Mutiny

§ 2019-12-10 23:08:13

[23:12] What's to stop us now?

Aside from the joy of having a younger, visibly healthier Valcen prove that the qidravem project worked, that it wasn't a desperate dead end, and the related joy of being able to fuss over a young kavkem... everything since Netami had been some degree of unsettling.

Valcen's personality was palpably different – a small change, but unmistakable. When he spoke of the kavkema the Nayabaru brought him, he no longer paused to carefully assess his words. There was no look of pain in his eyes. Sometimes, he got carried away with technical details or future hypotheticals, completely discarding the memory of his recent victim.

It was what he had wanted, of course. It was exactly what he had wanted.

The second Torunyema prototype had given Baishar pause. It wasn't simply an improvement over the old design – it was portable, it could be weaponised in a way the static structure in the heart of Katal could not.

Of course, it made perfect sense that the Nayabaru wanted it, but the Nayabaru wanted many things. Valcen was perfectly capable of convincing them that what they wanted was impossible.

As far as Baishar knew, he hadn't even tried.

And now there were two of him.

Ryrha had gotten increasingly estranged from Valcen and Baishar, living in her own world. Occasionally, she got herself into trouble – she would insult a Nayabaru in some way or another and get a vicious beating for her trouble, sometimes even solitary confinement for a few days. Valcen always carved her back out of it, visibly tired by the time he succeeded.

They had never spoken about Valcen's psychological changes. No doubt it was obvious to her – she had certainly been aware that they had planned something back when Baishar had been given his questionable privilege of tinkering with Valcen's mind. Valcen had made it obvious they were planning something. She had given them space.

She had never asked.

She remained flawlessly courteous to both Valcen and Baishar in all professional matters. There was still physical tenderness between her and Baishar, though she seemed reluctant to sleep anywhere near Valcen-sha, as though she were not willing to socialise him like a normal kavkem.

Of course, 'sha didn't need them telling him how to behave in adult society, he already knew. And when he was a little more grown up, Ryrha would have to change her mind – or violate the premise of her relative freedom.

In any case, it was clear that Ryrha was wary of Valcen.

What better person to confide his own doubts in, then, than her?

'za and 'sha thankfully often disappeared together, with the only caveat being that 'sha needed more sleep and larger meals. Tanak often trailed after them, unless their destination was Valcen's office, but in any case almost always stayed out of the Den.

These days, Ryrha slept in the furthest corner of the Den, away from the door. Right now, she was awake, sprawled amongst pillows, playing with some kind of puzzle contraption a little too large for her hands – some kind of mental training for Darhala, perhaps.

She was getting nowhere with it, but it didn't stop her from manipulating the interlocking elements slowly but ceaselessly, binding her attention to it.

§ 2019-12-15 00:28:03

[00:28] The nightmares hadn't stopped.

In Baishar's nightmares, Vasharesh had fully abandoned his kavkem form, and with it the remaining strands of his love for Baishar. There was no more Valcen there; only an uncaring Havnateh carving into his psyche. Or sometimes Baishar was the one rearranging Valcen into a monster as long, spindly shadows watched from overhead. Sometimes Ryrha was there, chiding him for his recklessness; sometimes she was Baishar's victim as Vasharesh gently puppetteered his actions.

More and more, the wrongness of it all crept into his subconscious. Valcen would never hurt him, personally; he would never hurt Ryrha. Baishar had made sure that they stayed on his good side, as had the kavkema as a whole. And as long as things stayed mostly the same — as long as there were kavkema outside the Pens, as long as hope was not completely dead — that would continue.

How much longer would that last, though? With weapons the Nayabaru could use to edit a kavkem's mind from afar, how long would it take before there were no more wild kavkema left? How long before every kavkem fit in the conditional group he'd added? Two lifetimes; or two hundred?

Valcen knew what he was doing. He had A Plan, and he knew how to pursue it. But Baishar didn't know what the Plan was, or if it was a good Plan, or how much worse things would get before they, presumably, became better.

He couldn't find it in his heart to bring his concerns up to Valcen, yet. Valcen had gotten what he wanted, after all, and it wasn't Baishar's place to criticize him. But it was getting to be too much for him to bear alone.

And so, after much internal wrestling, he quietly approached Ryrha at a time when she was available and the Valcens were away. After an uncomfortably long moment of watching her motions with the mechanism, he finally spoke up. "Ryrha, can I talk to you about something?"

[00:38] Ryrha's gaze snapped to the side to brush against Baishar, the rest of her posture not yet changing. For a moment, she was silent, context not making it apparently whether she was at all planning to respond. Perhaps she was privately considering it, weighing the options. Weighing the risks.

"Sure," she said, finally, minimalistically, although her body language became more talkative – a deep curiosity rippled through her, mixed with her customary caution. Slowly, reluctantly, she began to set the failed puzzle aside, placing it between them on the pillows. She kept her rough posture, her effectively exposed belly, although she didn't seem wholly comfortable with it now.

"What can I help you with?"

[01:26] Hesitant as always. He knew Ryrha found him unsettling, and he knew this had started around the time Valcen had made what changes he'd made. He could dimly recall a time when this wasn't the case, when there was some amount of emotional tenderness between them. But that had been over for a long time, and while he still considered Ryrha a friend, it was clearly not reciprocal.

This is a bad idea, some part of him insisted. What exactly do you think this will accomplish? He blinked, giving his muzzle a light shake as if to dislodge the thought, and settled into a sit.

"I'm concerned about Valcen." So concerned I'm having nightmares about him. The unease in his body language was palpable. "He's..." Baishar's gaze trailed off, scanning the perimeter of the Den, lost in thought. "...You've noticed the change in his behavior, of course. Since Netami." It was more of an observation than a question; yet he still looked to her to confirm what he thought she knew.

[01:44] There it was, the familiar tension, smoothly integrated into a functional exterior. There was no mistaking Ryrha for someone traditionally sane, but she admirably emulated the state, threading her way through shoulds and coulds, painting a competent picture of herself.

"Mmhmm," she voiced non-commitally, but stared intently at Baishar, as though perhaps afraid that in unambiguously confirming that she had noticed, she forced it to be truer than it previously had been. "It's been... hard to miss," she finally allowed herself to say. "Very hard." Implied: I've been trying.

She drew in a slow breath, then continued on: "Have you come to tell me something about your little conspiracy, then?" The guess's words were transparently reluctant to form, as though they were sticking to a dry throat.

[02:47] Your little conspiracy. The words stung more than they had any right to. I wasn't trying to keep it a secret. You could have asked. In parallel: You didn't want to know.

After a long momment, Baishar let out a sigh, closing his eyes. "...If that's the way you see it." Of course it is; why did you think it would be any other way? He took a breath, eyeing her.

"He was distraught after Netami." A pause. "...And honestly, so was I." He struggled to find the words he needed. "Every single one twisted him into an emotional knot. It wasn't helping anything; it wasn't going to change whether he did what the Nayabaru asked of him; it was only going to mean he couldn't think straight. One step out of line and they attacked him." Thanks, Tanak, for doing your job, a venomous urge wanted to say.

"...He couldn't keep going like that. So..." He looked away again, no longer able to meet Ryrha's gaze. "... So we agreed it would be better if we... reduced that."

There was a long moment of silence as Baishar let the implications of that sink in. "He still cares about us," he added, in hopes of cutting off that particular fear. "...I made sure of that." Never mind how close he came to ambivalence. "And he still cares just as much about the kavkema as a whole." ...Just not the ones the Nayabaru brings him.

[02:59] The change in Ryrha was slow and agonisingly subtle, but Baishar had a long time of silence to analyse what he was seeing, to separate that carefully plotted exterior from Ryrha's true feelings. The more he watched, the more it became clear that a deep terror was flowering through Ryrha, taking a hold of her every fibre, constricting her throat.

Her breath continued as it had, steady, only gradually becoming more forced in its delivery, trying to maintain a normal pace through an impossibly tense body.

A brief hint of motion gripped her, as though a whimper found itself strangled by physical objection. Then her muzzle opened, tongue dragging itself back across the roof of her mouth, visibly curling in it for a moment of concern, before she said: "...just not the captives. Just. You rewrote him. You took away some of his empathy."

The underlying strain was apparent, but the brunt of her tone was factual, observant.

§ 2019-12-20 01:21:57

[01:21] Ryrha's growing terror tugged at his heart. This is your fault, a part of him insisted. You did this. Rationally, he knew it wasn't true; the Nayabaru were at fault for forcing Valcen's hand. He and Valcen and Ryrha were just trapped in a hellish situation. But it didn't lessen the sting of that fear.

Her accusation felt like a poisoned jab. What could he say to that? He could emphasize how little had actually changed; he could point out that Valcen's empathy hadn't been doing anyone any good; he could explain that if he hadn't, it would only have been a matter of time before Valcen did something similar to himself.

None of it mattered. Ryrha's horror echoed a part of his own. That was part of why he wanted to talk to her in the first place — to find someone he could talk to about his own concerns. He let out a long sigh. "Yes."

[01:22] For a long moment, it looked as if that was going to be his entire reply, before he added: "I don't yet know whether that was a mistake. But it's starting to feel like one. He's changed in ways I didn't expect. He shouldn't be making that second prototype; the old Valcen wouldn't be doing that." There as fear and tension in Baishar's body language, though whether it was fear of Valcen, or fear of what Ryrha might do, was unclear.

[01:59] Ryrha's feathers briefly betrayed a flash of rage, puffing out for an instant; but she held herself still, just as she had done so far. The tense seconds stretched to eternities. When she next spoke, it was slowly, subdued almost enough to be a whisper, trying hard to lose its edge in a carefully measured tone:

"Well. Remember what I told you when we first spoke in private. Remember what I said about responsibility — mine and yours. Remember what I said about how he was willing to listen to me. Remember how I said, then, that his allegiance with the Nayabaru need not make him an enemy of the kavkema.

"But, as you know, I've lost my sway to this new preferred protégé," she gestured gently toward Baishar. "This... molded student. And I endured it, because there was at least always still an... emotional connection. Something to keep him to his word. Something to bind him closer in kinship to us than to the Nayabaru."

She paused, enough to make what was about to follow obvious before she spoke it.

"And now you've taken that away." She closed her eyes for a moment, clearly wrestling with herelf. "—understand, I don't hold it against you. We wouldn't be talking if you didn't think something was wrong. So let me tell you what's wrong, Baishar." Her eyes opened again, full of a deep sadness, looking more through Baishar than at him. "You are his tool.

"You are his tool and he's used you to destroy the thoughts weighing him down — the very thoughts I spent so much time putting into his head." She grimaced lightly — far too lightly, as though she didn't quite have the energy for the full gesture. "That game is over. It's done. I had my suspicions, but— I'm sorry. I didn't think he would use you for it."

Finally, breathing deeply, a jitter in that same breath, she spoke an almost impossibly mundane question: "...are they both like that?"

§ 2019-12-21 02:58:55

[02:58] You are his tool. It simultaneously resonated with and repulsed him. His conversation with Valcen about being psychologically enslaved whispered through his consciousness.

You did this to me, Valcen. It clashed with his axioms, raking claws through his psyche. I deserved it. I made a terrible mistake. He regrets it, he loves me, he'd never hurt me. And yet he'd seen into Valcen's own mind. Where was the love there? It was there, wasn't it?

He couldn't remember seeing it. He'd never looked for it; he hadn't thought he needed to, he knew it was there. And yet, there was still that brush with ambivalence. How could such a small change have left him feeling so disconnected from Baishar and Ryrha, if he had loved them?

How, indeed?

"Was it a lie?" Baishar asked softly, almost as if in a dream. It couldn't be. Reality twisted at its seams, as he tried to make the crooked lines straight again. He shrunk in on himself, turning into a little bundle of feathers and anxiety. "Was it all in my head?"

[02:59] There was a dim grasp that Ryrha was still there, that she'd asked him a question; but the world beginning to crumple around him struck him as a marginally more pressing concern.

[03:13] Even before Baishar spoke, Ryrha realised that she'd made a mistake of severity. It was easy to misjudge the effect one would have on a soul that had been tampered with – she'd chosen her vehemence, the absolute statements, so she could push past whatever had been anchored in his mind.

Perhaps she had pushed too hard.

It took her a long moment to even assess whether she had the energy to care that she'd pushed too hard. She reasoned she likely didn't, but that it was necessary. Someone had to care. At least one person had to care.

With effort, she drew herself closer to Baishar, cautiously shifting to partly nestle herself against his side, partly wrap herself around him. Her muzzle came to rest against his mane. "...we do have to assume so," she whispered, her tone soothing. "Don't panic. Please don't panic. Remember, we can still act. Our hands are not tied.

"If we're careful, maybe we can fix what's wrong." She didn't fully sound like she believed it, but there was a firm, authoritative determination to her air that made it hard to shake the notion regardless.

§ 2019-12-21 13:47:38

[09:05] Valcen's love still felt real. That was perhaps the most disconcerting part. If he didn't think about it, if he didn't try to deconstruct it, he could almost see how he could have thought it was real. He recalled Valcen's answer to his question: You know the answer. At the time he'd brushed his fear off as paranoia. Now he wasn't so sure. He didn't lie. He didn't tell the truth, either.

He closed his eyes, trying to hold the two contradicting ideas in his head. Valcen loves you. Valcen never loved you. Valcen would never hurt you. Valcen would do whatever it took to ensure his own safety. That last thought hooked into the certainty that Valcen had to be protected, that foreign feeling that nonetheless resonated, and he felt everything lurch sickeningly. "Of course he would."

He took a deep breath, opening his eyes to stare at the floor in front of him. Don't panic. He wasn't panicking. Was he? He didn't think so. But he thought a lot of things, and not all of them were right. Some of them were things Valcen planted in his mind, for his own purposes. Ostensibly for Baishar's protection. More likely, for Valcen's.

[09:06] How could he tell which thoughts he could trust? What did that even mean any more?

"I don't know what to believe any more," Baishar said quietly, slowly reconnecting to his awareness of his surroundings. "What can I do, when I don't even know which thoughts are mine?" His gaze turned to Ryrha, a confused tangle of emotions trying to sort themselves out.

"...We were amanata, once." The tone was neutral, observational — if there was regret about how things had changed since then, he wasn't showing it. Maybe he wasn't capable of showing it. "You're... the closest thing I have, to a bridge to who I was." Could he trust her? Surely that question would have been unthinkable to his old self; and yet here he was. "...What do you think the old me would have done?" Do you really want to try and emulate your past self? The one who nearly ruined everything? As long as he took it as information rather than advice, it couldn't hurt.

[16:32] What would the original Baishar have done... in light of what? In light of having his soul (unsuccessfully, by way of the narrative) twisted? In light of Valcen having shed his empathy like old feathers? In light of being lied to, however gently? In light of his amanat from once upon a time asking to conspire with him to rein a havnateh in?

As she thought about what to say next, she began to rub her muzzle along his neck, a soothing gesture, still holding him. It was strange to her, to be this close to him while her feelings about him were so conflicted – she wanted to protect him, yet she wanted to yell at him. She cycled from shock, to dread, to hatred, to deep concern.

And yet... You yourself made this happen. She remembered her misguided promise: 'I'm going to get you out of this.' She never had. She'd failed and this, then, was the price of failure.

The memory burnt through her gut, along with Valcen's admonishment, that cloaked threat: 'I don't hold what you're doing against you, Ryrha, but let him go. Leave him to me, please.'

Carefully, lucid of that she was drawing plans against a god, she whispered: "I think you would try to reverse it. Your own shackles, then his." Could they do that? In absence of Valcen, could they try to pry Baishar out of his artificial alignment? Would Baishar, even in his current state of shock, want to escape?

[21:03] Try to reverse it. Could he even do that? If he strapped himself into the Torunyema, what were the chances he could even see the right parts of his mind? What were the chances he'd even know what to do? Did he even want this? He wasn't sure.

Valcen's words came back to him: Do you want to be the person that makes terrible mistakes? This felt like it would be a terrible mistake. He wasn't sure whose feelings those were — were they something Valcen implanted in him, or something he'd always have felt about this? Did it matter? Valcen hadn't lied about his desperate attempt at sabotage being a mistake; he knew it was. He thought he knew. He was pretty sure he knew.

...Perhaps did he want to was the wrong question to ask. Was it possible? Maybe, but it was far too dangerous to attempt. Even Valcen hadn't been willing to modify himself directly; even he had asked for Baishar's help with that task. If even Valcen, who knew exactly what he was doing, was unwilling to edit himself from within the Torunyema, what hope did Baishar have? He didn't even know what the end goal was, or what exact changes Valcen had made to get him to where he was now. He didn't even know if they were reversible in principle.

"The only person who could change me back is Valcen," he replied quietly. Even if I wanted it. I don't know whether I want it. I don't know who I am. "...But I know how to put Valcen back the way he was before." Was that a good idea? How should he know?

[22:19] Ryrha tangibly perked up at the divulged information, although she remained silent for a while after. It was a lovely theory, of course, but there were two Valcens – and one of them had a brain made of metal. The Torunyema almost surely didn't work on the metalhead. But perhaps, if they managed to revert Valcen-za, Valcen-za himself would help with Valcen-sha.

"I think we have an obligation to try," she whispered to Baishar. "Which means we somehow need to catch Valcen-za on his own."

[23:22] An obligation to try. An obligation to whom, though? The kavkema? Valcen's opinions on them hadn't changed. The captives? It hardly mattered to them whether Valcen cared about their plight; he would do the Nayabaru's bidding regardless of whether he cared.

He tried to square that with what Ryrha had said. An emotional connection to the kavkema. An assurance that Valcen wouldn't betray them, wouldn't let his alliance with the Nayabaru make him an enemy of the kavkema.

"Why?" The question was soft, uncertain what exactly he was asking. "...Even if we tried, even if we managed, that just puts things back to how they were before. You still fighting an unwinnable battle. Valcen still struggling with every request of the Nayabaru. He'll make another mistake if he's back in that mindset; and then he'll find another way to change himself." How hard was it to edit the kind of mind Valcen-sha had? It couldn't be that hard, if Valcen had managed to install himself in one from scratch. "How can it last?"

[23:29] How could it last? Like anything else, no doubt. "The changes he's done to you have lasted," she observed, softly. "And I trust you have the knowledge and skill to make him want to stay the same – or, at least, and indeed preferrably, simply not delve down the exact same erroneous path." She cooed to Baishar, resting her muzzle against him. "We need him as an ally."

[23:50] He is an ally. He stopped himself short before he spoke that aloud — was Valcen an ally? Would an ally edit his mind to make him into a slave? Would an ally lie to him? You are his tool.

Still, something about Ryrha's idea bothered him. "...If he didn't go down this path, he might just go down another that's even worse." And that was even assuming he could get such fine control, without Valcen to help him along the way. That was even assuming he could stomach the thought of editing Valcen again, after how terrifying the last time was.

[23:57] Ryrha softly sighed into Baishar's mane, but forced herself to consider the question. Even worse. Did it make a difference if Valcen chose something worse? It was clear to Ryrha that he no longer had kavkem interests in mind. If Valcen somehow made himself an even greater friend to the Nayabaru, what difference did it make?

"Would that make any difference?" she asked. "We need an ally. If he's not our ally now, what does it matter how distant he is from being one? I doubt he would edit himself to, for example, try to inflict maximum misery on kavkema – he cherishes his time far too much to sacrifice it to such pettiness."

§ 2019-12-22 20:07:39

[20:07] Baishar closed his eyes, trying to put together in his mind the plan that Ryrha was suggesting. Get Valcen-za alone, while Tanak is with Valcen-sha. Put him in the Torunyema. Undo the edits Baishar had made. Make it so Valcen wouldn't want to repeat it. Figure out what to do about Valcen-sha.

This is a mistake, a part of him screamed. This is wrong, you're going to regret this. But which part of him was it? The part Valcen had edited? Or some other part? How could he tell?

"Ryrha, I..." Who should he trust? Ryrha was a kavkem, a fellow Lekshariagadech; but she'd also been under an enormous amount of stress for months. Valcen felt trustworthy, but all of Baishar's feelings about Valcen were suspect. Valcen had tampered with them; and even if he said he regretted that decision, who knows what the truth was.

"He's... I don't know if things are..." He trailed off, wrestling with himself. "He's not our enemy. Even now." He was pretty sure that was true. "He still despises the Nayabaru. He still wants to help the kavkema." At least, he had said as much. "...I saw that in his mind." Could he trust his own senses, his own memories? "I made sure you and I are still counted among those he wishes to help, those he still feels attachments toward." And how long would that last? "I don't—" He winced, inhaled sharply. Your feelings about him are built on lies. "I don't want him to suffer. And if we do this, I know he will."

[20:24] If Ryrha weren't curled against Baishar, she might have been able to shoot him an exasperated glare. Instead, she closed her eyes tiredly, resisting the urge to inflict bodily harm on Baishar without so much as a twitch to betray it. Softly. "When I speak of an ally, Baishar," she said, her tone one of patience. "I don't mean to you, or to me.

"Understand, I was of Dynash once. It is central to Dynash that we are willing to give up ourselves if we can improve the situation for the kavkema as a whole." If Baishar was at all familiar with Dynash, he would know that they were generally willing to go up in literal flames if it permanently destroyed a facility.

"And I cannot see into his mind, Baishar, but what has he done, recently, that has helped the kavkema as a whole? What has he done, in fact, that has not made their situation worse? And now he doesn't even feel remorse as he tears the stories out of our ryrhakenema with his hands? Does he still pause to think about it?

"Why should he not suffer that decision, even if it proves necessary? What do you think will make him evaluate if it is necessary, if not that he wants to avoid the grief of knowing that it is fundamentally wrong to do it?"

[22:14] Baishar struggled with Ryrha's questions, trying desperately to fit his thoughts into some kind of coherent shape. It all sounded convincing. But he didn't feel convinced. Mostly he still felt confused.

Exhaustedly, he buried his muzzle into Ryrha's mane, hoping perhaps that the familiar scent would help ground him in reality. Could he honestly point to anything Valcen has done to help the kavkema? Could he point to anything that hadn't made things worse? The memory of Netami floated into his mind, an unwelcome reminder of everything that was wrong with the situation.

A distant memory found a foothold. "He said it would get worse before it got better," he recalled weakly. Do I still believe that it will get better? Surely he had to. "...But I don't know if that will happen soon enough." For various definitions of 'soon enough', it surely wouldn't.

It also required putting his trust in Valcen's mysterious plan. Valcen had a perfectly good reason not to share that information, assuming he was telling the truth. If he was lying, then he had a perfectly good excuse not to share it. How very convenient. Valcen knew what he was doing, but that told Baishar nothing about what he was doing.

[23:20] "We should both expect the situation to get worse," Ryrha confirmed, softly. "But getting worse is not the same as hastening it along irreversibly," she whispered, encouragingly. "I understand this is... painful and confusing to you. But we can still fix this."

A motion at the edge of her vision pressed her subtly closer to Baishar. With her muzzle held close to his ear, she closed her eyes and whispered: "Let's discuss the details when we next have privacy."