that was acceptable, given the possible dire consequences of disaster.

The touch came, in the form of fingers brushing around her ears: caresses over velvet fur, a press beneath her cheeks. The hands brought with them electric touch, nerves flickering with new sensation. The brief sound that rumbled from her chest was half-exhale, half-purr; a sound of approval, a vibration of pleasure.

When Aethril pulled away--when she stood beside the cat, one hand rested atop her head--she lowered herself to spined haunches in satisfaction. Half-lidded eyes crawled to Vargas, and there was a smugness in her: she had succeeded. Aethril would keep her. She had been found worth--recognized as worthy--and elevated. Elevated! The Leviathan's warnings were nothing to her, but she noted them nonetheless, staring up into acid maw and admiring the way the light gleamed off crooked hook-teeth.

"I have been designated..." (and she took her time, pausing to find the right word, her speech as languid as her movements) "...Protector. So I will be." For now.

Where would the winds take her-? Which shadows would she curl into, slipping from one cave to the next? -Well, that remained to be seen. For now, her magic curled up toward Master Vargas, unseen, insidious, bringing with it her promises of competence. Her assurance that she meant no harm. That she would be guardian. Did she mean it?

...No.

It didn't matter to her. Aethril didn't matter to her--yet. Such bonds were not built at first sight, but perhaps they would be. Right now, she wanted to go with the one with nimble hands and enticing odors, with that shimmer of gilded blue rustling at her flanks.

She wanted that.

@Aethril

"Oh, I understand completely," Aethril said, but there was-- finally --an edge to her tone, finely tuned, precisely sharpened. As much as no one wanted Dhracia to be upset if something were to happen, she was getting tired of Vargas... doing whatever he was trying to achieve here. Save his creations from his own failures?

Short nails curled into Obieth's scalp and pulled backwards. "If she turns on me, it will be my own fault, Master Vargas," she assured with nothing but confidence. It was unlikely Obieth would, Aethril was certain-- the way she sat and held herself with pride told her that the Valkhound knew what she'd gotten herself into. Her forwardness, the lengths she went to to get what she wanted, was as if she'd already been trained for exactly what Aethril needed. She couldn't let the opportunity go to waste. "She'll be dealt with appropriately, if it comes to that."

She looked down at Obieth and good with this sort of blind faith; the sort of same feeling of companionship and protection she had when she spent time with Isra. How strong had her magic been? She found herself wondering abruptly, but tucked this tippet away for future Aethril to deal with.

... and, Vargas did have a point. It didn't matter how much it seemed like Obieth was ready for the job. She stank and her fingers were covered in a thin film of oil. She was some... ten minutes old, Aethril would wager. She'd have to be trained.

"Your Overseer," she said. "Would they be up to the task, when you send them?" Nothing like killing three birds with one stone, Aethril would say-- meet the Overseer, begin Obieth's training, get a proper look at Vargas's work and training regime. She loved it when things fit into place so neatly.

"You can observe it, if you wish-- and if your Overseer is unavailable then I'm sure we can work something else out," continued Aethril. "But, for today, I'd like to get Obieth acquainted with the Palace and sort out some living quarters for her."

@Vargas