Maybe Valo-kas deserved to be trapped in an endless loop of death and amnesia. Maybe the mutant had done something downright awful and as nasty as their frothing drool in their past to deserve a bizarre curse. Yet when it came down to it, Beck knew nothing about Valo. Nobody did -- including Valo themselves. What a coincidence, no creature in Tanglewood could remember their lives before they cramped together in the swamp, or were choosing to withhold their reasoning for joining. Damn, he should have been a philosopher when he was alive, or at least aiming to be for when he grew up. Plenty of missed opportunities with his untimely death. His unregistered hours spent idling in the middle of nowhere had become a notable hobby for him, time wasted by fiddling with stolen objects and dissecting plants into green slivers. Skinning the stalk of a bracken leaf with a little claw, he ignored the distant sloshing with an irritated twitch of his ear from time to time. It was just someone hunting, probably, despite his hypocritical orders to stay out of the marsh. Well, unless they had a so-called "buddy", a last minute addition used as an excuse to trail after a certain mutant's gator search. The poltergeist drowned out the irritating sounds with the white noise of a subtle electrical hum from his own being and the wispy rattle of his damaged chest. The abrupt snap of jaws and faint splashing started him enough to care, bewildered panic in his glare as he flinched into action. Scarred expression stretched into a state of shock, he forced himself to stalk towards the scene.
The aching dread of the notion that this was his fault was enough to make scraped knees wobble as he stared out over the murky expanse. Blurred eyesight couldn't quite distinguish the brown fur from brown water, but a familiar pink eyesore caught his attention. "Holy shit," was the only phrase he wheezed, slowly piecing the clues together. Valo-kas hadn't been in the water, right? Did the alligator lurch up onto the banks? What if the alligator came back for seconds? Where was it? Where was Valo? A flurry of questions clashed in his skull as his pulseless heart was strangled by its own aorta in guilt. He bet the mutated feline was being thrashed around in a death roll with hundreds, thousands of crooked teeth embedding into a grimy side as Beck just gawked at the water's polluted surface. No hope of rescue in light of a tragic accident. Gnawing furiously on the inside of his intact cheek as if drawing his demonic replica of blood would magically summon Valo-kas, he kept his gaze locked on the calming waters, albeit surely someone else would approach to investigate the sounds of struggle as well.
[align=center]»――▸The aching dread of the notion that this was his fault was enough to make scraped knees wobble as he stared out over the murky expanse. Blurred eyesight couldn't quite distinguish the brown fur from brown water, but a familiar pink eyesore caught his attention. "Holy shit," was the only phrase he wheezed, slowly piecing the clues together. Valo-kas hadn't been in the water, right? Did the alligator lurch up onto the banks? What if the alligator came back for seconds? Where was it? Where was Valo? A flurry of questions clashed in his skull as his pulseless heart was strangled by its own aorta in guilt. He bet the mutated feline was being thrashed around in a death roll with hundreds, thousands of crooked teeth embedding into a grimy side as Beck just gawked at the water's polluted surface. No hope of rescue in light of a tragic accident. Gnawing furiously on the inside of his intact cheek as if drawing his demonic replica of blood would magically summon Valo-kas, he kept his gaze locked on the calming waters, albeit surely someone else would approach to investigate the sounds of struggle as well.