Falter

§ 2019-08-10 00:00:22

[00:01] Having sent Baishar to deal with the no doubt cowering Ryrha, strategically withdrawing from both to gather himself, Valcen walked into his office, tracking his open engineering tasks by the evidence littered across the workspace.

His mind refused to engage with any of them.

In perfect silence, he let himself sink into a sit in the middle of the room, tucking his limbs under his body, opened his muzzle to pant lightly, and wallowed in what he'd done. It simultaneously burnt like the worst insult and presented itself as a simple, innocent curiosity.

He was sure he'd prevented a catastrophe. If he'd let Baishar get away with even the attempt of sabotage... he wasn't sure what would have happened, but he was convinced it would have been bad. This, though? This proved he could take care of the problems on his own. The booby-trapping had been his own idea. He'd handled the whole situation without Tanak's help.

He'd also made a mockery of his choice to recruit Baishar as a volunteer.

It smouldered in his focus, lacing his throat with an acrid tang, but endured his relentless scrutiny. What was humiliation when facing the danger of having his plans put to permanent end? He had to be willing to make that sacrifice.

So, where do you draw the line? The question nagged at him, driving his heart to hammer in his chest. To what degree could he indulge in the luxury of empathy for the kavkema? To what degree was it noble in the sense of the cultures that had the concept? To what degree was it objectively reckless?

He could have died.

Ryrha was of Dynash. His transparent intent to alter Baishar's mind could have spurned her to use even those blunt claws and teeth to tear his throat out. Had she merely considered it too risky then, there was no guarantee she would consider it too risky in future. Dynash came from the Kendaneivash verb dynas – to destroy.

She could have destroyed him. It would have taken effort and it would have meant an end to her relative freedom, but it might easily have been a trade-off she was willing to make, if she thought he was going to far. And he had had the audacity of showing her just how far he was willing to go.

Reckless, a part of him thus decided. In a numb, invisible gesture, he dismissed the thought, clinging to his principles even as circumstances precariously eroded them away.

The Nayabaru had tried to convince him that he should never have bothered to 'recruit' kavkema – that if he needed zygotes, the Seklushia would no doubt be willing to share what they harvested. From the Nayabaru perspective, this whole illusion of consent was a pointless waste of time at best, a dangerous folly at worst.

He let his muzzle dip down to touch the ground, his eyes wide open, his breath slightly uneven. He battled his distress, trying to use the sheer scientific marvel of what he had achieved to subdue it.

And yet he was still a monster, albeit caught in another monster's jaws.

[00:28] Speaking of monsters, Tanak arrived, silently entering the room to stand at ease next to the door frame. He'd caught some of what had happened, but not all. And Valcen's current state confirmed the level of distress this incident had incurred. Distrust, even. Distrust of his assistants, likely distrust of Nayabaru, perhaps distrust of self. Tanak paused, waiting for several long beats before finally announcing his presence, not with a trumpet, but a soft, subtle, word, spoken barely loud enough to carry in the mortally afraid silence of the room. "Regrets?"

[00:42] Valcen's gaze only reluctantly climbed up to the Hesh Nayabaru, as though his presence was some kind of aberration.

I called for you. It was a mute realisation. Numb thought processes grappled with the implications. He stared at Tanak in silence, almost as though he'd simply lost his voice and were tiredly pleading with some metaphysical entity to regain it.

Finally, just shy of hoarsely: "Thank you for your help." A pause, contemplative on a different axis. "Nayabaru don't understand sarcasm," he observed, more to himself, a bland, matter-of-fact declaration. An unimportant thesis, based on everything he knew, perhaps. "I'll rephrase. When I call for you, you should be there," Valcen said, his voice devoid of any emotion.

Perhaps Tanak would have to repeat his question.

[01:21] Tanak blandly observed, "Did my expectation that you could take care of yourself with your assistants not prove to be accurate? Or do you just prefer not to have to get your appendages messy?" He paused for a moment, then added, "However, this is an acceptable change to the nature of our working situation. I shall not leave your presence, then."

[01:34] Some part of Valcen's mind listlessly pawed at the outlines of a bout of rage, considering whether or not to drizzle the emotion into his gut on top of the others and deciding against it.

"I'm pretty sure it's part of your job description not to care too much about your expectations," Valcen observed. "You are a guard. You should be guarding. My life is important to your Karesejat and, incidentally, to me." For someone purportedly reprimanding another, his voice was remarkably conversational, almost narrative, perfectly distant.

A slow, drawn-out, audible exhale led into his next remark, revealing both what had happened as well as correcting his prior claims: "Though I suppose you no longer need to worry about Baishar." His muzzle opened in a thin, distorted smile – an expression Tanak knew to read by now. "Maybe you could try not to feel too smug about that."

[01:59] Tanak merely stared at Valcen. The nature of his assignment was to deal with pretty much everything outside of Valcen's personal security as well, but that task would be, happily, one which would likely be delegated elsewhere. After all, it was dealing with other Nayabaru on Valcen's behalf that had resulted in him not being present at the relevant moment. Still, this just meant that Valcen would have to be pried away from his work whenever there was something that needed dealt with. He certainly wasn't smug about the rest of this change. "Which brings me back to my original query. Regrets?" His voice remained soft.

[02:17] "About which part?" Valcen asked, his finally somewhat strained voice – a glimmer of personality amongst that numb frame – betraying that the answer was 'yes' and he simply wanted to make sure it would be attached to the right circumstances.

[04:11] "The re-writing of your assistant's brain. I expect there are others, but that one seems like it particularly bothers you."

[04:19] The phrase crept into Valcen's posture as an unmistakable tension. His gaze slipped off to the side, eyes narrowing, conveying some far more opaque emotion. Then his muzzle tilted a little as he spoke: "It was really more of a minor editing." With a cold, stern insistence and a tinge of pride: "By far most of him is still there."

Of course, that wasn't an answer to Tanak's question yet, either.

[04:23] Tanak wasn't letting it go yet, either. "If you will it. Regrets?"

[04:40] Valcen shot up a glare at Tanak, as though to insist on a right to silence he didn't have – be it formally, culturally, or by personal generosity.

Nothing inhabiting a kavkem body was allowed to keep even trivial secrets for long, especially in Katal. Beyond that, Nayabaru barely had a concept of 'secrets' in the first place; with their culture devoid of the courtesy, they could hardly extend it to anyone else.

Tanak was going to be formally polite about his enquiry – which is to say, he would not physically beat it out of Valcen, but would remain purely verbal – but would likely not relent.

Finally: "I don't even know, Tanak." There was a deep weariness to the response, as Valcen let himself sink back down onto the ground, his focus slipping off somewhere well beyond the walls of the room.

"There's a lot to consider before deciding that one way or the other," he sighed. "Ryrha's reaction to it. The degree of editing. Baishar's feelings about it before and after. My productivity, before and after." The opinion of the Nayabaru regarding my ability to handle my assistants by myself.

"The degree to which the whole thing might have, perhaps, opened new opportunities for Baishar." The degree to which I skewered my principle of consent. "Whether or not it's reversible. Whether there was collateral mental damage, which only time will tell."

None of this would have happened, Valcen, if you hadn't insisted on two free assistants, and Tanak knows it. Tanak knows, and if you're lucky he won't rub it in as hypocrisy.