It… did not make sense.

That imaginary sense of the Leviathan—untouchable, unreachable, always aiming for better better better, detached and hardly there at all—it did not match the one it saw, half-heard. The one Alpha held in the scattered fragments of its mind and psyche did not match what it was faced with, cowering beneath. The one who'd once offered advice not to waste time and effort on the weak (sitting with him outside a chilled Tunnel P, claws reaching out to thump its then-diminutive head) and urged it toward little but comparing, comparing, comparing (What would you do with your fellows?)

Hooked talons, overgrown with disuse, bloodied and half-dislodged from their quicks, curled. Dim eyes barely maintained the strength to watch as the chunk of wood was held before it—then dropped to the earth; its brain even less to connect the dots and think of how big it was.

Vargas was not angry.

He was not disappointed.

Why?

The disconnect—time-tested practical efficiency versus lingering concern and choice—jarred it loose; though the uncertainty it bred did nothing to quell the jackhammering of its heart. A metastatic sort of paranoia settled deep in its mind; and it was stuck wondering where the backswing was even as Vargas spoke of rest or healing or retreating to one's stone—which it at least shook its head to mutely. Anything but a facsimile of death.

It might be tempted to never wake again.

"W-hy?" it blurted suddenly, ceasing in its fruitless struggle to escape and at last settling. Chartreuse eyes searched, wide, still shiny with saline solution. A beat—and a ragged inhale of breath as it closed its eyes again, tilting its head down again—later, and it croaked again with increasing slowness, sluggishness, "Why d-do yo-ou… n-not— just k-ki— kill…"

It winced with a sharp inhale.

It did so again as it tried to gesture toward itself with its injured arm. "C-can't g-o back… can't sluh-sleep."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

His breath caught in his throat.

-A cliché, wasn't it? And a terrible one at that; but here he was, staring at Alpha with his brain briefly locked up-... No, that wasn't right. It wasn't locked entirely. It was just that he'd been jolted from the present (from the sight of Orthoclase-Alpha staring up at him with tear-filled eyes) and into thought, into realization.

...Ahh. So this-... This was what it was all about. Finally--after long months--they came to the core of the matter. Alpha's was a simple question and, on the surface, it might not have even been surprising: another in a long string of its deep misunderstandings of Vargas's intent. But, to the Leviathan, it wasn't. Something clicked, and he understood:

It wasn't Alpha who had changed. It was him. Oh, he didn't think it through in words, not like that--it was a brief clarity, here and then gone, a flitting knowledge that swept away all the fog of bewilderment that had up until now clouded his understanding here. It still expected a Vargas, and a cave, that were no longer what they had been. Its expectations, its experience, no longer lined up with its reality.

He'd tried to explain it before, of course. Told Orthoclase-Alpha that now that he had the choice, he would try for a gentler approach. But words and actions were ever divorced even in the most reasonable of creatures, and Vargas knew then and there that he'd have to continue to walk the talk--and that even then, Alpha might not ever trust him. Hell, it might not even be only fear for itself. It grew up with things one way, and now I have changed them. The world had been yanked out from it, under all six feet. Vargas couldn't see its thoughts: he couldn't look over the memories that swept violent and vibrant through the Orthoclase's mind. But he had some inkling, at least, now.

He lowered himself to his haunches and half-turned, looking at the dead meadow deer; one long limb reached out, delved past hide and into flesh, and pulled a strip of steaming meat away. This he quietly tossed to land before Alpha's head, an offering he knew it wouldn't take but a conversational sort of gift. A setting of a tone, really, more than anything. It was a good kill, too. A shame it was likely to go to waste. Vargas took a breath, and tried to think of what to say. He could see--sort of, he thought--what was wrong, now, but how to address that-? How to even begin to fix or change it?

I can start, he decided, by answering its question.

"Because I do not want to kill you. I do not want to harm you, and I do not want you afraid." His tone was quiet, patient, but there was a faint sort of sadness in it it that hadn't been there before--and Vargas noted this, and hated it. Hated that it was necessary; hated that things had grown more complex, from kill-or-be-killed to comfort-crying-spawn. But he'd gone down this path, and turning from it now-... wasn't what he wanted, either. "You haven't done anything wrong" was something he had parroted many times, and Orthoclase-Alpha hadn't understood--and he finally realized, now. Because yes: according to the past, according to his own teachings, he'd have slaughtered it on the spot a millennia ago. Killed it for simpering, for being broken, exactly as it claimed. "I am trying to-..." -What? Change things? Help you? He exhaled, looking at it.

"I don't know what I'm doing," he offered, at last, a quiet admission. "I am trying to make things better. Between us; for the caves, for you. But it is very new to me." And new to it. Eyes fell on the shoulder, and internally, he grimaced: he was not trying to sit here, monologuing, while Alpha writhed in broken-limbed pain. But what more could he do, other than answer-? "I am not very well cut out for kindness." Another admission. He hadn't been made for it (or had he?). He'd been made to hunt, to kill, to Oversee, to offer only one kind of mercy--Alpha was right about that; and hadn't he been the one to teach it so-? "We are-" he began, he tried, he hesitated. "...Made for our purposes, but we may also seek our own reasons." Enough. Enough philosophy. It is in agony.

He grunted, looking over the arm again. "I will not kill you, not now and not later." Have I left it a relic of the past, unable to change-? Like myself, living by tooth and claw, but having changed its situation entirely? Did I make it for a world that I then undid? Too many questions, he decided; This kind of thinking is not my way. "You can get back, if I help you," he said at last; "you can lean on me and I can help you walk. Or you can stay here. Why can you not sleep?" he asked, at last.

That--all moral mental wailing aside--seemed important to address.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Vargas grew quiet, contemplative. Putrid eyes meeting dim counterparts with no discerning glare, no grimacing glare on backlit violet teeth; merely a head held low to regard one slowly listing to rest its chin on the ground—despite its own reservations of vulnerability, despite the accommodating shift of a shoulder and forearm that cast another thunderbolt of pain lancing through its entire upper half. Jaws ground together, worrying the end of its bloody and acid-scorched tongue to keep blackness at bay for what might be its last moments. Whistling breaths glanced through burning nostrils, and—

It flinched.

A strip of flesh (and note the lack of thinking of it as meat), steaming and already beginning to decay, flopped down in front of its snout. The heady scent of it—gamey and carrying that tang of blood so familiar to its own self—sent a curl of nausea through its gut; not for empathy or its own pained haze, but…

The offering received no response, not even a cursory craning of the neck to sniff it, before the orthoclase turned its head away from it, as if to avoid smelling it at all.

Instead, it stared at Vargas as he inhaled, for lack of anything else to do; dim eyes flickering from claws to teeth to the slicing blades lining forearms—limbs that had harmed before, had imposed punishment before. (The grit of sand in its mouth was imaginary, right?) Hooked talons reflexively curled into the soil, bracing. Alpha fumbled with the idea of closing its eyes, to not see what was coming to it—but that part of it that was too stubborn and too afraid to die opted to keep its sights wide, trained on anything. The mere thought of lifting its arms to defend seemed a task fit only for Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders, but—

It nearly missed when the Leviathan managed to find the words: "Because I do not want to kill you. I do not want to harm you, and I do not want you afraid."

It did not miss the thin thread of sadness threaded through them. Perhaps for Vargas's benefit, it could not have identified that; merely that it was there and that it was strange, contrary. Another chip to the block labeled "something is wrong, everything has changed where am I? Am I dreaming?" The tension of a forearm stinging and swelling felt real enough.

Uncertainty was not a color worn by behemoths, by relative omnipotence, by the high brass and crowns royals. It was the direct opposite, contrary to all that a single orthoclase knew; a red to the green, a violet to the orange. All wrong, wrong it was, mixing and smearing into a muddy palette of greys and browns and—

To make a long story short: Orthoclase-Alpha could not have possibly hoped to fathom what it was to see Vargas, a Master, the Leviathan, as uncertain; nor could it have managed to comprehend why just that would hurt to hear.

Why did those words scrub at the underside of its skin, until there was nothing keeping it from chafing bare bone? Strip all its social constructs and preconceived notions to their bedrock foundations and scrap all that'd been peeled away? Why did it feel frustration, a broken sort of desperation and wish to understand, as if that would be a cure-all elixir for each of its own ills? Why was it predisposed to a seethe, the desire to crawl up the walls of its self-made hole to scream, howl, claw at the Leviathan because it was his fault for leaving it like this, for not knowing because it needed, NEEDED him to know for it, needed him to know.

Why was all of that gone too quick to grasp, like the cast reflection of light on a silverling's glimmering scales, on a river's surface? A hazy reverie at the fringe of its own warped concept of being awake and alive.

"I am trying to—…" Pause. "I don't know what I'm doing." No— "I am trying to make things better. Between us; for the caves," no— "for you."

For you. Another cog in the machine.

For… me. A living being with more meaning than just that.

There lay yet another contradiction. A horribly mangled conception of the self laid that inconsistency bare; some nasty, deep-seated part of itself quarreled against it, once again wanted to destroy the bird cage it was trapped in with mere song. Vargas was wrong, lying to it (Had he ever been anything but blunt and honest? It couldn't remember—) laying a snare to catch around its throat and choke it with far more force than Alpha ever had on its own. Putting forth a pleasantry and hoping that was what it wanted to hear, as a boon for something that'd always thought of itself as not needing creature comforts or all the things that came with being alive.

A fearless existence. Joy, laughter, enjoyment of all that made up the light. Gallivanting through simply being. No struggling through the desert of Ursa and drowning beneath its sands ever-falling, ever-piling snow. No wading through a listing tide between eternal sleep and death, just barely avoiding the sweeping curve of subsurface currents and riptides. No lying for days at a time with nary a thought passing through the mind. No—

—its heart jumped to its throat, and it suddenly remembered to take a gasping breath of air. The strain of it was enough to irritate its lungs again and elicit a cough and a strained sort of wheeze, an attempt at "I— don't und-understand…" through the horrible noise.

But, did it need to right now? some faintly logical part of its mind (long time no see, friend) huffed, as its attention drifted elsewhere, too eager for a distraction. Too eager to let any other thought wash over it, even as the subject of their conversational facsimile (and even calling it that was being generous) remained squarely upon it.

Dim eyes at last tore from the looming behemoth's arsenal, though it hardly relaxed as it sagged into the soft grasses like a workhorse gone lame. They instead moved to stare at its shattered shoulder plate with a shell-shocked indifference, tracing the trail of only faintly luminescent blood as it formed more of a puddle on the ground, sizzling where it had happened to meet the Oily steam of the long-ignored meat chunk. The scar on the orthoclase's snout wrinkled, curling as if it might be sneering underneath all that broken armor.

It shuffled, struggling to turn further away from the offering and unable to keep itself from verbally wincing: a short, strained wheeze.

"C-can't g-go… back to— to," it repeated, more forcefully. Trapped. It was trapped. Draco at one side, an unforgiving Ursa on the other, past a room of unsullied marble and beauty that it really should appreciate past a forced indifference. "S-sleep— won't… won't w-ake up. M-might not— wa-ake up…"

But— A rattling sigh fluttered from its mouth as it seemed to melt further into the grass; a ghost dispelled into the wind. "H-how—," it hesitated, listed with a tongue swiping over its chops, "i-is Drac-co? The, the F-forge." If they—

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

In the Leviathan's mind, a war was being waged: a war between the practical and the patient, the logical and the emotional. The old, and the new.

Old Vargas wanted to get moving. He wanted not to stand here watching Alpha gasp, wheeze, turn away from the food, and think. Some deep and latent dark urge wondered if perhaps it might not be better if he did kill Orthoclase-Alpha, but he shunted that part deeper before it could even be formed into mental words. He didn't want that. The creature he was reinventing himself to be wanted to wait, to listen; it hoped to find something here, some thread he could grasp, some rope that would find a rescue ring to keep them both afloat. Adrift, perhaps, but afloat.

Overseer Vargas chafed at the delay, impatient and irritated with the weakness he saw before him. Master Vargas waited, dignified, secure in his new power and in the responsibility that came with his authority. Responsibility for his work, but also for those beneath him, and those he had created.

Some of his creations might simper and whine at his demeanor, but for them he held little patience, for Orthoclase-Alpha was one of the few he'd actually given reason to be upset. Reason it didn't deserve. And so for this one... For this one, Vargas waited.

But at last the brief moment of silence was ended--it had seemed like an eternity--with another gasp, and another admission of confusion from the Orthoclase. Now, however, Vargas understood: his revelation just prior provided him the context. Of course you are. I would be, too. Everything has changed. He tilted his chin up a bit, thinking. How do I address it..? How can I explain this all again, but-... simply? At least Alpha had managed words, this time; at least it hadn't curled up into a ball, silent, or crawled away gasping in terror.

It moved again, then--a shuffle farther from the meadow deer offering, and started to talk again. Vargas turned slightly, pulling free another strip (a larger strip) of meat and tossing it into his own jaws as Alpha spoke. His spawn might not be hungry--it was wounded, of course; the pain probably took priority over eating. But Vargas wasn't going to let the entirety of the meadow deer's life go to waste. He'd eat a little, at least, before they went. In little bites, though, or I might scare it all over again. He swallowed the meat as he listened. ...Might not wake up? his mind parroted, puzzled. Why not? He assumed, in another spate of obliviousness, that Alpha must know something he did not: that it was weakened, somehow, more than he had known. It didn't occur to him that it might have simply been... fear.

And--a question, and this brought with it some spark of surprise, and hope: it had been a long time since Alpha had had this close an approximation to conversation. Usually a few words were choked out, and then... nothing, for days, cycles on end. But--How is the Forge..? Why does it want to know? Vargas was curious, a little confused but mostly curious. Was Alpha just concerned about its fellows? Was it afraid of what it might face? He had no way of knowing. It was as alien and difficult to read for him now as the Gembounds had been when he'd first awoken. But I managed that, he thought grimly; I will figure this out, as well.

"Progressing... if slowly," he said, studying Alpha's shoulder again, for a moment. He reached forward for another piece of wood, but slowly, and careful to ensure that Alpha saw him coming; if the Orthoclase flinched he'd withdraw. If not, perhaps he could clean another splinter from the wound. "They train, practice. My aim is for us to be self-sufficient: to grow our own food, water. And to become a place that the creatures of the cave see as desirable and necessary rather than oppressive. It will be easier that way," he went on. "...Perhaps better. We will see." Or perhaps it wonders about specific members..? Vargas wondered, but he didn't think Alpha had formed any bonds. For that matter, it'd been willing enough to cull the weak of its own accord, back then. "They are all doing relatively well, individually, I think." There: bases covered, regardless.

He paused, glancing back to Alpha's head, turned away as it might be. "No one will harm you as you sleep. If you chrysalize in Draco, I can guard your stone." Just not too near the Black Spire, he reminded himself again. "And I can ensure the stone has enough energy, if you fear being too... sick, or weak, to survive it." Or was there something else..?

That thought hung there, at the forefront of his mind. It dangled there, a lure for his curiosity, but he left it alone, for now; if Alpha had other concerns, it would voice them.

Or more likely, it would not.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Dim eyes simply watched as Vargas shifted, tore off a strip of steaming flesh from the carcass. They nearly narrowed in an approximation of disgust; quills pricked limply, rattling a single note of faint alarm. Not for the Leviathan's state of being, but… something it did not know of. He and the murdered were too far for him to have simply been feinting, redirecting its attention elsewhere (and there was that niggling thought again: has he ever been anything but honest?) Its gaze danced between the two bodies before at last settling on just the hazy smear of violet in its unfocused view of the world.

A hazy smear of violet that spoke of progress, training, practice—self-sufficiency and desirability. A want to be there, rather than oppressive regime and chasing all dissenters and defectors. The image of a desert rose flickered to the forefront of its mind, but it was gone as quickly it'd come. And yet those blue eyes of his remained an afterimage on the backs of the eyelids pulling more and more to closed off from the world.

Who was that?

Alpha managed a soft, indecipherable mutter.

It hardly acknowledged that he'd moved closer again, reached for it again until another splinter pulled free from its shoulder. Alpha jolted to awareness with a startled sort of cry—an uncharacteristic almost yelp—and scrambled to get up. A spluttering cough rattled around in its lungs, the sound the last straw for an abused and scraped-raw throat.

The orthoclase managed to tumble into the tree it'd nearly felled with its own shoulder, half-standing on five legs with the sixth trying and failing to touch the ground without eliciting strangled groans from its throat. It trembled with the effort. Hazy eyes barely managed to glance at the chunk of wood clutched in fishhook claws, the way it slicked over with chartreuse blood already shed. An even hazier mind struggled to connect the dot, to remember the first splinter before it was cast onto the ground. Its mane of unkempt quills twitched faintly, barely making an agitated clatter before settling.

Leaning against the trunk—the wood groaned beneath the weight it was forced to bear, shifting to accommodate with a creak—it dry heaved once and swallowed.

"I d-don't want to, to d-die," it slurred quietly, syllables crackling and falling to pieces. Throat feeling like it swallowed glass, it shook its head. The faint trill of logic in its skull drove it to move; for it knew it would die if it tried to flee through Ursa again—having barely survived this most recent trip—and that another stampede might one day tear through this wood. That some terrible beast might rampage through Pegasus or that some other thing might bear witness to its weakness and take advantage.

If Vargas killed it for following him back to Draco (back home), at least it would be brief.

It didn't want to die.

Or, if all those contradictions proved true, steady, a different world than the one it'd fled from…

Did it want to live in it?

It tried to lean away from its makeshift crutch and angle itself toward where it thought Draco might be. A sharp wince and flinch stuttered through its body as it tried to brace itself on both forearms, and a muffled whine buzzed from its throat as it pulled the offending limb closer to its chest. Collapse seemed imminent; any moment now.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

The "hazy smear of violet" was taken aback at the yelp. Had that been pain, or fear? Both? The way Alpha's chest rattled with its cough, the way it stumbled up, away, falling into the tree with a crash, left Vargas flinching. The faintest sense of pity threatened to rise in him, and he snarled internally, crushing it down.

All else aside, there was no room for that. Empathy, perhaps. Righting his own wrongs, certainly, but not this. Not pity.

When he had finished talking, Alpha still leaned against the tree--heaving, the wood craking, groaning. Its last phrase was at least the one thing it had clung to, all this time: it didn't want to die. So, Vargas asked in his own mind, a second time: -are you yet ready to live? -We will see, this time.

It was moving away from the tree, then, and he had to shove up from the earth quickly to intercept it. It didn't look like it could stand on its own, let alone walk. Guilt threatened to thread through him--why had he thought meadow deer would be a good idea?--but this, too, he quashed down. In the end, after all, wasn't it a good thing that Alpha was wounded? In the long-term, at least. It meant that, for once, it couldn't flee its fears, couldn't curl up and ignore them until they--he--Vargas!--went away. It meant that Vargas couldn't simply leave it here a third--fourth?--time, and just hope for the best. They had to deal with it now, one way or another.

"I am going to help you get back," Vargas said, clearly, slowly, as he moved to try and catch the Orthoclase. Not catch like one would neatly scoop up a kitten; the Orthoclase was enormous, and even for Vargas would be a hell of a strain to support. Its build was heavy, unlike his: tank-like, many-limbed and covered in carapace, to the Leviathan's more slender strength. He went to hook one arm awkwardly under its good forelimb, to lend his strength to keeping Alpha at least upright. And he hunched down as much as his immense size would allow, bracing toward it. "Lean on me if you need it. It will be a long way," he warned. "But you can stop and sleep in the tunnel, if you like. Our Sentinel and I can keep watch on you there."

Would it allow him to help? Would it jerk away, terrified, topple over? Would this little bit of progress hold, or fall away in the face of its fears?

"If anybody asks, and you do not want to discuss your... condition... we will tell them you were hurt in a meadow deer hunt. This is truth," he added. Just... leaving a bit out.

Vargas gritted his teeth, and fixed his eyes in the direction of the distant tunnel, hoping that Alpha didn't decide to turn and sink teeth into his neck as they went. He was far too close for even his own comfort. I suppose we will have to trust one another. Though I would hardly blame it for attacking me, he thought, with grim amusement.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Vargas approached, leering shape shifting closer, closer, enough that it could faintly feel the heat radiating from him. Then, there was the faint pressure of contact, nothing more than an arm seeking to wrap itself beneath the crook of an arm; it was enough to make it freeze in that ever-present prey fear. Its opposite arm—despite the shooting agony that stole its breath with the motion—came up, bony hand grasping for a violet wrist and gripping with all possible force: which was to say pathetically little.

It blinked slowly, making no move to lean toward or away from the Leviathan. It simply… was. Spent, wavering with eyes half-closed and mind far away. Blank, exhausted—it was only faintly aware of itself leaning into Vargas's bracing support; any more consciousness, and perhaps his worries about being attacked would have come true.

The orthoclase let itself be led away.



Hobbling into the tunnel entrance, its death grip on his wrist slackened and, eventually, the thin talons fell away entirely. Past the Oilstone-infested door, feet dragging along the floor began to stumble, trip over themselves. Then came a shuddering gasp; its body at last winning out over sheer will and fear, adrenaline and energetic overload petering out. It barely registered the feeling of being helped down, braced before it collapsed in on itself like a dying star.

It sagged against the floor, flopping onto its good side with a listing sigh and eyes slipping closed.

Despite its grasp on control slipping, making it vulnerable, a peculiar sort of… calm washed over it.

The sensation started at its collarbone, where old lightning-strike scars spiderwebbed out along its neck. Something crackled, popped, blooming from its chest and what feeble magic there was that wasn't being siphoned and redirected to keep it as the bare minimum of alive. Gentle fingers carded through its quills and glanced over its shell and skin.

For the first time in nearly a year, sleep beckoned with its honeyed words; and for the first time in nearly a year, Alpha listened to it.

exit via chrysalis
@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

It took his hand, his arm.

That was enough--enough for him to know they had progressed, today, that he had (somehow, despite himself) managed to make a few strides. But his chance for satisfaction here was exceptionally short-lived. The realities of Orthoclase's state, and weight, pressed in quite literally and were soon all Vargas could focus on.

The creature was heavy. Even in its light, emaciated state, it was heavy. Its shell must weigh on it considerably, he realized--he didn't know how heavy the carapace was alone, perhaps light, but it wouldn't fluctuate in size like starved muscles would. And starved muscles would have a hell of a time hauling around a carapace meant for a healthy beast, which Orthoclase was most definitely not.

He had to guide it. It was hardly conscious, allowing him to lead, and Vargas grunted and stumbled his way across the grass: out across the open fields, hoping that nobody saw him half-carrying his weakened spawn. And if they do, perhaps they will see only the injury. He could only hope. Now and again he offered half-absent encouragement or guidance: an "It is not too far, now," or "Left, here--around that drop." He didn't know if Alpha could even hear him.

The journey was difficult, to say the least. Pegasus was one of the larger caves, and its rolling meadows--though pleasant to race across--were spongy beneath such weight. Time and again his clawed limbs punched through fertile soil, sinking into the moisture there; time and again Vargas staggered as he guided Alpha toward the tunnel. By the time they reached it, his jaw ached from so-often gritting against the strain, and his own muscles were--a rare thing--searing.

By the time Alpha, too, was nearly off its feet, Vargas was panting: he was ready to tell it to stop, to rest here, before they got any closer to the font of Corruption beyond. But there was, as it turned out, no need: its grip slackened, and he felt the weight suddenly intensify, dragging down... falling.

Collapsing.

He grunted, bracing himself back and doing his best to lower Alpha down without it falling outright; and when the stone began to take it, he quickly moved clear. "Good--you came far," he said quietly, again encouragement, tinged with his own weariness. "Rest now. Sleep."

He didn't think it heard him now, either; it looked oblivious, almost blissful--or maybe dead, dying--its face slack and empty as the orthoclase gemstone rose up to take it.

Vargas lowered himself to his haunches as he watched, one arm lifting to rub at the muscles of the other. As the last of Alpha vanished beneath its stone, he was surprised to find relief washing over him. Relief that... finally, after nearly a year, Orthoclase-Alpha was back. That he'd retrieved it--alive--one way or the other. That he'd spoken with it, if only a little. Maybe when it woke, it would rush off before he could stop it--maybe not. He resolved to have either himself or the Sentinel watching over it as much as possible, once the Sentinel was able. Not to... imprison it, exactly, but because if it awoke and he hadn't kept his word--hadn't been guarding it in its stone, as promised--he could hardly blame it for departing all over again in fear.

For now he, too, rested; staring at the stone, rolling one shoulder against the strain.

exit
@Orthoclase-Alpha for visibility