As she went on speaking (well, answering), Audland felt continuously more... disappointed. His face fell further with every word. Maybe he shouldn't have expected anything different from a Gembound so chipper and alive. To be that happy, to be that hopeful, to be that naive, there were experiences you had to have—and others you had to not have. The voices in his head were chanting at him to be a new experience for her.

When she was finished, he "I don't think you know what yer talkin' to. I am a monster—there's no other word for it," started, and continued, and "I could've attacked you—you were comin' at me like you were gonna," as he went on, he approached "I don't always have thoughts, sometimes they're not mine," and rose, and rose until he "and maybe monsters—or even evil—can have a purpose." towered over her. His neck craned down, his six glowering and gleaming eyes bearing down upon her like spiteful stars. "Or maybe nothin' in this world has a purpose, or any reason for bein'. What does that make the rest of us?" What would that make of you?

A pang of pain shot through his head and he winced; a snarl ripped out from his throat. He backed away. "You don't know me, or the things I've done. We burn ourselves when there's nothin' else to burn." He looked at her very deliberately. The chanting in his head was so loud, it was painful. SHOW HER, SHOW HER, SHOW HER.

But he wouldn't. Not this one. And the chaos within—the one he couldn't control, the one he had to bargain with daily—was actually listening. Chaos abated temporarily, through sheer strength of will.

He looked away. "I didn't attack you because I... I was confused about somethin'. Couldn't tell ya what." And she couldn't take it from him, it was his alone. He turned down to the ground, folding his arms. Closing off. "But maybe you're right about that. That as long as someone can think, and feel, it'll be there." He conceded with that one crucial little edit: as long as. "Maybe you've even seen it." He could check, but... no. Either this time, or with this person, Audland wanted to spare her, and he didn't know why.

So was that the solution to his problem, then? To stop thinking and feeling? To remove himself from the reality in which he had to sustain that infuriating little part of him? The one that kept asking all the dumb questions and showing him all the asinine answers. Should he leave the world in which it was a part of him at all?

...No. Losing his head like that wasn't worth losing them. Or whatever part of himself that was deluded into believing it felt any particular way about that thing.

How had that answer come so easily?

Glinting eyes would shoot back to Bolormaa, watching her expression. He expected fear, but he wasn't sure what he'd find. "I should go." But he wouldn't, just yet. His mind was still turning it over. That she'd said something he'd neglected: that even a monster, which by her definition had no thoughts, and felt no feelings, and was simply 'bad and evil', whatever that meant—could love something. Maybe even someone? How could that possibly be?

The answer was staring at him right in the face and he didn't like it. It was ugly.

Momma Bolormaa, for all intents and purposes, is a perfectly innocent creature. She is not mean or cruel, she does her best for everyone, she is motherly and benevolent and good. She had not really considered monsters before now and so she was completely taken aback by Audland's sudden rise. But she did not back down or cower. The sudden shift in his demeanor simply surprised her. A moment later, a stern look passed across her face.

"Are you threatening me?" Her tone had grown momentarily cold as she stared back steadily. Audland would suddenly feel...odd. Like he was an intruder. As if he had just busted into a church mid-service or a party he hadn't been invited to. And Momma Bolormaa stared at him like she was warning him - back off. Calm down. "This is a place for love and peace. You will not bring violence here or I'll have you removed, okay?" She seemed, after that, to relax a bit and the feeling would loosen.

"I apologize if I offended you, dear. I don't linger much on this sort of philosophy. What you call yourself is your own freedom - but yes I've seen it. Creatures big and small, benevolent and selfish, in any cicumstance...they love. All in their own way."

@Audland

The buzzing of his gem was getting harder and harder to ignore. The pull toward violence. Audland did not want to taint what was clearly unblemished, but it wasn't always about what he wanted. And clearly, she was not aware: that's an essential part of the kind of monster he was.

Chaos was listening. Audland was in control. Bolormaa was commanding; she was stern. A response Audland had never been met with before, from someone so much less imposing than he. Should he be surprised? Was he trying to threaten her? Did he want to?

The feeling of shame and intrusion slithered into his heart insidiously. It knew its place there, it was no stranger. Audland did not have a home anywhere, and he certainly wasn't finding it here. The warmth from before had all but dissipated; and yet Audland could not get over the trail it had left. The ghost of it. Real warmth from real fire; something he hadn't experienced maybe ever in his life.

She was stern with him. She commanded him, directed him to stop. Audland couldn't help but see some irony in the fact that to keep the peace, one had to be controlling. That age old paradox: does tolerance tolerate intolerance? He supposed it didn't matter what tolerance did—only what it had to do. This was a place—more than that, it was a bastion for love; and Audland was not bringing his own to share. He backed down the way a bear does when it is faced with a fearless house cat. If she wasn't scared of him, surely there was a reason for that, and Audland was too beside himself with his own ruminating to test it.

She might be the only one to ever receive this treatment from him, which was fascinating—but her words had directed his curiosity away from her. He might have asked how she knew all this, but Audland made the bold assumption that he already knew the answer: different experiences. A different life from his. An inapplicable one, maybe. She had no further philosophy to share.

But someone else might, Audland realized. And he'd mentioned that one earlier. The deer in Orion. Master Astraea. He had also seemed to know—to have experience even, with the subject.

Upon realizing he had somewhere else to go, Audland would turn to leave. It was relevant to him, however, that Momma Bolormaa had seen it. Creatures big and small, benevolent and selfish. He couldn't dismiss the notion that despite his own cruelty, despite his own nature, she believed he could love. In his own way. Even if the reason for why—for why that was even possible—disgusted Audland, in theory.

He wouldn't apologize for being himself. But he could at least try to be polite. "Not threatenin' you ma'am. Thanks for the information. I don't need a ceremony." He'd walk away, and he wouldn't look back. No closing remark; no 'see you later', or anything of the sort. He wasn't sure if he would.

- exit, unless stopped? -