Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

strong language

Restless energy kept Nemesis on the move. Her magic had been corrupted, fucked up in some particularly disquieting way. It bothered her when she called for heat and got ice shot through her veins instead. She had found Leo-- a place of heat and molten rock, and decided that she wasn't going to leave until the cold that had entered her body was gone for good.

She ventured away from the hotter portions of Leo to eat, naturally. The other half of the cave had plenty of mosses and grasses, florishing on the rich soil, warmth, and moisture. It wasn't the best tourist destination for someone who liked it dry, but her skin was appreciating it.

Today, her wandering brought her upon an unusual sight. She froze in place as the smell of blood made her nostrils flare, her eyes locking on the flash of green. She recognized it the instant it recognized her, and then, in a flash, the beast bolted.

A carcass of one of the many varieties of cave deer lay forgotten, looking smattered across the rocky floor. Nemesis barely registered the corpse except as the source of the smell, but she was already racing after the Orthoclase by the time that thought flickered across her brain. Why was Alpha running? Yes, their sole interaction had been less than ideal, but that had been cycles ago-- some instinct sturred and spurred her after it at breakneck speed.

Why?

It had been too long since she had seen it. She wanted to know. Was it selfish? Hah, yeah. But she wasn't one to be altruistic in the first place. Stubbornly, she gave chase, if only to answer that question. "Hey! Wait!" She bellowed after it, half expecting it to whirl back at the drop of a dime and lash out at her.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

The lights were on upstairs, but there wasn't exactly anyone home; Alpha's presence had departed without so much as a farewell, and left an orthoclase performing the animalistic minimum. It slunk through the undergrowth of Leo, occasionally stared across the ocean, fled from any moving figure not immediately recognizable as Lesser (and ignored whatever calls nipped at its heels—especially Dread's.)

Still, it had felt the intrinsic satisfaction of a larger kill. More food to survive with, even if it was still struggling to keep anything more than ten or twenty pounds of meat actually in its stomach. It would've gnawed and nibbled until it started to get full, and then left the deer's carcass alone.

Would've.

As it were, it was overclocking its limbic system. Heavy footfalls had been enough to instantly trigger it, neurons firing and a flight response twitching through its entire body. Putrescent eyes whirled on the source, half-recognizing and half-calculating what trajectory to take. Forearms gouged deep trenches into the soil as it shoved upward, rattled its unkempt (filthy, really) quills, and lurched off in the total opposite direction of the rhinoceros.

Hardly a shred of its muscle or weight had been regained, and every tendon screamed protest while it crashed through the undergrowth. It was the picture of noisy desperation: it barely spent more than a millisecond calculating its next step, shoving aside a branch, or urging the wind to follow its feet. Couple the lattermost with the orthoclase's being... just alive and raw (prey animal) panic, and its stone was throbbing.

Nemesis's voice fell on deaf ears as it thundered ahead.

It had not a clue what part of Leo's jungle it was leading either of them into, or if it would wind up in a dead-end copse, but—

(Alpha whimpered somewhere in there, made frantic and awakened by that uncomfortable familiarity: she was there. I hurt her, she will hurt me. She knows him and will tell him and I'm not ready yet—)

—it needed to just get away.

@Nemesis

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

strong language

The chase was on. Thankfully, the Orthoclase was huge, and tore through the jungle like a bulldozer. It was not hard, even for Nemesis with her bulky frame and horns that might otherwise snag on branches, to follow the path laid bare by the beast's wake.

Most gembound would give up on such a chase eventually, as they tore hell through Leo. It seemed like nothing would stop Alpha, and if it were not for Nemesis's unrelenting stubbornness, they might have gotten away even at such a wild, thoughtless pace.

Finally, however, the earth rose in jagged walls, and the jungle suffocated around them. Orthoclase-Alpha's stampede ran them straight into a dead end. Nemesis slowed, realizing perhaps before Alpha did. Would they try to climb the sheer walls to escape her? That might work, if they could get a grip. More likely, though, she expected them to round on her and attack. Any other gembound might be deterred by that: Orthoclase-Alpha was not the sort of creature you wanted to corner if you wanted to keep your limbs intact.

Nemesis had two things on her side though. Stubbornness, obviously. And the fact she had fought the feral thing and won, to some degree. Her dark eyes settled on their form, putting her bulky frame between them and their only exit short of scrambling up a sheer cliff.

"Alpha," she grunted, lowering her head to protect her body with her large frill and horns, but otherwise digging in her heels. "What the hell?" Their quills were a mess, their frame covered in muck and dirt. Some of it looked older than what the recent scramble would have done. Had they been living out here? What about their... father, or whatever that purple bastard was? Shit.

"Breathe, right? Relax. I ain't gonna fuck with you. Gonna stand right here 'til you find your sense." Why did they run? Why did they look like they already got the shit kicked out of them? She stared them down as thought she would get an answer, even as it seemed exceedingly likely that she wouldn't get much more than teeth and quills and panic from 'em.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

Severe Panic Attack
She's following, most stop— its adrenaline-addled conscience warbled, tolling every alarm there was. Every footstep—regardless of its owner—was deafening amid the too-loud shifting of branches and soil in their wake. They amplified and warped into many more. It reminded the orthoclase of a swarm of black shadows descending, or, perhaps, a wild hunt of spectres and Gembound alike.

It was convinced that was prey. Putrescent eyes fixed dead-ahead in a wild-eyed frenzy, hyperfocused on only immediate obstacles.

By the time it noticed a sheer cliff cutting it off from the rest of the jungle highway, it was too late.

Head tipping upwards, it scrambled to slow down. Quills flared limply, knocking noisily against chipped and cracked plates. Haunches uncoiled in a springing motion, but their joints stuttered and went slack mid-action. Hooked talons met the stone, grabbing for whatever crevasse they could. Only one caught a grip, and it was quickly relinquished as gravity claimed the orthoclase again. It twisted and thrashed as it fell, but landed on its side all the same.

Acidic blood dribbled down its forearms as it shoved to its feet and stumbled to whirl back on Nemesis.

She was alone, but surely there were others waiting in the wings; preparing to sweep in from the clifftops, maybe. The jungle was too quiet, everything was too loud. Leo's light was blinding, and it wanted nothing more than to squeeze into a crack in the earth.

Where's the circus tiger pacing its cage, understimulated with slavering jaws? This was a cornered beast, quivering in reflexive fear and total terror. It'd realized that it had just one escape route; and, its successful navigation was slim to none. Death grew increasingly more probable.

What could it do, then?

A heaving flank smashed against the wall furthest from the mutant beast, and dragged down its surface. The orthoclase crouched as far as it could without its legs giving out. It tucked its chin in towards its chest, toxic points—terribly-arranged as they were—rolling and fanning outward. Wild eyes set on her, flinching minutely as she spoke.

It'd not had need of its throat in weeks. Even before, by its lonesome, it hadn't given any of its thoughts voice; except through the occasional low grumble of (dis-)content. After time in total isolation, the flow of idle noise had ground to a complete halt. It ghosted silently from place to place, dull eyes looking out from elsewhere. Fishhook teeth hadn't parted one bit, except to sink into flesh—or, now, to snap pitifully in Nemesis's general direction.

(To say it was uncomprehending wasn't entirely true; its name made it reflexively meet the rhinoceros's eyes, where it'd wandered off to watch more dangerous parts of her body, the way skin shifted and churned over clean-cut scars that it had caused.)

It let loose a hiss that quickly declined into a feeble, whistling breath. Alpha flinched at it and the resulting agony of its throat, immediately scrubbed raw with disuse. "G-oh—" it tried, but the sound snapped, crackled, and popped all through its gullet. Vocal chords screamed their protest, and the monstrous thing forgot to breathe for a moment.

Which was, of course, jarring, considering it was exhaling quicker than it could get a single bit's air actually in its lungs.

@Nemesis

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

strong language

Limbs buckled, crouching down. Nemesis waited, each breath slow and shallow as even she scarcely dared to breathe. She watched, as their flank pressed against the wall, as every violent twitch came with every sound that rustled the air.

Shit, what a mess, was all she could think. The beast hissed, quills scratching the stone underneath, looking more like a mangled, mange-carrying hound than the powerhouse she had met before. Then again, she felt like she had seen the signs. How many gembounds had cracked, had grown ill, had she watched lose their minds? It was any wonder that she didn't simply write Alpha off and turn away. Maybe it was because their hide made her think of her own, their fight as determined, once, as her own.

Truthfully, it was a mothering instinct that kept her there. She had never known this gembound as a child, and perhaps it was belittling and downright patronizing coming from her. Maybe it was less Alpha, and more the way their bastard of a keeper kept them in line before her, just that once. Just enough to have made an impression. Just enough to make her wary, and watchful. The phrases, Overseer and Master leaving a foul taste on her tongue whenever she thought of them. Part of her regretted not chasing them down sooner, but... would she have had a chance to have a real interaction with them then, either?

Alpha's voice rasped, and failed. They struggled to breathe. "Shhhhh," she hushed, slowly, and cautiously, turning her horns away from Alpha, easing herself down one foot at a time to settle on to the floor before them. They could try to run, try to bolt over her, but she held hope that simply blocking the path with her body would be enough. Then, she held hope that showing calmness and a lack of aggression, would be enough to let their guard lower.

"Shh, now," she repeated. She instructed: "Breathe." And she waited, eyes not leaving theirs for a second.

Far above, a bird settled upon a gnarled branch. Too insignificant for any to notice in the chaos of Orthoclase-Alpha's terror-induced retreat. The sound more than anything had attracted the creature, ears pricked forward to listen now that the chase had reached a dead end. The little shadow had been tailing the monster here and there, appearing every so often as nothing more than a lesser in passing.

Today, it had simply missed the particularly troubling rhinoceros creature until it was too late. Whatever it was, it knew Alpha's name, and that meant the spy was even more on edge. Narrowed, blood red eyes strained to watch from the perch high above, talons-- or perhaps claws-- sinking into wood.

The assassin waited.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

Severe Panic Attack
Down the trinoceros went, rippling hide turning to a peculiar… softness; dark eyes too-dilated to showcase the gentleness of the sea turned away from it. A whispering, like waves and foam combing the shore for a stray shell or lapping at ankles, rumbled from her chest. Her body remained an obstacle in its path, turned just slightly so that it would be perpendicular to any and all jagged, sheer walls.

In effect, the stony cul-de-sac had become quite a bit of an inescapable end.

The turning of horns—a gun's barrel, if you will—away from it did seemingly nothing to help, because there Orthoclase-Alpha was, continuing to gasp for air like there was not enough oxygen to fill its chest. A hare rampaged against the scarred tissue, eliciting a coughing, wheezing fit where voice was failing it. Bile rose in its throat, and the steel wool of disuse cut its flood down. A tang filled its maw, rising into olfactory sensors and serving to only overwhelm it.

It hacked up a gob of blood onto the ground, and suddenly whirled in place to stare at it.

Putrescent green, illuminated by its own strange, alien biology—even as it lay in the stony soil. It'd lacked a coarse consistency before it'd saturated the dirt, but it couldn't help but to backpedal and glance at Nemesis through the corners of its eyes. Jaws snapped tightly shut, and it took an unsteady—but proper—breath of air. A subtle shake of the head made it teeter on the spot.

Alpha swung to gaze at her, eyes glassy with dizziness and a head swimming with just too many thoughts all permutations of: this is too much weakness; I am exposed; I hate being treated like I'm fragile because I am and I don't—; she knows him and will tell him where I am; danger danger dangerdangerDANGER—) all at once.

It stared at her, every rhythm in its body uneven, gawping and desperately looking for a way to express its want for her to leave that did not involve closeness, involve torturing its throat, involve trying to pass by.

Everything came up empty. Something clicked distantly in its mind—remember the comparison to a cornered animal?

Muscles, joints seized into place, locking fast with no chance of jimmying the pins. They moved of their own accord, a reflexive action while it still had the space to do so (because it knew what it could do; there was proof right there. It'd supply more proof—) and carried it forward in a shambling two-step beat. Hooked talons swept up—a pitiful sort of growl managed to steal its way from its throat—and back down at whatever part of Nemesis Alpha could scrape.

Soon as the motion was complete, it blinked, started, and scrambled back for the wall. Jaws worked, gaping much like a fish out of water, and tried again: "g-go."

Regret flared hot in its gut, for not the fact that it had attacked, but that it'd initiated when it could not follow up. It could not fight in this—this pathetic state. It did not remember mauling her and letting her blood soak its quills through, but it still knew what'd it'd done, knew that she had grounds for revenge, typical (and still incomprehensible) Gembound kindness aside.

Dread came to mind, and it recoiled immediately, cowering further into itself, and lifting an arm—the same one it'd just used to try and attack—to guard its face.

@Nemesis

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

strong language

Side-eyeing Alpha as the caged animal coughed up a glob of (vomit? bile? blood? it was hard to tell) mess, she breathed slowly, willing herself to remain calm. This wild display of panic, was that all it was? Nemesis had experience with madness, but not so much terror on such a drastic level. She worried that it was sick, injured, and even if it wasn't... This reaction was unhealthy.

Her limbs jerked under her as Orthoclase-Alpha surged forward, getting one foot under her body as hooked talons swiped so close she could feel them catch her hairs. Lucky not any closer, and then it scrambled back again. Shit, her thoughts whispered.

Again, Alpha rasped for her to go. "Nu-uh," she responded softly, giving the slightest shake of her head, ever so cautious as to not wave her horns at the frightened child. Even if the Orthoclase had to have been several cycles into adulthood, this-- she couldn't help but see it as a child. One that didn't know how to handle its emotions, one that was frightened and scared of its own damn shadow.

Bet they see it as nothing but a danger, she grimaced, though the 'they' didn't mean anyone specific for once. For fuck sakes. This was not the intention actions of something in control. Nemesis knew wild, and Alpha was a wildfire burning so out of control that it threatened to turn to ash.

Nemesis reached a foot forward, toward Orthoclase-Alpha. Toes dug into the soil, and slowly, the heavy tri-horned rhinoceros began to slowly inch closer like a fucking turtle. Her belly scrapped the floor, her horns held away, her breathing as even as she could muster. Her body lurched awkwardly as she shimmied her weight, readjusting her feet with each shuffling motion.

She looked absolutely ridiculous. Any second, the fucker might just try to leap over her or turn her into roadkill too. But ain't no way was she not going to try. "Shhhh," she urged, "I ain't going anywhere. Breathe, bud. Breathe. Come're," she said, stopping short to tap her foot on the ground, "lay down and rest a minute. I'm not gonna fight you."

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

Continued Severe Panic Attack
Blood raging, pulsing, roaring through its eardrums, it still felt the snag-and-tear of denial; "nu-uh," she said, head shaking with a slowness that it despised for infantilizing it, weakening it in her perceptions—

(When you peeled back all that carapace, saw the violent indigo and violets beneath, what did you find?

A second, snarling beast, or something soft and vulnerable, incapable of defending itself against any single response that wasn't wholly somatic?

Something caught between the horrific wiles of adulthood-plus-incorrigible traumatic response and a childhood that was never fully lived, never fully expressed or learned from?

No wonder it'd regressed so hard. It did not know better. A thorny desert rose and a garnet's shouting behind not-at-all soundproof warren walls—their manicured behavior elsewhere, obedience painted in harsh refuse on their faces—were all it'd known as a child.

That'd been a time where it did express disdain and it could ask questions to understand the world around it, silly as they could've been at times—"is Vargas my parent?"

Of all things, it'd never once been outright punished for just wanting or wanting to know something.)

It came out of its brief daze almost like a neonate slicked over with its own newness, putrescent eyes blinking and refocusing on the vastness of the lights above—a cave whose ceiling was so high that it almost imitated a blue sky no one had ever seen. Stomach lurching, Alpha's entire body jerked in a way similar to that feeling of being nearly asleep, then plummeting through a void to make sure one was still breathing.

Except, it'd remembered, again, that Nemesis was here. She was here and edging closer unheeding of its warnings and its pleas. Alpha'd struck out at her, and despite missing, that was contact, that was assault. A puffing fury had met it before (it can't stop thinking about before, its Master shouting over an uproar and descending into an arena—no, it didn't want to remember—)

The trinoceros shuffled closer, still murmuring, still turning her sights away, still teasing at a shriveled, atrophied part of the monster's heart. Her promises, earnest as they might've been, did not assure it.

If she wasn't going to go— if she was going to keep crowding in and in— keep putting it in dangerdangerDANGER—

"S-ss…" it rasped, thicker now, inky blackness filling the corners of its glazing-over vision, "ss-sorry." The spined arm did not come down, but it all but collapsed on the ground with a heavy thump! (Unintentionally fulfilling at least one of Nemesis's requests for it, but—)

Orthoclase-Alpha shuffled in place, adjusting so that at least its head was still facing her, teeth snapping weakly with every wheezing gasp, every dragging of belly across soil. Its free hand clawed at and grappled with the earth. Quills rattled an unsteady, unintimidating rhythm. "G-," it tried once again before aborting it, snapping its teeth soundlessly in Nemesis's direction.

It didn't blink once for the longest time—and not because it didn't want to lose a second's keeping an eye on the cow, but because it knew the familiar stinging of its eyes. Alpha, shredded to pieces as it was, was desperately clinging to every shred of dignity it had left; what else was there, if it couldn't fight back like before?

@Nemesis

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

strong language

Sorry. Sorry? What did she say to that? Hell, she was more sorry for it than she needed apologies in return. Of course it lashed out at her. She had chased it, cornered it, but damn if she wasn't trying to help.

And then, it caved.

Good... Shit, could this even be called good? It was about near as far as good as it could be; but there was relief when Orthoclase-Alpha collapsed.

Nemesis watched it for a long moment, letting it breathe, and then, she took a deeper breath, and exhaled a heavy sigh that had been building up in her chest. "No worries, bub," she answered, low and steady, as she shifted. She turned her head away from Alpha then and let her eyes close, eased back her weight and settling her spine toward the massive kaiju.

Calm. Since when did I become the calm one? Her heavy armor leaned back, as if to offer a shoulder for the big fella. I'm getting old.

"Don't need to talk. Your voice sounds like shit. Just shush," she grunted, scrapping her front foot through the dirt idly. Would that be enough? Shit, who knows what's running through their head. But stubborn as she was, she didn't see any point in trying to get it to talk right now. Better to just provide the best... comfort? she could. The one she offered her friends, as few and far between as they had been. Her sturdy, burning presence. A beacon the darkness.

@Orthoclase-Alpha