Sora had been specifically requested here -- by Tahi-shei, who had more or less brought her against her will (he couldn't have physically forced her, she was stronger than that, she could've kicked his ass and broken his legs, but they'd fought fair and square and they'd tied of all things), and by Vargas, who'd told her to stay back so he could speak to her. No lengthy comment on her abilities like everyone else got, no waxing poetic or asking her questions -- just a quiet command to stay a little bit longer.

She was not the boss here, so she did. "You wanted to speak to me?" Sora rasped. She looked... healthy, at least, but not particularly happy. Water and cold had yielded to her well, and she'd adapted to it, even though she was technically a desert-dwelling animal. She blamed the magic she bore for her effectiveness in the cooler places of the world, though she doubted that it had been particularly on purpose. Random, as far as she knew.

But then again, Sora didn't know much. The Merchant had a stone like hers, chrysoberyl, and she had no knowledge of what his magic was. It was her greatest fear that he had created her.

She didn't offer any further words to Vargas; she just stood there and waited for him to pull her out of her melancholy line of thinking.

@vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

He paced to one side and lowered himself to his haunches, briefly distracted as he took note of the group preparing to move.

Vargas then looked to Sora, and nodded once. He looked her over again--studied her form, if briefly; wondered what it was that had allowed her to survive where the others had failed. Some of them had fled, he knew that. Was it just that-? The willingness to leave others to die? Well, ruthlessness had its place. But perhaps there was more he did not know. "You survived the trial; that much I remember. It is impressive, given how many did not. How did you survive it? And what have you survived since?"

They were blunt questions, but neither his tone nor his demeanor was demanding, as such. Presumptuous, maybe--the assumption that Sora would accept his questions as reasonable, and answer them; the assumption that his authority was in place, and all of that. But his was a near conversational tone of voice.

He had a point with all of this, it seemed: but it wasn't yet clear what that was.

@Sora

Sora drew in a somewhat shaky breath. There was an urge, of course, to smart off and snap at him. But the memory of Orthoclase-Alpha's claws, the cold look in Vargas's eyes during and after the Trials, and the simple fact that Tahi-shei had asked them to be polite... pacified her. She hesitated, and couldn't help but snort in some form of bitter amusement. "Sorry, sorry. Just... what have I survived since." Sora shook her head, grimacing more than smiling. "Your stupid owl for one. These scars?" she said, gesturing to the deep, angry talon lines in her flank and shoulders. "She was trying to take a piece out of me. Or did you not know that?" It had a bite of sarcasm to it, but simultaneously, Sora was genuinely trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. "She told me that she'd get your-- smaller version to come and kill me. I told her I'd hold my ground."

She hesitated, and sighed, breathing out her frustration. "... I've also survived my own grief. I've flirted with my own demise and my own feelings have been overwhelming. But I've survived them."

Sora could not ignore his first question, though, and paused to let herself pull herself together. "... I survived the Trial through luck. I had people who loved me, who were willing to save me at their own expense, even if I didn't want them to. Strangers and family alike." She shook her head to clear the screams away. "I didn't fall for the-- the tricks. I... did what I was told," she rasped, "and watched people I loved run into the shadows blindly while they demanded I save myself. So I did. I was pushed through the trial on wit and luck and the mercy of others. It is a shame I carry with me every day of my life and a guilt that I will never give up. I have lost everything, Master -- although, I never had much to begin with."

She pawed at the ground. "Your wannabe general picked me out because I'd survived a Trial. I did not have the heart to tell him why."

Would her answers disappoint him? They disappointed her. Perhaps she was underselling herself -- Sora had been the first to point out that the cries of their friends were probably illusions. She had been the first to say that those lost to the shadows were well and truly gone. But she didn't really know if they had been, and she still carried that grief. "It was monstrous, what you did to us." Her eye closed for a moment, thinking. "And now that I'm thinking about it, I suppose my only question for you is... why?"

@vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

He had hoped for something practical; something useful. Something more than a tirade, and he felt disappointment when the swine first attributed her success to mere luck, and then spoke of her own misery (weak, he thought grimly) and her anger. But he didn't dismiss her words; instead he tilted his head, staring down, and addressed them. He was somewhat confused at the first, at the mention of an owl.

"We do not 'have'--that is to say, they are not 'my'--creatures of your... type. Your generation. I do not have an 'owl.'" He thought then of Kethri, puzzled. "Do you speak of that white one-? Ahh... Kethri. It is not ours, though it was aiding in research of some kind. An adjunct, at best; but she has no authority to speak for me. Nor would I send anyone to reinforce her. If I see her I will make that much clear," he added, and there was distinct and very severe threat in this. He did not appreciate others using his name as their weapon, particularly when he had given them no authorization to do so. A pause, and then--slightly more puzzled--"I have no 'smaller version.' There is only me." What exactly had the owl threatened--and why?

On she went, then. 'I didn't fall for the-- the tricks. I... did what I was told,' and Vargas noted this mentally, with more approval.

For a moment, Vargas had no idea who Sora meant, when she spoke of a 'wannabe general,' and it took him a few moments to realize that she must mean the deer Tahi-shei. By the time this clicked, she was accusing him, again, and he grunted and hastened to interrupt--or, rather, to answer, as it seemed that she was finished, now. "I did not arrange that trial, if that is your accusation. I have told you before, I believe: but for the most part, this cave is a nest. A place to create an army; and to test them. The trials are precisely that: to trial new designs. Those who survive are deemed suitable, and rewarded, and given further rights. Of course, there are always those who do not, but that is the cost of war." He said this with mostly indifference, but it was a wonder Sora was getting the full explanation at all--and a sign of how much the times had changed. In ages past, as an Overseer, he'd have responded with curt information or even a physical strike; but now that he held the rank of Master, his responses held the patience he was now allowed to display. "But back to your claim that what I did was monstrous, and your question. There is a weapon held by the army that requires periodic feeding, of sentient beings; it feeds off fear as much as life and blood. Rarely does it need to eat, and the Merchant organizes its containment, and its sustenance. I presume he raised some of your generation to serve as a source for it--but he did not raise enough. You were created to be food, in short. But you survived." He was not pitying in his words, nor was he defensive: it was a matter-of-fact explanation.

Really, it was like explaining to a suddenly-sentient pig exactly what bacon was.

"Regardless, I wished to speak to you not for platitudes and justifications, but simply to suggest that if you did survive his machinations--and you are one of the ones raised as food, and not a soldier--then you must hold some worth in war." He paused, considering. "If you perform well in Ursa, and if you wish it, there are more opportunities for you in Draco. We could perhaps see about further altering your form, or granting you a greater security, or the right to reproduce with some of the more formidable stones we hold. That is an offer, and not a demand," he added, to cut off any potential rebuke, with a faintly stern tone.

Then he pushed up, and waited to see what she would say--either in argument, or in question.

@Sora

Sora shook her head minutely and spoke more clearly. "Your child, I presume. The one who almost killed my-- almost killed Morganite? They lost their mother, I believe. I... would have been angry, too." She shrugged, as best she was able. She had been angry. She'd lost family, too. She knew how it felt -- although, Orthoclase-Alpha was lucky that it had not seen the destruction of the Trial. Not that she'd ever tell it that. Nobody was truly lucky after they lost someone they loved.

Being told of war, of creating soldiers, filled her with equal parts confusion and mistrust. She was not trained as a soldier -- she wasn't trained for anything at all. Her and her siblings had been left to their own devices, with the bare minimum of food and care provided. But, perhaps surprisingly, Vargas's explanation of the shadow monster... pacified her. "... So it was necessary, and not needless cruelty?" she said, not exactly asking but instead thinking out loud. Her tone was quiet, somewhat far away. It had still been cruel, of course, but... Sora was by her very nature a protector. If there was risk of such a creature escaping, of it unleashing carnage upon more than just a controlled group of hand-raised prey, well. Then there was... significantly less reason for her to be angry, and a significant amount of her rage melted away.

She couldn't argue with the necessity of maintaining a weapon, even if it had led to great loss. Vargas's statement to her cycles earlier that her life was a privilege came to mind again, and she found herself quietly unable to dispute it, now that she knew the full story. This was a place to create soldiers, then--? And a place to make weapons. But this weapon, it had required feeding, and so some creatures had been created to feed it. They needed to be able to fear it. There had to be cruelty involved. She wondered if there were a better way, but none really came to mind.

Perhaps anyone who knew Sora well would have been surprised at her shift in demeanor -- but the simple fact was, even if she had not been bred to be a soldier, she thought like one. "... That is a kind offer," she said, tone gentler than it had been. "I don't think I have an answer for you now, but I'll consider it." She felt a cold, awful feeling pull through her. Perhaps the Masters -- or, at least, this one -- weren't as bad as she'd previously thought. Still bad, but... well, Vargas was offering her security and a chance to be beautiful again.

In truth, Sora did have an answer -- but it was an impulsive one, and allying yourself with a Master, she had already realized, was not something that one did on impulse. So she did need to mull it over, and maybe even ask Tenzin what he thought of it.

"Is there anything else you need?"

@vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Needless cruelty?

He was rather surprised at this question, and his impulsive answer--which would have been a wise one if it were most of the cave he were discussing--came to a grinding halt with a single thought: Nemean. So he rephrased his answer with grim amusement in his mind, but a serious tone, and spoke to Sora carefully.

"Needless cruelty, necessity... That is a complicated answer. For the most part, yes, it was necessary; for the most part there is no needless cruelty in these caves. It is a practical place and there are duties to be performed, tasks to be handled. But your question reaches past practicality and into philosophy." Vargas wasn't a particularly philosophical type; it certainly wasn't something he dwelt on often but he was also not an idiot, nor unaware of the raging cries of the hunted and the damned. He'd be lying if he claimed he hadn't considered them, however dispassionately, after a hunt.

"If you have many that perform these tasks, undoubtedly some will treat their tasks more callously than others. One might weigh your life to be insignificant, your suffering even less. Others even come to enjoy suffering, and might torment you simply for the joy of it." (This was where Nemean came to mind.) "The Merchant finds no joy in such things, but nor does he find mercy for the doomed. I doubt he understands the meaning of the word. But for the most part: yes, these caves run on necessity alone. No: I have no other questions for you. That was all," he added, nodding off toward the rest--as if to suggest to Sora that she was free to leave, if she so wished.

He did not state whatsoever where he lay on that scale--the practical murderer, or one who rather enjoyed such work.

He made no mention of Orthoclase-Alpha, either--but he tucked that fact into his mind for future use.

@Sora

For a very long time, Sora had held a sort of fury inside her. A storm-like rage, stoked by fire and flood and frost from the depths of the desert. Loss and anger, with every slight like flint and steel to tinder. But something seemed too... melt out of her now. Finally, after so many cycles, she had an explanation. It was not a kind one, or a merciful one, but it was honest, and she could accept it. Especially in Vargas's assessment of the Masked Merchant.

His actions had been cruel, certainly. But if Vargas and the creature himself truly believed they were necessary, then Sora struggled to argue with them. It was not forgiveness, but instead there now sat a lack of hatred in her chest -- and, more importantly, a lack of fear. She almost commented on removing those who took unnecessary pleasure from their cruelty from their positions, but came upon an answer herself -- Who is to say that their replacement would not also be cruel, and so on, and so forth? The only way to truly stop the cruelty is to change the system, and I'm not sure if any of them know how.

She certainly didn't. So, she didn't say anything of it.

"An... interesting system. Not a good one," she said, eyeing Vargas as best she was able, "but not one that I am in any position to argue against. Thank you, Master -- you have been kind to humor me. And kinder still to make your offers." She sighed. "I'll think on it. For now, we have a war to prepare for."

She was not created to be a soldier. But she was one now. With a last nod, she turned to leave -- unless he stopped her, of course. It wasn't like she was going to risk incurring his wrath by just fleeing if he had more to say.

/exit unless stopped

@vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

He studied her, for a moment, taking in her words like a brief sip: 'not a good one, but not one that I am in any position to argue against.' Honest, though he was curious as to what she would replace it with; he was not so blindly faithful that he would ignore new perspectives. "You are welcome to offer alternatives, when we have more time for that. If a truly better system were offered, you would be heard." Of course, in Vargas's mind, he was thinking "better," "good," in terms of practicality. He didn't know if Sora meant the same, or something more akin to ethics, but it didn't occur to him that it might even be the latter--or to ask.

"Use caution," was his last piece of advice, given in a tone of warning, with a nod out to the others. "This excursion will be a test of those involved as much as a true assault. I cannot speak for their effectiveness. Should you wish to avoid this trial, I doubt it will miss you as you are; physical combat will not win the day here. But you are welcome to fight." This was advice given as some form of inside knowledge, and perhaps he felt that she had earned it. Her comrades had thrown their lives to the maw of the shadow-beast. And Ursa would be a new test: not one of his design, no, but a test nonetheless, as all things were.

A test of their ability to plan, to strategize, to lead. Perhaps the Gembound would show incredible foresight and resolve, and plan and execute a brilliant assault. Perhaps they would stumble blindly through Ursa and find nothing, or fall into Dontacael's traps. Vargas did not know.

He did know that if they failed, he would have Draconua incinerate them all; and perhaps Sora would rather not be present for such a failsafe.

@Sora (for visibility)
exit Vargas