#a defense mechanism against the doubts creeping in his mind after being exposed to ppl who are not teridax and who also care abt him?

[randomwriteronline]

He hears him before he sees him.

That is not something that will ever change - in a sense it is quite comforting, that even in a constantly mutating world one thing can remain the same: the fact that he is still heavy enough to make his arrival sound like an approaching thunderstorm, that he has not lost the peculiar gracelessness of his brand of speed, that he likes to run his mouth just as much as his legs.

"You're a lot thinner than the last time I saw you," Pohatu tells him.

Krika regards him with half-lid eyes: "And my brother's leash is just as tight around your neck still, it would seem."

"Stop that," the Toa shuts him down instantly, his genuine amiable tone gone in an instant to be replaced by a cold vitriol. If the Makuta had a tongue, he might have considered biting it. "That joke has never been funny in the first place."

"It is no joke, Toa."

"Then find something else to greet me with, Makuta."

To say Krika had felt something deeper, once, for such a sad being - to say any of them had at some point been moved towards him by something other than an awkward pity, a half-hearted annoyance, a slight cautious curiosity - would be maybe not a full lie, but certainly an exaggeration. None of them was attached to him enough to pry Teridax's hold off of him until it was too late to even try to get through to him, after all; so perhaps this sudden rush of melancholic compassion is akin to a crocodile's tears after it has senselessly devoured its own young.

It remains that, for a reason unknown, the towering insect-like being tilts his head to better observe the warrior before him.

"You're much more orange than I remembered," he indulges him: "And somehow even shorter."

A booming laugh: "It's the armor," Pohatu replies so wonderfully earnest and open and bright as though he had never once been angry in his frighteningly bitter life: "Too compact."

He drops from the air onto the sturdiest branch he could have found with his entire weight, bouncing on it as it perilously bends towards the swamp waters before struggling to pull itself back up. He dangles his feet in a carefree manner, like a Matoran who snuck away from work. A tentative fondness that was there many millennia ago rekindles for a moment only within the Makuta, to ache with nostalgia: for a moment he can almost picture his old laboratory, and the suspended catwalk that led to the shelves of viruses and carefully preserved failed attempts upon which the Toa would sit just like that so he could watch him at work without interfering.

"So," Pohatu beams: "It's been a while."

"It has."

"I met Mutran on the way here. Most of the others too - the ones up in the sky. They've gone blind, by the by."

"I was aware."

"Of the Matoran, too?"

"Yes."

The Toa hums. Evidently he does not appreciate the shadow leeches too much.

"I passed through him with my Kakama Nuva," he continues.

"Mutran?"

"Yes."

"Riveting."

"It was disgusting, mostly. Oh, and I saw Gorast. I had to knock out Photok before she'd jump on him - ah, you don't know him, right? No, he's from the stalagmites. Resisting against you. So yes, I had to knock him out and fly him to safety and then get back down. A bit of a hassle."

"How is my sister faring, in your opinion?"

"As positively furious as ever. Maybe even worse."

"She has indeed been degrading."

"Hm. Maybe it's the bog air. Or the humidity. Either way I can't really blame her."

Of course you can't, the Makuta only thinks, keeping quiet.

You are becoming ever more like her.

"Ah - watch for Takua- Takanuva. He's arrived too."

"The fabled Toa of Light?"

A nod. "He isn't supposed to be here. They sent him, I think."

"Who would be 'they'?"

"Probably the Order of Mata Nui - the Turaga don't have the means to set a single foot here, let alone send someone. You'll recognize him immediately, he's gotten huge."

"Duly noted."

"Anyhow, how have things been down here?"

Krika shrugs: "Gorast almost killed your sister," he relays. "Bitil had your Earth brother subjugated briefly, and your Fire brother - Tahu, isn't he? - nearly burnt down the entire swamp."

"Hm," the Toa only hums, monotone. "Shame."

The way he says the word causes the other being to stiffen his spine: "Do not speak like that."

"Like that how?"

"Do not be coy."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"You should not wish death upon your siblings."

"Because you don't?"

"The Toa Mata are following the path destiny has decided for them," the Makuta snaps at last. "Teridax has tried to twist and bend fate to his own ambitions, and in doing so he has doomed himself, the entire Brotherhood and you with him. To wish him dead is to wish for the Universe to keep on living - it is far from a childish desire born of an ancient grudge that has no reason to exist."

"Watch it."

The words coil quiet, dangerous, around Krika's neck much like a noose of rock.

The fallen stalactites groan like suffering Rahi as they shift.

One must wonder, between him and the last of the Makuta's sisters, if this kind of taste for cruelty is something innate or if his traitorous brother simply has a talent for driving people to it.

The silent threat is not quite empty. Yes, Pohatu will not kill him: he is a Toa (he takes pride in that for it's all that remains outside of Teridax he can still hold onto to tell himself he is worth anything) so he observes the code like his life depends on it, and it is not at all in his nature to consider inflicting pain fun, or satisfying; but he can trap him with little to no air or agonizingly crush his limbs flat between walls of stone, and his slowly marinating anger will find it endlessly gratifying despite any aversion to torture.

But Pohatu is, fundamentally, a weak being.

Oh, he has all the power he needs. His mastery over his element is egregious and his speed unmatched. But at the end of the day he is nothing but a soft toy, a spineless marionette to pull the strings of; one day - because it will happen, one day - someone will snip at a wire, purposefully or not, and that will be all it takes to send him tumbling to the floor.

His sharp limbs carve holes into the wood.

Slowly, Krika elevates himself from the bog and comes to stand upon the branch, light and graceful like a terrifyingly posed skeleton, towering over the little Toa.

His head bends down to look into blue eyes.

Pohatu simply cranes his neck and stares back, tranquil, unafraid, like a child.

"We will not leave Karda Nui," the Makuta sentences. His tone is low, funerary. "Our brother has planned our demise the moment he decided to betray Miserix. We are nothing to him, as are his Kraata, as are you. He has no need for a court beside him to rule the universe. We will outgrow our purpose soon. He will leave us to die like vermins. This shall be our grave."

A stretch of silence.

The gaze replying to his own is calm.

"Sorry," Pohatu says without even the vaguest trace of emotion.

Krika leans down, down, down, closer, until his mask grazes the other being's and his already rotting breath seeps into the seams of Artakha's armor.

"You are not exempt from this fate, little Toa." he breathes. "You are no different in his eyes from me. We are pawns. Tools to be discarded for the sake of a megalomaniac's ego. Teridax will suppress you as soon as your bones begin to creak. He holds no love for you."

"Do you?"

No answer.

"Do you love me?" Pohatu repeats. His tone holds the certainty of those who are lied to so profoundly that the truth becomes laughable to their eyes. "Do you?"

The Makuta remains silent.

"No," the Toa answers for him, "No, you don't."

There would have been a time where Krika would have scared him with a simple glare. It was the time where Pohatu was only a pitiful being who'd known nothing but fighting and fighting and more fighting, who was too curious to leave beakers untouched and kept almost dropping them.

"None of you do."

"We were fond of you," comes out of the white mask suddenly, a raucous strained sound, like something he didn't know himself.

"Yes," Pohatu replies: "Like my siblings are fond of me now. So nice, and kind, and gentle, because they don't remember they used to be the scum of the world. They've been getting memories, you know?" he pipes up - he smiles, tilts his head, leans it so close that Krika pulls back, looking almost excited. "They've been remembering things."

"Pohatu," the Makuta struggles to speak.

"They don't remember me, of course," he continues, trampling over the words the other tries to wheeze out. His fingers begin to sink into the wood on which he sits. "They have no reason to, of course. I wasn't them. I wasn't worthy of being with them. I wasn't wise or strong or stubborn enough. I wasn't memorable. Despite being there. Despite being there from the beginning just like all of them. Did you know, while we were on Voya Nui - you do know about Voya Nui, right? Ah, doesn't matter - we had to blow up a rock. A rock! A rock. And do you know? Do you know what my brothers did?"

"Your memories are poisoned."

"Tahu, and Kopaka - because they are the leaders, aren't they? They are the ones who take all the decisions and who everybody follows because they are louder than everybody else, aren't they?"

"Your own bitterness has corroded them."

"They started burning and freezing the rock. Burning. And freezing. The rock. Burning and freezing! Because that's what they do!"

"You can't rely on them."

"Because that's what they always do, that's all they can do! And I was standing there, you know, I was right there. Right there, right there next to them! A step away! Maybe two! I had to walk up to them! And blow up the rock for them! And I had to tell them, you know? Remember me? I am Pohatu! I do rock! For them to realize, oh! Yes! There is a Toa of Stone with us! How did we forget! Must have been because he wasn't in our immediate field of vision!"

"You are spiraling into your-"

"SHUT UP!"

The branch produces a ghastly crack as his fingers pierce it.

Pohato heaves, tries to keep talking, then hushes when his throat catches on a knot and the story he was telling stops sounding funny. He exhales out loud, hard, suddenly out of breath. His head feels like it's spinning and the swamp's odor does not help.

Krika observes him silently.

Hasn't this happened before? Something like this?

He'd sobbed too loud and choked on his own sadness, and the room had gone quiet and dozens of eyes had stared at him in a mixture of fear and concern.

When was it?

A hundred millennia ago?

He did not remember being comforted.

"Everybody is fond of me," he manages to wheeze: "Everybody is fond of me, and nobody remembers me."

His arms are shaking.

"My brothers sleep easy because they don't remember abandoning me and the Av-Matoran. They're fond of me because they don't remember hating me. But I know who they are. I know."

"You do not."

Blue eyes pierce through the Makuta: "And you do?" he asks, mockingly.

Krika stands his ground: "I have given your sister the chance to leave this dreadful place behind before her death was sealed."

"How nice."

"She has refused, for the sake of her brothers."

"Give her a minute."

"You have deluded yourself across these thousands of years."

"I am perfectly lucid."

"As lucid as Teridax wants you to be."

"Teridax cares about me," Pohatu says.

It is not a snarl. There is no anger in his voice. He is calm, reassured. Unshakeably certain.

He stares at the Makuta darkly.

"He's cared about me since the beginning. He has never left me to rot in my thoughts like the rest of you. He has never abandoned me." he murmurs.

His booming voice is so quiet, barely above a whisper, and as horribly bitter as Lerahk poison.

"I don't need your forgetful fondness," he speaks softly. Almost tiredly. Maybe he's done it - he's burnt himself thin at last. "Nor my siblings' two-faced kindness."

"Then you will be alone, little Toa. More than you already are."

"Don't push your own grievances onto me."

The branch sways violently.

Caught by surprise, Krika clutches the bark tight between his claws. It takes him a moment to realize he is now the only being still on it as it lashes out wildly: a flash of orange catches his attention at the edge of his vision and he whips his head around.

Pohatu treats him to an empty look, curled up in mid-air, ready to disappear.

Cold bitterness burns in his eyes.

"He is ripping you from your destiny, little Toa!" the Makuta shouts: "He is leading you to slaughter!"

"My destiny is to serve the Great Spirit; his destiny is to become it," Pohatu replies sharply above the sound of his armor's propellers, letting him know his warning has fallen on deaf ears. "If you can stomach to mention my name, tell your siblings I said hello."

His mask glows for a single instant - then he's gone.

Krika only stares at the point in space that the Toa occupied barely a fraction of a second ago, catching for a moment, impossibly slowed in time, his afterimage; for what is merely an instant it looks small and brown and tan, orange eyes gleaming with a guilt he can't let go off and a too focused vitriol that makes his heartlight stutter sickly, hiding behind a shelf in a clumsy attempt at pretending he wasn't poking curiously at the vats brimming with viruses to watch them swirl towards his finger.