Tension built and broke, again and again, endlessly hot and melting the sky. Puddles of clouds seemed to pool at Khavur's feet like droplets of wax, stinging for a moment before settling into an uncomfortable paste that was hard to breathe in. Just how many times would thought disperse into silence? Just how many times would Khavur need to evaluate each target before lunging? Just how many times would ribs peel, crack, and mend, realigned into wider and wider structures, opening the way to this shriveling heart? When would London bridge come falling down? How much venom could be stored in one bite?

Bitter, agonizing absence of response and the ceraceous remnants of the blazing atmosphere would not stop Khavur from wading forth with its own words, its unbroken kubrick stare, its messy array of conflicting thoughts, clattering together like a fallen weapons rack. In this junkyard, metal on metal compiled into one big mistake, and Khavur was willing to add every coin to the heap. Silence blared like sirens, machines caterwauled against each other from distances too great to bear. It was all so loud here, so hazy and grating, that perhaps Overseer Orthoclase-Alpha had not heard the question. Sure, that could be believable. Acceptable. Khavur would offer that olive branch.

"Difficult to speak over a gust of wind, perhaps. In case you or I did not hear, I will repeat: given the choice, the opportunity, to utilize your agency and bear forth your whims, what work would you have chosen to accomplish, Overseer Orthoclase-Alpha?" That was Khavur's next penny for the well, and now it may have none left. And no, it would not give it hints or suggested responses. Khavur wasn't some blasted android, built to make the jobs of others easier. Khavur was a truth-seeker, a listen-and-understander, a bloody enigma, sometimes the only source of life amidst the endless clamor of broken machines, and it would not be so foolish as to give the orthoclase an easy escape. There would be no value in that. This was a truth Khavur would be willing to kill for, whether or not the "Overseer" was prepared to face it itself. No one could ever understand why it meant so much. Not even me? Unfortunately for Khavur, the orthoclase was one of the many ignorantly blessed by the protection of being under Master Vargas's jurisdiction. Truly, the Leviathan was looking more and more like the paragon of mercy. Clearly, that passed on to exactly two of his creations: Mary and the lamb. The rest of them were just heartless, violent thieves, ready to gnaw each other's heads off for the price of one meal.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

A repeat statement intercepted Alpha's silence at the choke point—a hallway far narrower than the one that barely fit both itself and the first of the Leviathan's many purposeful creations; with no room for it to maneuver, hardly any space to walk forward or backpedal in without shaving chunks of its chitinous exterior off. Breathe a little too hard, and its flanks would press against the scaldingly hot stone. Every moment in stillness was met with an agonizing burn that rocketed up from sizzling pads to knees and elbows. Yet, Orthoclase-Alpha couldn't even stall in place, dance in place. The hot coals beckoned little but fire.

Teeth bared. The blaze burned a little hotter as Khavur plastered more and more words across the billboard, all in plain-speak and delivered with none of the gravitas such a question might have demanded. Toxic eyes edged a little closer to closed, its composure toeing the line between steady and lost.

In a fit of uncharacteristically open frustration, it sniped, "I heard you."

It lunged—in a metaphorical, not quite physical sense—and crushed that olive branch between teeth, tasting the bitter aroma of oil slithering across its tongue and down its throat. The truth scalded through the whole trip; it settled in with an uncomfortable heat.

Bile ate at its stomach lining, seething. If it lifted a claw to feel around in its mouth, soured by the backwash of sick that'd nearly come up after it spoke (intercepted by a gulp for air and a snout twisting away where it sat), it might've found the cotton gauze swelling, preparing to suffocate it. Might've found delicate fingers peeling its jaws open with treacherous whispering of something passably resembling honesty: Get mean.

"It's none of your—your con-concern." Putrescent eyes attempted to forge themselves into daggers with which to glare at Khavur, but the jackhammering of its heart in its eardrums betrayed any faux pas of steadiness.

@Khavur

"I heard you." YES, you did. FINALLY, the oil was beginning to leap from the pan. It was a thousand times more relieving than frightening to witness, to the orthoclase's hypothetical chagrin. Nonetheless, it was some form of relief.

Well, until that second line.

Khavur heaved a long, soundless sigh, and in that one blissful moment, its gaze was lowered away from the orthoclase. The moment would not last. As always, the Reaver was caught between the most polar emotions, and feeling no resultant neutrality. Not enough, growled one end. Any more and we're through, the other bit back. Must I remind you of your station? "My apologies, Overseer." You didn't need to do that, it already proved that it knows. With the way that title dripped from Khavur's maw, you might think the Reaver had never wished less in its life to be "Overseer". And in this moment, you'd be right.

"It is my concern, as I have sworn to protect and serve this nest, which first means understanding it — ah, but as you do have command over me, I suppose it is within your right to stop me..." What are you trying to accomplish with this, Khavur? Why why are you making these unnecessary mistakes? "...if that is your work." STOP. It gave you what you wished for. That is enough. But it wasn't. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't enough, and now, amidst all that clamoring, pounding silence, a risky revelation was brewing and Khavur's patience was wearing thin as a thread.

The Reaver spoke again quickly thereafter, so as to avoid any interruption, silent or otherwise: "I hope you will forgive my intrusiveness." I do not. "I come to you with such questions, perhaps because you were my mentor before, and perhaps because I feel you would best understand," You will never understand. You will never understand. You will never understand. "given that you showed signs of having experience with this topic of purpose and desire... Even if your return was of his volition rather than your own," Will you allow me to believe that? "I assume your leave was not," And I pity your spawn. "and thus the question burns in my mind. I do not care for why you left, or what your reason for doing so was, beyond whether or not it pertains to your own work. Whether or not you left for, perhaps, a work you were not assigned." It was almost hinted at the end there: "A work you prefer?" But Khavur would leave that off, just to keep the blade overhead swaying. "—Ah, but you outrank me, so you possess the power to withhold such information. A power I respect," I do not, but most formalities are lies anyways. "because I must."

Khavur's gaze now bore into any millimeter of skin and carapace it could find. It wanted, it truly wanted this pathetic orthoclase to understand everything it was saying. To read into and between every line, to examine and appraise every careful word like gold. To read so deep as to misread, to misconstrue, to generate an even greater fear, even if this plan would not work. And it was not likely to work. After all, would Master Vargas believe that? Would he want to believe that? Could Khavur keep up such a grandiose lie, one that it could not bring its own self to believe? Ah, but in Khavur's mind, had it not already registered the orthoclase as a traitor for other reasons? A betrayer of Khavur's siblings and wards, Orthoclase-Alpha's own spawn — and therefore a traitor to Khavur, on a personal level. Extrapolate from that, add in the shreds of evidence it has been fed, and Khavur could potentially make a compelling argument for this inane idea. But would it even want it to work? More importantly, in this moment, would it even matter to consider how plausible that possibility was if all that really mattered was that Orthoclase-Alpha be just wary enough, just awake enough, to notice, and especially to fear it?

Khavur wanted to see all the answers stretch out before it like an endlessly expanding stream. Because yes, its standards are too high, only something infinite and absolute could come close to satisfying part of it. It wanted so desperately for the orthoclase to catch the sparking intensity in its face and realize, to become the key to unfolding and stretching this stream from its infinitesimal corner. But Khavur knew it could not force that upon the orthoclase without breaking completely and dissolving every ordinance this operation required. It could not even mold its own face into any expression beyond neutrality out of the lack of ability alone, because it was a real monster. A heartless thief, who only wished to consider what it could take from the Overseer.

Something nags at you. Silence. Finally, silence.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

A sigh, a harried apology ghosting over twinned snarling lips and dripping teeth. The word Overseer caught on its tongue, slithering off in a gelatinous mass and landing on the ground with a terribly bloody splat!. Orthoclase-Alpha wondered, for a moment, if it should correct it. There were few givens, few constants that it was aware of; no conceivable way of it still holding any sort of position, any rank, had somehow squirmed in—or maybe that was just more of its self-defeating attitude leaking in. Vargas had never explicitly ripped that title from its claws, even when it made its pathetic, passive attempt to give it up like it thought it should.

Should it lie, then? By omission, perhaps, for the sake of getting Khavur to fuck off to where it'd come from? To where it had supposedly been headed to? Hunting, was it? (Orthoclase-Alpha thought that might not be entirely true, just like its spawn's downtrodden excuse to get away from it. It didn't have the wherewithal to care much about it, but—)

It was not altogether there for most of what the Valkhound said; sure, its conscience sifted through the words as they drifted in from the bay, but it discarded them as easily one might broken seashells and kelp. Alpha was waiting on an opening in the choppy waters. It was waiting for both heads to finally resign themselves to silence and bow aside to let it pass to the light ahead. Only one thing came to be—precious silence—but at a cost: "A power I respect, because I must." Is that it? There's something it can take advantage of, as long as... it never made it back to its Master.

In the heat of the moment, it just lunged for any opportunity whatsoever to be left alone. Hindsight could sting it in the rear later.

Orthoclase-Alpha sprung for the bait with a barely-concealed snarl. A spark took to briefly-incandescent fire—not unlike a flare leaving the muzzle of a gun, or a firecracker going off on cracked, old pavement. Ignited by the refusal to be a coward simply because Khavur wouldn't be driven off by being told to mind its own business, the monstrous hybrid forced its quills to stand on end and its eyes to narrow into a sneering grimace.

"Then g-go on," it growled, hopefully low and deep enough to disguise the rabbit's-pace beating of its heart and the temptation to back off and run away yet again and its failure to find words that weren't as simple as a plain go away. "A-ask someone else—or g-go hunting, like, like you wer-were going to." Knuckles bloomed purple with the grip it held on the stones beneath it. An involuntary spasm of the haunches was tamped down by gritting teeth. This was where it was. It could stay here.

It could survive this.

@Khavur

Could it? Could it really? When it had not even survived the early tremors and the purple mudslides and the storm? Could it survive a forest fire that it could not simply outrun? I suppose we will let the forest be the judge of that.

Well, the forest watched the initial sparks. The flame. The birds in the canopies twittered about the flame, at least. It was a pretty little flame. But it stuttered, sputtered ash. Needed an air it was not willing to receive, it seemed. It gripped too tight to its coals, spitting embers, proving its own misunderstanding of where its power came from. The power to lash, to leave, to illuminate. This fire was undeserving of its existence as fire, and thus, it would die in seconds. Unless a greater flame were to carry it away. Thus was the judgement of the forest — more a diagnosis, really.

The forest unsettled, shambled upright. The forest was ready to move on. Khavur needed to go hunting. Khavur needed to obey its Overseer. Khavur needed to obey its Master. The forest was ready to move on.

The forest was ready to move on.

...The forest was ready to—

Khavur had hauled itself out of the tunnel to stand in front of the orthoclase with its back turned. That is how far the orthoclase's words could throw it. After that, its legs did not have the momentum to move forward anymore. So instead, it moved back, a lumbered turn-around just to look at the orthoclase in all its pitiful, shriveled glory. Like an underfed alley cat hissing and spitting for its meal. For a while, Khavur stood there and stared, letting the wind wash over it and rustle its leaves, ruffle the feathers of the birds in its head, carry the sensation of the hunt away from the predators lurking at its roots. For a while, it stood and stared, as if pondering a decision that had already been made. And then, silence broke.

"...You really do not understand anything, do you? You do not understand what you are, or what you must do. Do you want my loyalty? My honesty? I do not care. I will give it to you, because now I am convinced that you will do nothing to stop me. I held it back, held it away, under the false promise of your name, what I assumed to be your rank. It promised consequence. You offer none.

I do not respect you. I respect a power you no longer possess. Why did you return? You were the strongest of us. You were strong enough to leave, and stay gone, had you so wished it. Not even Master Vargas would have contested you. But now you are here, prickling and stumbling. Utterly incapable of communicating your authority. You can scarcely move, or speak. You have lost that power, you have fallen into weakness, and so you do not belong here. Thus, I am to assume that the only reason you are back is because he made you return, and you could not contest him, and that was his lapse in judgement. You are not meant to be here, ranked above us when you are so far below. And you are most unfortunate, because I care about this. I care about your spawn, most likely more than you do. And I care about you, because you are in my domain, my world — you are a part of it, a part of your spawn, and so, you matter. I am stronger than you. I am strong enough to make you, as a part of this world, conform to my wishes. I am strong enough to place you where you belong: outside, free, with others like you. You will become one of the protected, under the wing of your Master. Under my own wing.

That has been my suspicion, which appears to be confirmed. To release you will be the next step. Am I incorrect? Will you contest me? Are you even capable of doing so? I have besieged you with this one question, again and again, and everything you have done with your mouth and your limbs has told me that you cannot. So perhaps I will ask you more directly. I will be honest with you, so that you may be honest with me. Can you? Will you?"

This was Khavur, commanding the world to break open and feel every infinitesimal pain, to expose the naked flesh and the pearl, and to show it. Khavur had never spoken so quickly before, not to this "overseer". This quivering guard dog. Can you survive it? Can you fly from this rising heat, or will you die trying to fight it? Khavur attempted to prepare the venom in its mouth — the one that brought the inside weakness to the outside. Khavur would prepare for a trial to overcome, as it suspected there would be one here and now. After all, with enough goading, the fire had borne something, even if it were not its own teeth. In the back of Khavur's mind, it would have to construct a strategy to maintain the social order of all this, in the aftermath. If it still could It had to.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

It dared breathe its relief too soon when it should have waited until the mottled sun faded past the horizon; waited before it released seizing flanks and goosebumps from being or looked at any semblance of safety. Because now came the sword that always hung over the orthoclase's head, the guillotine that had need only for rope to chafe at tender palms for it to come screeching down its tracks. Every haunting reminder came to the forefront in a surge in tandem with the storming cavalcade of words pouring from Khavur's mouth—one or both of them, Alpha did not care to notice, could not keep its gaze level and steady enough to know which teeth and which tongue formed the words. Each one roared in its eardrums, a slurring of vowels and consonants in the vast corners of its echo chamber of a skull. They complimented the perpetual buzzing of the beetles in its rotten brain well.

You really do not understand anything, do you? No, you don't— ... now I am convinced that you will do nothing to stop me. I need to I need to stop stop STOP ... promised consequence. You offer none— I need to I do not respect you. I don't care. You have lost that power, you have fallen into weakness, and so you do not belong here. I—

I am stronger than you. I am strong enough to make you, as a part of this world, conform to my wishes. I am strong enough to place you where you belong: outside, free, with others like you. Like it was just some insignificant bug smeared on the pavement. A pebble in the shoe, a lingering annoyance easily kicked off the curb. A glitch in the matrices that make up all existence—an indentation error in the console that unravels the whole program. Isn't that what it wanted, if nothing else?

The destruction of its composure was startlingly slow, playing through the frames by the minute rather than the second: the garrote slipped tighter and it ceased in its heartbeat quivering; its mane lay flat, smoothing into a dull, matte sheet of darkness and putrescent greens—and sagged downward with little but dismay; eyes widened and softened, turning downward and unable to claw their way back up. Cotton scraped the whole way down its throat, but…

Am I incorrect? Will you contest me? Are you even capable of doing so?
… it reached for the shivering lamb that occupied its skull, and it fixed its claws around the tender throat, and it tore its gullet straight out. The viscera sputtered across bone and grey matter, staining the backs of its eyes and flooding it with a feeling familiar enough to be called an old friend. Perhaps it was a mask, or perhaps it was the real thing; either way, it was tempestuous fury, uncalculated and illogical.

I can't let it see— came the snarled thought, and it shoved to its feet with a ragged snarl of ugly teeth and narrowing eyes that darted away into the far distance.

permission to post twice: granted by don! :]
Orthoclase-Alpha bared its teeth, throttling the choking sob that threatened to rise in its throat with an ugly snarl. Nothing was given, and nothing was returned in the sputtering of magic against its collarbones, though it was swept too far down into the drain to notice that the lack of blood was due to a simple failure of magic, and not the absence of life altogether. Perhaps it was just desperate for this chance at its own form of dishonesty. Substituting one agony for another had a tendency to induce that.

Barely giving itself a chance to readjust its posture or adjust where it was standing, it sprung forward on twitching haunches and curling claws. Not with so much as a whisper, but with outstretched arms aiming to have it land just a little short of Khavur itself. Alpha crouched as soon as it made impact with the ground, baring only its armored and prickling back to the valkhound; and it sprang up again, twisting its head backward so that it didn't snap its own neck pressing upward with all of its shaved-off weight and intensity into Khavur's chest.

Forelimbs grappled for a hold, and it shoved forward to meet mottled flesh and slam its fellow monster's body into the tunnel's wall—much like one would slam someone into the lockers hard enough to leave a dent.

ROUND 1/?

ATTEMPT: Slamming Khavur against the lockers wall.
INJURIES: None yet.

@Khavur

Khavur was braced for it. Any impact would be welcome, unwelcome, uncared for, apathy-inducing. See that flame! See it catch air, writhe in its own smoke! The glimmer, the sheen, how it captivates the eye for that briefest moment of its dancing! Watch it RISE!

Now, watch it asphyxiate under the fist of the Reaver.

With a thud! Khavur's back hit the tunnel wall. The full weight of the orthoclase bore into its chest like a paralytic demon for the waking world, keeping it locked — pinned like some bird in this uncomfortable position. So large it loomed, and Khavur marveled for a moment at this while winded, breathlessly whispering in amazement perhaps just loud enough to be heard: "...yet you look so small." Ah, but in its foolish fury (which Khavur had no doubt would be bitter through and through, briefly sweet, and all too temporary), it had failed to pin the arms, the hands, the teeth. These are the very roots of sin, which the orthoclase itself had trained to hunt, protect, and kill.

Khavur's killing claws attempted to grasp the head of the orthoclase and crush inward with all their might, talons uncaring of where they pried or pierced. Eyes, nostrols, jaws, all orifices be damned by these sickeningly self-righteous hands. The orthoclase would face all the long suffering it deserved while Khavur's jaws prepared for it an inevitable, irrefutable defeat.

Current Level: Brawler
Round: 1/?
Attempt: Crush Alpha's head.
Defense: Just physical passive ones like armored plates and quills.
Injuries: Temporarily winded, probably bruised on the chest

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Claws and fingers reached, pressing against its skin—its skin which ran alight with an electric feel, foul and burning like tar on a scalding-hot day. The pitch between chitin and flesh boiled and bubbled, seething beneath beige hide and toxic eyes that glowed too brightly and slavered too much in the dark. Pads ate into the harsh keratin of its cheekbones and its skull, and just the tip of each talon scraped too close to glittering gems and worn-out old scars.

The orthoclase reared back with a snarl, shrugging out of the grip before it could tighten; and with a forearm swinging upward, six thumbs looking to clamp around a killing arm before it could get too far away. Just as insurance to make sure it wasn't touched again, that Khavur would know what the orthoclase couldn't fully believe itself.

It ripped its arm downward in the same motion—if palms ever made contact with marbled flesh—and waited to hear the statuesque crack of a limb pulled out of the socket.

ROUND 2/?

ATTEMPT: Pulling one of Khavur's arms out of socket.
INJURIES: None yet.

@Khavur

A hand on its arm, the pull, the force, the crack — this told Khavur that the limb would likely be unresponsive at worst, far too difficult to use well at best. It also told Khavur that it needed, perhaps, more threatening armaments (haha). There was something more distasteful, more infuriating about the sight of the action than the sound. It registered in the Reaver's mind as further proof of its hypothesis. That is all you will give me? Whether or not that was confirmation bias did not matter to Khavur. It could have also been dismissive; more a criticism of Khavur's weakness than the orthoclase's. While that seemed highly unlikely, Khavur would not waste any time dissuading that notion. It remembered its failures, the causes for such. Showing had to come before telling, before thinking. Khavur did not need this to drag on to the point of overexertion, that was not the point it wanted to make to its opponent.

Thus, readied fangs struck for the most open place, the unveiled shoulder attached to the arm that dislocated Khavur's killing claw. Magic attempted to flare, to grow more and more rows of teeth and muscles in the jaw, to leave a larger impression from the bite wound, to break past layers of shell with more ease. The faster Khavur could reach skin and inject, the faster it could shape this creature into something more honest, more befitting of its aberrant heart.

Current Level: Brawler
Round: 2/?
Attempt: Bite the shoulder of Alpha's Offending arm, injecting numbing & weakening venom
Defense: Just physical passive ones like armored plates and quills.
Injuries: Temporarily winded, probably bruised on the chest, one killing arm dislocated

@Orthoclase-Alpha