Flinch. A reflex born of shock, anticipation, watching the lead arc just a little too close to the top of one's ear, blistering cartilage and peach fuzz as it passes; perhaps the Zoisite's met all of those descriptors. That grew more and more certain with each stuttering inhale—each pistol-shot and flash of gunmetal grey—closed eyes, neck sinking downward into chitinous shoulders, bioluminescence dulling and the earth's abuse beneath hooked claws.

Their head shook. Orthoclase-Alpha dared to remember to breath.

And they choked on it as the vise snapped shut, as the garrote grew tighter and tighter. As the rabbit flails and wastes what precious supply of oxygen it had before running into the snare, Alpha set itself into an involuntary spasm. Flesh jittering beneath hide and quills. Whites flashing in the edges of its eyes as a hideous red glare crowded in. Diaphanous wings droned in the back of its skull, buzzing buzzing buzzing too loud.

"You don't have to pretend."

Failure failure failure failure FAILURE, CAN'T EVEN— The task'd been simple enough, so simple, and yet—it couldn't even manage to just talk. How simple, and it'd failed. Simple. Simple. Simple. FAILED.

Zoisite was still talking, moving along; and Orthoclase-Alpha still stood between the rows, frozen like a statue. Putrescent eyes too-wide, staring past a snout turned downward. Claws tore at roots and loamy soil. If they happened to glance back, they'd receive a mere uncomprehending nod.

FAILED.

@V-Zoisite-One

hm. content warning: panic attack, mentions of drowning/suffocation also

Silence.

Silence, still.

Did it judge them, damn them?

"You don't have to worry," Zoisite went on, desperately eagerly filling the silence with more and more, as though somehow the words could drown out the growing divide. If they didn't look back, they wouldn't see it. If they didn't look, they wouldn't feel it. "If anything were to happen, we're more than prepared to keep things safe. Of course, that's just the gardens... There are other guards in charge of keeping Draco safe. I'm certainly not a full time..."

The Zoisite paced down the whole length of the garden, rambling on to no one that was actually present. Pausing every few thoughts, until the silence struck them like a cattle prod to continue. "V-Labradorite-One, V-Selenite-One, Khavur, the Sentinel and Draconua all took part in the recent Deathmatch, as well, they all did well so I've heard... The Chaos Forge is stronger than ever."

A few more steps. Reaching the end of the line. "Our relations with other groups has been growing, as well." I have a friend, Pollen. I could introduce you... No. "Master Astraea came to teach us how to read and write... Communication without sound. Many gembound came and learned with us, at the Forge."

The Overseer had missed a lot, and the Zoisite could fill them in on--

Dead end. They had to turn around now. They slowly swung their head, turning carefully so as to not bump into the Orthoclase, if they had been following too close behind. Of course, the Zoisite hadn't need to worry about that. The Overseer was standing back where their offspring had left them, digging their claws into the soil like they were trying to grow roots.

Zoisite's gilded stare was broken by a series of blinks. Alpha suddenly was quite far away, small and statuesque. Someone had pulled the plug, and that terrifying, familiar emptiness stared back at them.

A tremble rattled down V-Zoisite-One's quills from end to end. The urge to race back toward Alpha was a mistake superseded by a sharp spike of agony that burst through its chest, shooting down all six legs and making it crumple forward on to collapsing forelimbs. Carapace twisted, tearing up the earth where the massive insect scrapped the earth, struggling to keep its head upright.

A choked sound gurgled up from its throat as it tried to dig its limbs free from the weight of its own body. Mandibles opened to let loose a cry, snapping shut to suffocate the sound. As it swallowed, breathing was like gulping down a bitter salt water instead of air. The dam finally broke, and V-Zoisite-One couldn't parse a single coherent thought from any of it.

It had to get out. Before it did ruined everything again. The weight of an ocean threatened crush its carapace from the inside out, and it was all it could do to scramble out of its own panic into someone... someone else's panic. It was like being snuffed out. Instead of drowning, flailing for the surface, all it suddenly felt was a crushing suffocation, scarcely able to breathe. Its view became blindingly bright, spots dancing in its vision. The buzzing static destroyed any chance to think. There was no safety here, as the impending sense of failure-- the Failure-- Zoisite's and Alpha's-- converged and imploded upon itself, a star's death. The black hole left V-Zoisite-One shuttering, limbs twitching and prone.

"... help," it cried, no louder than a wheeze, all the emotion sucked into a place where the light couldn't reach, "help."

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

severe derealization, talk of self-worth/failure, standard alpha fare
Start and stop. Ebb and flow. Someone in a booth, overseeing the production line. The sterile machinery malleable beneath their thumb and index finger; goes when desired, pauses only when malfunctioning—and that was when the silence dared to settle in. A horrible susurrus that drowned out the sound of leaves, their shadows chasing at scraps of sunlight over the crops. Gnawing on bones suddenly stripped bare by failure. Toeing the line, testing their weight on fragile, fragile, fragile glass that'd already shattered underfoot once.

Orthoclase-Alpha hadn't noticed that the grub—monster, grown, grown, grown, adjusted, with purpose and not at all the self-reflective failure it feared they'd both become—had moved off.

Funny that their narrative should compare it to attempting to grow roots with a twist of claws; for the jackrabbit in its chest yearned for anything but that. Perhaps the snare 'round its neck was one of the vines underfoot, haplessly stumbled into. Yet, the strangled beast glanced down and there was nothing. No tether to reality. No here and now quite like the ancient days of red dust and sitting at its Master's side. (Why did that memory haunt it?)

Slip, slip, slip goes its grip. V-Zoisite-One was still facing away (but, they're looking, they're turning, they're looking) and talking (no, no, what's that sound?) Convulsing on the ground, crumbling to the ground on shaking forearms— (kzzt!) tears spilling from gilt eyes as the grub decapitated a thrashing rat underfoot— (kzzt!) kneeling down to regard the plants. Each of these failures supplanted one another as quick as the click of a button, as a flash of static across the blank screen. Where's the tuner?

Zoisite was its failure.

But, was that their fault? How should something that had not known the tenderness of a mother—nay, of family, of home be expected to know what to do? To bond? Never before had Vargas made such a grand request: to have a Heart. Not in the sense of a heart, that which pumps oxygen and other essential atoms and molecules across the body, but in the capitalized H. To talk and communicate in a way that might not epitomize strength over all else, place mindless cruelty at the precipice of all success.

Alpha watched with a detached sort of terror as the insect writhed and cried out for help. So unlike the bugs smashing their wings against gray matter in a fruitless attempt to escape, buzzing buzzing buzzing. Eyeing a worm baking on the sidewalk in the Arizona sun, too far gone to save.

It should save them from whatever threat there is.

Putrescent eyes lazily slid away from, vision wading through ten miles of tar and swimming with the heat of the aforementioned sun (or was it the afterglow of the dying star that'd ripped Zoisite to shreds?) It swayed in a forward step, bile rising in its throat as it—maybe (or was this imaginary like the influx of memory overwhelming it?)—teetered for the withered rose in the garden. There'd be nothing to choke on if it's throat seized and stomach flip-flopped, but still yet it swallowed. A bitter taste swelled on its tongue, acidic and as vile as the venom staining tender, white-dressed flesh.

A tongue swiped over slavering jaws, muscle glowing as bright as its eyes dared to bleed out the faint understanding, detached and unrealized as it was. Its failure. It broke it. Somewhere along the line, it'd broken it. Forgotten a part here or there. Too much hope to share its success (had that ever been real?) pushed into that zoisite? Or had whatever shadowy figure (what was his name? his name?) cursed it? Predisposed the grub to disaster from the moment it erupted from its mottled chrysalis shell.

Doomed them both? What was it supposed to tell Vargas about this? Every cavalcade of crashing thought always circled back to that question.

The orthoclase swayed again where it stood: still far out of reach, still a flickering miasma at the edge of staticky vision. A ghost to chase forevermore, head tilting and still haloed by the light. All this was was a familiar sight. Ever on the receiving-end, once or twice on the giving; the seething anger of a split skull briefly assuaged by concern for another spawn who'd collapsed, come apart at the seams like this.

It thought it remembered waiting then.

... it could try to again, but I did this to it.

It broke it. Smashed the television set against the wall. Watched the glint of the bat as it sends a baseball careening through the window. Dared to break that fragile thing called silence by merely uttering its name. FAILED. It should have feigned silence like it did now, throat swollen shut and tasting the poison leeching from its teeth. The flesh grew more numb there. If only that'd spread to the rest of it.

Skull swollen and toying with the idea of a diaphanous-winged eruption, Orthoclase-Alpha glanced around again. Again, there was nothing but the hazy miasma of this... strange dream that the two of them occupied. Nothing but the sword hanging overhead, held up by just one remaining thread where all the others had frayed and snapped beneath the crushing gravity and ever-increasing pressure in its lungs. Breathing was a difficult, voluntary task; a stuttering machination that bloomed far too loudly with every attempt.

"I—d-id this... t'you," someone said with its mouth (but, shouldn't it have not have been able to? Its tongue felt like it was going to rot out.) Someone else forced its own limbs to buckle, forced it to swing backward onto shaking, quivering haunches. Ghastly hands crawled beneath its chitin, too hot and clammy at the same time. Quills rattled to frighten off those horrid spirits, and yet they remained an apprehensive shiver down its spine.

Hooked talons remained rooted in the earth. Never reaching. Never pretending at interest.

Putrescent eyes glazed over again, halfway to comatose.

@V-Zoisite-One

content warning: panic attack, vomit mention , self depreciating and suicidal thoughts

If the Orthoclase was making any sense of the lack of oxygen they now shared, standing in an immense layer of ozone far from any grounding that could save either of them, the Zoisite couldn't feel it. Only the falling, one that made its insides flip, churn, expunge. The grub's throat restricted, tight, tight, tight. A vice-grip to keep the internals where they belonged, even as its mandibles stretched wide and tongue lashed, spraying the dirt with spittle.

Did she see it, beyond the blur of wetness that painted the scene a haze of sick, nauseating colors--

The Zoisite had never been so consciously aware of gravity. Now its animalistic instinct was fixated, claws scratching for a grip, for some way to fight against the pull of the infinite that pulled it down and sent its mind rolling end over end. The outside carapace continued to buck and twitch, as the thinning air pulled at its soul.

Did she see the looming shape surge forward, a dark blot in her vision that could have easily have been anything else--

There was a numbness somewhere in the root of the chaos, underneath the weight of an unseen threat and the sickening miasma of failure, one that Zoisite bucked against. The emptiness, a demanding void, called. Somewhere, its own emotions were pounding at the gates, and if it let go...

Did she see her mother coming to save her? Failing. Trying?

If it did or didn't, it certainly heard the voice that seemed to belong to neither soul; it could have easily been a thought shared between them. It sounded like the Orthoclase, but that didn't make sense. It was the Zoisite's own thoughts, screaming: I did this. It's my fault.

Crack. Crash. Zoisite's safety net (which had been nothing but a terrifying peek beneath the veil) was torn down, and there it came: everything that it had tried to hide from. With a sudden gasp for air, all its effort to stand was killed an instant, all six legs crumpling once more as the grub fell fully on to the ground, its head hitting the earth. They thought she was a failure, and-- wasn't she? Wasn't she? Oh, Master Vargas had been so kind to humor her, to let her play pretend.

But she was weak. Her Overseer saw and knew and took it as its own failure, and... It was her fault. It had been fine, once, well enough to become Overseer, but then she was born. It was no wonder that Alpha had left, it was no wonder that it pushed her away. Why hadn't she just listened to it, when it told her no? Why did she keep trying, when it only hurt? When she only brought disappointment.

This was a downward spiral now, into the darkness that made her whimper, smearing her jaws into the dirt, the wet of her maw and eyes making a slick mud against her bright carapace. At least now she breathed, a desperate attempt to live. A quiet, insidious thought murmured that she should die, if only to stop the squealing.

Maybe it was that terrible whisper that made her conscious of her own ragged breaths, forcing herself to hush, or maybe she had been exhausted already. Regardless, her head twisted, only a couple of eyes able to peek up above the trench she had made to stare out at the Orthoclase. Still so far away.

"I'm sorry," she begged, not knowing how her voice could reach through the haze between them, "I just wanted you to be proud of me." And all the more terrified that it would.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

cw for violence, abuse, and continued derealization and discussion of self-worth

Whoever it was in the pilot's seat stared in almost rapt fascination as the worm continued to squirm against the sun's surface, as carapace crackled and burned before their eyes. As lava seeped from molten lenses and the grasses sullied themselves muddy. As the insidious dark crept in deep and set its teeth into bones. As shadows conquered the exoskeletal junction between flesh and mind, animal and thought—splintering it and leaving one V-Zoisite-One lost to the wayside. Whimpering, squealing through a swollen throat.

It should save them.

The garrote tightened. The automata had turned away from steering to clutch at either end of it, to place the wire between index and middle finger, curl digits around it to maximize their leverage. Somewhere, hooked talons scratched themselves raw in the dirt, trying to escape the chokehold; the glint of its own eyes in a mirrored form, careening off the edge and into the limitless dark. An owlbeast cackling madly as the beast fell as silently as the wind glances off his feathers.

A plea fizzled along the static snow inside its skull. Signal found again. Would the corpse flies shake it loose from its rotten brain? Orthoclase-Alpha lunged to grasp at it. It a ticket spiraling along with the tumultuous blizzard outside the whistling train screaming down the tracks. (Where those tracks ended couldn't yet be known. Alpha thought it might be utter disaster.) A ticket at redemption.

V-Zoisite-One was its mistake. It should fix it. It should save it them. They'd earned it.

Comatose gaze crawled over the shivering grub, in all their amaranthine glory. Molten eyes still leaking, twisting up just enough to see it haul itself to its staggering feet. Alpha's head sank below its shoulders. It still tasted acid as it made its mechanical strides over; though maybe that was now the bile crawling up its throat with the realization of what was to come. Talons twitched as it walked, feet squelching in the mud and soil without care for what tender, tender miracle of life was crushed in its wake. (Not that it had for anything else! Failure!)

Its Heart—or lack thereof—hurt. Thrumming in its chest, burning too hot, hot, hot (is that the sun?) and singing an echoing song of pride. Wasn't that what it wanted too? Maybe, no, maybe—

It paused once its shadow loomed over the Zoisite (too close). Joints creaked as it stared down its snout with a continued detachment (though this is real) as they cringed into the mud, submitted themself to the endless void that welcomed dying stars. But the orthoclase needed to save this star.

Memory overwhelmed thought, to hear a growling voice against its eardrums, breath fanning hot over its cowering form—in the dust, not the flowerbeds—a body marching fast toward it; its own claw rising from its side, talons bared to make a downward swing at violet carapace that flinched away. To rake across where molten eyes had once been before (weakly) hiding themselves away, to see chitin split at the seams and beckon forth the spill of incandescent lighter fluid. To make their own hot-iron brand of vulnerability and weakness. A perpetual reminder of a cardinal sin, the mark of a heretic, an exile's reminder and plain as a butterfly pinned to cork failure.

"I am saving you."







NO!
Teeth gritted—but they'd never been bared, no, no… there'd been cold deadness in there, a spark lit only of desperation—and each forced breath whistled a one-note melody through them. Its chest hurt. Its arm wobbled in the air, inches away from completing its ministrations. Muscles and tendons coiled tight, as if the weapon at the end of its limb were that metaphorical sword hanging between them; as if its weight were nearly too much to bear. In that moment, it was.

A puff of acid-laced breath sputtered from its mouth. It took a step back, and another, until no shred of its dark reflection dared touch the Zoisite. A sharp inhale punctuated its near-slip on the earth, the cottony seal of its throat and the taxidermist ripping its organs out—but there was nothing to upchuck in response to the abject horror at its feeble, stuttering, beating Heart.

Why couldn't it save them?

Did they need saving?

There was just a single heave of air, bitingly dry and scraping its throat.

And in that moment, there was something. That ticket at redemption, not in reciprocating what its definition of rescue was, but— it managed to breathe, "You're… still, still alive." What was pride that it could say it felt that in response to the Zoisite being intact, doing as they... seemed to please. Wholly separate, untouched by its own mistakes during their creation.

Could it even feel such a thing? If it had, it'd forgotten it along with its ability to simply accept that it was capable, that it did things worth reporting and remembering. Marching up to Vargas, having conquered a dragon, and having angered more; brutalizing a dog for merely creating as the Forge might now—not to make life, but to leave an impression. Drowning in a sea of crawling limbs, keratin punched full of holes, peeling itself from the crystalline depths to demand repayment from the looming shadow over Zoisite, from death itself—oh.

It had died for V-Zoisite-One to live.

They should continue to.

Vargas had asked if it was ready to live, once. Orthoclase-Alpha was still not sure of the answer, but... it knew that they should be.

Glassy- and wide-eyed, barely able to breathe with its Heart leaping into its throat, Alpha muttered over the crackling radio sound inside their skulls shot full of holes, "S-stay al-alive."

@V-Zoisite-One

content warning: continued downward spiraling, self depreciating and suicidal thoughts, death

Little Zoey's pleas broke through the static. The Orthoclase lurched into motion, tearing through the garden toward her. Growing larger, a pinprick into a mammoth shadow that consumed her entire vision. She felt so small, her sides heaving, but the tension finally gave way to slack. No more struggling. Alpha had finally heard her, had come to do something. Another whimper, a sob that slobbered another huge glob of mucus on to chittering mandibles.

It was going to be okay now. For all her failures, all her weaknesses, the biggest one burned in neon green: the sea of quills and jagged edges that meant safety. Meant home. It was her connection to Alpha, to the creature who had created her and held her at arms length, detached but... who, when she was little and impressionable, had stared at her like a puzzle, wanting to help her grow... Had taught her one of life's most valuable lessons.

Of course, this small pinprick of relief was nothing compared to the hole that she had dug herself. It was pathetic, she knew. To throw herself to the ground, to pitch a fit, to act so childish when her own-- when the Overseer was clearly struggling with its own return. She had failed them, she should be ashamed, how could she look them in the eye--

-- Rewind. Click. Play, half speed.

Almost too late did the Zoisite's mind catch what the intent of the Orthoclase's charge was. It was not a panicked rush to the aid of a child in pain-- the Zoisite was not a child. Zoisite was a creature in pain. A raise of a limb, talons sharp and glistening.

One of life's most valuable lessons.

Nothing should suffer like this.

There was no family to hear the squealing rat. Every slow, agonizing second, was another moment of torture, leading them both toward destruction and death. Maybe one of them could make it out; Alpha had lived before them, would live after. The Zoisite wanted the fighting to end, wanted to stop hurting, and stop hurting others. She had never wanted to hurt anyone. Especially not her--

It trusted them to make it quick. Painless, maybe. It couldn't help the reflexive spasm, pulling its head down to protect its eyes, but other than that, the grub lay motionless as the Orthoclase delivered a killing blow.






It... Never came.


V-Zoisite-One was still alive. It didn't understand. It waited, and waited, only...

Orthoclase-Alpha confirmed it: still alive, with a deep, huffing breath. Zoisite's quills rattled-- what few could that weren't embedded into the dirt-- with a shutter from the words. A haze of confusion swam through their nausea, and though it took some effort to raise their head they surely tried, blinking the mud from their eyes.

There, the shadow, towering behemoth, took several heavy steps back. Then, as Zoey was struggling to process, neck shuttering with the weight of her heavy jaws, Alpha gave her a directive. No-- a plea of their own.

To live. Zoey, who had just been on the brink of accepting death at the hands of her own creator, anything to wash away the pain of failure, was... Alpha was begging, in the same way the would huff for her for a misstep, only this time...

A limb shot forward, scrapping the earth, trembling with the effort to pull upright. Swallowing air, nearly choking on spittle. "I missed you," Zoey snapped, "don't go. I need you." Words she didn't dare to think mere moments ago came rushing forward, desperate to be heard. Frantic to not be left behind.

Maybe she had survived just fine without Alpha, carving away at her own little piece of life... but even though she had survived, made her own way... That hole had never gone away. It laid empty, gnawing away at her where no one else could see.

Orthoclase-Alpha wanted her to live. But-- but not without them. Zoey couldn't lose them again.

"I'll live for you," Zoey promised, "but not without-- not without you. Not again. Please."

@Orthoclase-Alpha

"I missed you, don't go. I need you." A desperate plea, built on the shivering limb Zoisite tried to shove up onto; slippery like the spittle and mucus and mud slicking their jaws, blubbering and so quickly spoken that they could have only come from a place of terror. They thought that it would leave again, and they did not want that. "Not again."

Orthoclase-Alpha could only hazard a single word: "why?"

It did not know the grub before it. Not why they wept for the ghost standing some feet away from them, and not why they nurtured rather than destroyed for the Forge. It still knew not the purpose of the spiny thistle given to it a year ago—a gift, like that orange facsimile of its own form, scattered to the sands back home—and subsequently left to forever be alone in one of the womb's higher reaches. It didn't know nor comprehend what there was to be proud of, what pride could feel like anymore. It knew not why they would want it to stay.

Why did V-Zoisite-One care for their Overseer, except to incur some sort of… favor—or had their Master asked this of them? To pretend? But, it can't be. This—this was raw. Ribs cracked and peeled away to expose the bare, beating heart beneath. This was a desperate plea.

Vargas must want this one alive, despite this… mistake (it has to be one, it has to be one, just a passing moment of weakness and openness, like the Oily beast it'd also beckoned into this plane—). Alpha was here only at his behest, regardless of if he'd also sent the Zoisite here for it. It did this only to keep them happy. To encourage them. To… bond.

Would its own goddamn designation ever dare to take its place, instead of using Vargas's as a substitute?

To its own surprise, it didn't venture quite as far away this time.

content warning: only minor self depreciating thoughts, some dark imagery (gore-ish?)

Why. There were a hundred answers, a knee jerk response of I don't know bubbling to the surface. But Zoey did know, in all its messy, painful truths, why she missed Alpha.

Because she loved them. She wanted to believe that somewhere-- or somewhen, if no longer true-- that they had cared. They had protected her, guided her, a hero set upon an unrealistic pedestal. Or maybe they were the pillar themself, holding up the cave roof, a mighty Atlas that shouldered all the cruelties of the world on their scarred carapace. Even if they had never once acted as the longed for mother figure, Zoey could picture a different, hazy dream of another reality. One that simply wasn't meant to be.

All of the reasons why, the small details, were so insignificant to the sudden realization that Alpha-- Alpha was listening, if only for a moment. She had their attention. She had reached them. For how long? She needed to seize the moment. Feverish, with a jackrabbit heart pounding into the hole in her chest, digging the cavity deeper, she dug her claws into the earth and stood as firm as she could with the world swaying underneath her.

"Why not?" Came Zoey's defiant answer, strained and bleeding from mandibles snapping too sharply. "Is it so hard to believe that someone cares about you?" No. Of course it was hard to believe-- Zoey believed it, too, that no one cared about her, when the lights dimmed. No. That wasn't-- There: "That you're worth caring about?"

Why, why, why.

The Zoisite, Zoey, shoved words out, aching and pleading for any of it to reach down into Alpha's mind and take root, for any of it to reach them. Words that she had hid away, frightened that they would only be used to hurt her. (Why?) No, she needed these feelings to reach Alpha.

She would tell them why not.

"I wouldn't exist without you," the truth burned, a hot golden spotlight. The flowers that she grew, that she tended to and cared for, wouldn't exist if Alpha hadn't brought her to life. "I wouldn't be alive, I wouldn't be happy, wouldn't be able to bring light into the darkness and feel satisfaction, comfort, joy-- I wouldn't be able to live. I wouldn't be. You're why I exist, there's a piece of you in me, I'm-- you, a little piece. And I feel so, so, so lost without you."

Zoey staggered forward a step, dragging through the soil, quills rattling. Everything in her pushed her forward, toward Alpha-- but she felt so weak. Even that step was almost enough to make her buckle again. Her carapace was made of broken glass, barely held together by muscle and sinew. She didn't have the strength to keep them there by force, and if they confirmed her darkest fear and ran again... if the strength of her words were not enough, then...

She didn't have the strength to face the what ifs. Only the moment, the blistering, festering seconds that boiled under her skin, only the moment could she shoulder. She held fast, so petrified that it would not be enough, yet in her ichor eyes burned. Staring, waiting, pleading. Listen, just once, listen.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

cw for self-depreciation, anxiety
Molten eyes flared as they forced themself further up—firmer, stronger—like the sapling would reach back for the sun once the wind recedes. Their best attempt to straighten on shaking, feeble limbs crumbled by the nuclear meltdown that had irradiated them both. And then they bite, verbal teeth sinking into its windpipe and filling its throat with cotton; its worth comes into question, and it can only mouth its thoughts on unreadable lack-of-lips—I'm not. Smooth and normalized, a practiced reminder of its own status, no matter how contrary it was to the title of Overseer.

If someone truly cared about it, then that meant something had changed somewhere along the line. We all know how much Orthoclase-Alpha quivers at the sight of change.

(Nothing had changed. Look at Nemesis, Pride, Giggle—maybe—Vargas, Zoisite—)

They would not exist without it, that much was true, but… there had been no such sentimental thought involved in any of their conception—not the Selenite's, not the Labradorite's, not the Zoisite's. All it had concerned itself with was the optimal pairing. The matching of strength and armor, dexterity and agility. The minimization of the risk there was with such random creation. It'd followed Vargas's lead. He had done the same. Did the others have this lingering fascination, or was this its own ill curse?

But this was appreciating the beauty of life, of being alive. Of seeing not a sterile factory for some distant, unknowable war in an incomprehensibly large universe, but the chance to simply breathe. Another contradiction, one that'd been allowed to fester— grow? in the Forge. Encouraged, even… if he'd sanctioned it, sent it this way, asked it to experience it.

Did it want to? Or was it too much a coward?

A staggering step from them had it listing backward, but was it for fear of retribution, or fear of what it might do? For fear of what had suddenly been thrown into its lap for it to try—and fail—to dissect?

"You shouldn't—" it started, aborted, throat running drier than salt flats in the summer months. (There's the scorching sun again. Hello sun!) "Care— you—" Talons flexed into the earth in a piss-poor attempt to steady its quivering limbs. It was inarticulate. It was overwhelmed not by the heart behind the words, but the implications that they bore. (It wasn't sentimental, it wasn't sentimental, it'd trained itself out of that, to not feel want for closeness and family, the sensation of its clutchmates nestling in its quills again, tiny paws pressing pleasant goosebumps and patterns into the tender skin there—) "I—"

"I— I can't understand." Not just don't. Can't. A rare confession of inability. Machines can't feel. It rusts their parts from the inside out, clogs the fuel lines. Makes them sluggish, unable to perform at capacity; makes them ashamed and their Masters ashamed and then their Masters send them away to self-repair, but they don't have the means to and so they fall into further disarray before being dragged out for salvage—

The implication. Putrescent eyes blinked, and it forced a breath through suttering lungs. It hesitated to even utter the words, to shoulder them through its swelling-shut throat and dying will to speak. "Wh-what am I? T-to you?"

@V-Zoisite-One

You shouldn't -- care. But I do, Zoey defied, surging against Alpha's buckling, crumpling voice. This was not a protective demand, one that crushed her down for her own safety, though it was a mantra that Alpha had tried to express so many times before. Against all odds, Zoey cared. And more, she wanted to care.

Whatever frightened them so badly, Zoey dared to see for herself. It could not be worse than the death she stared down, the absolute misery of losing the one person that had been stolen from her, the terrifying plunge into the depth that she could lose them again. Whatever horror, Zoey refused to wilt, refused to-- to cower away from the one thing that gave her hope.

Alpha heard her. That was a major factor bolstering her, as she gasped down breaths, heaving through lungs that were still being crushed by a too-tight chest. Alpha was responding, earnest, open, struggling: gears grinding between their teeth, breaking down to rust on the hard stone of the cavern walls. Zoey froze up as they retreated, her quills chattering as an undercurrent to the staggered conversation, and there was nothing she could do to stop the insistent buzzing; she barely processed it.

What could Zoey do? Could she help them understand? Fix their inability? It seemed too far out of reach-- the seeds had been sown, maybe... maybe given time. It wasn't something that she could explain, no, it was beyond explanation. A feeling. A dream. Something special. Did Zoey herself even truly understand it? The ache buried deep in her chest had spread, running deep pangs down the muscles of her limbs, throbbing in her head.

The world swayed. She tangled talons into the roots of the garden's plants, pushing her snout ever higher to keep her gaze staring out at Alpha. Trying desperately to keep that connection.

Then the question, the one that only had one true answer.

It would be so much easier to say she didn't know. But she couldn't lie... not to them.

"You won't like the answer," Zoey's voice was horse, "You think it isn't true. Maybe it's not." The six legged, crimson child of the Orthoclase quivered, staring blankly at them as though buying time. Time that she didn't have. Any second now, Alpha could go straight back to that glazed over stare, lost-- gone.

The answer:

Forbidden. Access... Restricted, but not quite denied.

It was buried so deep down, down in the hollowed out gap, stomped out until nothing remained by smoldering coals. Coals that were now cold, blackened, so much so that to even dig them out left ash on her tongue, clogging her throat.

Spit it out. How hard could it be?

A glob of mucus choked at her jaws, difficult to swallow. Her eyes stung, as she lowered her head.

Say it. Tell the truth, little Zoisite. You both already know, don't you? You never forgot. Do you really-- really-- think that Alpha truly doesn't remember? Come now.

"You're-- mom," Zoey croaked, "and-- I love you-- always, mom."

Was that so hard?

@Orthoclase-Alpha