The joke was repeated, and it was again met with silence. Rather, a silence that was oxymoronic in nature—it was as immutable as it was fragile; tarnished, oxidized copper as it was golden. If the orthoclase strained too hard to sputter out its chopped-up syllables, it might end up letting out a scream. That was nowhere near as complex as the simple, simple sentence it wanted so desperately to put forth. Just a one-note force of air through a strangled throat.

Overthinking sublimated to frustration. Jaws tried again with all the enthusiasm of a Leviathan attempting to get any reaction at all to his Joke; it was to no avail but that which set its quills to prick in time with the low high low high low simmer of a terrible, terrible festering wound. (Apparently everything that'd been draining out of its head for the 6-cycle-long black spot in its memory had ended up in that open sore of trauma—fancy that!) Hooked talons tended the soil with none of its spawn's gentle care or awareness, they merely tore at clots of grass.

Were it not several tons of Kaiju, one might've mistaken the sight for that of a child petulantly ripping up the sod.

No, though—it was beginning to fray thin. Toxic eyes just fixed plainly on Vargas (and not on a single leaf in his surroundings, damn pun). Half of a response swam uselessly from its mouth, spoken in rasping stops an starts—entirely unintelligible croaking to anything else.

The disjointed sounds lacked the anxious frenzy of before, and yet each syllable came with more force than the last before it inevitably threw in the towel with a snapping of teeth. Why was it suddenly a Herculean effort just to speak? it wondered despite the flutterings of ever-present terror (akin to a goldfish fallen out of water, gasping for oxygen that would only suffocate its gills more) and frustration with the self.

It wondered if it could just try to look expectant, eyes solidly upon its Master, while it grappled for the evasive means of communication currently spiraling away. If it could grit its teeth hard enough to feel fractures along their leylines and put a little feeling in its mouth—exposed nerve endings and all. It felt as if it were chewing on a live wire, muscles of the jaw contracted tightly enough that it couldn't just let go.

It was difficult to look how it imagined itself looking—its gaze shifted away from the intensity of its life-giver's despite its best efforts, and it gnashed its teeth in poorly-veiled grimacing, directed more at the floor or its own two foreclaws.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

It still didn't answer.

He huffed.

"Not funny-? Very well." Solemnity reigned for all of two seconds. "Try this one, then: what do you call a small cave dedicated to growing fungus?"

He waited a beat.

"A mush-room."

And, again, he waited.

It wasn't clear why he was insisting on these puns, or what he hoped to gain by it, but-... there it was.

A mush-room.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

In one ear, out the other. Another Joke, another swarm of static clouding reasonable thought, blackening the skies of its mindscape. The nearby river cascades became too loud, breeze through branches and leaves growing from its gentle susurrus to a cavalcade of noise. It's vision tunnelled into a mere pin's point with a nauseating clench of its stomach.

Alpha swore it felt fire in its throat as it lowered its head ever-so-slightly, claw coming up briefly to catch and hold it. Felt lava threatening to spill out over its lips and spatter all over its feet—a sickening, thick ooze of what self-immolation was blooming inside of its head.

TALK: Simple task. Can't manage it past guttural noise. Too many thoughts and means to go about it. No right answer, no right answer, no right answer— "I— I— I ca-n't—" Stop. Don't confess— It swallowed, nearly choking on air then and there.

But that'd almost been a word.

Tongue heavy with its lead coating and tasting of ash, it tried again, "Wu-what— d-du—" Swallow. Choke. Suffocate. "dut-ies— what duties—" Sound it out. "D-do I— I h-hhhave?"

Every botched syllable came more and more clipped, more and more frustrated. Each one a tick to the ever-growing resumé of incapability.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas peered sidelong at Orthoclase-Alpha. Well, if nothing else, his terrible jokes had driven it back to speaking. That was-... something.

"You were ready to take your tasks back up? What did I say it was, one day out of three? -I would have thought you would like more rest." He gestured around Pegasus. "More... relaxation time, to begin with, but--if you are ready-?"

Wait--no.

It can't make its own damn decisions.
He'd very nearly forgotten.

"When you are ready, come back to Draco. I want you to interview those of the Forge you can find and get yourself up to date on everyones' tasks. Ask their progress and report back to me. It will then be your job to keep them working. Unless," he went on, curious now, "there was something else you would prefer to be doing-?"

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Was it really ready? Would it ever be?

No, but what was Orthoclase-Alpha if not reckless and impulsive. For all the overthinking it did, there was a lack of foresight in its decisions—such as asking after duties and stilling as a gut-punch of dread settled in its stomach upon learning of them. The hand holding half of its skull fell, and it shifted its weight.

Interview. Ask. Talk.

Another soon-to-be disaster, the same as he'd ordered for the Zoisite.

It hesitated to even crack its jaws in another attempt at speech, much less nod its head in its practiced sort of way in which it always choked down any misgivings about the task. A stinging sort of sensation clung to the back of its throat, nestling into the folds of flesh and spreading like some sort of metastatic growth.

"Unless, there was something else you would refer to be doing— ?" Anything but what'd just been asked of it.

After more than a few moments' furrowed brows and squinting eyes, teeth still clenched tightly together, it gave a stiff nod.

@Vargas

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

insensitivity to a trauma issue..? I guess?

- THE LEVIATHAN -

To his question--he thought?--it nodded.

Was that to me? he wondered. Was it to his question, or his command? He assumed the latter, and so after a moment, he took a breath.

This whole "for some reason, Alpha isn't talking anymore" thing was beginning to wear down his patience. How hard was it to simply open its mouth and force sounds out..? Where was the error? He wasn't angry with the Orthoclase, exactly; he just felt that this should not be a problem and it was taking up, now, too much of his time and his effort.

Not to mention the fact it wasn't even laughing at his stupid puns.

"Well?" he asked, after a beat, forcing his single word--and those that followed--into patience. "What is it that you would prefer to do?"

@Orthoclase-Alpha

The threads of tension made themselves known in hunching shoulders long before he uttered a "Well?"

Every tendon, every fiber coiled like a spring, or a cornered viper preparing to strike. Soreness crept back in, and its breath—forceful before—hitched. The stifled noise of it breathing made way for an incessant stream of could've and should've, a vicious cycle of Orthoclase-Alpha nipping and clawing at its own throat (in a figurative sense, not physical—it'd not changed physical states for several moments now).

"What is it that you would prefer to do?"—and there was the stinger.

Whether or not he'd seen through its hesitation (which it'd barely noticed, anomalous as its sense of time was these days) it felt a sort of gunshot racketing through its chest, the buckshot spray embedding into flesh at point-blank range. "I—" it spluttered, caught in the apparent act, "I— I, I don't kn-ow." Alpha fumbled for words, answers slipping through its head as quickly as they came. "It— w-won't g-go—"

Quit— "I c-can't, can't talk." Shame flooded it. "I— I d-did every— everything wr-o-ong with, with—" It swallowed again. "everything w-wrong with the, with the Zoisite. I-It'll h-hhhap-pen again with, with the o-others."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Words.

Quite a lot of them, even. Vargas listened quietly, and tried to ignore the lurching sink in his gut at what those words consisted of. It wasn't pity. It wasn't pity.

He took a breath, when it was done, steeling himself down into that patience again--but this time it was no effort. This time it was natural, the patience returning on its own, because he wanted to help Alpha solve this.

Solve... everything, really.

"All right," he began, quieter--more subdued. "Let's start back a bit--you say you cannot talk. Do you know why?" he asked. "Take your time."

If one did not know Vargas better, they might have said he sounded almost... gentle.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

With all the wariness of a prey animal sizing up the shadow approaching its burrow, Alpha stared at Vargas.

"Do you know why?"

At first, not at all. Merely that it'd become swept away by that which was supposed to let it manage to speak at all; just thinking.

Was there too much clarity in its mind, now that it wasn't so addled and bogged down by cycles' worth of starvation, understimulation, isolation? Too much acknowledged and not enough filtered out—the river was still too loud, though it was reasonably not too near at all, its breathing too much, its— Stop, take it easy. Had it just... forgotten? There'd been... a white deer, stag—in Cetus, in Orion, in... other places. He'd talked about it, speaking. Just to hold conversation.

Had it forgotten somewhere in that muddy grey area of memory and limbo spanning months and months? Even a year?

How long ago had that been?

It inhaled slowly, sounding far too ragged for its own liking. Slow and steady wins the race. "I d-don't thi-ink I remem— remember." It blinked, gaze averting. "D-don't know what, what I'm—" Oh, and there was a pitchy little syllable, "what". Alpha forced itself to swallow, throat constricting tight, tight, tight. "What I'm sus— supposed to, to... do. Say— Think—" It felt sick, heart exposed in the operating room with its protective ribs nowhere in sight. "I... d-don't k-know what happened while I— while I,"

It stifled a gag, readying its paltry defense of rattling quills. "While I was g-gone. I don't, I don't rememb-er t-alking. See-ing."

Why am I saying this? The desperation of a cornered animal, that's why.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Actually, that makes sense. Vargas realized, belatedly, that Orthoclase-Alpha must have been living like a feral animal all that time. For cycles on end, it had done nothing but wallow in fear and live in silence, barely eating, hardly living at all.

"I see. Perhaps when you were gone, you fell into the habit of living like a wild creature? A wild creature has no real need for words." Again, it was almost gently said, each word careful. "Do not worry about it too much. They will likely come back on their own, with time, provided you continue to use them." He considered going into detail on what it was supposed to say or do; considered clarifying that it should say whatever it wanted to, that there was no real rule. But he feared overcomplicating things. Overwhelming it, a little.

He moved on.

"So you have trouble with your words, and you feel you have done wrong with the Zoisite. You fear repeating that with others." It was said slowly, thoughtfully. He couldn't see an easy solution. There was no task he could really give Alpha that wouldn't involve some measure of communication, bar simply hunting for the Forge's meat supply, and truth be told he didn't think that was wise. Speaking was the only thing that would help condition it speak again, if his suspicions were correct.

Vargas pondered this, for a moment. "What do you think you did wrong with Zoisite?" he asked, slowly.

They could start with that, perhaps. If it could manage. Address it, look to correct it. Maybe with the Zoisite situation eventually fixed, it would feel more confident about talking with others, after the fact.

@Orthoclase-Alpha