She tried to calm herself as Jinyi talked. They can fix this. They can do something. It wasn't too late, right? They could pull them out? Or magic them out? There was some way. Surely she could do something too.

She looked up at Jinyi, and his suggestion nearly shut her entire mind down in fear. Those compulsions were achingly and disturbingly familiar, something she had run from for endless cycles, something that she had intended to never feel again. "No," she said without hesitation, her voice choking. "Not that. Please." It was bad enough talking to a Drone and knowing Mother was just on the other side of their mind...but having to feel those compulsions again, she feared how deeply she'd sink into remembering all of that. She had worked so hard to move on from it.

But even thinking about it now was almost too much. Remembering the compulsions welled up so much worse. Her stupidity, the face of Aure as he looked at her with fear, being held down by ones she'd once called family as they glared at her with distrust and anger while their king writhed with the infection. Infection she'd caused, she'd done that, it was her fault...

Vaati wasn't here to pull her out of it. She'd told him to stay home. Her eyes were glassy as she tried to anchor herself to now, right now, right here, fighting off bad memories and the epidote's urges and her own welling panic...

Tears spilled down her face in droves. "I'm sorry," she whispered, horrified. "I'm sorry for hurting your family. But you hurt mine. Your Mother ruined my life." Perhaps she had been hoping for a time to say this, to be angry for once, angry in a way that wasn't violence that she so despised, to finally tell the someone from the Hive exactly how she had been hurt, exactly how she had been carrying this trauma with her for so so so long.

And Wilder right now, raw and exposed and with no defenses remaining, steadied herself and looked up at Jinyi, her eyes burning. Words started spilling out of her, long-buried pain "I didn't want to be a part of you but she tricked me. They tricked me. And they made me try and trick my family, I couldn't stop her and she used me to hurt them and they could never forgive me! They said they did but I saw it in their eyes, they could never forget that I had done that, even if it was her will forcing me along! I had to leave them...I was alone for so long!" She forced back a sob. "So I'm sorry that I hurt your family! I don't like hurting people, unlike your Mother. But she was the one that sent you all to war. I defended my friends, I fought back against her because I don't ever want anyone feeling the way I did! Going through the pain that I went through." She grit her teeth, shaking back an urge to start tearing the flesh off of Jinyi with a frustrated hiss. "So don't accuse ME of attacking you when all I have EVER done is try to help, try to defend, try to keep myself free of Order and Chaos because you are BOTH the WORST. I should love you all because I said I promised I would try, you are all alive and deserve to live but it is so hard...when you all just make it harder for everyone else to live."

She was saying too much. She was putting herself in danger. She needed to be rid of this epidote now NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT THIS MOMENT she didn't need this Drone, she didn't need Mother's help! She didn't want it. And her magic flared in response, a paw raising as she grasped the alien stone with her mind and ripped it right out. There was a horrible tearing and snapping sound as pieces of black and green stone tendrils tore out of her flesh and slammed into her paw from the force in which she removed it.

@Jinyi

The stone torn straight from her cheek trembled as it fell into her paw. Magic seared in both Wilder's and Jinyi's mind in this moment, a sudden yawning terror and longing welled up in both of their minds, and a voice boomed in their ears.

"Ꭰᓍហ'ⓣ ꝈƐΔỼƐ ᘻ乇 ᗩꝈㄖហƐ!!"

Wilder would feel only a little relief from the urges. The infection still lingered, but it had been weakened. But she craved it...she wanted it back....

He hadn't expected to make a friend out of Wilder, only hoped to extract a promise that she wouldn't try to explode anyone in the Hive again. For a moment he thought she might agree—the tears streaming down her face and the horrified apologies seemed like genuine regret. But then she started making excuses for it—how she was defending her friends, how she'd done nothing but try to help (was that the new word for melting people's faces off now!?), how Order was just as bad as Chaos—and it became clear that she wasn't going to admit there was anything wrong with what she did. Jinyi's teeth clenched tight in his chest and for a moment he genuinely thought about trying to kill her. It was such a foreign urge to someone whose usual job was making chips and talking to people about them that it surprised Jinyi himself. But it was also a fleeting thought, one borne of anger that he quickly dismissed; Wilder was still powerful even while struggling with whatever infection this was, and he was already putting himself in too much danger just by lingering here. Mother had made that clear to him.

Still, he couldn't help the words that snarled out of his mouth, even though he knew there was probably no point. It probably wouldn't help anything, but if he swallowed them and went home it would fester inside of him. He should have let it fester anyway, but they were spilling out before he could stop them, his pipe-organ voice rising in anger.

"You want to talk about making it hard for everyone else to live?" he spat. "Try taking a look at how Chaos destroys entire worlds! Haven't you seen the piles of bones in Canis? Don't you know that they use these caves as a factory to make monsters that murder endlessly in its name?" Everyone in the Hive knew, and everyone outside it should know if they were not purposely blind. It wasn't like they tried to HIDE it. Even now there were whispers of an upcoming offworld war the Valkhounds would go to and it made Jinyi sick just thinking about the death and destruction they would bring. "Don't glorify your actions as defending your friends when they were in no danger. We attacked no one not of Chaos in Gemini before you started melting people's faces and setting people on fire! Ananke and Halcyon had nothing to do with whatever happened to you. How can you talk about pain and suffering when it's you who caused all of that for them? That little white rabbit you hurt came to us for safety and family and you RIPPED that safety away from her when you attacked her. Who do you think you are to decide for someone what family they can and can't embrace just because you and yours didn't like it, and enforce it with fire and explosions?"

He backed away even more—he should just leave her to deal with the epidote herself, and at least if it consumed her she couldn't target the Hive on purpose anymore—and then she ripped the crystals out of her own face and sent a wave of magic searing through their minds. Jinyi recoiled at the foreign presence and reached out automatically toward the Hive for reassurance that he was not, in fact, alone. Equally as automatically in a surge of horror and get that away from me, he threw out a spray of glassy chitin toward the epidote crystals glittering on the ground. It was weak magic, and he was reminded again that he was without backup in Polaris—he had to get out of here.

@Wilder

Wilder, at normal times, would not rise to the provocation. She wouldn't match Jinyi's anger, she would settle herself. Keep herself calm. She'd learned that, over many cycles of heartache and hurt, it was better to not get angry in return. But this was not normal times - between struggling against the still lingering urges that were alien and foreign and terribly familiar, and the memories that poured unbidden into her mind, she had NO defenses, no sense of self-control. So she rose to it, her lip curling.

"So just because one side does evil means the other is utterly good? There IS no good and evil. There simply IS. Both sides do harm and if you can't see that then you are a blind fool!" Blood was pouring from the wound in her cheek, but she didn't care. She stood up taller, shaking, but it wasn't clear if she was shaking from pain, fear, or anger. There was a haziness to her gaze as she struggled to keep a grip on herself. "Maybe YOU don't think losing your sense of self, autonomy, and freedom isn't dangerous because you were MADE to be a slave, but the majority of us DON'T want that! If that rabbit wanted to be safe then she shouldn't have participated in a WAR. I saw your brothers and sisters tearing up Canis! I know what they did in Leo! You didn't see what they did to Cetus! The lives they hurt and ruined and KILLED. Your Mother is selfish and cruel and using you like puppets!"

She realized how foolish she was being, how angry and explosive she was in this moment and her magic reacted to give her a moment to breathe. Everything around her suddenly slowed to a crawl and she was able to let her mine burst with fire and flame and all the anger and rage that had welled up in her over the last...however many cycles it had been simmering for. She screamed to herself and then let it all boil itself out in the time she had in a slowed, separate space, before time caught up with her and she was able to reign herself in.

She didn't want this to come to blows. She didn't want to hurt him and she didn't want him to try and kill her when she was already struggling. Her ears twisted back and she crouched. "I...I am sorry I just-" she struggled to find an apology that didn't feel like an excuse. "I am sorry about Ananke and Halcyon. I really am. If there is anything I can do to...repay that, I will. If their injuries lasted, I can heal them. I am not sorry for defending my home, but I am sorry I hurt them." She swallowed. "I'm not defending Chaos. I'm not on either side, because you have both hurt and killed. I don't want to hurt anyone." anymore came a whisper in the back of her mind. She shivered. She was a mess, wasn't she?

@Jinyi

Jinyi couldn't tell if it was Wilder's words or his own anger leaving a ringing in his ears. Every accusation—fool, slave, puppet, what they did what they did what they did what they did or didn't deserve—thundered through his bones like crashing bells.

He was furious. He wanted to grab that cat by the shoulders and shout right back to her every awful name she'd thrown their way. He wanted to tear open a connection to her mind and show her exactly what sense of self he had, what sense of self all of them, each and every soul of the Hive had because how DARE she call them slaves for, what—wanting to build a better world? Fates forbid they actually believed in something. He opened his mouth to do so, searing words and bile already rising from his throat, when—

She suddenly—deflated. Apologies streamed from her not even a second after her vicious tirade, and offers of healing. Jinyi reeled from the whiplash of it. How much of it did she really mean? It couldn't be sincere, could it—how else could her attitude turn around almost instantly? He wanted to ignore it, to shout at her anyway and respond to every last accusation she'd tossed out just seconds ago—

He suddenly felt hollow. What was the point of matching her now-vanished rage? It wouldn't do anything. He wasn't doing anything just standing here and having this argument with someone who couldn't be convinced. If he really wanted to do something he should find his place in the lattice in Ursa or one of the nodes elsewhere, not here in Polaris where nothing was right. What was the point in yelling at someone who had folded herself, sincerely or falsely, into submissive apology already? What was the point in accepting an apology from someone who didn't regret it whatsoever? What was the point when she would never pay the price or admit the things he wanted her to?

He reeled himself back in. "What we did in Canis and Leo," he said coldly, "was fight Valkhounds. If only we had killed them like you're so convinced we did, we would have saved hundreds of lives from being burnt to a crisp and torn apart elsewhere. And if we had really fought your kind, you wouldn't have walked out of Canis and Gemini unharmed like you did. Like every real or fake 'neutral' person did." Because Mother was forgiving even beyond Jinyi's own comprehension. "Your neutrality fell apart when you attacked one side and not the other. Just because you say you're not on either side doesn't absolve you from the blood on your paws, either ours or the lives you enable Chaos to keep stealing by stopping the ones trying to stop them!"

He was getting angry again. He had to calm himself. Find his way back to Order's icy lattice. "If you think we need to be slaves to want to build a better world—if you think any of us deserve to be in danger of being hurt or killed because we're willing to fight to make it happen—I don't have anything to say to you." He took several steps back, face tilting northward. He had been foolish to linger here. It was true. But still he wanted to hear something from her, some kind of admission or apology that wasn't just I'm sorry but I'd do it again. If both of them walked away from this having refused to admit any regret for what they or those associated with them had done, what was the point? But how could he say that himself when the Hive—

His eyes dropped back down to Wilder's bleeding face. "Maybe worry about the thing that's actually going to make you a slave. Why didn't you melt that dog's face off?"

@Wilder

What was this Drone trying to convince her of? When she had seen with her eyes that what he said wasn't true? "There were no Valkhounds in Canis," she rasped. "Only my family and friends that suffered for cycles with the infection invading their home." His view was so black and white it hurt. Why must everyone be "Chaos" or "Order"? Why did one have to choose? Of course, she knew the answer - they didn't. There was more to life then those two Fates.

Hume is there too. And Natural Order. She looked up at Jinyi and wished she could love him. She saw herself as Hume's follower, trying to understand her purpose, her motives, her beliefs. She loved all life. She had told Wilder herself as much. And while she doubted the full extent of the love shared between the Hive she could see Hume in this one. She could see the love and connection and the sense of protection he had for his family. His Autonomy. He was not simply Order, but ever-so-gently touched by her patron.

She wanted him to understand this - that all life was precious, and that there was more to life then just the Hive. She wanted him to truly understand the harm that they did on the innocent. Yes, they had been hurt by Chaos, but they were not the innocent victims fighting back against tyranny. They, too, were stomping upon the Gembound that wished to not be on either side.

A trickle of her madness threaded its way through the back of her mind. She could help in this regard, right? She could...she could help him understand. Her eyes seemed to gleam for a moment as she whispered, "I...am sorry that your view of this world has been so narrowed. I'm sorry for the vitriol I've spat at you. I am..." Her eyes squeezed shut as a wave of the urges came over her again, desperate for her to infect herself further, to infect Jinyi, to tear both of their skin away from the bones. "Not in my right mind. I...I just want you to understand. I want..."

She blinked her eyes open, glittering with pink and gold starlight, and Wished. "I wish you could have a new perspective, to understand how those of us between your forces views your Hive, and view your enemies. To understand that this conflict is not as black and white as you would believe." A fear in her took over, that it would rebound as it had with Draconua. But she was not imposing her own views this time, right? She was not making assumptions...right? It is not black and white, there is no good and evil, there is no right or wrong. I know that now. They are not evil. But neither is Chaos.

(tagging for CJ)

Wilder's Wish was like a teasing feather tickling the edges of the radiation from Jinyi's Clearstone. As if Dontacael could ignore a call directly from Hume's own magic. For the most part, the group in this nest operated on their own, but they were, of course, part of a whole—and that whole tuned in together, a snapped-to awareness, called to attention by Wilder's words.

Unfortunately, Wilder's words would fall onto ears unable to hear her wish. Not because they were deaf, but because the perspective was meaningless to them. Order, Disorder, all of it was a force of existence. It was inevitable, it was unchanging, it was unwilling to change. Wilder might have her heart in the right place and her want for others to understand may be genuine, but some things were the way they were, and sometimes it was a simple as that.

A pair of eyes that were not Jinyi's looked at Wilder through the drone and studied her briefly.

"File this away as unnecessary," a man's voice echoed through the Hive, not aloud, and the pause of the collective eased. The moment passed. If it ever came up again, this question of a different perspective, the Hive would no longer even need to pause to dismiss it.

"Good luck with your cat, Jinyi." There were certainly worse battles to be fighting than this one. It was curious that this cat possessed even an inkling of Hume's radiation, but she did not seem like she truly knew how to use it. Dontacael smiled from his place in the universe at the thought of it all. Oh, she had wanted his drone to see a new perspective—oh, she had even wished it. What a cute little thing.

@Jinyi @Wilder

He immediately wanted to protest—there were DEFINITELY valkhounds in Canis; he'd seen them through his siblings' own eyes—but Wilder was still speaking. Now that he could gauge it a second time, the cat seemed genuinely sorry, Jinyi decided. His demeanor softened slightly, but he was suddenly wary of the something that gleamed in her eyes. Was this what she meant by 'not in her right mind'? He tensed slightly, wondering if she were about to try anything—

Then Wilder's wish washed over him, and with it, his gaze.

To any outsider, it appeared as though the Drone suddenly went slack. His expression froze on his face while a gaze not his own looked through his eyes. Then slowly, expression returned. He sat down in slow motion, as if in a trance. Colors and shadows flashed over his blank mask until finally settling on something like a cartoon emoji starry-eyed blush. Internally, he was squeeing.

Wilder's new perspective was already forgotten, dismissed in less than the space of a breath. Instead he looked at the cat, and it was with totally different eyes and in a totally different manner that he spoke next, but what he said was:

"Oh my God." Literally. His pipe organ voice was breathy, high, and filled with childlike wonder. "He looked at me." Well, through him at Wilder, really, but blah. Details. Still half stunned, it took him a few seconds to add: "He knows my name."

Luminous, suffusive joy spread over his face. He clasped his hands and looked upward as if he could see Dontacael's disappearing trail like a shooting star. Then, very belatedly, like it was a complete afterthought, he added:

"And there were totally Valkhounds in Canis, by the way. We beat them up."

@Wilder

It wasn't the same kind of failure that her attempted wish with Draconua had been, but she felt an intense disappointment when it seemed to fall on deaf ears. She froze as something eyed here. Some great thing from far beyond.

And she learned another lesson - there is no reasoning with them.

Still, she tried, she protested - "They only showed up after you attacked..." But she stopped, shaking her head, a deep sadness and depression falling over her in that moment. She failed. What was the point. Of trying. When she could never help. She couldn't do anything right. All she had done was make it impossible for them to even consider anything beyond their own minds.

She tried to pull more of the crystal out, she fought, but her heart wasn't in it. Her magic withered away under her failures and she crouched in front of Jinyi, all the fight out of her. "It doesn't matter." Her voice was cold, monotone. She didn't want talk to him anymore. She didn't want his help. "I hope you enjoyed the voice of your God. I hope he brings you joy." And she meant it, she did. Despite it all, she really tried not to hate the Drone, but if there was no other way for him to know what else there was to life...then she hoped the life he had brought him whatever happiness Dontacael allowed.

@Jinyi

"Thank you," Jinyi breathed at Wilder's well-wishes. It took him a good long moment to realize there was something wrong with her. Her monotone voice, her hunched over posture, her downcast eyes.

To attract even the briefest glance from someone like him was a momentous occasion. To be gazed upon a second time now was an unimaginable honor. It was not right that she was unhappy, he thought, previous animosity forgotten in the wake of his melodious voice. Jinyi's vision focused on Wilder's bleeding cheek. That must be why.

A surgical apparatus formed on his hand and he reached out, but stopped before reaching Wilder. He remembered that they were not yet family. "I can help," he offered, asked, pleaded.

@Wilder