ENTER DRACONUA.

All rippling hide and sinew (twitching involuntarily with a perpetual chaotic overflow) she near-slithered out from beneath the Black Spire. The scent of burning hair clung to her, and a fresh scar shimmered in the high-contrast light. Sanguine face-plate lifting, the monster pulled herself free and up to her full height; black eyeholes leaking Oil, she gazed at Vargas first, then the creature at his side.

If Nemean were here, she'd surely have gone the whole nine yards for this Creature Feature: throwing in a light show, confetti—Hell, an entire orchestral number and swelling crescendo. There'd have been pyrotechnics and special effects to make any haunted house jealous. Fog would've started to billow from the Valkhound's den long before Vargas even gave off the cue.

The Sleepless Chaos made her own entrance: her jaws tore open with the hideous shrrrip! of flesh, and a spark of entropy careened out of a blackened gullet.

It arced straight for one of Vargas's limbs—any one would do for the dramatic effect—and the whip-crack of thunder was nearly as deafening as her high-pitched, keening roar directed at no one in particular: "WHAT?"

@V-Chaos-Two

Chaos-Two didn't feel dread at first. It was like the world went in slow motion, giving them a few seconds before the tsunami crashed over their head.

’Her?’, they thought, 'Of course, Vjira. Vargas already knows everything- or most things- so having a blank canvas to see my strategies would be the easiest to see progress with.’

It seemed logical, at least until Chaos-Two registered that the name spoken was not Vjira. Their blood froze and they couldn't breathe for a moment.

"I-I'm sorry," they sputtered, "D-Draconua?"

Vargas had shouted it and they still hadn't quite registered it. Seeing the massive Valkhound crawl out from beneath the spire like a newt from a stone made them feel physically ill, and they were sure their quills were going to fall out from the stress. They were flat to their back and they knew they were gaping, eyes wide and knuckles white. Their bad feeling had been correct and they hated that.

Thankfully, Chaos-Two didn't pass out, but it was a very close thing.

"You're serious," they said faintly, glancing to Vargas before staring back at Draconua, trying very hard not to show fear, because they were pretty sure she could smell it.

At least Vargas would find their fear hilarious. Seeing their spawn almost shaking with terror at the prospect of trying to interact with Draconua, let alone teach her anything. Oh yes, gut-wrenchingly hilarious.

@Vargas

GM Note: This roll was corrected to Other. (CJ)
> Previously: 7 - V-Chaos-Two attempts to Cast Spell — Dissipate ( this isnt actually a spell i just need a better threshold for not fainting ) - Barely Successful!"

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas sprang back, a powerful and almost slow-motion leap that seemed to take him a full fifteen feet away. He landed neatly, six eyes narrowing at the black lightning sizzling where he'd just been standing--and then at Draconua. "DO NOT STRIKE AT ME. This one will be teaching you a lesson. Learn, or do not. Success or failure is on its head."

Vargas did not give the criteria for failure, or success. He just presented the test--and then backed away, observing to see how Chaos-Two reacted. Only its single question--"you're serious?"--garnered any sort of address from him. And this response held a tone of reproach. "An impertinent question. You may begin."

@Draconua

"You're serious," as sin!

Draconua glared up—or down?—both up and down at Vargas, neck craning and rearing back. She had half the mind to utter a wheezy hiss, but… incidentally, he had spoken to her about this beforehand. A little bit of planning, if vague. Not enough to keep her from grinning as the Master bounded away and shouted.

If the Sleepless Chaos could actually smell fear, she made no mention of it; instead, she just leveled Chaos-Two with her perpetually grinning look. She was waiting—and not at all patiently, judging from the way her flanks jittered and hooked claws kneaded at the seemingly living stone.

@V-Chaos-Two

Chaos-Two gritted their teeth and took a moment, trying to figure out what the hell to even do. It was Draconua, a living conduit of chaos and destruction, the very opposite of what Chaos-Two was. Where Draconua was wild and fierce, Chaos-Two was calm and collected, where she lived for death and destruction, they strove for peace and tranquility.

But aside from that, they assumed Draconua knew how to hunt and find water, seeing as she hadn't died yet and Vargas wasn't going to go out to catch meadow deer at her every beck and call. She seemed as healthy as someone constantly leaking black ooze could be, despite the wounds that seemed to cover her body constantly from her own magic backfiring.

"I assume you can hunt and find water," they said, voice shaking only slightly, a statement rather than a question.

At this moment, rudeness didn't matter unless it pissed Draconua off. If they pissed her off, they were dead. She was as unpredictable as a tornado, and twice as dangerous. One wrong move and Vargas would have one less spawn to worry about.

’Survival,’ they thought bitterly, ’Couldn't I have picked something easier, like, oh I don't know, basket weaving?!’

A lightbulb seemed to turn on, and their brows flew up. Draconua already knew the main parts of survival. Food, water, shelter, and, they supposed, stabilizing. So they could go ahead to the more nuanced parts that would make such things easier. Not basket weaving exactly, but it was a start. No no, they had a better idea, one that would appeal to Draconua, one that they'd learned from one of their own charges.

"We'll start right now," Chaos-Two said, and shook out their quills, not to make themselves look bigger, but if they were puffed up a little, they shook and rattled less, and their fear was less apparent, "There's no use teaching you what you know. You can hunt both prey and gembound, defend yourself, find a place that will provide protection and shelter..."

"There's no way you'll make allies," they said, almost talking to themselves, "But in these caves, if you don't, then you have thousands of gembound against you, and that's not ideal. So I will rephrase; there's no way you'll make allies conventionally."

They'd smirk if Vargas wasn't here, and maybe if Draconua wasn't, because smiling right now seemed as impossible as growing wings, "So I will teach you manipulation. Subtlety."

They looked up to meet Draconua's many eyes, "We will begin now."

Chaos-Two dredged up what memories they had of Vedette, of her screeching, grating voice, how she managed to plant seeds of doubt into their heart, how she even managed to manipulate Vargas, in a way. She was smarter than she seemed, much smarter, and much more patient than anyone had given her credit for. She was a little monster.

They analyzed the expressions, the lies, the tones of voice, gathering up everything from the back of their head. They remembered when she seemed to soften, when she didn't grumble and didn't actually mind it when Chaos-Two pet her head, giving them hope that kindness was under there, only to snatch that hope away with another tantrum, another fit of rage and swears. She was so cruel.

Oh Vargas might actually hate them for this.

"Do you know how to flirt?", they asked suddenly, and yes, they were absolutely, dead serious.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas turned, firing Draconua one last brief glare (half-amused, half-sour; he didn't appreciate having fucking chaotic lightning shot at his feet, but at least it had been avoidable). He paced away a good distance--a safe distance--some twenty or thirty feet. Far enough to avoid the fallout of entropic tantrums, close enough to hear every word said.

It was, after all, only a body length or two for him.

He did not speak, and he did not give any hint as to his internal thoughts. He merely observed.

Sharp eyes flicked between the Sleepless Chaos and her would-be tutor, and he watched as Chaos-Two went from hesitation and uncertainty--thinking aloud--to sudden, obvious, inspiration. They continued to sort of think aloud, a brief monologue, and then began a lesson he most certainly hadn't taught.

Well.

This would be interesting to watch, if nothing else.

The Leviathan settled in to see just how well this "chaos and seduction" teaching, and learning, would go.

@Draconua

(it may be worth swapping post order to chaos-two -> drac -> vargas?)

The Sleepless Chaos narrowed her eyes—where Chaos-Two could not see them, of course—and tipped her head down by a few degrees. Her body remained fairly rigidly straight, not reflecting the very, very thin layer of interest clouding her otherwise dismissive, tired, and annoyed aura.

At the assumption, she merely nodded. The creature went on, and the sanguine faceplate that was Draconua's face moved further down and canted to one side (a bit like a dog, if the dog wasn't an enormous valkhound.)

"There's no way you'll make allies," they'd muttered to themselves, and the monster had no choice but to put on a lopsided half-grin. Of course.

Features arranged just short of thinly-veiled amusement, she huffed a laugh, interrupting after the oxymoron that was a Draconua associated with subtlety: "I do not exist just to fraternize." Oilslicked teeth winked out in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it grin; should she remind this one what she stood for? Had they forgotten her explosive entrance into this Cave, as disastrous as it'd been for herself, so strangely unfamiliar with her magic?

"Do you know how to flirt?"

Talons shuffled, ugly head rearing back up. Hold that thought.

"What's that?"

@V-Chaos-Two

Chaos-Two was relieved to see some interest. At least they were doing something right in terms of entertaining Draconua.

"Flirting," they said with an inhale, "Is... a sort of teasing. A way to..."

How did they explain it? They knew an inkling of what it was, knew that Vedette didn't exactly flirt, but acted kind, offering praise and compliments and then snapping right back around with an insult.

"It's many things," they settled on, "Teasing, compliments, generally a good thing, but I want to teach you how to twist it to your own benefit. That being luring gembound into a sense of safety in order to get them close. Then, once they trust you, you can snap them up as easy as prey and break them. Mentally, emotionally. It's as useful as being able to fight, for what if you need to gain allies to fight a force greater than yourself, but you don't want to keep them around afterwards?"

They rubbed their hands together, "For example, myself. Right off the bat, I know that you are certain I am weak, helpless, even. And yet I've made a connection with someone much greater than I in order to protect myself."

Not exactly a lie, but put so bluntly that it was basically one at its core. Their relationship with Khavur was nothing but genuine, but in some aspects they had latched onto the other as a protector.

"But for you in particular, you could get yourself a group of gembound willing to follow you to death and gain power, then when you are done with them, you can simply toss them aside," they said, gesturing as if flinging an object away.

Chaos-Two waited, eyeing Draconua warily, hopeful that she'd agree and wish to learn how exactly to do such a thing.

@Draconua

A sort of teasing, the strange-shaped biped described it.

The Sleepless Chaos had been armed with rebukes about how inefficient such a thing would be, and how she might rather just take a more direct route. Perhaps some fearmongering and intimidation to get a rise out of something—or, a frenetic chase off the cuff?

(How fun that'd been in Orion, hm? Where was that little hoofed beast, the spitfire that he was?)

Yet, here she was, curiosity being piqued by the gall of such a thing, laying down a social snare for something to meander through. As if her more conventional methods—herding, cornering, trapping, the like—wouldn't do the trick. As if there were any force greater than herself in this horribly disfigured nest. Draconua's grin twisted into a snarl. Her expectations for her own abilities were far too great, but there had been little to disprove them; living proof was observing from a few meters off, but he went ignored.

Weight shifting, the valkhound lowered her head.

Indeed, Chaos-Two was weak, all twiggy and at a stiff breeze's mercy despite their apparent stature. The length of her main jaw was one full limb of theirs. A tooth could easily carve out a full bone. Worse yet, chaotic magic wracked her body in nigh-uncontrollable waves; it was wild, lethal, a horrible tumor upon her being that she embraced freely. For the rest of the caves, her being and her magic was a terrible combination.

The rest of the caves—"and who would it behoove me to… flirt with?" Aside from those fickle Masters and Guardians, there were none that'd garnered any modicum of respect or awe. Draconua narrowed her eyes (though that was clearly not visible to her new instructor) and grimaced plainly. "I cannot see anything worthwhile of any fate but death forced down their gullet," and was that… a promise?

a) apologies for the delay in posting aaa
b) i forgot what we said about post order as far as like. double posting and stuff, so i'm tagging both--
@V-Chaos-Two @Vargas

Chaos-Two swallowed as the Sleepless Chaos lowered herself down to their level, standing as tall as he could despite the fear running rampant through his veins, making his pulse beat quicker. Sure, he was scared, but bravery was overcoming that fear, wasn't it?

"For convenience, someone of the Chaos-Forge," he said, "Or myself if we're to get the first or second lessons done today."

"I cannot see anything worthwhile of any fate but death forced down their gullet."

They felt their quills quiver just a bit at the gruesome sentence, and winced ever so slightly. For a moment they wished they were blind again, if only to avoid her piercing gaze. They felt two seconds from being snapped up and made into her next meal.

"You took Nidhogg under your wing," they said quickly, "What makes that any different, Draconua? Don't you get some kind of fulfillment from your relationship? You say the only fate worthwhile of anyone else is death, and yet..."

A bluff, one he desperately hoped paid off.

"You could have more of that. You could have more followers, more people that worship the ground you walk upon, could have those who would bring you creatures to kill and decimate, could have gembound willing to be taught the ways of chaos," they said.

@Draconua
Chaos-two, then Drac, then Vargas, and then repeat! so you n me double post navy