MOTHER

A Return

The link to the Hive trickled back in, and then became a familiar flood. What had for a moment been blocked away, an eerie, chilling silence, was now the comfortable cacophony of dozens of other minds going about their lives. Not intruding, but accessible, a creek that flowed alongside the rush of his own mind.

A few of those were silencing. Turning, abruptly, to the deep distress they could sense in their brother. Mother herself seemed to sweep in, a sense of confusion and alarm threading through, yet tamped heavily down by reassurance and an overwhelming sense of calm.

The problem was... she didn't know what had happened. She had been cut off, for those moments, though even now she tried to pick through Juggernaut's thoughts to find the memory of what had occurred. He could, of course, simply not think of it. It might take a great willpower to do so, given his distress on the subject, but it was by no means impossible.

And in the meantime--as she picked and prodded and tried to unravel these confused and tangled threads--she reacted to the here-and-now.

He was on some verge. His emotions had risen, were controlling him, and a glance through his eyes told her that the Chaos monster before him had not changed, had not posed some threat. A verbal threat? Perhaps.

Mother sensed... anger? Panic, from her normally so-stoic child. Grief and pain... despair? This situation--whatever it was--had to be controlled at once, lest she lose a warrior.

"DRONE ZERO-ZERO-SIX JUGGERNAUT." It was not soft and calm, not like the reassurance that had blanketed him and still did so, even now. It seemed to emanate from some power he'd never felt, or rather a level of power he had not, one that temporarily ran ice through his limbs and mind as if to freeze him solidly in place and shock his mind awake. That was the power of the Hive, though one she rarely used. The power to control its many limbs. "This..."(and ahh, this was Mother's voice, distraught and commanding both) "is Chaos. We are Order. What is this?"

Order. Cold and clear. Precise in its march.

And yet here was Juggernaut, lost in some mire of rampant emotions and compulsive intent. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

Yet Mother was floundering, flailing in the dark to grasp for some hint, some clue, some rope by which to stop this son from drowning. "Show me what happened," she demanded, requested, caressed and pleaded, reassured and embraced and fretted. A mother couldn't help if she didn't know what was wrong.

@Juggernaut

No going back? Zoey stared up at the drone and found herself staring into the eye of a dying angel. A god. To look upon God was to know insanity. Feathers stretched around her vision, filling her focus as she tried to pry free answers and was given nothing of substance. Her mind, desperate, pried apart Juggernaut's words and the faint feelings they shared through her fading magic and the weak thread of the Hive, and fought to understand something as infinite and unknowable as another soul.

"No," she clacked, "but," her voice rasped, "there is a way. There's always a way," each word struggling to grasp for meaning and connection when-- unbeknownst to her-- Mother swept in and roared with a power to Know and Be Known that Zoey's light faded in the presence of.

Maybe she misunderstood him. But the words-- the words that spoke of death, of dying, her own death and mortality dangled before her-- she took it to understand something in what Juggernaut was saying. She rallied against that idea: she continued to selfishly cling to him. If it kept him alive, she would never let go.

Mother was the Sun, and she was a distant star. Could she reach him? Would he even hear her?

"Juggernaut," Zoey said, and these next words tried to reach, futility, as the Sun rose on the horizon and turned the inky void of chaos into blinding blues and whites. "The past cannot be undone, but... But the future is what we make of it. And... And you will make it." (When she died, there would be another her. When he died-- she wouldn't let him die here.) "It is made because of you, and that is-- that is a good thing."

The future. The future. Her future. The future of a her that she would never know, never be able to touch. Could she leave anything-- even a hint-- that would reach the her she could never meet? "... Will you... Will you keep her safe?" Two lives dangled out of her reach, and the only thing she could think to do was pin them together.

@Juggernaut

He felt the floodgates creak open once again, business as usual rushing back into his empty brain. The warmth of sunlight, a new dawn enveloping him - Zoey's pleading became muffled as he embraced the return. He did love the network, even now. He would soak in the music before Mother came home.

Its muscles stiffened painfully with her return, its nervous system screaming with the new weight. It was reminded of Bone. Was its eyes glazing over in the same way? It saw her spiral down, sinking forever into a dreamless void. She had not returned. She- I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sor

He should be ashamed. He was. He had failed.

There were two people talking to him at once, and his mind whipped back and forth between their words. Show me. He smelt the cigar smoke, saw a pair of eyes catch firelight. That same fire in the lanterns aboard sinking ships, fading from view, from reach. She couldn't bring them back. Neither could he. It wasn't Order he loved.

Keep her safe? He saw those distant lights above. There would always be a future. "Yes."

@Zoey [gm tagged again,, yippie!!]

The drone shifted before her, muscles reacting to a subtle tensing of tendons. Zoey stared at the amalgamation of feathers and carapace and tendrils and held her breath until her chest burned.

She did not release until the word escaped Juggernaut. A single, solitary, Yes. That was all she needed. Her limbs gave out underneath her and she buckled, quills rustling as she slumped to the dusty, dry floor of Canis. She breathed, now, deep breaths that rattled her body.

She felt for the sensation of the Hive. The sensation of safety and warmth and love. The fuzzy chemical feelings that promised acceptance, affection freely given. Her throat constricted around the taste of it. It's going to be okay, she thought, a promise to a future that she couldn't reach. She still didn't understand. Most of that was her own fault.

She had to twist her head now that she was laying down, to even get a glimpse of Juggernaut's massive form before her. She did, eyes squinting to focus upon him.

"... I... I appreciate it," she spoke, though her voice did not feel like her own in that moment. Her jaws opened as though there was more to say, and then simply closed again with a quiet click.

Zoey felt as though she had already asked too much.

@Juggernaut

MOTHER

A Return

The Hive was pitched into chaos. Not Chaos, not with a capital C and dripping Oil and horror; not scattered items with no Order. But confusion rippled through a hundred minds in shockwaves.

Juggernaut had been gone only for seconds--blocked away by unknown interference--and in those few seconds he had gone from controlled and Orderly to lost in a way that many could not comprehend. Emotional turmoil had been the norm for many Gembounds before they joined the Hive. But Drones, born of Order, shaped of its perfection?

Unheard of.

And Mother's stern voice, her Order imposed, had done little or nothing to calm this. Its memories gave her nothing, not yet. Not now.

Damage control, then.

"If this creature has done something to harm you, kill it." The command was imperious, laced with fear for her child, of course. "If it has not, isolate yourself. We must commune."

Leave, was that command. Leave, or walk away, huddle and think and share what had happened. Mother left the link open. All the Hive would hear, would see, and know, but she was watching--full attention rapt on Juggernaut's mind, ready to slam that link shut from the rest or else, to carefully moderate it. Either way, she needed control of this situation immediately.

Before things got any worse.

@Juggernaut

The scale of this misstep seemed only to grow, stretching further from Juggernaut's ability to comprehend it, and how it could ever move forward. But that wasn’t its task - it never had been.

He began to sink back into himself, crawling inside the ruined walls of his brain, seeking some kind of comfort. Mother’s arms. She was here. She would never leave him. She would hold him so tight that his chitin would shatter in her grip.

Harm. His attention refocused against his will, all eyes on Zoey. Had she? Water filled his lungs. His eyes burned with salt.

Had she?

Not in a way that mattered now.

Juggernaut began the walk home.

@Zoey
[exit]