Purgatory

§ 2019-08-25 04:16:35

[04:16] Over the next couple of weeks, Valcen unveiled a tome of knowledge to Baishar that the Dynasharigadech had never guessed could even be compiled on kavkem neurology. There was nothing as simple and as natural to Baishar as thinking – understanding what that meant, how complex the biochemistry of it was, humbled his other assumptions about the world.

Valcen was a patient teacher, repeatedly using himself as a subject. As he had predicted, it took less than a week for Baishar to be able to follow basic thoughts through the Torunyema's visualisation, and while it seemed that an understanding of more complex thoughts would forever be out of reach, he developed a solid intuition for the outlines of the same.

Valcen taught him the theory of manipulation as well – how the strands could indeed be considered as levers or handles, how they made macroscopic and abstract what was far too fine and scattered a structure to handle directly even if one could pass through the intervening tissue without damaging it.

Here, he said, the colours were especially useful guides. He explained how the dull, pastel purples and vivid oranges had been useful in tweaking Baishar's fears, how certain ultraviolets corresponded to the perception of self and thus consciousness itself, how lime grouped the priors for certain behavioural cues.

Between the lectures, the Nayabaru gave Valcen tasks – he was getting them tangible, undeniable results, so he was no longer their second choice for interrogation, although they still occasionally preferred to ignore his presence, healthily sceptical that he was telling them the whole truth all the time.

Sometimes that simply meant that his efforts didn't protect a kavkem from subsequent crude torture as he hoped. Sometimes it meant he never saw a particular high tier captive at all, possibly not even knowing of their existence.

On two of those occasions, Valcen had brought in Baishar to see the mind of a captive kavkem, understand how that changed the picture the Torunyema painted. There had been just enough difference to keep Baishar occupied enough to endure their vivid distress – the learning experience was invaluable, but he could see why Valcen disliked everything about the setup.

Then, one night, Tanak woke Valcen in the middle of the day. Soft mumblings stirred Baishar from deepest sleep, but it wasn't, by itself, anything unusual – the Nayabaru had a different schedule, if they wanted Valcen's help they usually carved him out of his slumber. So Baishar went back to sleep.

[04:17] Eventually, Valcen was back at his side, nuzzling at his shoulder. "Come," he prompted softly. Ryrha, who slept at a bit of a distance to them these days, remained oblivious to the whisper.

As Baishar rose groggily, trying to summon strength at this ungodly hour, Valcen began to lead him out of the Den. "They want me to write this one," Valcen said, simply, his own tiredness masking his obvious distaste. "You can watch that, or if you feel up to trying – and I think you've learnt enough – you can try your hand at it."

There was a clinical detached air to his words as he reached the door of the Den, beginning to nudge it open. "I've been asked to either make her subtly subservient so she can serve as the Nayabaru's eyes and ears in Shyilun, or wipe her," Valcen exhaled. "Wiping is easy, so if we botch this... we can always do that."

An uneasy gaze found Baishar's muzzle, then drifted back off as Valcen moved to the doors to the Lair.

He paused, numbly hesitating.

Fragments of sounds could be heard – something that might have been the distant cousin of a hiss suspended between the pitter-patter of distorted insults. Valcen licked his lips in an arduously slow gesture, reaching to pat absent-mindedly at his neck – then let his fingers find his necklace, fumbling for the gloves.

For a moment after tugging them out of their container, he held them clasped between his forepaws, staring forward at the closed doors without any comment – then he shoved them silently to Baishar, implying that he could either put them on or simply hold onto them for the time being.

And pushed open the doors.

In the middle of the Lair, two Hesha – one of whom was Tanak – were handling a vividly painted kavkem, bright blues and cyans on her throat and the insides of her thighs, purple along the top of her spine, running down to her shoulders and around her eyes, and an iridescent green underbelly, all atop a feather coat marred with dried blood in several places.

The writhing teeth and claws proved ineffective against the two creatures much larger than her – one finally grabbed her just under the jaw, disabling her ability to bite them with even those blunted teeth, the other twisting her arms into painful angles to still her squirming. A sound part howl, part groan proved it effective.

With an eye for precision and efficiency, the colourful creature was delivered into the Torunyema's grip. A pained grunt escaped her throat as her gaze found Valcen and Baishar, feathers puffing in a hateful distress.

Valcen grimaced lightly, wincing visibly each time the Nayabaru's rough handling caused feathers to scatter on the floor.

When they relented, his hands clasped to his chest, practically disappearing under his mane, despite how thin it was due to his genetic tampering. "Netami?" he asked, softly, as though hoping to get a confirmation of identity, ensure that the Nayabaru hadn't switched in someone else other than the strictly promised captive.

She growled, disdainfully countering: "Vasharesh."

The name visibly rippled through Valcen. "Valcen," he corrected, softly. "My name is Valcen."

"<Yet I see no strength in someone who submits to even the Nayabaru's language,>" Netami gagged, though the quiver in her voice revealed just how deeply unsettled she was by his presence.

"...yes, well, the Nayabaru tend to want to be part of the conversation, I try not to exclude them," Valcen remarked with a pained smile. "I know you're angry, but I'd really like to move this conversation to more rational grounds."

"<I have nothing to say to you,>" Netami hissed past the muzzle straps, tension gripping her whole body.

"I really—" Valcen stopped himself, closing his eyes, sighing almost inaudibly. In a gentle motion of acknowledgement, he swerved his glance first to Tanak, then the other Nayabaru. "Can you go, please?"

The request seemed to amuse Tanak, the other Hesh snorted disdainfully and uttered her reproach: "We're here to oversee your work."

"...you literally cannot oversee my work," Valcen responded, his tone soft and non-confrontational despite the content. "Please give us some privacy. You can inspect results as much as you like, but I'd like to have a chance to speak to Netami on my terms."

The Hesh moved her warped trident as though she were considering to rake it through Valcen's flank. Tanak silently brought up a hand in an opaque gesture and cleared his throat audibly, before offering an amicable: "Let's leave the kavkema to themselves. All you'd see is Valcen wrestling with ghosts, I assure you, it's not very enlightening."

Whatever second-hand authority his answering directly to the Karesejat gave Tanak, it quietened the other Hesh's anger to a background simmer. She snorted. "Fine." Said, she brought the crude weapon around to whip the spear-like tip across Netami's shoulder, drawing blood and a low cry of pain; then stalked past Valcen, her gaze burning into the fallen Threadwielder.

Tanak watched her carefully, sauntering after her.

As he passed close to Valcen, he spoke in a saccharine whisper: "Don't think I won't be the first to revoke your freedoms if you abuse this privilege. Keeping an eye on you cuts both ways." A wink, companion to a jovial expression – then he was past, and the Nayabaru saw themselves out of the room.

Netami had gone quiet – whether out of fear or confusion, or a mix of both, was impossible to tell without the Torunyema's help. She stared at Valcen as though uncertain what to make of the situation, her posture laced with a stubbornness that, for the moment, found no particular outlet.

"<I didn't mean to insult you by speaking to you in Naya,>" Valcen said, finally.

"<Your language doesn't insult me,>" Netami clarified, her voice cracking under the strain of the situation. "<But I know who you are, no matter what you call yourself. You're a disgrace to your kind – whatever your kind may be.>"

"<Okay, fair.>" Valcen responded even-handedly. "<I'm not going to argue with you. But I would like to talk about a few things, because I really don't want to do what the Nayabaru want me to do, and there are alternatives.>"

"<What alternatives?>" Netami spat. "<This is Katal. I harbour no illusions about my possible fates.>"

"<...and neither do I, but if there are ways out of this madness, I need to pursue them, however small the chance of convincing you may be. The Nayabaru want your help and you're unwilling to give it to them. That's the natural way of things, I understand that,>" Valcen explained. "<But frankly you're only getting out of that seat if you're compliant to the Nayabaru cause, and it's up to you if you want that to be because you've changed your mind or we have changed it for you.>"

Netami bristled, her tension coalescing around her shoulders in a way betraying that if she weren't strapped to the device, she would be shrinking back. "<I won't let you,>" she snarled. "<You can't have my soul.>"

"<That's not how this works, Netami,>" Valcen said, tone one of patient understanding, flicking his muzzle upward. "<Unfortunately, this isn't something you can just resist by power of will. This isn't metaphysical. This isn't magic. It's just physics. If I decide to change your mind, it's like changing a sculpture – it happens the same way every time.

"<But I'm serious, please give me a chance to convince you by traditional means. Aren't you the least bit curious what I'm trying to achieve and why I tolerate this uneasy alliance between myself and the Nayabaru?>" he asked.

"<Not even slightly,>" she responded, her voice just shy of a high-pitched yowl. Then her gaze snapped across to Baishar like a whiplash. "<Did you brainwash him, too?>"

An abrupt tension in Valcen's posture betrayed the answer wasn't strictly "No".

§ 2019-09-02 22:30:35

[22:30] The ungodly hour wasn't doing Baishar any favors — it must have been early afternoon when Valcen woke him. If it had been anyone other than Valcen, he would have probably just brushed them off. Instead, he reluctantly rose to his feet, following Valcen without question.

You can try your hand at it. It took long moments for his still-groggy brain to catch up to that statement. An opportunity to help, to shoulder Valcen's burden. An opportunity to learn, to deepen his understanding of thought and of minds.

Wiping is easy. It was hard not to remember Gazhil at that statement — hard not to remember Valcen's distress and his own. Let it not come to that.

Before he really understood what was happening, he was holding Valcen's gloves, standing in the Lair of the Torunyema while a captive was being wrestled into the device. Shyilun — those markings were unmistakable. And it looked like someone important, a ryrhakenem perhaps?

It took long moments for him to wrestle down his own nausea at what the Nayabaru were asking Valcen to do. He could grasp the necessity of it in the abstract, but it took arduous effort to reconstruct the whole chain of reasoning every time there was a new captive. Valcen needed to finish the qidravem. He could only do so with the Nayabaru's help. In exchange for that help and for not being tortured by the Karesejat for the rest of his finite existence, he had to help the Nayabaru, so here we were.

Then the Nayabaru were gone, and the conversation had completely shifted to Kendaneivash. Valcen was trying to convince her to see reason, and she was steadfastly refusing. It was painful to watch; every step unsurprising. But there was nothing he could do — Valcen would do this to himself, convince himself there was no alternative, do what was necessary, and then beat himself up afterwards. It was exhausting.

Her accusation caused something to snap. "<You don't understand anything about this situation, and yet you're already making accusations. Don't you see that he's trying to help you? He's trying to find literally any way to get you out of this situation without rewriting your thoughts, and you're insulting him for his effort.>" He closed his eyes, let out a soft snort. "<No one in this room is happy about this situation, but at least Valcen is trying to make the best of it.>

[22:31] "<You know what? Yes. Yes, he did 'brainwash' me, if you want to call it that. And I can honestly say that it was the best thing to happen to me. It's the only reason I'm still here, and not stuck in a cage — which is more than I can say for most kavkema in Katal.>"

[23:05] As Baishar spoke, something in the captive's posture changed even within the confines of the vice-grip of the Torunyema, a quivered puffing of feathers, a subtle widening of eyes already expressing fearful surprise. Given the necessarily reduced body language, it took a moment to register – a deep revulsion, strung through with fear.

Then the tension broke, a visible stark tremble seizing her shoulders. A sound, half attempted chuckle, half terrified sob spilt from her past clenched teeth. Her gaze found Valcen for a moment, then swerved back to Baishar.

"...kavama," she addressed Baishar, her voice splintered between a desperate empathy and a terror usually transparently reserved for the Karesejat. "<Whatever he— whatever he asks of you, please reconsider. Don't you— don't you see? This is the greatest threat to Shyilun since the Karesejat. If he needs your help, deny it!>"

[23:06] Valcen was grimacing, both out of empathy for the captive and for the awkward conversation that was going on without him. He reinserted himself: "<Don't,>" he said, ambiguous as to which of the two participants he meant. "<Baishar, she's terrified, please cut her some slack.>"

It was entirely predictable. Valcen always cut them slack, every time.

They were usually less silver-tongued, though.

He took a few steps toward Netami, reaching out a forepaw to touch the side of her neck. Her spine visibly squirmed in anticipation of contact; then a howl pierced the silence as Valcen's fingers came to rest against her trembling feathers. The faint traces of tears glittered in her eyes, manifestation of the magnitude of her fear.

"<Please,>" Netami howled. "<Please don't.>" It wasn't fully clear what she meant – if it was merely the contact she was verbally objecting to, or the result Valcen had been tasked with.

§ 2019-09-14 03:18:12

[03:18] For a moment, Baishar's feathers puffed up defensively, looking like he was going to retort something — before Valcen cut him off. He exhaled sharply, lowering his muzzle in apology. It's far too early to think straight.

The greatest threat to Shyilun since the Karesejat. The phrase couldn't find purchase — it could only be either wrong or meaningless. She's terrified. She didn't know what she was saying; she didn't even know who Valcen was.

She wasn't going to listen to him. He could see the conversation unfold, as it had countless times before. Valcen would try to be patient, always patient; but no amount of patience could cross the threshold. And yet he would always try. It was exhausting.

Disgustingly, it was almost enough to make him sympathize with the Nayabaru. Why do you waste your time trying to get consent, when you know it will always fail?

"<He's not doing anything,>" Baishar pointed out quietly as Netami howled in terrified anguish. Maybe I can at least stop you from panicking. Maybe I can at least spare Valcen that. "<He can't, without these.>" He held up the gloves, showing them to Netami. "<So... please, just... try to calm down?>"

[03:47] Netami's fear coiled in her gut like a struggling serpent, curving only tentatively toward Baishar as he spoke. Her right shoulder trembled, her body objecting to how close this mortal manifestation of a corrupt god was, almost breathing down her neck, each soothing gesture stabbing through her crudely, scraping through her innards.

He can't, without these. For a moment, her quivers ceased and even her breath held still – it took her a moment to understand what Baishar meant, what the context of his words meant.

Then she became lucid that it was he who was holding them.

Her fear knotted in her gut and a realisation dragged it up through her gullet, coming to rest at the back of her throat as an acid tang. Maybe Vasharesh even did care – but he'd clearly made it irrelevant. This kavkem could do his work for him; there was nothing demanding consistent behaviour in one who's very soul had been rearranged.

There was no guarantee of anything. Hypothetically he could tell her how much he loved her while carving out one of her eyes.

For a moment, she was simply dumbstruck. Her thoughts staggered in circles, trying to untangle, even as her senses faded from her conscious awareness, leaving the room as blotches of colour and Valcen's touch as a disembodied, light pressure.

Then she sobered up enough to feel all of it coalesce as terror, lodging in her throat, a whimper struggling past the obstacle. "<What,>" the question surfaced, incomplete, hacked off by a stolen breath. "<What can I offer, as that you might— as that you would, instead— kill me?>" she asked – a desperate plea poorly masked as rational bargaining.

§ 2019-09-14 19:44:58

[19:44] The response sent a pang of regret through Baishar, all too familiar with the desperation Netami felt. He looked to Valcen briefly, a tiny shred of hope in his expression, but Valcen didn't even need to answer verbally — Baishar already knew. There was no room for an 'accident' to occur; the Nayabaru would destroy any chance Valcen had of mattering in an instant.

"<...I'm sorry,>" he replied, the tone sounding sincere — but how much did that actually mean, coming from the rearranged kavkem? "<That really isn't an option, much as we all might wish it was. But if you can find it in you to listen to him — it's just speech, nothing else — if you can find it in you to let him try to convince you by ordinary means, then we don't have to use this. Please.>"

[20:04] Baishar knew the best they could do was wipe her – but it was something to avoid, as it would always invite unpleasant questions, even if it was explicitly permitted by the Nayabaru that had made the request to Valcen in the first place. Nayabaru of all people expected few mistakes from so-called experts; any obvious mistake was cause for deep scepticism.

Nayabaru did not make mistakes.

If the strap around her muzzle wasn't already binding her muzzle shut tightly, Netami would have pressed it shut tightly, mirroring how her eyes squeezed shut. "<No,>" she said, her tone revealing just how much she was lucid she would regret her words, but left with no choice but to speak them anyway. "<I— I don't want to hear it. I don't want your justifications.>"

§ 2019-11-02 20:30:57

[20:31] The response from Baishar felt like an eternity of silence, his gaze locked on hers, turning her words over in his head. I don't want your justifications. A part of him wanted to sit down and deconstruct that word, justifications, and all the misguided thoughts it entailed. A part of him wanted to say that it was not a hollow justification to aid Valcen; that she was only seeing a tiny fragment of his plans, and not a flattering one at that.

The rest of him, the part that still remembered what it was like to be a kavkem, terrified, strapped into the Torunyema; the part that still remembered his life before Valcen; the part that could feel, wanted nothing more than to grant Netami her request.

Eventually, he let out a soft sigh, eyes falling to the gloves in his hands, turning them over idly. "Very well," he said softly, wrestling to keep his voice even. His gaze sought out Valcen, pausing for a long moment. You can watch, or if you feel up to trying – and I think you've learnt enough – you can try your hand at it. In all honest, he didn't want to. He didn't want any of this awful arrangement, even as he knew it was necessary. But even more than that, he didn't want to burden Valcen with the task — he knew how that would end.

He turned his attention back to the gloves, let out another sigh, and began quietly putting them on.

At seeing that, Netami froze, her breathing arrested for a moment in shock. No. Eyes flicked briefly to Vasharesh, as if expecting to see thin strings connecting the delusional kavkem to the kiikam, or whatever he was — but whatever control he exerted was invisible. Her earlier fears came back tenfold. She sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes squeezing tightly shut.

[21:15] He was lucid of just how much power he held in his claws, then and there. For some moments, he deluded himself into thinking it was far more than he'd ever wanted – as if the power to rewrite a kavkem mind were comparable to the immortal life of a nateh or havnateh, the ability to warp reality.

He was equally lucid of his heart hammering in his chest, crowding up into his throat. A part of him grasped at everything Valcen had taught him about the Torunyema, soaking up as much concentration as it could muster in an attempt to leave none to the hideous emotion of wrongness.

Breathe slowly. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a kernel of guilt, admonishing him for feeling anxiety about the situation at all. He, after all, had nothing to fear. He was holding the cards.

Valcen had reached up to his left eye, letting it ripple into unnatural darkness. Delayed by reluctance, spurned into motion by determination, Baishar followed suit, losing the accuracy of his depth perception. He took a deep breath, stemming it against a tide of feeling ill prepared: I don't know what I'm doing. What should I be doing?

A hesitant, pleading gaze flicked across at Valcen, negotiating for guidance in a split second gesture.

Valcen too, sighed, the sound just shy of papery – his unease was transparent. "Let's look at what's there, first," Valcen encouraged, tone a little more flat than average, drained of the joy he'd usually spoken his teachings with. It's all fun and games while it's pure theory. "See what we can use."

Easy enough. Baishar twisted his right hand's thumb against its palm, paying stubborn attention to the abstract view as he paged through areas of potential interest. Emotional ties. Geometries and physical locations. Mythologies – richly defined, as one would expect in the mind of a ryrhakenem.

...he paused, lingering for a moment at the sheer vastness of the tome of stories in this mind. What would their tampering do to this delicate construct?

"Good first focus," Valcen commented, clasping his own forepaws together and pressing them against his chest, unhappy with his own verdict, but evidently still willing to make it. "Anything adjacent to her own views better suited to our purpose?"

Baishar lingered, uneasy, as though tasked with taking out the last stable piece from a game of Jenga – one that had been played for centuries, one that had inherent beauty. I don't want to do this. But what was the alternative? Hand the task back to Valcen? Valcen had suffered enough; he felt no different than Baishar about this whole ordeal.

He stared at the delicate branches, paralysed for the moment it took him to hold fast to the realisation that he was still in read mode. He wasn't doing anything yet. He was only looking. Looking at Netami's rendition of Akynkulla, Tknalaned, Nitish Ynas and Asara. A myriad of mythologies he had only barely heard of.

They were his weapons now.

He released his fist to mutely gesture at one of the strands. Siri Akynkulla, directly adjacent to Hechi Akynkulla. "That could—? Maybe?" he asked. Speaking, it turned out, was difficult with his own grim terror lodged in his throat.

"Definitely," Valcen agreed. "That might get us most of the way there. Good find. See if you can align her with it."

I don't want to do this, a part of him screamed at him, silent, private. Screwing with the mind of a kavkem, perhaps, but a ryrhakenem? There was something sacred about this arrangement, something fundamentally good. He had no right to tamper with the spiritual wisdom of a raktat ryrhakenem.

Again, he tried to focus on the mechanics of it. His mind went through the motions he'd have to do – disconnect this one branch from the translucent structure behind it, draw a new connection between the resultant nubs and the branches representing Siri Akynkulla, at precisely the right location. Like surgery, but painless, imperceptible.

[21:16] I'm sorry, he thought, desperately but clearly, as though the thought might spare him from some later judgement. He thrust up his left hand, formed it into a fist, then twisted the connecting filaments out of the structure, for a disorienting moment leaving Netami absent the depth of her own faith, the very thing that guided most of her actions – a shocking hollowness, vividly perceptible, without that it was conceivable where it had come from or what it had taken from her, exactly.

Then he pulled at the branches in gentle gestures, drawing them into each other, filling the void with a different conviction.

[22:03] It was hard to say what the worst part of the experience was. Knowing that they were going to mangle her soul? Not knowing how far they had already done so? Or hearing the two of them discuss it? Perhaps that was the worst — as if she were nothing more than a tool to them. See what we can use. See if you can align her with it.

If she were going entirely from their tone of voice, they sounded scared — or at least deeply reticent. As if they knew on some level their actions were wrong, but were too cowardly to admit it or to repent from their ways. A part of her wanted to believe that they could be convinced; but she knew it was a ruse. These aren't kavkema. They might look and act somewhat like them, but they are not.

Then, without warning, something was torn from her — something important, something deeply intertwined with her being. She flailed for a moment, trying to get it back, before she fell into the yawning abyss, swallowed up in a suffocating darkness.

The only word she had for it was lost. She was nowhere, she was no one, she was nothing. It was infinitely cold and infinitely dark; there was no sky and no ground. She was dimly aware of her surroundings — of her restraints, of the two kavkema, of Katal — but there was no Netami there.

[22:56] Into the cracked wounds of her mind flowed a harrowing realisation, instantly flowering into a deep regret. Her mentors had been right about Taaravahr's implications, of course – that this planet had never forgotten its allegiance to Tkanetar, that their presence here was a slight and a metaphysical immune system sought to purge them from it.

But it had never occurred to them that they had no right to fight back. Netami knew others had had the insight, it wasn't a wholly foreign thought, but it had never connected with her. Somehow, Vasharesh and his minion were uncovering that for her – making sense of a mythology she had previously considered misguided and potentially dangerous.

It was a humbling sensation, part snapping into place, part growing like a weed across her thoughts. There was a foreign taste to it, but no more than any new sudden insight might have brought. What was disturbing was the deepness of the conviction without new sensory data to sway her toward it, as though a part of her mind had suddenly reasoned it out on its own.

Baishar meanwhile had to pause, gathering himself, all too aware of what he was doing, struggling to keep his mind on the level of abstraction. Draw these blue branches over to this flickering teal; reinforce the structure; ensure it's properly supported.

But no matter how much he tried, he knew he had just torn Hechi Akynkulla from her and was plugging the wound with Siri Akynkulla in disregard for whether it would or could seamlessly fit.

He did it anyway, stubbornly finishing what he'd started, driven more by the desperation not to leave a raw wound in the mind of a ryrhakenem than by the urge to work toward the goal the Nayabaru had demanded they pursue. The gestures were smooth, his stern motions not permitted a tremble – he knew how to demand precision from himself. He knew how to subdue his disgust.

"You're doing great," Valcen observed, although without much emotion to the observation. "But it's not a stable configuration like this. See here?" he asked, stepping over to Baishar to be close enough for his gestures to be obvious to his protégé.

There was an arc of coral leading out of the current view.

Valcen looped his right arm around Baishar's shoulders and grasped loosely at his right wrist. "Give me some read mode," he prompted.

Baishar promptly complied, folding his thumb, his whole body tense – although Valcen's closeness served to soothe him a little, promising that everything would be all right. His mentor would guide him. He wasn't on his own. He wouldn't cause any irreparable damage with the scene steeped in Valcen's scrutiny.

Valcen cautiously manoeuvred Baishar's hand, the cross-section view rolling a little further. "This one is tricky to change," he said. "See these connections? It's tied into her personality quite strongly, if you just cut the connection it'll regrow. You want to change the kernel to something else, but subtly so – we want her to stay broadly recognisable."

[22:57] Baishar struggled to understand what he was seeing, trying to draw upon his training. It was some kind of drive – he wasn't sure he could give it a name, though it was plainly its own concept on level of the mind. A trait that spurned Netami into turning her mythological views into actions maximally aimed at affecting the reality of kavkem suffering.

Conviction. Purpose. Righteousness? Something along those lines.

"Desperation," Valcen suggested, almost as if completing the analysis – but that wasn't it.

No, he was proposing the change.

"That should be able to have much the same support lines, without threatening the cosmology." There was a slight eagerness to his voice, buried under the obvious nervous energy – he was letting himself get lost in the puzzle of it, distancing himself from the very real consequences.

Baishar squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, willing a wire of nausea out of his gut. He felt relief and shame, both – relief that Valcen was recovering from his pain, shame at what they were doing. And yet the world permitted it; nothing reached out of the metaphysical fabric to stop Baishar's hands. He swallowed, clutching at his kernel of courage.

"What about— over here, supporting Shyilun. It won't carry that. It can't, can it? But it'll be an obvious change," he said, staring at Netami with an expression of helpless humiliation. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry.

"Not necessarily. We can explicitly do something about that, but she's intelligent – we just need to give her the right incentives, she can simply simulate that. She'll know it's missing."

It felt like hubris to discuss this in front of Netami, as though in doing so, they were giving her an ability to bypass the manipulation – as if in remembering that they had discussed changing her mind, she might be able to resist the memes they implanted. Of course, it didn't work like that – there was no risk of it, unless the words undid their work literally as they were doing it.

It was unlikely she knew her own mind well enough to target them so specifically.

"How do I—?" Baishar asked, clacking his muzzle shut in misery. Drawing new connections was one thing – but making a change to the base of a branch?

"Here," Valcen said, slipping his own left forepaw across Baishar's, stepping forward with him as if in a brief dance, then reaching forward with the arm, pressing Baishar's thumb to his palm and gently guiding his fingers into a slow arc while gently twisting his wrist.

Baishar mewled in distress, a soft sound he immediately regretted making – but given millimetres were important, he was terrified even a misplaced tension would destroy Valcen's careful work.

Netami felt he own fundamental conviction to help her fellow kavkema lurch. It twisted, briefly distorting into something hideous, abstractly horrifying for the split second she could comprehend it.

Then it settled into a mental tremble, back to its fervour, but somehow different. Above all, one thought rang true in the centre of the mental web – finish it. Her kind was already almost extinct. The most merciful action she could take was to bring them closer to it.

"And now we just need to make sure she doesn't kill everyone," Valcen exhaled, carefully letting go of Baishar's forepaw. "Then we're done for draft one, get to talk to her a little, see what she thinks, how it flows into a coherent whole. Sound good?"

No. Baishar struggled with himself, his halved natural gaze still transfixed on Netami. Obediently, he said: "Yes."

[00:55] The new insight brought new questions. What did it mean, to say they had no right to fight back? What did that imply, for Shyilun, for those who believed that they did? What could this new insight grant her; how could she help? Obviously if she were still free, she could try to correct the misconceptions of her fellow kavkema, but from Katal there was no path she could see but to accept her own fate.

She could plainly hear what the two were discussing, though much of it made little sense — whatever they were seeing, she couldn't guess. Are you of this world, Vasharesh? Just another part of the world trying to excise us? Is this the fate of those who try to fight it?

As Vasharesh took his minion's left hand, her perception twisted — drawing a brief mewl of terror from Netami's throat. For a brief moment, there was a monstrous thought, a sense of perverse enjoyment at the prospect of the endless suffering of her fellow kavkema — but it was over almost before she could recognize it for what it was. She slowly exhaled, trying to make sense of the world as it kept changing out from under her.

So much suffering had already claimed her people. The world was at war with them, and it was winning, albeit at a glacial pace. It was obvious, now, from where she was. The endless struggle just prolonged the inevitable, and just furthered their own suffering.

...Wouldn't it be kinder for them — and for the world — if they simply embraced qasai? Recognized their lot for what it was, and accepted it?

[01:51] Valcen's suggestion was easier said than arranged – there were so many things in a kavkem mind linked to qasai that it would be tricky to steer her any other way. ...for that matter, there were enough links to it in Baishar's mind that he struggled to consider the thought of doing away with it anything other than deeply repulsive.

Numbly, he cycled through the views available to him, looking as much for the temporary balm of delay as for a solution to the problem. A web of connections led into the concept – it was buried deep in the tangles of her mind, the soothing fallback option for everything.

Could he change it without making her wholly unrecognisable? Could he do it without making her suspiciously different?

For a brief instant, he realised he didn't care. The Nayabaru had asked a specific task of them. Subservient. No one said she had to be good at it. And yet the prospect of simply mutilating her mind to fit the requirements felt somehow more tasteless than doing a good job – as if he were somehow being more respectful by making her a useful tool to the Nayabaru.

If qasai was the fallback, though, perhaps he could simply do something to make the quiet betrayal of Shyilun a better alternative.

The Nayabaru – or just Valcen?

For a moment, Baishar held still, at the edge of a realisation that was reluctant to reveal itself to him. It was certainly easy to make her worship Valcen. He could see – literally see – several routes that presented themselves to him to make her do just that.

He knew very well what kind of mindset led to trusting oneself to Valcen's capable hands.

...had he—?

[01:52] Valcen knows what he is doing. He didn't doubt it, but for that fleeting moment, it was a threat. Valcen cares about you. And yet, that didn't preclude meddling with Baishar's mind specifically to render him into a predictable, loyal minion, to protect him from himself.

It was elegant, even. It made sense. And yet, by right of Valcen knowing what he was doing, Baishar could respect it.

Nonetheless, the unease persisted, bordering on horror, the coral structure of Netami's mind detailed before him, the structures he ought to be forming recognisable, as though he were looking into an abstract mirror.

There was no axiom that claimed Valcen was pursuing the good of kavkem kind. There wasn't even an axiom claiming Valcen never lied. The axiom was Valcen knows what he's doing and that included manipulating Baishar, if that was what furthered his plans.

The certaintly that Valcen should be protected ate at Baishar, plucking at the strings of his gut. Why. Why, why. Why, why, why. There was no answer to why, but it was important, dammit. Baishar closed his eyes for a moment, willing the disembodied, awful doubt to fade.

"Purgatory," Valcen suggested, finally, breaking through Baishar's toxic thoughts, his soft voice scattering them far out of reach. "If they don't belong here, if they're illegitimate room mates, perhaps it's only fair they let the Nayabaru judge them for it?"

Of course. Baishar struggled to focus – it was an obviously good suggestion, but he'd been lost thinking about an alternate path, something more personal— but that was only his inferior opinion. "That makes sense," he said, numb from the shock of his own thoughts without that he had direct access to their emotional state any more, still reeling.

And yet he continued to hold still, paralysed. What am I doing? His mind refused to go through the tangible problem at hand, instead thumbing at his psyche. Why am I doing it? "Valcen, I—" Baishar began, guided by some bizarre urge to be honest to the one who would surely understand, in the same way he understood everything.

"See here – it should be reasonably simple," Valcen said, encouragingly, gesturing at a part of the structure. "If you strengthen this segment, you probably just need to combine the 'Nayabaru' concept with the branch over here."

It lashed at him with the full force of his fleeting insights. Valcen knows what he's doing. Valcen knows what he's doing to Netami; he knows what he's doing to me; he knows how to do it. Valcen knows what the consequences are.

With effort, Baishar brought up his left hand. Blindly trusting his training and Valcen's instructions, he reached into the vivid tangles, shaping them to Vasharesh's whim.

To what end?

Somewhere in Netami's perception, the weight of the Nayabaru's ownership of Nekenalos began to translate into the notion that it was their choice what happened to the kavkema, not anyone else's – certainly not hers.

§ 2019-11-10 00:33:59

[21:59] The problem with embracing qasai was that, while she could certainly do so herself, there was nothing she could easily do to encourage that in others who were mislead about the nature of the world — certainly not from within Katal. There was nothing she could do to help. That frustration gnawed at her while Vasharesh's minion struggled with some invisible force. Do you realize it too? a part of her wondered. //Does

seeing it so clearly laid out convince you?//

At first, Vasharesh's suggestion that it was the Nayabaru's place to judge them sounded deeply horrifying. But the more she thought about it, the more sense it began to make. Who ought to decide the fate of the kavkema? If one trespassed on another's territory, shouldn't the wronged party decide how justice would be done?

And yet the Nayabaru's ideals of how justice would be done were deeply abhorrent. Of course they are abhorrent to you. You don't belong here. Her eyes squeezed shut, a shiver running through her. Your ideals of justice are not theirs. Whose should be followed? Those of the trespasser, or those of the wronged party?

[01:10] Such a simple gesture; such a striking effect. With just a few subtle, practised motions, Baishar had bound Netami to ideals she would have sacrificed herself to prevent just twenty minutes ago.

Stubbornly, the appearance of that coral tangle and the information flow through it remained crisp, as the real world distorted at the edges. Closing his eyes did nothing but squeeze the hint of tears out of his eyes, subtly staining his feathers.

To what end?

A ryrhakenem was now a tool for the Nayabaru. Valcen had presided over the change, guided him, helped him. No word of brave sabotage. No undermining. 'Make her subtly subservient so she can serve as the Nayabaru's eyes and ears in Shyilun, or wipe her.' Maybe he could still do latter, even if Valcen wasn't willing—

"I give the Nayabaru results," Valcen was saying, addressing Netami. His right forepaw stroked against Baishar's shoulder firmly and approvingly; his left extended a digit to cycle his Torunyema-cast eye back to normal vision. "The more time passes, the more they bring them to me – the fewer suffer at their hands."

[01:11] He reached forward, touching his paw against Netami's muzzle gently. "I don't like doing this, but you see why it was necessary, don't you?" he asked, softly. "You understand now."

Baishar had stiffened, but Valcen evidently considered the reaction normal. Perhaps he did. They had walked in here with a distaste for the task – but Valcen it seemed had warmed to it, as though Netami's new state of mind were somehow a cause for a deep serenity.

Previously, Baishar might have simply interpreted such a reaction as a relief that the overall mind was still in tact, that the job had been done and no longer needed doing, that the Nayabaru would be pleased, all then combined with Valcen's deep desire to teach – but now it tasted like something more sinister.

[01:37] Baishar breathed slowly, trying to calm the hammering in his chest. You could still wipe her. You could declare this entire enterprise a lost cause. The thought was tempting, but immediately ran into a brick wall. Valcen must be protected. If he wiped her, the Nayabaru would ask questions; they would be distrustful; it would be no better than his earlier, awful attempt at sabotage.

Slowly, he peeled the glove off his left hand, exceedingly cautious not to make any motions with his thumb. Best to remove the temptation entirely, lest he do something they'd both regret. Please let this be over. I don't want to be part of this.

But there really was no escaping it. He'd just handed the Nayabaru a perfectly willing victim, perfectly willing to bring them more victims. To bring more to Vasharesh.

To what end?

One claw reached up to his right eye, cycled his vision back to normal. The coral structure blinked out of existence, leaving only a faint afterimage where it had once been. He closed his eyes and pulled off the second glove, silently willing the world to disappear.

[01:50] Netami was whispering something like I do in acknowledgement, but it was barely audible. Valcen smiled at her – the expression had never felt so threatening before – then eased the Torunyema up from her skull in a deceptively gentle gesture and worked on the straps binding her muzzle to the frame.

"Do you feel you have the strength to do this?" A question posed to Netami – if only it had been asked earlier, of Baishar. He might have said yes, but his doubt would at least have been obvious. Valcen might have taken the responsibility from him and spared him from this dreadful insight.

"...I don't know yet," Netami admitted, a little defensively – Baishar hadn't changed her emotions toward Valcen, after all, meaning any friendliness had to arise organically. She was still wary of him, rational 'understanding' or no.

Just like Baishar was deeply terrified, despite his urge to keep him safe.

"I'm going to have to call the Nayabaru in," Valcen was saying. "Can you deal with that? We're going to have to talk to them for a while." He glanced across at Baishar – for a moment, the gaze lingered, taking in Baishar's rigid, fearful pose. "...Baishar, thank you. Do you want to go back to the Den and wait for me?" More an instruction than a question.

[02:32] At that question, Baishar's gaze met Valcen's, and for a long moment there was only silence. What was in that expression? Concern for Baishar's emotional well-being? Or concern over his long-term obedience? Or was Valcen too focused on the rest of the situation to warrant that consideration?

Valcen knows what he's doing. Surely if Baishar were present for what came next, he would only get in the way. Valcen loves you. Surely Valcen recognized that Baishar was upset, and didn't want to push him any further.

"Of course, Valcen," he replied quietly, lowering his muzzle in customary deference — then his gaze lingered for a moment on Netami. I'm sorry, he desperately wanted to say; but that would only make things worse. Instead, he turned away and made his way into the Den.