Vargas grunted.

"Good," he said, without any actual feeling in it--just a statement, passing--"then rest, now. And find me when you're ready, for--" a vague, claw-handed, gesture--"Any of that."

He reached down to press on his left leg, feeling the terrible cramping finally easing off. His mind was already elsewhere, planning--on Alpha, certainly, but also wondering where Ruby-Beta had gone. He hadn't seen it in some time, and it had been his choice for training up. Was it truly so small that it could provide no challenge for Alpha-?

"Does Beta provide no challenge for you?" Vargas asked, swinging his head back to scrutinize Alpha. Alpha was a shock-trooper, front-line, for sure; but Beta? Beta seemed, to Vargas, like himself: a hunter, a stalker, a reaver. But it could, he thought, be of use along the edges of the front line: leaping in, in the dark, wreaking havoc at the borders.

Sowing, he thought, with a grin, chaos.

Once Alpha had given its answer, Vargas spoke further. Alpha had asked a question, and had it been a Master who had asked (or, worse, her,) he'd have not known how to answer. He had no answer, even for himself. Titanite had been a conceit, and one he wasn't sure it had been worth giving into: a personal twinge of some emotion Vargas did not quite understand, wrapped up and wreathed in excuses and false practicality.

Some of that had faded, since. As it was, it didn't matter to him all that much that another child was asking, but to give an answer that could not be used against him later--something vague, one of a dozen he'd thought up and fretted over in the past four cycles.

"He is a special project," was all the Overseer said, disinterestedly, dismissively. "You will see soon enough."

A pause, as he stood--tested out the cramped leg, now merely sore--and then he turned away. "Find me when you are ready."

And off he went, slipping into the bones of Canis.

exit Vargas

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Alpha made to ask where will you be? but it shrugged off the thought; the Overseer would come around here or Canis eventually, on the hunt or for some other odd business.

Instead, it gave a noncommittal toss of the head towards his question about Beta, "I don't know." Vargas gave an equally noncommittal grunt, moving on from it to answer equally as vaguely about Titanite. If such a beast was already able to be called something beyond an object - it picked up on that he - then it was surely worth separate training. The thought made Alpha's quills prick in eagerness.

And gone into the wind was Vargas - leaving Alpha alone with silence. It crept in, blossoming again into wary anxieties and fretting. The orthoclase shuffled towards the wall (too tired to just go back to the Warren for tonight) and settled its head down on its foremost arms. Without distraction, it circled through its plans, contemplating and knitting together an over-complicated web of strategies and defense mechanisms.

This night was going to be cause for some change; of what sort was yet uncertain.

exit Alpha