Immediately after reemerging from it's chrysalis, it essentially bee-lined towards Cepheus.

Well. That wasn't exactly true. It had woken up disoriented, then obliterated its chrysalis in a panic. It had noticed the extra eyeball on its tongue, and spent a good few minutes just.. getting used to that, but it wasn't that intrusive unless it opened its mouth. It imagined eating with it would be a pain, though.

And THEN it had bee-lined towards Cepheus. It wasn't sure how much time had passes, or if The Collector would make an exception because it picked a stupid fight it should've won. Maybe it should've gone to Canis before going here, just to check, but it didn't want to return empty-handed.

Anyways, it was already at Cepheus, where it had seen the largest concentration of her garish pink posters. It was holding one of said posters, already signed. Now it just.. had to find her. "Nemean?" It called out, Hopefully she was actually around, otherwise it would just be making even MORE of a fool of itself. "I am interested in hearing more about your 'musical.' I am fond of. Art."

There was a faint joyful buzzing coming from the palace theater as Nemean zipped out from the direction from the theater. She was breathing heavily and looked somehow both flustered, angry, and excited. All at once. It was amazing how much expression her little face currently held.

"I'M BUSYYYYY," she groaned, annoyed at the intrusion. Didn't they know she had things to do, servants to command, props to make, backgrounds to paint, drinks to prepare, et cetera, et cetera. But then she stopped complaining and suddenly brightened when they showed interest.

She took a closer look at the valkhound and scratched her chin, looking very thoughtful. "Ohhh ARE you now? You don't LOOK like you care about ART. You're so...so..." She gestured to Fourteen, a spotlight suddenly beaming down on it out of nowhere. "Like VARGAS. But WORSE!!" She grimaced in an exaggeration, sweeping a hand dramatically over her forehead. "You're one of HIS aren't you? What do you want to know about my beautiful wonderful amazing fabulous show? Have ONE of you finally discovered what FUN is?" One eye opened to stare at the valkhound, hopeful.

@V-Chaos-Fourteen

It attempted to keep its posture neutral as Nemean zipped over, looking anything BUT neutral. It arced ever-so-slightly away from her and her theatrically loud voice. No wonder she was putting on a play, everything about her was practically begging to be put on center stage. Or, more accurately, she brought the stage with her. "I am indeed one of his spawn." It tried not to grumble at the insult. Not a great start for beating the 'chaos forge doesn't know what fun is' allegations, but it couldn't quite force itself out the instinct to be overly formal to its superiors. And Nemean was a Master, even if she used that power to do... this.

It had scrambled together something of a speech on its way over. Or, at least it thought it had. Now that the spotlight was- quite literally- on it, it felt itself clam up. Its tail curled defensively close to its body. "I know what fun is." Great. GREAT. Say more words now. Better words, preferably. "I like using magic to create. Images." And it wasn't lying- it did often twist shadows to distract prey or fool enemies. But never for something as impractical at this. "And I would like to assist in your project. Please."

Oh. It was definitely not succeeding at this. Maybe this whole task was a giant practical joke, like that pathetically small teacup The Collector had given it to drink out of.

Nemean stared at Fourteen for a moment, her expression souring. She crossed her arms, pouting at the valkhound, unimpressed by its plea. "And how many times did you practice THAT one in the mirror. I think you need JUST a few more tries!" She sighed dramatically and flipped a stray curl of her hair over her shoulder. "You better SPIT OUT what you want with me and MY musical before I get BORED." Ugh these new age valkhounds were JUST as bad as the gembound. So lame and boring and thinking they could just MESS with her. When she was BUSY and had THINGS to do!! She was a very very very very employed Master after all! It was important work!

@V-Chaos-Fourteen

Yep. Yep. This was already going downhill. It had already wasted so much time by getting chrysalized in that stupid fight- it couldn't fail NOW because Nemean thought it was too boring to talk to. "Apologies- I'm nervous talking to a master as- as glamorous as you." Compliments were good- she'd like compliments, right? "I just think I could be so much MORE than a soldier of the forge. What you're doing- it's fresh and exciting! I want to be part of it." Was that more convincing? Somewhat traitorous? Hopefully nobody actually from the forge would find out. Or maybe Nemean herself would snitch. Caves, this was such a bad idea. "And I'm quite versatile, so I'm sure there's many way I could be of use- Set design, costumes, special effects?" And at the last word It'd try to show her an example of what its magic could do.

Flickering shapes would form from the edges of its shadow and dance around in a short radius around itself. Vaguely shaped and somewhat blurry four-legged creatures and soaring birds and toothy monsters. The illusion would settle after a couple of moments and it'd look to Nemean for approval.

She did, indeed, perk up a bit at the compliment, glad that this foolish little valkhound knew its place next to a Master as AWESOME and POWERFUL as her!! She stroked her mane a little proudly. "HA, as you SHOULD be. All you gembound and valkhound need to remember how to have respect." She sighed wistfully, remembering the good old days when she could just do whatever she want. Ah, the magnificent tea parties she had with valkhounds (Vargas) that just did whatever she wanted them to do.

She glanced at the pitiful little lightshow put on display and her eyes nearly rolled right out of her head. "You know that's MY magic, right? I don't NEED any help with special effects. Especially not. That." She waved a little hand with disgust at the little shadows that immediately vanished at a flick of her wrist. It wasn't totally true, of course, she'd employed the help of a little itty bitty baby kitty, more of a PET really then an assistant but oh well. She could see why Vargas and Aethril liked cats so much.

She tapped a finger on her chin thoughtfully as she stared at the valkhound. "I already CLOSED signups for roles. If you WANTED to get involved you should have done it already! Is there even anything useful you can offer?!" She didn't need sfx, they already had a costumer, they were almost done with the set already, UGH. Why did it expect her to just give it a job. SO. ANNOYING.

@V-Chaos-Fourteen

Okay. Flattery definitely worked. Everything else? Not really. Its gut was strangling itself into knots with stress and irritation, and it found itself increasingly aware of how bite-sized Nemean was. It was way, WAY too smart to even entertain the idea, but the thought kept poking at its brain insistently. At this point, there was no real winning- even if it WAS successful in somehow convincing Nemean to give it a job on set, it would still have to deal with her for that whole time.

If you WANTED to get involved you should have done it already! UGH! If only it hadn't lost such a stupid fight. Maybe it was already too take and it was only going to make a fool of itself trying to appease someone who'd already mostly made up her mind. But the window of opportunity hadn't completely closed yet.

It took a breath to calm its mind before it spoke. "You certainly COULD handle it all yourself, but like you said, you're busy. Wouldn't it be nicer if you only had to focus on the serious and important things worthy of your time while someone else handled all of the boring grunt-work?" A pause. Was it doing better? It wasn't used to any social interaction that wasn't either a straightforward soldier's report or borderline argument. "I'm capable of far more than shadow puppet, I can assure you." Not untrue, but it's other magic tended to be more violence-oriented, which it doubted Nemean would find useful. "I'm sure I could handle any last-minute task you set me to. I am quite adaptable." It briefly debated mentioning the fact it'd gotten recently chrysalized, but it REALLY didn't want to explain all of that.

Nemean's eyes narrowed as she leaned in close to the valkhound. "Hmmmmmm you REALLY want to get hired, huh? What are you planning, little sneaky sneak?" She reached a hand forward and lightly flicked the vaguely vargas-shaped head on the nose but then suddenly pulled back and brightened. "You know what! I don't care if you're incompetent! Suuuure you can have a job, buddy. Let me think, let me think..."

She tapped her chin again and shrugged. "Alright. You can be the stage crew. You get to open the curtains and move the props and backgrounds around and make sure that my BEAUTIFUL. WONDERFUL. DEFINITELY PAID actors have everything they need for their sets when they go on stage! Doesn't that sound great!!" She smiled wide and crossed her arms. "And if you mess up BAD or do ANYTHING to fuck up my wonderful musical, I will tell your boss immediately and he will probably be all too happy to peel your skin off for me to hang on my wall! How about THAT?" She looked extremely self satisfied and smug and sure that this dumb little valkhound wasn't going to take her offer.

@V-Chaos-Fourteen

It stilled as Nemean nearly called it out on its ruse, eyes widening a fraction. Its faceplate tinked as she flicked it, and it suppressed a sneeze. And the urge to bite her for real. But she gave in to its request, finally, and it knew, truthfully, this was really a joke that it was the butt of. Not that it wasn't used to that. And it could tolerate that- the stupid menial labor and her stupid insults and stupid face- all for the collector's reward. If it succeeded at its second task. Which was questionable, since it had nearly failed at the first. Which was supposed to be the easy part.

At Nemean's threat it coiled back a little, quills rattling despite itself. It knew, vaguely, about Vargas's past as an Overseer and hunter of rebels. He was more than capable of doing any number of horrific things to it, if it did anything to earn his ire.

But would he ACTUALLY care if it messed up Nemean's musical? He might be disappointed or frustrated that it put so much time and effort into something so frivolous and wholly unrelated to the forge's purpose. He already knew about it's plan to deal with The Collector, although that wasn't much of an excuse since he had also warned against seeking him out. And he'd likely be more upset that it would undermine and deceive a Master, even if its over something ultimately meaningless.

This was all really stupid and the likelihood of it getting severely punished, killed, or worse was steadily rising. Was whatever object The Collector could offer it REALLY worth this? It really had to stop falling for the sunk cost fallacy.

"I'll be sure not to fuck up, then."

Nemean seemed momentarily susprised that they had taken her up on the offer. Her wings stopped fluttering for a second and she dropped a few inches out of the air before she beat them back and maintained her hovering. Her extrmely momentary loss of composure, however, was quickly overridden as that smug look returned to her face. "Ok. GREAT. Now shoo or whatever, I have THINGS to do. I'll send you like. A card or something I hope you can read I don't have the fuckin' time to record another voiceover UGH." She waved a hand dismissively at Fourteen but didn't even wait for them to go before she was fluttering off back towards the Theater to continue...whatever it is she was doing.

@V-Chaos-Fourteen