- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas strode out across the plains, the 'sun' at his back and the long grass wisping past his forelimbs. He looked like any predator: single-minded, ignoring all but the scent of prey on the wind. He was on the hunt.

For now, the troubles of the Forge lay only at the back of his mind. Not that there were troubles, not exactly--for once. His cyclical payments to Lord Dhracia were generally made on time; many of the Forge were claiming ranks and rights as they proved themselves; children, now and then, were hatched with promising designs. All in all, the nest was becoming relatively productive, again. It was only smaller issues that lay on his shoulders--like where Orthoclase-Alpha had gone again--but those were issues that always lingered, and had become more of a background hum. After all, if Dhracia herself had had no luck with it, what chance did the Leviathan stand?

Ahh, well. For now: hunting, and food.

He followed the scent to the treeline, and there began a slower prowl, sticking to the open areas at the edges of the shadows as his eyes searched the darkness beneath the canopy. When at last he spotted the three small deer browsing up ahead he launched himself at them without hesitation. It was a short run, but longer than he'd thought; they were agile, these things, and they broke from the trees after a rush of zig-zagging beneath them. Vargas was on their tail, and despite the bad start he swiped the hindquarters out from the one at the rear.

A bleat, and he scrambled over it in the dust cloud that followed, the kill lost to sight. Then he was eating: a hulking magenta shape standing starkly out against the gentler green of Pegasus, wildly unnatural and a blight on its landscape.

He would, of course, be very easily spotted.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

You know the drill. A big, fat CW for poor mental health, dissociation/unreality, suicidal ideation, et cetera, et cetera. Please read with care.

A poor salve for old wounds does restless slumber make. Orthoclase-Alpha awakens, and it hastens itself back into the shell. It awakens, and it barely breathes enough to live. It awakens, and sometimes it is barely long enough to begin to recall its own designation. Or is it still dreaming? Has it been dreaming? The world never seems to be enough in focus for it to be real, no matter how often the less worn passages of this nest bite into its callus-free feet in an attempt to remind it that it's not sleepwalking.

Orthoclase-Alpha awakens, and it finds that it is unafraid. That it is tired without the concavity of sunken eyes and baggy lids; starved without being cling-wrapped to its bones; restless without the bone-deep ache in every joint forcing it to move, lest they seize up more permanently again. Chrysalizing cannot fix such ailments. Master Vargas cannot fix them. Not even the righteous Hand of their oft-celebrated Creator could.

(It scarcely remembers the lattermost's attempts; and it wouldn't understand them for what they had been intended to be anyway.)

It wouldn't call what follows its encroaching— unhurried, but not hesitating— upon its Master's fresh kill "Giving up", but…

Eyes stare invisibly at the grass, whites flashing briefly before their owner dips its snout low in bowed greeting. "Master Vargas," Alpha manages in something resembling a murmur, without so much as glancing up. "I—... would ask you s-something." It weighs for the audible shifting of weight, quills, attention, anything resembling implicit or explicit permission before it continues on its merry way reciting what it's been rehearsing in its mind as if it'd not been absent for the better part of a year or more: "... c-can you— reform stones? The same design, b-but wiped clean in other w-ways..."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas turned, with some surprise, toward the sounds of clawed approach. It took him a moment to register his spawn--to realize that, yes, this truly was Orthoclase-Alpha making its way towards him.

And for once, it was not... cowering. It was not waiting a dozen yards away, trembling until its very quills rattled against one another. A dip of a snout, yes, that showed respect and lingering awareness, but no real terror. And... it spoke. Initial hope (has it finally recovered-?) struck hard, only to melt away as it continued, as it asked its questions before he could respond even to the greeting.

His eyes narrowed a fraction, not, at first, understanding.

And to delay, he spoke, automatic in response; he was tearing away a leg of the deer, tossing it to land and bounce on the grass a few feet before Alpha's claws. A gift, though Vargas thought it would not eat it. "Orthoclase-Alpha," he greeted, that surprise evident in his voice.

But--ahh; and now the other words had spiralled down, settling like fallen snow throughout his subconscious, melting into meaning. "You ask if I can remake a design from a gemstone, afresh?" he asked, staring. Meaning still settled in, still trickled through the cracks of a mind too blunt to at first truly comprehend.

That cold spill of water made itself fully known, a chill that made him eerily aware of the breeze that swept the grass in that moment, shivering the leaves. "...Do you mean your own?" he hazarded, and perhaps he should have stayed silent, waited for it to ask. Perhaps he was wrong. But--studying that suddenly-unafraid stare--Vargas has his doubts.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

So simple a gesture as offering food— a non-sentimental thing, an expenditure of a renewable resource acquired at little risk— is all it takes for the cracks in the façade to begin to show. Alpha falters where it stands, nostrils flaring sharply at the projectile as it hits the ground. Barely a quarter of the muscle movement required to flinch away from it is achieved.

It forces itself to turn its gaze upward and lose that half-step of distance gained in the commotion.

Vargas, very fortunately, receives a nod for his first question. All it is is clarification. But, the cautious, hazarding tone of the second—...

Orthoclase-Alpha's throat bobs as it swallows, quills clacking together in a traitorous, disjointed one-two-three rhythm. It hunches down into its shoulders, the very picture of shame.

Still, it nods again. "I do."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

The simple gesture begins a cascade of chaos through the heart of the beast.

No, he nearly blurted in stern response, his eyes nearly widening with shock and alarm, fear nearly seizing at his heart. But--ahh; emotions were open doors. Attachments, an exploitable weakness, one Lord Dhracia had ever-so-delicately run fingertips across. Vargas tamped it down, gripped it firmly in one metaphorical fist and held all of the "nearlies" before they could shift into reality-

And then Alpha drove it home with two words. 'I do.'

One 'nearly' made it through: a sharp and shuddered sigh of shock, as though the words had struck a physical blow strong enough to knock the air from a Master's lungs. Though it must be said Vargas felt nothing of the Master's authority in him then--he felt suddenly the Overseer once more, and wasn't that strange-?

So sure in its answer--wasn't it?--and It is never this certain about anything.

Finding his appetite abruptly gone, this meal now suddenly so unimportant, Vargas pushed it delicately to one side.

A flash of something--he did not know what to call it--roared through him. It was something composed of a hundred memories of Orthoclase-Alpha. Images, and sounds, and yes--emotions. It was something possessive that held a piece of Alpha in its hands, something that refused to simply give it up like that. Something... an attachment? Vargas considered it, then pushed it aside. It had spawned his first instinctive reaction--that no he'd almost uttered--and it still ran through him, hot like blood. The logical in him tried to rationalize it: he'd spent so much time on Orthoclase-Alpha, so much effort. To give up now would be unthinkable. To throw away all that training-

I've hardly trained it. The thought was dour.

And just like that, Vargas had tamped it down, any emotions neatly set aside--lingering, threatening, but aside--as he took a breath. He fell back to his normal way: honesty, blunt honesty, but logical, rational honesty.

"Theoretically speaking, I could," he answered, turning to fully face his spawn, studying it closely for any sign of... anything at all. "But tell me: why?" And his own question seemed, to him, to linger on that windblown grass, to etch itself into memory, although he couldn't have quite said why.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

And, just like that, Vargas shoves aside his titanic feast; with it goes the orthoclase's resolve, crumbling and dashed across the ground. His pause, however short it is, taken to tamp down that instinctive reply and denial is just shy of characteristic. It leaves Alpha feeling as if this is—... something that it lacks the words and know-how to define.

It roots itself to the spot before those six limbs it has find themselves with minds of their own. Fingers curl into the unyielding earth, tendons threatening to split carapace and cushioned joints. It doesn't look up, even as Vargas prompts with an ill-favored question.

"Why?" is something that it did prepare itself to answer, but finding its voice amid the scratchy, swollen mass of cotton that's taken up residence in its throat is a war fought with rustling quills and the uneasy shift of weight from side to side.

Alpha squirms beneath the microscope. All the soundness of its logic evaporates— as if it's water at the surface of a wasteland bring baked beneath an equally unforgiving sun— even as it speaks, "I-it's a waste of resources— time, prey, attention— t-trying, trying to fffix t-this." A nervous claw barely makes it to gesturing toward itself. "M'not useful to, to a-anyone like I— I should be a-and I d-don't— don't— nothing else has w-worked and—"

Something utterly snaps within its chest when its ramblings immediately veer toward the nonsensical with the lost faith, and a particular phrase slips out from between its teeth: "I'm tired."

It stares a hole into the ground between Vargas's feet, a swell of nausea thick and cloying in its throat and threatening to spew nothing onto the ground right then and there. It trembles and it sways until its backed itself against the nearest tree and has found that it provides no comfort, no presence. The feeling in its carapace has gone dull.

Alpha still shies from its touch, hovering just an inch away from the nonexistent security of flaking bark.

@Vargas :(

- THE LEVIATHAN -

All of the first words--the stumbling insistence that it was a waste of resources--Vargas could have argued. It would have been logical, after all, to point gently to the dead deer at his side and to say, we have those resources. We are not lacking. Perhaps, in some other world, he could have told Orthoclase-Alpha that it was important to him, that he needed it alive (even well) to work at any level of efficiency.

Perhaps he still could, but-

That I'm tired shocked any such thoughts from his mind. No, he could not argue that. It was-... fair, even; weariness was allowed to it, despite the fact it had done nothing but waste away. There was no judgment in him for that, and a slow exhale gusted hot and rancid from his lungs as he thought this over. As he studied his spawn, where it trembled and stood.

And suddenly, without warning--and to his guilt, because how could he look at this miserable child and think of anything but it?--Vargas thought of Dhracia.

Would you be shocked, he wondered, with sudden, vicious sardonic hate, to find that you failed completely? Where is that attachment you spoke of to me--that the ONE thing I ask of you, you fail for me so completely? All that I have pledged you and you could not even do this.

Ahh, but he did not hate her. He hadn't agreed for Orthoclase-Alpha, but the thought came nonetheless, fierce, and surprised him.

He shook his head, trying to gather his scattered thoughts, to bring himself back to something resembling a Master and not the shattered remains of a broken mirror. And as he so often did, he fell back on honesty.

"The first, I will tell you is untrue. We have plenty of resources, as you see by my discarding of a deer. They are here for us to feed on. But," he went on, and took a breath, loathe to broach the next topic. "I cannot argue that you are tired. Such things do not seem to follow logic," he added, and now he sounded tired. He felt, tired.

As he ran things over in his mind, eyeing Orthoclase-Alpha, he wondered what more he could do. Half of him refused to give up on it, simply wanted it to be happy and did not know how to attain that for it. The other half... wondered, if only briefly, if it wouldn't be better to do as it asked. But that would not be for it. It would be for me. To cut it loose so he could cut that tie, that open door for extortion and weakness. That complication.

And that wouldn't be fair. He wondered, for a beat, if refusal would also be for his own sake, but--no. It was perhaps a sad irony that he really, simply did want Orthoclase-Alpha to find happiness--and he had, for a long time. It was why he'd told it to simply... leave. To take as long as it needed, and damn the Forge.

I never pursued the possibility of moulting. The thought was a jarring switch, and he shook his head, but at once realized he'd need to follow through before anything else. He could not face deciding, only to find out later that yes, a hardened shell produced depression, or the like.

"I will not give you an answer yet, though I'm strongly leaning toward 'no.' I wanted you to find happiness, Orthoclase-Alpha, though admittedly I've had trouble finding how. It seems even our Lord Dhracia has failed you in this," he went on, and turned away, gesturing in the direction of Tunnel F.

It occurred to him to wonder if he'd ever told Orthoclase-Alpha that he'd been the one to direct their Lord Dhracia its way. He couldn't remember, but--ahh well. It didn't matter, now.

"Come with me, and let's-... Talk. Or if you do not wish to talk, simply be. I've something I want to check, and no, I have no intention of hurting you. I want you to come to Leo with me. There is hot water there that I'd like you to sit in with me for awhile." He didn't explain why--not yet. Maybe it would ask. Maybe he could keep it in some form of conversation.

He moved off a few paces, and turned, pausing to see if it would follow--and marvelled that it felt as though he were carrying a new and heavy burden.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

"... I wanted you to find happiness, Orthoclase-Alpha,
though admittedly I've had trouble finding how."
Scratch, kzzt! The broken record makes its last full turn before shattering; all its pieces scatter amid the too-lush greenery beneath gouging claws.

... faced with agelessness and immortality, time is an infinitely renewable resource; as is the food that its master manages to briefly divert its attention to. Yet, even those can be wasted. Master Vargas has proven as much. Why waste when it can be avoided altogether... ? Why squander what there is... ? It can't find the other pieces of those fragmented, disjointed thoughts.

Rattling quills stutter to a halt. Most movement on its part does. "You don't know—..."

Hopeless. That's how it sounds.

All the rest that he's said, that he's gestured is unimportant. It remains rooted to the spot; a canary tied down by an invisible chain. If he were to listen close enough, the orthoclase's sure that he could hear the jackrabbit pace of its heart, if not the gasping wheezes starting anew as it remembers that it needs to breathe at all to speak.

"If you, y-you don't know," Orthoclase-Alpha repeats, barely able to even keep those wicked claws within its periphery. "... I... don't under— understand. 'Find happ—' I— I'm s-sorry."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

"Don't know what-?" he asked, studying Orthoclase-Alpha. "-How to find happiness? It is different for everyone! Come with me, I will explain while we walk," he added, hoping that this might jolt his spawn to follow (rather than remain rooted like a deadly-looking tree). Again he took several further steps, speaking as he went.

"If I knew, I would have granted it to you. I would not have left you to suffer like this," he added, with that matter-of-fact brutality. As ever he was a monolith, straight lines and hard edges and cold surfaces, where others might the seek warmth or comfort. It was all he could ever be, and though his words were sympathetic, they were not given with the soft admission of a mother or the quiet reassurance of apology. "But the way to find it is to try things until you do. All you have done is to sit in your misery. I detest metaphors, Orthoclase-Alpha, but here is one for you: you cannot learn to swim if all you do is sink to the bottom of the river and drown. You must try to move, even if it is difficult." He pondered his own metaphor as he walked. There was the matter of gills, of course--but that's why he hated metaphors. They were so rarely foolproof or universal.

"You do not need to understand how to find it." And again he tried to soothe, to reassure that Alpha need only seek--not truly comprehend--yet only that factual brutality came through: logic and certainty in equal measure, with no room for 'maybes' and 'some days.' "Just begin to try and tread water, and it will get easier, and soon you will not be drowning at all." Probably. Hopefully.

Was he throwing shit at the wall to see what stuck? Maybe.

But maybe Alpha needed motivation. Maybe a purpose... maybe something outside itself. "The Forge has many children, Orthoclase-Alpha. They could do with someone who has seen what you have seen, to look after them and teach them. And perhaps if you learn to swim, and there are children who begin to falter, you can teach them, once you've learned."

Or maybe, Vargas reflected, that will only add to its burdens. With Alpha, he never really knew. "That is, if you wish it." There: band-aid slapped on.

He paused and half-turned, to see if his spawn were at least following him, now.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

"How to find happiness" isn't the question now making its slow, ambling rounds in the flagging thoroughfare of its mind. Orthoclase-Alpha knows how blatantly obvious it is that it knows nothing of that sort; but, is it obvious that it knows nothing of what such a thing looks like? That it doesn't believe it ever did? Those younger years— in the most literal sense, with how old it is in comparison to most of the modern denizens of this cave these days— are lifeless, monochromatic smears against the rest of the haze of what it's neglected to bother remembering.

It still misses the taste of fruit, though. Maybe the feeling of grasping, innocent hands in its own, too. Did that one die?

Wide eyes blink hard, refocusing. Master Vargas moves, and it somehow manages to move with him— stiff-legged and tense-bodied. He speaks, and—... is it the right move, stifling the upwelling of hopeless frustration his words evoke? Sinking its teeth into its own gums and drawing blood as it bites its tongue? The quills of its mane dare to rattle and betray the rising tide that makes it both lightheaded and nauseous all at once.

"Nothing but sit—..." slips out despite all its shored will to keep quiet. It stops following, holding its ground; and it doesn't know why, exactly, it makes the effort to be even halfway coherent as it winces out, "I— I tried everything that you told me to. Even w-went away and didn't— didn't come back. Like you wanted."

Orthoclase-Alpha feels itself pull in two directions— between submissive cringing back and wanting to surge forward, keep talking, get that way out that was beyond its own terms like it thought it wanted. "M-Master Vargas, I can't— can't d-do what you w-want me to. I—"

Both win out, but all it shows for the split instinct is shaking claws striking the earth and its rocking almost onto its haunches. There's a peculiar stinging at its eyes now. It hates that feeling. It hates the thought of trying to hide them more, if only for it meaning that he'd no longer be in its sights. (Not that the blurring of his figure leaves anything to discern—)

Its voice falters again, trailing. "Being happy— whatever that, that means— helping the Forge's chil— being... _{someone. Living. I d-don't— I—... can't do any of it. It wasn't meant for me. It can't have been—}"

@Vargas