backdated to being just after the olympics
cw for self-loathing and the result of strict, military-style upbringings :'(

The orthoclase'd made its rounds in Canis after the Olympics: went for a brief hunt, even though it was still full on low-simmering rage and anxiety; took a drink; made a piss-poor effort at cleaning all of the blood off itself. More of its front half was smeared red than not, and it'd been given time to sink into every little crevice it could. A faint pink silhouette marked every spatter, and larger spots were still close to red, half-coagulated on its hide. The best thing was to just wait for it to wear off. Nobody'd discovered hydrogen peroxide or vinegar tricks in the caves yet.

Alpha could, at least, straighten out its quills somewhat. Some of them were bent at the tips or painfully half-loose from a lack of preening in the past few weeks. It'd caught its reflection in the water while trying to wash itself off, and it had not liked what it'd seen: an absolute wreck of a creature with no sense of control. Every bit of its cognition was geared towards being the superior one, being the one with the iron grip on the situation. But, it was now being confronted with the opposite.

It'd never known itself. Never bothered trying to, because then it'd be someone instead of something. A weapon to be pointed at a target, a hound to be pointed at a fallen duck. Anything more would've been dangerous. Anything more, and it would've thrown down its gloves and left a long time ago.

But, it was scared of what was outside this little bubble. This little nook hidden by a vast, magical wall of cobbled-together stone, filled with promises of chaos and destruction. A production line dedicated to churning out monsters with singular purposes that needed to be taught, instead of ingrained. There was a vast difference between being fed something and understanding it. Time and time again, Alpha'd been asked "What are you doing?" "Why are you doing that?" "What is it that you're fighting for?" It scarcely had immediate answers that weren't regurgitated bits of information or a plain to survive.

What - no... who was it, if not an emotional wreck incapable of handling the one thing it was good at over what was ultimately punishment for the future? An emotional wreck incapable of thinking about itself as a person even though it'd earned that right and a name? A name.

Hooked talons curled into the dusty floor. Alpha shifted where it sat by the closed-off entrance to Tunnel P, toxic eyes glancing over the boneyard in a haphazard - and blind - fashion. Like it was actually guarding, and not occupying itself with the downward spiral playing uncontrollably in its mind. The monstrous hybrid was half-groomed, hunched over, barely pricking up when "Master Vargas, sir" made his approach.

It watched his every step and movement, but otherwise stayed right where it was sitting; the only movement it made was rolling its shoulders up and head down, withdrawing slightly into a bow. The picture of guilty, kicked dog.

@Vargas

Vargas had watched each of the bouts carefully, Alpha's disaster tucked quickly into the back of his mind. It was bookmarked: important, but not urgent; it was not an emergency that required him to run off right away. Nor would he. He watched the other fights, gauging the Gembound, their potential, wondering which were random spawn, which were the revivals of more ancient designs. In particular, Nemesis--despite her ignorance of his importance and his power--and Carja, interested him. He was thinking over their uses, their strengths, the mistakes the young one had made, as he paced through Canis; only Orthoclase-Alpha's voice roused him from his thoughts.

He was nearing the western wall, and at once his mind shifted gears to topic: Orthoclase-Alpha. To its apparent loss of control, rage, and whatever had triggered it. Vargas quickly summarized events in his mind, in a fraction of a second, going back over it and evaluating what he'd need to do. Step one, find out what had happened. Step two, find out if it was at risk of occuring again and step three, if needed, find out how to prevent it. He was not, however, particularly angry or emotional--no, it hadn't reflected well on him or his group or their control and power. It would surely be rumors whispered up and down about a weak point to strike at--or, at least, it would have in his era... perhaps not so much now. But he doubted that Orthoclase had chosen this act of apparent rebellion. Something had seemed... off.

His gaze swept over it, briefly, noting and dismissing the posture; he was checking for wounds. He used his magic, too, to check for bleeding (internal or not), and though he found none, that said nothing of broken bones or damaged muscles. "Are you injured?" he asked bluntly, and though it was a practical question--without sympathy--it was asked matter-of-factly, as one would address an equal. Vargas rarely had reason to do otherwise, unless--as Nemesis had shown--pushed to do so (though that push might need only be a small one).

He lowered himself to his haunches some ten or fifteen yards away--still a broad distance--with the instinctive knowledge that there was still something wrong with the beast, that crowding it close might yet prove unwise.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

The Master settled further than it thought he would've. A sizable distance was between them. Despite knowing Vargas could cross it in a short few seconds of fury, the orthoclase loosened up some. Its head followed the landscape between them as it swung up to regard him more directly. Alpha's claws relinquished their superficial hold on the earth. The shoulders stayed up, at least.

"Are you injured?" he'd asked.

A few bruises and chips in its hide, but otherwise? "No." It lifted its bloodstained right arm, gaze not moving away from the Leviathan. "This isn't mine." Nemesis had taken the full brunt of it, and left barely a scratch on itself. It'd either been outmatched and she was holding back, or - she hadn't wanted to hurt it. Alpha couldn't possibly fathom why that the latter would be the case. It'd given her no reason not to gore it until it stopped attempting to rip her to shreds.

Why was a question often on its mind.

@Vargas

Vargas studied it, but its posture, though it slightly relaxed some (It fears my approach?) did not reveal all that much. He was slightly disappointed--even annoyed (and certainly not a tad guilty or ashamed)--that it still showed fear of him. This wasn't conducive to a good working environment. He'd have preferred the creature shaken off his strike and perhaps grumbled a few bitched words at him; this was... not a response he was used to.

But it was unharmed, at least; and to this, at length, he grunted. "Good. Now; what happened?" Bluntly-stated, bluntly-asked; though with his usual twinned directness combined with patience. There was no reason not to get to the meat of this straightaway; one could not fix a problem without knowing what it was.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

cw for... internal dialogue about triggers?

"Good. Now;" Here it is. "What happened?"

It averted its gaze slightly, like it was considering that for the first time. Multiple attempts had been made to find an answer to that, but every little detail pointed to I don't know.

One moment, it'd been caught in the thrill of nonmagical combat against an opponent that was every bit of competent and strong. The next, every bit of stimulus snowballed into a wretched lump that was impossible to digest; essentially a complete blackout in its memory. Even what immediately followed Vargas's intervention was an autopiloted haze. Only when it was a cave away did it manage to touch back down on reality.

The tragedy of it all was Alpha's lack of emotional intelligence. It could not connect the dots between that one, single strike to the face being a trigger for that overwhelming surge of violence - for its lashing out at something it knew it could wail on without consequence, and refusing to lash out at Vargas despite that constant niggling voice that called for rebellion. It could not connect the dots between itself and its mother's death in a Trial it could have prevented. It could not connect the dots between its own personhood and every downturn since. It could not connect the dots between its success and the hollowness of it all.

All the orthoclase had was a faint clue. That wasn't enough for a confident answer past I don't know...

But... would Vargas take that? It was an excuse. Toxic eyes bore back on him abruptly, widening slightly. "I don't know," rumbled halfway out of its throat, but was indecipherable as it tightened its jaw and gnashed its teeth. All it could think of were excuses: I got excited by the blood. She drew first and I wanted revenge. She talked shit about the Masters and deserved to be made an example of. Nothing worthwhile. Nothing worth lying about. All of those would spawn more questions it didn't have answers to.

It worked its jaw, inhaled sharply, and murmured: "I don't know." Quills pricked in tell-tale anticipation.

@Vargas

Orthoclase-Alpha fidgeted. It hesitated. It started to speak, choked on it, and eventually spat out a response of standard confusion: I don't know. Vargas eyed it.

"That is not a good enough answer," he stated after a moment, again simply bluntly. He wasn't sure if Alpha were hiding something or not but he assumed it was not a lie; there was, however, obviously more going on under the surface.

"Tell me what you do know," he decided on, after another moment's thought, and then waited.

Perhaps if they could go over what had happened, assuming it really didn't know, then they could work it out together. Loss of control wasn't something Vargas had seen too often; only out of bloodlust, and even then the ferocity was the main thing. Alpha had been distinctly stressed, but why-?

Was it some malfunction? An error in its design? Had someone done something to it, magically, somehow?

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Of course it wasn't a good enough answer. It should've picked any of the other options and improvised until it was inevitably caught in the act and forced onto another story. Rinse and repeat until the trigger goes click! and a boom! rocked through its skull.

Alpha's jaw clenched nonetheless, and it hesitated again. What it knew was that they'd been sparring, at rather perfect odds with one another. It would've won by the standards set if it hadn't snapped at the last second. "Nothing."

Slow down. What happened before then? The last thing it remembered - its bloody arm lifted to scratch idly and subconsciously at its chin - a leg buckled and landed it underneath Nemesis. All the rest smeared and burned like an old tape. A ball of complicated spaghetti and knotwork that couldn't be unraveled without a deep dive from outside.

"It was fine until my leg got kicked," it doubled back, fully aware of how unsatisfying that and its addition was, "I don't... fully know what happened after that. A lot of blood." It could've figured that out from the bloodstains. Was that a conscious detail it remembered? Or just a part of the haze it filled in for itself? Alpha grunted, shuffling a little further away to lean against the wall.

Divulging felt dirty, unsafe, made it vulnerable. The wall covered its back.

It didn't trust Vargas - or anyone - with this, but there was an inherent pressure to give him whatever he asked for, even if he wasn't particularly pushing for it. The potential consequences of not answering were too great to risk.

@Vargas

Vargas studied Alpha, considering. Six eyes narrowed in thought, and to the Orthoclase it might have looked like suspicion.

Because it was--but not at Alpha; he was trying to remember who all had been there. Who might have used magic to tamper with the Orthoclase's mind. There were certainly spells capable of such things. Hallucinogenic spores, or direct arcane intervention. There was the dog-bird, yes, and it had seemed innocent enough--timid, harmless--but it had used powerful magics, even asked to follow him here. Nemesis--he did not know which magic she used. Perhaps she'd asked him to back away from Orthoclase out of guilt, or something more sinister--perhaps she'd not wanted him to uncover her treachery? Or wanted to try and kill Alpha? The small, strange amalgam creature with red scales--a background thing, hardly noticed. Had it been someone else's spy? Was Nemean trying to sabotage him-? It wasn't her magic, but perhaps she'd recruited someone else. And why-? He'd not spoken to her since his ascension, certainly; was she jealous..? It wouldn't be all that unlike her, but his feelings were almost hurt at the thought; he'd thought they'd had a good, close working relationship, if nothing else.

What of the little deer-thing? (He didn't know Tupu's name; probably even she didn't, really.) He didn't know who she had been; she'd bleated once and then sat there blank-eyed, eating leaves, before bolting abruptly after Alpha's switch. Could it have been that one..? he wondered, eyes narrowing even further.

Yes; Tupu bore more investigation. He'd find the gerenuk, then, when he could; for now he looked to Alpha.

"I suspect that someone there may have used magic on you to sabotage it, then. I hate to say it, but it may be a servant of another Master, perhaps jealous of my ascension--it may have made you a target. To damage you weakens my position. To make a fool of you, if they can, does so to us both. You do not happen to know anything of the ones present, do you?" he went on, considering it.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

It watched Vargas warily as he considered and considered, a suspicious squint in his gaze. He still thinks I'm lying was the clearest assumption to make in that period of silence. Alpha had no way of baring its brain - nor would it? - to its master to prove something so ridiculously intangible to be correct. All it had was conviction; and it won out into a conclusion.

A conclusion that, for all the wrong reasons, the orthoclase thought was false (for a moment, at least) - and felt a faint prickle of hot-blooded resentment surge up. Magical sabotage couldn't have been part of it. It'd never seen magic to cause such an overwhelming loss of control so quickly. There'd been that of a reality-altering witch not too far away, but it'd been lucid for it. But, Vargas was ancient and fundamentally knew a hell of a lot more than it did about the various forms magic could take. Alpha mulled briefly over how it could have been magically pushed over the edge. Wouldn't it have felt it?

But, there'd been nobody there. Not down there. Nobody it'd met, with reason to go after itself or the Master - ah, there's that simmering rage again. Always attached to Vargas. Always a target on his back and its own. Alpha didn't know the first thing about its own wants, but it was steadily learning that it did not want what came with being an Overseer. Responsibility, self-determination, politics. Sure, it put it above the common rabble, gave it power and authority, but having to (poorly) explain to every little beast what Overseers and Masters were didn't convince it of that.

It'd just been lucky, and now it was a fucking wreck that wanted to - I'm going once this Two-shit is over and he doesn't need me. Alpha blinked, almost... shocked with itself. That determined? No, no, it'd wait. Wait until the coast was completely clear. That or be bitter enough to go for the throat -

It didn't disagree with Vargas's hypothesis. Let him waste his time on that fruitless endeavor and leave itself be. Alpha shook its head, "no." No need to add any more words to that. It rolled its shoulders deliberately, smoothing down its quills where they'd started pricking up.

@Vargas

He was half about to leave, but paused.

The way Orthoclase-Alpha's quills were rising and falling; the way it was pressed to the wall, the way it was not engaging in conversation but offering single words, was all wrong.

Vargas was nothing if not the blunt sort; and so he simply eyed it up and down and said, "What is wrong with you?" It was not in an insulting tone, or even demanding, though certainly a kinder creature would have had a little more tact in its phrasing. It was, though, almost a "what is wrong?" but with slightly less personal concern. Blank, oblivious.

There was something wrong, and Vargas didn't like it. Unknown factors were unpredictable, uncontrollable. Unpredictable was--if sometimes fun--dangerous. And he could not afford risk right now.

He tried to sense for any active magic, anything that might still be affecting the Orthoclase, but either there was nothing or his magic failed him. There was no resonant spark, nothing alarming in it at all.

This was... odd.

@Orthoclase-Alpha