A thrumming hiss emanated from the back of Virosa's throat, winding back up its throat like a snake. "Always talking past. Never to. Thought you would... Humour me, at least." To be fair, he had no reason to. To a drone, putting trust in a Valkhound meant death. But that made this an ongoing project, something to come back to in the quieter moments when its work loosened its grip. Jinyi could be something to whittle away to pass the time.

Virosa was tired of being so patient.

Everytime Jinyi fought against his restraints, the ivy would rush forward again to retake the territory it'd lost. It was a battle of wills, one that it anticipated losing. That was fine. Victory was a lengthy process, here - whatever it ended up looking like. Virosa wasn't sure yet.

He stepped forward. It did too, now hovering over the smaller Gembound, staring down from behind its ragged snout. Oil began to drip, speckling Jinyi's head like an anointment. Virosa slumped down on its haunches, an arm planted next to where Jinyi was trapped, face grazing the tangled fur dripping from its chest.

Its face was somewhere behind him. "Its not friendly. I'm not... I have a brain. I know. You do, too." The black mass in front of him expanded with a great sigh, threatening to swallow him - it retracted before it did.

"How do they treat you... For your service, to her? Are they kind?"

@Jinyi

This was true. Jinyi did have a brain, and right now that brain was saying it didn't want Virosa to come any closer! And that he should engage in the ancient tradition of ICY BLAST ITS FACE right now!!!

It is, unfortunately, a truth universally acknowledged that the world does not always work the way we want it to, especially if you are a Drone half the height of a giant dripping Valkhound who already has you tied up. A spray of icy amber blasted from thin air, directly onto the wrong face. In an instant, the Drone's head was encased in an awkward fishbowl-like structure, frozen entirely over. Fortunately, being noseless, this did not affect his breathing.

Jinyi took some comfort in the fact that at least Virosa's oil was not dripping directly onto his chitin, and used the opportunity to say nothing, although his mouth was also not on his face. Internally, he seethed. What kind of stupid question was that, anyway? It might as well not talk for the rest of its life.

@Virosa

Virosa stared at the back of Jinyi's bald scalp as it was suddenly, inexplicably enveloped in the same icy chitin as it'd found him in on that first, fateful encounter. "...You don't mean, to do that?" Surely.

No response. That odd feeling began to bubble up inside it again, the one that pushed it closer to a precipice unknown. He was agitating it, deliberately, he must be. It would not stand for it, not without retaliation. "Come on, drone. I did not lie."

Again, the vines rose to overtake him, entranced by this odd dance. This time they were hungrier, clinging desperately to chitin and seeking purchase in the soft meat of his joints. The magic sickens, it remembered. It did not want to poison him. Not fatally.

Virosa pressed a palm to Jinyi's center, the roots that twined around its fingers spreading on instinct alone, feeling through the odd texture of his robe. It applied a gentle, increasing pressure until it could push the drone on his back. Following the metaphor, this would be a baptism. "You're older. You've met others. You know, they would not... Hesitate. Your... Your fear, it could not... Possibly blind you, this much."

"There is a Greater, somewhere in you. Hiding away from me, behind this... Quivering insect." Unable to beat the allegations, Virosa's massive head sank lower, making direct and close eye-contact with Jinyi's frozen head. "Let me talk to it. I will not bite." And it was telling the truth.

@Jinyi

The Valkhound questioned and mocked him. Then insisted it had not lied. Still, Jinyi did not respond. He did have a brain—and the evidence was right there, in the ivy that grew hungrily and sought the soft spaces in-between his chitin. It would sink into his joints and devour him. It would turn him into nothing but an oily puddle, fertilizer for its sick, twisted growth.

He grew tenser and tenser, pulling desperately at the vines constricting his limbs, but they only tightened with each step Virosa took toward him. A ringing in his ears seemed to consume the coherence of the words coming from its mouth. Its palm stretched slowly toward his chest—something in the Drone's brain snapped as it made contact. A loud pipe organ honk came from his ribcage, breaking his silence. A small commotion burst into existence in the tunnel as three crystalwings dropped from the ceiling, eerily silent apart from their wingbeats as they crowded for Virosa's face. A trio of rabbits scampered, each from a different direction, toward the Valkhound's feet, their minds wiped clean and instinctual fear replaced by the Drone's desperate command, stomping and kicking at what they could. A scarred, snarling pitch rat emerged from the shadows and lunged for long black toes with its gnarled teeth. (The lone slimebelly a good distance away froze and looked up, but remained still. Some rational remnant of Jinyi did not want to throw away its life when he did not think it could really help.)

Please be enough to distract it. Please.

@Virosa

Virosa sighed again. "Time. We have all of it, Drone. You forget this." their time here would run out, inevitably, but it would take death - true death - for him to be free of it. And he proved, over and over, that he could not kill it. He couldn't even lift a-

Virosa's attention snapped to the sound of company. Would it let him go so easily again? No, not while it was still-

The Crystalwings began to batter its face, unimpeded by the sudden fleshy growths it'd attempted to sprout. It had failed, for once. A swarm of tiny Lessers is still, in fact, a swarm. It was forced to shut its eyes tightly and bow its head, a dozen tiny cuts appearing on the skin wrapped tightly around its head. It was beginning to bleed.

The effort to avoid the rest of them, the rabbits and the rat, was a mere twitching of the attacked limbs. It would shift where pain bloomed, and pain would find it again, and they'd repeat this over and over...

The palm on Jinyi's ribs (mouth) did not leave, not on its own. Virosa moved forward, slowly, continuing to endure the death by a thousand cuts that threatened it. It settled on its stomach, the single hand becoming an arm, pressing him down, refusing to relent. "I can wait." Can you?

@Jinyi

The pressure on his chest was unrelenting. Jinyi felt crystals digging into the plates of his back, corrupted tendrils continuing to seek the soft gaps in his joints. This wasn't right. He shouldn't be on his back like this. He should be upright, on his feet, he should be protecting his chest and abdomen, not leaving it exposed like this, he should be curled up in a corner away from the looming beast, he should be... The best efforts of the bats and the rabbits and the rat went ignored, the gaping maw drawing closer and closer. The arm on his chest became heavier and heavier. He couldn't breathe. He- he-

It leaned down, opening its mouth to speak something else. Jinyi tried to jerk away but barely budged under its weight. He tried to do something with magic again but nothing but a faint buzz sounded in his ears. Waiting. He tried to think. Waiting for what? What was it waiting for? Why didn't it just-

@Virosa

It recalled a rat it'd caught, back in Eridanus. Stuck in an impossible situation, it had begun to gnaw at itself. Existence became unbearable in such close proximity to a Valkhound. Virosa had thought it was the symptom of an addled, simple mind. Perhaps self-destruction was an innate trait of The Hive - it hoped it wasn't. But the thought floated past, feeling the struggling drone underneath its arm. "Don't die. It'd be... Silly," it offered.

Finally, tentacles burst forth from its neck, enveloping two of the bats, snatching up a bunny. From all around them emanated a series of crackling squelches as the limbs constricted. Three down, four to go.

It did not move. It did not plan to move, until this one either chrysalised or started listening. Or until hunger drew it away again. It could not subsist on drone meat, tragically - or their chips.

Virosa's massive skull lowered, resting on the dusty floor. Its long tail swished with every blow to its pelt; That Pitch rat was threatening to snatch a toe from the foot by now. "You're... More than this, I thought. You talked before. You talked a lot. I was hoping... We'd continue."

They were close enough now that the beating of its heart, the gurgle of its insides and the constant phlegm in its throat were all audible. Despite its chaotic nature, they kept rhythm. He could've killed it by now, too. All its most fragile of meat, within arm or claw's reach. But Jinyi hadn't. It wasn't out of mercy, Virosa knew. He was just... unable.

He was not like that rat at all - he was something else. Something smaller, and sadder.

@Jinyi

He felt the squeeze of tentacles and and the crunch of crushing bones more keenly for these bats than he had ever felt any Lesser before, directly connected as they were. It was difficult to tell which bones were theirs and which were his, still pinned under Virosa's massive arm.

Silly, it said. Wouldn't it? Beyond silly to die here, just outside a room that should belong to Order, at the hands of a Valkhound that liked to eat chips and have conversations with its prey first. Just as it was silly to let the remaining Lessers die under its cruel magic. Jinyi's teeth clenched so hard his rib-jaws hurt. The rabbits, pitch rat, and lone surviving crystalwing wheeled around and fled amid the squelching and crackling. Inexplicably, his vision focused on the hypnotic swish of the Valkhound's tail back and forth—it was easier than staring down its hollow red eyes. Would it grow bored soon and try something else?

Its mockery echoed in his ears. I thought you were more than this. He had to be. Jinyi had to be more than a little bug squished under its claws. He had to. If one magic wasn't working, he could—he had to find others. He had to be more than this. His body jerked suddenly and Jinyi gasped as a sharp glassy spike sprang from his ribs, at the center of where Virosa's palm pressed down.

@Virosa

Strangely, the other lessers fled rather than continue their suicidal mission. The scratches that peppered Virosa's extremities would grow no deeper, nothing more than a nuisance. This couldn't be Mother's way... "Has she abandoned you?" It felt, for the very first time, a twinge of guilt for what it had done to Jinyi.

That guilt left it quickly. It had a second's warning before the spell took shape, and it willed tentacles to burst from its palm to cushion the stabbing blow. Black blood spilled out from the temporary growths, but it felt nothing but a sting in the skin of its palm, the wound shallow, the delicate bones in its hand still intact.

The meaty tendrils sloughed soon after, melting into Oil, smothering the chest of poor Jinyi in a suffocating layer of rot. The hand over him hovered, before closing around the new spike. Virosa's head had risen now, shaken from rest by the spell. It stared down at him again, judgemental. "Not. What I asked for."

It shook its neck, dislodging black petals that drifted slowly down in the still air. "Stubborn little bug. So stubborn... It hurts you." If he would not talk, it would talk for him. "It will kill you, soon. Not me. It will hurt... The things you grow, too. Your siblings, maybe. The colony... Certainly." Sincere advice that would fall on deaf ears. Oh well.

@Jinyi

Abandoned? Was that what it thought the retreat was? For the first time, a half-hysterical laugh bubbled from Jinyi's chest. Leave it to the arbiters of cruelty and corruption to misunderstand so completely. Moments later, the sound was smothered in the squelch of spike against tentacles and the splashing oil everywhere that followed. Jinyi's breaths came quick and shallow, drowning in the stench of corrupted blood and defiling rot. His mind cast back to the quiet factory in Ursa, surrounded by pristine icy walls and filled only with machines that quietly murmured and marched with bag after bag of chips. He had to believe that he could make it back there. There, he could finally chrysalize and purge himself of this malevolent poison, and emerge as he was before, pristine and untouched by Oil and rot. He could.

The Valkhound rose. He had upset it. Good. Why should Jinyi be the only upset one here, trying desperately to keep it in a good mood all for a promise it dangled just out of reach? Little bug. He was more than that. He had to be more than that. It kept speaking, claws wrapping around the oil-covered spike, threat after threat falling like hammer strikes. Jinyi's chest split open in a snarl and he jerked upward, struggling against its much greater weight.

"Do you ever shut up?" His voice was the ugliest it'd been in his life. A blast of icy amber finally answered his call, aimed right for that despicable mouth and the face it was attached to.

@Virosa